The Wise Woman

by Philippa Gregory

  'They are here!' she yelled. 'My sisters are taking us to play with the storm! Can you feel them, Hugo?'

  The wind had torn Hugo's blanket from his shoulders and whipped it away like a ribbon. The rain lashed his stocky white body. He flung his head back and laughed as the wind tore against him and the rain poured down on his nakedness.

  Alys pressed against him, squeezed his thigh between her legs as they stood, drenched in the storm. The lightning dazzled them for a moment and then plunged them into blackness.

  'Feel my sisters,' Alys said urgently. 'We are riding in the storm with them. See how the winds pull and throw us around. We are out in the storm, tossed by the air, bruised by the lightning. The storm is our lover. Be the storm, Hugo! Be at one with the storm and take us all.'

  The earthroot was twisting and turning Hugo's brain. His body was icy from the rainwater and burning from his own heat and the earthroot fever. He savagely snatched up Alys and pressed her against the turret wall and forced himself into her. Alys, her body crushed against the stone wall, her shoulders and head above the parapet in the full force of the storm, laughed aloud.

  'You are the storm, Hugo, you are the storm!' she cried. 'Love me into madness. I have thrown away everything for you. Everything is lost for you!'

  Hugo buried himself into her, withdrew, thrust forward again. At every move Alys was pushed nearer and nearer the edge of the turret wall where it dropped down from full height to waist height. Below them the river was in a spate of deep dark water and wind-lashed foam. Alys saw the movement into fatal danger and laughed again. Deep inside her, desire and madness were building together. She clenched her legs around Hugo's waist and leaned back on the wall. Hugo, blind to everything but his fantasy of witches and storms and magical lust, forced himself into her again and again.

  One final movement flung Alys from the support of the turret wall out into nothing, over the precipice. Hugo held her hips, her legs were around his waist, but her body was half falling from the top of the tower. And then Alys, mad for satisfaction and mad for release from her fear and her guilt, let go of Hugo's shoulders and stretched her arms out, over her head, reaching out into the abyss. The lightning flashed, lighting Alys' insane, laughing face and Hugo's tranced grimace of pleasure as Alys flung herself, head first into nothingness, with only her legs still gripping Hugo. She screamed at her pleasure and the sound was torn away from her mouth by the wind. She opened her eyes and looked downwards. She was dangling from the top of the tower, below her was a maelstrom of boiling winds, seething rain and the tumbling torrent of the river over boulders. Alys stretched her arms out into nothingness and laughed aloud, longing for the final terror of the tumbling fall and then blackness.

  Then her belly clenched with lust and she groaned, instinctively she tightened her legs around his back, forcing him closer and closer, deeper and deeper inside her, wringing every second of pleasure from him. Hugo, not knowing what he did, caring neither for her safety nor her danger but only his own pleasure, snatched her back from the precipice and bore down on her on the stone flags of the turret roof. The rain poured down on the two glistening bodies as they rolled together, knotted with lust. Then the thunder rolled again and Hugo groaned, and fell away from her.

  Alys lay, mouth open, drinking in the rain. Her hair was a puddled wet mass behind her neck, Hugo a spent weight on her body. She pushed him away and sat up slowly. Her head was swimming with the wine from supper and with the powerful drugs of lust and terror. She pushed herself to her feet and hobbled over to the edge of the tower. She was sober now, as a drunkard who suddenly sees the danger he was in will turn sober and cold in a second. She held on to one of the turrets and peered down the dizzying drop. She could not see the foot of the tower, it was too dark and too high. But she could hear the rush of the river water as it broke its back on the rocks. When the lightning cracked the sky again Alys could see the rocks far, far below her, where they formed a cliff of breakneck height down to the raging vortex of the river bed. Alys stepped back from the edge of the tower and pulled her cape around her. She shuddered.

  'That was too close,' she said. 'Too close. Too near to the edge. Too close.' She shook her head like someone coming out of a deep trance. 'The blank rune, the blank rune,' she whispered. 'Oh God! The blank rune. Odin.'

