The Wise Woman

by Philippa Gregory

'Too pretty,' Morach said shrewdly. 'Too pretty to disappear, even in a navy gown and a gable hood the size of a house. Has the tisane worn off? Or is it that your looks fetch him despite it?'

  'I don't know,' Alys said. 'I think he speaks to me for mere devilry. He knew I did not want him and he knows his wife watches me like a barn owl watches a mouse. He is playing with me for his sport. He takes his lust elsewhere. But the devil in him makes him play with me.'

  Morach shrugged. 'There's nothing you can take to stop that,' she said. 'Lust you can sometimes divert, but not cruelty or play!' She shrugged. 'He'll take his sport where he wishes,' she concluded. 'You will have to suffer it.'

  'It's not just him,' Alys said. 'That icy shrew his wife says she'll give me a dowry and have me wed. I thought it was just a warning to stay clear of her damned husband, but one of her women, Eliza, is wife to a soldier and she said that Lady Catherine has told one of the officers that she's looking for a husband for me.'

  'It can't be done unless the old lord consents,' Morach said, thinking aloud.

  'No,' Alys agreed. 'But if the soldier is told that we are as good as betrothed, and Lady Catherine pays over a dowry, and then sees that we are alone together…'

  Morach nodded. 'Then you're raped, and maybe pregnant or poxed, and you've lost the game,' she concluded with a grim smile. 'No return to an abbey for you with a belly on you or pox-scabs on your pretty face.'

  'There's worse,' Alys said miserably. 'He talks to me of his plans and his ambitions, he tempts me to join his cause. He is seducing me while I watch him.' 'For desire?' Morach asked.

  'I don't know!' Alys burst out. 'For desire or devilry, or worse.' 'Worse?'

  Alys leaned forward and spoke in Morach's ear. 'What if he wants me in his power to suborn me against the old lord?' she whispered. 'What if he wants me to spy on the old lord, to copy his letters? What if he takes me as a pawn in his game to play against the old lord?'

  Morach shrugged. 'Can't you tell him "no"?' she asked.

  'Tell the old lord what he's doing and claim his protection?'

  Alys met Morach's look with a fierce glare. Morach scanned her pale, strained face, and her eyes which were filled with a new expression, a kind of hunger.

  'Why, he has caught you and you are ready to own it at last!' she said with sudden insight. She burst into a cackle of laughter. 'You're hot for him! My little nun! You're dragging yourself into hell with desire for him! Your Lady couldn't protect you from the heat between your legs then! Your God has no cure for that after all!' Alys nodded grimly. 'I desire him,' she said bitterly. 'I know I do now. I feared that I would when I came to you for the herbs. But I thought if I could keep the thought away then I could keep myself safe. Then I thought I was sick of some illness, I was burning up with heat, I could not sleep, I could not eat. When I see him I feel as if I shall faint. If I do not see him I feel sick to my very soul with longing for him. I am trapped, Morach. Damn him – he has caught me.'

  Morach whistled softly as if she would summon a storm. 'Have him then,' she said simply. 'It should cure your heat. That's what they always say. Take him like you would take a bottle of wine, drink yourself sick of him and then never touch him again. I can show you a way to have him and not get with child. Have him and satisfy your hunger. Why not?'

  'Because I am a bride of Christ,' Alys said through her teeth. 'I cannot taste him and gamble that once or twice or even a hundred times will be enough. I am a nun. I should not even be in the world and this is the reason. I should not be able to look on a man. And now I have looked, and seen him, and I want him more than my life itself. But I am still the bride of Christ and Hugo must leave me alone. You forget very easily, Morach. You forget my vows. But I do not!'

  Morach shrugged, unrepentant. 'Then what will you do?'

  'I dare not trust him, and I fear the jealousy of his wife,' Alys said. 'I have to find a way to have some power in this net they all weave. I am ensnared every way I turn and they play with me – each one of them -as if I were a village simpleton.' Morach nodded.

  'They use me,' Alys went on in a low, resentful undertone. 'The old lord has me as his only friend and real ally. He tells me he owns me outright, he has me trapped, afraid of a charge of heresy, afraid of being exposed as a nun. The young lord wants to ensnare me as a pawn against his father, or else he desires me, or he wants to play for the cruelty of it. And Lady Catherine will throw me to a rapist to punish me for taking the old lord's trust and the young lord's eye. I must have some power in this, Morach. I am like an unweaned babe among wolves.'

