The Wise Woman

Thirty-one

Hugo blundered into Alys' room as she dozed in her first sleep, making her jump awake with fear. 'Is it fire?' she demanded, coming out of sleep. Hugo laughed aloud. He had been drinking till late in the hall and was boisterous. He pulled the covers off Alys and slapped her rump playfully.

'Heard the news?' he demanded. 'My marriage is to be annulled. I am to be wed to a girl straight from the nursery! And Stephen can get no sense out of the old woman from Bowes Moor!'

Alys snatched the covers back and pulled them up over her shoulders. 'I know all the news,' she said sourly. 'Except about the old woman. What is he doing to her? Is he hurting her?'

'Oh no,' Hugo said. 'He's no barbarian. She's an old lady. He's questioning her and arguing theology with her. It sounds as if she is holding her own. He was in a vile mood after dinner. He told me all about it over a pitcher of hippocras. They have been arguing over transubstant-transubstant-trans…' Hugo chuckled and gave up. 'Whether it's bread or meat,' he said vulgarly.

'Will he let her go?' Alys asked. She sat up in bed. Hugo was flushed and merry. He unbuttoned his fine doublet and tossed it towards the chair. It fell on the floor and he unbuckled his belt and codpiece, untied his hose and pulled them down and slung them all towards the pile of clothing. He came to her bedside, his shirt billowing.

'Move over, wench,' he said contentedly. 'I shall sleep here tonight.'

'Will he let her go?' Alys asked again. Hugo held her tight around the waist and nuzzled his head into her belly.

'Who, the old woman?' he asked, rearing up, his hair tousled. 'Oh, don't ask me, Alys, you know what Stephen is. He wants to do right by his God, and he wants to do right by his bishop, and he wants to do right by every simple soul, and he wants to do right by himself. If he finds she is an innocent old woman in error then he will persuade her to take the oath, let her go, and I will pop her over the border into Appleby for you and there will be an end to it.'

Alys lay back and closed her eyes. 'An end to it,' she said softly.

'Why not?' Hugo demanded. 'What matters one more old lady or no? Stephen and I will be going to London to see the little bride within a month. My father must be in his dotage. His preference for me is a child of nine, to be betrothed in name alone.' Hugo laughed. 'I care not!' he said. He patted her belly with a gentle hand. 'Catherine set aside and you big with my child. A new wife can come or wait. It matters little. As long as you give me a son which I can make my heir, and then another, until the castle is full of them. I have plenty of time to get children, Alys. There is plenty of time. Plenty of time. Plenty of wealth and land and ease for all of us.'

Alys let him rock her in time to his words and slid her arms around his back. She found she was smiling.

'You would not believe what troubles I have had today,' she said. 'Catherine has been hysterical, your father threatened to throw me out of the castle for a word spoken out of turn, I have been worried sick about the old lady, and then Eliza frightened me into fits with some horrid ghost story.'

Hugo chuckled and reached below the covers to slide Alys' shift up her body. 'My poor love,' he said. 'You should have come out with me. I was supposed to ride over to Cotherstone Manor but I saw such a buck on the way that I stopped and chased him. He led us for hours and would you believe I missed him with a crossbow? I was close, but I had sweat in my eyes and I could not see. I missed him! A clear shot to the heart and all I could see was a blur. William killed him for me in the end. I was raging! You shall have him for your dinner next week.'

He penetrated her with a gentle thrust and a gasp of pleasure. 'Be joyful!' he said, moving gently inside her. 'We shall be rid of Catherine and she can do as she pleases. My father's mind is on a new match and he can think of nothing else. Your old lady is holding her own against Stephen and needs neither your help nor mine, and these ghosts are terrors for little girls only, not a woman, Alys, not a wise woman like you.'

He sighed, and Alys felt his hand stroke her breast persuasively. She opened her legs wider.

'Are you joyful, little Alys?' he breathed. He started moving more urgently, consulting his own pleasure.

'I am well enough,' Alys said. Her mind roamed over the fears and triumphs of the day while her body moved accommodatingly under Hugo. She smiled and let him do what he would.

'Oh yes,' said Hugo.

And then they both were still.

"Alys,' Hugo said urgently. 'Alys!'

She woke at once. The moonlight was streaming through the arrow-slit in a silver bar across the green and yellow counterpane on the high bed.

'What?' she demanded, her own fear leaping up at the terror in his voice.

Hugo was white-faced. 'Mother of God,' he said. 'A dream! I had such a dream! Tell me I am awake and it was nonsense!'

The sheets were wet with his sweat. In the moonlight Alys could see his hair sticking damply to his shiny face. His eyes were wide like a man with a fever.

'Did you dream of dolls?' Alys cried incautiously. 'Little dolls coming to the castle?'

'No!' Hugo said. He stretched out his hands. They were shaking. 'Mother of God! I dreamed my fingers had gone numb. I dreamed my fingernails had gone. I dreamed my fingertips were gone. My fingers had gone, as if I had the leprosy. All I had were horrid stumps!'

Alys blenched. 'What a dream!' she said unsteadily. 'But you are awake now, Hugo. Don't fear.'