  For a moment she stared down and then she looked out towards the moor. The storm was raging out eastwards; when the lightning struck she could see the rain like a wall of water spreading over the moor up towards the high fells. The river would be filling fast, Morach in her cave would be drowned all over again. The river might spill out in the darkness, flood over its banks and hungrily eat the little hovel and the old arthritic woman, sweep them away before the soldiers came. 'Sleep well,' Alys said ironically to the darkness.

  'Both my mothers. Sleep well. May the thunderstorm take both of you, may the rain wash you both out of my life, may the winds blow you far away from me.' She laughed in a high cracked voice at her own black humour and then turned slowly back to Hugo.

  He was lying where she had left him, his skin cold and wet. Alys wrapped her cape tightly around her and lifted up the trapdoor in the flagstones. In the pigeon coops under the little rickety roof half a dozen tiny red eyes watched her anxiously, the birds stirring fretfully as she passed. Alys stepped down the narrow stone stairs and dropped the trapdoor back into place. She went past Hugo's room and past the old lord's chamber. Halfway down the stairs to the guardroom she met one of the soldiers.

  'Fetch a comrade and go and get Lord Hugo,' she said briskly. 'He is drunk and would go out on the roof to see the storm. See that his servants warm him and dry him and put him to bed. He is dead drunk and cannot walk.'

  The soldier grinned. 'Yes, Lady Alys,' he said. He ran down to the guardroom ahead of her and Alys heard the quick ripple of male laughter. She walked down the stairs, through the guardroom, where the soldiers stood back to let her pass, sneaking a look at her bare white feet, and across to the stairs up to the ladies' gallery.

  Mary was waiting by Alys' bed when she came into the room. Without comment she took the soaking cape from her and wrapped Alys in a warm sheet. Alys, too tired and dazed to be bothered with her nightshift and nightcap, slipped between her sheets wrapped and warm like a swaddled baby.

  'Goodnight, your ladyship,' Mary said carefully, and blew out the candle.

  That night Alys had a dream. It came from the thunderstorm and the pouring rain outside the castle. It came from the boiling flood of the river around the rocks of the castle's foundation. It came from the blank rune. It came from Morach – dark and deep and hidden in her drowned cave. It came from Hildebrande – praying in the darkness with the tears pouring down her old face for the lamb which had lost its way, for the daughter who had turned traitor.

  Alys dreamed she was on the road to Castleton from Morach's cottage. She dreamed she was riding her mare. It was a fine day, sunny and bright and the mare was stepping smartly along the white road. Alys dreamed she saw the bluish leaves of wild sage in the bank at the side of the road and pulled up the mare to pick the fresh florets.

  The mare stopped, Alys slipped from the saddle and bent down over the plant. Then she recoiled. The bank was alive with worms. It was seething with white maggots, tiny and thin, writing together in a huge mass of corruption. As she fell back against the horse's shoulder she saw that the bank on the other side of the road was filled with worms as well. She was trapped between two feasts of writhing, silent maggots.

  Alys went to leap up on the horse but, in the way of dreams, there was no saddle and no stirrup. She could not get up. She fumbled at the horse's back, then she went around to the other side, hoping there might be a saddle on the other side. There was nothing, and she could feel the banks coming closer. The whole monstrous hedgerow of maggots, crawling over every flower, thick in every hole, was coming closer, closer.

  Alys screamed as loud as she could and her scream tore through the fabric of the dream, r
ipped her sleep open. She opened her eyes and she was sitting upright in her bed, sweating with terror.

  'My God, my God!' she said into the darkness. The castle was in silence, the storm gone. Outside there was the soft patter of summer rain and the sky was pale with the rising, cloudwashed sun. 'My God,' Alys said again.

  She turned her pillow over, it was damp with sweat. She pulled the covers a little closer. She felt as chilled and as trembly as if she had just come in from the storm.

  'What a dream!' Alys said to herself in the silence of her room. 'What a nightmare. And all nonsense. All nonsense.'

  She shook her head and lay down on the pillow again, clutching the covers around her for warmth. 'Nonsense,' she said to herself softly. 'All nonsense.' Within minutes she was asleep. Within minutes she was dreaming again. Once more she was riding down the road on her pretty mare. Once more she saw the herb, pulled up the horse, and leaned towards the flower-studded bank. There was something white moving under the leaves.

  Alys recoiled, thinking it must be some worm, perhaps a snake. Then she saw more clearly. A little white hand.

