Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  “Can she have another?” David the steward pressed close to Alys. “In your opinion, Mistress Alys? Will Lady Catherine conceive again?”

  Alys met his gaze. “I think not,” she said. “You should summon a physician perhaps to judge. But in my mind I am certain. She can conceive no normal child.”

  The old lord slumped down into a chair, rested both his hands on his cane, and gazed into the distance.

  “This is a bitter blow, Alys,” he said softly. “A bitter blow. Catherine’s baby gone, and her chances of another. All in one afternoon. A bitter blow.”

  Catherine’s door opened again and Hugo came out. His face was set. The line between his eyebrows was deep, his mouth grim. “She’ll rest now,” he said. “Someone go and sit with her.”

  Eliza and Ruth dipped a curtsy and slipped into the room.

  “She said she’d see you, sir,” Hugo said to his father. “She wanted to ask your blessing.”

  “Blessing be damned,” the old lord said, struggling to his feet and thumping his cane on the floor. “I’ll not see her. She’s barren, my son! And she’s wasted more years in this castle than I care to count. I’ll see her when she’s fertile. No point sitting by the sickbed of a barren woman. No point in a barren woman! Twenty-three bastards I sired, to my knowledge; and three legitimate children, one son. I’ve never looked twice at a barren woman by my knowledge, and I never will.”

  He snapped his fingers for the page to open the door and stamped toward it. The people in the chamber drew back to let him pass, fearful of his rage.

  “You,” he said, pointing to Alys. “Come to my room! I’ve got work to do!” Then, as Alys moved toward him, her belly thrust forward against the flowing line of the gown, he checked himself. “No,” he said. “I had forgotten. Go and rest yourself. Go and sit down and sew or sing or something. But keep yourself well, Alys.

  “David! Pick her out a maid to do her fetching and her carrying for her. And see she has a comfortable chair in her room. She must rest. She must rest. She must stay well. She’s carrying Hugo’s child. And see that she has what she fancies to eat. Get her whatever she wants! Anything that she wants she must have!”

  David bowed, his quick, sharp smile raking Alys. “Yes, my lord,” he said.

  The old lord nodded. “Keep her safe,” he said. “No more riding out for you, Alys, you must stay home in safety.” He looked at Hugo. “Don’t let her get as fat as the other one,” he said. “That was the problem there. Keep her like you would a good brood mare, well fed but not gluttonous. She’s to sit beside me at table every night so I can see what she eats.”

  Hugo nodded, unsmiling. “As you wish, sir,” he said coldly. “I am taking my horse out for a while. I am sick to my soul of these women’s doings.”

  The old lord nodded. “Damn right,” he said irritably. “All that talk and all that expense and then a barren sow at the end of it.”

  The two of them left the room, Hugo clattering loudly down the stairs and shouting for his horse. Slowly, the serving-women and -men and the off-duty soldiers and the pages straggled from the room, whispering as they left, whispering slander, scandal, ill-willed rumors. Alys stood in the center of the room, unmoving. As everyone went out they dipped a low curtsy or a bow to her. Alys did not smile, did not acknowledge the homage beyond a curt nod of her head. Then David and Alys were alone.

  “Is there anything you would order for supper tonight, Mistress Alys?” David asked slyly.

  “I will have the best,” Alys said simply. “I will have the best of whatever there is,” she said. “The very best of whatever there is.”

  Chapter

  26

  Catherine woke in the night screaming and only Alys could soothe her. She was sweating from her nightmare and from a fever. Alys gave her a little of the dried berries of deadly nightshade and watched her till she fell asleep. Three times Catherine’s nightmares woke her—and all the ladies. Three times a waiting-woman came and knocked on Alys’s door and said that Lady Catherine was crying and carrying on and she must have Alys with her. The third time Alys gave her a fat pinch of sleeping powder in a cup of brandy-wine and left her on her back, snoring.

  In the morning Catherine was quiet and drugged. Hugo called in at her chamber. She held out her arms to him with the tears running down her fat face.

  “You must excuse me, madam,” he said coldly. “You have not been churched.”

  Catherine gave a gasp of disbelief and looked at his face. He was without pity.

  “Hugo!” she exclaimed. “I am so grieved…”

  He stepped back toward the door, keeping himself far from her as if she had the plague.

  “You are unclean,” he said precisely. “I may not touch you. Alys will assist you.”

  “But I thought you did not believe in that…” Catherine wailed. Hugo bowed minimally and passed out through the door, ignoring her, ignoring Alys. Alys stepped back to let him pass and shut the door behind him with quiet satisfaction.

  The old lord would not see Catherine at all, though she asked for him. He said he was too busy to come to the ladies’ gallery. When Catherine was fulfilling her duties as the lady of the castle she could see him whenever she chose. In the meantime, he had no skills in the sick-chamber and could not wait on her.

  Catherine, fallen from favor with both lords, wept again, sluggish, warm tears which rolled down her face.

  “They hate me because the baby died,” she whispered to Alys. “They both hate me because the baby died.”

  Alys persuaded Catherine to eat some breakfast and sit up in bed and comb her hair. She did as she was told, like a lumpish child. But they could not stop her weeping. All the time, the waxy ooze dripped from between her legs, staining the sheets, and slow, oily tears rolled down her cheeks. She did not sob, she did not moan. She sat quietly and did whatever they asked of her. But she could not stop her tears.

  Alys sat with her until dinner-time and then went down to the great hall, leaving Ruth and Mistress Allingham to dine with Catherine in her chamber. She entered by the tapestry-covered door at the rear of the high table. As she let the curtain fall behind her and moved to her seat on the left hand of the old lord’s chair she heard a ripple of approval from the men in the hall. Now she was the only woman carrying Hugo’s child. She was the only hope for an heir. The women in the castle might fear her and resent her, and outside, in the shadow of the castle, they might talk sourly of witchcraft and the young lord hexed into madness and lust; but a son came before everything. Anything would be forgiven the woman who gave Hugo a son.

  The old lord came in, his face grave, Hugo at his side. Alys stood behind her chair until they were seated and then took her place. She did not look at Hugo. She knew he was in a rage too deep to speak. She bent her head and broke her bread. Hugo would come around.

  “I shall need you to write some letters this afternoon,” the old lord said. “And you shall sit in my chamber and read to me.”

  Alys inclined her head. “Gladly, my lord,” she said.

  He grunted. “Not too tired are you?” he asked. “Sleep well?”

  “I had to attend Lady Catherine in the night,” Alys said, her voice neutral. “She was weeping and asked for me. I was called to her three times.”

  Lord Hugh waved his hand at David for the wine-server. “Drink this,” he said gruffly to Alys. “Drink deep. It’ll give the baby good blood.”

  He paused. “That must stop,” he said abruptly. “Running around after the barren woman is too tiring for you. It must stop. Catherine can weep on someone else’s shoulder.

  “Hugo?” Hugo raised his face from studying his hands clenched on the table before him. The old man nodded. “You see to it. Tell Catherine she may not disturb Alys. Alys can’t wait on her any longer. Alys must not get overtired.”

  Hugo nodded. “As you wish, sire.”

  “Aye, you’re sour,” the old lord said gently. “It’s not to be wondered at. Nine years waiting and then not