Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  “In a few days?” Alys confirmed.

  Lord Hugh nodded. “Aye. So you can drink ale for breakfast and not handfuls of grass, my dear.” He chuckled again. “Calmness. Oh Lord!”

  Alys smiled thinly and broke some bread on her silver plate. “Hugo tells me you have settled on the young girl for his bride,” she said. “The little girl of only nine?”

  Lord Hugh nodded. “The best choice,” he said. “I was torn. I’d have liked to see a quick wedding, bedding, and birthing, but the girl’s family are the very people we need as kin. And she herself is from fertile stock. Her mother had fourteen children, ten of them sons, before she died. All before she was twenty-five!”

  “A fortunate woman indeed,” Alys said sarcastically.

  Lord Hugh did not hear. “The wench will come and live here and we can school her as we wish,” he said. “If you’ll be kindly to her, Alys, you can stay by her and serve her. She’s no fool. She’s been serving as a maid in the Howard household and at court since she was seven. She’ll be fit to bed at twelve, I should think. I may yet see her son.”

  “And my son?” Alys pressed.

  “He’ll be mine as soon as he is born,” the old lord said. “Don’t fret, Alys. If he is a strong and bonny child he’ll be my heir and you can stay as long as she permits and as long as we desire. This is a good outcome for you, as it happens. Your luck follows you like your shadow, does it not?”

  “Like my shadow,” Alys assented. Her voice was low and quiet. Lord Hugh could hardly hear her. “My luck follows like a shadow,” she said.

  He pushed his plate away from him and a page came up with a silver bowl and ewer and poured water for him to wash his hands. Another came up with embroidered linen and he dried his hands.

  “We dine early,” he reminded Alys. “There are the rest of the trials this afternoon. I shall rest this morning. They weary me, all these stolen pigs and missing beehives. And besides, the law changes with every messenger that comes. It was better in the old days when I did just as I wished.”

  “What of the old woman?” Alys asked.

  Lord Hugh turned as he was going out of the door. “I don’t know,” he said. “Father Stephen was talking with her again, after his supper last night. And this morning he went out riding with Hugo. She may not come to trial, Alys. It is Father Stephen’s decision if she has no case to answer.” He grinned. “She was leading him a merry dance as he told it at dinner last night. She is as learned as he and when he reproached her in Latin she defended herself in Greek and he was hard-pressed to follow. I suppose I shall conduct her trial in Hebrew for the purity of the language!”

  “Might he release her?” Alys asked.

  The old lord shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. A mischievous gleam came into his eyes. “Do you wish to appear for her?” he asked. “Her learning and your quickness would be a formidable defense, Alys. Shall I tell Stephen that you will speak for her? Is it your wish to stand before us all and defend a papist and traitor, no matter what it costs?” His dark eyes scanned her face, his smile was cruel.

  Alys ducked her head. “No, no,” she said hastily. “No, she is nothing to me. Father Stephen shall be the judge. I cannot be involved in this. I have too much to do, and my health needs all my care. I cannot be troubled with this as well.”

  Lord Hugh gleamed his malicious smile. “Of course, Alys,” he said. “Leave it to us men. I’ll let you know if we need chamomile.”

  He swept out through the door, his wide flared surcoat swaying from his shoulders. Alys heard him laughing as he went up the stairs to the round tower. She finished her cup of chamomile tea in silence and then led the women back to the ladies’ gallery.

  Catherine was singing loudly. They could hear her from halfway down the stairs. Eliza snorted with laughter as they opened the door and saw Catherine seated in her old chair before the gallery fire, a jug of ale in one hand and a cup in the other.

  She beamed as she saw them. “My handmaids!” she said. “My companions!”

  “You must go to bed,” Alys said, stepping forward. “You will be sick with all this drink, Catherine.”

  Catherine waved the jug.

  “Now Robin did a courting go—

  To the leafy woods so green,

  And Marion his lady-fair…”

  “This is impossible,” Alys said through her teeth.

  “I want my bath now,” Catherine ordered abruptly.

  Alys looked toward Mary. “They’re bringing it,” she said, dropping a curtsy. “But she wanted your herbs and oils in it, my lady.”

  “Like last time,” Catherine said with drunken enthusiasm. “When you bathed me in perfume flowers and rubbed me with oils and Hugo came and had us both.” There was a gasp from all the women. “When it was so nice, Alys. When you laid on me and licked my breasts and poked me with your fingers. Like that.”

  Alys shot a warning glance around the women. Eliza’s face was scarlet with suppressed laughter. Ruth was white with shock and she was crossing herself against the sin of venery.

  “Get the bath,” Alys said to Mary. “She can have herbs in it.”

  The women stood in silence seething with unspoken gossip while the servants carried in the heavy wooden bath-tub, draped it with linen and then poured in churn after churn of hot water. Alys fetched mint oil from her chest of goods, hoping that it would sweat the drink from Catherine’s sodden blood. Catherine gaped blankly at the gallery fire and did not see the curious glances of the servants as they came and went with the hot water.

  “He will return to me,” Catherine said suddenly. “He can have me and he can have Alys. What man could resist? I have my dower lands and Alys is with child. I will accept the child. What man could want more?”

  Alys grabbed Catherine under the elbow and nodded Margery to support her from the other side. “Hush, Catherine,” she said warningly as they tottered toward the chamber where the bath was steaming and scented before the blazing fire. “Hush. You shame yourself with this talk.”

  “I will accept you,” Catherine said, looking at Alys. “I will love you like a sister and we can all live here together. Why not? We are the lords. We can live as we please. And Hugo would be happy with us both.”

  “Hush,” Alys said again. Her brain was working fast. Hugo might indeed accept a life financed by Catherine’s dowry and inherited by Alys’s children. The dynastic ambitions for the new young bride were his father’s—it had always been his father’s plots and schemes—Hugo wanted his place at court, he wanted the money for his voyages and his ventures, he wanted to sink mine shafts and quarry lime, but if Catherine and Alys could make a truce and Alys bear him a son, he might abandon the venture of another wife.

  “It’s too late,” Alys said thoughtfully. “The old lord is determined.”

  Catherine was still rolling drunk. She staggered as Mary untied her shift and pulled it off over her head. It took three of them to steer her safely into the bath. She sat on the low stool in the tub and leaned her head back against the linen-covered side.

  “You could deter him,” she said. She was slurring her words and her eyelids were drooping. “You could persuade him. There is my dowry and your child. He wants these things.”

  Alys rolled up her sleeves and roughly rubbed Catherine’s shoulders and grimy neck. The folds of fat hung loosely around her body now that the baby had gone.

  “Or if the old lord died,” Catherine suggested. Her voice was far too loud for safety. Margery, at the window, heard her. Eliza, waiting by the door, heard her. Mary, airing the shift before the fire, turned quickly and stared at Catherine lolling in the tub, lazy, corrupted.

  “Don’t say it!” Alys said sharply. “My lord is well and will live for many years yet, please God.”

  Catherine opened her drunk, unfocused eyes and smiled at Alys. “It’s true though,” she said. “Hugo would never have the will to set me aside. Hugo likes his pleasures at once. He would never wait for a nine-year-old bride. These are