Hugo was sucking frantically, his forehead was damp with sweat, his dark curls sticking to his face, desperate with unsatisfied lust. 'Yes,' he said. 'I can see her now! I can see her white body and her hair.'
Alys leaned forward and rubbed her breasts against his face, gasping a little as his stubble scratched across her nipples. 'This is my sister the Sun Witch,' she said. 'D'you feel the warmth of her skin? She is shameless, Hugo! She cares for nothing but heat and pleasure!'
Hugo groaned aloud and butted his head against Alys' moving breasts. 'Give me your heat, Sun Witch,' he demanded. 'I want your shamelessness.'
Alys lowered herself a little to his lap, her slim thighs astride him. 'She is coming to sit on you,' she whispered. The Star Goddess, she wants to feel your body between her legs.'
The drug of the earthroot held Hugo passive. He could only arch his back as Alys lowered herself and pulled away, lowered again, and then succumbing to her own lust, gripped him with her thighs and rubbed herself against his breeches, against his padded codpiece.
'I want… I want…' Hugo stammered. Saliva drooled from his mouth, his eyes were turned up in his head, only the whites showing.
'You want us all,' Alys said. 'Every one of us in every way you can dream of.'
'Yes,' Hugo said. 'Alys, please!' Alys untied the codpiece, pulled away the flap of his breeches; he was naked underneath. He thrust upwards and she dropped her body down to meet him. As they joined she felt a great surge of pleasure bounding up through her, and she clung to the thick padded shoulders of his jacket while the waves of it washed over and over her.
'She is here!' she said triumphantly. 'The mistress of all of them has you in her thrall. Open your eyes and look at her. You are planting your seed in her, open your eyes and see the mistress you will never match, never replace, never reject.'
Hugo, drugged to the point of blindness, forced his eyes open and saw her.
'Mistress… my lady… Alys!' he exclaimed in surprise.
'I am my own mistress,' Alys said, joyful in her power. 'I am my own mistress at last.' She fell forward and clung around his neck and heard his harsh gasp as his body tightened and throbbed inside her, and then quietened.
As they grew cool she lifted herself away and pulled her cape around her shoulders, and tossed a handful of pine cones on the fire. She put the flagon of wine and the glasses back in the chest, all the time watching Hugo's deep, trance-like sleep and his flickering eyelids, as he dreamed of more and more extravagant orgies. He groaned once or twice and thrust his hips upwards, into the empty air.
Alys put another log on the fire and scattered pine needles on it so that the room smelled resinous and sweet. Then she drew up the stool and sat, hugging her knees and waiting for Hugo to wake from dreams of colours so bright, smells so pungent and touches so intimate, that they were more vivid than reality. Alys watched the man she loved rear upwards in his chair and thrust his hips into nothingness in a drugged ecstasy, calling her name once, and then again; and she felt as far away from him as if she were walking alongside the cold river-bank on the snow-blown moorland and he were dead and still in his grave.
He came to his senses slowly. He blinked and stared disbelievingly around him, shook his head in bewilderment, and then focused on Alys, calmly seated at the fireside, her hair tumbled over her naked shoulders, the cape thrown back, her bare skin warmed into a thousand tones of peach by the firelight.
'Alys,' he said. 'What hour is it? And how long did I sleep? I had such a dream!'
Alys smiled steadily, her eyes mysterious. 'It is nearly time for supper,' she said. 'You have not slept, it was no dream. I was here, you were here, all of them were here with us for all of that time.'
Hugo leaned forward, grabbed her hands. 'They were?' he demanded. 'It was no dream? They were here, your sisters? And we were together, all of us?'
Alys laughed a deep ripple of pleasure. 'Oh yes,' she said silkily. 'We were all here and you enjoyed every one of us. It was such pleasure, Hugo, wasn't it?'
'Yes,' Hugo assented, dazed. 'Oh yes. My God, Alys. I've heard of such things but I never dreamed they could happen. But I saw them! I touched them.' 'You touched them!' Alys agreed, smiling. 'You touched us all. I promised you a time beyond all the times you had ever had. What did you expect, Hugo? Some whorish tricks? Or your nasty cruelties with Catherine? I can give you your dreams – the cream of your desires – nothing less.'
