Novels 03 The Wise Woman

by Philippa Gregory

  “She made it bad enough for you before,” Eliza warned.

  Alys nodded. “Yes,” she said. “But now she is ill and weary all the time, and I am the only one who can quiet her fears. She would cling to me whatever I did. And I will care for her kindly enough.”

  Eliza nodded with begrudging admiration. “You’ve come a long way, Alys,” she said.

  “They call me Mistress Alys now,” Alys said. “Would you ring for a tub and a pitcher of hot water? I shall take a bath.”

  “Ring yourself!” Eliza exclaimed, instantly indignant.

  Alys whirled up from the chair and took Eliza by the shoulders, shook her and held her, putting her angry face very near. “I will warn you once, Eliza,” she said through her teeth. “Everything is different here now. I am Alys no more. I am carrying Lord Hugh’s grandchild by his son who is barren with every other woman but me and his wife. I am second only to his wife. I can count you as my friend, or I can count you as my enemy. But you will not live here long if we are enemies.”

  The fight went out of Eliza in a rush. “You’re very lucky,” she said with half-hearted resentment. “You came as nothing and now you’re to be called Mistress Alys.”

  Alys shook her head. “I came as a learned woman, a healer and my lord’s clerk,” she said proudly. “I am the daughter of a noble lady. I am fit for this. I am as fit to be the lady here, as Jane Seymour is for the crown. Now ring for hot water, I shall take a bath.”

  Eliza nodded, slowly. “Yes, Mistress Alys,” she said.

  Two menservants carried the big barrel up the winding stairs and into Alys’s room and set it down close to the fire. A kitchen maid came with a sheet of linen and spread it over the sides and bottom of the bath. Two men behind her brought great buckets of scalding water. They poured it in and went back for two more. Alys sent them for a fifth to leave by the side of the barrel with a ladle to add more hot water as she wished. She shut the door behind them and opened the chest where she kept the herbs. She had dried honeysuckle and rose petals in a purse of linen and she took a handful and scattered them on the water. She had a tiny bottle of oil of chamomile and she rinsed her hair with it. She sat in the hot water with her head resting against the back of the barrel and rubbed her hands all over her body, crushing the flower petals against her skin. Her hands went over and around her breasts until the nipples stood hard and tingled to her touch. She shook out her wet hair and let it tumble over the side of the barrel and drip carelessly on the floor.

  As the water cooled she roused herself from the bath, wrapped herself in a warm sheet, and sat in solitary silence before her fire. She sniffed at the skin of her forearm, like a sensuous little animal. She smelled of meadow flowers from the petals, and her fair hair smelled of honey. Her body was lithe and slim and lovely. Her face was grim.

  “Tonight,” Alys said softly to herself. “Tonight, Hugo.”

  Chapter

  20

  Alys, washed, scented, oiled, and dressed in a simple blue one-piece gown with a blue ribbon at her waist, had to wait with what patience she could simulate all through a long and tedious day. Lady Catherine was still too grieved to come down to dinner. She whimpered for company; and Hugo, looking in at the ladies’ gallery on his way to the hall, was prepared to dine with her in her room. That left the old lord eating on his own, solitary, at the center of the long high table, glowering under his dark eyebrows. When the meats were taken away Alys left the women’s table and went to him and leaned over him to ask a question. The women heard his sharp laugh and a low-voiced reply to Alys. Then he nodded her, casually, to a stool further down the table, and talked with her until the meal was ended. David’s gaze, as he watched them served with the voider course of wafers, fruit, and hippocras wine, was bright.

  “Is Alys to sit with Lady Catherine’s women no more?” he asked the old lord. “Is she your guest now, my lord?”

  The old lord gleamed under his eyebrows. “I was bored,” he said uncompromisingly. “And there was no one to talk to. If my daughter-in-law has forgotten her duty to dine at my table and my son takes to her chamber with her like a maid-in-waiting—what am I to do? Sit dumbstruck?”

  David nodded. “I asked only so that I would know where to order her cup placed for her,” he said apologetically. “If you wish the woman to dine with you I shall set her pewter here.”

