Catherine, fallen from favour with both lords, wept again, sluggish, warm tears which rolled down her face.
'They hate me because the baby died,' she whispered to Alys. They both hate me because the baby died.'
Alys persuaded Catherine to eat some breakfast and sit up in bed and comb her hair. She did as she was told, like a lumpish child. But they could not stop her weeping. All the time, the waxy ooze dripped from between her legs, staining the sheets, and slow, oily tears rolled down her cheeks. She did not sob, she did not moan. She sat quietly and did whatever they asked of her. But she could not stop her tears.
Alys sat with her until dinnertime and then went down to the great hall, leaving Ruth and Mistress Allingham to dine with Catherine in her chamber. She entered by the tapestry-covered door at the rear of the high table. As she let the curtain fall behind her and moved to her seat on the left hand of the old lord's chair she heard a ripple of approval from the men in the hall. Now she was the only woman carrying Hugo's child. She was the only hope for an heir. The women in the castle might fear her and resent her, and outside, in the shadow of the castle, they might talk sourly of witchcraft and the young lord hexed into madness and lust; but a son came before everything. Anything would be forgiven the woman who gave Hugo a son.
The old lord came in, his face grave, Hugo at his side. Alys stood behind her chair until they were seated and then took her place. She did not look at Hugo. She knew he was in a rage too deep to speak. She bent her head and broke her bread. Hugo would come round.
'I shall need you to write some letters this afternoon,' the old lord said. 'And you shall sit in my chamber and read to me.'
Alys inclined her head. 'Gladly, my lord,' she said.
He grunted. 'Not too tired are you?' he asked. 'Sleep well?'
'I had to attend Lady Catherine in the night,' Alys said, her voice neutral. 'She was weeping and asked for me. I was called to her three times.'
Lord Hugh waved his hand at David for the wine-server. 'Drink this,' he said gruffly to Alys. 'Drink deep. It'll give the baby good blood.'
He paused. 'That must stop,' he said abruptly. 'Running around after the barren woman is too tiring for you. It must stop. Catherine can weep on someone else's shoulder.
'Hugo?' Hugo raised his face from studying his hands clenched on the table before him. The old man nodded. 'You see to it. Tell Catherine she may not disturb Alys. Alys can't wait on her any longer. Alys must not get overtired.' Hugo nodded. 'As you wish, Sire.' 'Aye, you're sour,' the old lord said gently. 'It's not to be wondered at. Nine years waiting and then nothing. But I tell you what, my boy. Our wager still stands. If Alys gives you a son I'll give you a thousand pounds. One son is as good as another when there's no choice. You shall still have your fortune. How's that?'
‘I thank you,' Hugo said. 'You are generous. But I wanted the money to finance the sailing of the ship. Alys' child will not be born until April. My friend will have found other, more eager backers by then.'
The old lord nodded, crumbled his bread thoughtfully. ‘I have some ideas I'll broach with you later, Hugo,' he said. 'You may find you have the money in time. I have a plan or two still in mind.'
Hugo managed a cold, sulky smile. 'You are a great schemer,' he said.
The old lord nodded. 'Music!' he said sharply to David. 'And send for someone to make us laugh. We are sick with melancholy over nothing. A barren woman is a disaster for no one but herself. Get me the new wine, the Flemish wine, and send to Castleton for tumblers or jugglers or a bear, for God's sake. Even a cockfight if there's nothing else to be had! I won't mourn for Catherine. I have new plans! Find someone to make me laugh!'
David nodded and snapped his fingers to one of the pages. He tossed a silver coin high into the air and the lad leaped for it and snatched at it and raced from the hall, the dogs barking and snapping at his heels at the sudden excitement. Half a dozen men scrambled from the benches and fetched their instruments, started to tune them discordantly and cursed each other in their hurry. Then they started to play and the serving-wenches got up to dance, a circle dance, an old village dance. Alys, remembering the music from her childhood, watched them, her foot tapping.
'Dance with them!' the old lord said. 'Take the ladies and dance with them!'
