The Wise Woman Read online

  Eliza gasped. 'But hers is legitimate!' she protested. Alys shrugged. 'What of that? You can never have too many sons and Hugo has no other. I think they will treat them both as heirs until they know that the succession is safe, don't you?'

  Eliza held the door against her and peered around it. 'Is this dukering?' she asked. 'Divining and dukering?'

  Alys laughed confidently. 'This is mortal woman's knowledge,' she said. 'Hugo has been lying with me ever since he came back from Newcastle. Now I am with his child I want a room to myself and perhaps a little maid to wait on me. Why should Catherine object? It will make no difference to her.'

  'She made it bad enough for you before,' Eliza warned.

  Alys nodded. 'Yes,' she said. 'But now she is ill and weary all the time, and I am the only one who can quiet her fears. She would cling to me whatever I did. And I will care for her kindly enough.'

  Eliza nodded with begrudging admiration. 'You've come a long way, Alys,' she said.

  'They call me Mistress Alys now,' Alys said. 'Would you ring for a tub and a pitcher of hot water? I shall take a bath.'

  'Ring yourself!' Eliza exclaimed, instantly indignant.

  Alys whirled up from the chair and took Eliza by the shoulders, shook her and held her, putting her angry face very near. 'I will warn you once, Eliza,' she said through her teeth. 'Everything is different here now. I am Alys no more. I am carrying Lord Hugh's grandchild by his son who is barren with every other woman but me and his wife. I am second only to his wife. I can count you as my friend, or I can count you as my enemy. But you will not live here long if we are enemies.'

  The fight went out of Eliza in a rush. 'You're very lucky,' she said with half-hearted resentment. 'You came as nothing and now you're to be called Mistress Alys.'

  Alys shook her head. 'I came as a learned woman, a healer and my lord's clerk,' she said proudly. 'I am the daughter of a noble lady. I am fit for this. I am as fit to be the Lady here, as Jane Seymour is for the Crown. Now ring for hot water, I shall take a bath.'

  Eliza nodded, slowly. 'Yes, Mistress Alys,' she said.

  Two men servants carried the big barrel up the winding stairs and into Alys' room and set it down close to the fire. A kitchen maid came with a sheet of linen and spread it over the sides and bottom of the bath. Two men behind her brought great buckets of scalding water. They poured it in and went back for two more. Alys sent them for a fifth to leave by the side of the barrel with a ladle to add more hot water as she wished. She shut the door behind them and opened the chest where she kept the herbs. She had dried honeysuckle and rose petals in a purse of linen and she took a handful and scattered them on the water. She had a tiny bottle of oil of chamomile and she rinsed her hair with it. She sat in the hot water with her head resting against the back of the barrel and rubbed her hands all over her body, crushing the flower petals against her skin. Her hands went over and around her breasts until the nipples stood hard and tingled to her touch. She shook out her wet hair and let it tumble over the side of the barrel and drip carelessly on the floor.

  As the water cooled she roused herself from the bath, wrapped herself in a warm sheet and sat in solitary silence before her fire. She sniffed at the skin of her forearm, like a sensuous little animal. She smelled of meadow flowers from the petals, and her fair hair smelled of honey. Her body was lithe and slim and lovely. Her face was grim.

  'Tonight,' Alys said softly to herself. Tonight, Hugo.'

  Twenty

  Alys, washed, scented, oiled, and dressed in a simple blue one-piece gown with a blue ribbon at her waist, had to wait with what patience she could simulate all through a long and tedious day. Lady Catherine was still too grieved to come down to dinner. She whimpered for company; and Hugo, looking in at the ladies' gallery on his way to the hall, was prepared to dine with her in her room. That left the old lord eating on his own, solitary, at the centre of the long high table, glowering under his dark eyebrows. When the meats were taken away Alys left the women's table and went to him and leaned over him to ask a question. The women heard his sharp laugh and a low-voiced reply to Alys. Then he nodded her, casually, to a stool further down the table, and talked with her until the meal was ended. David's gaze, as he watched them served with the voider course of wafers, fruit and hippocras wine, was bright.

  'Is Alys to sit with Lady Catherine's women no more?' he asked the old lord. 'Is she your guest now, my lord?'

  The old lord gleamed under his eyebrows. 'I was bored,' he said uncompromisingly. 'And there was no one to talk to. If my daughter-in-law has forgotten her duty to dine at my table and my son takes to her chamber with her like a maid-in-waiting – what am I to do? Sit dumbstruck?'

  David nodded. 'I asked only so that I would know where to order her cup placed for her,' he said apologetically. 'If you wish the woman to dine with you I shall set her pewter here.'

  The lord banged the table with his fist. 'When Catherine is absent Alys can have her plate, can't she?' he demanded irritably. 'When in all my life have I not had a woman to watch when I wished? And Alys is the best-looking woman in the castle. She shall sit with me when Catherine is not here, and she can drink from glass and eat off silver. Is that clear?'

  David bowed in silence. When he straightened up he saw Alys watching him, her blue eyes bright with amusement. 'Thank you very much, David,' she said coolly. 'You are kind to consider my comfort. I would never have had that invitation but for you.'

  The old lord laughed briefly and snapped his fingers for more wine. Alys took the flagon from the wine-server and poured it for him, leaning forward so that he saw the promising swell of her breasts at the neck of her gown.

  'Pretty whore,' the old lord said with a smile, and threw back his head to drain the glass.

  Alys, unashamed, smiled back.

  When dinner was over she went with the Lord Hugh to his chamber and wrote letters to his dictation until the light had gone. He had to re-form his alliances now that Jane Seymour's family were in favour, and there were rumours that the hastily wedded bride was with child. She was said to be trying to reconcile the King and his daughter Mary. 'A popish Princess at court again,' Lord Hugh said thoughtfully. 'And everything sliding around like a whore's blanket.'

  Alys rang for candles and a glass of mulled wine for the old man.

  'I'm weary,' he said frankly. 'It's a long time coming, this baby of Catherine's. When is yours due?'

  'End of November,' Alys said. 'As we start preparing for the Christmas feast'

  The lord nodded, his eyelids drooping. 'That will be merry,' he said. 'For us at any rate. And what d'you think of Catherine? Will she have another soon after this?'

  Alys shrugged. 'She's from sickly stock,' she said disparagingly. 'But there's no reason why she should not have more. She may take time to conceive though, she's not very fertile, is she? This one took her nine years!'

  The old lord moved restively. 'I should have matched him elsewhere,' he said irritably. 'But it was so easy, with the wardship in my hands and all. But if I had known she would have been so slow to take, I would never have put her with Hugo.'

  Alys went behind his chair and stroked his forehead. He lay back against the hard chair back, quietened by her touch.

  'Don't fret,' she said. 'By this time next year you will have two grandsons – hers and mine. By this time next year I shall be pregnant by Hugo again.'

  'Setting up a stud?' he asked, chuckling with his eyes closed.

  'I want to stay here,' Alys said frankly. 'And I want Hugo. And I want your protection. What better way?'

  The old lord shook his head. 'There is no better way,' he said. 'While you are carrying my grandson I am yours to command. You know what this child means to me.' Alys nodded. 'I know,' she said. The old lord sighed and sat quietly for a little while. With slow easy strokes Alys dragged her fingers across his forehead, feeling the soft ridges of the lined old skin under her fingertips. 'I shall give you land, Alys,' Lord Hugh said, luxuriating in her sure tou