A Tapestry of Dreams Page 25

  “You look well, my son, and happy,” Thurstan said.

  “And I thank God that you look well and rested,” Hugh replied, not actually responding to his foster father’s remark.

  Since Thurstan was accustomed to Hugh’s constant concern about his health, he did not see anything unusual in his answer and merely asked if Hugh wished to eat.

  “I thank you, Father, no. I have eaten already,” Hugh replied.

  He lowered his eyes as he spoke, the innocent question having sent a wave of longing for Audris through him, for he had broken his fast on the basket of food she had brought with her and which they had barely touched. The emotion, though brief, was so powerful that Hugh did not hear his own voice nor realize how his expression had changed. Thurstan looked at his foster son and then away, not wanting Hugh to know he had betrayed himself. He remembered that Hugh had said he had set his desire on a woman far above him. And because Thurstan had not wished to be thought prying—was that not a sin of pride?—he had not questioned Hugh further.

  Although he made no sound, Thurstan groaned in spirit. The girl in question must live close—perhaps even in Jernaeve! And he had brought Hugh here, and… The self-accusatory thoughts hesitated. He had sinned, true, Thurstan thought, but that all things should fall together in such a way must be a God-guided event. Did He not know the fall of every sparrow? There was a reason, there must be! The guilt Thurstan felt magnified an earlier guilt. He was sure now that he had not really tried to discover who Hugh’s mother was. He had not wanted to give Hugh up. And now it was too late—or was it? Could he feel God’s purpose so strongly if there was no purpose?

  Hugh’s own emotion made him less aware that Thurstan had not replied, but as the silence stretched, he asked, “Are you ready to leave, my lord?”

  “I have a short letter to write,” the archbishop answered. “I will be ready by the time the wagons are loaded, but I will need a man to ride with the message.”

  Hugh nodded and went out, and Thurstan followed him but turned to the scriptorium, where he could borrow a quill and ink and some parchment. He did not want to waste time to order his own equipment unpacked. A desk was quickly vacated for his use, and Thurstan wrote to the abbess of the convent where Hugh had been born. He described the date and events of Hugh’s birth and ordered that every nun who was alive and had been in the convent during the week that preceded Hugh’s birth and the week that followed it be questioned and requestioned until every fact, no matter how minute, was uncovered.

  The mother abbess, he added, was not to stop with her own convent but to write to any nun who had been there and who had moved to a daughter house or even to another convent and request a careful recounting. Restraining tears with difficulty, he now remembered that he had not asked what had happened to the woman’s clothing and other possessions. How could he have failed to follow so obvious a clue? Mea culpa, he thought with a sigh as he added that a careful search should be made for any article of hers that might have been saved.

  He wrote to the bishop of Durham, too, not explaining in such detail, but requesting his efforts to spur on the mother abbess’s investigation. And oddly, once he had handed the letters over to the messenger, he found his guilt sat lightly on him. He recognized his sin intellectually, but “his heart knew it not.” He would not scant confession nor expiation, but there was a growing conviction inside Thurstan that the sin was already forgiven because he had been meant to commit it.

  In the courtyard, Hugh had no more time to regret his lost love. After the quiet days with Audris, the bedlam of packing was a strident call to duty. He stood for a moment, half stunned by the noise and rush, watching the servants run to and fro, picking and choosing from the piles of bags, bundles, and odd bits of furniture. The archbishop’s great bed was already disassembled and in the lead cart, with his tall, exquisitely carven chair. Around the wooden pieces were the mattress, the cushions, and the featherbeds and, buffered by those, the chests of plate and other valuables.

  Hugh saw a servant, mounted on the tail of the cart, ram a three-legged stool down and scream at a boy, who was trying to hand him another, to bring some of the lesser bundles instead. The boy shouted some reply that Hugh could not make out since it was in English, but it must have been impertinent because the man seized the second stool by one leg and flourished it threateningly. Thereupon the boy ran off and picked up a number of untidy blanket rolls and scurried back, but he was laughing, and though the man shook the stool at him, he took good care not to strike the boy with it.

  Because it was expected of him, Hugh walked to the cart and prodded the larger pieces within reach, testing how much free movement they had. None shifted at all, and he spoke a few halting English words of praise for work well done. Unless the cart overturned, Hugh was sure that nothing would be shaken loose and fall by the wayside. The screeching and scolding and darting from one pile of stuff to another made the loading seem haphazard, but the archbishop’s servants were experienced and efficient. Some had been with Thurstan for many years and had loaded and unloaded his goods thousands of times.

  When Thurstan came out and was assisted into his saddle, Hugh led the baggage train out of the abbey gates and back toward Newcastle. They would meet the Roman road south of Corbridge. That road crossed the Tyne over a bridge, and Hugh estimated that the time lost in retracing their path would be more than compensated by the ease of passing the river and the superiority of the Roman road.

  It was true that if they went due north from Hexham, they would save some three leagues, half a day’s travel, but the archbishop and the baggage wains would have to cross the dangerous ford under Jernaeve. It was too likely there would be an accident—that was no ford for heavy carts, and Thurstan would be soaked—and Hugh did not think he could bear to pass Jernaeve. Audris, too, would suffer if she looked out from her tower when he went by. Or would she be watching for him and worry when she did not see the cortege?

