Alys pulled Catherine's shift down and rested her hand on Catherine's round belly. 'You are being foolish,' she said firmly. 'Foolish and hysterical. Babies do not melt. I can see you are in pain and I can help you bear your pain; but there is no blood and your waters have not broken. Your baby is still inside you and he is well. Babies do not melt.'
Catherine started up on the bed, half-supporting herself with her arms. She glared at Alys and her face was wild, her hair tossed around her face, her eyes bulging. 'I tell you he is melting!' she screamed. 'Why won't you listen to me, you fool! Why won't you do as I tell you! Do something to make the baby safe! He is melting. I feel him melting! He is melting inside me and slipping away!'
Alys pushed Catherine back down on the pillows and held her hard by the shoulders. 'Hush,' she said roughly. 'Hush. That cannot be, Catherine. You are mistaken. You are gibbering nonsense.'
She rested her hand on Catherine's rounded belly and then snatched it away again in instinctive horror. Catherine gave another groan. 'I told you,' she wept.
Alys put her hand back, she could hardly believe what she had felt. Under the palm of her hand she distinctly felt the round fullness of Catherine's belly reduce and subside. Something under the thick layer of flesh shifted and bubbled. As it did so, Catherine groaned again.
'The baby is going,' Catherine said despairingly. She was groaning deep in her throat, an animal growl, not like a woman at all. 'I cannot hold him. He is going,' she said.
Alys pulled Catherine's shift up and looked again at the woman's parted legs. The pool of creamy white juice had spread over the sheets. Alys gagged and swallowed her saliva.
'I don't know what this stuff is. I don't know what to do,' she muttered.
Catherine did not even hear her. She was straining her body upwards, and as she thrust her belly towards the ceiling Alys could see the shape of the rounded bump flowing and changing like river slime.
'Lie still, lie still,' Alys commanded helplessly. 'Lie still, Catherine, and nothing will happen!'
'He's going!' Catherine cried. 'I cannot hold him in. I cannot hold him. Ohhh!'
As she groaned, Alys saw the birth canal open, widen. She caught a glimpse of pale body and thought for a sudden moment of hope that the baby would be born whole, that she might even save it, that Catherine might have her dates all wrong and the baby was ready to be born.
'I see him!' she said. 'Let him come, Catherine, let him come. You are ready to give birth to him. Let him come!'
Catherine bore down, her stomach muscles fighting to push her baby out into the world. Alys slid her small skilled hands into the birth canal and gently gripped the tiny body inside. For a moment she felt the baby, small, well-formed; felt his rounded buttocks and a firm, muscled leg. Her hands slid over his perfect shoulder and felt his little arm, his hand clenched in a fist. He was slightly askew. Alys smiled through her concentration and felt upwards, along the warm, wet body to find the head, to guide him outwards, to bring him head outwards for his little journey. His shoulder was rounded and smooth to her touch. Alys' gentle hands went up to his rounded, hard skull and sensed the delicate shaping of his face.
Catherine groaned again as her muscles contracted. Alys slipped her hands away from the clamp of the muscles and then slid in again to turn and guide the little body. He was turning, he was coming right, head first into the world. She took either side of his skull in a gentle firm grip and pulled him towards her, out of the slippery tight canal of Catherine's body. 'Yes,' she said. 'I have him safe.' Alys had forgotten that this was her rival, that this was Hugo's heir which would threaten her own safety, her own son. She was entranced by the desire to aid the birth. She was moving in the unconscious rhythm of all wise women who go deep into a mother to bring a baby out, safe, into the light. Alys pulsed with the baby, moved with Catherine, timed her touches and her tugs to the rhythm of the birth. 'He is coming!' she breathed excitedly. 'He is coming.'
The little body turned again, Alys reached deep inside Catherine, gripped the skull and the little shoulder and steadily, carefully, pulled.
With a sickening jolt her fingers broke through the soft crust of his skull and punctured his body, as soft as lye soap. An arm came away in her hand, a gout of liquid cascaded into her palm. Alys screamed with horror.
As she screamed, Catherine pressed downwards again and there was an explosion of white slime into Alys' face, hot and wet, in lumps against her mouth, her lips, her eyes, sticking to her hands, her hair, her dress.
