A Tapestry of Dreams (39 page)

“No,” he said, “we are not going to Ruthsson. But look, it may rain. Will you not come and rest until the skies clear, Audris?”

“Hugh,” she cried, “I am growing sure that you
have
lost your wits. First of all, if we stop each time clouds appear in April, we will never leave this place. I will not melt in a little rain, and I do not need to rest after riding less than three leagues. What is more, you are wrong about my not being known in Corbridge. I have been there often enough that someone might recognize me or my mare. Do not be a fool. Let us ride on now.”

Hugh looked doubtful, but Ralph said, “It will do no harm to cross the river, at least. We are well supplied and can set up camp at any time—and Audris is right about not leaving a trail. I will go back and get the men started. We can meet a mile down the road south of the bridge.”

“South of the bridge?” Audris echoed as Ralph rode away. “Why south? Where are we going?”

“To Durham, to be married,” Hugh replied, starting Rufus toward the road that would take them south of the town to the old Roman bridge that crossed the Tyne. “My uncle pointed out to me,” he continued as they rode along, “that in our circumstances it would not be wise to be married by some local priest without substantial witnesses.” He grinned at her sudden expression of doubt. “You are not the only one who can make plans. I have been to York to explain the whole matter to Archbishop Thurstan.”

Audris’s mouth formed a silent
O
of concern, and Hugh chuckled.

“He was not best pleased with me, but he has known for a long time that I had set my heart on a woman above my station. Still, he is not a man to make an ado after the soup is spilled, and I am no longer a nameless brat. So he wrote to the bishop of Durham, who will marry us in the presence of such highborn priests and deacons as are in his service or visiting the cathedral.”

“Did the archbishop think so ill of us that he would not himself bless us?” Audris asked in a stricken voice. For herself, she did not much care, but she knew Hugh loved his foster father and feared he was hiding a deep hurt beneath his smile.

“Of course not, dear heart,” Hugh replied, taking her hand and squeezing it comfortingly. “I did need to hear a lecture on impatience and greed, but I know I was forgiven. The reason Thurstan gave for not offering to marry us himself was that he did not wish you to ride all the way to York in your condition. But I am afraid… He is not so well, my heart. I think he fears he will not be with us long to bear witness to the fact that we are truly man and wife.”

Audris saw the pain those last words cost Hugh, although he spoke them steadily. “Then we
must
go to York, my husband,” she said, shaking her head and holding up the hand he had released to cut off his objections. “No, the ride will not be too much for me. Look at me, Hugh. Am I pinched and pale? Are my eyes bruised with lack of sleep, my hair dull with ill health? I am strong, and our child is well set within me. God knows I have brewed potions enough to help women hold a child; I know the signs of a woman near to miscarrying, and I have none of them. Please, my heart, let us go. I so desire to know the man who raised you up as a child—and I think it would ease his heart to know me.”

“Are you sure you are strong enough, Audris?”

She could see in Hugh’s anxious face the desire that Thurstan should know her and the fear that if they did not go now it would be too late, and she laughed like a bird singing. “Of course, I am sure. We will stop in Durham and be married and, if you like, rest a day there. Then we will go on to York.”

Audris’s son was born on the first day of June, a full month before his time by, Audris announced, a special dispensation of God and His Holy Mother. Had Eric Thurstan not taken them all by surprise, she pointed out, any number of dreadful consequences might have followed. First, she would certainly have been driven insane by Hugh and Ralph, who, day by day, showed a greater and greater tendency to hang over her and ask how she felt every few minutes. Second, Audris admitted merrily, she might have burst like an overripe fruit if the babe had grown any greater inside her. Third, the early delivery saved her from the attendance of a “great physician” Hugh insisted he would bring from York, who, Audris was certain, would have poisoned her with his cordials or bled her to death. Last, and not least, Eric’s sudden and rapid, if violent, advent on the one day in weeks when both Hugh and Ralph were out of Ruthsson rid Audris of the need to reassure two frantic men in the midst of her labor.

