Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  She heard them before she saw them. The rattle of hooves on the cobbles and then the hollow sound of them crossing the drawbridge. She stepped out of the archway as the man pulled his horse to a standstill and tossed the bundled Morach down as if he were glad to be rid of her.

  “There, old lady!” he said. “Have done spitting at me! Here’s Alys come to greet you and show you your quarters. Blame her for fetching you away from your smoky fireside. Don’t blame me!”

  “Hello, Morach,” Alys said.

  Morach shook herself down and pulled her shawls around her bent shoulders.

  “Alys,” she said. She looked at the girl critically, noting the strain on her white face.

  “Hard times,” she said. It was not a question.

  “I am sorry if they brought you against your will.” Alys said. “It was Lady Catherine’s idea and order. Not mine.”

  Morach nodded. “With child, is she?” she asked.

  Alys nodded.

  “It was the dolls did it?” Morach confirmed.

  Alys drew Morach into the shelter of the wall and put her mouth close to her ear.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “How can you tell? Hugo said he went to her for choice, but he never went to her like that before I did the spell. And there was something so…” She broke off. “Something very unnatural about the way they are together.”

  “Unnatural?” Morach asked with a sharp laugh. “Since when could you limit Nature, child. What d’you mean? That he mounts her like a dog? That he beats her? That he blows his hunting horn when he comes?”

  Alys gave an involuntary giggle. “Not that!” she said. “But the rest. And he couples with her when they are tied together with a strip of linen. I tied the dolls together with a ribbon. D’you think this is my doing?”

  Morach shrugged, stoical. “Could be,” she said. “Could be just his nature. Take me in, child, I am cold.”

  Alys nodded at the guard and held Morach’s arm and little bundle as she took her across the outer manse, over the inner drawbridge which spanned the ghostly, mist-filled moat, and across the dripping garden of the inner manse, then into the main body of the castle. She led Morach through the great hall without stopping, though Morach dawdled and looked all around her.

  “Tell me of the household,” she said as Alys tugged her onward. “This is Lord Hugh’s hall?”

  Alys nodded.

  “I’ve been here before when I was a witness in a case of theft against Farmer Ruley,” Morach said. “The old lord sat behind the table on his great carved chair.”

  “He holds the quarterly court here,” Alys said tersely. “And he has dinner and supper here.” She drew Morach up the steps to the dais and opened the tapestry at the rear of the little stage. “This is where we come in,” she said. “This lobby outside is where we wait for the lords and my lady if we are too early. Sometimes they gather here and talk.” She nodded to one doorway. “This way leads to Lord Hugh’s round tower where his room is, his soldiers, and where the young lord sleeps.” She drew Morach up the flight of stairs to their left. “These are the stairs up to the gallery, the ladies’ gallery which is set above the hall. These are the women’s quarters—we stay here. You’re not welcome in the round tower except by the lords’ command.”

  Morach nodded, following Alys up the flight of stairs, examining the tapestries which hung on either side.

  “I am to have a new room to share with you,” Alys said. “But we are still housed in the women’s quarters. Lady Catherine sleeps off the gallery, the other women share a room opposite, and we are to have a new little room next door. They used to store lumber in it; I told them we needed space to distill herbs and make our goods. I’d rather we could have been in the round tower with the old lord. But Catherine watches me close.”

  “Because of the young lord?” Morach asked, her breath coming short as they climbed the stairs.

  Alys nodded. “She was jealous,” she said in a sudden rush. “And she put me through an ordeal. She was trying to get rid of me, Morach. Hugo had told her that he loved me. And last night we were alone together and he promised…he promised…” Alys broke off, her face hard with grief. “None of it matters now,” she said unsteadily. “It does not matter what he said to me, nor what plans we made. I dreamed of being his lady here. But it meant nothing. She is with child now. Her position is untouchable.”

  Morach nodded. Alys led her into the ladies’ gallery and opened the door in the right-hand corner of the room. “Lady Catherine’s chamber is opposite,” she said, gesturing. “It overlooks the inner courtyard, it’s warmer. The other women sleep next door to us, looking out over the river. Our room matches theirs. We look out over the river, too.”

  Morach stepped inside and looked around. “A bed,” she said with satisfaction. “I’ve never slept in a bed.”

  “Half a bed,” Alys said warningly. “We’re to share.”

  “And a good fire and a chest for our things,” Morach said, making a rapid inventory of the room. “A little mirror and a cupboard. Alys, this is greater comfort than the cottage for the winter.”

  “And greater danger,” Alys said warningly. “The ordeal was no jest.”

  Morach cocked a bright, unsympathetic eye at her. “You lied your way clear,” she stated.

  Alys nodded. “I paid a price,” she said, her voice very low. In her mind she could still see the undamaged consecrated wafer which she had chewed, swallowed, and then vomited up into the hearth without marking it. “I am outside the grace of God,” she said. “That was when I commanded the dolls.”

  “The only thing to do,” Morach said briskly. “If one seigneur will not protect you—you have to seek another. How else could you survive? If you are outside the grace of your God then you have to use magic. You might as well go out into a storm in your shift. You need some power around you.”

  Alys nodded. “Hugo promised to protect me,” she said. “Only last night he swore that he loved me—he has said he would give up Catherine, even the castle itself to be with me. It is as you saw in the runes, Morach, and as I dreamed. He said he would set Catherine aside for me. And I said I would give up the magic, he and I are safer without it.”

  Morach flapped a dirty, dismissive hand. “All these promises,” she said with mocking respect. “But now he knows that his wife is with child.”

  Alys nodded. “Yes,” she said dully.

  “Spoken to him since?” Morach asked brightly.

  “No,” Alys said. “Anyway, we weren’t alone.”

  “Gave you a sign, did he? Tipped you the wink? Caught you on the stairs and said ‘never fear, sweetheart!’”

  “He’s out hunting,” Alys said defensively.

  “Sent you a message to say that even though the rich Lady Catherine is carrying his son and heir, you are still his love and the promises stand? That he will send her away and put you in her place?”

  Alys shook her head dumbly.

  Morach gave a cracked laugh. “Better pray for a stillbirth then,” she said agreeably. “Or an idiot, or a weakling, or a sickly girl from a ruptured womb that can never bear child again. What’ll it be, Alys? Something a little stronger than prayer? A little spell to make Catherine miscarry? Herbs in her dinner? Poison on her sheets to make her skin swell and blister, to pox the babe as it comes out?”

  “Hush,” Alys said, glancing toward the thick door. “Don’t even speak of it, Morach. And don’t think of it either. I’ve come too close to my power already. I’ve stood inside the pentangle. I’ve felt my power from the soles of my feet to my fingertips.”

  Morach breathed a deep sigh of pleasure. “You came to it,” she said. “At last.”

  “I don’t want it,” Alys said in a passionate whisper. “I felt the power of it and the delight of it and I loved it. I know what you mean now, Morach, it was like the strongest wine. But that will not be my way. I will trust Hugo. I will trust to what he promised. And I will keep my promise to him to rid myself of m