  The lord banged the table with his fist. “When Catherine is absent Alys can have her plate, can’t she?” he demanded irritably. “When in all my life have I not had a woman to watch when I wished? And Alys is the best-looking woman in the castle. She shall sit with me when Catherine is not here, and she can drink from glass and eat off silver. Is that clear?”

  David bowed in silence. When he straightened up he saw Alys watching him, her blue eyes bright with amusement. “Thank you very much, David,” she said coolly. “You are kind to consider my comfort. I would never have had that invitation but for you.”

  The old lord laughed briefly and snapped his fingers for more wine. Alys took the flagon from the wine-server and poured it for him, leaning forward so that he saw the promising swell of her breasts at the neck of her gown.

  “Pretty whore,” the old lord said with a smile, and threw back his head to drain the glass.

  Alys, unashamed, smiled back.

  When dinner was over she went with the lord Hugh to his chamber and wrote letters to his dictation until the light had gone. He had to re-form his alliances now that Jane Seymour’s family were in favor, and there were rumors that the hastily wedded bride was with child. She was said to be trying to reconcile the king and his daughter Mary. “A popish princess at court again,” Lord Hugh said thoughtfully. “And everything sliding around like a whore’s blanket.”

  Alys rang for candles and a glass of mulled wine for the old man.

  “I’m weary,” he said frankly. “It’s a long time coming, this baby of Catherine’s. When is yours due?”

  “End of November,” Alys said. “As we start preparing for the Christmas feast.”

  The lord nodded, his eyelids drooping. “That will be merry,” he said. “For us at any rate. And what d’you think of Catherine? Will she have another soon after this?”

  Alys shrugged. “She’s from sickly stock,” she said disparagingly. “But there’s no reason why she should not have more. She may take time to conceive though, she’s not very fertile, is she? This one took her nine years!”

  The old lord moved restively. “I should have matched him elsewhere,” he said irritably. “But it was so easy, with the wardship in my hands and all. But if I had known she would have been so slow to take, I would never have put her with Hugo.”

  Alys went behind his chair and stroked his forehead. He lay back against the hard chair back, quietened by her touch.

  “Don’t fret,” she said. “By this time next year you will have two grandsons—hers and mine. By this time next year I shall be pregnant by Hugo again.”

  “Setting up a stud?” he asked, chuckling with his eyes closed.

  “I want to stay here,” Alys said frankly. “And I want Hugo. And I want your protection. What better way?”

  The old lord shook his head. “There is no better way,” he said. “While you are carrying my grandson I am yours to command. You know what this child means to me.”

  Alys nodded. “I know,” she said.

  The old lord sighed and sat quietly for a little while. With slow easy strokes Alys dragged her fingers across his forehead, feeling the soft ridges of the lined old skin under her fingertips.

  “I shall give you land, Alys,” Lord Hugh said, luxuriating in her sure touch. “When your son is born. I shall endow you with some land. A woman like you should have a little wealth, a little power.”

  Alys smiled, her touch on his forehead never hesitated. “I should like the farm next door to old Morach’s cottage,” she said, without hesitation. “It’s a pretty place and Morach had a claim to some of the fields. It would please me t
o take the whole farm off them. It will repay them for their robbery of Morach.” She gave a soft little laugh. “Some symmetry,” she said.

  “Maybe,” Lord Hugh replied. “I’ll have David or Hugo look into it.”

  Alys nodded, the gentle pressure of her fingertips slowing to keep time with his deeper breathing. In a few moments he was asleep, and she pulled up a stool to the foot of his chair and sat down, leaning back against him, watching the fire.

  In his sleep his hand stretched out and touched her head. Alys untied the hood and put it to one side and let his hand rest on her rumpled curls. They sat together for a long while. Alys watched the fire and felt the comfortable warmth of his hand on her head like a benediction. She closed her eyes. The warm, safe, clean smell of the room and the touch of a hand on her head was like the abbey and Mother Hildebrande’s touch. Alys closed her eyes too and waited.