Alys flashed him a smile and beckoned to Eliza and Margery. They broached the circle and then joined in. One of the girls danced in the middle while the others circled her, then she chose a partner and they led the others around in pairs, then the second girl danced alone in the centre of the circle. The girls arched their necks and tossed their heads, conscious of the watching men. They stamped their feet in time to the music and when they took the long sweeping steps around the circle they put their hands on their hips and swayed seductively. Alys, her fair hair flying, danced with one eye on Hugo. When it was her turn in the centre of the circle she danced and bobbed with her head held up, her colour high, and the proud curve of her belly thrust forward. When he looked at her she smiled confidently at him.
He grinned, the blackness of mood lifted from him, the crease between his eyebrows vanished. With a word to his father he jumped down from the dais and broke into the circle. When the time came for Alys to choose a partner he stepped forward and there was a little ripple of applause. Following Hugo, the other men from around the hall stepped into the circle and danced too. The circle grew too wide for the space between the tables and broke into two circles, then four. The music grew louder and more insistent, the beat of the tambour more and more compelling. Alys, in her green gown, whirled in a spell of triumphant sensuality, Hugo leaping and dancing around her. When the music stopped in a cascade of bells she fell into his arms and he swept her off her feet and up to the dais.
Catherine, in her chamber above the hall, heard the music, the laughter, the shouts of applause for Alys, and the joyful thud of dancing feet. Sitting alone in her great bed with her dinner untasted before her she listened, while the fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
The old lord had a swathe of letters for Alys to write in the afternoon. She sat at the little table in the window, in her green gown with a green French hood covering her hair, a green shawl around her shoulders.
'You are like a hayfield in springtime,' the old lord said. 'I like watching you, Alys.' She smiled at him, saying nothing. 'Now to work,' he said briskly. He sat erect in his chair, one hand outstretched leaning on his cane. Without looking at Alys he reeled off a list of the men who were to receive his letters. Alys, dipping her quill into the inkpot, wrote as fast and as clearly as she could.
She forced herself to keep writing at the rapid speed of the old lord's speech. She forced herself to keep translating his curt, idiomatic English into classical Latin. She forced herself to keep her head down, to play the part of the loyal clerk, the doltish scribe; while Lord Hugh begged support from all of his friends currently holding high places in the King's court for his son's forthcoming divorce from his wife on the grounds of her being too close kin.
Six letters the old lord dictated, then he broke off. 'Father Stephen will have to write the letter to the Supreme Court,' he said. 'He will know how it has to be framed, the way the rhetoric has to be done, all of that clerkish nonsense.' 'Will he do it?' Alys asked doubtfully. Lord Hugh shot her a wicked grin. 'He has no choice, my dear. He is in my hands. I have given him, free of any charge, all the benefices in my lands. He is a worldly man, an ambitious man, as well as a fervent churchman. He has hitched his star to my Hugo, they are two of a kind. Hugo's rise will carry him upward as well. He knows the price – he is my man at the church courts.'
'And what will happen to Catherine?' Alys asked, her voice soft.
Lord Hugh shrugged. 'Lord knows,' he said carelessly. 'If it were the old days she could have gone into a nunnery. Now I don't know. She has no family to speak of. I suppose I might find someone to marry her. A widower with sons already who can afford a barren wife might do. She's a personable enough woman, and warm in bed, Hugo
says. I'll give some of her dowry back. Or I could give her a little household somewhere in my lands. She could take a couple of her women and some servants.' He nodded. 'As she wishes. She'll be free to do as she pleases. If she does not stand against me she'll find me generous.'
'Does Hugo know of this?' Alys asked. The old lord shook his head. 'No; and he's not to know it from you either, my pretty wench. I'll tell him when I get my replies. If they're favourable we'll go ahead with this plan. Take these letters to David for me and tell him they're to be delivered at once. The messengers are to wait for the reply and come straight back. Tell him I'll give a silver shilling to every man who is prompt. And tell the messengers to neither eat nor drink within the city of London. There's plague in the town again, I don't want it brought back here.
'And then go and lie down. Rest. If Catherine calls you, tell her it is my wish that you rest in the afternoons.' Alys nodded, gathered up the papers and left.