'No! No! No!' Alys screamed, batting both hands against the horror of Catherine's bed. 'No!'
Again and again Catherine pressed down and lump after lump of the white foam was voided from her body until the sheets were covered with the mess of it and the room stank of tallow.
'It's wax!' Alys said in utter horror. 'Oh my God, it's candlewax!'
She backed against the window, her hands caked with wax, hiding her face, where little blobs of wax were drying hard on her skin. 'Oh my God, oh my God,' she said over and over again. 'It's wax. It's candlewax.' Catherine gave one last groan and then lay still. 'My God! It's candlewax!' Alys repeated till the words lost their meaning and became nothing more than a howl of horror. 'Candlewax! Candlewax! Candlewax!'
Alys picked at her face, scratching the drying spots off her skin, shuddering at the wax under her fingernails. She scratched at the backs of her hands, at her palms. She was coated in the stuff. 'I'll never be clean,' she said in the high sharp tones of uncontrollable hysteria. 'Candlewax! I'll never get it off!'
Catherine lay on her back, deaf to Alys' insane whimperings. Her body had expelled its muck and she was exhausted and empty. It was long moments before she moved and then she put up her hand and patted her belly, disbelievingly. It had lost its shape. It was still fat, fleshy and loose; but it no longer jutted proud. Her baby was gone. She pushed herself slowly, laboriously, up the bed to rest on the pillows and looked down at the mess on the sheets and at Alys, backed against the wall, hair and face drenched in candlewax, her eyes black with horror, her hands feverishly picking, picking, picking – at her skin, her hair, her dress.
'What is this?' Catherine asked, her voice thin with horror. 'What is this stuff? What has happened to me?'
Alys swallowed and gagged, swallowed again. She looked down disbelievingly at her working hands and stilled them with an effort. She took a deep breath. 'You have no baby,' she finally croaked. 'Your baby has gone.'
Catherine leaned forward and pushed a finger into one of the white gobbets. 'My baby was this?' she asked.
Alys shook her head. 'It never was a baby, not a flesh and blood baby,' she said. 'This is wax from your body. There never was a real baby at all.' Her voice broke into a little shriek at the end, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to still the noise. 'Just a flux,' she said softly. 'Not a baby.'
Catherine's face was gaunt. 'No baby?' she asked. 'No son for Hugo?' Alys shook her head, not trusting her voice. The two women stared at each other for a moment, silenced with horror.
'Don't tell him,' Catherine said. Her voice was cracked, near madness. 'Don't tell him that it was like this.'
Alys found she was rubbing her hands together. The wax clotted into strips as she rubbed, and dropped away like dried skin. 'Damn it,' she said. 'Damn the stuff!'
'Don't tell anyone it was like this,' Catherine said again, with more urgency. 'Tell them it was a miscarriage. I don't want anyone to know about this. I don't want anyone to know of this… this horror!' Alys nodded slowly in silence.
'If they know about this…' Catherine broke off. Her eyes searched Alys' downcast, horrified face. 'If they knew about this they would get rid of me,' she said, very low. 'They would say I am – unnatural.'
Alys was wringing her hands, rubbing the foul wax away. It had clogged between her ringers. With quick, nervous movements she was picking at her fingernails.
Catherine stared at her. 'How could such a thing be?' she demanded. 'Alys? You have seen many
births. How could such a thing happen?'
Alys paused. The memory of the Catherine doll made of wax, with its round belly made of wax, and the little lumps of candlewax she had moulded to shape the roundness of the belly was very vivid in her mind. She had coupled the wax doll of Catherine with the gross wax penis of the Hugo doll. She had commanded the doll, telling it that the baby would be the image of his father, his candlewax father. Morach's warning that 'sometimes they misunderstand' surfaced in her memory.
'I don't know,' she said, her instinct to save herself conquering her terror. 'It must be some vile illness in you. It must be some corruption in your body. You are sterile and all you can conceive and all you can void is this muck.'
Catherine barely flinched, she was so deep in horror. 'My fault,' she said slowly as if she were learning a lesson almost beyond her understanding. 'Something wrong inside me.'
'Yes,' Alys said, careless of Catherine's foundering shame.
They were silent again.
