The Wise Woman Read online

  The serving-lad giggled and pointed to one servant after another who shrieked against the accusation and could plead guilty or not guilty and was judged by the roar of the crowd.

  Then he turned his attention to the gentry. Two of the young noble servers were accused of idleness and ordered to stand on their stools and sing a carol as punishment. One of Lord Hugh's cousins was accused of gluttony – sneaking into the kitchen after dinner begging for marchpane. Hugo's favourite, a young lad who was always in the guardroom talking warfare with the officers, was named a seeker of favours, a courtier, and had his head blackened with soot from the fireplace.

  People laughed even more and the serving-lad grew bolder. Someone cast Lord Hugh's purple cape around his shoulders and he stood on the seat of the carved chair, jigging from one foot to the other, and pointed his finger at Hugo who was clowning around at the back of the hall with a tray and a jug of wine.

  'Lust,' he said solemnly. The hall rocked with laughter. 'Venery,' he said again. 'I shall name the women you have been with.'

  There were screams of laughter, and around Alys at the women's table a nervous ripple of discomfort. The serving-lad was lord of the feast, he could say anything without any threat of punishment. He might name any one of them as Hugo's lover. And Catherine would not be likely to forget, nor pass off the accusation as the fun of the feast.

  'How shall you remember them all?' someone yelled from the back of the hall. 'It has been more than three hundred days since last year! That is at least a thousand women!'

  Hugo grinned, postured, throwing back the apron to show his embroidered codpiece, thrusting his hips forward while the girls screamed with laughter. 'It's true,' he said. 'More like two thousand.'

  'I shall name the women he has not had,' the serving-lad said quickly. 'To save time.'

  There were screams of laughter at that. Hugo bowed. Even the old lord at the fireplace chuckled. The hall fell silent, waiting to hear what the lad would say to cap the jest.

  'There is only one woman he has not had,' the lad said, milking the joke. He swung around and pointed to Catherine where she stood beside the old lord at the fireside. 'His wife! His wife! Lady Catherine!'

  The hall was in uproar, people were screaming with laughter. Catherine's women, still in their seats at the table on the dais, clapped their hands over their mouths to smother their laughter. Hugo bowed penitently, even the old lord was laughing. Soldiers clung to each other and the serving-lad took off Lord Hugh's purple jewelled cap and flung it in the air and caught it to celebrate his wit. Only Catherine stood, white with anger, unsmiling.

  'Now the old lord!' someone yelled. 'What has he done?'

  The serving-lad pointed solemnly at Lord Hugh. 'You are very, very guilty, and you become guiltier every year,' he said. Lord Hugh chuckled and waited for more. 'And every year, though you do less, you are the more guilty,' the serving-lad said.

  'A riddle!' someone yelled. 'A riddle! What is his crime?'

  'What is my crime?' Hugh asked. 'That I do less and less every year and am more and more guilty?'

  'You grow old!' the serving-lad yelled triumphantly. There was a great roar of scandalized laughter led by Lord Hugh. He shook his fist at the lad. 'I had best not see you tomorrow,' he shouted. 'Then you shall see how old my broadsword is!'

  The serving-lad danced on the chair and knocked his skinny knees together, miming terror. 'And now!' he yelled. 'I order dancing!'

  He slid from the cape and left the cap on the great chair and led out the dirtiest, lowliest slut from the kitchen to take his hand at the head of the set. Other people, still chuckling, fell in behind them. Alys leaned towards Eliza.

  'D'you see her face?' she said softly. Eliza nodded. 'He's worse than last year,' she said. 'And he was impertinent enough then. But it's a tradition and it does no harm. The old lord loves the old ways and Hugo doesn't care. They always make a butt of Catherine; she's not well liked and they love Hugo.'

  One of the mummers came to the ladies' table and laid rough hands on Ruth. She gave a soft shriek of refusal but he dragged her to the floor.

  'Here's sport!' Eliza said joyfully, and chased after Ruth to find a partner for herself. Alys went down the hall like a shadow in her navy gown to stand behind Lord Hugh and walk with him back to his chair on the dais.

  'Not dancing, Alys?' he asked her over the loud minor chords of the music and the thump of the drum. 'No,' she said shortly.

  He nodded. 'Stand behind my chair and no one will call you out,' he said. 'It's rough sport but I love to watch it. And Hugo – ' he broke off. Further down the hall Hugo was on his knees to a serving-wench, half hidden behind a mask of a duck's head. Catherine, unwilling, her face set and pale, was dancing in a set partnered by one of the young knights. 'Hugo is a rogue,' the old lord said. 'I should have matched him to a girl with fire in her belly.'

  They danced all afternoon and well into the night. A lad stood and sang a madrigal very sweetly, a gypsy girl came into the hall and danced a wild strange dance with clackers made of wood in her hand, then to a roar of applause the servers came from the kitchen and processed around the hall with the roast meats and set them down on the high table and in messes – four persons to a platter – at all the other tables. It was their final dish of the feast and grander even than all that had gone before. There was swan from the river, roasted and refeathered so that it was as white and complete as a live bird, head rearing up from the serving dish. At the other end of the top table there was a peacock with its tail feathers nodding. The lower tables had cuts of roast goose, turkey, capons, wild duck. Everyone had the best bread at this feast – manchet, a good white bread with a thick golden crust and a dense white crumb. The lords ate with unceasing appetite; Catherine beside them wiped her plate with her bread and took another slice of wild swan, though her face was still set and angry.

  The jugs of wine came in, and one dish followed after another. Alys, rocking with weariness, ate little but drank the sharp red wine, cool from the barrels in the cellar. It was midnight when the sweetmeats finally came in, two for the top table. A perfect marchpane copy of the castle with Lord Hugh's flag fluttering over the round tower was put before the old lord. The women got up from the side table to see it and crowded around.

  'Too pretty to cut,' Eliza said admiringly. Before Hugo they placed a little model of a country house set square on a terrace with little sugar deer in a park all around it.

  'My plans for the new house!' Hugo exclaimed. 'Damn those servants, they know everything before I know it myself. Here, Sir, see what they have done!'

  Lord Hugh smiled. 'Now you can see the two side by side,' he said. 'I know where I would rather live!'

  Hugo bowed his head, too full of wine and dinner to quarrel with his father. 'I know your preferences, Sir,' he said respectfully. 'But it's a pretty fancy of mine.' Hugh nodded. 'Can you bear to eat it?' he asked. Hugo laughed and took his knife up in reply. 'Who will have a slice of my house?' he asked. 'My pretty little house which I have drawn in an idle moment and then found these kitchen hounds stealing my papers and copying my dreams into sugar?' 'I will!' Eliza said invitingly. Hugo threw her a smile.

  'You would have a slice of anything of mine, Eliza,' he said. 'You would beg for a lick, would you not?'

  Eliza gave a little scream of protesting laughter. Hugo smiled at her and then switched the heat of his look to Alys. 'Alys?' he asked. 'Will you taste my pretty toy?'

  She shook her head and slid back to the women's table at the rear of the dais. When the others came back with their trenchers Eliza set a piece of the marchpane house before her.

  'From him,' she said, nodding at the back of Hugo's chair. 'He served it for you under the nose of his wife. He has given you the front door. By – you're playing a dangerous game, Alys.'

  When the eating was done, and there was nothing on the tables but the voider course of dried fruit and hippocras wine, David stood behind the lord's chair and called one man after another