A Tapestry of Dreams (47 page)

Three weeks after Hugh had left Audris in Jernaeve, Sir Walter returned to York with a tail of knights and men-at-arms gleaned from the East Riding of Yorkshire and from Lincolnshire. William Peperel and Gilbert de Lacy had arrived with similar tails, one in the early afternoon and the other in the evening, the day before, and the earl of Albemarle sent a man ahead to report that he would be a day late because of trouble with his supply train but that thirty knights and their meinies had answered his call to arms. On the same day, plagued by details of quartering and distribution, Sir Walter reminded himself that Hugh could take care of all such matters and sent a messenger to recall Hugh to his service.

Hugh did not know whether he felt like weeping with relief at being ordered to give up a hopeless task or with frustration because the men he was training were far from ready. Had Sir Walter been in his quarters, he might have protested his change of assignment, but Sir Walter was called away to a meeting with the other leaders of the army before Hugh could be found.

Then, in the rush and confusion of final preparations to move the army, they managed to miss actually seeing each other for the next two days, but Hugh did see Thurstan. He had heard that Thurstan had been “convinced” not to come north with the army, but to delegate his role to the bishop of Durham. That frightened Hugh so much, because he could only believe that the archbishop must be on his deathbed, that he dropped what he was doing and rushed to the archiepiscopal palace to seek out an aide who knew him well enough to tell him the truth.

Instead of simply giving him news of Thurstan’s health, however, the aide almost fell on Hugh’s neck and kissed him. He did not go quite so far, though, merely crying, “Hugh! What a fool I am not to have thought to summon you. How glad I am you came! I will just tell the archbishop you are here. He is at leisure.”

“How ill is he?” Hugh asked unsteadily. “Is he much worse?”

“No, he is not worse,” the deacon replied. “God be thanked, I think he is a little stronger, but he is not resting easily because he still thinks it wrong to leave this work he began half done. If you can only convince him that it is not for the sake of
his
comfort but for the good of the cause that he must remain in York, he would regain his strength faster.”

Hugh’s face lit with relief, flushing slightly with joy and with embarrassment. “I will do my best,” he said, “but Thurstan—”

The deacon waved his hand in a gesture of acknowledgment and hurried through an anteroom and then through tall doors into Thurstan’s bedchamber. In a few minutes he came out again and gestured for Hugh to follow, and a minute after that Hugh was kneeling by the archbishop’s bed kissing his frail hand and then laying his cheek against it.

“What is it, my son?” Thurstan asked. “Why do you come from your duty now? Is something wrong?”

Hugh kissed the hand again, lifted his head to look at his foster father, and saw with relief that the deacon had spoken the truth. The pasty gray pallor was gone from Thurstan’s skin, and though his eyes were still sunken and ringed with bruised-looking skin, they were no longer dim and glazed. He laughed with tears on his cheeks and said, “No, nothing is wrong with me.”

As he said the words, however, fear squeezed Hugh’s heart, for he remembered that Sir William de Summerville had broken Jernaeve’s outer defenses and was assaulting the keep. But there was nothing Thurstan could do about that, and it would be useless to mention it. Hugh reminded himself, as he had over and over during the past few weeks, that Sir Oliver would keep Audris safe and that Jernaeve could not be taken by assault while Oliver held it. Once again all he could do was try to close the fear out of his mind.

“Then what brings you, my son?” Thurstan insisted.

“To say farewell, for you know the army starts north tomorrow, to ask for your blessing, and”—Hugh paused, then grinned impertinently—“to say how glad I am that you have decided to stay in York, although I must admit when I first heard it I was almost frightened out of my wits. I was sure you
must
be on your deathbed. I could not imagine that anything except the final extremity could bring you to so sensible a decision.”

“Dreadful boy,” the archbishop said, chuckling and shaking his finger at Hugh. “You are not supposed to dispense with me so easily. You are supposed to ‘regret’ that I do not feel strong enough to accompany the army.” He shifted restlessly in the bed, and the amusement died out of his face. “My bishops constrained me to this decision. It is their opinion that my tenure as archbishop is so necessary and important, I must not risk it even to lead this holy war to avenge the blasphemies and despites done the Church. And it is true that with a new king whose faith is not very strong, worse might befall the Church through an ill-considered appointment to the archbishopric than through the depredations of war. Still—”

He stopped and looked at Hugh, who was shaking his head energetically. “I was not thinking of the Church’s welfare,” Hugh admitted frankly.

