In winter, and for many days in the bad weather of autumn and spring, the women spent every hour from breakfast till darkness inside the four walls. Their only exercise was to go up and down the broad, shallow flight of steps from the great hall to the gallery for their breakfast, dinner, and supper. Their only occupation in the winter months was to sit in the gallery and sew, read, write letters, weave, sing, or quarrel.
Alys pretended she had extra work from Lord Hugh and stayed away whenever she could. She disliked the women’s furtive, bawdy gossip, and she feared Lady Catherine, who never threatened Alys nor raised her voice, but watched all the women, all the time. The room was tense with an unstated, unceasing rivalry. In the long hours between midday dinner and supper served at dusk, while Hugo was out hunting, or sitting in judgment with his father, or riding out to collect his rents, or check the manor lands, the women might chatter among themselves, pleasantly enough. But as soon as Hugo’s quick steps rang on the stone stairs the women straightened their hoods, smoothed their gowns, glanced at each other, compared looks.
Alys kept her eyes down. There was always sewing to be done in the ladies’ gallery. An endless tapestry in twelve panels, which had been started by Lady Catherine’s long-dead mother and willed to her daughter. Alys kept her eyes on her hands and stitched unceasingly when Hugo banged open the door and strode into the room. Since the first moment of seeing him Alys had never again looked directly at him. When he came into a room Alys went out, and when she had to pass him on the stairs she would press back against the cold stones, keeping her eyes down and praying that he did not notice her. When he was near her Alys could feel his presence on her skin, like a breath. When a door shut behind her, even out of her line of vision, she knew if it was he who had gone out. She was tempted to look at him, she found her gaze drawn always toward him. She was fascinated to see whether his face was dark and silent, in his look of sullenness, or whether he was alight with his quick, easy joy. But she knew that when he was in the room Lady Catherine’s gaze swept them all like a sentry on a watchtower. The least sign of interest by Hugo for any woman would be noted by Catherine and paid for, in full, later. Alys feared Lady Catherine’s unremitting jealousy, she feared the politics of the castle and the secret, unstated rivalry of the ladies’ gallery.
And she feared for her vows. More than anything else, she feared for her vows.
He paused once while he was running lightly up the stairs as Alys came down, waited on the step beside her and put a careless finger under her chin, turning her face to the arrow-slit for light.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. It was as if he were measuring her looks for fault. “Your hair is coming through golden.”
Alys had a mop-head of golden-brown curls, still too short to fasten back, so she wore her hair as a child, loose around her face.
“What age are you?” he asked.
She sensed the quickening of his interest, so tangible that she almost smelled it.
“Fourteen,” she said.
“Liar,” he replied evenly. “What age?”
“Sixteen,” she said sullenly. She did not take her watchful eyes off his face.
He nodded. “Old enough,” he said. “Come to my room tonight,” he said abruptly. “At midnight.”
Alys’s pale face was impassive, her blue eyes blank.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, slightly surprised.
“Yes, my lord,” Alys said carefully. “I heard you.”
“And you know where my room is?” he asked, as if that could be the only obstacle. “In the round tower on the floor above my father. When you leave his room tonight, take the stairs upward to me instead of down to the hall. And I shall have some wine for you, little Alys, and some sweetmeats, and some gentle play.”
Alys said nothing, keeping her eyes down. She could feel the heat of her cheeks and the thud of her heart beating.
“Do you know what you make me think of?” Hugo asked confidentially.
“What?” Alys asked, betrayed into curiosity.
“Fresh cream,” he said seriously.
Alys’s eyes flew to his face. “Why?” she asked.
“Every time I see you all I can think of is fresh cream. All I think of is pouring cream all over your body and licking it off,” he said.
Alys gasped and pulled away from him as if his touch had scorched her. He laughed aloud at her shocked face.
“That’s settled then,” he said easily. He smiled at her, his heart-turning merry smile, and swung around and took the steps upward two at a time. She heard him whistling a madrigal as he went, joyous as a winter robin.
