Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  Alys was happier in the long, cold days while Hugo was away. She slept at nights, a deep sleep so sweet that she could hardly bear to wake in the morning. She dreamed that Hugo was home, that she was wearing Catherine’s rose and cream gown, that she was leaning on Hugo’s arm as they walked in the garden, that it was summer, high summer, and the sky was smiling down on them both. She dreamed that she was sleeping in Catherine’s big bed with Hugo’s arm possessively around her. She dreamed that she was sailing on Hugo’s tall-masted trader, sailing to the very edge of the world, and Hugo was at the wheel, laughing with her, with his eyes screwed up against the glare of the sunlight on the long rolling waves. She dreamed that she was taking Catherine’s seat at the high table in the great hall. Hugo drew back her chair for her because she was big with child. All the faces turned toward her were smiling. They were cheering her because she was carrying the heir. As she woke she heard them shout “Lady Alys!”

  Catherine was happy and busy while Hugo was away. Pregnancy suited his wife. Her temper was sweet as fruit and she laughed and sang in the mornings. Her color had risen in her cheeks and she looked rosy when she read Hugo’s letters and came to the end and said, “There is a little piece here I will not tell you. It is for my eyes only.” Then she would slip the letter in the purse at her girdle and pat it, as if to keep it safe.

  Alys would turn her head from that. Catherine would leave the letter spread out on her pillow, ostentatiously reading it when Alys was combing her hair, inviting Alys to pry. Alys resorted to icy indifference, she would not stoop to spy on Catherine’s letter and besides, she knew Hugo could promise anything. Words of love were light currency to him.

  It means nothing, Alys said to herself softly. He is planning our life together, his life with me. He said he needed time to make his plans. And while he is planning he is keeping her sweet with a few little words. I will not begrudge her a few little words. They are like nonsense spells. They mean nothing. They mean nothing.

  “By God, you look sour,” Morach said cheerfully as they went to bed one evening. “Pining for the young lord?”

  Alys shrugged a thin shoulder, jumping into the bed, and pulled the covers up to her ears.

  “Painful, ain’t it?” Morach said. “This nonsense of love? You’d have done better to keep him at arm’s length forever then to love him and lose him without even having him. You’d have done better to forget your promise to him to surrender magic, just as he has forgotten his promise to you.”

  “He hasn’t forgotten,” Alys said fiercely. “You know nothing about it, Morach. I haven’t lost him. He asked me to wait for him and I am waiting. When he comes home it will all be different. I am waiting. I am happy to wait for him.”

  “You look it,” Morach said ironically. “You’re losing your looks, your face is white and strained. You get thinner every day. Your breasts are less and less, your belly is as flat as a dice-board. If you wait much longer you’ll be worn out with waiting.”

  Alys lay down and turned her face to the wall. “Bank up the fire before you come to bed,” she said coldly. “I’m going to sleep.”

  Morach and Lady Catherine had made a surprising alliance. Every day and every evening they chattered and gossiped in the overheated gallery. Alys sat as far as she could from the fire and Catherine, a bully by nature, was amused to have met her match. One day Morach insisted on going to her cottage though the snow was thick and wet and the sky low and threatening. Lady Catherine forbade it. “You can go tomorrow,” she said.

  Morach nodded, and went to her chamber and came out with a cape around her shoulders and a shawl over her head.

  “I said you could go tomorrow,” Catherine said impatiently.

  “Aye,” Morach said, unmoved. “I could go tomorrow, and I could go the day after, or next week. But it’s my desire to go today.”

  Catherine snapped her fingers. “You’d best learn, Morach, that in this castle you do things by my desire. Not yours.”

  Morach gleamed her slow secret smile. “Not I, my lady,” she said. “I am different from the rest of them.”

  “I can still have you whipped,” Catherine threatened.

  Morach met her angry look without fear. “I wouldn’t advise it, my lady,” she said. Then she turned her back and went from the gallery as if she had permission to leave and Catherine had wished her “God speed.”

  There was a stunned silence and then Catherine burst into loud laughter. “God’s truth, the old woman will be hanged,” she said. The women chimed in with the laughing, exchanging scared glances. Alys alone sat silent. When Morach came back in the evening, after having completed her own mysterious business, Catherine behaved toward her as if they had never disagreed.

  One day, at the end of March, Hugo sent a letter to Catherine saying he would be home within a few days. She flushed pink with pleasure.

  “Hugo is coming home,” she announced. “And within the week! I have missed him.” She smoothed her gown over her rounded breasts. “I wonder if he will see a difference in me. What d’you think, Alys?”

  Alys was watching the logs in the fire. “I expect so, my lady,” she said politely.

  “D’you think he will desire me as he did before?” Catherine asked. “D’you remember those wild nights when our son was conceived? D’you think he will still be mad for me?”

  Alys turned a blank, insolent face toward Catherine. “Maybe,” she said. “But you had best have a care, lady. It would be a sad end to your ambitions if your rough games shook the baby out of your belly.”

  Catherine shot a look at Morach. “That can’t happen, can it?” she asked in sudden fear. “That can’t happen?”

  Morach pursed her lips. “Depends on what you do,” she said. “Depends on how he likes it.”

  Catherine laughed a ripple of excited laughter. She leaned toward Morach and whispered in her ear. Morach chuckled. “That shouldn’t harm the baby,” she said out loud. “Not if it pleases you!”

  Catherine put her hand on her heart and smiled broadly. Then the two of them put their heads together and whispered like village girls outside an alehouse.

  Alys felt unreasonably irritated with Morach. “Will you excuse me, my lady?” she said, rising to her feet. “I have to read to Lord Hugh before dinner.”

  Catherine barely looked up to nod dismissal. Morach was whispering something behind her hand.

  “And then he did what?” Catherine asked incredulously. “I did not know that men could do that. What did his wife say—in heaven’s name?”

  Alys shut the door behind her and leaned back against it and closed her eyes. She could hear the ripple of laughter even through the massive wood. She turned wearily and went down the stairs, through the lobby and up the winding narrow staircase of the round tower to Lord Hugh’s chamber.

  Hugo was there. He was sitting on a stool at his father’s feet as Alys walked into the room and he sprang up to greet her. Alys staggered and her face went white and then blushed red.

  “I did not think to see you for days yet,” she said. “Hugo, oh Hugo!”

  He took her hand and squeezed it tight to warn her to be silent. The old lord looked from Alys’s thin flushed face to his son’s bright smile.

  “I came home early,” Hugo said levelly. “I have a great scheme to lay before my father and I wanted to see you all again. How is my wife? Is her pregnancy going safely?”

  “She is well,” Alys said. She could hardly speak for breathlessness and she did not want to speak of Catherine. She wanted to hold him, to touch his face, the soft skin around his eyes, to kiss his merry smile. She wanted to feel his arms around her like he had held her that one night, that first night, and his kisses on her hair.

  “What is this scheme of yours, Hugo?” the old lord asked. He beckoned to Alys to stand behind his chair and she crossed the room to his side and watched Hugo’s animated face as he talked.

  “It’s Van Esselin,” he said. “He has plans to fit a ship for the longest voy