  He was not long. Hugo came striding in, his cape pushed back off his shoulders and his cap askew from his ride, and checked on the threshold at the picture they made: his father’s familiar profile softened in sleep and Alys’s young beauty under his protection.

  “Hush,” Alys said, getting to her feet and drawing Hugo from the room. “He is tired. I have been writing letters for him all afternoon.”

  “I’ve been riding,” Hugo said. “Catherine was weary after dinner.”

  “Then only we two are awake,” Alys said, with a little secretive smile. “Only we two, awake, and…” She paused, glancing at Hugo with a look which promised everything. “Only we two, awake and…restless,” she said.

  Hugo shot her a quick, measuring look from under his dark eyebrows. “Where are Catherine’s women?” he asked. “I left Ruth and Margery sitting in Catherine’s bedchamber. Where are the others?”

  “Gone into Castleton,” Alys said. “You could walk into my room and there would be no one to see you pass.”

  Hugo nodded. “Go ahead of me,” he said. “See that Catherine is still asleep and her door is shut.”

  Alys nodded and led the way down the winding staircase and through the antechamber before the great hall, and then up to the ladies’ gallery above. The fire burned low in the grate. The door to Catherine’s chamber was closed. Alys and Hugo slipped across the gallery and into Alys’s room, as silent as ghosts.

  Hugo shut the door behind them and dropped the bolt home. “Here is a change, Alys,” he said. “After that first time I thought you found I was not to your taste.”

  Alys shook her head to loosen her hair and it tumbled around her face in a shower of brass and gold. She tossed it from her eyes and smiled confidently at Hugo, measuring his rising desire.

  “You took me as a virgin, an ordinary girl,” she said. “It will never be like that again. I withdrew from you to learn my skills. I had to find my teachers, I had to know some deep arts before I could lie with you.”

  “What arts?” Hugo asked; his voice shook slightly.

  “You know of them,” Alys said simply. “You have dreamed of them, you have hardly believed they could be possible between a man and a woman.”

  Hugo touched his lips with his tongue. “I have heard,” he began, “of arts that a woman, a skilled woman, can use which can make a man crazy for her. And I have heard that if you lie with a witch she can take you to the very borders of heaven—and beyond. And I’ve heard that you feel unearthly pleasure, pleasure beyond that any ordinary woman can give you.” He gave a nervous excited laugh. “All lies and trickery, I suppose?”

  Alys shook her head slowly, her hair swung forward. Hugo leaned toward her. “You smell of honey,” he said.

  “All those things I can do,” Alys promised. She paused, weighing her words. “If you dare.”

  “I dare,” Hugo said quickly. “I desire them.”

  Alys smiled and crossed the room. Hugo followed her with his eyes. She opened the chest of herbs and took out a flagon of spiced wine and two cups. As he watched she poured a cup for both of them, turned aside for one second—half a second only—and palmed a fat pinch of crushed earthroot into his cup.

  “I drink to your desire,” she said. “May it bring you all that you dream.”

  Hugo raised the cup and downed it in three impatient gulps. “And your desire, Alys?” he asked. “When you last lay with me you had no desire.”

  Alys shrugged. “I was an ordinary maid,” she said. “You asked me to put aside my power for love of you—and so I did. But then you found—did you not?—that there are many ordinary maids in the castle. But only one witch.”

  Hugo laughed, a little shaky. “A witch,” he repeated. “With witches’ skills.” He moistened his lips with his tongue. “I scarcely believe in witchcraft, Alys. You will have to deal with a modern man, an unbeliever.”

  Alys smiled, confident in Morach’s herbal skills. “Oh, Hugo,” she said, a laugh in the back of her voice. “You believe and disbelieve at will. But when you are out on a cold moor with the mist around you and the river rising, you see dark magic and know fear. And when you are here with me, in this room, you will be enchanted and know your deepest desires.”

  “You’ve changed,” he said.

  Alys nodded. “I have found my mistress, the dark mistress of all wise women, and I have learned from her. I had to become one with her as if I were her lover. And now I know her skills.”

  “What are they?” Hugo asked. “Your mistress’s skills?”