“But,” Audris said complacently to Hugh, who was sitting beside her in the shade of a broad fruit tree, watching her suckle the child, “it was only to be expected. From the moment I conceived him—or perhaps from a month after that—Eric has shown himself to be sweet-tempered and thoughtful. Think how little trouble he was to me when we went to York.”

Hugh’s besotted expression as he watched his son feed was not the only thing that made Audris feel complacent. The garden in which they sat had been a tangled wilderness in April. Now it was ordered and would soon be lovely, actually lovelier than Jernaeve’s garden, because it was larger. The fruit tree beneath which they sat would have shaded too much of Jernaeve’s limited arable space; here, backed by the south wall of the garden, it merely provided a pleasant spot to sit and look at the spring that spilled over into a tiny sparkling rill, now running over a bed of clean pebbles with a delicate musical tinkle. Watercress would grow in the rill soon, softening its voice, and kingcups would blossom along its edge. A movement along the back of the great hall, which was the north wall of the garden, reminded Audris of a minor drawback—now the gardeners of Ruthsson looked at her with the same awe in their eyes as Jernaeve’s gardeners did. And the villagers, too. Perhaps it had been a mistake to heal that child—but how could she, knowing the medicine to cure it, have allowed the little one to suffer, when her own babe lay beneath her heart? Hugh’s chuckle broke into her thoughts.

“Diplomatic little fellow, too,” he remarked in answer to her praise of her son. “Think how he kicked just when Thurstan laid his hand on your belly to bless him. My foster father was thrilled.”

“Oh, Eric has done everything right,” Audris said, laughing. “Even to looking so much like you that you could not deny him despite being born a month before his time and the size of a full-term babe.”

“Audris!” Hugh leaned over the nursing child and kissed her fondly and tenderly. “You know I would not have doubted you even if he were as dark as your uncle—”

He stopped abruptly as a shadow passed over Audris’s face. When they had returned to Ruthsson from York, they had learned that Oliver
had
pursued his niece, hoping, they assumed, to get her back before she could be married. He had demanded and obtained entrance into Ruthsson—not because the place was any longer so vulnerable, but because Hugh had warned the castle guards not to oppose Sir Oliver, which they could have done. In the five months after his battle with Sir Lionel, Hugh had hired a few mercenaries and taken about twenty sturdy yeomen’s sons into service. His troop was up to forty, and they were now well trained and well blooded on the local outlaws, who were a much diminished and chastened band, seriously considering going elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the peace offering of free entrance to Ruthsson had, apparently, not compensated Oliver for the loss of his niece. He had not attempted to take her back again—having learned that the marriage was to be celebrated by the bishop of Durham and supported by the archbishop of York, he doubtless recognized that it would be impossible to annul it—but he had not answered Audris’s letter announcing Eric’s birth, and she had grieved over his continued anger.

“Do you think we did wrong in not naming Eric for your uncle?” Hugh asked, following an uneasy train of thought that had often crossed his mind.

“No,” Audris replied, forcefully removing her nipple from her son’s mouth, at which he began to emit such shrieks of rage that her following words were drowned, and she made haste to offer him her other breast without trying to drive up any wind. That would have to wait until he was sated, but he sucked so strongly that she had to change breasts midfeeding to keep herself from becoming sore.

“About the sweetness of his temper I have my doubts,” Hugh remarked with obvious admiration for the loudness of the noise his son made and the ferocity with which he struck out with his arms and legs in his rage, which burst open the cloth in which he was swaddled. “But he is surely strong.”

“He certainly is,” Audris agreed, glad and rueful at the same time. “But as to your question, I did not wish to name Eric in my family tradition, neither Oliver nor William, which was my father’s name. My lands will go to a daughter or to a second son. It was better to name him in your family line. And speaking of naming, I have long meant to ask you, Hugh, why you did not wish to name him for your father. Kenorn is an unusual name, and I like it, but you seemed so set against it when I asked—”

“Until I am
sure
my father did not desert my poor mother on purpose, I will name no child of mine for him,” Hugh said. “You remember that he did not return to the convent after I was born.”

