Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  “I have no way out,” she said softly to herself.

  In the early hours of the morning, when the bakehouse was as dark as pitch, and reason and the learned code of morality at its lowest ebb, Alys leaned forward and pulled out the log which hid the candle-wax figures.

  With the cloak as a shield around her shoulders she ranged the three figures on the lap of her blue gown and started to chant the spell Morach had taught her. The words meant nothing to her but as she whispered them into the silence of the darkened bakehouse they seemed to shroud her in power, a new power, one she could claim as her own. The rhythm of the words was like a song. Alys said them over and over, three times, in a low monotone. As she said them she stroked the wax dolls with her fingers until the wax grew as warm as skin, and took the glow from the fire. Three more times Alys whispered the spell to them, and caressed them, and made them her own, then she thrust her hand into the purse at her girdle and brought out a twist of paper. Wrapped in it were three hairs. The long brown one Alys stuck on the head of the doll to represent Lady Catherine, the short black hair was from Hugo, and Alys had one long silver hair from the old lord’s comb.

  The dolls gleamed in the firelight, each one with a strand of hair, each one moving slightly as Alys stroked them and whispered to them, naming each one of them and claiming them for her own. The embers sighed and settled in the fireplace like the whisper of a ghost. In the dim firelight and the shadows Alys leaned forward to see more clearly. The little wax torsos moved very, very slightly under her gentle fingertips.

  The dolls were breathing.

  They were alive.

  Alys let out a little sigh of awe and fear. She leaned over them and looked at them more closely. Then she put the one to represent the old lord carefully down on the hearthstone. “I want nothing from you,” she said softly to it. “I want you to be well and strong. And I want you to care for me and protect me for as long as I wish to stay here. And then I want you to let me go.”

  The little doll’s face was impassive in the firelight. Alys watched it for some moments. Then she took up the doll which was the young lord. For a moment she looked at it, at the clear features and the strong arrogant face. Then gently, very gently, she drew her fingernail across its right eyeball.

  “Don’t see me,” she whispered. “Don’t watch for me. Don’t look at me with love. Don’t notice me when I come into a room, don’t turn to catch sight of me. Be blind to me. Be blind to me!”

  She stroked her finger gently over the other eye. “Don’t look at me, don’t notice me, don’t watch for me! Be blind to me! Be blind to me!” she said again.

  She blinked to clear her own gaze and was surprised to find tears on her cheeks. She rubbed them aside with the back of her hand. The little figure of Hugo was sightless, a smooth smear where each eye had been. Alys nodded. She felt shrouded in her own power. The tender, longing part of her was stilled, hidden. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness, her face shone with a sense of her own magic. She looked witchy. She licked her lips like a cat.

  She held the little figure of Hugo closer, then she started to work on his fingertips. With delicate little movements she started to scrape the tips of his fingers away.

  “Don’t long to touch me,” she said. “Don’t touch me. Don’t long for the feel of my skin. Don’t stroke your hand against my face. Don’t caress my hair. Don’t reach for me, don’t hold me. I am stealing away your desire to feel me. I am stealing your power to feel me. Don’t touch me, don’t reach out for me, don’t caress me.”

  The fingertips of both hands were flattened; the fingernails, so delicately carved by Morach, had melted away.

  “Don’t touch my body, or my face, or my hair,” Alys said. “Don’t put your hand between my thighs, or on my breasts, or hold the nape of my neck. Don’t desire the feel of me. Don’t touch me.”

  She laughed, a low delighted laugh, at the tingling sense of her own power which flowed so powerfully from her belly to her fingertips, down to the soles of her feet. Then she heard the echo of her laugh in the deserted bakehouse and looked around her fearfully. She hitched her cloak a little closer, turned the doll of Hugo to one side and started stroking at his ear.

  “Don’t listen for me,” she said, her voice a low whisper. “Don’t hear my voice. Don’t have pet names for me. Don’t recognize my voice among all others. Don’t listen for my singing. Don’t waken when you cannot hear my breathing in the bed beside you. Don’t harken for me when I am away. Don’t listen for my step when I am close.”

  Delicately she stroked at one ear until it was smoothed quite away, and then she turned the doll around and stroked and rubbed the second ear until it too was gone.

  Then she put the doll on its back on her lap again and pressed her index finger to its lips. “Don’t speak to me,” she said. “Don’t whisper to me, don’t sing for me, don’t joke with me, don’t pray for me.” With jerky little motions she scratched at Hugo’s mouth. “Don’t call me,” she said. “Don’t call me. Don’t dream of me and speak my name, don’t wake and say my name. Don’t let my name come to your lips.”

  His mouth was a smooth smear, but still Alys rubbed and rubbed at it.

  “Don’t kiss me,” she said. “Don’t put your mouth on mine. Don’t put your tongue to my lips. Don’t lick me, or kiss me, or bite me. Don’t take my body into your mouth. Don’t suckle at my nipples until my breasts ache for you. Don’t bite my neck or my shoulders or my belly. Don’t take me in your mouth and tease me with your tongue and suck me till I cry out in pleasure and beg you to do more.”

  Hugo’s mouth was a shapeless hollow. Alys had rubbed his lips until there was nothing there. The wax had melted and the mouth was eroded. An ugly little monster was all that was left of what had been a miniature copy of Hugo. An ugly little monster, blinded like some cave-dwelling fish, fingerless like an aborted baby, earless, toothless, gumless, lipless, with just a gaping hollow where his mouth had been.

  Alys laughed again and her laughter was harsh with a wild panic.

  “And now you, my Lady Catherine,” she said softly.

  Very gently, with infinite care, she took up the doll which was Catherine and set it on her lap beside the doll of Hugo. She turned them to face one another and jiggled the grotesque penis against the female doll. She rubbed it against the doll’s mouth, rubbed it against her neck, her belly. Then she rocked them together in an obscene dance. She pressed the dolls together, and then took them apart again. She slipped the gross wax penis into the female doll, and took it out again. Then she laid the female doll onto her back and pressed the male doll down on top of her so the penis slipped into the monstrous maw, and they stayed together.

  Alys took a scrap of ribbon from the purse at her girdle and fastened the two dolls together. In the firelight, the little female doll seemed to gleam with contentment, the flickering light made her cheeks pink and warm. On top of her, tied fast, was the eyeless, earless, fingerless, mouthless monster which was Hugo. Alys let them rest together on the floor at her feet and stared at the fire.

  After long, long minutes she shook herself from her reverie and bent down and took the two of them up.

  “So,” she said. “Hugo is hot for Catherine. He cannot let her alone. He is like a man obsessed. He is a man half mad with desire. He itches constantly for the feel of his cock inside her.

  “And she…” Alys said slowly. “She is contented. She is his beast. She is his brood mare, his whore, his dog for the whipping. He can do what he likes with her, she feels he can do no wrong. She forgets everything else—everything else,” Alys said with emphasis. “She forgets fear and rivals and enmities because she is exhausted and drained and then filled with joy again as her husband runs back to her like a thirsty dog runs to his trough of water.”

  The bitterness of Alys’s vomit was still on her tongue. She hawked and spat into the flames.

  “He looks at no other woman,” she said. She jiggled the two dolls together. “He desires no one els