The Wise Woman Read online

  'Tisn't natural,' Eliza said one night to Alys. The candle was out, they were lying in the dark. In the other corners of the room they could hear the quiet breathing of Mistress Allingham and a rumbling snore from Ruth. Eliza had long ceased to laugh at the antics of Lord Hugo and his lady. All the women were appalled at the turn the two had taken.

  'Did you hear her this evening?' Eliza asked. 'I reckon she's bewitched. It isn't natural for a woman to beg for a man like she does. And she lets him do anything he wishes to her.'

  'Hush,' Alys said. 'It's her way. And she'll sleep well tonight and be sweet-tempered in the morning. And soon we'll know if she's in foal.'

  'Whelping,' Eliza said with a sleepy giggle. 'But it isn't natural, Alys. I've seen bruises on her that he's made with his belt. And when I showed them to her she gave me a smile…' She paused. 'A horrid sort of smile,' she said inadequately. 'As if she was proud.'

  Alys said nothing more and soon Eliza was breathing deeply, sprawled out across Alys' side of the bed. For an hour Alys lay sleepless in the darkness, watching the cold finger of moonlight move across the ceiling, listening to Eliza's snuffling snores. Then she slipped quietly from the bed and went out to the gallery, and threw a couple of logs on the fire, and a handful of pine twigs.

  The twigs spurted little flames and a sharp resinous scent filled the room. Alys sniffed at it and sat down on the warm fleece before the fire to watch the flames.

  The castle was wrapped in utter winter darkness and utter night-time silence. Alys felt she was the only being awake or even alive in the whole world. The embers of the fire formed into little castles and caverns. Alys stared deep into their red glow, trying to make out shapes, pictures. The sweet tangy scent of the burning pine reminded her of Mother Hildebrande and her quiet study where the little fire had been made of pine cones. Alys used to sit at her feet and lean against her knees while reading, and sometimes Mother Hildebrande would rest her hand gently on Alys' head and lean forward to explain a word, or chuckle tolerantly at a mispronunciation.

  'What a clever girl,' she would say in her soft voice. 'What a clever girl you are, my daughter Ann!'

  Alys took the sleeve of her nightshift and rubbed at her eyes. 'I won't think of her,' she said into the silence of the room. 'I must go on not thinking of her, stopping myself thinking of her. I will be without her now. Without her, forever.' She thought instead of Morach and the cold dark little cottage at the foot of the moor. Morach's hovel would be up to the eaves in snow by now. Alys grimaced remembering the long, dark, winter days, and the ceaseless unrewarding labour of digging out a track from door to midden to carry the slops.

  'Whatever I am doing now,' she whispered, 'whatever it costs me – it is better than that life. Mother Hildebrande would know that. She would understand that. She would know that even though I'm very deep in sin… she would know…' Alys broke off. She knew that the abbess would never have accepted an argument which said that hardship justified a sinner in one sin after another, down to the very doors of hell itself. 'I won't think of her,' Alys said again. She sat in silence for a little while, then the fire shifted and roused her from her daydream. She tossed a little log on to the soft embers at the back and watched it glow and then blacken and flame.

  Very quietly behind her, the door of Lady Catherine's bedroom opened and Hugo came out. He was wearing only breeches, his chest and back bare, carrying his boots, his shirt and his doublet. He checked in surprise when he saw Alys, so still at the fireside. Then he came on.

  'Alys,' he said.

  'Hugo,' she replied. She did not move her head to look at him, she had not started at the sound of a voice in an empty room.

  'Did you know I was there?' he asked. 'I always know when you are near,' Alys said. Her voice was dreamy. Hugo felt himself shiver as he came near her, as if all around her was some circle of deep power.

  'I have not seen you for days,' he said. 'I have not seen you, to speak with, since the night of your ordeal.'

  Alys thought of the purse on her girdle with the little figures still safe inside, stuffed under her pallet in her room. She thought of the blinded model of Hugo knocking and rubbing against the fat belly and cavernous slit of the doll of Catherine. 'No,' she said.

  'You lied, didn't you?' Hugo asked gently. 'When you told them that you were hot for me, and that you had made up a false prophecy to snare me?'

  Alys shrugged as if it hardly mattered. 'That was a lie, but I don't know the truth,' she said slowly. 'I truly cannot remember that night. I remember you carrying me from the hall but that is all. After that it was just sleep.'

  Hugo nodded. 'So you did not desire me?' he asked. 'You were lying when you said it. You did not desire me then and you do not desire me now?'

  Alys turned her head and looked at him. One side of her face was rosy with firelight, the other side in flickering shadow. Hugo felt the breath catch in his throat.

  'Oh yes,' she said softly. 'I desire you. I have wanted you, I think, since the moment I first saw you. I came into the great hall and your face was graven deep with hard lines – and then I saw you smile. I fell in love with you then, in that instant, for the joy in your smile. I hate her being with you, I hate the thought of you touching her. I cannot sleep when I know you are with her. And I dream of you, constantly. Oh yes, I desire you.'

  'Alys,' Hugo breathed. He put out his hand to touch her cheek, cupped his palm around her face as if she were a rare and lovely flower. 'My Alys,' he said.

  Alys hissed an indrawn breath. 'Can you feel me?' she asked. She took his hand from her cheek and examined it carefully.

  'Are you telling my fortune?' Hugo asked, amused. Alys turned the hand over and looked at the clean short fingernails. She turned the hand back and looked at the perfect idiosyncratic whorls on the fingertips.

  'Can you feel me?' she asked again. 'Can you feel my touch?'

  'Of course,' Hugo said, puzzled. 'With every fingertip? With every one?' she asked. He laughed a little. 'Of course,' he said. The words spilled out from him as if he had held them back for too long. 'My little love, my Alys, of course I can feel your touch. I have waited and waited for you to reach out your hand to mine. Of course I can feel you!'

  'When I whisper, like this,' Alys said, hardly breathing the words, 'can you hear me?'

  'Yes,' Hugo said, surprised. 'Of course I can. My hearing is good, Alys, you know that.'

  Alys put her hand out to his face and stroked with infinite tenderness his eyelids and the delicate lined skin around his dark eyes.

  'Can you see me?' she asked. 'Can you see as well as you ever did?'

  'Yes,' Hugo said. 'What is this, Alys? Are you afraid I am ill?'

  Alys clasped her hands in her lap and looked back towards the fire.

  'No,' she said. 'It is nothing. I thought for a time that I wanted you blind and deaf to me. I know now, this night, that is not true. It never was true. Maybe my desire for you is stronger than anything else. Maybe my desire for you is stronger than my wish for safety. Perhaps even stronger than…' She broke off. 'Anything else,' she said weakly.

  Hugo frowned. "What "else"?' he asked. 'What d'you mean "anything else"? Is it some herbalism or some old women's trickery?'

  Alys nodded. 'I wanted you to look away from me,' she said. 'I feared Lady Catherine's jealousy. After that time – when she made me take the ordeal – I knew she would catch me at something, force me to some test. And sooner or later I would fail.'

  Hugo nodded. 'And so you cast some silly girl's spell to keep me away from you, did you?' he asked, half amused. 'You must despair of your powers, Alys. For here I am, seeing you, touching you, hearing you and desiring you.'

  Alys glowed in the darkness like a pearl suddenly opened to the light.

  Hugo chuckled. 'Of course,' he said easily. 'What other end could there be between you and me? I love you. I looked down the hall and saw you in that red gown which was too big for you, and your poor shorn head and your clear little face and your nig