It was clear that he was not really thinking about the answer he had given to Audris’s question, however. A somewhat startled expression was on his face, which changed to a slight frown. Audris had a right to leave Jernaeve to whichever of her children she wished, and her intention of using it to provide a rich dower for a daughter or an estate for a second son that would preclude envy between older and younger brothers was not unreasonable. Moreover, Hugh knew that when he had brought Ruthsson and its outlying manors, including the rich farms of Trewick, back into prime condition, his eldest son would be well provided.

Nonetheless, he felt as if the child in Audris’s arms were being deprived, and it occurred to him that there might be some property belonging to his father that was now rightfully his and would descend to this son. Perhaps it was not much, but Hugh had a sudden clear memory of the horror in Lionel Heugh’s eyes when he gasped “Kenorn,” and he began to wonder if the greedy Heugh family had stolen something from his father and then contrived some ill fate for him, as well as trying to steal Ruthsson from his uncle.

“Your speaking of my father reminded me, though, that my likeness to him may have saved my life,” Hugh said, and went on to describe the last moments of the trial by combat from his point of view.

“Sir Lionel called you by your father’s name,” Audris repeated, “and seemed horror-struck, you say? Perhaps they were friends? Or did he know Kenorn to be already dead?”

“Either might be true,” Hugh agreed. “In fact, either is more reasonable than my thought that he might have cheated my father as he tried to cheat my uncle. But whatever his reason, Lionel Heugh surely knew my father. The crops are in, Audris, and there is nothing much for me to do here. I think I will ride down to Heugh and ask who Sir Kenorn was and if he had a family here in England.”

“No!” Audris cried. “You are mad! He will try to kill you again.”

“Why?” Hugh asked. “There could be no profit in it. My death would not win him Ruthsson now.”

“Oh, Hugh, might he not hate you for your victory? And I know there is a longtime enmity between your family and Heugh.”

“I am not so sure the victory was mine,” Hugh said thoughtfully, calling back to mind the details of the last few minutes of that battle. “And I think whatever enmity Sir Lionel has for Ruthsson is overridden by what Kenorn meant to him—whatever that was. Looking back, I am sure that Sir Lionel accepted defeat rather than fight me—or, rather, Kenorn. He could have killed me as I tried to roll away. He
was
close enough. I know because of where I struck him as I turned back.”

“How can you know why he did not strike?” Audris asked. “You may have hurt him more than you guessed when you were fighting on the ground. Hugh—”

“I am no novice in battle,” he interrupted her, frowning. “I tell you, Audris, I do not think he desires my death at all. He
would
not strike at me after he called me Kenorn. In fact, he would not even raise his shield to protect himself. That was why I could not kill him. I
could
not strike a man who just stood there and watched his deathstroke come.”

Audris now wished fervently that Hugh had not had such delicate sensibilities, but it was useless to say so. Instead she turned the conversation, hoping that Hugh would forget the notion that had come into his head. He did not resist the change of subject, cheerfully taking Eric, who was now sated and asleep, so that Audris could adjust her gown, but he did not forget either. Later in the evening Audris found him talking to Ralph about going to Heugh. At first she did not interfere, hoping that Ralph’s protests would have more effect than hers, but it was soon clear that opposition was only fixing Hugh’s purpose more firmly.

She went early to the women’s quarters, a separate building much like the great hall but on a smaller scale. Since the light was almost gone, the women were clustered in small groups talking and laughing. They looked at her as she passed, Fritha carrying Eric, who was sound asleep, behind her. Two half rose, snatching up the yarn they had been spinning to show her, but her eyes were fixed ahead, and both women sank back down with their companions, who were already going back to their talk. Deep in thought, Audris passed the central hearth and stepped up onto the raised dais, thick with fresh rushes. She paused a moment to rest her hand on one of the two chairs with carven arms and backs that faced the fire, not much more than embers on this mild evening. Fritha went around the other side of the chairs, crossing in front of Audris’s new, curtained bed to lay Eric in his cradle, which stood beside it. He whimpered, but Fritha rocked him gently, and he quieted.

