The women nodded, keeping their heads down.
'Any talk of divorce at the whim of the King is treason,' Catherine said firmly. 'There can be no divorce. The King's first marriage was invalid and against the law of God. There can be no comparison.'
'With what?' Eliza asked dangerously.
Catherine's grey eyes stared her down. 'There can be no comparison between your positions and the Queen's ladies,' she said with acid clarity. 'You are none of you high enough to wear scarlet, whatever borrowed clothes Alys may use. I hope that none of you would want to overset the natural order, the God-given order. Unless Alys hopes to see herself in purple? Married to a lord?'
The women laughed in a nervous, obedient chorus.
'Who did the gown belong to, Alys?' Catherine asked vindictively.
'I was told it belonged to a woman called Meg,' Alys said, clearing her throat and speaking low.
'And do you know who she was, Alys?' Catherine asked.
Alys lifted her head from her sewing. 'Lord Hugh's whore,' she said softly.
Catherine nodded. 'I think I would rather wear brown than flaunt borrowed colours,' she said. 'I would rather wear honest brown than the gown of a whore who died of the pox.' Alys gritted her teeth. 'Lord Hugh ordered me to wear this gown, I have no other.' She shot one look at Catherine. 'I hope I do not displease you, my lady. I do not dare disobey Lord Hugh.' Catherine nodded her head. 'Very well,' she said.
'Very well. But you had best borrow only the gown, Alys, and not the manners of the last owner.' Alys met Catherine's hard, suspicious gaze. 'I am a maid,' she said. 'Not a whore. And I shall stay that way.'
After that she kept even more carefully away from anywhere that she might meet the young lord. When he came to his father's room she sat in a corner, in the shadows. She put off the cherry-red gown which the old lord had given her, and asked if she might take a new one from the box. She chose a dark blue one, so dark that it was almost black, and wore it with a black stomacher tied as flat as a board across her belly. It was too large for her and came too high up under her chin, hiding the swell of her tight-pressed breasts. She rummaged in the box and found an old-fashioned gable hood in the style which had gone out with the old queen, the false Queen Catherine. Alys scraped back her growing curly hair into a black cap pinned tight. Then she pulled the gable hood on top of the cap and pinned it down. It was heavier than her wimple and hotter with her hair underneath, but it reminded Alys for a moment of the steady pressure of the wimple and the bindings around her face which she had worn for so long.
'You look like a nun,' the old lord said. And when he saw her swift guarded look at him he said, 'No, wench, you're safe enough. You look like a woman who is trying to be invisible. Who are you hiding from, Alys? Lady Catherine? Hugo?'
'The other gown was dirty,' Alys said evenly. 'I have sent it to be washed. And it is time I wore a hood.'
Lord Hugh raised his white eyebrows. 'You can have your pick of that chest of clothes,' he said. 'And tell David to show you the other chest. You might as well wear them as anyone else while you are here. When you leave they must stay.'
'Thank you,' Alys said quietly. 'Is it not an offence for me to wear scarlet, my lord? I thought only a wife of a landholder could wear red?'
Lord Hugh chuckled. 'I enforce the law of the land. The laws are what I say. And anyway, women don't matter.'
The castle was preparing for the feast of Christmas and the turkeys and geese gobbled innocently on extra feed. The old lord developed a cough which kept him awake at nights and made him tired and irritable during the day. Alys went out in the dawn frost to pick fresh herbs in the little garden outside the kitchen door and bumped into a man, wrapped thick in a cloak, coming in.
He put out a hand to steady her, gripped her arm. As soon as he touched her she knew it was Hugo.
'I gave you a fright.' His smile gleamed from the shadow of his hood. He swept her with him back into the warmth of the kitchen. Servants were sleeping on the floor before the fire and on the benches. Hugo kicked two or three with his booted foot and they staggered sleepily out of his way. He pulled up two stools and thrust Alys down by the glowing embers.
'You're frozen,' he said. He took her hand. Around her fingernails her fingers were blue with cold.
'I was picking herbs with the ice on them,' Alys said. 'Your father's cough is a little worse.'
