The Wise Woman Read online

She turned her back on both of them and walked out into the bright sunlight, smiling. All around her people were spreading white cloths on the newly cut grass, the scything gang were raking the hay into long rows to dry in the wind and the sun. Jars of ale were opened and earthenware mugs thrust forward for filling. Alys walked towards Hugo across the field with her flat belly thrust forward to make it look bigger, smiling, gambling on her power. And as she came close, the girl with the flowers stuffed in the bodice of her gown twisted out of Hugo's careless grip and fell back to avoid Alys' glance, and then slipped away. 'Alys,' Hugo said grimly.

  'You have thrown away my flowers,' Alys said. The smile was still on her face.

  Hugo bent to the heap of hay at his feet and picked up a swatch of grass mixed with flowers. 'Here,' he said ungraciously. 'Take these, I am going to open the dancing.' 'With me?' Alys asked.

  Hugo's face was grim. 'Since you have started a storm which I shall have to calm, I shall dance first with you and then with every wench in this field, until they are all content.'

  Alys' smile never wavered. She took Hugo's outstretched arm and together they walked towards the musicians. Other couples fell into place behind them. But they moved quietly, as if they were bound to dance and too obedient to refuse.

  Alys stepped back and faced Hugo, waited for the music to begin, and froze. Behind Hugo's shoulder was a face she knew.

  It was Tom, and a hard-faced woman hanging on his arm beside him.

  Alys' face never flickered. Her eyes went past him without a glimmer of recognition, her clear bright smile impartial, unchanging – Tom brushed his wife Liza off his arm and came towards the dancers. Alys' face was a lighthearted mask, her head on one side, listening to the music, her foot tapping to the beat. Tom, unbidden, walked unstoppably forward. 'Alys!' he said.

  Hugo spun round. Tom was standing immediately behind him, but he did not even look at the lord, did not uncover his head. He ignored him as if he were a post in the hayfield. All he could see was Alys in her new green gown, her green and gilt ribbons plaited into her golden-brown hair, heartbreakingly lovely. 'Alys,' he said again.

  Alys looked at him as if noticing him for the first lime. She put her head on one side as if she were viewing some strange specimen. 'Yes?' she said interrogatively.

  Tom gulped. 'I will take you away,' he said, in a sudden awkward rush of speech. ‘I will take you, Alys. I will take you away. I've heard what they said of you… It's not safe for you here. I will take you now.'

  Alys threw back her head and laughed. A clear brittle sound like breaking glass. She tossed her head and smiled at Hugo.

  'Who is this?' she asked. 'Is he simple? Does he mistake me for someone?'

  Tom blenched as if she had struck him. 'Alys!' he said in a hoarse whisper. Hugo tapped him on the shoulder, his face grim. 'You interrupt the dancing,' he said. 'Go your ways.'

  Tom seemed not to feel the touch, he did not hear his lord. He did not take Hugo's warning. His eyes were fixed on Alys' bright, unconcerned face.

  ‘I want to save you, Alys!' he said desperately. 'They have called you a witch – you are in danger. I'll take you – I'll take you away, cost me what it will!'

  Liza behind him said, 'Tom!' in a hard, sharp command.

  'Who is this?' Hugo asked her. 'Some friend of yours?'

  Alys turned her bright clear gaze on him. ‘I don't know,' she said, detached. ‘I don't know him.'

  ‘I will take you,' Tom said again. 'I won't fail you. I will leave my farm and my wife, even my little children. I will save you, Alys. You need not stay in the castle with those people and their vices. I will take you away. I have some money saved. We will find a little farm somewhere and I will keep you safe. You will be as my wife, Alys! I will be true to you and guard you with my life!' He broke off. 'You will be a virtuous woman again, Alys,' he said softly. 'You were a good girl, I loved you then. You are a good girl still. You will be my little sweetheart once more.'

  She stared at Tom in open amazement and her gaze never wavered. She looked straight through him, as if he were a man of straw, a man of water, as if he were not even there. The smile lilting on her lips never even flickered.

  'You're babbling, good man,' she said coolly. 'I know you not.'

  'Alys!' Tom exclaimed, and then he stopped short. He could not believe that his playmate, his childhood love, should look through him as if he were clear glass. As if he were nothing to her. As if he had never been anything to her. He stared at her for one long moment, and her face never altered, never changed from bright-eyed indifference.

  Then he spun on his heel and tore away from her, tore away from her empty, smiling face, through the crowd, vaulting the gate at the corner of the field and plunging out of sight.

  Alys laughed again, a merry, carefree laugh, and waved at the musicians who had lost the beat and were falling into silence.

  "Why do we wait? Let's dance!' she cried gaily. 'Let's dance!'

  Twenty-three

  Catherine was sleeping when they came home. Alys and Hugo went quietly past her closed door to Alys' bedroom and told Eliza to call them as soon as Catherine awoke. Hugo strode over to the arrow-slit and looked out. Alys took the ribbons from her hair and pulled down her gown to show her warm creamy shoulders. 'My lord?' she said softly.

  Hugo glanced around. 'Not now,' he said coldly. 'Who was that lad in the field?' Alys ignored his rejection. 'No one I know,' she said. 'The maid I danced with, the little blonde one, said he was an old lover of yours. His wife speaks against you. Says you have stolen his peace, says you hexed him into loving you and he can neither sleep, nor eat, nor love her.'

  Alys laughed. 'Not I,' she said. 'But from what you say I guess it must have been Tom of Reedale. We were playmates when we were children, I've not seen him in ten years. He married a shrew. She'd blame anyone for the dryness of her marriage. It can't be laid at my door.' 'It looked bad,' Hugo said.

  Alys shrugged, tossing her hair back off her shoulders. Hugo turned away from her, looking out of the arrow-slit window again. Alys hesitated. She stepped forward and put her arms around his waist, pressed against his back. 'Tonight,' she said softly, 'tonight, Hugo, I will summon my sisters to be with us. My sisters and I will play together tonight. I will summon them and they will spread their smooth bodies over me and lie down on me and give me endless, endless pleasure.' She felt his arousal in the tension of his shoulders, but he did not turn round.

  'And what for you?' Alys asked coquettishly. 'No, nothing for you! Not a touch, not a kiss, Hugo! You will lie as if you are enchained, and you will watch while they bury themselves – fingers, lips, tongues – in me. And you will watch my body writhe under their caresses, and you will hear me cry out with pleasure.'

  Hugo sighed with desire, leaning his head forward so it was touching the cool stone of the lintel.

  'I will let them bind me,' Alys said thoughtfully. 'You will see me on a rack of their pleasure. You will see me strain and pull against their silken knots as they penetrate me and pleasure me and make me cry for release." Hugo turned around in her arms and pressed her close to him, nuzzling her naked shoulders, inhaling the scents of her skin and hair; but his face was still sombre.

  That was an ugly scene in the field,' he said. 'You must be more careful.'

  Alys pulled away from him, irritated. 'There's nothing I can do to prevent gossip,' she said. 'People will become accustomed to the change. When they see the son we have, when they grow used to me being always at your side, when they know that I am always here – the lady of the castle in everything but name.'

  Hugo shook his head, unconvinced. 'I want Catherine to take her supper in the hall tonight,' he said. 'There's been too much gossip. There's been too much ugly talk about witchcraft and Catherine being set aside.'

  Alys shrugged and smiled up at him. 'I don't care what they say,' she said confidently. 'I know that I am carrying your child and that I am well and strong.

  People can say what they like, they