Thurstan’s lips twisted. “Oh, do
you
think like Albemarle and Peperel—and even Walter, who should know me better—that I would try to command the army? I know I am no soldier, and neither am I inclined to wish for or believe in miracles that make an Alexander of a priest who knows nothing of war.”

He made an impatient gesture, and Hugh seized his hand and kissed it again, laughing. “Dear Father, of course I did not expect that you would be overtaken by a desire to don armor and wave a sword—and neither, I am sure, could Sir Walter have conceived so silly a notion.”

“I did not mean that, and you are only saying it to make me laugh,” Thurstan acknowledged wryly, “but I think I
would
have been a help—not by saying fight in this place rather than that or on this day rather than that—but in lifting up the hearts of the men, exhorting them to courage and reminding them of the evil the invaders have done. Yet Sir Walter and the others—like you—were glad when I told them I would not go.” Thurstan stopped abruptly and bowed his head. “My pride.” He sighed. “My cursed pride.”

When Thurstan began to talk of pride, scourgings followed. Hugh restrained a shudder. “Father!” he protested. “Forgive me, but you are misreading a lack of faith for a lack of desire for your support.”

“Whose lack of faith?”

“Albemarle’s, Peperel’s, Sir Walter’s—and mine, too.” Hugh shrugged. “You believe that God will give you strength for whatever duty you must perform and sustain you until that duty is fulfilled, but none of us have equal faith. We look into your face and see…” Tears rose in Hugh’s eyes, and his voice wavered. “We see the hand of God on you, my dearest Father. Perhaps I mostly fear losing you, for my heart cleaves to you with the same need I felt when I was a child. Foolish it may be, but I have always felt no
real
harm could befall me as long as you were there. But the others fear for their mission. Forgive me, Father, but did you ever think what would happen to our army if you should die on the way?”

“But I
could
not,” Thurstan said, astonished at the idea. “God would not permit it, unless for some unknowable reason of His own we must fail in this defense of our land. But in that case, we will fail whether I die or not.”

“So your faith assures you,” Hugh replied, smiling, “but Sir Walter’s faith—though strong—is not so firm as yours, and Albemarle’s and the others, mine included, are even frailer. Father, they would be
miserable
if you came, not because they think you useless but because they would be watching every breath in and out of your mouth, fearing every bump on the road lest it jostle you, every stream that must be forded lest it wet you, every mile they must go lest it weaken you. Men, you have told me many times, have free will. Is it not possible that in their concern to make your journey shorter or safer or easier, they might choose ill with regard to the field of battle and thus find defeat instead of victory?”

Thurstan raised his free hand, then let it fall. “I see. And I can see why they all looked so thankful when I told them I could not accompany the army.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Old, vain fool that I am, I was hurt because they did not want me.”

Hugh chuckled too. There was amusement and acceptance of his own foible in Thurstan’s voice rather than revulsion. Probably he would pray long and hard to be forgiven his vanity, but it was pride the archbishop feared, pride and ambition, knowing them to be sins deep-seated in his nature, whereas vanity was not. Uplifted by knowing he had managed to ease Thurstan’s mind and soothe him, Hugh once more kissed the hand he had been holding and then let it go.

“I must go back to the camp,” he said. “We are making a final distribution of supplies for the march.”

Then Hugh bowed his head and asked for a blessing, and as his personal terror welled up in him again, he begged Thurstan to pray for Audris and Eric also. Since Hugh managed to control his voice and his head was already bent so that his face was hidden, Thurstan fortunately did not associate the request with any special need.

To Hugh’s relief, the archbishop gave both blessing and assurances of his prayers in a voice that showed he was smiling. Then he tugged gently on Hugh’s hair and, when Hugh raised his head, gestured for him to get up from his knees, drew him close, kissed him fondly, bade him take good care of himself, and gave him leave to go.

