A Tapestry of Dreams (46 page)

So a host gathered north of York, and Sir Walter lent Hugh to the archbishop to winnow out those who knew something of arms and had some weapon with which to fight. He set those to teach small groups whatever they could. There were others set to the same task, but still Hugh walked and questioned and explained from the bare dawn of each day until it was too dark to see at all.

Sometimes his spirit was exalted by the faith of those who had gathered and who knelt with passionate devotion to be blessed when Thurstan insisted on being carried through the camp. But at other times he was shaken with rage, knowing that these who hastened to answer the call in their simple belief could be little more than lambs for the slaughter, bodies to crowd and shout and die, distracting the enemy so that the mailed knights would have time and space to strike. And the pitiful knowledge drove him to try harder to teach them to defend themselves, to weave themselves shields of withies, if they could get no better, and to sharpen and fire-harden sticks to hold off a swordsman, which would give them a chance to swing their shorter, curved scythes.

He grew gaunt and worn, often forgetting to eat during the day and too tired to eat at night. Morel would bring food and follow him about with it or stand over him and shake him awake, or he might have starved; Morel was growing desperate, for he had not forgotten Audris’s command that he bring her news of it if Hugh were hurt or sick. He would have gone to Jernaeve, but he knew there was no way he could reach the Lady or bring her out to her man.

News had come with stragglers that the lower walls had been overrun and Scots from mountain areas were making ready to climb the cliff and assault the keep itself. Even so, Morel was not worried about those in Jernaeve. As long as a strong leader held it, all threats except starvation were vain. The men in old Iron Fist would brush off those who tried to assault it as a man brushed off flies. Besides, the Lady was there, and if the men could not save it, she would; it was her place, after all.

Morel was far more worried about himself. The Lady was kind, but he was afraid she would curse him if he did not fulfill her trust. He looked at Hugh, who had only managed to swallow half a bowl of stew and was now sleeping, but very uneasily, tossing and muttering and gesturing. Morel could not make out whether he was still trying to teach those fools to fight and save themselves or whether he was dreaming of going to the relief of Jernaeve. Morel shook his head.

He was sorry for the louts who had answered the archbishop’s call—but their fate was in God’s hands—and he was worried about his farm, which might well be in ruins, and about his sons and grandson and even about Mary, but he did not let it spoil his pleasure in food or sleep. He snorted with a mixture of exasperation and affection—only fine gentlemen had the liberty to indulge themselves in a ruinous sympathy over what could not be helped. Then anger drew another snort—and his master’s misplaced agony of mind would ruin him, too! He glanced once again at Hugh’s haggard face, then gritted his teeth. He had to do
something.
The Lady had dared much to have this one man. Kind or not, she would not soon forgive the one charged with his well-doing if ill befell him.

***

Oliver was dead! Audris stood weeping above the torn body, her bloody hands still stretched toward it as if to stanch wounds that were too wide, too deep for closing. She realized he had been dead for some time, but she had refused to believe it, ignoring the priest who was giving the last rites, still working frantically to close the gaping holes, telling herself he could not be dead. He had come into the keep on his feet—she had seen that with her own eyes. He had walked as much as ten steps before pitching forward and falling. If he could walk, she insisted, he could be saved. Now she could lie to herself no longer. Eadyth, sobbing hoarsely, had finally pulled her away from the body by force and screamed, “Can you bring back the dead, witch?”

“Not dead! Not dead!” Audris had cried, but having been forced away from her determined concentration on the one wound she was sewing, she saw the blood was only lying in pools, not pulsing or welling out—and she saw her uncle’s face, and she knew. “Uncle,” she sobbed, “uncle. You saved me, why could I not save you?”

“He cannot save any of us now,” Eadyth wailed. “The Scots will kill us all.”

“Scots?” Audris echoed, her sobs checking, grief washed away in a flood of terror. “Where? In the keep?”

“I do not know,” Eadyth wept, shivering, “but who will keep them out if Oliver is gone?”