Hugo took her cold hands and put them between his warm palms. As the feeling came back into her numb fingers Alys grimaced, pulled her hands away and shook them. Hugo laughed softly and leaned forward to recapture them. 'I've been out all night,' he said. His voice was low; no wakeful servant could hear them. 'Don't you want to know what I have been doing, Alys?'
Alys shook her head slightly and looked away from his intent face to the fire.
'I met some friends who think as I do,' he said. 'One of them is the son of landowners, a wealthy man though not noble. Another is the son of a trader. We're all young, we all want a share of the new world which is coming. We are all held back by our fathers.'
Alys made a little movement as if she would rise. Hugo tugged her back to the stool with a handful of her cape. 'Listen to me,' he said softly. 'See how I trust you.'
Alys turned her face away, Hugo kept his hold on her.
'One of my friends plans to set his father aside, have him declared insane and take his land and his wealth. His mother has agreed to support his claim, his wife too. A wicked way to treat your father, is it not, Alys?'
Alys said nothing. Hugo saw that her face was rosy from the warmth of the fire but around her dark blue eyes the skin was white. He knew she was afraid.
'I would not do that, Alys, unless I was tempted very badly,' he said. 'But my father stands in my light -d'you see it, Alys? If it were not for his order that I stay here I would be in London. If it were not for his schemes to keep Catherine's entailed lands I would be free of her. If it were not for his ambition to be hidden, his passion for peace, I would be at court, chancing my life and my wealth for tremendous prizes. Can you see how impatient I am, Alys?'
Alys' lips were pressed together. Hugo had hold of both her hands. If he had not held her fast she would have clapped them over her ears.
'Your chance will come, when God wills,' she said as he waited for her to reply. 'You will have to be patient, my lord.'
He leaned forward so his face was very close to hers. 'And if I am not patient?' he asked. 'If I am not patient and I found someone to assist me? If my father were ill and no one could heal him? If he died? If then I set my wife aside? If I were rid of my wife? Rid of my wife and looking for a woman that I could trust, to hold the castle for me while I was away. A woman who could read, who could write? A woman who would be mine, sworn to my interest, dependent on me? A woman who would be my ears and eyes. Like you watch and listen for my father?'
Alys could not move. His whisper was hypnotic, he was luring her into some trap which she could not foresee. 'I have to be free,' she said in a low voice of longing. 'Do I tempt you, Alys?' he asked softly. 'The wealth and the power?'
He saw her eyes darken slightly as if with desire. 'And pleasure,' he went on. 'Nights and long days of pleasure with me?'
Alys jerked backwards as if he had thrown cold water in her face. She pulled her hands free.
'I have to go,' she said abruptly.
He rose as she did and slid one hand around her waist, holding her close to him. His mouth came down towards her. Alys felt her head tip back, her lips open.
Then he released her and stepped back.
Alys staggered a little, off balance.
'Go now,' he said. His dark eyes were bright with mischief. 'You can go now, Alys. But you are learning who is your master, are you not? You cannot hide behind my father for much longer. I have had many wenches and I know the signs of it. You desire me already, though you hardly know it yet. You have taken the bait like a salmon in the spring flood. You may swim and swim but I shall land you at last. Y
ou will dream of me, Alys, you will long for me. And in the end, you will come to me and beg me to touch you.'
He smiled at her white face.
'And then I will be gentle to you,' he said. 'And I will make you all mine. And you will never be free again.'
Alys turned from him and stumbled towards the kitchen door.
'You're in very deep now,' he said softly to himself, as she pulled the door open and fled across the lobby to the great hall. 'You're in very deep, my Alys.'
For twelve nights Alys lay wakeful, waiting for the dawn light to come with winter slowness. For twelve days she moved in a dream through her work for the old lord, writing what he ordered without taking in any sense of the words. She picked herbs for him and brewed them or pounded them according to their potency. She sat in Lady Catherine's chamber and nodded and smiled when they called on her to speak.
