Lord Hugh waved a hand. 'Read me that later,' he said. 'Anything which affects the north? Any new taxes?'
Alys shook her head. 'He speaks of the King's accident, a fall while jousting.'
'I knew of it already. Anything else?' 'He suggests that you write pressing your claim for the monastery lands which abut your manors,' Alys said. She could feel her lips framing each word precisely as she thought of the wide fertile fields either side of the river. Mother Hildebrande used to like to walk in the meadows before haymaking, smelling the heady scent of the flowers growing wild and thick among the grass. On a summer evening their perfume stole across the river to the gardens, to the chambers, even to the chapel, like a sweet, natural incense. Now these lands were spoil – up for offer.
'He says, "You and Hugo are well praised for the goods you have sent south and for your loyal zeal. Now is the time to prompt the King to reward your labour. He is also open to money bids for the land, beneficial leases, or land exchanges. They are saying that a lease of three lives will pay for itself over and over."'
The old lord nodded. Twenty-one-year leases,' he said softly. He shook his head. 'It would see me out, but what of Hugo? Anything else?'
Alys turned the page. 'Prices of corn, coal and beef,' she said. 'Prices of furs and wine.'
'Anything else about the north?' Lord Hugh asked. 'No,' Alys replied. 'But the laws about vagrants will affect your lands.'
They were silent for a moment, the old lord looking deep into the fire as if he would see his way clear through the changes which were coming.
'This other letter,' he said abruptly. 'Translate it for me. It's from the bishop's clerk and he writes in Latin. Read me it in English.'
Alys took the paper and drew up her stool to the table. It was a letter from the bishop's clerk outlining the acceptable causes and reasons for an annulment of the marriage between Lady Catherine and Lord Hugo. Alys felt the sudden heat come into her face. She looked up at the old lord. He was looking at her quizzically.
'I can send the old shrew away,' he said. 'Barren old shrew. Send her away and free Hugo.' A wide smile as bright as his son's cracked his grave face. 'I've done it!' he said. 'I've freed Hugo. Now he'll have a plump new wife with a fat new dowry and I shall live long enough to see my heir!' Alys' face was sour. 'You don't know then?' 'Know what?' he asked, his face darkening. 'Out with it, girl, you're my source for women's tattle. You should come to me with whatever news you have the moment you get it.'
'She's with child,' Alys said. 'I suppose that changes everything.'
For a moment he hardly heard her, then his face lit up with joy. 'With child!' His fist banged down on the forgotten, redundant letter. 'With child at last!' He threw back his head and laughed. Alys watched him, her mouth pressed tight.
'With child at last!' he said again. Then he checked himself. 'Is she sure? Have you looked at her? This is no ruse, is it, Alys? Does she think to save her skin for another few months with pretences?'
Alys shook her head. 'She's pregnant. I checked her. And she sent for my kinswoman, Morach, who is to stay with us until the birth. They've just struck their deal.'
'Boy or girl?' the old man asked eagerly. 'Tell me, Alys. What d'you think? Boy or girl?' 'I think it's a boy,' Alys said unwillingly. 'Has she told Hugo?' the old lord demanded. 'Curse the lad! Where is he?'
'She told him,' Alys said. 'He's out hunting venison for you, my lord. I don't know if he's back yet.'
'He went out without telling me?' the old lord asked, his face suddenly darkening. 'He gets the shrew in pup and then he goes out without telling me?'
Alys said nothing, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes down.
'Hah!' Lord Hugh said. 'Not best pleased, was he?' Alys said nothing.
'She told him this morning and he went straight out?' Lord Hugh checked. Alys nodded.
'In a rage I suppose,' the old lord said ruminatively. 'He was counting on an annulment. He'll know that's not possible now.' The fire crackled. The old lord sat silent in thought. 'Family comes first,' he said finally. 'Duty comes first. He can take his pleasures elsewhere – as he always has done. But now that his wife is with child, she is his wife forever. The child is well – d'you think?'
'These are early days,' Alys said. Her lips were cold and the words came out carefully. 'Queen Anne herself can tell you that many a baby is lost before birth. But as far as I can tell, the child is well.' 'And a boy?' the old man pressed her. Alys nodded.
