The Wise Woman Read online

  'Oh, go your ways,' he said indulgently. ‘I will spare you the merry cheer of that crew. Go to your room now, but another time you must sit with the silly bitches.'

  Alys dipped him a curtsey and slipped out through the tapestry-hung door behind them. She caught Eliza's eye as she left and remembered her first dinner in the castle when they had told her that no one could leave before the lord.

  'Things are better for me now than they were then,' Alys said to herself grimly. She mounted the stairs to the ladies' gallery, pushed open the door and pulled up a chair before the fire. 'It is better for me now than in Morach's ugly cottage.' She threw another log on the fire and sat watching the sparks fly. 'I have forced them to see me for what I am,' she said defiantly to herself. 'I came here as a nobody and now they call me Mistress Alys and I have twelve gowns of my own. I have as many new gowns as Catherine.'

  The quietness of the room gathered around her. ‘I have forced them to see me for what I am,' Alys said again. She was silent for a moment, watching the flames.

  'They see me as his whore,' she said softly. 'Today I became Hugo's whore. And everybody knows.'

  Twenty-four

  Alys was alone in her bedroom when the others came up to the gallery. She heard them talking and laughing, she heard the clink of jug on pewter. She sat by her little fireside, her door firmly shut, and listened to them playing a card game as Eliza sang. Then the chatter died down as one by one the women excused themselves and went to their room. Alys listened for Hugo's voice and heard him call 'Goodnight' to one of them. She sat by her fireside and waited. He did not come to her.

  In the early hours of the morning, when the darkness was still thick and the moon was setting in the west, Alys wrapped a shawl around her and crept across her floor to the door. She opened it and peeped out. The fire in the long gallery had died down, the ashes cold. Catherine's door was shut. There was no sound.

  Alys paused for a moment by the hearth and remembered the time when she had sat there absorbed in her longing for Hugo and he had come from Catherine's room and put his arm around her and told her that he loved her. Alys shrugged. It was a long, long time ago. Before Morach's death, before her deep magic had come to claim her, before she had played the wanton with him – and had him take her at her word.

  She crept to Catherine's door and turned the handle gently. Opening it a crack, she could hear deep rhythmic breathing. She slid through the door like a ghost and peered into the room. The room was dark. All the candles were out and the fire had died away in the darkened grate. The little window faced the castle courtyard and garden and no moonlight shone. Alys blinked her eyes, trying to see through the shadows.

  In the great high bed was Catherine, sprawled on her back with her high belly making a mountain of the covers. One arm was thrown carelessly above her head; Alys could see the thick clump of dark hair in her armpit. The other arm was cradling the man lying beside her. Alys stepped a little closer to see. It was Hugo. He was deep asleep, lying on his side with his head buried into Catherine's neck, his arm thrown proprietorially over her body. They lay like a married couple. They lay like lovers. Alys watched them without moving while they breathed steadily and peacefully. She watched them as if she would suck the breath out of their bodies and destroy them with the weight of her jealousy and disappointment. Hugo stirred in his sleep and said something. It was not Alys' name.

  Catherine smiled, even in the darkness Alys could see the calm joy of Catherine's sleepy smile, and gathered him closer. Then they lay still again.

  Alys closed the door silently, and crept back, across the empty, cold gallery to her own room, shut the door behind her, drew her chair up to the fire, wrapped her shawl around her and waited for day to come.

  In the half-light of dawn, before the sun was up but while the sky was pale yellow with the promise of sunshine to come, Alys went over and opened the chest of her magic things. Tucked away in the corner was Morach's old bag of bones – the runes.

  Alys glanced behind her. Her bedroom door was shut, no one in the castle was stirring. She glanced out of the arrow-slit window. In the pale light she could see strips of mist hovering and rising from the silver surface of the river. As she watched they rose and billowed. One of them looked like a woman, an old woman with grey hair and a shawl wrapped around her.

  'No,' Alys whispered, as she recognized her. 'I am not calling you. I will use your runes for I need to know my future. But I am not calling you. Stay in the water. Stay out of sight. You and I will both know when your time comes.'

  She watched the mist until it billowed and ebbed and lay fiat and quiet again, and then she turned from the arrow-slit and sat on the rug before the fire.

  She shook the bag like a gambler shakes dice and then flung them all out before her. Without looking at the marks she picked three, carefully considering each choice, her hand hovering over one and then moving to another.

  'My future,' she said. 'Hugo uses me as his whore and now I am nothing here. There must be more for me. Show me my future.'

  She spread the three of her choice before her, one beside another, and gathered the others into their purse again. 'Now,' she said.

  The first one she had drawn was face down. The back was blank and she turned it over. The front was blank as well. 'Odin,' she said surprised. 'Nothingness. Death.' The second was blank. She turned it over, and then turned it over again. 'It is not possible; there aren't two blank runes,' Alys whispered to herself. 'There is only one blank rune. All the rest are marked.' She flipped over the third. It was smooth and plain on both sides, one side as empty as the other. Alys sat very still with the three faceless runes in her hand.

  Then she raised her head and looked towards the arrow-slit. The mist quivered as it lay on the river, quivered and formed the shape of a resting woman. 'You knew,' Alys said in a low whisper towards the mist. 'You told me, but I did not hear. Death, you said. Death in the runes. And I asked you "how long?" and you would not tell me. Now your runes are blank for me too.'

  She tipped out the purse. The other bones spilled out on to the floor. Each one was smooth and as innocent of any mark as an old polished skull.

  Alys shuddered, as if the cold river water was pressing around her, as if the green deep wetness of it was coming up to her chin, lapping over her mouth. She gathered the runes together with one hasty gesture, slung them into the bag, and tossed the bag into the corner of the chest. Then, with her shawl wrapped tight around her, she crept into bed. She could not sleep for shivering.

  Hugo went out riding at first light, Catherine slept late. The women in the gallery eyed Alys sideways when she came out of her room, her face serene, her red cloak around her shoulders.

  'I'm going up to the moors,' she said to Eliza. ‘I need some more herbs for Catherine. Is she sleeping still?'

  'Yes,' Eliza said. 'When will you be back?'

  Alys looked at her coldly. 'I shall be home in time for supper,' she said. 'I will take my dinner with me and picnic out on the moors.'

  'I'll come with you to the stables,' Eliza said.

  She and Alys went down the stairs, across the hall and out of the great door to the gardens. Eliza trotted to keep pace with Alys as they walked through the gateway, over the bridge and across the grass to the stables.

  'It's a pretty mare,' Eliza said enviously as the stable-boy brought Alys' new pony out.

  'Yes,' Alys said with grim satisfaction. 'Yes, she is. She was expensive.' She snapped her fingers to the stable-lad. 'Fetch me some food from the kitchen. I'll dine on my own on the moors.' The lad dipped a bow and ran off.

  'Hugo slept with Catherine all night,' Eliza said in a confidential undertone, watching the lad run to the kitchen door. 'I know,' Alys said coldly. 'Has he turned away from you now?' Eliza asked. Alys shook her head. 'I am carrying his son,' she said coldly. 'My place is safe.'

  Eliza looked at her with something very close to pity. Alys caught the look and felt herself flush.

  'What i