The Wise Woman (46 page)

“You’re so cool,” she said. “Your hands are so cool and sweet-smelling. I wish I was cool.”

“Have you drunk your negus?” Alys asked. “And eaten your biscuits?”

“Yes,” Catherine sighed. “But I don’t feel hungry, Alys. I don’t want my dinner.”

“You must eat,” Eliza Herring interrupted. “You must keep up your strength, my lady.”

Alys nodded. “She is right, my lady. You have the baby to think of. And your own health to maintain. You must eat.”

“My legs ache,” Catherine complained.

Alys turned back the covers of the bed. Catherine’s ankles were swollen and flushed pink, her calves, her knees, even her thighs, were spongy with extra fat and the skin was white and puffy.

“You need to walk,” Alys said. “You should be up and walking every day, my lady. Walking in the fresh air, or even riding. You could ride a gentle horse.”

Catherine turned her head away from the window where the sky was showing blue with some strips of white cloud blowing away to the east. “I’m too tired,” she said. “And I told you, Alys, my legs ache. What sort of healer are you? When I tell you my legs ache, you tell me to walk! If I told you I was blind would you tell me to look harder?”

Alys smiled sympathetically. “Poor Catherine,” she said sweetly.

Ruth started at the use of Catherine’s given name but Catherine’s face lit up. “Morach used to call me that,” she said wistfully. “And I can remember my mother calling me that: ‘poor Catherine.’”

Alys nodded. “I know. Poor, poor Catherine,” she said tenderly.

“I feel so tired! I feel so unhappy!” Catherine burst out. “Ever since Morach has been gone I have felt as if nothing is worth any effort. I cannot be troubled to get out of bed, I cannot be troubled to dress. I wish Morach were here. I wish she were still here.”

Alys held Catherine’s hand and patted it gently. “I know,” she said. “I know. I miss her too.”

“And Hugo doesn’t even care!” Catherine exclaimed. “I told him how much I miss her and he just says that she was a poor old woman and if I have a fancy for a peasant there are a thousand like her on our lands. He doesn’t understand!”

Alys shook her head. “Men don’t understand,” she said. “Morach was a very wise woman, a woman who had seen much and understood the world. But she taught me all of her skills, Catherine. And I will be here all the time. I cannot take her place in your heart, but all that she could do for you and your baby I will do, when the time comes.”

Catherine snuffled wetly and hunted for her handkerchief. “And I don’t have to get up for dinner, do I?” she asked. “I feel so weary. I’d rather eat up here.”

Alys shook her head, still smiling. “No, of course not,” she said tenderly. “Get up tomorrow and take a little walk when you feel stronger, but the hall is noisy and crowded and people stare so. You don’t have to go down to dinner if you don’t want to. Your health is more important than anything else.”

“And they tell me that you sit with the old lord?” Catherine asked. “When I am not there?”

Alys nodded. “He asked me, and I thought it best,” she said. “He is a man of whim and powerful fancies. I did not want him insisting on company, your company and the young lord’s. I knew you two wanted to dine alone up here. I thought if I talked to the old lord and kept him cheerful he would not insist that you come downstairs.”

Catherine nodded. “Thank you, Alys,” she said. “I like to eat my dinner with Hugo up here. I am weary of going down to the hall. Keep the old lord amused so that Hugo and I can be alone together.”

Alys’s smile was sisterly. “Of course, Catherine,” she said. “Of course.”

In the afternoon, when Catherine was drowsy from a large dinner and too much wine, Alys met Hugo in the ladies’ gallery and asked if she might go with him to see the new house.

“Can we not go to your room?” he asked in an undertone.

Alys shook her head. “Catherine’s women will be here all afternoon,” she said. “You will have to wait till tonight, my lord!”

Hugo made a face. “Very well,” he said. “You can ride the little gray mule, or one of the ponies.”

Alys threw a cape around her shoulders. “What about Catherine’s mare?” she asked. “She’s quiet enough, isn’t she?”

Hugo hesitated for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Catherine has not ridden for months, but she has been exercised by one of the lads every day.”

“I’ll ride her then,” Alys said.

Hugo hesitated again. “Catherine might take it amiss,” he said.

Alys stepped a little closer so that he could smell the perfume on her hair, and raised her face to him. “There are many things of Catherine’s which give me pleasure,” she said silkily. “Many things.”