Alys leaned back against the cold stones and did not feel their chill. She felt desire, hot and dangerous and exciting, in every inch of her body. She gripped her lower lip between her teeth but she could not stop herself smiling. “No,” she said sternly. But her cheeks burned.
Alys knew she needed to see Morach and she had her chance that afternoon. Lord Hugh wanted a message taken to Bowes Castle and Alys offered to carry it. “If I am delayed I shall stay the night with my kinswoman,” she said. “I should like to see her for a little while, and I need some herbs.”
The old lord looked at her and smiled his slow smile. “But you’ll come back,” he said.
Alys nodded. “You know I’ll come back,” she said. “There’s no life for me on the moor now, that life is closed to me. And the one I had before. It’s like a journey down a chamber with doors that shut behind me. Whenever I find some safety I have to move on, and the old life is taken from me.”
He nodded. “Best find yourself a man and close all the doors for good; those before you, and those behind you,” he said.
Alys shook her head. “I won’t wed,” she said.
“Because of your vows?” he asked.
“Yes…” Alys started, and then she bit the words back. “I’ve taken no vows, my lord,” she said smoothly. “It’s just that I am one of those women who cannot abide bedding. It goes with the skill of herbs. My cousin Morach lives alone.”
Lord Hugh coughed and spat toward the fire which burned in the corner of his room, smoke trailing through the arrow-slit above it. “I guessed some time ago you were a runaway nun,” he said conversationally. “Your Latin is very weak in profane language, very strong for sacred texts. Your hair was shaved, and you have that appetite—like all nuns—for the finest things.” He laughed harshly. “Did you think, little Sister Blue-eyes, that I have not seen how you stroke fine linen, how you love the light from wax candles, how you preen in your red gown and watch the light glint on the silver thread?”
Alys said nothing. Her pulse was racing but she kept her face serene.
“You’re safe with me,” Lord Hugh said. “Father Stephen is mad for the new ways and the new church—he’s a fanatical reformer, a holy man. Hugo loves the new church because he sees the gains he can make: the reduction of the prince bishops, fines from the monastery lands, the power that we can now claim—us peers working with the crown—and the spiritual lords cast down.”
He paused and gave her a brief smile. “But I am cautious,” he said slowly. “These turnabouts can happen more than once in a lifetime. It matters not to me whether there is a picture or two in a church, whether I eat flesh or fish, whether I pray to God in Latin or English. What matters more is the lordship of Castleton and how we weather these years of change.
“I won’t betray you. I won’t insist that I hear you take the vow of loyalty to the king, I won’t have you stripped and flogged. I won’t have you examined for heresy and when you fail given to the soldiers for their sport.”
Alys scarcely registered the reprieve.
“Or at any rate,” the old lord amended, “not yet. Not while you remember that you are mine. My servant. My vassal. Mine in word and body and deed.”
Alys inclined her head to show that she was listening. She said nothing.
“And if you serve me well I shall keep you safe, maybe even smuggle you
away, out of the country, safe to an abbey in France. How would that be?”
Alys laid her hand at the base of her throat. She could feel her pulse hammering against her palm. “As you wish, my lord,” she said steadily. “I am your servant.”
“Fancy an abbey in France?” the old lord asked pleasantly.
Alys nodded dumbly, choked with hope.
“I could send you to France, I could give you safe conduct on your journey, give you a letter of introduction to an abbess, explaining your danger and telling her that you are a true daughter of her church,” the old lord said easily. “I could give you a dowry to take to the convent with you. Is that what it takes to buy your loyalty?”
“I am your faithful servant,” Alys said breathlessly. “But I would thank you if you would send me to a new home, abroad.”
The old lord nodded, measuring her. “And serve me without fail until then, as a fee for your passage,” he said.
Alys nodded. “Whatever you command.”
