The Wise Woman Read online

  Alys nodded. 'And what would you use to kill a woman's desire?' she asked casually.

  Morach turned, her dark face under the shock of grey hair alight with mischief. 'A woman's desire?' she said. 'But my little nun, my precious virgin, who is this lustful woman? We were talking of the young lord and his persecution of your sainted virginity!'

  'Have done,' Alys said sulkily. 'I was asking for one of the women in the gallery.'

  Morach chuckled. 'I would have to meet her,' she said slyly. 'This woman, is she young or old? Has she known a man or is she a virgin? Does she long for his love, his devotion – or is she just hot for his body to crush her and his wetness inside her and his hands all over her?'

  Alys flushed rosy. 'I don't know,' she said grimly. 'If she asks me again I will bring her to you.'

  Morach nodded, her eyes sparkling with amusement. 'You do, pretty Alys,' she said. 'Do bring her to me.'

  Alys tucked the bunch of herbs into her pocket. 'Anything else?' she asked. 'To kill Hugo's ardour? Anything else I should do?'

  Morach shook her head. 'I have no other herbs, but you could bring me some candlewax when you next come and I'll make images of them all,' she offered. 'We'll make them all into moppets to dance to your bidding, you and me.'

  Alys' eyes widened. 'It cannot be done!' she exclaimed.

  Morach smiled darkly and nodded. 'I've never done it before,' she said. 'It's deep magic, very deep. But the old woman who was here before me taught me the words. It never fails except…

  'Except what?' Alys asked. She shivered as if she were suddenly cold. 'Except what?' she asked. 'Sometimes they misunderstand.'

  Alys drew a little closer. 'What?' she asked. 'Who misunderstand?'

  Morach smiled. 'You take the little figures and you bind them with deep magic. Understand that?' Alys nodded, her face pale.

  'You order them to do your bidding. You command them to do as you wish.' Alys nodded again.

  'Sometimes they misunderstand,' Morach said, her voice very low. 'I heard of one woman who ordered her lover to come alive again. He was dead of the plague and she could not bear to lose him. She made the candlewax moppet while he was lying cold and poxed in the room next door, the sores all over him. When she made the moppet walk, he walked too, just as she had commanded.'

  Alys swallowed against a tight throat. 'He was better?'

  Morach chuckled, a low chilling laugh. 'No,' she said. 'He was dead and cold, covered with sores, his eyes blank, his lips blue. But he walked behind her, as she had commanded; everywhere she went he walked behind her.' 'A ghost?' Alys asked. Morach shrugged. 'Who knows?' Alys shook her head. 'That's foul,' she exclaimed. 'That's black arts, Morach! As foul as your pact with the devil. I'll not touch magic, I've told you before. You tempt me and you bring me no good!'

  'Wait till you are in need,' Morach said scathingly. 'Wait till you are hungry. Wait till you are desperate. And then bring me the candlewax. When you are desperate – and you will be desperate, my little angel – you will be glad enough of my power then.'

  Alys said nothing.

  'I'm hungry,' Morach said abruptly. 'Fetch the food and let's eat. I've only enough wood for another hour, you can gather some more in the morning.'

  Alys looked at her resentfully. 'My hands are softening,' she said. 'And my nails are clean and growing again. You can get your own wood, Morach. I've brought you food and money, that should be enough.'

  Morach laughed, a harsh, sharp sound. 'So the little virgin has claws, too, does she?' she crowed. 'Then I'll tell you – I have a good woodpile out the back. Now fetch the food.'

  Six

  As the days grew darker and colder in November Alys' work as the old lord's clerk increased. He grew more frail and tired quickly. When a messenger arrived with letters in English or Latin he would summon Alys to read them to him, he was too weary to puzzle them out himself. When young Lord Hugo came to tell him about judgements in the ward, or disputes over borders, or news from the wider world, from the Council of the North or from London itself, he would have Alys by him, sometimes taking notes of what the young lord was saying, sometimes standing behind his chair listening. Then when Hugo was gone, with a swirl of his dark red cape and a mischievous wink at Alys, the old lord would ask her to tell him, over again, what Hugo had said.

  'He mumbles so!' he said.

