A Tapestry of Dreams (38 page)

As the thoughts moved slowly through Audris’s mind—thoughts in words always moved slowly for her, and she did not dare allow herself to make pictures of what she had been thinking—oddly enough she found herself growing more and more joyful. Marriage was the answer! With a child in her belly, marriage to Hugh was no longer simply a satisfaction of her own selfish desire to be with him. Every fear or doubt about her child’s condition in life would be solved completely by marriage to Hugh. She had a quick image of his face, overlaid almost at once by a series of pictures of him overthrowing Lionel and saving himself by sheer strength from what looked for an instant like sure death. With Hugh for a father, no child could want a better protector. And now marriage to Hugh no longer meant her uncle would lose Jernaeve; Hugh had an estate of his own—Ruthsson.

Then the light that had been growing brighter and brighter in Audris’s eyes dimmed. The solution to her child’s problems might be simple, but the method of achieving that solution was not simple at all. A whole host of unpleasant possibilities flashed before Audris’s mind’s eye—possibilities of conflict and anguish for her uncle and her husband—which led inevitably to a jewel-bright image of herself and Fritha following Morel along a road bordered by trees decked in the delicate green foliage of early spring. Peace flooded Audris’s soul. That was right. That was a true foreseeing. She did not
need
her uncle’s permission to marry; all she had to do was go to Ruthsson in secret, and then keep Hugh and Oliver apart until her uncle had accepted the inevitable.

From that moment, Audris began to prepare. Now that her own vision was clear, she knew just what she must write to Hugh as soon as she was sure she would not miscarry the child. In a sense she was already sure, but to act on the certainty in her heart seemed like flinging a challenge in the face of fate. She would wait at least until Morel returned before explaining to Hugh what she intended.

Audris’s next thought was for her uncle and aunt, who would be deprived of her weaving and hawking. She could do nothing about the hawks, but the falconer knew her methods and would likely manage very well without her. As to the weaving, if she worked consistently instead of spending half her time reading or dreaming by the fire, she could prepare many tapestries in the months that remained before she must leave. Already several subjects had come into her mind.

“Fritha,” she called, her voice as light as her heart. “Fritha, string my loom.”

***

On a bright spring day in the first week of April, Audris mounted her mare and Fritha her mule, and they rode out of Jernaeve. Fritha shook with fear, and Audris shed a few tears at leaving—but not many. In the last few weeks, life had started to become a little complicated, and the joyful expectation of seeing Hugh was intensified for Audris by the relief she felt at no longer needing to hide the increasingly unmistakable signs of her pregnancy. The few tears had been for the grief and hurt she knew her uncle and aunt would feel at her secretiveness and departure. But the tears had been few because she had strong hopes that once she was married and her child born—once her bond to Hugh was irrevocable—she would be a welcome visitor in Jernaeve, as Oliver and Eadyth would be welcome visitors in Ruthsson.

She had left a very long letter, written over the five months she had remained in Jernaeve, explaining what she had done and why. For her aunt’s benefit she had detailed such matters as the stores in the stillroom and herb shed, the plan of the garden and which gardeners knew best what to grow and how to grow it, and all the other household chores that were her responsibility. For her uncle, she had praised the falconer and mentioned which of his boys showed the most promise, as well as describing the many tapestries she had prepared and warning him to sell only one or two at a time with several months between sales. At the end of the letter she had come back to more personal matters.

I beg you to believe that it was not through any mistrust of you that I departed with such secrecy. Indeed, it is far otherwise. What I feared was the opposite—that you would
insist
that Hugh become master of Jernaeve. Neither he nor I desire that at this time. The estate to which he is heir has been diminished by neglect and needs his care to be restored. For the love I bear him, I wish to join him and help him in his labor. It is because I know that Jernaeve could be in no safer nor more honest and loyal hands that I feel free to follow my heart. Do not be angry with me, I beg you, but forgive my waywardness as you have always so kindly done. I will not be long gone from you. When my babe is born, I will write again to ask if I have been forgiven, and if I have, I will come with the child to ask your blessing.

