Novels 03 The Wise Woman Read online

  In winter, and for many days in the bad weather of autumn and spring, the women spent every hour from breakfast till darkness inside the four walls. Their only exercise was to go up and down the broad, shallow flight of steps from the great hall to the gallery for their breakfast, dinner, and supper. Their only occupation in the winter months was to sit in the gallery and sew, read, write letters, weave, sing, or quarrel.

  Alys pretended she had extra work from Lord Hugh and stayed away whenever she could. She disliked the women’s furtive, bawdy gossip, and she feared Lady Catherine, who never threatened Alys nor raised her voice, but watched all the women, all the time. The room was tense with an unstated, unceasing rivalry. In the long hours between midday dinner and supper served at dusk, while Hugo was out hunting, or sitting in judgment with his father, or riding out to collect his rents, or check the manor lands, the women might chatter among themselves, pleasantly enough. But as soon as Hugo’s quick steps rang on the stone stairs the women straightened their hoods, smoothed their gowns, glanced at each other, compared looks.

  Alys kept her eyes down. There was always sewing to be done in the ladies’ gallery. An endless tapestry in twelve panels, which had been started by Lady Catherine’s long-dead mother and willed to her daughter. Alys kept her eyes on her hands and stitched unceasingly when Hugo banged open the door and strode into the room. Since the first moment of seeing him Alys had never again looked directly at him. When he came into a room Alys went out, and when she had to pass him on the stairs she would press back against the cold stones, keeping her eyes down and praying that he did not notice her. When he was near her Alys could feel his presence on her skin, like a breath. When a door shut behind her, even out of her line of vision, she knew if it was he who had gone out. She was tempted to look at him, she found her gaze drawn always toward him. She was fascinated to see whether his face was dark and silent, in his look of sullenness, or whether he was alight with his quick, easy joy. But she knew that when he was in the room Lady Catherine’s gaze swept them all like a sentry on a watchtower. The least sign of interest by Hugo for any woman would be noted by Catherine and paid for, in full, later. Alys feared Lady Catherine’s unremitting jealousy, she feared the politics of the castle and the secret, unstated rivalry of the ladies’ gallery.

  And she feared for her vows. More than anything else, she feared for her vows.

  He paused once while he was running lightly up the stairs as Alys came down, waited on the step beside her and put a careless finger under her chin, turning her face to the arrow-slit for light.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. It was as if he were measuring her looks for fault. “Your hair is coming through golden.”

  Alys had a mop-head of golden-brown curls, still too short to fasten back, so she wore her hair as a child, loose around her face.

  “What age are you?” he asked.

  She sensed the quickening of his interest, so tangible that she almost smelled it.

  “Fourteen,” she said.

  “Liar,” he replied evenly. “What age?”

  “Sixteen,” she said sullenly. She did not take her watchful eyes off his face.

  He nodded. “Old enough,” he said. “Come to my room tonight,” he said abruptly. “At midnight.”

  Alys’s pale face was impassive, her blue eyes blank.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked, slightly surprised.

  “Yes, my lord,” Alys said carefully. “I heard you.”

  “And you know where my room is?” he asked, as if that could be the only obstacle. “In the round tower on the floor above my father. When you leave his room tonight, take the stairs upward to me instead of down to the hall. And I shall have some wine for you, little Alys, and some sweetmeats, and some gentle play.”

  Alys said nothing, keeping her eyes down. She could feel the heat of her cheeks and the thud of her heart beating.

  “Do you know what you make me think of?” Hugo asked confidentially.

  “What?” Alys asked, betrayed into curiosity.

  “Fresh cream,” he said seriously.

  Alys’s eyes flew to his face. “Why?” she asked.

  “Every time I see you all I can think of is fresh cream. All I think of is pouring cream all over your body and licking it off,” he said.

  Alys gasped and pulled away from him as if his touch had scorched her. He laughed aloud at her shocked face.

  “That’s settled then,” he said easily. He smiled at her, his heart-turning merry smile, and swung around and took the steps upward two at a time. She heard him whistling a madrigal as he went, joyous as a winter robin.

  Alys leaned back against the cold stones and did not feel their chill. She felt desire, hot and dangerous and exciting, in every inch of her body. She gripped her lower lip between her teeth but she could not stop herself smiling. “No,” she said sternly. But her cheeks burned.

  Alys knew she needed to see Morach and she had her chance that afternoon. Lord Hugh wanted a message taken to Bowes Castle and Alys offered to carry it. “If I am delayed I shall stay the night with my kinswoman,” she said. “I should like to see her for a little while, and I need some herbs.”

  The old lord looked at her and smiled his slow smile. “But you’ll come back,” he said.

  Alys nodded. “You know I’ll come back,” she said. “There’s no life for me on the moor now, that life is closed to me. And the one I had before. It’s like a journey down a chamber with doors that shut behind me. Whenever I find some safety I have to move on, and the old life is taken from me.”

  He nodded. “Best find yourself a man and close all the doors for good; those before you, and those behind you,” he said.

  Alys shook her head. “I won’t wed,” she said.

  “Because of your vows?” he asked.

  “Yes…” Alys started, and then she bit the words back. “I’ve taken no vows, my lord,” she said smoothly. “It’s just that I am one of those women who cannot abide bedding. It goes with the skill of herbs. My cousin Morach lives alone.”

  Lord Hugh coughed and spat toward the fire which burned in the corner of his room, smoke trailing through the arrow-slit above it. “I guessed some time ago you were a runaway nun,” he said conversationally. “Your Latin is very weak in profane language, very strong for sacred texts. Your hair was shaved, and you have that appetite—like all nuns—for the finest things.” He laughed harshly. “Did you think, little Sister Blue-eyes, that I have not seen how you stroke fine linen, how you love the light from wax candles, how you preen in your red gown and watch the light glint on the silver thread?”

  Alys said nothing. Her pulse was racing but she kept her face serene.

  “You’re safe with me,” Lord Hugh said. “Father Stephen is mad for the new ways and the new church—he’s a fanatical reformer, a holy man. Hugo loves the new church because he sees the gains he can make: the reduction of the prince bishops, fines from the monastery lands, the power that we can now claim—us peers working with the crown—and the spiritual lords cast down.”

  He paused and gave her a brief smile. “But I am cautious,” he said slowly. “These turnabouts can happen more than once in a lifetime. It matters not to me whether there is a picture or two in a church, whether I eat flesh or fish, whether I pray to God in Latin or English. What matters more is the lordship of Castleton and how we weather these years of change.

  “I won’t betray you. I won’t insist that I hear you take the vow of loyalty to the king, I won’t have you stripped and flogged. I won’t have you examined for heresy and when you fail given to the soldiers for their sport.”

  Alys scarcely registered the reprieve.

  “Or at any rate,” the old lord amended, “not yet. Not while you remember that you are mine. My servant. My vassal. Mine in word and body and deed.”

  Alys inclined her head to show that she was listening. She said nothing.

  “And if you serve me well I shall keep you safe, maybe even smuggle you