The Wise Woman (49 page)

Alys’s face never flickered. Her eyes went past him without a glimmer of recognition, her clear bright smile impartial, unchanging—Tom brushed his wife Liza off his arm and came toward the dancers. Alys’s face was a lighthearted mask, her head on one side, listening to the music, her foot tapping to the beat. Tom, unbidden, walked unstoppably forward.

“Alys!” he said.

Hugo spun round. Tom was standing immediately behind him, but he did not even look at the lord, did not uncover his head. He ignored him as if he were a post in the hayfield. All he could see was Alys in her new green gown, her green and gilt ribbons plaited into her golden-brown hair, heartbreakingly lovely.

“Alys,” he said again.

Alys looked at him as if noticing him for the first time. She put her head on one side as if she were viewing some strange specimen.

“Yes?” she said interrogatively.

Tom gulped. “I will take you away,” he said, in a sudden awkward rush of speech. “I will take you, Alys. I will take you away. I’ve heard what they said of you…it’s not safe for you here. I will take you now.”

Alys threw back her head and laughed. A clear brittle sound like breaking glass. She tossed her head and smiled at Hugo.

“Who is this?” she asked. “Is he simple? Does he mistake me for someone?”

Tom blenched as if she had struck him. “Alys!” he said in a hoarse whisper. Hugo tapped him on the shoulder, his face grim. “You interrupt the dancing,” he said. “Go your ways.”

Tom seemed not to feel the touch, he did not hear his lord. He did not take Hugo’s warning. His eyes were fixed on Alys’s bright, unconcerned face.

“I want to save you, Alys!” he said desperately. “They have called you a witch—you are in danger. I’ll take you—I’ll take you away, cost me what it will!”

Liza behind him said, “Tom!” in a hard, sharp command.

“Who is this?” Hugo asked her. “Some friend of yours?”

Alys turned her bright clear gaze on him. “I don’t know,” she said, detached. “I don’t know him.”

“I will take you,” Tom said again. “I won’t fail you. I will leave my farm and my wife, even my little children. I will save you, Alys. You need not stay in the castle with those people and their vices. I will take you away. I have some money saved. We will find a little farm somewhere and I will keep you safe. You will be as my wife, Alys! I will be true to you and guard you with my life!” He broke off. “You will be a virtuous woman again, Alys,” he said softly. “You were a good girl, I loved you then. You are a good girl still. You will be my little sweetheart once more.”

She stared at Tom in open amazement and her gaze never wavered. She looked straight through him, as if he were a man of straw, a man of water, as if he were not even there. The smile lilting on her lips never even flickered.

“You’re babbling, goodman,” she said coolly. “I know you not.”

“Alys!” Tom exclaimed, and then he stopped short. He could not believe that his playmate, his childhood love, should look through him as if he were clear glass. As if he were nothing to her. As if he had never been anything to her. He stared at her for one long moment, and her face never altered, never changed from bright-eyed indifference.

Then he spun on his heel and tore away from her, tore away from her empty, smiling face, through the crowd, vaulting the gate at the corner of the field and plunging out of sight.

Alys laughed again, a merry, carefree laugh, and waved at the musicians who had lost the beat and were falling into silence.

“Why do we wait? Let’s dance!” she cried gaily. “Let’s dance!”

C
atherine was sleeping when they came home. Alys and Hugo went quietly past her closed door to Alys’s bedroom and told Eliza to call them as soon as Catherine awoke. Hugo strode over to the arrow-slit and looked out. Alys took the ribbons from her hair and pulled down her gown to show her warm creamy shoulders.

“My lord?” she said softly.

Hugo glanced around. “Not now,” he said coldly. “Who was that lad in the field?”

Alys ignored his rejection. “No one I know,” she said.

“The maid I danced with, the little blond one, said he was an old lover of yours. His wife speaks against you. Says you have stolen his peace, says you hexed him into loving you and he can neither sleep, nor eat, nor love her.”

Alys laughed. “Not I,” she said. “But from what you say I guess it must have been Tom of Reedale. We were playmates when we were children, I’ve not seen him in ten years. He married a shrew. She’d blame anyone for the dryness of her marriage. It can’t be laid at my door.”

“It looked bad,” Hugo said.