'Hide it,' Catherine said. 'I want no one to know.' She glanced towards the fire. 'Burn it.'
Alys nodded. Catherine dragged herself up from the bed, gasping with the effort, and the two women pulled out the lower sheet, ripped it into half and then ripped it again. Each piece they rolled up and put on the little fire. It smouldered darkly, and when the wax caught fire it flickered and spat, burning with an ominous yellow flame. The smoke smelled like a tannery.
'Your hair,' Catherine said, her voice shaky. 'And your face.'
Carefully she picked the wax out of Alys' hair. Alys rubbed at the skin of her face until it was free of the little white scabs. She shuddered as she picked them off her skin. 'Your gown,' Catherine said.
Alys' red sleeves were white to the elbows with the stuff, the front of her gown was spattered with white dots. Alys stood while Catherine undid her gown and then she stepped out of it. From Catherine's chest she took an old gown which Catherine had not worn since her pregnancy. Catherine laced her into it silently. Alys took a clean sheet from where it was airing by the fire and made up the bed.
'They'll have to come in and see you,' she said.
Catherine nodded. 'They'll ask for the body,' she warned.
Alys nodded. She took a bowl and poured in a little water, tore up a napkin and tied it into little knots, tossed in half a cup of red wine and threw the rest on • the bed. It spread in a deep red stain. Then she covered the bowl with a cloth from the table. 'No one will look too close at that,' she said. 'You may get away with it.'
Catherine had gone a sickly yellow colour. ‘I feel faint,' she said.
Alys nodded. 'See them, and then you can rest,' she said with scant sympathy. 'How do you think I feel? I am ready to vomit.' She went to open the door.
'Alys,' Catherine stopped her. Alys turned.
'Swear you will never tell anyone. Never anyone!' Catherine demanded.
Alys nodded.
'Especially not Hugo,' Catherine said. 'Swear to me that you will never tell Hugo that I had…' she broke off. 'That I had a monster inside me,' she finished.
Alys' face was hard. 'He will have to know that you cannot conceive,' she said tightly.
Catherine paused. She looked at Alys at if she was seeing her for the first time, reading the coldness of Alys' grim face.
'Yes,' Catherine said slowly.
'I won't tell him that it was monstrous,' she said. 'He will never know from me that you voided lumps of white clay. Smelly lumps of clay.'
Catherine dropped her eyes. 'I am ashamed,' she said, very low.
Alys looked at her without pity. 'I will keep your secret,' she said. ‘I won't tell him about that.' She paused for Catherine's reply. When none came she slipped out of the door.
Hugo was waiting nearest the door but at Alys' entrance everyone in the crowded gallery stopped talking and looked towards her. The old lord and David came towards her at once. Alys clasped her hands together and looked down.
'My lord,' she said. 'Lord Hugo. I have some very sad news. The Lady Catherine has been brought to bed too early and she has lost the child.'
There was a buzz of conversation and comment. Hugo's eyes burned into Alys' face, his father was as black as thunder.
'She is able to see you,' Alys said to Hugo. She met his look with one of infinite tenderness. ‘I am so sorry, Hugo,' she said. 'There was nothing anyone could do for Catherine. She was too sterile and sickly from the start.'
He pushed past her and went into Catherine's room. The old lord came up and took Alys by the sleeve.
'What caused the miscarriage?' he demanded. 'She came down to supper yesterday, did she overtax her strength?'
Alys leaned her mouth towards his ear. 'The child would have been malformed,' she said. 'It's as well it is gone.'
The old lord looked as if he had been struck. 'God, no!' he said. 'No! A filthy cripple from my stock! And after all these years of waiting!'
'Can she have another?' David the steward pressed close to Alys. 'In your opinion, Mistress Alys? Will Lady Catherine conceive again?'
Alys met his gaze. 'I think not,' she said. 'You should summon a physician perhaps to judge. But in my mind I am certain. She can conceive no normal child.'
The old lord slumped down into a chair, rested both his hands on his cane and gazed into the distance.
'This is a bitter blow, Alys,' he said softly. 'A bitter blow. Catherine's baby gone, and her chances of another. All in one afternoon. A bitter blow.'
