The Wise Woman Read online

  'How old are you, Alys?' he asked. 'What year is it?' 'I'm near eighteen,' she said sleepily. 'It's 1538. What year did you think it was?'

  Hugo said nothing, his mind whirling. Alys was dreaming of the future two years ahead. 'How is my father?' he asked.

  'Dead, nigh on twelve months ago,' Alys replied sleepily. 'Go to sleep, Hugo.'

  Her casual use of his christian name brought him up short. 'What of Lady Catherine?' he asked.

  'Oh hush!' Alys said. 'No one is to blame. She's at peace at last. And we have all her lands for little Hugo. Go to sleep now.'

  'I have a son?' Hugo demanded. Alys sighed and turned away. Hugo, raising himself up on his elbow, looked down on her face and saw that she was deeply asleep. Gently he pulled his hand away from between her legs and saw a little flicker of regret cross her face. Then she turned deeper into the pillow and slept again.

  He sat up on the pallet and put his head in his hands, trying to think soberly enough to understand. Either Alys was drunk beyond belief, dreaming some girl's fantasy of him; or the wine had released in her some of her magic and she had spoken true. In two years' time he would be the Lord of Castleton, Catherine would be gone and Alys would be his woman and the mother of his child.

  He leaned forward and stirred up the fire so the light flickered in the little room. Alys' clear, lovely profile gleamed in the half-light.

  'What a son we would have!' he said softly. 'What a son!'

  He thought of the confident way she had tucked his hand between her legs, and her lazy command of loving in the morning, and he felt himself ache with desire again. For a moment he thought of taking her while she slept, without her consent; but then he paused.

  For the first time in his life Hugo paused before taking his pleasure. She had given him a glimpse of a future which was luminous with satisfactions. She had given him a glimpse of a woman who was his equal, who desired him as he desired her. A woman who would plot and scheme alongside him, who had given him a son, and would give him more. He wanted Alys' dream. He wanted that intimacy, he wanted to be on tender terms with her. More than anything else: he wanted her to give him a son.

  He chuckled softly in the quietness of the room. He wanted her to call him Hugo, he wanted her to command his loving. He wanted to see her tired with the demands of his son, tired by his lust. Incredulously he looked towards her again. He would do nothing to spoil that promise between them, he thought. He would not force her, he would not frighten her. He wanted her as she was in that glimpse of the future: confident, sensual, amused. A woman of power, confident of her own power to command him, to rule her own life.

  He threw a rug over her and she did not stir. He leaned over and gently put a kiss on the smooth curve of her neck, just below her ear. The smell of her skin stirred him again. He chuckled. 'My Lady Alys,' he said softly. Then he got to his feet and walked out of the room.

  Eliza was hovering at the doorway, her round face bright with excitement.

  'All quiet, my lord,' she said. 'Aren't you having her? Don't you want her now?'

  Lord Hugo shot a quick look down the steps to the great chamber beneath them. 'Lift your skirts,' he said tersely. Eliza's mouth made a little round 'oh' of surprise. 'My lord… ' she said in a delighted half-protest. He took her gown in one hard hand and wrenched it up to her waist. He backed her against the stone wall and rammed himself into her. Eliza screamed with the sharp pain of it and he at once clapped a hand over her mouth and hissed, 'Fool! D'you want half the castle here?'

  Above his hand Eliza's eyes bulged at him imploringly. He thrust into her three, four times, and then he froze, his eyes tight shut, his mouth grim in a spasm of release which felt like anger.

  Eliza gasped with discomfort as he released her, and staggered to one side, holding her bruised throat and mopping her gown against her crutch. Hugo reached into his pocket and threw her a couple of silver coins. 'You'll keep quiet about that too,' he said. He turned his back on her and sauntered across the gallery and down the steps to the great hall.

  She went to the doorway and watched him go down the stairs and pause in the lobby, straightening his clothes, and then she saw his shoulders go back and his smile appear as he opened the door to the dais and went back to sit with his father and his wife.

  'God curse you, Hugo,' she said under her breath. She flinched with discomfort and turned towards the women's room. 'A new gown half ruined, half strangled, and tupped for a shilling,' she said miserably to herself. She hunkered down on her pallet and looked across at Alys who lay, still sleeping, as Hugo had left her.

  'And all because that damned jade hexed you into losing your manhood with her,' she muttered grimly. 'I saw you, you poxy bastard. I saw you lie beside her and stick your finger in and dare do no more while she muttered spells against you and all your family. And then you stick your cock in me! Damn you,' she grumbled, stripping off her gown and pulling a rug over herself. 'Pox-ridden bastard.'

  Alys turned over in her sleep, her hand stretched out, seeking him. 'My love,' she said very softly.

  Alys was sick the next day, heavy-eyed, white-faced, poisoned with the wine. She would eat nothing and would drink only water. Indeed, the whole castle, from Hugo down to the poorest scullion, had drunk better than they had drunk all year and were paying the price.

  It was not until after dinner that any of the women felt better. Then Lady Catherine commanded them to sit in the gallery and sew while she spun. Alys was ordered to read aloud from a story book.

  Alys, nauseous and with her head throbbing, read until the badly printed words danced before her eyes. They were love stories, tales of ladies in castles and knights who worshipped them. Alys let her mind wander as she read the romance – life was not like these stories, she knew.

  'Lord Hugo carried you up the stairs last night?' Lady Catherine's arid voice cut into the reading. Alys blinked. 'Carried you all the way to your room, did he?' 'I am sorry, my lady,' Alys said. 'I cannot remember. I was faint and I did not know what I did.'

  'Did he carry her?' Lady Catherine turned to Eliza. 'Yes,' Eliza said baldly. She ached inside this morning and she blamed Alys that Hugo's lust had soured into violence.

  'Into your room?' Lady Catherine asked. 'Yes,' Eliza said again.

  'You were with them?' Lady Catherine confirmed. Eliza hesitated. She would have given much to have her revenge on Hugo by telling that he had ordered her to stay outside. But the risks were too great. The young lord's anger was swift and unpredictable, and she had stains on her gown and two silver sixpences which would support an accusation against her.

  'Yes,' she said. 'He tossed her down on her pallet and told me to watch her and make sure she did not vomit and lie in it like a dog.' Alys' pale skin flushed crimson. 'How disagreeable for him,' Lady Catherine said in mild triumph. 'I think you had better drink ale in future, Alys.'

  'I think so too, my lady,' Alys said quietly. 'I am very sorry.' Lady Catherine nodded with a glacial smile and stood while Mistress Allingham moved the spinning wheel for her into a patch of winter sunshine which fell on the wooden floor, brightly coloured from the stained glass of the oriel window.

  'Did he do that?' Alys whispered urgently to Eliza. 'Did he throw me down?'

  'He lay beside you,' Eliza said spitefully. 'I've saved your skin with my lady by not telling. He gave me two silver sixpences to keep watch. I stood guard at the door while he tossed you down on your pallet and stripped you and lay beside you and stuck his finger in you.'

  Alys went white and looked as if she might fall. 'It's not possible,' she said.

  'It happened,' Eliza said harshly. 'I saw him do it.' 'But I feel nothing,' Alys said.

  'What are you girls whispering about?' Lady Catherine interrupted.

  'About the colour of the silk, Lady Catherine,' Eliza said at once. 'I think it is too bright. Alys wants to keep it as it is.'

  Eliza lifted up the tapestry which Alys had painstakingly stitched in the previous week and Lady Catherin