Hugo leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes again. 'I feel drunk,' he said. 'I feel as if I drank for a week and then dreamed for a year.'
Alys shrugged. 'Time means nothing when you are with us all,' she said. 'And my kisses and my sisters' kisses are powerful wine for a man.'
Hugo opened his eyes and looked at her, his gaze suddenly piercing. 'Is this a trick?' he asked acutely. 'Is it a trick you have played on me? With herbs or poisons or some stuff? Tell me the truth, Alys. I never want more pleasure than you gave me – but I am awake now and want to know the truth. I am not some country clown at a fairground to be fooled. It makes no difference to my love for you – so tell me. Was it the wine you gave me? Or some trickery?'
Alys laughed. 'You tell me, Hugo,' she said. 'You have been drunk many times – have you ever been potent like that in drink? Have you ever seen my sisters before when you were drunk or sober? Have you ever woken clear-headed, feeling strong after drinking?'
She gambled on the power of the earthroot. 'You know what you saw. You know what you did! Was it one woman or twenty? Did you have the pleasure of one woman, or did you have the pleasure of twenty? Was it me, or was it me as the mistress of your dreams, and all of my wicked, desirable sisters?'
Hugo nodded, leaned back and closed his eyes again. 'Deep, deepest magic,' he said. 'There were many, many of you. And you, Alys, as mistress of them all.'
Alys smiled and rose up from the stool and stood before him. 'Yes,' she said calmly. 'I am mistress of them all. I am in my power. And the pleasure you have with us I can give you whenever I wish. Whenever you ask and whenever I consent.'
Hugo's eyes darkened with the remainder of the drug and with desire. 'They will come again?' he asked.
Alys smiled. 'Whenever I summon them,' she said. 'My sisters and I – we like to play with you, Hugo.'
Hugo smiled. 'Alys,' he said. 'My love.'
Twenty-one
All through the next week, and the week after, Catherine was sluggish and tired. In the morning her women found her pillow damp with her sweat and tears. She slept badly at night, dreaming of her long-dead mother, and her father who had been reported for speaking treason against the King and died in the cold cells of York prison while waiting for his trial. During the day she mourned Morach – the only friend she had made in all the years she had spent as Lord Hugh's ward and young Hugo's wife. It was as if the loss of Morach had added to all the losses she had felt in her life and her grief for all of them overflowed and oozed from her eyes, from between her legs, from the very pores of her skin, in a steady unstoppable, cold dampness.
Catherine, who had been a tyrant to her women and a bully to the servants, ceased giving orders or making demands. Alys had nothing more to do than sit with Catherine in the morning before dinner, and then again in the afternoon while Hugo went riding alone. Catherine drank deep of clary – a French red wine – which Alys assured her would build her blood, and ate at dinner and supper like a pig in farrow, with shameless gluttony. Dazed and sleepy from the wine, belching with rich food, and weary as her pregnancy entered its fifth month, Catherine dozed on her bed every afternoon after dinner, and fell asleep immediately after supper every night. If Hugo desired, he and Alys could be together all afternoon and all evening while his wife dozed and – after she fell into a drunken sleep – all night. He did desire. The earthroot worked its potent magic nearly every day and Alys found he needed smaller and smaller doses to fall into his waking dreams of desire. When he came out of them, blear-eyed and slack-muscled, he always told Alys that she w
as his love, his only love. After a month of drugged hallucinatory love-making he seemed as addicted to Alys herself as to the earthroot. She had no need to weave dreams and fantasies – the smell of her, the taste of her, the pleasure he took in her body was enough to throw him into his feverish lust. Alys had him enthralled in the deep tangled forests of his own desires and Hugo never struggled to be free.
'Got him on your line, have you?' the old lord asked her one morning as she watched Hugo crossing the courtyard below the round tower window.
'My lord?' she asked, without looking round. Watching Hugo warmed her heart with a sweet glow of possession: Hugo was hers now, no one else even tempted him. His quick lusts and careless satisfactions in dark doorways were finished, all the women in the castle knew it. Hugo was infatuated, mad for Mistress Alys. The only woman who did not know it was Lady Catherine.
'On your line,' the old lord repeated. 'Hooked, netted and landed. Does he thrash much in the net, pretty Alys? Or is he one of the steady ones – a couple of thrusts and he is spent?'