'That is well!' he said. 'Very well. Queen Anne or no! This is the nearest to an heir that we have ever come. Tell Catherine to wear something pretty tonight, I will drink her health before them all. She can come to my room as soon as she is dressed. I will take a glass with her.'
Alys nodded. 'And me, my lord?' she asked. 'These other letters?'
Lord Hugh waved her away. 'You can go,' he said. 'I have no need of you now.'
Alys rose from the chair, curtsied and went to the door. 'Wait!' he said abruptly. Alys paused.
'Thrust those papers from the bishop in the fire,' he said. 'We don't want to risk Catherine seeing them. She would be distressed. We cannot risk her distress. Burn them, Alys, there will be no annulment now!'
Alys stepped forward and gathered the thick manuscripts into her hands. She pushed them into the back of the fire and watched them flame and blacken and crumble. She found that she was staring at the fire, her face blank and hard.
'You can go,' the old lord said softly. Alys dropped him a curtsey and went out, closing the door softly behind her. David the dwarf was coming up the stairs, his sharp little face curious.
'You look drab, Alys,' he remarked. 'Are you sick? Or heartbroken? What's the old woman doing in the ladies' chamber? Are you not glad to have your kinswoman take your place?'
Alys turned her head aside and went down the stairs without answering.
'Is it true?' David called after her. 'Is it true what the women are whispering? Lady Catherine is in child and Hugo is in love with her, and she is high in the lord's favour again?'
Alys paused on the turret stair and looked back up at him, her pale face luminous in the gloom. 'Yes,' she said simply. 'All of my wishes have been fulfilled. What a blessing.'
'Amen,' said David, his face creasing into ironic laughter. 'And you so joyful!'
'Yes,' Alys said sourly, and went on downstairs.
Hugo was late from hunting and came to the high table when they were eating their meats. He apologized gracefully to his father and kissed Catherine's hand. They had great sport, he told them. They had killed nine bucks. They were hanging in the meat larder now and the antlers would be brought in for Lord Hugh. The hides, tanned, perfumed and soft, would make a cradle, a new cradle for the new Lord Hugo.
He did not once look at Alys, and she kept her gaze on her plate and ate little. Around her the babble of excited women's talk swayed and eddied like a billowy sea. Morach was silent too – eating her way through dish after dish with determined concentration.
When supper was over both Hugo and the old lord came to the ladies' chamber and the women played and sang for them and Catherine sewed as she talked. Her colour was high, she was wearing a new gown of cream with a rose-pink overskirt and a rose stomacher, slashed, with the cream gown pulled through. In the candlelight with her hair newly washed and dressed and her face animated with happiness she looked younger, prettier. The old bony greedy look had gone. Alys watched her glow under Hugo's attention, heard her quick laughter at the old lord's jests, and hated her.
'I need to pick some herbs in the moonlight,' she said quietly. 'I must ask you to excuse me, my lords, my lady.'
Catherine's bright face turned towards her. 'Of course,' she said dismissively. 'You may go.'
The old lord nodded his permission. Hugo was dealing cards and did not look up. Alys went down the stairs and across the hall, out through the great hall doors and into the yard of the inner manse and then turned to her right to walk between the vegetable- and herb-
beds.
She needed nothing, but it was good to be out of the hot chamber and under the icy high sky. She stood for minutes in the moonlight, holding her cape tight around her, her hood up over her head. Then she walked slowly the length of the garden and back again. She was not planning. She was not thinking. She was beyond thought and plans or even spells. She was hugging to her heart the great ache of loneliness and disappointment and loss. Hugo would remain married to Catherine, they would have a son. He would be the Lord one day and Catherine the Lady of the castle. And Alys would be always the barely tolerated healer, clerk and hanger-on. Disliked by Catherine, forgotten by Hugo, retained on a small pension from the old lord because in that large household one mouth more or less made little difference.
She could marry – marry a soldier or a farmer and leave the castle for her own little cottage. Then she would work from sunrise until hours after dark, bear one child after another, every year until she fell sick and then died.
Alys shook her head as she walked. The little hovel on Bowes Moor had not been enough for her, the abbey had been a refuge she thought would stand forever, the castle had been a step on her way, and her sudden unexpected desire for Hugo and his love for her had been a gift and a joy she had not anticipated. And now it was gone.