She had not forgotten Mother Hildebrande. At noon, as Alys had smoothed her hair, looking in the mirror before going down to dinner, it was Mother Hildebrande's stern face she saw. She saw her mother, standing in the doorway of the little cottage, shading her eyes against the sun, looking downriver, scanning the riverside path, waiting confidently for the daughter she had found again, certain that she would come, trusting the strict training, the habit of discipline, and – more than anything else – trusting the love which was between the two women. She would wait for an hour, her old legs and her tired back aching. The path would stay empty. She would be puzzled at first – Alys the novice nun had never been late for any lesson, never scuttled in after the others to chapel. Then she would be afraid for her daughter – fearing a fall from the horse, or an accident, or danger for Alys. Then she would turn slowly back into the damp cottage to sit by the empty fireplace and put her hands together and pray for the soul of Alys who had not come, though she was bound by every oath in the world to come; who had failed in her duty to her God, who had failed her mother, the only person left in the world who loved her.
Alys could see Mother Hildebrande in her imagination when she heard the ripple of pleasure at midday dinner as she had come through the door to the hall, with her belly thrust forward, to take Catherine's place. When her food was put before her, Alys had a sudden vision of Mother Hildebrande struggling with damp firewood in Morach's cottage, and the dry taste of stale bread left from yesterday. Alys was aware of her when Hugo's dark scowl lightened and he drained his glass and jumped down to dance; even when his hand slid down her spine and rounded over her buttocks and Alys stood still and leaned into his caress, her long eyelashes sweeping down to hide the pretended arousal in her eyes.
When she translated the letters, using the skills Mother Hildebrande had taught her, part of Alys' mind was still with the old woman. The sides of the river-banks were steep now the river was at its low – she would not be able to get water. When the bread from yesterday was gone there would be nothing to eat unless she climbed the hill and begged from passers-by on the road. Alys thought of the woman she had loved as a mother, with her hand held out to strangers and her quiet dignity insulted by pedlars.
Alys gave the letters and the instructions to David, making special emphasis of the danger of London's plague, and went to her own room, shut the door, kicked off her shoes and lay down on her bed. She gazed upwards at the green and yellow tester like a ceiling above her head, elaborate, luxurious, expensive. She knew, as she had known from the moment when she sat at Mother Hildebrande's feet on Morach's dank earth floor, that she would not go back to live in the little hovel by the river. Alys would never again feel the empty-bellied misery of the poor in winter. Alys would never again break the ice on the river to pull out a bucket of stormy brown water. Alys would never again break her fingernails and bruise her hands scrabbling in frozen earth for icy turnips. Not if she could control her fate.
'I can't go back,' Alys said aloud. 'I won't go back.'
She thought of her mother, the woman she had longed for, whose loss had grieved her every day, and she found that the deep wound of pain had gone, vanished. When she thought of Mother Hildebrande now it was with fear of her intrusion, it was with irritation, it was with anxiety. Mother Hildebrande was no longer a dead saint to be mourned. She was a lively threat.
'She should go away,' Alys said softly. 'She should go away to a proper nunnery. I would go with her if she would only go to a proper nunnery. Even now, even with Catherine being set aside and everyone recognizing Hugo as my lover, and me as the mother of the heir; I would go with her if she went to a proper nunnery.'
Alys paused. She thought of the peace and deep pleasure of her girlhood as Mother Hildebrande's favourite in the abbey by the river. She thought of the quiet lessons in Latin and Greek, of her pleasure in learning so quickly; of being the best. She thought of the still-room and the smell of the herbs and the tinctures. She thought of the herb garden and the raised beds and the stalky secret leaves of the herbs, of the smell of lavender when she rubbed it in her hands, of the feathery touch of sage, the tang of mint when she plucked a stalk and bit deeply.
Alys shook her head, still staring at the tester and the bed curtains, but seeing the little girl with the fair hair who longed for peace and plenty and who had loved the Mother Abbess who had given her both.
'No,' she said finally. 'No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go with her, not even if she went to another abbey. That was the life of my girlhood, just as Morach was the life of my childhood. I will not go backwards to those old places. I am finished with them both. I wish they were both dead and gone.'
The door opened without knocking and Hugo came in.
'Resting like a lady, Alys?' he slurred, holding the door for support. He had stayed in the great hall after Alys and his father had left. The musicians had played on and on, the jugs of wine had gone around. The serving-wenches had come out from the kitchen and danced wildly. Hugo and the soldiers had drunk deep, shouting at the women, snatching one out of the circle and pulling her about. While Alys and the old lord had been working, writing and planning for the future, Hugo had been playing in the hall. There was no work for Hugo. He was an idle child.