Hugo glanced quickly around them. Ruth was sitting at the fireside sewing. As she caught his glance she dipped her head over her work again and stitched furiously.

“Don’t tease me, Alys,” he said under his breath. “Or I shall insult my wife by throwing you down and taking you on the threshold of her bedroom.”

Alys’s eyes narrowed and she smiled. “As you please, my lord,” she said in a low-voiced whisper. “You know that I desire you. I can feel myself grow wet just at the thought of you.”

Hugo gave an exclamation and turned and picked up his cloak.

“I am taking Mistress Alys out to see the new house,” he said shortly to Ruth. “I need her to write some orders for the builder for me.”

Ruth rose to her feet and bobbed a curtsy but kept her head down as if she were afraid to see the desire on their faces.

“Tell my wife when she wakes that I will be home in time to take supper with her,” Hugo said. “I will send Alys home ahead of me when she has finished her work.”

Ruth nodded. “Yes, my lord,” she said.

Hugo turned and strode from the room. “I’ll order the horses,” he said over his shoulder.

“Tell them to put a saddle on Catherine’s mare,” Alys said. “I don’t like the pony.”

Alys sat uneasily in the saddle as the mare walked quietly across the drawbridge and down the little hill into the town. She had ridden the ponies in the stable often, but the pace of the bigger horse was longer and more rolling, and the ground looked very far away. Gritting her teeth, Alys regretted the vanity which had made her insist on riding Catherine’s horse.

On either side of the road people turned to look at the horses going by and women dipped into grudging curtsies and men pulled their caps off their heads. Hugo smiled from one side to another as if the tokens of respect were willing tributes. Alys, swelling with pride, looked straight ahead as if she were too grand to either see or hear them.

At the corner of the street a barrow was halted selling fresh fish. Alys saw a girl of about her own age, seventeen. She was barefoot with a brown shawl around her shoulders and a dirty gray gown underneath. At her skirt clung a whey-faced toddler and she carried another child on her hip. Her face was marked with sores, and there was a dark bruise around her eye. Her hair, uncombed and unwashed, hung in thick rats’ tails over her shoulders. She bobbed a curtsy as the two of them and the two servants rode by. Hugo did not even look at her.

That could have been me, Alys thought, her face impassive, her eyes looking straight ahead. That could have been me—married to Tom, accepting his fists and his lust. That could have been me—Morach’s apprentice, always dirty, always poor. That could have been me—sickly, pregnant, exhausted. Anything I have done is better than that.

Hugo, ahead of her, rode confidently and easily. His blue cloak flickered behind him, matching the deep blue of his puffed breeches and the slashed lining of his blue jacket. His riding boots were deep, luminous black, the best leather well polished. His blue suede gloves with the gold embroidery would have kept any family in this town in food for months. Alys watched his back, torn between desire and resentment. He turned in his saddle. “Horse going well?” he asked.

Alys flashed him her most brilliant smile. “Oh yes,” she said confidently. “You must buy me one of my very own, Hugo. A roan to match yours.”

Hugo nodded absently. “You haven’t seen the new house before, have you?” he asked.

Alys hesitated and let him change the subject. “No,” she said. “I saw the plans when you were drawing them. And I saw the letters from the men in London who are planning houses in the new style.”

Hugo nodded. “It’s a fine house,” he said. “We have dug deep down into the ground and we will have cellars below ground level. That will keep things cold even in the hottest of summers.”

Alys nodded. The cobbles of the town ended abruptly and the road was hard-packed earth, an old Roman road running north. The horses walked more smoothly on the easier ground and Alys was getting used to the mare’s long-legged pace.

“It faces south for the sunshine,” Hugo said. “It’s built in the shape of an H with the entrance door set fair in the middle. There’s a parlor for Catherine and her ladies on the left as you go in. No great hall at all, no great dining-room for everyone. No more eating with the soldiers and servants.”

Alys smiled. “It will be a great change,” she said.

Hugo nodded. “It’s the new way,” he said. “Outside London they never build castles for noblemen, just houses, beautiful houses with wide, lovely windows. Who wants a pack of servants—a private army? I’ll always train the peasants for soldiers, I’ll always have men I can call on. But we don’t need a great castle ready for a siege at any moment! These are peaceful times. Neither the Scots nor the reivers come raiding this far south any more.”