  Alys screamed aloud, but made no sound except a soft groan.

  As she watched, the little hand parted the curtain of a dock leaf and the little wax doll walked out. It was the doll of Hugo – the worst of the three. Eyeless, earless, fingerless, mouthless. It waddled on little legs through the thick leaves and flowers of the bank and down to the road. Behind it, like tiny toy soldiers, came the other two. The doll of Lord Hugh, stooped and more tired, but marching determinedly behind Hugo, and behind him came Catherine. With helpless fascination Alys leaned down from her horse to see better. The doll of Catherine had changed. The great fat belly had gone, torn away. There was a ragged edge to the doll's body and a cavernous hole where the belly had been. At every step the doll took it left a little trail, like the slime of a snail, where molten candlewax dripped from the wound. 'Where are you going?' Alys moaned. The Catherine and the Lord Hugh dolls checked at her voice. But the little doll of Hugo could neither hear her, nor see her, feel her, nor speak to her. It trudged on like a little unstoppable toy.

  'To Castleton,' the two little dolls said in their piping, innocent voices. 'To find our mother who made us.'

  ‘I buried you!' Alys shouted at them. 'I left you on holy ground. I left you there. Lie quiet! Lie quiet, I command you!'

  'We want our mother!' they said in their high, bright voices. 'We want our mother, our mother, little Sister Ann!'

  'No!' Alys' scream broke through her sleep. She heard her door bang open as Mary came into the room, asking if she were ill.

  'No!' Alys said again, the dream fading as she felt Mary's hand on her arm..

  But she heard their reply, from three miles out on the Castleton road. 'We want you, mother,' they cried joyfully. 'WE WANY YOU!'

  Twenty-nine

  The morning was clear and sun-filled, just as the old lord had predicted. The storm had drenched the mist and blown away the clouds. Alys, waking from a second sleep, went over to the arrow-slit and stared out towards the moor where the white ribbon of the road snaked westward.

  For long moments she stood staring towards the moor as if she thought that she might see something coming along the road. Then she shrugged and turned away.

  'I fear nothing,' she said under her breath. 'Nothing. I have not come this far to be fearful of dreams. I am not a fool like Catherine. I shall fear nothing.'

  Mary tapped at the door and came in, laden with a platter of bread and meat, and a pitcher of ale. Alys went back to bed and ate heartily, sitting up in bed, and reviewing one gown after another as Mary took them from the chest and spread them out before her.

  'The new blue gown,' she said at last. 'And I'll wear my hair loose.'

  Mary laid out the dress, poured hot water from a ewer to a basin, and helped Alys lace tight into the gown. It had been remade from some blue silk in Meg's box, sewn by the castle sempstresses in the style favoured by the new Queen Jane. Alys smiled. The dress might have come into fashion precisely to show off her growing belly. The stomacher was cut short, it pressed across the breasts and laced at the back like a bodice. In the front the fullness of the gown was gathered across the belly.

  Even virgins wearing such a fashion would look pregnant; Alys, with the curve of her belly emphasized by the folds of silk, looked like a queen of fertility. She opened the door, bid 'good day' to the ladies and strolled across the gallery to visit Catherine.

  Catherine was still in bed. Her breakfast tray was pushed aside, she was drinking from a mug of ale. She put it down when Alys came in the door and held out her arms to her. Alys bent over the bed and allowed Catherine to hold her and nuzzle her damp face into Alys' neck.

  'Alys,' Catherine said miserably. 'You must help me.' Alys pulled up a chair to the bed without invitation or permission and sat down. 'In what way, Catherine?' she asked pleasantly. 'You know I would do anything in my power for you.'

  Catherine snivelled weakly and hunted in the pillows for her handkerchief. She rubbed her eyes and her moist nose. 'I cannot stop weeping,' she said thickly. 'All day and even all night. Alys, I weep even in my dreams.'

  Alys examined her clasped hands against the blue of her robe. They were as smooth and as white as a lady's. No one would look at them now and think Alys had ever plied anything heavier than a needle. 'Why do you weep?' Alys asked, without much interest.

