'Will the bridge be clear?' Alys asked, peering ahead.
'We have a few hours yet,' Morach said. 'But if there is a storm on the hills we won't have long to do our business and get home dry-shod.'
'Not much business to do,' Alys said. The bundle of dolls stirred as if to contradict her.
'Here then,' Morach said and went to turn off the mud lane. The ponies hesitated at the muddy track down the hillside. Morach peered at the churned mud beneath their hooves. 'This track was used recently,' she said. Her eyes went to Alys' face. 'Several horsemen,' she said. 'And dogs.'
'Hugo,' Alys said. 'He must have come hunting this way yesterday. It doesn't matter, Morach. We are well ahead of him this day. He usually sits with her until after dinner.'
Morach scowled. 'I wish he'd stay home all day,' she said. She kicked her pony irritably and the animal jolted forward, slipping and sliding down the track. Alys followed.
'We'll be finished and headed for home before he sets out,' she said. 'And there's nowhere else for us to go. Tinker's Cross is the only sacred ground nearby. We can hardly dig up the chapel graveyard.'
Morach's pony flinched at another kick. 'I don't like it,' she said irritably. 'If he sees us with a muddy spade, even after we've finished, he'll ask why.'
'We'll hide the spade,' Alys said reassuringly. 'It'd be as hard to get it back as it was to steal anyway. We'll hide the spade and the sacking and the pannier bag and ride home with a bunch of heather and herbs. No one will challenge us, they all know we need grasses from the moor to keep Catherine well. No one doubts us,. Morach.' 'Hide it where?' Morach asked stubbornly. Alys shrugged. 'I don't know! Why are you so sour? Aren't there caves enough along the river-bank where you could hide half an army? We'll shove it down one of the caves and wedge it tight so the river cannot wash it out again. The waters are rising, it'll be high summer and drought before anyone can go down the caves again. The waters will hide it for us.'
Morach shivered and spat over her left shoulder. 'You can hide it,' she said. 'I'll not go near a cave, nor deep water. Look around you for a likely place as we cross the river.'
Alys nodded. 'I'll go first,' she said. 'The ponies may be afraid of the bridge.'
It was the natural stone bridge upstream of Morach's old cottage, formed out of great slabs of limestone, with the river bubbling, like brown soup, below. When the river was in spate great gouts of water would fountain up from the cracks in the river bed as the underground torrents burst out, and every cave and pothole along the bank would be a boiling spring of melt-water and storm-water, forced up from the underground lake to wash into the surface river. On either side of the river-bank, as much as six feet away from the water, was the high-water line of sticks and straw and rubbish from the last flood. The ponies put their heads down and sniffed suspiciously at the stone slabs beneath their hooves, then delicately stepped across, as light as goats, ears forward, listening to the rush of the water beneath them.
'There's a good place,' Alys said. The mouth of the cave was a little way along the river-bank. She slipped from the saddle and threw the bridle at Morach. Both ponies dropped their heads to the short moorland grass and cropped. Alys scrambled up the little slope and peered inside the cave.
'It goes back miles,' she said, her voice echoing. 'I can't see the end of it. It could go for miles into the hillside.' She came out again and took the reins from Morach. Morach's face was strained. 'Did you hear the water rising?' she asked. 'I'm afraid of it coming up early. We don't want to be cut off this side of the river if the water is rising.'
'I heard it, but it was far away down at the bottom of the cave,' Alys said. 'We'll have enough time. Come on.'
The two ponies straggled up the hill on the far side, stepping out on the dry ground, floundering in the bogs. Ahead of them, on the track, they could see the mark of horses' hooves.
There was a cairn on the top of the hill and the wide, dry moorland stretching all around them. Morach pushed her shawl off her face and looked around her. 'That's better,' she said. 'Tinker's Cross is this way.' She led the way, kicking her pony into a trot. Alys' pony trotted behind, the pannier bumping at every step. The mist had cleared now they were on the top of the moor, though it clung to the valley sides. Ahead of them, Alys could see the thin finger of the old Celtic cross pointing upwards. Around it was a little circle of stones, the edge of the sanctified ground. When Alys came up to the cross Morach had already dismounted and was tying her pony to a holly bush.
'Give me the dolls,' she said to Alys. 'And dig them their grave.'