Alys shrugged, tossing her hair back off her shoulders. Hugo turned away from her, looking out of the arrow-slit window again. Alys hesitated. She stepped forward and put her arms around his waist, pressed against his back. “Tonight,” she said softly, “tonight, Hugo, I will summon my sisters to be with us. My sisters and I will play together tonight. I will summon them and they will spread their smooth bodies over me and lie down on me and give me endless, endless pleasure.” She felt his arousal in the tension of his shoulders, but he did not turn round.

“And what for you?” Alys asked coquettishly. “No, nothing for you! Not a touch, not a kiss, Hugo! You will lie as if you are enchained, and you will watch while they bury themselves—fingers, lips, tongues—in me. And you will watch my body writhe under their caresses, and you will hear me cry out with pleasure.”

Hugo sighed with desire, leaning his head forward so it was touching the cool stone of the lintel.

“I will let them bind me,” Alys said thoughtfully. “You will see me on a rack of their pleasure. You will see me strain and pull against their silken knots as they penetrate me and pleasure me and make me cry for release.”

Hugo turned around in her arms and pressed her close to him, nuzzling her naked shoulders, inhaling the scents of her skin and hair; but his face was still somber.

“That was an ugly scene in the field,” he said. “You must be more careful.”

Alys pulled away from him, irritated. “There’s nothing I can do to prevent gossip,” she said. “People will become accustomed to the change. When they see the son we have, when they grow used to me being always at your side, when they know that I am always here—the lady of the castle in everything but name.”

Hugo shook his head, unconvinced. “I want Catherine to take her supper in the hall tonight.” he said. “There’s been too much gossip. There’s been too much ugly talk about witchcraft and Catherine being set aside.”

Alys shrugged and smiled up at him. “I don’t care what they say,” she said confidently. “I know that I am carrying your child and that I am well and strong. People can say what they like, they can think what they like. It does not matter what they say. You will protect me, your father will protect me. Old women gossiping in chimney corners cannot hurt me.”

Hugo shook his head. “It hurts us all,” he said bluntly. “You’re a fool if you think yourself safe, Alys. Every word said against me, every whisper against my name, is a threat to the peace of the country. These are times when people will make a mob over anything. These are times when people are anxious about witchcraft, fearful.

“There are vagrants everywhere thrown on to the roads by the closing of the monasteries, stirring up anger about the loss of sanctuary. There are changes that no one could have foretold. The little monasteries and nunneries are going and there is anger among the people—they cling to the old religion, they cling to the old superstitions.

“I don’t like to be gossiped about. I like to ride out and see smiles. I like a little honor done my name. I like a pretty wench to curtsy to me and not to fly away the moment you come near for fear your shadow falls on her. You did badly at the field today, Alys. You were named as a witch before many people and you did not deny it.”

“And what about you?” Alys demanded, her anger mounting. “What about you who are desperate for my witchcraft, who beg me to work magic on you? You have bidden me to call my sisters to your new house—to christen it backward! You, who want me to spread my magic all around your new house, to destroy the holiness of the stolen stones. You want all the pleasures and none of the pains, Hugo! You want bedroom witchcraft and daylight sainthood. You can’t be a person out of the ordinary, out of the crowd, and then expect them to call down blessings on your name when you ride by on your big horse.”

Hugo shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he said again. “For all your learning, you are a foolish slut in this. Why d’you think it is death to speak against the king? Not because he is not safe on his throne! Not because he lacks soldiers! But because danger lies in gossip and rumor. Treason starts with whispers. And they are whispering about
you
.”

Alys walked away from him, to the chest for her clothes, and took out her comb. “They always talk of the special ones,” she said in a low angry voice. “I have been special all my life. I have been the favorite for all my life. People have always envied me and wondered what powers I have. I will ride it out. I am the favorite in the castle, I am like a daughter to your father. I am your lady.”

Hugo said nothing, but he shook his head.