“You’ll need to stay a virgin, I suppose. They won’t accept you in the nunnery otherwise. Has Hugo been tugging at your skirts yet?”
“Yes,” Alys said precisely.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said nothing.”
The old lord let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Aye, that’s your way, my cunning little vixen, ain’t it? So he no doubt thinks he’ll have you, and I think you’re sworn to my interest, and all along you follow your heretical beliefs, or your mysterious arts, or your own sweet way, which is none of these, don’t you?”
Alys shook her head. “No, my lord,” she said softly. “I want to go to a nunnery. I want to renew my vows. I will do anything you ask of me if you will see me safe into my order.”
“Do you need any guarding against my son?”
Alys shook her head slowly. “I wish to see my kinswoman. I could stay with her tonight,” she said. “She will advise me.”
He nodded and rested his head against the back of his chair as if he were suddenly weary. Alys went silently to the door. As she turned the handle she glanced back: he was watching her from under his hooded eyelids.
“Don’t poison him,” he said sharply. “None of your damned brews to kill his ardor. He needs a son, he needs all the vigor he has. I’ll tell him to stick it to his wife when he feels his lust rising. You’re safe under my charge. And I mean to honor my promise to see you safe behind walls when your work here is done.”
Alys nodded. “When would that be, my lord?” she asked in a small voice, careful not to betray her eagerness.
Lord Hugh yawned. “When this damned marriage business is settled, I should think,” he said carelessly. “When I am rid of the shrew and I have a new fertile daughter-in-law in Hugo’s bed. I will need you to work secretly for me until I can see my way clear, but I won’t need you after that. If you serve me well in this one thing, I’ll put you back behind convent walls again.”
Alys took a deep breath. “I thank you,” she said calmly, and left the room. She paused outside his door and leaned against the wall, looking out of the arrow-slit. The air which blew in was sharp with the cold from the moor. For the first time in months Alys felt her heart lift with hope. She was on her way back to her home.
She borrowed a fat pony belonging to Eliza Herring to ride to Bowes, confident of her ability to manage the overfed old animal, riding astride with the red gown pulled down over her legs, one of the lads from the castle running beside her. As the pony picked its way around the filth of the wet street she saw a few doorways open a crack to eye her, and a thrown handful of stones spattered on the wall behind her. She nodded. She had no friends in Bowes village. She had been feared as a cunning woman and now she would be reviled as the lord’s new whore, a village girl vaulted to the highest place in their small world.
She left the letter with the steward of the castle knowing that even if he dared to break the seal and open it, he would not be able to read the Latin. She ordered the lad to go back to Lord Hugh’s castle. She would be safe going on alone. The road from Castleton to Bowes to Penrith ran along dry ground at the crest of the moor. Alys, glancing up the hill from the valley of Bowes, could see the pale ribbon of it running straight as a Roman ruler bisecting the country from east to west. It was empty of traffic. These were wild lands. Travelers who had to make the journey would delay on either side of the moor, at Castleton in the east, or Penrith in the west, so that they could travel together and protect each other. There were wild animals—boar and wolves, some spoke of bears. There were sudden snowstorms in winter, and no shelter. Worst of all, there were brigands and moss-troopers, marauding Scots, sturdy beggars and vagabonds.
Alys avoided the road and set the pony toward the little sheep track which ran from Bowes alongside the River Greta, through thick woods of beech and elm and oak, where deer moved quietly in the shadows of the trees. The river was full and wide here, moving slowly over a broad rocky bed. Underneath the stone slabs a deeper, secret river ran, a great underground lake stocked with fishes that preferred the dark deeps. Even on horseback, Alys could sense the weight of water beneath the ground, its slow purposeful moving in the secret caves.
The pony broke out of the trees, puffing slightly, and then started the climb westward and upward through swathes of poor pastureland where sheep could feed and perhaps a few scrawny cows, and then higher again to the moor. Before the plague had come to Bowes and there had been more working men, someone had walled off one pasture from another. The stones had fallen down now and the sheep could run where they wished. At shearing in spring, or butchering in winter, they would be sorted by the marks on their fleeces. Every village had its own brand—but they all belonged to Lord Hugh.