The deacon, who had been waiting quietly in a corner of the room and had heard everything that passed, told Hugh, laughing, as he took him to the outer door, that he had wrought a miracle. And Hugh himself had felt a release of tension in his foster father that gave him hope that he
had
done
some good.

That was one burden lifted from his mind and heart, and five days later, when the army had marched north to Allerton, where their foreriders were waiting with news that the Scottish force was only a few miles ahead, another burden was taken away also.

The news was passed quickly to the mounted troops, who hurried through the town and north of it about a mile, where the leaders took possession of a small hill, cleared by grazing, and directed the troops forward another quarter mile to secure the plain below. The clear ground was such that the area the left wing would defend was almost double the size of that on the right of the hill. Beyond the open area wooded land to either side closed off the possibility of open battle. It had been decided earlier that Sir Walter would hold the left, Albemarle the center, de Lacy the right, and Peperel the reserve. Hugh followed Sir Walter as he rode over the area he was to defend.

“It is wider than I like,” Sir Walter said, “but I think de Lacy can spare us some men, and I think Albemarle will take the brunt of the attack. The Standard will be set on the hill, of course, which he will be defending. It is likely that the Scots will expend their greatest effort to secure the Standard as a prize of war.”

“Even so,” Hugh said, frowning, “the line is too long. If a force is sent through the woods to burst out at us while we are engaged with an attack—even if it be no more than a light feint—from the front, I am afraid so thin a line must fail.”

“Teaching your grandfather to suck eggs again, eh?” Sir Walter teased. “You have learned apace, Hugh, but a wily old dog like me still has a lesson or two to give. No one will come at us unaware through the wood, because we are going to fill it with all those near useless yeomen and plowboys you have been mumbling about and instructing in your sleep for the past week.”

Hugh, openmouthed with relief and surprise, looked at his master; Sir Walter’s bellowing laugh rang out, and he leaned from his horse to wallop Hugh on the shoulder.

“There is not much the old man does not know,” he growled with satisfaction.

“I am very sorry I disturbed your sleep,” Hugh said, and almost immediately shook his head. “No, I am not sorry at all,” he admitted. “I am glad, if it led you to think of such a use for those folk. They will be of real value in warning us of an attempted surprise and in delaying and holding off any force sent into the woods. With trees and brush to interfere with any real fighting, they can hold their own very well.”

Sir Walter shook his head and sighed. “Hugh, I hope you do not plan to influence my military planning in the future by moaning all night. I swear to you that your night horrors did not persuade me to put the common folk in the wood. It was because the wood is there and because of what we have learned about the Scottish army. Gilbert de Lacy is doing the same on the right flank—and he was not kept awake by listening to you groan and grumble.”

Hugh grinned at him impudently. “Mayhap, my lord, but dare I suggest that you put the idea into his head?”

“The damn fools would be of no use to us out on the field,” Sir Walter roared. “And if I got too many of them slaughtered, we wouldn’t have enough men to bring in the crops. And as for you, you shameless puppy, you had better put some steel into that soft heart of yours and use your head for more than carrying your helmet.”

“Yes, my lord,” Hugh replied in a very meek voice, belied by the curve of his lips and the sparkle of laughter in his eyes. “If your lordship would deign to instruct me about the Scottish army—”

But Sir Walter was grinning, too. “Oh, you will be instructed. You are invited to our council of war this evening.”

“I?” Hugh exclaimed. “Why?”

“You are on the way to being a great man in Northumbria,” Sir Walter pointed out, chuckling. “Ruthsson and Trewick are decent estates, and marriage to the holder of Jernaeve—”

“I have nothing to do with Jernaeve,” Hugh said quickly, seeing the tapestry unicorn about to destroy the place. “Audris prefers that her uncle hold it—and so do I.”

“I believe you,” Sir Walter said with a wry twist to his lips, “but I would not bother trying to convince the others, who will nod and call you hypocrite in their hearts. But that is not important now. What is important is that because of the length of the left wing, you have been chosen to share the command with me and hold the far left.”