Alys raised herself on one hand. 'Your father ordered me to rest,' she said carefully.
Hugo levered himself from the doorway, shut the door, and came sideways into the room, his feet hastening to keep up with him.
'Oh yes,' he said nastily. 'You're his great favourite now, Alys, aren't you?'
Alys said nothing, measuring Hugo's drunkenness, judging his dampened-down anger.
'God knows why!' he exclaimed. 'Your damned country wise woman meddling lost me my child! Lost him his grandson! If we'd had a physician, a proper man who had studied and read these things, from York or from London, Catherine would still be carrying that child now! And I would get my money in the autumn, and have an heir to follow me.'
Alys shook her head. 'The baby was sick,' she said. 'It would never have gone full term whoever you had waiting for the birth.'
Hugo's dark eyes blazed at her. 'Wise woman nonsense,' he said roundly. 'You swore to me he was healthy. You swore to me it was a healthy boy. You are a liar and a cheat. And all the words you say to me are lies and cheats.'
Alys shook her head, but said nothing, watching his anger rise and curdle to malice. 'Get your gown off,' Hugo suddenly said. Alys hesitated.
'You heard me,' Hugo snapped. 'Get your gown off. My gown, remember? The one that brought your tally of gowns up to Catherine's dozen. The one you begged for like a whore.'
Alys stood up and unfastened the gown, slipped it off, hung it carefully over the foot of the bed, opened the cold linen sheets and slid into bed, watching Hugo all the time.
Hugo undid his codpiece, untied his knitted hose, dragged them down. 'Here,' he said. 'Was it our romp that made Catherine lose the baby?'
Alys shook her head. 'No,' she said, hiding her apprehension of Hugo's temper. His sexuality, which had been in the p
alm of her hand, had escaped her. He had looked at the girl in the hayfield and desired her. He had taken Alys without her consent, and revelled in having her and Catherine at once, as if they were two of a kind: two slavish women. He had humbled Alys as if she were nothing more than his whore – a toy for Catherine. He had freed himself from Alys' dominance and now he could use her as he wished.
He clambered on the bed and kneeled over Alys. His breath was thick with wine and onions from dinner. He kissed her, kneading her breasts roughly with his hands. Alys felt her muscles tensing and the warm dampness between her legs drying and cooling.
'I took you like a whore then,' he said.
Alys closed her eyes and put her arms around his neck in a loveless charade of desire.
'You loved it,' Hugo said. 'All women are whores at heart. You, Catherine, the yellow-haired girl at haymaking. All whores.'
'I am not,' Alys asserted. 'I am carrying your child, I am the only woman who can carry your child. And I can enchant you, Hugo. Have you forgotten how you feel when my sisters come to me?'
Hugo shook his head. 'It's a wife I need, not a scheming witch,' he said angrily. 'It's a legitimate son I need, not a bastard child from a woman with no name, with no family. I don't know how to command my life any more. I look at Catherine and think how mad she is for me, and I look at you and think how mad I was for you. And it's all worthless. It's a mess. All the things I need escape me. All the things I truly want are forbidden me. All I can do is play mad games with you, and get a son on you who will be of no good to anyone, and serve nothing but my private pride.'
'You could command your life,' Alys said cautiously. Hugo was soft with drink, irritable. Alys felt him thrust against her ineffectually. His hand went down and he fumbled against Alys' cold refusing dryness.
'If Catherine were gone,' Alys said quickly, 'and I had a son, your son, and instead of thinking of me as a whore and trying to reduce me to your whore, you saw me as I am – a woman of great power. I need no family behind me, no name. I need bring no fortune with me. My skills and my power are all the dowry any man would desire. We could be married -just as I dreamed. And your house, your new and lovely house, would be our house, and our son's house. And we could live in the new way, as you wished, together.' 'And have more sons,' Hugo said with drunken enthusiasm. He thrust once more at her. Alys felt him, flabby and damp, against the tightly closed muscles of her body. She could smell him, the thick, clotted smell of his linen. Her teeth gritted with distaste.
The Wise Woman Page 42