  The tension between the old lord and the young one was clear now to Alys. The young lord was the coming man: the soldiers were his, and the castle servants. He wanted to make the family greater in the outside world. He wanted to go to London and try for a place in the King's court. The King was a braggart and a fool -wide open to anyone who could advise him and amuse him. The young lord wanted a place at the table of the great. He had embraced the new religion. Father Stephen, another ambitious young man, was his friend. He spoke of building a new house, leaving the castle which had been his family's home since the first Hugo had come over with the conquering Normans and taken the lordship as his fee and built the castle to hold the land. Hugo wanted to trade, he wanted to lend money on interest. He wanted to pay wages in cash and throw peasants off their grubbing smallholdings and make the flocks of sheep bigger still on long, uninterrupted sheep-runs. He wanted to mine coal, he wanted to forge iron. He wanted the sun shining full upon him. He wanted risks.

  Old Lord Hugh stood against him. The family had held the castle for generation after generation. They had built the single round tower with a wall and a moat around it. Little by little they had won or bought more land. Little by little they had made the castle bigger, adding the second round tower for soldiers, and then the hall with the gallery above, adding the outer wall and the outer moat to enclose the farm, a second well, stables and the great gatehouse for the soldiers. Quietly, almost stealthily, they had wed and plotted, inherited and even invaded to add to the lordship until the boundaries of their lands stretched across the Pennines to the east, and westward nearly to the sea. They kept their power and their wealth by keeping quiet – keeping their distance from the envy and the struggles around the throne.

  Lord Hugh had been to London only half a dozen times in his life, he was the master of the loyal excuse. He had gone to Queen Anne's coronation, where a man was safer to be seen in support than absent, wearing sober clothes and standing at the back, the very picture of a provincial, loyal lord. He voted by proxy, he bribed and negotiated by letter. When summoned to court he pleaded ill health, dangerous unrest in his lands or, lately, old age; and at once sent the King a handsome present to please the errant royal favour. He knew from his kin at court who were the coming men and who were likely to fall. He had spies in the royal offices who reported to him the news he needed. He had debtors scattered across the country who owed him money and favours. A thousand men called him cousin and looked to him for favour and protection and paid him with information. He sat like a wily spider in a network of caution and fear. He represented the power of the King in the wild lands of the north, and took his place on the great Council of the North, but never more than once a year. He never showed the family wealth or their power too brightly, for fear of envious southerners' eyes. He followed the traditions of his father and his grandfather. They lived on their lands, riding all day and never leaving their own borders. They sat in their own courts. They handed down justice in their own favour. They announced the King's laws and they enforced those they preferred. They did very well as obscure tyrants.

  Their greatest rivals were the Prince Bishops and the monasteries, and now the Bishops were fighting for their wealth and could be fighting for their lives. The old lord saw the good times opening slowly for his son, and for his son's unborn, not-yet-conceived heir, and his son after him. Hugo's grandson would be as rich in land as any lord in England, would command more men than most. He could throw his influence with Scotland, with England. He would own a little kingdom of his own. Who could guess how far the family might rise, if they waited and used their caution and their wisdom as they always had
done?

  But the young Lord Hugo did not want to wait for the great lands of monasteries to come his way in maybe five, ten years from now. He did not want to wait for the sheep to be shorn, the copyholders' fines to be slowly increased, the annual rents brought in. He wanted wealth and power at once. He had friends who owned wagons, one who had a fleet of barges, one who was mining coal and iron ore, another who spoke of ocean-going ships and prizes to be had from countries beyond Europe, beyond the known world. He spoke of trade, of business, of lending and borrowing money at new profitable rates. He never showed his impatience with his father, and Alys feared him more because of this single, uncharacteristic discretion.

  'He wants to go to London,' she warned the old lord. 'I know,' he said. 'I am holding him back and he will not tolerate it forever.' Alys nodded.

  'Have you heard more?' the old lord asked. 'Any plots, any plans? D'you think his impatience grows so strong that he would poison me, or lock me away?'

  Alys' nostrils flared as if she could smell the danger in the question. 'I have heard nothing,' she said. 'I was only saying that the young lord is impatient to make his way in the world. I accuse him of nothing.'