Alys untied the pannier bag from the saddle and handed it, unopened, to Morach. Morach hunkered down on the wet turf and held the bag in her arms. Quietly she crooned a little tune at the dolls, while Alys untied the shovel from the other side of the saddle.
'If you remember any of your prayers you should say them,' she remarked, without raising her eyes. 'The holier the act of burying them the better.'
Alys shrugged. 'I remember them,' she said. 'But coming from me they might as well be said backwards. I am far from the grace of God, Morach. You'd be closer to heaven than me.'
Morach shrugged almost regretfully. 'Not I,' she said. 'I've not set foot in a church in twenty years, and I never understood what they were saying even then. I made my choice. I don't regret it. But I'll never work with deep shadows again as you have done here. It's too powerful for me.'
Alys thrust the spade hard into the holy ground and twisted it out tearing at the tough roots of the grasses. 'I went as deep as I was driven,' Alys said. 'You counselled me to it. You said if I lost one god I should seek another.'
'Hush,' Morach said, looking around. The bag on her lap stirred and she held them tighter. 'Keep your voice down,' she said. 'There is older magic here than the cross. That holly tree was planted to mark this place before the cross was raised. The old magic runs very strong here. Don't wake it now.'
'It was your bidding,' Alys insisted in a whisper, thrusting the spade in deeper. 'It was my choice to use it, but it was your spell.'
Morach looked up at her, her dark eyes gleaming. 'We had an agreement,' she said.
Alys was silent, digging hard. She was through to the stone soil now, the grave for the dolls was a spade's width across.
'You ordered them, you took responsibility for them,' Morach insisted. 'They are your dolls. I made you swear that you would not blame me for them, whatever they did.'
Alys said nothing, turning out shovelfuls of damp soil into a little heap.
'By rights I need not be here,' Morach said resentfully. 'Your dolls, your magic, and your bitter power that has made them so lively.'
Alys rested on the handle of the shovel and pushed back a lock of hair with one grimy hand. 'Have done,' she said. 'Is this deep enough?'
Morach leaned forward. 'A little more,' she said. 'We want them to sleep well, the bonny little things.'
Alys thrust the spade deep again and then jerked her head up. 'What's that?' she demanded. 'Did you hear?' 'What?' Morach asked quickly. 'What?' The mist was closing down again, swirling around them. Alys shrank back. 'I thought I heard something,' she said.
'Heard what?' Morach said. 'What d'you hear, Alys?' 'Horses,' Alys said, so softly that Morach could scarcely hear the words. 'What'll we do, Morach? What'll we do if someone comes?'
'I hear them!' Morach said urgently. 'I heard a horn!' There was a sudden blast of a hunting horn, very near them, and then out of the mist two great deer-hounds leaped, dashed past Morach, nearly knocking her over, and bayed, savagely, terrifyingly, at Alys.
Alys flung herself back till the cold stone of the cross at her back stopped her. She pressed back against it and the dogs, their hackles high and prickly on their great backs, opened their mouths and roared at her like lions. 'Hugo!' Alys screamed over the noise. 'Hugo! Save me! Call your dogs off me! Save me!'
The horn blasted loud again and then a great roan stallion leaped out of the mist towards them and reared to a standst
ill. Hugo jumped down with his riding whip in his hands and beat his dogs back.
Alys flung herself towards him and he caught her up in his arms.
'Alys?' he said in amazement.
The other huntsmen rose out of the fog, one of them slipped a leash on each of the dogs. 'Alys, what are you doing here?' Hugo looked around and saw Morach, rising to her feet, her face a sickly grey and a bag which kicked and squirmed in her hand.
'What d'you have there?' he rapped out. Morach held the bag fast and shook her head. She seemed to have lost her tongue in her terror. She shook her head harder and harder like an idiot child incapable of speech.
'What d'you have there?' Hugo demanded again, his voice hard with his own fear. 'Answer me! Answer me! Tell me what you have in that sack!' Morach said nothing but the bag went suddenly still. Then Alys screamed, a sharp, piercing scream of pure terror, and pointed. The bag was splitting open, from bottom to top, like the rancid skin of a rotten peach. Splitting and bursting open. And out of it, marching like a row of crippled soldiers, came the three dolls. The scrawny, beaky, old lord, the grossly pregnant woman doll, and the sightless, fingerless, mouthless, earless Hugo.
