The Wise Woman Read online

  'Will the bridge be clear?' Alys asked, peering ahead.

  'We have a few hours yet,' Morach said. 'But if there is a storm on the hills we won't have long to do our business and get home dry-shod.'

  'Not much business to do,' Alys said. The bundle of dolls stirred as if to contradict her.

  'Here then,' Morach said and went to turn off the mud lane. The ponies hesitated at the muddy track down the hillside. Morach peered at the churned mud beneath their hooves. 'This track was used recently,' she said. Her eyes went to Alys' face. 'Several horsemen,' she said. 'And dogs.'

  'Hugo,' Alys said. 'He must have come hunting this way yesterday. It doesn't matter, Morach. We are well ahead of him this day. He usually sits with her until after dinner.'

  Morach scowled. 'I wish he'd stay home all day,' she said. She kicked her pony irritably and the animal jolted forward, slipping and sliding down the track. Alys followed.

  'We'll be finished and headed for home before he sets out,' she said. 'And there's nowhere else for us to go. Tinker's Cross is the only sacred ground nearby. We can hardly dig up the chapel graveyard.'

  Morach's pony flinched at another kick. 'I don't like it,' she said irritably. 'If he sees us with a muddy spade, even after we've finished, he'll ask why.'

  'We'll hide the spade,' Alys said reassuringly. 'It'd be as hard to get it back as it was to steal anyway. We'll hide the spade and the sacking and the pannier bag and ride home with a bunch of heather and herbs. No one will challenge us, they all know we need grasses from the moor to keep Catherine well. No one doubts us,. Morach.' 'Hide it where?' Morach asked stubbornly. Alys shrugged. 'I don't know! Why are you so sour? Aren't there caves enough along the river-bank where you could hide half an army? We'll shove it down one of the caves and wedge it tight so the river cannot wash it out again. The waters are rising, it'll be high summer and drought before anyone can go down the caves again. The waters will hide it for us.'

  Morach shivered and spat over her left shoulder. 'You can hide it,' she said. 'I'll not go near a cave, nor deep water. Look around you for a likely place as we cross the river.'

  Alys nodded. 'I'll go first,' she said. 'The ponies may be afraid of the bridge.'

  It was the natural stone bridge upstream of Morach's old cottage, formed out of great slabs of limestone, with the river bubbling, like brown soup, below. When the river was in spate great gouts of water would fountain up from the cracks in the river bed as the underground torrents burst out, and every cave and pothole along the bank would be a boiling spring of melt-water and storm-water, forced up from the underground lake to wash into the surface river. On either side of the river-bank, as much as six feet away from the water, was the high-water line of sticks and straw and rubbish from the last flood. The ponies put their heads down and sniffed suspiciously at the stone slabs beneath their hooves, then delicately stepped across, as light as goats, ears forward, listening to the rush of the water beneath them.

  'There's a good place,' Alys said. The mouth of the cave was a little way along the river-bank. She slipped from the saddle and threw the bridle at Morach. Both ponies dropped their heads to the short moorland grass and cropped. Alys scrambled up the little slope and peered inside the cave.

  'It goes back miles,' she said, her voice echoing. 'I can't see the end of it. It could go for miles into the hillside.' She came out again and took the reins from Morach. Morach's face was strained. 'Did you hear the water rising?' she asked. 'I'm afraid of it coming up early. We don't want to be cut off this side of the river if the water is rising.'

  'I heard it, but it was far away down at the bottom of the cave,' Alys said. 'We'll have enough time. Come on.'

  The two ponies straggled up the hill on the far side, stepping out on the dry ground, floundering in the bogs. Ahead of them, on the track, they could see the mark of horses' hooves.

  There was a cairn on the top of the hill and the wide, dry moorland stretching all around them. Morach pushed her shawl off her face and looked around her. 'That's better,' she said. 'Tinker's Cross is this way.' She led the way, kicking her pony into a trot. Alys' pony trotted behind, the pannier bumping at every step. The mist had cleared now they were on the top of the moor, though it clung to the valley sides. Ahead of them, Alys could see the thin finger of the old Celtic cross pointing upwards. Around it was a little circle of stones, the edge of the sanctified ground. When Alys came up to the cross Morach had already dismounted and was tying her pony to a holly bush.

  'Give me the dolls,' she said to Alys. 'And dig them their grave.'

  Alys untied the pannier bag from the saddle and handed it, unopened, to Morach. Morach hunkered down on the wet turf and held the bag in her arms. Quietly she crooned a little tune at the dolls, while Alys untied the shovel from the other side of the saddle.

  'If you remember any of your prayers you should say them,' she remarked, without raising her eyes. 'The holier the act of burying them the better.'

  Alys shrugged. 'I remember them,' she said. 'But coming from me they might as well be said backwards. I am far from the grace of God, Morach. You'd be closer to heaven than me.'

  Morach shrugged almost regretfully. 'Not I,' she said. 'I've not set foot in a church in twenty years, and I never understood what they were saying even then. I made my choice. I don't regret it. But I'll never work with deep shadows again as you have done here. It's too powerful for me.'

  Alys thrust the spade hard into the holy ground and twisted it out tearing at the tough roots of the grasses. 'I went as deep as I was driven,' Alys said. 'You counselled me to it. You said if I lost one god I should seek another.'

  'Hush,' Morach said, looking around. The bag on her lap stirred and she held them tighter. 'Keep your voice down,' she said. 'There is older magic here than the cross. That holly tree was planted to mark this place before the cross was raised. The old magic runs very strong here. Don't wake it now.'

  'It was your bidding,' Alys insisted in a whisper, thrusting the spade in deeper. 'It was my choice to use it, but it was your spell.'

  Morach looked up at her, her dark eyes gleaming. 'We had an agreement,' she said.

  Alys was silent, digging hard. She was through to the stone soil now, the grave for the dolls was a spade's width across.

  'You ordered them, you took responsibility for them,' Morach insisted. 'They are your dolls. I made you swear that you would not blame me for them, whatever they did.'

  Alys said nothing, turning out shovelfuls of damp soil into a little heap.

  'By rights I need not be here,' Morach said resentfully. 'Your dolls, your magic, and your bitter power that has made them so lively.'

  Alys rested on the handle of the shovel and pushed back a lock of hair with one grimy hand. 'Have done,' she said. 'Is this deep enough?'

  Morach leaned forward. 'A little more,' she said. 'We want them to sleep well, the bonny little things.'

  Alys thrust the spade deep again and then jerked her head up. 'What's that?' she demanded. 'Did you hear?' 'What?' Morach asked quickly. 'What?' The mist was closing down again, swirling around them. Alys shrank back. 'I thought I heard something,' she said.

  'Heard what?' Morach said. 'What d'you hear, Alys?' 'Horses,' Alys said, so softly that Morach could scarcely hear the words. 'What'll we do, Morach? What'll we do if someone comes?'

  'I hear them!' Morach said urgently. 'I heard a horn!' There was a sudden blast of a hunting horn, very near them, and then out of the mist two great deer-hounds leaped, dashed past Morach, nearly knocking her over, and bayed, savagely, terrifyingly, at Alys.

  Alys flung herself back till the cold stone of the cross at her back stopped her. She pressed back against it and the dogs, their hackles high and prickly on their great backs, opened their mouths and roared at her like lions. 'Hugo!' Alys screamed over the noise. 'Hugo! Save me! Call your dogs off me! Save me!'

  The horn blasted loud again and then a great roan stallion leaped out of the mist towards them and reared to a standst