Alys giggled involuntarily. 'Hush,' she said. 'That is no way to talk of the young lord.'
'And does he talk much more of London?' the old lord demanded. 'Going to the court and leaving me? Or that damned voyage of his?'
Alys' smile was proud. 'Not at all,' she said. 'The voyage is still in his mind, his heart is still set on the thousand pounds. But other men will sail the ship, he will not leave the castle now. I can hold him.'
'Hold him until that ship is left port and you will have my gratitude,' the old lord growled. 'Can you keep him till next spring?'
'He will not leave me when I am carrying his child,' Alys said. 'And I know Hugo, when he sees the son I shall give him he will not be able to tear himself away. I will keep him safe for you, my lord.'
Lord Hugh nodded. 'See you do,' he said. 'But don't keep him from his work on the land. He should be out there, talking with the men. There are markets where they are skimming the fees they owe us. There are farms months behind in their rent. There are tenants dying, wedding, birthing, changing their leases and not paying us the proper fines. In every village there is an agent who reports to us and pays us the fees. Every one of them is taking his share of what is rightfully ours. There's his new house being built and the workmen taking their time, I'll be bound. He should be out there, enforcing our rights, not playing hunt-the-flea in your shift, Alys.'
Alys shook her head. 'It is Catherine he sits with during the day,' she said. 'I would ride out with him, what could be better for us all than my eyes and ears on the land as well as his? But Catherine keeps him home during the hours he used to be abroad. If you complain of him neglecting his work on the land then it is Catherine you should blame.'
The old lord scowled. 'Still sickly is she?' he demanded impatiently. 'What ails her?'
Alys shrugged. 'She is weary,' she said. 'She feels weak. She is eating to keep up her strength but the more she eats the heavier she gets and the lazier she feels. Her strength and her power seem to be fading away. Perhaps she will be better when the weather is warmer. She needs the sunshine. And she misses Morach still.'
The old lord hunched his shoulders irritably, like a ruffled bird of prey. 'Misses that old witch! She should be ashamed of herself.'
Alys smiled faintly. 'Odd is it not?' she said. 'You would think that she was grieving for a mother. And I, who was raised by Morach, I know her for what she was, and I have little sorrow.' She paused. 'As if I were the lady and not her,' she said.
The old lord cocked a shrewd eyebrow at her. 'No,' he said shortly.
Alys looked at him.
'Don't think of it,' the old lord advised her. 'Be glad with what you have won, Mistress Alys. You have climbed as high as you will go in this castle. I like to have you by me, Hugo is mad for you, even Catherine likes you and needs you now, and you are carrying my grandson in your belly. But if you try to overturn the natural order, try to leap up to nobility, I will have you thrown back to the midden. We are not the King's court here. You cannot make your fortune on your back.'
Alys' blue eyes sharpened with anger but she said nothing.
'Hear me?' the old lord insisted.
'I hear you,' she said levelly.
'And you'll keep your ambitions for your son,' the old lord reminded her.
Alys smiled at him. 'As you wish, my lord,' she said pleasantly. 'What a child he will be!'
'Yes,' the old lord said, still irritable. 'Ring the bell for Father Stephen, I want him to read to me. I have missed him in his travels away from us.'
'I'll read,' Alys offered, moving towards the table and the books.
'I'll have Father Stephen,' the old lord said. 'I want a man's voice. Women are very well in their place, Alys. But you can grow weary of them.'
'Oh yes,' Alys agreed. 'I grow very tired of the chatter in the gallery at times – such gossip and nonsense! Such a clatter the foolish women make who have nothing better to do but eat and grow fat and lazy. I will fetch Father Stephen at once for you, and I will send Hugo to you when he comes home. He can tell you about the new house, he is riding out today to see the builders.'
The lord grinned wryly, noting how Alys turned his complaint.
'Clever little whore,' he said gently.
Alys smiled back, swept him a seductive curtsey, and flicked out of the room.
In the ladies' gallery Catherine had not risen from her bed though it was near noon and time for dinner. Ruth was in her room showing her one gown after another, Catherine pettishly waving them all aside.