  Alys put her hands to the back of her gown and slowly, almost casually, began to untie the ribbon laces. Hugo watched in silence as she shrugged it off her shoulder. She was naked underneath. She pushed it down over her hips and stepped out of it. She wore no shift, no undergown. Hugo hissed an indrawn breath at the sight of her body and at the realization that she had planned this seduction. She had dressed herself after her bath so that she would be naked before him this day. He reached out to snatch at her but Alys gestured to the chair.

  “Be seated, Hugo,” she said, magnificently formal in her nakedness.

  Hugo stepped obediently toward the chair, stumbling as he reached it. Alys watched him intently.

  “Is it hard for you to walk, Hugo?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth to frame a reply, moving slowly.

  “Hard for you to walk, or talk, or reach for me,” Alys said. “All you can do is watch.”

  Hugo, slack-muscled, entrapped by the drug, lolled in the chair, his eyes, darkly dilated, never leaving Alys’s white body with the bush of golden hair.

  “I will tell you what my mistress taught me,” Alys said, her voice a low, hypnotic song. “She taught me to dance so that a man cannot move for desire.” Alys’s hair fell in a fair curtain over her shoulders, over her breasts, she stretched to one side and then another. Hugo could not take his eyes from her moving body.

  “I can’t move,” Hugo said thickly.

  “She taught me to summon my sisters to touch me,” Alys said. Her hands cupped her own face, closed over her throat, smoothed down together over her breasts. The nipples, rosy and hard, flickered through the curtain of hair. Alys threw her head back so her throat was bared, cupped both her breasts in her hands and walked toward Hugo. “I will always have pleasure,” Alys whispered. “I will always have pleasure for the asking. My sisters will come to me at any time, any time I ask. And they will stroke me and lick me and kiss me. Can you see them yet, Hugo? They are coming to us both. They come to pleasure me and to please you.”

  His mouth fell longingly open. Alys stood astride him and rubbed first one breast and then another against his lips. Hugo quested for her touch, turning his head like a baby. His hands clenched on his thighs but he could not reach out and hold her.

  “My mistress has come now,” Alys said in an awed whisper? “She is in the room with me now. Oh God! D’you see her, Hugo? She is naked like I am, and her hair is black. Her touch burns my skin like fire and her kisses make me long for more and more. With her are my sisters, ten, twenty girls, all naked. All come to dance for you, Hugo!
”

  Hugo could not take his eyes from Alys but he felt in every corner of the room the gathering of women. He sensed their eyes upon him and the growing heat of their bodies. Alys, watching him all the time, stroked her hands down across her belly to the perfect indentation of her navel.

  “Can you feel me, Hugo?” she asked. “Can you feel me, and all my sisters and my cunning mistress? Can you see us, all naked, can you see the stars in our hair and our smiles?”

  Hugo shuddered, a great involuntary shiver which shook his whole body. “Alys.”

  Alys’s hand smoothed down her belly to the golden bush of hair. “Look, Hugo,” she said. “In all your nasty little games with Catherine, has she ever stood proudly before you and let you see her?”

  Wordlessly, Hugo shook his head.

  “Then look at me,” Alys said. “I am not ashamed, I am not afraid. No man hurts me, no man torments me. My sisters and I give each other delight that no man could ever match. But we will let you be with us, Hugo. We will let you roll with us, play with us, excite us.” With both hands she parted the hair and rubbed her forefinger delicately against her pink opening flesh.

  “Let me,” Hugo said urgently. “Let me, Alys.”

  She raised her head again and smiled at him, mockingly. “Ah! You must wait,” she said. “You must wait until you can see us all. All my sisters want you to taste them, all of them want to touch you. We are all hungry for your touch, Hugo. My sisters and me. D’you see us? Do you see us now?”

  “I can see you,” Hugo said. “And I can feel them, I can feel their hands on me.”

  Alys came closer at once. “On your hair and on your face, Hugo,” she whispered. “Can you feel their lips on your face and on your neck? Can you smell their perfume, Hugo? The scent of their hair and their sweat and their wetness? They’re ready for you. They are longing for you. D’you think you can please us? Do you think you can please us all?”