Behind her the hall door opened and Hugo came out.
'I can't stay long,' he said in greeting. He took her cold hands in his warm ones and held them gently. 'Don't grieve,' he said. 'Things will come out.'
Alys' white, strained face looked up at him. 'Hardly,' she said acidly. 'Don't comfort me with nonsense, Hugo, I am not a child.'
He recoiled slightly. 'Alys, have a heart,' he said. 'We both thought that you would be safer here if Catherine were with child. Now she is content and her position assured and you and I can be together.'
'In secret,' Alys said bitterly. 'In doorways, here in the kitchen garden in darkness, wary of watchers.'
Hugo shrugged. 'Who cares?' he demanded. 'I love you, Alys, and I want you. I have done my duty by Catherine, she will ask no more. I will get you a house in the town if you wish, and spend my nights there with you. We can be lovers at least! I want you, Alys, I care for nothing but that!'
Alys pulled her hands away and tucked them under her cloak. 'I wanted to be your wife,' she said stubbornly. 'Your father had a letter from the Prince Bishop today telling how an annulment could be done. We were very near to being rid of her. I wanted her gone. I wanted to lie with you in the Lady's chamber, not in some little house in town.'
Hugo took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. 'Careful, my Alys,' he said warningly. 'You are sounding to me like a woman who wants to leap to the top of the ladder. I would have taken you for love, I desire you in my bed. I would lie with you in a ditch, on the herbs here and now. Is it me you want or my name?'
For a moment Alys held herself stiff, then she moved into his arms. 'You,' she said. He held her tight and the coldness and the pain in her belly melted in a great rush of desire. 'You,' she said again.
'We'll find some way,' Hugo said gently. 'Don't be so afraid, Alys. We will find ways to be together, and we will love each other. Don't fret.'
Alys, held warm and close inside his cloak, rested her head against his shoulder and said: 'If she were to die…'
Hugo was instantly still. 'If she were to die…' Alys said again. He held her away from him and scanned her face, her blue innocent eyes. 'It would be a tragedy,' he said firmly. 'Don't think that I would welcome that route away from her, Alys. Don't make the mistake of thinking I would permit it. It is not a strange thought to me, I admit. I have wished her dead many and many a time. But I would never do it, Alys. And the man or woman who hurt Catherine would be my enemy for life. I have hated her -but she is my wife. She is Lady Catherine of Castleton. I owe her my protection. I command you, I demand that you keep her as well and as happy as it is in your power to do. She is a woman like you, Alys. Full of desire and longing like you, like any. She may be greedy, and she and I may lie together in all manner of perverse ways. But she is not a bad woman. She does not deserve death. I will not consider it. And she is trusting in your care.' Alys nodded.
'Do you swear to protect her?' Hugo asked. Alys met his intent gaze. 'I swear it,' she said easily. She felt the arid taste of the empty oath in her mouth.
'I must go,' Hugo said. 'They will be watching for me. Meet me tomorrow, Alys, come to the stables in the morning, my hunter is sick, you can look at him for me and we can be together.' He kissed her gently, quickly, on the mouth and then he turned and was gone. She heard the hall door slam as he went inside, leaving her alone in the garden.
'If she died… ' Alys said softly to the moonlit garden in the icy light. 'If she died he would marry me.'
Fourteen
Next day Alys could not get away to the stables until just before noon. Lady Catherine had an ache in her back and ordered Alys to rub it with oils and essences. Alys worked on the broad fleshy back with mounting impatience. Lady Catherine, prone and sighing with contentment, would not let her go. Alys' hands were hard, unloving on the other woman's flesh, drained of their healing magic by Alys' spite. She had to restrain an urge to pinch. After she had finished rubbing in the oil, Catherine's smooth white back was striped with red.
'That was good, Alys,' she said, in a rare moment of contentment.
Alys curtsied, collected her oils into her basket and shot from the room like a tom-cat. She half threw her basket at Morach and fled for the stairs, down the winding stony treads, across the hall, out of the kitchen door and around to the stables.
It was no good. Hugo had left. The simple lad who worked with the horses smiled his empty smile at her.