  In his mind, Hugh began to explain, as if he were writing to her, why he had to take the Roman road. He found comfort in it and recalled Audris’s strange concept of talking together while they were parted. Perhaps it was not so strange after all. When he thought in terms of what he would write, he did not feel so far from her. It was then that he realized he had not the wherewithal to write. He had no reason to carry a supply of parchment and ink. If he wished to send a note to Sir Walter, he needed only to ask Thurstan for materials, but to need more parchment every few days would call for explanations Hugh did not wish to make.

  He told Thurstan, who was riding silently beside him, that he had forgotten to ask about something and had to go back to Hexham and was away before his foster father could ask a question. Before the cortege had traveled a mile, Hugh was back with a thick roll of parchment and a dozen quills rolled in his blanket and a stoppered horn of ink in one saddlebag. He had also asked whether the monks had any news of traveling conditions or outlaws on the northern road. Thus, when Thurstan wanted to know what had sent Hugh galloping back, he repeated what he had been told—that the Roman road called Dere Street was sound as far as Byrness and a little beyond. Farther north, the road grew worse, but it was certainly passable as far as Jedburgh. And as for outlaws, they were fewer than usual, by report, because of the rumors that the Scottish army would be sweeping through that area.

  Thurstan looked at him and asked dryly, “Do you think I am growing addled in my old age?”

  “Of course not,” Hugh replied.

  “Then why did you ride back to ask questions that, unless I was in my dotage, I must have asked already?”

  Hugh had the grace to drop his eyes, but he only said, “Father, it is my responsibility to know these things, and… ah… sometimes your attention is directed to more important matters than the condition of the roads—”

  “There are certainly matters more important than the condition of the roads—but not when one is about to travel the
m,” Thurstan interrupted, laughing. But he said no more. Whether Hugh had been trying to save him from embarrassment, as he had implied, or whether he had some private purpose he did not wish to divulge, Thurstan felt no need to pry. There could be nothing evil in anything Hugh did; and if he had a secret he wished to keep, Thurstan judged from Hugh’s expression that it was a happy one.

  They made a good distance that day, halting to eat just south of where the road breached the Roman wall, then going another eight miles, despite the rising ground, before the sun set and Hugh felt it was necessary to stop. The whole area seemed uninhabited, although one could see sheep on the hillsides and, when the woods grew close to the road, sometimes hear the gruntings of hogs in the shelter of the trees. Sheep and pigs notwithstanding, there was not a village or manor house anywhere close enough to seek shelter for the night. Thurstan brushed away Hugh’s concern.

  “I have slept in a tent before,” he pointed out, “and to tell the truth, I think I would rather have my tent than a village inn’s best bed.” He smiled teasingly. “I have always preferred to sleep alone.”

  Hugh could not help laughing. “I must admit that I prefer the company I take to bed to be invited—and to have two legs.”

  That was the end of Hugh’s protest. He was not much worried. They were still too near Corbridge to be in danger from outlaws, for the town would send out men to scour the area if the merchants coming and going made complaint of being robbed this close. Besides, the weather was warm, and although there had been a shower in the late afternoon, the clouds were now gone. Still, settling the archbishop safely in a campsite in the open was more work for Hugh than settling him in a keep or walled manor or even in a village inn. In a keep or manor he had no more to do than make polite conversation with his host if Thurstan were tired; in a village he had only to set a roster of guards to watch the valuables. Here, he was responsible for each detail of the camp. He chose a slight valley through which a lively stream ran and where the upward slopes were not heavily wooded.

  The archbishop’s tent must be in the safest and most defensible spot, for it would contain all they carried that was most precious—Thurstan himself and the chests of plate and treasure. Hugh marked the place as the center of the camp and had the wains drawn in to surround it. If necessary, the men could make a defensive stand behind them. His own tent would go outside the ring of carts and near the opening that permitted passage between them. The horses and mules needed protection, too. It was actually far more likely that a single thief or two would attempt to steal a few animals than that any large group would attack the camp.

  Hugh chose a spot for the animals that would be open and easy to observe and was also down the slope from Thurstan’s tent so that there was no chance their urine would run down and offend him. Normally, that was not a large consideration, for the wet just soaked into the ground, but the surface here was already moist—possibly only from the afternoon shower, but also possibly from a layer of damp peaty ground or rock below the topsoil, which would absorb little or nothing more.

  Then there were the men’s details: a group to cut fodder for the horses to supplement the grain that was carried for just such a situation, a group to fetch firewood, a group to start fires, a group to get water, cooks to be chosen and assigned, supplies to be distributed. Now and again an altercation that Hugh had to settle broke out between the servants, who felt their duties to be confined to the archbishop’s comfort, and the men-at-arms, who deemed certain tasks demeaning—particularly when there were servants who could be made to do them.