  Morach nodded. 'You need woman's power, as I did,' she said. 'Your Christ will not keep you safe. Not now. Not against real danger and the lusts of men. You need another power. The old power. The power of the old goddess.'

  Alys nodded. 'I've no choice,' she said. The cold air around her seemed very still and silent. 'I've no choice,' she said again. 'I have been driven so far and now I am at bay. I have to use what power I can. Give me the things.'

  Morach glanced around; the meadow was deserted, the noise of the market was behind them. No one was watching. She unwrapped the cloth bundle and Alys gasped at what she saw. They were three perfect models, three convincing likenesses, as good as the statues in the chapel. Lady Catherine's flowing gown and her cold sharp face were carved out of the wax as precise and white as a cameo.

  Her gown was opened at the front, her legs spread. Morach had scratched the wax at her vagina to give the illusion of hair and the vagina was a deep, disproportionate hole made with a warm bodkin.

  'They fit!' Morach said with a harsh giggle. She showed Alys the model of the young Lord Hugo. She had graven his face in his hard look – the one Alys and all the castle dreaded. But around his eyes there was the tracery of lines from his ready smile. Morach had modelled him a penis as big as a codpiece. 'He must wish to be that size!' she sniggered.

  She took the two candlewax dolls and showed Alys how they slotted together. 'That'll turn his lust towards her,' she said with satisfaction. 'You'll be safe when he is like this.'

  The last doll was the old lord. 'He's thinner than that now,' Alys said sadly. 'Thinner and older looking.'

  'I've not seen him for a long time,' Morach said. 'You can shape him how you wish – use a warm knife for carving, and your fingers. But take care.'

  Alys looked at the three little statues with distaste. She uncoupled Lord Hugo and Lady Catherine and wrapped them up again. 'What care?' she asked.

  'Once you've made them your own, claimed them as models for the life, then whatever you do to them takes place,' Morach said softly. 'If you want the old lord's heart to soften, you cut into his chest, carve out a little piece of wax, mould it into a heart, warm it till it melts, and drip it back into the hole. Next morning he'll be tender as a woman with a new baby.'

  Alys' dark eyes widened. 'Is that true for all of them?' she asked. 'I could make Lady Catherine sick by pinching her belly? Or make the young lord impotent by softening his prick?'

  'Yes,' Morach gleamed. 'It's a powerful piece of business, isn't it? But you have to make them your own, and you have to make them represent those you mean to change. And – as I warned you – they can obey you too well. They can… misunderstand.'

  There was a silence in the winter meadow. Alys met Morach's eyes. 'I have to do it,' she said. 'I have no safety without some power.'

  Morach nodded. 'This is the spell,' she said. She put her mouth to Alys' ear and chanted over some nonsense words, part Latin, part Greek, part French, and partly mispronounced and misheard English. She said it over and over again until Alys nodded and said she knew it by heart.

  'And you must take something from each of them,' she said. 'Something which is close to them, a bit of hair, a bit of fingernail, a paring of skin, and stick it on the part of the doll where it came from. Little fingernail to little finger, hair to the head, skin to where it was cut. Then you have your doll and your power.' Alys nodded. 'Have you done it before?' she asked. 'No,
' Morach said decidedly. 'There wasn't the urgency. I've had women ask me to soften their husband's heart but it's easier done with herbs in his dinner than a wax candle. I've had someone wish a man dead, but I'd never do it. The risk is too great. I always thought the risk was too great to make one of these.' 'Why've you done it now?' Alys asked directly. Morach looked into her smooth young face and said, 'You don't know, do you? All your learning and all your planning, and you still are ignorant.'

  Alys hunched her shoulder. 'I don't know what you're saying.' Morach put her dirty hand over Alys' clean one. 'I did it for you,' she said gruffly. 'I did it to give you a chance, to help you gain what you want, and to save you from rape by a soldier or by the young lord or by both. I don't care for your dream of a nunnery but I do care for you. I raised you as my own daughter. I wouldn't see you on your back under a man who cares nothing for you.'

  Alys looked into the sharp old face. 'Thank you,' she said simply. She looked carefully into Morach's dark eyes. 'Thank you,' she said again.

  'And if it goes against you,' Morach said challengingly, 'if it's found, or if they know they've been hexed, I want my name out of it. You tell them you carved this yourself, it was your own idea. That is the condition. I've made them but I won't take the danger of them. You tell them they are your own if you are ever caught. I want to die in my bed.'