Audris fled from the chamber, down the stairs, and out into the great hall. The word “Scots” had wakened in her visions of what she had seen on the journey between Heugh and Jernaeve, and all she could think of was getting to Eric to provide her baby with a merciful death. She was halfway across the great hall before she realized that there was no screaming, no fighting. In fact, all activity had stopped, as it always did in Jernaeve, when she appeared. It was that cessation of sound and movement that caught her attention and checked her panic.

Later she understood that it was her appearance—her gown, her hands, even her face streaked and splotched with blood, for she had unconsciously wiped away her tears with her stained hands—that had momentarily paralyzed everyone, even the strangers in the hall. Just then, the sudden silence was simply right and familiar; it calmed her fear, and she stopped running just opposite the huge hearth and faced the crowd.

She felt the tense expectancy and knew for what they waited. “Sir Oliver is dead,” she said, into a silence so deep that her soft, grief-choked voice carried easily through the hall. “My—”

“Then I am senior here,” a coarse voice interrupted, “and I say we send down a herald and make terms—”

He had come forward as he spoke, and Audris was so surprised at being interrupted that her response was slow. But when she heard what he said, terror seized her again. What she had seen convinced her that one could not make terms with the Scots; surely the women and children could not fight and would have yielded. The vision of impaled babes and mutilated women rose instantly in her mind.

“Take him!” she shrieked. “He is one of them, crept in with our own.”

And before he could protest or draw his sword to defend himself, the menservants had leapt on the man and dragged him down. He roared with rage, shouting for help, but Audris was on him, her eating knife at his throat, hissing that one more shout would be his last. He stared up at her blood-streaked face in disbelief and horror.

“I am not a Scot,” he whimpered.

“He is not,” another man said, coming near. “How dare you, you slut of a woman—”

“I am threatened,” Audris shrieked. “Call in my men-at-arms.”

But some menservants had run for the steward as soon as Audris cried out that the man who wanted to yield was a Scot, and Eadmer was already entering the hall with a crowd of men, swords drawn and crossbows cocked, behind him. The crossbowmen ranged out along the walls from the door where they had entered; the swordsmen pressed forward. The servants not engaged with the man Audris was accusing fled to the protection of the walls between the crossbowmen. Suddenly the center of the hall was empty, except for the group around Audris, Eadmer and his swordsmen, and five knights who had taken shelter in Jernaeve, one of whom had his hand on his sword hilt and one leg drawn back to kick Audris. He removed his hand very carefully, holding both arms away from his body, and stepped down on the leg he had drawn back, edging slowly away from Audris while she rose to her feet to face the steward.

“I meant no threat, my lady,” the knight said softly.

Eadmer was staring at Audris, his face as pale as parchment. “Sir Oliver—” he faltered.

“Dead,” she answered, her eyes filling with tears, “but there is no time now to mourn,” she told him, choking back a sob. “This filth on the floor is a Scot.”

“No, I am not,” he protested, more strongly now that the knife was not at his throat.

“Then he is a spy for them or an agent,” Audris insisted. “He was about to order Jernaeve be yielded.”

Eadmer blinked. He seemed stunned. “Order? But Sir Oliver—” he began, then shook his head. “Yielded?” he repeated.

“No,” three of the men protested.

“It is only reasonable—” the man who had nearly kicked Audris began.

She glared at him, and his voice faltered into silence, an expression of horrified revelation coming into his face. Audris laughed briefly and bitterly. “Yes,” she said, “I am Audris of Jernaeve. You once
demanded
me in marriage and threatened that you would appeal to the king about my uncle’s unwillingness to give up my wardship, but you did not take the trouble to look at me well enough to know me again.”

“I heard you were gone from Jernaeve.” He shrugged. “You cannot blame me for not knowing you, covered with blood as you are.”

“My uncle’s blood,” Audris said bitterly. “My beloved uncle, who held Jernaeve for me all the years of my life and
died
to preserve it for me. And you would give it away, give it away while his blood is hardly dry in his wounds, give it away before we are even threatened!”

“Not threatened?” He sneered. “Only an ignorant woman could say that. We have been driven off the wall at the first assault. We have had huge losses—huge. We have lost over three-quarters of our men, dead, wounded, or prisoner in the lower bailey. There is an enormous army pitted against us. Is that not threat enough? If we yield at once, we can get good terms.”

