The Wise Woman Page 8

  Alys bent her cropped head over her writing as he dictated, and tried to translate blind and deaf, working without taking in the sense of what he was saying, scenting the dangers which surrounded him – and her with him – as a hare senses the hounds and cowers low. She learned for the first time that the land was ruled by a network of conniving, conspiring landlords answerable only to each other and to the King himself. Each of them had one ambition only: to retain and improve the wealth and power of his family; and that could only be done by expanding the boundaries of their manors – and willing it intact to the next heir and the heir after him.

  Alys, her quill pen scratching on the downstrokes on the good-quality vellum, realized that the conception of Hugo's son, the old lord's grandson, was not a personal matter between Hugo and his shrewish wife, not even a family matter between the old lord and his son. It was a financial matter, a political matter. If Hugo inherited and then died childless the Lordship of Castleton would be vacant, the manors would be broken up among buyers, the family history and crest revert to the King and be sold to the highest bidder, and the great northern family would fall, its history at an end, its name forgotten. Someone else would live in the castle and claim castle, crest and even family history for their own. For Lord Hugh that prospect was the deepest terror in the world; another family in his place would deny that he had ever been. Alys heard his fear in every line he dictated.

  He wrote also to the court. He had a hoard of treasure from Alys' wrecked abbey to be sent south as a gift for the King. The inventory Alys translated was a masterpiece of sleight of hand, as gold candlesticks were renamed silver or even brass, and heavy gold plates disappeared from the list. 'We did the work, after all, Alys,' he said to her one day. 'It was my Hugo that wrecked the abbey, doing the King's work with patriotic zeal. We deserve our share.'

  Alys, listing the silver and the gold which she had polished and handled, remembering the shape of the silver chalice against the white of the altar cloth and the sweet sacred taste of the communion wine, ducked her head and continued writing.

  If I do not escape from here, I shall go mad, she thought.

  'It went wrong at the nunnery,' Lord Hugh said. His voice held only faint regret. 'The King's Visitors told us that the nuns were corrupt and Father Stephen and Hugo went to see the old abbess and persuade her to pay fines and mend her ways. Everywhere else they had been, the nuns or the monks had handed over their treasures, confessed their faults, and Hugo used them kindly. But the old abbess was a staunch papist. I don't believe she ever recognized the King's right to set aside the Dowager Princess Catherine of Aragon.' Lord Hugh said the title carefully. He had called her Queen Catherine for eighteen years and he was careful not to make a slip even when Alys was his only listener. 'She took the oath to acknowledge Queen Anne but I am not sure how deep it went with her.' He paused. 'She would not discuss her faith with Father Stephen, not even when he charged her with laxity and abuses. She called him an ambitious young puppy.' Lord Hugh snorted in reluctant amusement. 'She insulted him and faced him down and threw them both out – my Hugo and Father Stephen. They came home like scolded boys. She was a rare woman, that abbess.' He chuckled. 'I'd have liked to meet her. It's a shame it all went wrong and she died.'

  'How did it go all wrong at the nunnery?' Alys asked. She was careful to keep her voice light, casual.

  'Hugo was drunk,' the old lord said. 'He was on his way home with the soldiers, they had been chasing a band of moss troopers for seven days up and down the dales. He was drunk and playful and the men had been fighting mad for too long, and drunk with stolen ale. They made a fire to keep them warm and give them light to pick over the treasures. They were taking up a fine, it was all legal – or near enough. Father Stephen would not meet them to reason with the nuns, he was still angry with the old woman. He sent a message to Hugo and told him to burn her out – and be damned to her. The soldiers wanted a frolic and some of them thought they were doing Father Stephen's wish. They made the fire too near the hay barn, and then the place caught afire and the women all died. A bad business.'

  'Oh,' Alys said. She drew a quiet breath to steady her belly, which was quivering.

  'None of them got out,' Lord Hugh said. 'A bad business. Hugo tells me he could hear them screaming, and then a dreadful smell of burned meat. Like a kitchen with a vexed cook, he said.'

  'Are these letters to be sent today, my lord?' she asked. Her hand holding the candle beneath the sealing-wax shook badly, and she bodged the seal.

  In the afternoon when the old lord rested she was supposed to sit in the ladies' gallery over the great hall and sew. It was a handsome room, the best in the castle. There was a wide oriel window looking out over the inner manse filled with clear and coloured panes of Normandy glass. The beams of the ceiling were brightly coloured: green, red, vermilion and the bright blue of bice. The walls were hung with bright tapestries, and where the wood showed it was panelled and carved with sheaves of wheat, fat lambs, bundles of fruit and goods, reminders of the wealth of the Lordship of Castleton. The doorway was carved with the heavy linenfold pattern which was repeated all around the room and on the window-seat before the oriel window, where Catherine could sit with a chosen confidante and avoid interruption from the others. There was a fireplace as good as the one in the nunnery and a square stone-carved chimney to take the smoke away so the air of the room was clear and the walls stayed clean. The floor had the dark shine of seasoned polished wood and was strewn with fresh herbs which gathered in heaps, swept around by the women's gowns. It was a long room, three-quarters the length of the great hall below it. Catherine's chamber was on the left at the far end, overlooking the courtyard through an arched window fitted with expensive glass. The women slept opposite her, looking out over the river through arrow-slits which admitted draughts and even snow when the wind was in the wrong direction. Next door to them was another small chamber, vacant except for lumber and a broken loom.

  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 judgement 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 it was he who had gone out. She was tempted to look at him, she found her gaze drawn always towards 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 wa
tchtower. 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' 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 upwards 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' 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 upwards 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 towards 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 ardour. He needs a son, he needs all the vigour 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 honour my promise to see you safe behind walls when your work here is done.'

  Alys nodded. 'When wou
ld that be, my lord?' she asked in a small voice, careful not to betray her anxiety. 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 the 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. Travellers 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.