  'Tssk,' the old lord said impatiently. 'I need you to be ready to accuse him, Alys. You are in my daughter-in-law's chamber, you hear the gossip of the women. Catherine knows full well that if she does not conceive a child within the year I will find a way to be rid of her. Her best way would be to get rid of me before I make a move. Hugo is mad for the court and for London and I block his way south. Listen for me, Alys. Watch for me. You go everywhere, you can hear and see everything. You do not need to accuse Hugo or Catherine, either one or the other. You just have to tell me your suspicions- your slightest suspicions.' 'I have none,' Alys said firmly. 'Lady Catherine speaks of your death as an event in the future, nothing more. I have never heard her admit that she fears a divorce or an annulment. And Lord Hugo comes to her rooms only rarely, and I never see him outside your chamber.'

  He was silent for a moment. 'You don't see Hugo outside my room?' he confirmed.

  Alys shook her head.

  'He does not waylay you?'

  'No,' Alys replied.

  It was true. Either Morach's tisane had worked, or the old lord had made his wishes plain. When Alys rode back to the castle from Morach's cottage, Hugo had shot her one unrepentant wink, but never ordered her to his chamber again. After that, she kept out of the young lord's way as much as she could, and kept her eyes on the ground when she had to walk past him. But one cold morning, in the guardroom below the old lord's private chamber, she was coming down the little staircase as Hugo waited to walk up.

  'Always in a hurry, Alys,' Hugo said conversationally. He took her sleeve in a firm grip between two fingers. 'How is my father today?'

  'He is well, my lord,' Alys said. She kept her eyes on the stone flags between his riding boots. 'He slept well, his cough has eased.'

  'It's this damp weather,' Hugo said. 'You can feel the mist coming off the river, can't you, Alys? Doesn't it chill you to the bone?'

  Alys shot a swift upward look at him. His dark face was bent down towards her, very close, as if she might whisper a reply.

  'I have no complaint, my lord,' she said. 'And the spring will come soon.'

  'Oh, not for months and months yet,' Hugo said. 'We have long days of darkness and cold yet to come.' He whispered the words 'darkness and cold' as if they were an invitation to the firelit warmth of his room. 'I do not feel the cold,' she said steadily. 'Do you dislike me?' Hugo asked abruptly. He dropped her sleeve and put both hands either side of her face, turning it up to him. 'You told my father that I had invited you and that you were unwilling. Do you dislike me, Alys?'

  Alys stayed still and looked steadily at the silvery whiteness of the falling band of his collar, as if it could cool her.

  'No, my lord,' she said politely. 'Of course not.' 'But you never came to my room,' he observed. 'And you told tales to my father. So he told me to keep my hands off you. Did you know that?'

  He held Alys' face gently. She stole a quick look at his eyes; he was laughing at her. 'I did not know that.'

  'So you do like me then?' he demanded. He could hardly hold back his laughter at the absurdity of the conversation. Alys could feel laughter bubbling up inside herself too.

  'It is not my place, my lord, to either like you or dislike you,' Alys said primly. Under his fingers her cheeks were tingling.

  Hugo stopped laughing, held her face still with one hand, and with a gentle fingertip traced a line from the outside of her eye, down her cheek-bone to the corner of her lip. Alys froze still, unmoving beneath his caress. He bent a little closer. Alys shut her eyes to blot out the image of Hugo's smiling intent face coming closer. He hesitated, a half, a quarter of an inch from Alys' lips.

  'But I like you, Alys,' he said softly. 'And my father will not live forever. And I think you would feel the cold if you were back on Bowes Moor again.'

  Alys stayed mute. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. His lips were very close to hers. She could not move away from his kiss, she could only wait, passive, her face turned up, her eyes slowly, drowsily closing. Then his hands left her face and he straightened up. Alys' eyes flew open; she stared at him in surprise.

  'In your own time, Alys,' he said pleasantly, and he swung out of the room and ran up the curving stairs of the tower to his father's room.

  No one had seen them, no one had heard them. But Lady Catherine knew.

  When Alys was summoned to the ladies' chamber to sew, Lady Catherine waved her to a stool near her own chair, where she could watch Alys' face as the others talked.