“What threat is an army, no matter how great, down below?” Audris returned his sneer, her voice high and contemptuous. “How will they come up? Up the road? Three at a time they will make prime targets for my bowmen. How many do you think can stand below the walls? Is there room there to raise up scaling ladders? Is there room to swing a ram? What say you, archers? Are
you
afraid of men who must walk
our
road three at a time and then stand beneath our walls?”

The men around the perimeter of the hall, who had begun to look worried over the knight’s analysis, now shouted their confidence.

“Or do you think they will crawl up the cliff?” Audris went on, managing to appear as if she were looking down on her adversary although she was a head shorter. “Creep on ropes up the knuckles of old Iron Fist? These sniveling cowards”—her eyes moved from the standing man to the one still held by the servants—“seem to be afraid even to fight men with both hands clinging to their ropes and weary from climbing. Say, swordsmen, are you like them, or will you dare to go out the postern and cut down such dangerous enemies?”

The swordsmen roared with laughter. It was true that very few men could hold that cliff against a whole army, because no matter how large the army, only a small number could climb at a time.

“I
know
Jernaeve cannot be broken,” Audris cried, “unless it be by treachery from within!”

Suddenly a touch of color came into Eadmer’s face. “Do you—do you have a seeing, Lady Audris?” he whispered.

Audris saw nothing except the impalement of her son and her own torture and rape by the lowest filth of the troops attacking them if the Scots were allowed into Jernaeve. In the past she had either ignored or done her best to explain away her “seeings.” Now the idea was a notion she seized eagerly.

“Yes,” she cried. “Yes! I have seen that we will be safe in Jernaeve. I do not see how long we must wait, for there is no time in pictures, but I see the lower bailey empty of our enemies, and the coming of our allies.”

A cheer went up that almost deafened her. She had not known that so loud a sound of joy could be wrung from so few throats—and for so foolish a reason. When she had reminded them of what they must all know was the truth—that Jernaeve was virtually impregnable—their response had been no more than a show of courage. But when she lied, playing on their silly belief in her “seeings,” they were convinced. Let it be, she thought; the important thing is that they defend the keep with good spirit. And while the idea passed through her mind, her eyes saw the bowman lowering their weapons and the servants relaxing their grip on the man they had pulled down, and she realized that the fools had leapt from a debilitating fear to an overconfidence that was even more dangerous.

“No!” Audris exclaimed. “Do not lower your bows. Keep good hold on that traitor, and seize that other one also. There is a shadow in my picture, a shadow showing the opening of Jernaeve from within. I do not know whether it be these or others who creep silently up the cliff or up the road to find a way in to open the gates to their friends. Jernaeve cannot be taken by battle, but it can be given away by treachery.”

“Then what must we do, my lady?” Eadmer asked. “Must we slay all those we do not know and who cannot bring known witnesses to go bail for them? Some came to us for succor from afar.”

Audris shuddered. “No! God forbid! Let us not make ourselves as evil and bloody as those who attack us. Only be sure that those who guard the walls are our trusted men and that they keep good watch for spies in the night. And set a double guard of trusty men by each gate and postern so they cannot be easily overwhelmed.” She hesitated, trying to remember anything else Hugh might have mentioned to her when he talked of the experiences of his life, but no other precautions came to mind, and she could only add, “And do not rest only on my poor woman’s knowledge, but do all else that seems to you best, Eadmer, to make us secure from within.”

“And these men?” he asked.

“They desired to make terms with the Scots,” she said, her lips thinning. “Well and good, I will not stand in their way. Take them and put them out—and let them make what terms they will.”

The two cried out in protest, but their words were lost in the laughter of the men-at-arms, who thought that a very good joke. Even as the laughter died, however, cries of warning drifted down from the walls. The unbelievable was taking place. Summerville, who must have heard that Sir Oliver was mortally wounded or already dead, was seizing the chance that those within would be leaderless and panic-stricken and was trying an assault on Jernaeve keep.