'She did it!' Alys screamed, the words pouring out of her mouth like a river in flood. 'She did it! She made them! She hexed them! Morach did it! Morach!'
Morach stared Alys in the face for one full, incredulous second, then she whirled around and plunged into the fog, skirts snatched up, running as fast as she could like a hunted animal, into the deepest fog in the valley.
'Holloa!' Hugo yelled. 'A witch! A witch!' He jumped up into the saddle, seized Alys' arm, and hauled her up behind him. The horse was dancing to be off and Alys grabbed at Hugo's shoulders. The huntsman unleashed the dogs and they bayed and circled the hunters, as if they could not catch the scent. One of them pawed up at Alys, reaching for her, its wide mouth open, its breath hot. Hugo kicked it down with an oath. 'Holloa! Holloa!' he yelled again. 'A witch! Find the witch! Seek the witch! Seek her!'
The big dog bayed again and flung himself at Alys but then the huntsman blew his horn in a great discordant shriek and the dogs broke away into the mist. Hugo's huge stallion wheeled and dashed after them. Alys pressed her face to Hugo's back and clung around his waist, weeping in her terror.
Morach was ahead of them, scrambling downhill, slipping in the mud, crawling over the stones, and then up again, running for her life. The dogs sighted her and bayed a deeper note. She whirled around when she heard it and they saw a glimpse of her white face, then she fell to her hands and knees and dropped out of sight for one moment.
'A hare!' a young huntsman called. 'A hare! She'll change herself into a hare!'
As he spoke a hare broke from the ground beneath their feet, black-tipped ears laid smooth, head flung back, and tore away down the hill towards the river.
The dogs shot off on the new scent, yelping like mad puppies as the hare gained on them.
'She'll make a circle!' Hugo yelled. 'Cut her off! Turn her back!'
Alys, gripping while the horse leaped and bounded beneath her, was screaming into the wind, 'No! No! No!' but Hugo could not hear her. The huntsman was blowing his horn, the hounds were yelping and the brown hare, her long legs pounding, was sailing across the ground in great bounds, her eyes white-ringed with terror.
'She's heading for the river, Sir!' a huntsman yelled. They were closing on the prey but not fast enough. 'She'll get down one of those holes and we'll never get her out.'
'Faster!' Hugo shouted. 'Cut her off! Don't let her get to the river-bank! Drive her into the river!'
The hounds surged forward but the hare jinked and turned and snatched herself away. The horses stumbled and slithered down the steep hillside, the riders urging them on. The hare was headed for the stone bridge; they could see her clearly, racing across the grey stone slabs, and the hounds, a few lengths behind her and going faster on the stones. Then she leaped down from the bridge and flew off to the left, leaving the dogs snapping at the empty air, and dived into the deep cave Alys had found earlier. Baying with anger the hounds flung themselves at the opening.
'Whip them off! Whip them off!' Hugo yelled. They'll get stuck. She'll lure them down there and trap them.'
He flung himself from his horse and strode towards them, his whip hissing. The hounds fell back, snarling and dripping from their red mouths, and went to the huntsman. Hugo, shaking with excitement, went slowly to the mouth of the cave and cautiously peered in.
'Mortal deep,' he said. 'I'd go down there for a beast but not for a witch-turned-hare.' The men nodded. 'She could turn back,' one warned. 'Or change into a snake in the darkness,' another nodded.
'What'll we do?' the young one asked. Instinctively they looked towards Alys. She was clinging to the pommel as the horse shifted restively, and when she looked up her face was tear-stained, wild.
'Wait,' she said, her voice shaky and shrill. There was a rumble of thunder and a crack of lightning over the high dark hills to the west, the source of the river.
Hugo came back to the horse's side and looked up at Alys. 'Wait?' he asked. 'What d'you mean? Wait?' Alys laughed hysterically. 'The storm is come,' she cried. She looked westward. A few fat drops of rain fell sluggishly from the sky, then more, then more. 'So?' Hugo asked.
'The water is rising,' Alys said. Her voice shook and then she was laughing, laughing too much to speak, while the tears poured down her face. 'The water is rising. While you wait out here, dry-shod, she waits in there. Listening.'