For twelve days she waded through a river of darkness and confusion. She had never longed more for the quiet certainties of Mother Hildebrande. She had never missed those ordered easy days more acutely. For twelve days Alys wandered around the castle like a ghost and when she heard a door bang, and Hugo's merry whistle, she found she was trembling as if she had an ague.
She was by the castle gate when he rode in from hunting one day, his cap lost – blown away on the moor – his face bright. When he saw her he vaulted from the saddle and tossed the reins to one of the men.
'I have killed you a grand dinner, Alys!' he said joyfully. 'A wild boar. They will stuff it and bring its head in and lay it at your feet! And you shall eat rich meat and dark gravy and nibble on the honeyed crackling! My Alys!'
Alys fumbled for her basket. 'I am fasting,' she said breathlessly. 'It is Saint Andrew's day, my lord. I do not eat meat today.'
He laughed carelessly, as if none of it mattered at all. 'That nonsense!' he exclaimed. 'Alys, Alys, don't cling to the old dead ways that mean nothing to anyone any more! Eat fish when you want to! Eat meat when you are hungry! Don't let me ride out all day, and chasing a wild boar too, and then turn your face away from me and tell me you won't dine with me!'
Alys could feel her hands trembling. She held the basket tighter. 'You must excuse me,' she said. 'I…'
There was a shout from behind them as someone drove a cart through the narrow gateway. Hugo pressed forward, his hands either side of Alys' head. She shrank back against the wall and then felt him, deliberately, lean his warm body against her. Her stomacher was like armour, her gable hood like a helmet. But when Hugo pressed against her she felt the heat of his body through her clothes. She smelled the clean, fresh smell of his linen, the sharp tang of his sweat. His knee pressing against her legs, the brush of his thick padded codpiece against her thigh, was as intimate as if they were naked and alone together.
'Don't you long for a taste of it, Alys?' he asked, his voice very soft in her ear. 'Don't you dream what it would taste like? All these forbidden good things? Can't I teach you, can't I teach you, Alys, to break some rules? To break some rules and taste some pleasure, now, while you are young and desirable and hot?'
And Alys, in the shadow of the doorway, with the warmth of him all around her and the whisper of his male temptation in her ear, turned her face up towards him and closed her eyes and knew her desire.
As lightly as a flicker of candleflame he brushed his lips against her open mouth, raised his head and looked down into her tranced face with his smiling dark eyes.
'I sleep alone these nights,' he said softly. 'You know my room, in the round tower, above my father's chamber. Any night you please, Alys, leave my father, climb higher up the tower instead of running to be with those silly women. Climb higher up the tower and I will give you more than a kiss in a gateway, more than a taste. More than you can dream of.' Alys opened her eyes, hazy with desire. Hugo smiled at her. His wicked, careless smile. 'Shall you come tonight?' he asked. 'Shall I light a fire and warm the wine and wait for you?' 'Yes,' she said.
He nodded as if they had struck an agreeable bargain at last; then he was gone.
That night Alys ate the wild boar when they brought it to the women's table. Hugo glanced behind him and she saw his secret smile. She knew then that she was lost. That neither the herbs nor the old lord's warning to Hugo would stop him. And that no power of will could stop her. 'What's the matter with you, Alys?' Eliza asked with rough good nature. 'You're as white as a sheet, you haven't eaten your dinner for nigh on two weeks, you're awake every morning before anyone else and all day today you've been deaf.' 'I am sick,' Alys said, her voice sharp. Bitter. Eliza laughed. 'Better cure yourself then,' she said. 'Not much of a wise woman if you can't cure yourself!'
Alys nodded. 'I shall,' she said, as if she had come to a decision at last. 'I shall cure myself.'
On that night, when Alys felt her skin burn in the moonlight and she knew the moon would be lighting the path to Hugo's room through twenty silver arrow-slits, and that he would be lying naked in his bed, waiting and yet not waiting for her, she rose and went to Lady Catherine's gallery where there was a box of new wax candles. Alys took three, wrapped them in a cloth, tied the bundle tight and sealed the string. The next morning she sent it by one of the castle carters to Morach's cottage, telling him it was a Christmas gift for the old lady. She sent no message – there was no need.