So when the few tears had been shed and wiped away, Audris laughed at Fritha and bade her be of good heart. “I cannot guess why you should cry,” she said. “I have been happy here—you were not.” Having watched the gestures of Fritha’s hands, she laughed again. “It is very silly to be afraid. You have ridden through these hills and woods with me many times. Yes, I know the Scots came down on us in the winter, but King Stephen drove them away and you know that Morel is waiting for us at Hexham and that an armed troop will meet us at Corbridge to take us to Ruthsson.”

The fingers flew frantically again, and Audris shook her head and sighed impatiently. “I will come to no harm, and neither will the babe.” But she did not continue to attempt to reassure her maid. She was far too tired of this argument, which had been the main subject of letter after letter from Hugh from the time she had proposed her original plan.

Fortunately, she had guessed Hugh’s first reaction would be to come racing south from Ruthsson. Her absolute prohibition and the reminder of the tapestry showing the unicorn piercing Jernaeve had managed to restrain him, but a flood of letters followed, all on the theme of her health and the well-being of her babe—even Ralph had written, urging her to eat, to rest, not to do anything that would strain her. Audris had thought of the peasant women in the fields and her aunt Eadyth, big-bellied with the last of her daughters—the little girl that died in the plague Audris’s first Death tapestry had foreseen—all of them working as hard as if they did not carry a babe.

She had answered those first letters with reasonable protests, later ones with meaningless soothing, and then had simply ignored what she felt to be male ignorance, but, she thought with exasperation, it was a wonder Morel’s poor horse still had legs. It seemed to her that they should have been worn off short from the frequency and rate at which Morel traveled between Ruthsson and Jernaeve.

However, she had come to realize that Hugh’s frantic insistence on a strong troop was not unreasonable. Although the Scots had attacked soon after King Stephen returned from Normandy at the end of November, they had been driven back and the south of Scotland ravaged in revenge. There were rumors that King David’s retreat was only temporary, but there was not much chance of an invasion just now, Audris thought, as she rode along. Like everyone else, the Scots were busy with their spring planting. They would get their crops in before they began the war again—if they still intended to come south—but a troop that could fight off a small raiding party was still a good idea, since Ruthsson was much nearer the border than Jernaeve.

Audris shivered and sought a more pleasant subject of contemplation. Her mind came back to Morel, seeking comfort in the many trips he had made without danger, and then she smiled. In another way, too, the results of Morel’s many trips had been good. Little by little, most of her clothing, all of her jewelry, one by one the unicorn tapestries, skein by skein and spindle by spindle the supplies for her weaving left unused had all been sent to Ruthsson. She could not take her loom, but that was a minor matter; a new one would be built as she directed. The spinning and dyeing of yarn was a more difficult problem, and it would take her time to find women who spun—or could be taught to spin and dye—suitable yarn.

The sense of satisfaction she felt every time she remembered that she could weave whenever she desired was soon overlaid by a newer sense of puzzlement. Her original plan had been to ride directly north to Ruthsson and meet Morel and the guard troop at some gap in the great wall. Of course the troop, to which Audris had agreed, was not all Hugh and Ralph wanted to send. They had an endless list of additional comforts for her—in order of rejection—a traveling cart complete with featherbed and physician, a horse litter (also with accompanying physician), a man-carried litter (when Audris reasonably pointed out that she would be more jolted and bruised by cart or litter than in riding her own smooth-paced mare), several women of all ages to support and attend her, and… Audris found she had forgotten the rest of the silly suggestions. She almost wished she had saved the parchments to laugh over with Hugh when he saw how strong and well she was—but parchment was precious and had to be scraped and reused.

The new puzzle was why Hugh had, at the last moment when it was too late to answer his letter, changed the plan that had seemed settled. His last instructions had been to meet Morel at Hexham and then to come on to Corbridge, where the troop would await her. But Hexham to Corbridge before turning north would add nearly three leagues to the journey to Ruthsson, which seemed strange after Hugh’s objections to her riding at all. Not that Audris minded the extra riding. What exasperated her about Hugh’s and Ralph’s and even Fritha’s anxiety was that she had never felt better. Except for the nausea and ill-temper of the first few weeks, she had been full of energy and bubbling with high spirits. She touched her mare with her heel to increase her pace to a loping canter, keeping her eyes forward so that she would not see Fritha’s anguished face or attempts to signal. The sooner she got to Hexham, the sooner she could satisfy her curiosity about the change in plans. No doubt Morel would know.