Catherine's door opened again and Hugo came out. His face was set. The line between his eyebrows was deep, his mouth grim. 'She'll rest now,' he said. 'Someone go and sit with her.'
Eliza and Ruth dipped a curtsey and slipped into the room.
'She said she'd see you, Sir,' Hugo said to his father. 'She wanted to ask your blessing.'
'Blessing be damned,' the old lord said, struggling to his feet and thumping his cane on the floor. 'I'll not see her. She's barren, my son! And she's wasted more years in this castle than I care to count. I'll see her when she's fertile. No point sitting by the sick bed of a barren woman. No point in a barren woman! Twenty-three bastards I sired, to my knowledge; and three legitimate children, one son. I've never looked twice at a barren woman by my knowledge, and I never will.'
He snapped his fingers for the page to open the door and stamped towards it. The people in the chamber drew back to let him pass, fearful of his rage.
'You,' he said, pointing to Alys. 'Come to my room! I've got work to do!' Then, as Alys moved towards him, her belly thrust forward against the flowing lines of the gown, he checked himself. 'No, ' he said. ‘I had forgotten. Go and rest yourself. Go and sit down and sew or sing or something. But keep yourself well, Alys.
'David! Pick her out a maid to do her fetching and her carrying for her. And see she has a comfortable chair in her room. She must rest. She must rest. She must stay well. She's carrying Hugo's child. And see that she has what she fancies to eat. Get her whatever she wants! Anything that she wants she must have!' David bowed, his quick, sharp smile raking Alys.
'Yes, my lord,' he said. The old lord nodded. 'Keep her safe,' he said.
'No more riding out for you, Alys, you must stay home in safety.'
He looked at Hugo. 'Don't let her get as fat as the other one,' he said. 'That was the problem there.
Keep her like you would a good brood mare, well-fed but not gluttonous. She's to sit beside me at table every night so I can see what she eats.'
Hugo nodded, unsmiling. 'As you wish, Sir,' he said coldly. ‘I am taking my horse out for a while. I am sick to my soul of these women's doings.'
The old lord nodded. 'Damn right,' he said irritably. 'All that talk and all that expense and then a barren sow at the end of it.'
The two of them left the room, Hugo clattering loudly down the stairs and shouting for his horse. Slowly, the serving-women and men and the off-duty soldiers and the pages straggled from the room, whispering as they left, whispering slander, scandal, i
ll-willed rumours. Alys stood in the centre of the room, unmoving. As everyone went out they dipped a low curtsey or a bow to her. Alys did not smile, did not acknowledge the homage beyond a curt nod of her head. Then David and Alys were alone.
'Is there anything you would order for supper tonight, Mistress Alys?' David asked slyly.
‘I will have the best,' Alys said simply. ‘I will have the best of whatever there is,' she said. 'The very best of whatever there is.'
Twenty-six
Catherine woke in the night screaming and only Alys could soothe her. She was sweating from her nightmare and from a fever. Alys gave her a little of the dried berries of deadly nightshade and watched her till she fell asleep. Three times Catherine's nightmares woke her -and all the ladies. Three times a waiting-woman came and knocked on Alys' door and said that Lady Catherine was crying and carrying on and she must have Alys with her. The third time Alys gave her a fat pinch of sleeping powder in a cup of brandy-wine and left her on her back, snoring.
In the morning Catherine was quiet and drugged. Hugo called in at her chamber. She held out her arms to him with the tears running down her fat face.
'You must excuse me, Madam,' he said coldly. 'You have not been churched.'
Catherine gave a gasp of disbelief and looked at his face. He was without pity. 'Hugo!' she exclaimed. 'I am so grieved…' He stepped back towards the door, keeping himself far from her as if she had the plague.
'You are unclean,' he said precisely. 'I may not touch you. Alys will assist you.'
'But I thought you did not believe in that…' Catherine wailed. Hugo bowed minimally and passed out through the door, ignoring her, ignoring Alys. Alys stepped back to let him pass and shut the door behind him with quiet satisfaction. The old lord would not see Catherine at all, though she asked for him. He said he was too busy to come to the ladies' gallery. When Catherine was fulfilling her duties as the lady of the castle she could see him whenever she chose. In the meantime, he had no skills in the sick-chamber and could not wait on her.
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