On the eve of the Christmas feast one of the kitchen wenches climbed the stone steps to the round tower to tell Alys that there was an old woman asking for her at the market gate. Alys dipped a curtsey to the old lord and asked him if she might go and meet Morach.
'Aye,' he said. He was short of breath, it was one of his bad days. He was wrapped in a thick cloak by a blazing fire and yet he could feel no warmth. 'Come back quickly,' he said.
Alys threw her black cloak around her and slipped like a shadow down the stairs. The guardroom was empty except for one half-dozing soldier. Alys walked through the great hall past half a dozen men who were sprawled on the benches, sleeping off their dinner-time ale, through the servers' lobby to the kitchen.
The fires were burning, there was the smell of roasting meat and game hung too long. The floor had been swept after the midday meal and piles of bloodstained sawdust stood in the corner, waiting to be taken out. The cooks ate well after the hall had been served, the kitchen staff had emptied the jugs of wine and dozed now in corners. Only the kitchen boy, stripped down to his shorts, monotonously turning the handle of the spit roasting the meat for supper, stared at Alys as she walked through, her skirts lifted clear of the muck.
She walked out of the kitchen door and through the kitchen garden. The neat salad beds ran along one side of the path, the herbs were planted on the other, all edged with box-hedging. At the tower which guarded the inner ward the guards let her through with a ribald comment to her back, but they did not touch her. She was well known to be under the old lord's protection. She walked across the bridge which spanned the great ditch of stagnant murky water and then across the outer ward where the little farmyard slept in the pale afternoon sunshine and a blackbird sang loudly in one of the apple trees. There were hives and pigsties, hens roaming and pecking, a dozen goats and a couple of cows, one with a weaned calf. There were sheds for storing vegetables and hay, there was a barn. There were a number of tumbledown half-ruined farm buildings. Alys knew from her work for Lord Hugh that they would never be repaired. It was too costly to run a complete farm inside the castle walls. And anyway, in these days, there was no threat to the peace of the land. Scotland's army never came this far south and the moss troopers threatened travellers on lonely roads, not secure farms, not the great Lord Hugh himself.
Alys walked through the farmyard area towards the great gate where the portcullis hung like a threat and the drawbridge spanned the dark waters of the outer moat. The gate was shut but there was a little door cut into the massive timbers. There were only two soldiers on duty, but an officer watched them from the open door of the guardroom. The country might be at peace but the young lord was nev
er careless of the safety of the castle, and the soldiers were expected to give him value for money. One of the guards swung the door open for Alys and she bent her head and stepped out into a sudden blaze of winter sunshine. As the shadow of the castle lifted from her, Alys felt free.
Morach was waiting for her, dirtier and more stooped than ever. She looked even smaller against the might of the castle than at her own fireside.
'I brought them,' she said, without a word of greeting. 'What made you change your mind?'
Alys slipped her hand through Morach's arm and walked her away from the castle. The market stalls were set out along the main street of the town, selling fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs and the great pale cheeses from the Cotherstone dairies. Half a dozen travelling pedlars had set out their stalls with fancy goods, ribbons, even pewterware for sale, and they shouted to passers-by to buy a Christmas fairing for their sweethearts, for their wives. Alys saw David walking among the produce stalls, pointing and claiming the very best of the goods and nodding to a servant behind him to pay cash. He bought very little. He preferred to order goods direct from the farms inside the manors which belonged to the castle. Those farmers could not set their own prices, and anything the lord required could be ordered as part of the lord's dues.
She drew Morach away, past the stalls and the chattering women, down the hill, and they sat on a drystone wall which marked the edge of someone's pasture and looked down the valley to the river which foamed over the rocks at the foot of the castle cliff.
'You're getting prettier,' Morach said, without approval. She patted Alys' face with one dirty hand. 'You don't suit black,' she said. 'But that hood makes you look like a woman, not a child.' Alys nodded.
'And you're clean,' Morach said. 'You look like a lady. You're plumper around the face, you look well.' She leaned back to complete her inspection. 'Your breasts are getting bigger and your face finer. New gown.'
Alys nodded again.
The Wise Woman Page 11