  The moment of tenderness between the two women was dispelled at once.

  'I promise,' Alys said. She caught the look of suspicion on Morach's face. 'I promise,' she said again. 'I will make you a solemn oath. If anyone finds these I will tell them they are my own, made by me and used by me.'

  'Swear on your honour, on your old abbess, and on your God,' Morach said insistently. Alys hesitated.

  'Swear you will say they are yours,' Morach demanded. 'Swear it or I'll take them back!'

  Alys shook her head. 'If anyone finds them I am lost anyway,' she said. 'Owning them would be enough to see me hanged.'

  Morach nodded. 'Throw them in the moat on your way home if you've changed your mind,' she said. 'If you need magic there's a price to pay. There's a price for everything. The price for this is your oath. Swear by your God.'

  Alys looked at Morach with desperation in her face. 'Don't you see?' she demanded. 'Don't you know? I can have no God! My Lord Christ and Our Lady have turned their faces away from me. I ran from them when I left the convent and I hoped to take them with me. But all my efforts cannot keep them by my side. I kept the hours of prayer while I lived with you, Morach – as far as I could guess the right time. But in the castle they are near to being Protestants, heretics, and I cannot. And so Our Lady has abandoned me. And that is why I feel lust for the young lord, and why I now put my hand to your black arts.' 'Lost your God?' Morach asked with interest. Alys nodded. 'So I cannot swear by Him. I am far from His grace.' She gave a harsh laugh. 'I might as well swear by yours,' she said.

  Morach nodded briskly. 'Do it,' she said. 'Put your hand on mine and say, "I swear by the Black Master, by all his servants, and in the power of all his arts, that I will own these dolls as my own. I wanted them, I have them, I acknowledge them."'

  Alys shrugged and laughed her bitter laugh again -half crying. She put her slim white hand on Morach's and repeated the oath.

  When she had finished, Morach captured her hand, and held it. 'Now you are his,' she said slowly. 'You've summoned him now. You must learn the skills, Alys, you must know your master.'

  Alys gave a little shiver in the bright wintry sunlight. 'I am his until I can get back to my abbey,' she said. 'I will loan him my soul. I am damned until I can get back to an abbey anyway.'

  Morach gave a harsh laugh and struggled to her feet. 'Good Christmas,' she said. 'I'm away to collect my Christmas goods from my neighbours. They should be generous this year, the plague has stayed away from Bowes, and the vomiting sickness has passed on.'

  'Good Christmas,' Alys replied and reached in her pocket. 'Here,' she said, offering a silver threepenny piece. 'My lord gave me a handful of coins for fairings. Have this, Morach, and buy yourself a bottle of mead.'

  Morach pushed the coin away. 'I'll take nothing from you today but your oath,' she said. 'Nothing but your solemn oath that if they find the dolls you claim them as your own work.'

  'I promise!' Alys said impatiently. 'I've promised already. I've promised by the devil himself!'

  Morach nodded. 'That's binding then,' she said. Then she pulled her shawl over her head again and turned back towards the town.

  Seven

  They celebrated the Christmas feast with a series of great dinners at the castle which started on the first day of Christmas and went on till the early winter darkness fell on the twelfth day. They had singers and dancers and a troupe of dark-skinned tumblers who could walk on their hands as well as their feet and whirled around the hall going from hands to feet so fast that they looked like some strange man-beast – an abomination. They had a man with a horse which could dance on its hind legs and tell fortunes by pawing out 'yes' or 'no' on the ground.

  On the second day they brought in a bear and forced wine on her and made her dance around the great hall while the young men leaped and cavorted around her -always making sure to keep clear of those huge flailing paws. When they were sick of the dance they took off her mask and baited her with dogs until three hounds were killed. Then Hugo called a halt. Alys saw he was distressed by the loss of one dog, a pale brown deer-hound. The bear was still snarling and angry and her keeper fed her with a dish of cheat-bread soaked with honey and some powerful mead. She went all sleepy and foolish in minutes and he was able to put her mask back on and take her from the hall.

  There were some who would have liked to kill her for the sport of it when she was dozy and weak. Hugo, who had been excited by the danger of her and the speed of her sudden charges, would have allowed it but the old lord shook his head. Alys was standing behind his chair.