The river was in spate here, a fast-moving swell of water overlapping the stone of the banks and flooding the meadows in great wet sweeps of waterlogged land. Alys rode beside it, listening to the gurgle and rush of the water, and laughed when the little pony shied sideways from a puddle. Bits of wood and weed were tumbled over and over in the peaty water, and at the river’s edge the springs bubbled and gurgled like soup pots, spewing out more brown water to swirl away downstream. The branches of ivy nodding at the tumbled drystone walls carried thick heads of dull black berries, a rowan tree glowed with clusters of scarlet berries against the green and gray of the weak winter grass speckled by small brown toadstools on weak leggy stems. Alys kicked the old pony and surprised it into a loping canter. She sat easily in the saddle and felt the wind in her face as the hood of her cape blew back.
The gray stone slabs of the bridge came into sight, the waters backed up behind it and spreading in a great sheet of floodwater as shiny as polished pewter. Morach’s cottage, like a little ark, stood on a hillock of higher ground away from the waters of the flood. Alys stood up in the stirrups and shouted: “Coo-ee! Morach!” so that Morach was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes against the low, red winter sun when Alys came trotting up on her pony.
“What’s this?” she asked, without a word of greeting.
“A loan only,” Alys said casually. “I’m not home forever, I am allowed to visit this evening. And I need to talk with you.”
Morach’s sharp dark eyes scanned Alys’s face. “The young lord Hugo,” she stated.
Alys nodded, not even asking how Morach had guessed. “Aye,” she said. “And the old lord has forbidden me to give him anything to kill his lust.”
Morach raised her black eyebrows and nodded. “They need an heir,” she said. “You can tether that animal outside the gate, I won’t have him near my herbs. Come in.”
Alys tied the pony to a twisted hawthorn bush which grew at Morach’s gateway, picked her fine red gown clear of the muck, and went in.
She had forgotten the stink of the place. Morach’s midden was downwind at the back of the cottage but the sweet sickly odor of muck and the tang of urine hovered around the cottage, seeped through the walls. The midden heap was as old as the cottage, it had alway
s smelled foul. The little fire was flickering sullenly on damp wood and the cottage was filled with a mist of black smoke. A couple of hens scuttered out the way as Alys entered, their droppings green and shiny on the hearthstone. Under Alys’s new leather shoes the floor felt slippery with damp. The body of floodwater only yards from the threshold made the very air wet and cold. At dusk the mist would roll along the river valley and seep under the door and in the little window. Alys gathered her new cloak closer and sat by the fire, taking Morach’s stool without asking.
“I brought you some money,” she said abruptly. “And a sackful of food.”
Morach nodded. “Stolen?” she inquired without interest.
Alys shook her head. “He gave it me,” she said. “The old lord. Gave me these clothes too.”
Morach nodded. “They’re very fine,” she said. “Good enough for Lady Catherine herself. Good enough for Lord Hugh’s whore.”
“That’s what they think me,” Alys said. “But he is old, Morach, and has been very sick. He does not touch me. He is…” She broke off as the thought came to her for the first time. “He is kind to me, Morach.”
Morach’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “First time in his life then,” she said thoughtfully. “Kind? Are you sure? Maybe he wants you for something and he’s keeping it close.”
Alys paused. “He could be,” she said. “I’ve never known a man to plan so far ahead. He has thought of everything, from his deathbed, to the death of the young lord’s son who isn’t even conceived. He has a place for me in his schemes—to work for him now, he needs a clerk who will keep secrets, and he’ll see me safe to a nunnery when my work is finished.” She broke off, meeting Morach’s skeptical black glare. “It’s my only chance,” she said simply. “He says he will get me to France, to a nunnery there. He is my only chance.”
Novels 03 The Wise Woman Page 9