Sure he would sleep, Audris turned to the right, where, flanking a large open window, two to a side, the unicorn tapestries hung. They had a glowing life, even in the dim light. Audris’s eyes flicked to the last two. She had explained them to herself over and over, but she could not help wondering whether there was a garden in Heugh and whether the girl-cousin, who was Sir Lionel’s heir, was a silver-blond who lived there. It was hardly likely, but her decision was made before Fritha came to help her out of her gown. Hugh came soon after, anxious because she had slipped away while he was still trying to convince Ralph it would be worthwhile to go to Heugh. She laughed at him and reassured him, and then, while Fritha was brushing her hair, she announced calmly that if Hugh went to speak to Sir Lionel, she would go also.

There was a momentary stunned silence before Hugh exploded, “No! You will not!”

“Why not, dear heart?” Audris asked, stopping Fritha and turning toward her husband with a hurt look of surprise. “You say there is no danger. Why should I not go also? I have no more to do than you at this season, since I am not hawking, and I would like to see new places and new people.”

Hugh was immediately flooded with guilt. Ruthsson was a very isolated keep, the river behind it unfordable, and the land covered with steep, thickly forested hills. Therefore, the road from Morpeth ended at Ruthsson, and provided no route to the north. In the months since they had come back from York, not a single visitor, not even a common wandering juggler with his pipe and crude songs and tricks, had passed their gates. Hugh knew that many guests, high and low, came to Jernaeve, bringing news and fresh opinions and fresh faces to spice the round of dull daily activities.

Because Audris was so much at ease and had so quickly endeared herself to both Ralph and Thurstan, and because she had eagerly sought his company, Hugh had no way of knowing that she actually did not crave variety and had most often secluded herself from Jernaeve’s visitors. And, although he and Ralph had scoured not only Ruthsson but every other manor on the estate for any item that could add to the comfort or beauty of her bower, he still felt that she had sacrificed a luxurious home to live in a wood hut. Somehow the fact that Audris never once complained, that she seemed delighted with her quarters in a separate building, only made him more guilty.

“Would you like to go back to Jernaeve?” he asked in a choked voice. “I am sure—”

“Hugh!” Audris exclaimed, getting up from the stool on which she was sitting and hurrying to embrace him. “I am happy here, very happy, but it is just the beginning of summer, a perfect time for riding abroad and seeing new sights, and I am idle.” Her eyes began to twinkle with mischief. “Besides, hungry as you must be by now, I am not willing to let you out of my sight.”

He could not help laughing. Audris was not a jealous woman—and she had no cause to be; it had been one thing to sin with a whore when his heart was empty and he felt the need. Now when a little patience would renew for him the exquisite joys to be found with his pure and lawful love, he would sooner castrate himself than touch another woman. Besides, she contrived—at the price of a small sin—to ease him. That reminder—that Audris would gladly and cheerfully share even sin with him—only renewed the pang of guilt that her teasing had soothed a trifle, and Hugh began to reconsider his first refusal. Then he frowned.

“But Audris, your nonsense aside, you cannot ride while you are still bleeding,” he pointed out. “And what will you do about Eric? You cannot leave him, unless you choose a wet nurse for him. He must eat.”

“Leave Eric?” she repeated. “I would not think of it. Why should I not take him? I will carry him as the common women do, in a cloth against my breast, which will make it easy for him to take suck. And if I tire, Fritha can hold him for me. You know she can be trusted. As to my bleeding, it is hardly anything now.” She took his hands in hers and looked up into his face with bright, hopeful eyes. “If we stay only one week longer—and you should, truly, to see the first hay cut and ricked—I will be clean. I do not wish to be parted from you just when we may love again.”