Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  “It serves no good purpose to execute her,” Alys insisted. “She’s so old and frail that people will hate you and Hugo for hurting an old woman. They could turn against you. It’s hardly worth the risk.”

  The old lord turned his head to Alys. “It’s out of my hands,” he said gently. “She is accused before the court and I will try her tomorrow. Stephen will be reasoning with her and questioning her. She wanted no one to represent her. If she does not repent, take the oath of supremacy and acknowledge the king as head of the church, then she has to die. It’s not whim, Alys. It’s the law.”

  “Couldn’t you…” Alys started.

  Lord Hugh turned his head toward Alys and his look was acute. “Do you know her?” he asked sharply. “Was she from your old order? Are you pleading for her?”

  Alys met his eyes squarely. “No,” she said. “I have never seen her before in my life. She means nothing to me, nothing. I am just sorry for her. Such a foolish old woman to die for her delusions. I feel distressed that my complaint has brought her here, nothing more.”

  Hugh leaned forward and clapped his hands at the hens. They scuttered out of reach. The cock flapped his wings and jumped awkwardly to the flat top of the little box-hedge. He stretched his neck and crowed.

  Alys watched the deep emerald shimmer on his throat.

  Lord Hugh shook his head. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “She would have preached or taught people. She would have gathered people around her. She would have come to our attention one way or another. And then we would have had to take her up. She is an old fool looking for sainthood, that one. She would never have taken the easy route, never altered her faith and her vows to suit the times. She’s a foolish old martyr. Not a wise woman like you, Alys.”

  Alys walked slowly into the castle through the doorway of the great hall. After the golden sunshine of the garden the smoky darkness of the great hall was a relief. She walked without purpose, without direction. Hugo was riding out to his new house, practicing archery, riding at the dummy in the tilt-yard, or trifling with one plaything or another. Hugo would make no difference. Alys paused at the top of the hall and leaned against the table where the senior soldiers sat for their dinner. Hugo was like a child. His father’s long life and power had kept Hugo as a merry child—happy enough when things were going well, sullen and resentful when his will was crossed. He would not save Mother Hildebrande at Alys’s request. He would not care enough. Not for her—a poor old woman who should have died last year. Not for Alys.

  There were men sleeping off their dinnertime ale in the shadows of the hall, on the benches under the tables. Alys walked quietly past them, mounted the dais, and drew back the hanging over the lord’s doorway. One of them turning over in his sleep caught sight of her and crossed himself. Alys saw his gesture. Superstition hung around her still. She must remember that she was not safe herself. She put a hand to her belly. Her only safety was in the baby she carried: Hugo’s son. She started wearily to climb the stairs to the ladies’ gallery.

  She might carry Hugo’s son but the old lord had planned all along to take the child from her and adopt him as his own. Alys had not thought of that. She had not known that such things could be done. She had thought that the baby boy would be her passport into the family. She paused on the stairs, waiting for her breath to come back and the dancing black spots to go from her vision.

  “I am ill,” she said aloud.

  If she was ill then Catherine would not insist that they share a bed, Lord Hugh would not threaten her. If she was ill and in her own bed then no one could blame her when Mother Hildebrande rushed upon martyrdom without Alys saying one word to save her. No one could blame Alys for Mother Hildebrande’s hunger for sainthood, especially if Alys were ill.

  “I am ill,” she said again with more conviction. “Very ill.”

  She walked slowly up the steps to the ladies’ gallery and opened the door.

  It was empty and quiet. Mary was sitting at the fireside, stitching some plain work. She laid it aside when Alys walked in and bobbed her a curtsy.

  “Lady Catherine has been asking for you, my Lady Alys,” she said pleasantly. “Shall I tell her you are here? Or should you lie down?”

  Alys looked at her with dislike. “I will see Lady Catherine,” she said. “She was disturbed when she looked from her window and saw you flirting with her husband in the courtyard.”

  Mary gave a little gasp of surprise.

  “The young Lord Hugo will take his pleasures where he wishes,” Alys said distantly. “But do not flaunt yourself, Mary. If you distress Lady Catherine she will turn you out of the castle.”

  Mary’s cheeks were blazing. “I am sorry, my lady,” she said. “It was just words and laughter.”

  Alys’s look was as sour as if she had never heard words or laughter, or seen Hugo’s hot, merry smile. “If your humor is lascivious you had better avoid the young lord,” she said coldly. “It would go very ill for you indeed if you offend his wife. You told me yourself your father is poor and out of work. I suppose it would be difficult for all of them at home if you returned without your wages and without hope of work in service again.”

  Mary dipped her head. “I beg your pardon, my lady,” she said humbly. “It won’t happen again.”

  Alys nodded and went into Catherine’s room, the taste of spite very sweet and full in her mouth.

  Catherine was dressed, sitting in a chair by the window, looking out over the courtyard and the garden, the sun-drenched wall of the inner manse and the tops of the apple trees in the outer manse. The smooth round prison tower stood like a dark shadow behind the little bakehouse. Alys, looking past Catherine out of the window, saw nothing else.

  “How well you are looking, Catherine!” Alys said. Her voice was high and sharp, the words a babble. “Are you feeling better?”

  Catherine’s face when she turned to Alys was bleak with sorrow. The old hard lines had reappeared from the rosy plumpness of pregnancy.

  “I just saw you in the garden,” she said. “Talking to the old lord.”

  Alys nodded, her face alert.

  “I have been a fool,” Catherine said suddenly. “I called your girl in here and asked her if you were with child and she curtsied to me and said, ‘Yes, my lady,’ as if it were a known fact, as if everyone knew!”

  Alys drew up a chair and sat down.

  “Is it Hugo’s?” Catherine asked fiercely. “Is it Hugo’s child? I must have been blind not to see it before. When you walked across the garden I could see how you thrust your belly forward. Are you with child, Alys? Hugo’s child?”

  Alys nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  Catherine opened her mouth wide and began to cry soundlessly. Great drops of tears rolled down her sallow face. She cried shamelessly like a hurt child, her mouth gaping wide. Alys could see the white unhealthy furring on her tongue and the blackness of one bad tooth.

  Catherine snatched a breath and swallowed her grief.

  “From when?” she asked.

  “June,” Alys said precisely. “I will give birth in April. I am three months pregnant now.”

  Catherine nodded, and kept nodding, like a little rocking doll. “So it was all lies,” she said. She took a scrap of linen from her sleeve and mopped at her wet face, still nodding. “You will not come with me to the farm, that was all lies. You will stay here and have Hugo’s child and hope to rise higher and higher into his favor and into the favor of the old lord.”

  Alys said nothing.

  Catherine gulped back sobs like a carp bubbling in the fish ponds. “And while I thought that you would come to love me and that you were pledged to live with me you were scheming to have me sent away so that you and Hugo could romp together in public,” Catherine said, nodding wildly. “You have shamed me, Alys. You have shamed me before the whole castle, before the whole town, before the country. I thought that you were my friend, that you would choose me instead of Hugo. But all this morning when I was talkin