The Wise Woman Read online

  'And to prove my purity from these devilish skills,' the priest started.

  'And to prove my purity from these devilish skills,' Alys repeated. She tried to cough to clear her throat but it was too tight.

  'I take this sanctified bread, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ,' the priest said.

  Alys stared at him in blank horror. 'Repeat it,' he said, his eyes suddenly sharp with suspicion.

  'I take this sanctified bread, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ,' Alys said. She could hold herself no tighter, her voice was a thin thread of fear. Lady Catherine's nostrils flared as if she could scent Alys' terror.

  The priest lifted the silver salver and took the linen cloth from it. In the centre of the gleaming plate was a large white wafer with a cross marked on it.

  'I take the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and eat,' the priest said.

  'I take the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and eat,' Alys said breathlessly. She eyed the thick wafer and knew she would not be able to swallow it. Her throat was too tight, her mouth was dry. She would gag on it, and then they would have her.

  'And if I am perjured, if I am indeed a witch, then may it choke me; and may those that here witness do what they will with me, for I am damned,' the priest dictated urgently.

  The very words stuck in Alys' throat. She opened her mouth but no sound came, she tried to clear her throat but the only noise she made was a harsh croaking sound.

  'She's choking!' Lady Catherine said eagerly. 'She's choking on the oath!'

  'Say it, Alys,' said the old lord, leaning forward.

  'And if I am perjured, if I am indeed a witch' – Alys' voice was harsh, her throat rasping – 'then may it choke me; and may those that here witness do what they will with me, for I am damned.'

  'This is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ,' the priest said, and took the bread from the plate and held it towards Alys' face. 'Eat.'

  She swayed as she stood, as her knees softened and her terrified blue-black eyes went out of focus. The nausea from last night's wine rose up in her throat tasting like bile. She swallowed it down so that she should not retch and found her throat would not respond. The bile was coming up, upwards. She put her hand to her face and found she was wet with icy sweat. She knew she would vomit if she so much as opened her mouth.

  'Eat, wench,' the old lord said with gruff urgency. 'I don't like this delay.'

  Alys gulped again. The sickness was unstoppable, her belly was in a spasm of fear, her throat tight with her terror, it was rising up and up, it would spew out the moment she opened her lips.

  'She cannot!' Lady Catherine breathed in triumph. 'She dare not!'

  Goaded, Alys opened her mouth. The priest crammed the wafer in, the thick handful of papery mush half suffocated her, half choked her. She could feel her lungs heaving for air, she knew she must cough, she knew when she coughed she would spew it all out, bile, vomit and wafer; and then she would be lost.

  Alys squared her shoulders and closed her eyes. She was not going to die. Not now. Not at these hands. She chewed determinedly. She thrust a gob of the dry mush towards the back of her throat and forced it down. She chewed some more. She swallowed. She chewed some more. She swallowed. Then she gave one last convulsive gulp and the task was done.

  'Open your mouth,' the priest said. She opened her mouth to him. 'She swallowed it,' he said. 'She has passed the ordeal. She is no witch!'

  Alys swayed and would have fallen, but the young lord was at once behind her. He took her by her waist and guided her back to his chair. He poured her a glass of ale from the jug and glanced at the priest. 'I take it she may drink now?' he asked acidly. When the young man nodded he gave her the glass. For a moment his warm fingers touched her frozen ones, like a secret message of reassurance.

  'I am glad,' Lady Catherine said. 'This is the best outcome we could have hoped for. Alys has proved her innocence.' The old lord nodded. 'She can stay,' he said. 'And live with my women, as she has done,' Lady Catherine said swiftly. 'And she will make me a promise.' She smiled at Alys. 'She will promise me that she will have no more truck with my husband, and that she will tell no more tales of a child for herself from him.'

  The old lord nodded. 'That's fair,' he said to Alys. 'Promise it, wench.'

  'I swear it,' Alys said, her voice very low. She was still sweating, the lump of communion bread thick and cloying deep in her throat.

  'And when I have a child, as I know I will have this year, then we will know that Alys is completely innocent,' Lady Catherine said sweetly. 'Alys can turn her skills towards making me fertile that I may bear an heir.'

  The old lord nodded wearily. 'Aye,' he said. 'Alys can have a look at you and see if she has herbs which will help.'

  'I am counting on it,' Lady Catherine said. Behind her pleasant tone was a world of threat. Alys, sitting without permission in Lady Catherine's presence, shifted uneasily as she recognized renewed danger.

  'My lord will lie with me, not with you, Alys,' Catherine said triumphantly. 'And I will bear his son, not you, Alys. And when our son is born then you will be free to leave, Alys.'

  'Aye,' the old lord said again. 'Now go, all of you. I'll take a rest before supper.'

  Eliza fled for the door and was away downstairs without another word of bidding. Alys rose wearily to her feet. Hugo glanced at her and then went to Lady Catherine, who beckoned imperiously for his arm.

  'Let us go to my chamber,' she said. Her look up at his dark face was hungry. She was breathless with lust. He had promised to lie with her, and Alys' defeat had excited her. 'Let us two go to my chamber, my lord.'

  Alys, left alone in the room with the old lord, moved slowly towards the door as if she were very, very weary. 'Get her with child, for God's sake,' the old lord said. He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes were closed. 'I'll have no peace until she has a son, or I am rid of her; and I cannot be rid of her inside a year.' He sighed. 'You will be in danger every day of that year until she has a child or until Hugo's eyes are turned away from you. He must be blind to you, and deaf to you, and insensate to you. Get her with child if you can, Alys -or avoid Hugo's desire. Your luck will run out one day. You were perilously close today.' Alys nodded, saying nothing, then she slipped from the room and hobbled slowly down the stairs to the guardroom below. Eliza was waiting for her.

  'I thought you were going to choke and they would kill you,' she said, wide-eyed.

  'So did I,' Alys said grimly.

  'Come back with me and tell the others! They won't believe it!'

  'No,' Alys said.

  'Oh, come on!' Eliza urged. 'They won't believe me if you don't tell them too.'

  'No,' Alys said again.

  'I thought I would die of fright!' Eliza said excitedly. 'And when you were slow repeating the oath, I thought they would have you! I've never seen anything like it!' She caught at Alys' arm. 'Come on!' she urged. 'Come and tell the others!'

  'Let me go!' Alys said, suddenly shaking Eliza off. 'Let me go, damn you! Let me go!'

  She pushed Eliza roughly aside and fled down the stairs, through the hall where the servants were putting out great jugs of ale and beer, and out across the yard to the bakehouse. Only there, when she had slipped through the door and slammed it behind her and sunk down to the hearthstone, did she let herself weep. And then, to her horror, she felt her vomit rising, rising up in her throat again.

  She kneeled and faced the embers of the bakehouse fire and felt her throat clench against the rising tide of bile. Then she vomited, spewing it out into the ashes. Six times she heaved and puked until her belly was empty and her mouth sour.

  And it was then that Alys knew fear. For in the embers of the fire, whole and untouched, unblemished in its white circle, was the sanctified wafer. Not a mark on it, as whole as when she had sworn an oath and chewed it and swallowed it. It had choked her as she had known it would.

  Ten

  The night drew in, darker and colder, and Alys, still hidden in her refuge at the bakehou