  'You're very quiet,' she said to Alys. Alys glanced up with her polite, deferential smile. 'I was listening, my lady,' she said.

  'You never speak of your own kin,' Lady Catherine said. 'Do you have any family other than the mad old woman on the moor?'

  'No,' Alys said. 'Except those at Penrith,' she corrected herself.

  Lady Catherine nodded. 'And no sweetheart? No betrothed?' she asked idly. The other women were silent, listening to the interrogation.

  Alys smiled but made a tiny movement of her shoulders, of her head, to signify her regret. 'No,' she said. 'Not now. Once I had a sweetheart,' she glanced to Mistress Allingham. 'You would know of him, Mistress Allingham. Tom the sheep farmer. But I had no portion and I went away to Penrith and he married another girl.'

  'Perhaps we should dower you, and send you off to be wed!' Lady Catherine said lightly. 'It's a dull life for you here, where no man sees you and nothing ever happens. It's well enough for us – we're all married women or widows or betrothed – but a girl like you should be wed and bearing children.'

  Alys sensed the trap opening up before her. 'You're very kind, my lady,' she said hesitantly.

  'That's settled then!' Lady Catherine said brightly. Her voice was as gentle as a diamond scratching glass. 'I will ask my Lord Hugo to look among the soldiers for a good man for you, and I will give you a dowry myself.'

  'I cannot marry,' Alys said suddenly. 'I cannot marry and keep my skills.'

  'How is that?' Lady Catherine asked, opening her grey eyes very wide. 'You do not need to be a virgin to be a healer unless you deal in magic, surely?'

  'I use no magic,' Alys said swiftly. 'I am just a herbalist. But I could not do my work if I belonged to a man. It is time-consuming and wearisome. My kinswoman lives alone.'

  'But she's a widow,' Mistress Allingham interrupted, and was rewarded with a swift, small smile from Lady Catherine.

  'So you can wed and still keep your arts,' Lady Catherine said triumphantly. 'You are shy, Alys, that is all. But I promise you we will find you a fine young husband who will care for you and use you gently.'

  Eliza Herring and Margery tittered behind their hands. Ruth, who feared Lady Catherine more than they did, kept very silent and stitched faster, bending low over her work.

  'You do not thank me?' Lady Catherine
asked; her voice was clear and underneath it – like an underground river – was a current of absolute menace. 'You do not thank me for offering to dower you? And have you married to a good man?'

  'Yes, I do indeed,' Alys said with her clear, honest smile. 'I thank you very much indeed, my lady.'

  Lady Catherine turned the talk to the gossip of London. She had a letter from one of her distant family in the south which spoke of the King and his growing coldness towards the young Anne Boleyn, his new Queen, even though she was big with his child again. Alys, who blamed the King and the whore, his pretend Queen, for all her troubles, smiled an empty smile as she listened, and hoped that Lady Catherine had been merely amusing herself by tormenting her with promises of marriage.

  'And the new Queen was nothing more than a maid-in-waiting in the old Queen's bedchamber when she took the King's fancy,' Eliza Herring said tactlessly. 'Think of that! Serving a queen one day and being a queen yourself the next!'

  'And the one he looks to now, Lady Jane Seymour, has served them both!' Margery said. 'Served the old Queen – the false one I mean – and now Queen Anne,'

  'A fine place to have at court, a lady-in-waiting,' Eliza said. 'Think how high you might rise!'

  Lady Catherine nodded but her face was impassive. She looked at Alys as if to warn her. Alys ducked her head down and sewed.

  'Those are London manners,' Catherine said with soft menace. 'And what is right and proper for the King is not always a course for his subjects.'

  'Of course not!' Margery said, flustered. 'Besides, if Queen Anne has a son, he will cleave to her! No King would put aside a wife who gave him a son! It is only barren wives who get that treatment!'

  Catherine's face went white with anger.

  'I mean…' Margery stumbled.

  'The King's marriage was annulled because Catherine of Aragon was his brother's wife,' Catherine said icily. 'That was the only reason for the annulment of the marriage, and you have all sworn an oath of allegiance recognizing the King's rightful heir and the truth of his marriage to Queen Anne.'