'Where is the young lord?' she asked abruptly. 'Was he here?'
'Gone,' the boy said. 'Long, long gone.'
Alys shivered and snapped her fingers under cover of her sleeves to recall her from a shadow of superstition.
'Long, long gone,' said the lad again.
Alys turned and went back to the castle. The stall for Hugo's favourite horse was empty, he had waited for her only a moment. She ached with resentment at his leaving so readily; and disappointment that he could so easily go. Alys knew that if she had been waiting for him she would have been there all day.
She saw him at dinner at midday and he gave her a rueful grin and a wink but they did not speak. In the dying light of the afternoon he took his horse and his great deerhounds down the valley, riding fast by the flooding river, and she did not see him again until suppertime. Alys sat at the little table with the other women and watched the back of Hugo's neck where the dark hair curled. She imagined the feel of that silky hair beneath her fingers and how it would be to grip the nape of his neck in one hand. She felt as if she could grip him and shake him with desire – and with anger too. They left the supper table early and Hugo joined them in the ladies' gallery.
'My back aches again,' Catherine said faintly and Alys watched as she leaned on Hugo's arm and walked slowly into her bedroom. As the door closed Alys' keen eyes saw Hugo's arm go around his wife's waist. Alys waited for him to bid her goodnight and come out again to Alys as she sat with the other women at the fireside. The door stayed shut. Alys felt Morach's mocking black eyes smiling at her. There was no sound from Catherine's bedroom.
'Aye, he's very tender all of a sudden,' Eliza said, her mouth muffled by a thread of embroidery silk. 'There'll be no more slaps and curses now she's in foal.'
Alys looked towards the door again. It stayed shut. 'He's bound to try to keep her sweet,' she said unwillingly. 'He has to have an heir, Catherine has to have her way – at least in these early months.'
Morach hawked and spat into the fire. 'He likes it,' she said contemptuously. 'He'll like the taste of her when she's big with his child. He'll like the thought of a baby in her belly. He'll like her breasts getting fatter and the richness of her body. Men are just babies themselves. He'll suckle from her breasts and roll on her round belly li
ke a new-born infant himself. He's not a man right now, he's a little boy with a new toy.'
Eliza giggled. Alys said nothing. The women sewed in silence, each of them craning their heads to hear what passed in the next room.
The door opened. 'My lady is tired,' Hugo said. He looked towards Morach. 'You or Alys, prepare her a tisane to help her sleep. She needs her rest.'
Morach nodded towards Alys. Hugo smiled at her, one of his open-hearted sweet smiles. 'Thank you, Alys,' he said pleasantly. 'You can bring it in when it is ready.' Then he turned on his heel and went back to his wife.
When the tisane was ready Alys gave it to Ruth to take in. She waited by the fire to see if Hugo came out again. He did not. That night, for the first time in their long, loveless marriage, he stayed in his wife's bed all night long. For the first time in her life Catherine slept with her head on her husband's shoulder and her brown hair tangled across his chest.
Alys sat by the fire with the others and sewed. When she went to bed, with Morach's warm bulk beside her, she did not sleep. She watched the arrow-slit of silver light walk from one end of the chamber to the other as the moon nonchalantly traversed the sky. Alys lay on her back, her eyes open, seeing nothing, thinking nothing. She endured jealousy, as she might endure an attack of deadly ague, stoically; sickened to the heart, saying nothing.
The weather itself was against her, confining her to the castle. March was wild and full of rainstorms and flurries of thick wet snow which clogged doorways and blew into the west-facing windows, leaving puddles on the stone floors. The sky seemed lower than usual and it was dark every afternoon. The castle seemed to shrink in on itself, besieged by winter.
Alys was never alone. Morach shared her bed at night, Lady Catherine ordered her to the ladies' gallery very often, and the old lord took to sitting with them in the afternoons, so Alys could not escape to his chamber in the round tower. Hugo rode out every day, going further and further afield, as restless as a mewed falcon. They heard stories of his adventures: of an alehouse which had been a nest of poachers burned down and the men and women turned out on to the snow-driven moor, of a pitched battle on the highway with some beggars, of a small riot in a bawdy house with mummery and masquers and lechery in the street.
The Wise Woman Page 23