  Last of all, having seen the archbishop kneeling to say his evening prayers while his dinner cooked, Hugh went to set up his own tent. He would not have minded sleeping in the open, as most of the men and servants would, but he felt he should maintain a difference as the leader. To his delight, the tent was already up, his baggage stowed neatly in one corner, his saddle ready to serve as his pillow, his blankets laid out. He had forgotten Morel!

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Morel looked surprised; after all, he had been paid to perform such services, and then he looked worried. “I would have started your dinner, my lord,” he said hesitantly, “but there were no supplies, and—”

  Hugh shook his head. “Just as well you did not. I forgot to tell you that I eat with the archbishop.” He gestured toward Thurstan’s tent. “You will take your meals with the men.” He detected an expression of relief on Morel’s face, and laughed. “You are not much of a cook, I suppose.”

  “No, my lord, I am not.”

  “Ah, well,” Hugh sighed, still smiling, “one cannot have perfection. It will not matter on this journey, and we can hope that there will be inns along the way when we are parted from the archbishop’s servants. In any case, I am prepared. Help me unarm, then light this candle for me—” Hugh took a thick wax candle from one of the saddlebags. “After that, you are free.”

  As soon as Morel was gone, Hugh extracted his writing materials and, after some difficulty in finding a flat, firm surface to write on, began to “talk” to Audris. He had not expected the keen pleasure he found in describing his day’s duties and, more especially, his thoughts. For many years he had written to Thurstan because he knew his foster father cared about him and wished to know what he was doing—but somehow this was different. There was no constraint in what he could tell Audris—unless he were to write that he did not love her, and that would be impossible—because nothing he said would shock or disappoint her. To write to Audris was a pure joy—pleasure in the doing and a sure knowledge that he would delight the recipient. So each evening while they traveled slowly northwest, Hugh continued his letter.

  When they arrived at Roxburgh, Hugh started a new sheet, on which he recorded the public events, and he added only a few lines to his private talks with Audris. “It is fortunate,” he explained in the private letter after he had described the meeting between King David and Archbishop Thurstan in the one for Sir Oliver, “that most of my time is occupied. Had I been free to write as much as I desired to write to you, I would have needed to beg or buy more parchment at every religious house and town, and then to obtain a second baggage mule to carry the scrolls. Even now I am stealing time to write to you from judging how the house the king has assigned to us may best be defended. But you must not think much ill of me for it. Truly I feel that the archbishop is regarded by the king with veneration and even with love and that Thurstan is perfectly safe here.”

  It was true that the archbishop was safe; no one would dare harm him directly, but he was not loved equally by all. Some of the Scots gentlemen who had come with King David were poor and resented the settlement made in King Henry’s time; they were eager for war. If Cumbria and Northumbria became subject to King David, it would be Scotsmen who would be granted land there. At worst, an invasion would bring them some riches in loot.

  Thus, some barons objected to the meeting at first, but they did not raise strong arguments against it because they were sure Thurstan would come thundering denunciations and issuing orders backed by threats of excommunication. They did not fear threats, for they knew that David, although deeply and sincerely religious, had a strong sense of what belonged to Caesar and what belonged to God. In the king’s opinion war was definitely a secular subject.

  Denunciations would be equally useless because David had strong and, in his and his barons’ opinions, valid reasons for what he proposed to do. If the archbishop ordered David to give up his intention of invading England and demanded obedience on the grounds of faith, the Scots barons knew, it would only infuriate the king and make him more intent on his purpose.

  They were less certain of David’s ability to resist other types of argument. Hugh recorded with some amusement the hurried conferences and sense of dismay among the Scots courtiers when Thurstan greeted the king with expressions of affection and respect and praised him for his forbearance and understanding. It soon became a
pparent, however, that the archbishop was making little headway. Hugh found he could tell how the discussions were going whether he was present at them or not. The more firmly David resisted any argument that precluded war, the more condescendingly cordial certain Scots barons were toward Hugh.

  The resistance to his pleas and reasonings did not make Thurstan lose hope or patience, for each day he spent in negotiation brought the English crops a day nearer ripeness and provided another day in which the defense of Northumbria and Cumbria could be strengthened. Thurstan retained his temperate tone all through the discussions, expressing his sympathy for the quandary in which David found himself regarding his oath to Empress Matilda, but arguing that the acceptance and crowning of Stephen by the archbishop of Canterbury must surely lift any possibility of sin from those who accepted Canterbury’s decision. He spoke of his own doubts, which had kept him from attending Stephen’s coronation, and the resolution of those doubts, which had permitted him to send proxies to Stephen’s Easter court.

  With equal courtesy but stubborn resistance to all Thurstan’s reasoning and pleas, David maintained that an oath of fealty was not solely a religious act. His honor was involved, even if there should be no sin in accepting Stephen as king of England. His homage had been pledged to King Henry and to Lady Matilda personally, not to an anonymous “ruler of England.”

  The archbishop could not argue that subject, although he protested against a point of honor that would spill much blood in both nations and cause much misery among the innocent. Eventually, however, when Thurstan saw that David would not—or could not, owing to the pressures on him—be brought to swear he would keep the truce he had made with King Stephen, the archbishop himself raised a point of honor.