Alys pulled up a stool to the fireside and half turned her head from him. She ran her fingers through the thick tresses of her hair to free them from the curls of the plaits, and then started to comb it over and over, until the comb was running smoothly. Hugo, still angry, found himself watching the hypnotic strokes of the comb sliding through the silky golden mass of thick hair. Alys sat on her stool before the empty fireplace and closed her eyes and hummed a song softly in the back of her throat. Hugo leaned back against the wall, arms folded, and watched her, his face impassive. Alys, acutely aware of him even though her eyes were shut, thought that in a few moments she would give him some wine with a pinch of earthroot. It had been some days since Hugo had been drugged into madness and desire. She felt a need, like a tingle in her fingertips, to pull the strings and set Hugo’s lust dancing once more. And this time she would make him crawl toward her begging for a taste of her. Alys smiled with her eyes still shut. Hugo would not call her a slut and a fool without paying for it with agonizing desire.

The knock on the door startled them both from the beginning of Alys’s sensual spellbinding. It was Eliza Herring.

“Mistress Alys! Lady Catherine is awake and asking for you.”

Alys pulled up the shoulders of her gown and shook the creases from the skirt. She threw her hair away from her face. “I’ll go and sit with Catherine,” she said irritably. “I’ll tell her that she must go to the hall for supper. She exposes us all to abuse if she will not do her duty.”

She could read nothing from Hugo’s face. “I don’t think it is your place to instruct the Lady Catherine on her duty,” he said softly. “You may tell her that I request it. Your wishes are of little weight in this matter.”

Alys hesitated, unbalanced by Hugo’s irritability. “Tonight…” she said.

Hugo shook his head. “I will have you tonight, or whenever I choose,” he said sharply. “But it makes no difference to your service to Lady Catherine. You should not keep her waiting.”

Alys shot one level glance at him. Hugo stared back, without fear, without affection. Alys, her face dark with anger, put down the comb and went to Catherine.

She was propped up on her fine embroidered pillows. Her face was flushed from her sleep and her eyes were red.

“I’ve been lonely,” she said without preamble.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Alys said, suppressing her irritation. The room was stifling. It faced east over the courtyard and grew dark in the afternoons, though the summer sky was pale and golden through the window. Catherine had ordered the fire to be banked high and hot in the grate; candles burned on the table. There was a crowded, sour smell to the room. The strewing herbs on the floor were limp and scentless. On the cupboard there was a clutter of sweetmeat plates and Catherine’s pots of creams, salves, and perfumes, a goblet on its side, the dregs sticky on the shelf, and an empty pitcher of ale.

“I had a bad dream,” Catherine said. “I dreamed that Hugo had left me, gone to London. Gone to the king’s court.” She gave a little sob. “Like Father,” she said.

Alys sat on the bed, taking Catherine’s plump, damp hand. “Don’t grieve,” she said. “He has not gone. He is not going anywhere. Think of the baby. It is bad for the baby if you cry. Hugo is settled and happy here. He is not planning to leave. And anyway, even if he did, Henry is a gentle king. Hugo could do no wrong at court.”

Catherine lay back against the pillows. Her face was flushed, a little trickle of sweat ran down between her fat breasts inside her nightgown.

“My back hurts,” she said pitifully. “It aches again.”

Alys concealed her impatience. “Have you been in bed all day, Catherine?” she asked.

Catherine nodded.

“If you do not walk around you will get heavy and tired, and of course you will ache,” Alys said. “Let me help you up.”

Catherine shook her head again. “I can’t walk around,” she said fretfully. “I am lame. My ankles hurt and my knees. My legs hurt all over. You don’t understand, Alys. I am too old and too tired to carry and bear this baby. I am not strong.” She gave a little snuffly sob. “I am not strong,” she said again.

Alys leaned forward and stroked Catherine’s forehead, brushing back the brown hair which clung in limp tendrils to her face.

“What about a bath?” Alys suggested. “I could tell them to bring a hot bath up for you, with some herbs in it to make you feel less tired. I could wash your hair and you could put on a pretty gown for supper tonight. Wouldn’t that help?”

Catherine turned her face toward Alys’s caressing hand. “Yes,” she said, like a child trying to please. “All right. Tell them to bring me a bath.”

Alys sent the serving-maid down with orders to bring the biggest bath-tub draped with the finest linen cloth to Lady Catherine’s room. Sheets must be aired to dry her and wrap her. Alys went to her room to fetch dried flowers and some verbena oil to pour into the bath water and to set before the fire to scent the room.