  Catherine pressed the backs of her hands against her pink cheeks to cool them. 'Hugo will not see me,' she said flatly. 'He will not see me and he refuses to touch me because I have not been churched. But Father Stephen is not here so I cannot be churched. Hugo knows that. He is using it as an excuse to snub me. I know it. I know it.' She broke off, her voice had risen high and angry. She took a deep breath. 'I do not even know if Father Stephen believes in churching,' she said resentfully. 'If he calls it superstition and refuses to do it, and Hugo still will not touch me until it is done, then what can I do? It is a trick. Hugo is punishing me for losing his child. But it is not my fault! I am not to blame!' Her voice had grown high and shrill again. She took a quivering breath, trying to calm herself. Alys barely looked at her.

  'The old lord will not see me,' she said. 'He says he will see me when I am well again and fit to be seated at table; but I know he is angry with me.' She hesitated, her voice very low. 'I suspect him,' she said softly. 'I suspect him of trying to have me put aside.' Alys glanced up at her but said nothing. 'You must know,' Catherine said with sudden energy. 'You write his letters for him, he tells you his business. Is he writing to have me set aside and the marriage annulled?' 'Yes,' Alys said precisely. 'If his friends at court will support his application.'

  The flushed colour went from Catherine's face, leaving her waxy white. 'On what grounds?' she whispered. 'Too close kinship,' Alys replied. 'There was a dispensation…' Catherine began. 'Bought from the Pope,' Alys answered. 'The King decides these matters now. Not the Pope.'

  Catherine was silent, staring at Alys. 'What does Hugo say?' she asked. 'Does he love me still? Does he want to keep me? Will he stand against his father?'

  'Hugo doesn't know,' Alys answered. 'But I doubt he would go against his father's will in this matter.'

  'No,' Catherine said, shaking her head. 'He would not. He married me because his father ordered it, and he lay with me because they needed an heir. Now I cannot give an heir I am of no use to anybody. So they will throw me away.'

  Alys looked at her fingernails. They were pale pink and regular, with clear white tips and little half-moons of whiteness at the base. Alys inspected them approvingly.

  'I am lost,' Catherine said hollowly. Alys waited, indifferent to Catherine's pain. 'What will they do with me?' Catherine asked. 'You could marry again,' Alys suggested. A little of the colour came back into Catherine's cheeks. 'After Hugo?' she demanded.

  Alys nodded, conceding the point. 'Or you could have a little house of your own, with your own servants on your dowry land.
Perhaps a little manor, a farmhouse.'

  Catherine's plump face trembled with her grief. 'I have been the lady of the castle,' she said. 'The wife of Lord Hugo. Do they expect me to live in a cottage and keep ducks?' Alys smiled. 'Could you fight them?' 'I'd lose,' Catherine replied promptly. 'Catherine of Aragon could not sway them, a princess in her own right. The Boleyn woman's own uncle found her guilty and sent her to be killed. It's not likely that they would listen to me! The King's council do not like to hear about male impotence, male infertility. It is easier for them to blame a wife.'

  Alys glanced behind her to see that the door was safely shut. 'That's treason,' she said flatly.

  Catherine looked defiantly at her. 'I don't care,' she said. 'They have used me like a toy and now they will throw me on the midden. Hanging as a traitor could not hurt me worse than this betrayal.'

  There was silence for a few moments. Alys saw that Catherine's constant tears had dried on her cheeks.

  Underneath the rosy plumpness of Catherine's face the old hard lines were beginning to show again.

  'Who will they marry him to?' Catherine asked. 'Have they written to anyone?'

  Alys kept her voice level, her joy and confidence concealed. 'Lord Hugh has made no approaches,' she said. She waited for Catherine to guess that Alys would be the new lady, waited for her explosion of rage, of jealousy which would carry her out of the castle in a fit of pique and then beach her outside, never to return, in a little manor farm, visited only now and then by David with unwanted goods from the castle. Impoverished. Alone.

  'I suppose they will wait until the annulment has gone through,' Catherine said. Alys smiled inwardly at Catherine's stupidity. 'Then they will look about them for a girl, a young girl, fertile and strong and wealthy. That's who they will wait for. Some noble little thing who will fall passionately in love with Hugo as I did. And then wear away her life with longing and jealousy- as I have done. And then wait and wait for a child from him. For it is he who has no seed. It is he who is corrupt.'