“And you save money!” Alys said teasingly.

Hugo grinned, unrepentant. “And there is nothing wrong with that!” he said. “It’s my father’s way, the old way, to think a man’s power can only be measured by the number of people who have to trail after him when he rides out. I would rather be a lord over fertile lands. I would rather have ships out on the sea. I would rather have the men who take my wage working for me—working every day, not lounging around in the guardroom in case I need them in a year’s time.”

Alys nodded. “You’ll have house servants though,” she said. “And some kind of retinue.”

“Oh aye,” Hugo said. “I shan’t ask Catherine to cook her own dinner!”

Alys smiled. “No, I can’t see Catherine working for her keep,” she said.

“I’ll have house servants, and grooms for the stables, and Catherine will keep her ladies and David will stay with us, of course. But the soldiers can go, and the smith, and the master of horse, and the bakery and the alehouse. We can brew our own ale and bake our own bread, but we do not have to feed the whole castle any more.”

Alys nodded. “Your new house will be just for you,” she said. “Just for you and the people you choose to have by you.”

Hugo nodded. “I’ll get rid of the hangers-on who do nothing for their keep but idle and eat,” he said.

Alys laughed, a little ripple of laughter. “You will be rid of the ladies’ gallery then!” she exclaimed. “For more idleness and eating goes on there than anywhere else in the castle!”

Hugo grinned. “I will see if Catherine can make do with fewer ladies,” he said. “But I would not wish to deprive her of companions.”

Alys shrugged. “She takes little pleasure in anything these days,” she said. “All she does is lie abed and sigh and eat. She has not sewn in the gallery for days. She only gets up to have dinner with you. You do not know, Hugo, how idle she has become.”

Hugo frowned. “It cannot be good for the child,” he said.

Alys shook her head. “I have begged and begged her to make an effort and get out of bed and walk a little, even if it is only in the gallery. The weather is growing more fair, she could sit in the garden and take the air. But she will not. She feels tired all the time and she weeps for Morach and for her parents. You will have to be patient with her, Hugo. She is old to conceive a first child and she was barren for many years. Her body is not young and lithe and strong. And her humor is melancholy.”

There was a little silence for a few moments.

“Shall we canter?” Hugo asked abruptly. “You can manage Catherine’s horse, can you?”

Alys laughed. “I feel as if she were my own horse,” she said. “Of course we can canter. Have I not told you that I fear nothing when we are together?”

Hugo smiled back at her. “Well, I fear enough to want to keep you safe when you are carrying my son,” he said.

Alys shook her head. “He is safe inside me,” she said. “And I never felt better or happier in my life. With your love I have everything I ever wanted. I can canter! I feel as if I could fly!”

Hugo laughed and touched his hunter slightly with his heels. At once the big horse surged forward. Alys’s mare followed quickly, her stride rapid. Alys bounced in the saddle, clinging to the pommel, praying that Hugo would not look back and see her white-faced and afraid.

He did not. They rode for some minutes along the track, the servants cantering along behind them. Then Hugo pulled up the roan and the mare stopped abruptly, throwing Alys forward on to the neck. She held on by a firm grip on the saddle, and heaved herself back into place.

“Here,” he said. “Here will be the gates. I shall build a great wall all around this area and leave the land inside as it is: trees and shrubs and grass. I shall have deer roaming inside the wall, maybe even some boar for me to hunt. I shall have a cottage here at the gates and a gatekeeper. No guardroom, no soldiers. And then from here I shall make a track to the front door.” He pointed ahead of them. Alys could see about twenty men digging and carrying.

“Is it to be of brick or stone?” Alys asked.

“The main pillars of the house are stone, but it will be faced with brick,” Hugo said proudly. “It’s a pretty brick, a warm color. It looks well against the stone. They are making the bricks and firing them here.”

“And the stone?” Alys asked idly, looking around.

“From the nunnery,” Hugo said. “I had them bring the stones up here. Some of them are handsomely carved. I shall use the slates from their roof as well, and some of their beams that were not burned. Shall you laugh, Alys, to be my whore under a nun’s roof?”

Alys felt her skin grow cold. She turned away. “And not far from the river!” she said. Her voice was strained but Hugo was unaware.