'They don't fit,' she said. 'This baby is getting bigger and bigger. You should have altered them, you should have let out the seams, Ruth. I told you to do so and you have been lazy and negligent.'
Ruth shook her head. 'I did alter them, my lady,' she said in her quiet, frightened voice. 'I altered them as you asked me. But that was last week, my lady. You seem to have grown again around your waist.'
Catherine sighed and leaned back. 'I am swelling like.' She shot a look towards Alys in the doorway. 'Can't you help me, Alys?' she asked pitifully. 'I am so tired.'
'Are you eating well, have you your appetite?' Alys asked, coming forward and laying a hand on Catherine's forehead. Her skin was oily and damp. Catherine turned her face towards Alys' touch.
'You're so cool,' she said. 'Your hands are so cool and sweet-smelling. I wish I was cool.'
'Have you drunk your negus?' Alys asked. 'And eaten your biscuits?'
'Yes,' Catherine sighed. 'But I don't feel hungry, Alys. I don't want my dinner.'
'You must eat,' Eliza Herring interrupted. 'You must keep up your strength, my lady.'
Alys nodded. 'She is right, my lady. You have the baby to think of. And your own health to maintain. You must eat.' 'My legs ache,' Catherine complained. Alys turned back the covers of the bed. Catherine's ankles were swollen and flushed pink, her calves, her knees, even her thighs, were spongy with extra fat and the skin was white and puffy.
'You need to walk,' Alys said. 'You should be up and walking every day, my lady. Walking in the fresh air, or even riding. You could ride a gentle horse.'
Catherine turned her head away from the window where the sky was showing blue with some strips of white cloud blowing away to the east. 'I'm too tired,' she said. 'And I told you, Alys, my legs ache. What sort of healer are you? When I tell you my legs ache, you tell me to walk! If I told you I was blind would you tell me to look harder?' Alys smiled sympathetically. 'Poor Catherine,' she said sweetly.
Ruth started at the use of Catherine's given name but Catherine's face lit up. 'Morach used to call me that,' she said wistfully. 'And I can remember my mother calling me that: "poor Catherine".'
Alys nodded. 'I know. Poor, poor Catherine,' she said tenderly.
'I feel so tired! I feel so unhappy!' Catherine burst out. 'Ever since Morach has been gone I have felt as if nothing is worth any effort. I cannot be troubled to get out of bed, I cannot be troubled to dress. I wish Morach
were here. I wish she were still here.'
Alys held Catherine's hand and patted it gently. 'I know,' she said. 'I know. I miss her too.'
'And Hugo doesn't even care!' Catherine exclaimed. 'I told him how much I miss her and he just says that she was a poor old woman and if I have a fancy for a peasant there are a thousand like her on our lands. He doesn't understand!'
Alys shook her head. 'Men don't understand,' she said. 'Morach was a very wise woman, a woman who had seen much and understood the world. But she taught me all of her skills, Catherine. And I will be here all the time. I cannot take her place in your heart, but all that she could do for you and your baby I will do, when the time comes.'
Catherine snuffled wetly and hunted for her handkerchief. 'And I don't have to get up for dinner, do I?' she asked. 'I feel so weary. I'd rather eat up here.'
Alys shook her head, still smiling. 'No, of course not,' she said tenderly. 'Get up tomorrow and take a little walk when you feel stronger, but the hall is noisy and crowded and people stare so. You don't have to go down to dinner if you don't want to. Your health is more important than anything else.'
'And they tell me that you sit with the old lord?' Catherine asked. 'When I am not there?'
Alys nodded. 'He asked me, and I thought it best,' she said. 'He is a man of whim and powerful fancies. I did not want him insisting on company, your company and the young lord's. I knew you two wanted to dine alone up here. I thought if I talked to the old lord and kept him cheerful he would not insist that you come downstairs.'
Catherine nodded. 'Thank you, Alys,' she said. 'I like to eat my dinner with Hugo up here. I am weary of going down to the hall. Keep the old lord amused so that Hugo and I can be alone together.'
Alys' smile was sisterly. 'Of course, Catherine,' she said. 'Of course.'
In the afternoon, when Catherine was drowsy from a large dinner and too much wine, Alys met Hugo in the ladies' gallery and asked if she might go with him to see the new house.
The Wise Woman Page 34
