The Wise Woman Read online

  Eliza tuned her lute and started to play very softly. Catherine lay back in the tub, one white foot in Alys' hands, and shut her eyes. Alys, feeling her healing power welling and pouring through her fingers, rubbed at the sole of Catherine's swollen foot. She sensed Catherine's lack of balance, an unevenness about her body, something sickly, something poisonous inside her. She took up the other foot and rubbed it gently with oil.

  When she had finished with Catherine's feet she went to the head of the tub and very gently poured water over Catherine's thick brown hair, concentrating on the skin of the scalp and the temples, washing it with soap and then rubbing it with oil, and then rinsing it all until the hair was clean.

  The discontented look of a lonely child had drained away from Catherine as if Alys' touch was a panacea. Her face was rosy. When Eliza's song had finished, she hummed the chorus and then waved her hand: 'Sing it again!' she said. Eliza shot an irreverent wink at Alys and took up the lute for a second time and sang the song through once more. Catherine sighed with pleasure. 'The water is growing cold,' Alys said. 'You must come out, Catherine, or you will chill.'

  Eliza laid down the lute and opened the door for a serving-girl. Alys held up the warmed sheet and draped it around Catherine from the front, Eliza threw a warmed sheet over her shoulders and back.

  'Clear this,' Alys said abruptly to the serving-girl and Eliza.

  She guided Catherine to the bed and patted at her face and hands and shoulders until they were dry, then she combed her fine brown hair and spread it out around her on the warmed sheet so that it would dry without tangles.

  Catherine lay like a painted statue, pink from the heat, smiling. Alys dropped the bed-curtains from their bags and drew them around the bed. The serving-men came and took the bath away. When they had gone, slopping water and swearing, the room was very quiet. Alys tied back the curtains at the head so Catherine could see the fire crackling and the flames burning brightly, sweet-smelling with Alys' incense.

  The door behind Alys opened and Hugo came into the room.

  He stepped up to the bed and put an arm around Alys' waist to keep her at her place.

  'Are you well, my Lady Catherine?' he asked gently.

  Catherine's eyes fluttered open. She smiled her delight at seeing him.

  'Hugo,' she said. 'You have been away from me for so long!'

  He nodded. 'I have neglected you,' he said. 'I left you to care for yourself and the child and Alys here tells me that you are not taking the exercise you need.'

  Catherine looked at Alys and smiled. 'She takes very good care of me,' she said.

  'And she has a wonderful touch, has she not, Catherine?' Hugo asked.

  Alys looked quickly at him. He was smiling, there was some heat at the back of his smile. Alys could smell his lust like woodsmoke on an east wind. She tensed and tried to move aside. Hugo's grip tightened on her waist and his smile never faltered.

  'Oh yes,' Catherine agreed. 'She has been rubbing my back and my feet and my head. Alys has healing in her fingers, her touch is like silver.'

  Alys could feel Hugo's heat through his doublet. She felt danger massing around her, clotting in corners of the room, thickening and rolling closer like woodsmoke from green wood.

  'I will leave you,' she said. 'I will leave you two alone and order your supper to be served here tonight.'

  'No,' Hugo said, not taking his eyes from Catherine's rosy, relaxed face. 'I have a fancy to see you massage my wife with your oils, Alys.' Catherine's eyes widened, but she said nothing. 'It is not fit…' Alys started.

  'Do it,' Hugo said softly. 'You have done everything else I have ever desired. Now I desire this.'

  He lifted the sheet which covered Catherine and dropped it to one side. Catherine, revelling in his attention after weeks of neglect, lay still and let him look at her, let his eyes wander over her bloated pale body, distended with her pregnancy. 'I please you?' she asked humbly.

  Hugo placed his hand on the mound of her belly. 'You do,' he said. 'And this pleases me most of all.'

  He glanced at Alys who was motionless, watching the two of them together.

  'Do it, Alys,' he said. It was an order. Alys went slowly to the table and poured lavender and almond oils into the palm of her hand and rubbed them to make them warm. She was thinking feverishly how to escape from the two of them, how to get herself out of Catherine's chamber and into the safety of the ladies' gallery where the others were sitting around the fire and chattering about the haymaking. She glanced at Hugo as she walked around to the other side of the bed. His dark eyes were very bright. He looked capable of anything. Alys smelled danger as sharp as a curl of smoke from a spark in a haystack.

  She started gently and softly to stroke oil into Catherine's white puffy shoulders and arms. Catherine lifted her head to expose her thick neck, closed her eyes and lay still.

  With a little laugh Hugo walked to the door. Alys heard the click of the lock as he turned the key and then the rustle of his doublet as he threw it off. When he came back to the bed on the other side, he had rolled up his shirtsleeves and poured a handful of oil into his own hands.

  'I will copy you, Alys, and learn your skills,' he said. His voice was like silk; Alys heard the tone of his rising lust and did not look across at him.

  Catherine's nipples were hardening as they stroked her shoulders and her neck.

  'A little lower?' Hugo suggested, a ripple of laughter in his voice. Alys stroked, with gentle small touches, down to the swell of Catherine's breast. Hugo copied her movements exactly. Catherine arched her back slightly on the bed, her stomach raised, her breasts moving towards their hands.

  Hugo chuckled. His palm moved confidently down and Alys watched her lover cup his hand over his wife's plump breast.

  'I should leave you now,' she whispered. She could not drag her eyes away from his confident, caressing hand. Catherine sighed with pleasure, her eyes still closed.

  'You do it, Alys,' he told her, smiling his mischievous smile at Alys' tense, anxious face. 'Do it,' he said again.

  Gently she stroked the slope of Catherine's breast. 'I command it,' Hugo said softly. Alys slid the palm of her hand over Catherine's plump nipple and felt the nipple harden beneath her touch with a delicious responsiveness. Catherine moaned.

  'Rub me,' she said.

  'You do it,' Hugo demanded. He reached across Catherine and took Alys' other hand and placed it on Catherine's other breast. At Alys' touch Catherine smiled. Her face, warm with pleasure, shadowed in candlelight, was lovely. Alys stroked gently all around Catherine's hot breasts, rubbed the nipples with the flat of her palm, felt a sudden rising desire to press harder, to stroke and pummel Catherine's warm, bulging, newly washed skin, to pinch her, tease her, see her squirm and arouse her desire.

  'I have to tell you, my lady, that I have lain with Alys,' Hugo said quietly. Alys gasped and froze, but Catherine, her head arched back, her breasts pushed upwards to Alys' hands, was not distracted from her greedy sensuality.

  'I could not resist her,' Hugo said gently. 'She is a most delicate whore.'

  Catherine laughed, a breathless laugh, deep in her throat. 'You must take your pleasure where you will, Hugo,' she said. 'You are a man. You are the lord. You must have all that you desire.'

  'I am going,' Alys said abruptly. She turned for the door but Hugo was quicker. He blocked her way in a moment and she stood, outraged, her eyes blazing.

  Hugo's smile was as feckless and wicked as she had ever seen.

  'Turn around, Alys,' he said.

  For a moment she hesitated and he took her gently by her shoulders and turned her back to Catherine's sprawled wanton bulk on the bed. Catherine opened her eyes and smiled at Alys; she looked ready to eat her. Alys shuddered – partly from distaste, partly from a rising, unwanted desire. She was trapped by Hugo's lust, in Hugo's fantasy, as she had so often entrapped him. Gently he pushed her back to the bed. 'Touch her, Alys,' he said softly. 'Touch my wife again. You can stroke her �€