The Wise Woman Read online

  Catherine looked around wildly. 'What d'you mean, Alys? What fate? And who will burn?'

  Alys' face was sour and weary. 'Just go, Catherine,' she said. 'Your time is finished here. Just go.'

  She closed the door on Catherine's wail of protest and went across the ladies' gallery. The other women had come in from the garden and were taking off their head-dresses and combing through their hair, complaining of the heat. Alys went through them all like a cold shadow.

  'What ails my lady?' Ruth asked, as they heard Catherine's cries and saw Alys resentful face. 'Shall I go to her?'

  Alys shrugged. 'She's to leave the castle,' she said succinctly. 'My lord has ordered it. She's to be set aside, the marriage annulled.'

  There was a moment's silence and then an explosion of chatter. Alys threw her hands up to fend off the hysterical questions. 'Ask her yourself! Ask her yourself!' she said. 'But remember when you give her your service that she's soon to be a farmer on a little manor at the back end of nowhere. She's Lady Catherine no more.'

  Alys smiled at the sudden stillness in the room. Each one of them was silent, fearful for their own future. Slowly, one after another, they looked to her.

  'I will wash before supper,' Alys said composedly. 'Eliza, order a bath for me. Margery, order them to light a fire in my bedroom. Ruth, please mend my blue gown, I kicked out the hem the other day when I was walking upstairs. Mary -' she looked around. The girl was standing by the chamber door, her eyes cast down, the picture of the perfect maidservant. 'Lay out my linen, I will wear a fresh shift.'

  Alys watched them move to do her bidding. Her women.

  Behind her door Catherine wept as her room grew darker. When suppertime came no one called her, and no one brought her food. She lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow, and heard the noises of eating and drinking and laughter from the hall below. It grew darker, no one came to light her fire nor bring her candles. They left her in the cool evening air in darkness.

  She heard the women come upstairs from the hall and heard their low-voiced chatter. She heard Alys' laughter, edgy and shrill. But no one came to her door. No one came to see if they could be of service to her.

  The silence from Catherine's chamber put a blight on the gallery. No decision had been made but somehow the new positions had coalesced. Hugo did not ask after Catherine, the old lord had not spoken of her since the miscarriage. And now Catherine's own women, who had served her since she was a girl, looked away from her shut door and did not offer her service. It was as if she were gone to live far away over the moors already, thought Alys, or drowned and buried; and she laughed again.

  'I heard an odd tale today,' Eliza said, pouring the night-time cup of ale.

  Ruth glanced towards Lady Catherine's door as if she feared her still.

  'Tell it!' Margery said. 'But not too frightening, I need to sleep tonight.'

  'I stepped into Castleton market this morning and met a woman I know selling eggs,' Eliza said. 'She had walked the moorland road this morning from Bowes.'

  Alys looked up from her cup and watched Eliza's face.

  'Ahead of her in the dust in the road she saw the strangest thing,' Eliza said.

  Ruth shuddered and crossed herself. 'I'll not hear talk of the devil,' she warned. 'I'll not hear it.'

  'Hush,' the others said. 'Go to your chamber, Ruth, if you have not the stomach for the tale. What did she see in the dust, Eliza? Go on!'

  'She saw little tracks,' Eliza said mysteriously. Alys felt herself grow cold. 'Tracks?' she asked.

  Eliza nodded. 'Footprints. The marks of the heels of riding boots, and a pair of shoes. As if a woman and two men had been walking on the road.' Margery shrugged. 'So?' she asked. 'They were tiny,' Eliza said. 'Tiny little footprints, the size of mice feet, she said "Tiny."'

  Mistress Allingham exclaimed, 'Fairy folk!' She clapped her hands. 'Did she wish? Did she wish on the little people's tracks?'

  'She followed them!' Eliza said. 'Two tracks from boots and one track from shoes, like two men and a woman.'

  The women shook their heads in amazement. Alys said nothing, she sipped her ale. It went down her throat as if it were ice.

  'And the little woman's footprints were dirty,' Eliza said. 'Dirty with slime like a snail. Slug juice.'

  Ruth crossed herself abruptly and rose up. 'I'll hear no more,' she said. 'Nonsense to frighten children!'

  The rest of the women were fascinated. 'And so?' they asked. 'What then?'

  'She bent down and poked the trail with a stick,' Eliza said. 'She would not touch it.'

  They shook their heads. Touching slime from one of the fairy folk could bring all sorts of dangers.

  'She said it was…' Eliza whispered. They all leaned closer. 'She said it was like candlewax!' Eliza said in triumph. She sat back on her stool and looked around at their faces. 'An odd story, isn't it?'

  Alys drained her cup. She noticed her hands were steady. 'Where were these tiny tracks?' she asked carelessly. 'On the road, which road? Whereabouts were they?'

  Eliza gave up her cup to Margery who put them away in the cupboard with the empty pitcher of ale. 'Just a mile above the bridge,' she said. 'From Bowes Moor heading into Castleton. And coming closer. A horrible story, is it not? But she swore by it.'

  Alys shook her head. 'Tiny tracks!' she said derisively. 'Candlewax! I thought you were going to frighten us with a ghost six feet tall!'

  Eliza bridled. 'But it is true…'

  'I'm weary,' Alys interrupted. 'Fetch Mary for me, Eliza, I'll go to bed.'

  Eliza glanced at the closed door to Catherine's room. 'Should I see if she is all right?' she asked Alys. The rest of the women waited for Alys' decision. Alys, thinking of the little dolls just a mile from her door this night smiled bleakly.

  'It does not matter,' she said. She laughed, a high, sharp laugh while the women looked at each other in surprise. 'Nothing is going to matter after all!' she said. 'After all this trouble. Nothing matters at all!'

  Thirty-one

  Hugo blundered into Alys' room as she dozed in her first sleep, making her jump awake with fear. 'Is it fire?' she demanded, coming out of sleep. Hugo laughed aloud. He had been drinking till late in the hall and was boisterous. He pulled the covers off Alys and slapped her rump playfully.

  'Heard the news?' he demanded. 'My marriage is to be annulled. I am to be wed to a girl straight from the nursery! And Stephen can get no sense out of the old woman from Bowes Moor!'

  Alys snatched the covers back and pulled them up over her shoulders. 'I know all the news,' she said sourly. 'Except about the old woman. What is he doing to her? Is he hurting her?'

  'Oh no,' Hugo said. 'He's no barbarian. She's an old lady. He's questioning her and arguing theology with her. It sounds as if she is holding her own. He was in a vile mood after dinner. He told me all about it over a pitcher of hippocras. They have been arguing over transubstant-transubstant-trans…' Hugo chuckled and gave up. 'Whether it's bread or meat,' he said vulgarly.

  'Will he let her go?' Alys asked. She sat up in bed. Hugo was flushed and merry. He unbuttoned his fine doublet and tossed it towards the chair. It fell on the floor and he unbuckled his belt and codpiece, untied his hose and pulled them down and slung them all towards the pile of clothing. He came to her bedside, his shirt billowing.

  'Move over, wench,' he said contentedly. 'I shall sleep here tonight.'

  'Will he let her go?' Alys asked again. Hugo held her tight around the waist and nuzzled his head into her belly.

  'Who, the old woman?' he asked, rearing up, his hair tousled. 'Oh, don't ask me, Alys, you know what Stephen is. He wants to do right by his God, and he wants to do right by his bishop, and he wants to do right by every simple soul, and he wants to do right by himself. If he finds she is an innocent old woman in error then he will persuade her to take the oath, let her go, and I will pop her over the border into Appleby for you and there will be an end to it.'

  Alys lay back and closed her eyes. 'An e