Hugo gaped at her. 'Listening?' he repeated.
'She will hear the roar of the underground lake rising up, she will hear the gurgle of all the little streams flowing towards her, and then she will feel the rush and suck of the torrent around her ankles, and then, rising quickly, around her knees.
'She may try to come out, she may struggle to climb up, but her head will touch the stone roof of the cave and the water will come up, and up, and up, until it bursts over her face and there is nowhere for her to hide and nothing but flood water for her to breathe.'
Hugo was pale. 'We swim her underground?' he said.
Alys' face was gaunt with horror. Her voice was the high cackle of madness. 'Look,' she said, pointing to the high-water line of the debris of branches and straw. It lay like a ribbon along the river-bank, a clear yard above the entrance of the cave. 'Nothing will swim out of there,' Alys said, laughing and laughing. 'Nothing! You guard the entrance and the storm will do your work for you. The rain will be your torturer. The deep flooding river will be your executioner. Morach is dead! Dead as she feared to die!'
Nineteen
There was silence for a long minute, then there was a dull roll of thunder and a livid purple-yellow flash of lightning which outlined the horizon of the western hills. The sky above them was greenish yellow, as bright as decay, and rolling in quickly from the west were clouds as dark as midnight.
Hugo looked up at Alys. Her face was ugly with strain. Her heart was pounding. All she could think of was how to survive. How to escape the charge of witchcraft which must come next. Her laughter had been blown away by the ominous breeze which was blowing the storm towards them, but her cheeks were still wet.
'Don't cry,' Hugo said. He pulled off his leather gauntlet and put up his hand to brush her cheek.
'I was afraid,' Alys said. When his hand touched her face she turned towards it so that his palm brushed her lips.
'Afraid of what?' Hugo asked softly. 'I'd not hurt you.' Alys shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I know that.' 'Then what did you fear?' Hugo asked. 'Her.' Alys nodded to the dark mouth of the cave. 'She had made some dolls, she said they would do her bidding. She said that if she made the dolls sick then the people would be sick.' Hugo nodded. 'I saw them,' he said. 'They were vile.' 'You saw them as she shook them out of the bag,' Alys said quickly, 'as she let the bag open and shook them out. She told me that she would be mistress of the castle, that she would command your father, and you, and me, and Lady Catheri
ne. With the dolls.'
Hugo looked at Alys and she saw an old superstitious fear cross his face. 'This is nonsense,' he said uncertainly. 'But you should have told me.'
Alys shrugged. 'How could I? I never see you alone now. Your father is too old and frail to be frightened with such dark fears. And I would not trouble Lady Catherine, not now.'
Hugo nodded. 'But what were you doing with her?' he asked. 'When I rode up?'
'She had agreed to stop,' Alys said. 'She promised to bury them in holy ground, to put away the magic. But she would not come out alone. She forced me to come too. She did not dare stand on the holy ground. She made me dig the hole. Only I could step on holy ground, because she was a black witch – leagued with the devil – and I am not.'
Hugo nodded. 'You must have been very afraid,' he said. He put his warm hand out and closed it over hers as she gripped the pommel of the saddle.
Alys looked down at him, her face alight with joy at his touch. 'I am afraid of nothing now,' she said. 'And I have my power, my white power, good power, which is dedicated to you and to the service of your family. I was using my power for you, to keep you all safe. I was struggling with her evil – and none of you knew.'
Hugo put a foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle behind Alys. 'Come,' he said over his shoulder to the men. 'We'll go home. I have to speak to my lord and to Father Stephen about this matter. Alan, you block the hole with rocks, boulders as big as you can carry, and wait here with Peter until the water rises and covers it. You can keep the dogs with you.'
The men nodded.
Hugo hesitated. 'As you love me…' he said. 'No word of this to anyone. If you want to follow me to Newcastle, on my travels, or to London – not one word. We tell everyone that the woman fell into the river and was drowned. All right?'
The young men, grave-faced, nodded.
'If you gossip,' Hugo said warningly, 'if you chatter, like silly girls, then I will not know which of you has whispered this story.' He looked from one to another. 'I will turn all of you away, and you will never find service with a noble house again,' he said. 'You will go back to your fathers, my cousins, and I will tell them that you are not worthy to be in my family.'
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