This assumption, Audris found to her chagrin, was
not
a true foretelling; Morel, who was waiting about half a mile from the monastery, knew nothing. He could tell her no more than that his master begged her to rest herself at Hexham before starting the “arduous” ride to Corbridge. Audris threw up her hands and raised her eyes toward heaven and laughed.

“So that my uncle should know exactly what route I took? I have heard that being with child sometimes gives a woman strange fancies, but it seems to have addled your
master’s
wits instead of mine. I hope to come to Ruthsson this very night and to travel so that we meet as few people as possible, not stop to repose myself at every village, abbey, and manor along the way.”

With those words, Audris set her heels to her mare’s sides again and started off the road across the countryside to avoid Hexham abbey completely. Nor would she enter Corbridge, stopping in a sheltered coppice not far from the town and telling Morel to bring the troop out to her. But Audris was not fated to get to Ruthsson that night. The first sign was only two riders approaching the coppice rather than the whole troop. Audris’s lips set hard, losing their normally smiling curve. She was sure that Hugh had told the captain of the troop that he must stop for her to rest and the man had come to insist that she go into Corbridge. Well, she would do no such stupid thing. She would simply ride north alone if she must. And then recognition pierced her exasperation. The big red horse had to be Rufus.

“Hugh!” Audris cried, urging her mare toward him. “You lunatic! Did I not tell you—”

“
I
am a lunatic?” he cried, leaning off his horse to embrace her with tears in his eyes. “How could you believe that I would allow you to ride all that distance—”

“With only Morel, who is as faithful as my own soul, and a full troop of men to guard me?” she retorted, laughing but hugging him back as well as she could in the awkward position and taking one brief kiss before Hugh pushed her back, exclaiming that she must not twist herself about.

The second man was now leaning off his horse to kiss her also, and she realized that it was Ralph, not Morel, who had accompanied Hugh. “Morel is so much in awe of you,” he said with scorn, “that if you took it into your head to jump from a cliff, saying you could fly, he would believe you. Hugh and I are the only ones strong-minded enough to argue with you.”

“There is nothing strong-minded in leaving a clear trail for my uncle,” Audris protested. “I hope he will believe my letter and accept what I have decided, but if he should take it into his head that Hugh seduced me for some evil purpose, or that, finding myself with child, I grew afraid he would be harsh and fled in fear of him, he will pursue me to save me either from my ‘evil suitor’ or from myself. I do not desire two men I love to confront each other in anger. I wish my uncle to grow accustomed, to see me a happy woman, and to be content with the man I have chosen.”

“I am not so much a fool as you think, my love,” Hugh soothed. “You are not well known by sight, and I have taken care that no one sees my face, which I know is too easy to remember. My uncle has made arrangements for our lodging, which is why I asked him to undertake the fatigues of this journey—”

“I am not so old that I cannot ride a horse,” Ralph interrupted plaintively.

Audris burst into laughter. “
I
am delighted not to be the single sufferer from Hugh’s ill-advised conviction that everyone but him is too fragile to breathe without his help. Hugh, what
has
got into you? And what journey are you talking about? Are we not going to Ruthsson? That is not much more than ten leagues, and I assure you I am fit to ride that far today.”

Hugh smiled uneasily, knowing there was some truth in Audris’s protest—not about herself; she was far too careless of herself and of their child, too—but perhaps he did tend to coddle Ralph when there was no need. It was because of his joy, which increased day by day, rather than diminishing, in the love the old man bore him, in being part of a family with roots and ties to the land. And that feeling had made Audris and the burden she carried more precious. Hugh would not have thought it possible to deepen his feeling for Audris, but belonging to Ruthsson and Ralph had done so. He could find no words to explain, certainly not here and now, with the fickle skies of April clouding over and a sharp breeze beginning to whine through the young leaves on the trees.