  'Do you pity her? The great bear?' she asked. He gave his sharp laugh. 'Hardly,' he said. 'But the keeper sells her play very dearly. If we had wanted to kill her it would have cost us pieces of gold!' He glanced back at Alys with his knowing smile. 'Always check a man's purse before you scan his heart, little Alys. That is where most decisions are made!'

  The next day the young men went out hunting and Hugo brought back a deer still alive, with its thin legs bound, so that they could release it in the hall. It leaped in terror on to the great trestle-tables, sliding on the polished surface, frantically glaring around the hall for escape, and people ran screaming with laughter out of its way. Alys watched its shiny black eyes bulging with fear as they drove it from one corner to another. She saw the slather of white sweat darken the russet coat until they hustled it forwards and up to the dais so that the old lord could plunge his hunting dagger into its heart. The women all around her screamed with pleasure as the brilliant red blood pumped out. Alys watched the deer fall, its dainty black hooves scrabbling for a foothold even as it died.

  On the morning of the twelfth day they held a little joust. David had ordered the castle carpenters to build a temporary tilt-yard in the fields of the castle farm, and a pretty tent of striped material for the old lord to sit at his ease and watch the riders. Catherine sat beside him, wearing a new festive gown of yellow, bright in the hard winter sunlight. Alys sat in her dark blue gown on a stool at his left hand to keep the score of hits for each rider.

  Hugo was monstrous and exciting in his armour. His left shoulder was hugely enlarged by a great sheet of metal forged into shape and studded with brass nails which terminated in a gross gauntlet. His right shoulder and arm were scaled like a woodlouse with overlapping plates of jointed metal so he could move freely and hold the lance. His chest and belly were covered by a smooth polished breastplate, shaped to deflect any blow, and his legs were encased in jointed metal. He walked stiffly and awkwardly to his horse, the big roan warhorse, which was also plated from head to tail, only its bright, excited, white-ringed eyes showing through th
e headpiece.

  'Is it dangerous?' Alys asked Lord Hugh. He nodded, smiling. 'It can be,' he said. Hugo's challenger was waiting at the other end of the lists. Catherine leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with excitement, and dropped her yellow handkerchief. At once the horses sprang forward and the two charged one another. As they came closer the lances came down, and Alys shut her eyes, dreading the sound of lance against body. All she could hear was the thunder of hooves, and then the horses were still. Lord Hugh nudged her.

  'No score,' he said. 'Pair of boys.' In the second run Hugo struck his opponent on the body, on the third he took a blow to his shoulder, and on the fourth his lance hit his challenger smack in his metalled belly and threw him from the horse.

  There was a great yell of approval from the watching crowd and the townspeople, who were crowded in at the gate end of the ground, threw their caps in the air and shouted 'Hugo!'

  Hugo pulled his horse up and trotted back down the lists. They were bending over the challenger and taking his helmet off. 'Are you all right, Stewart?' Hugo called. 'Just winded?'

  The man raised his hand. 'A little tap,' he said. 'But I'll let someone else unseat you!'

  Hugo laughed and trotted back to his place. Alys sensed his complacent smile hidden beneath the helmet. They jousted until the early afternoon and then only went in for a late dinner as the light began to fail. Hugo stripped off his armour at the ground floor of the tower and ran up the spiral stairs in his shirt and hose shouting for a bath. He was washed and dressed in his red doublet in time for dinner and sat at his father's right hand and drank deep. As the lords ate, the mummers sang and danced, and when Lord Hugo called for the bowl and washed his hands and was served with hippocras wine the Lords of Misrule marched in from the kitchen with the lowliest server at their head.

  Lord Hugh laughed and vacated his seat at the high table and took a chair at the fireside with Catherine standing behind him. They seated him comfortably and then brought a dirty apron for Hugo and ordered him to serve them all with wine. The women in the body of the hall shrieked with laughter and sent the young lord racing around the hall with one order after another. The serving-lad sat in the lord's chair and handed down commands and judgements. A number of men were outrageously accused of girls' play, and ordered to be tied one on another's back in a long laughing line, to see how they liked a surfeit of it. Several of the serving-wenches were accused of venery and taking the man's part in the act of lust. They had to publicly strip to their shifts and wear breeches for the rest of the feast. A couple of soldiers were accused of theft while raiding in Scotland with Hugo, a couple of the cooking staff were named for dirtiness. A wife was accused of infidelity, a girl who worked in the confectioner's department of the kitchen was accused of scolding and had to wear a scarf tied across her mouth.