He threw his arms around her and buried his face in the warm skin of her neck. 'God alive, I was afraid!' he said. 'The tips of my fingers, Alys, they were melted away. Melted like wax!'

Alys lay very still, her arms around him, and felt him tremble. 'Hush,' she said, as if she were speaking to a little child. 'Hush, Hugo my love, my dear. Hush, you are safe now.'

After a little he stopped shaking and lay quiet in her arms.

'God! What terrors!' he said. He gave a little laugh for bravado. 'You will think me a babe in arms!' he said, embarrassed.

Alys, lying like a fallen statue in the moonlight, her belly like ice, shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I have my nightmares too. Sleep now, Hugo.' He settled himself like a child, his head on her shoulder, one arm sprawled across her body. 'A dreadful dream!' he said softly.

Alys put her hand up and stroked his head, the damp, matted curls of his hair. 'I was screaming like a babe,' he said with a chuckle.

Alys gathered him closer still. Soon he was breathing steadily, his fears fallen away from him. Alys lay beside him and thought again of all the terrors, flying like pigeons with their beady, bright eyes to their homes.

Hugo's arm across her belly was too heavy. She lifted his hand to free herself from the weight, and then she paused. In the darkness she could not see well, but she stroked his fingertips with her own. The fingernails were short, surely they were shorter than they had been before. She pulled his hand into the moonlight to see better. Surely the tips of the fingers were blunt and the nails were shorter and squarer at the top, as if they had been rubbed away.

Alys gave a little moan of terror, slipped from the bed and pattered over to the fire, thrust a taper into the red embers and lit a candle. She walked back to the bed, the flickering flame throwing huge shadows all around her. She walked slowly, reluctant to know. She thought of the little doll of Hugo which she had shaped with such determination and anger all those months ago when she had wanted nothing but to be left alone by him. She had smoothed his mouth and bid him not call her. She had rubbed away the fingertips and ordered him not to feel her. She had scraped away the ears and ordered him not to hear her. She had scratched his eyeballs and ordered him to be blind to her. And now Hugo dreamed that his fingers were melting, and he had already missed his shot.

She sat on the bed and put the candlestick on the table nearby. She did not trouble to shield the light. She had a certainty as deep and as cold as death that it would not waken him; he would not be able to see the glow of it through his closed eyelids. She took his hand and held it close to the candle so that she could see clearly what she feared to see.

The tips of his fingers were blunt as if they had been nipped off. Hugo's long strong hands were shorter, the last joint of each finger disproportionately stunted. His fingernails stopped short, square as if they had been roughly filed; shorter than the ends of his fingers, cut back. Alys shuddered. His hand looked as if someone had pruned the tips of every finger, leaving the nails clipped, the plump balls of the fingertips cropped.

She turned his hand over and looked at it as if she were reading his palm. The tips of his fingers were as smooth as the skin of his smiling, sleeping face. He had no fingerprints. They were rubbed away. On each fingertip there was nothing, no mark, just smooth, pink skin, squared off at the top like an ill-modelled statue. Alys gave a little sigh like a groan and sat with his malformed hand in her lap for a moment.

She leaned forward and held the candle high to look at his ears. Already they were tiny, the ears of a child. Only Hugo's long curly hair and the caps he always wore had prevented her from seeing it before. She looked at his lips. The sharp profile of his upper lip was blurred. The attractive, kissable bow of the upper lip and the sharp pout of the lower lip had melted. Only the perimeter of the dark shadow of stubble marked where his lips should start. The light flickered as the candle shook in Alys' hands. On an impulse she bent over him and gently shook him.

'Open your eyes, Hugo!' she said softly. 'Open your eyes a moment!'

He rolled away from her touch, mumbling something in his sleep, but when she shook him again his eyelids flickered open though he was still dreaming. In the moment before he closed them again and sank back into sleep, Alys peered closely at them. Across each dark pupil there was a tiny trail of cloudy grey as if someone had drawn a fingernail across his eyeballs.

Alys let him sleep and put the candlestick carefully on the bedside table. She slipped into bed beside him and piled the pillows up against the heavy carved headboard and sat upright, waiting for the dawn. She was cold and white but she made no move to pull the covers around her shoulders or to huddle down beside Hugo's contented sleeping warmth. Alys sat upright in her rich bed with the young lord beside her, his arm thrown lovingly across her, and waited for the dawn of another day with her face as grim and fearful as her betrayed mother Morach had looked all the years of Alys' childhood, when magic was not enough to make them safe.

In the morning Hugo was in a hurry to be off hunting. Stephen had brought him a new horse and he wanted to try its paces. The day was sunny and it would be too hot for hard riding later on. Besides, he had to be home early for the court in the afternoon. He barely noticed Alys' pale wakefulness.

'Are you well?' he asked, pausing in the doorway wearing only his shirt. 'You well, Alys?'

She blinked at him, her blue eyes strained and red-rimmed from the long night of watching. 'I dreamed,' she said. 'Bad dreams.'

'Good God, so did I!' Hugo said, remembering. 'I dreamed my fingers had gone. Gone like a leper. God! What a terror!'

Alys tried to mirror his relieved grin, but she could not. 'Show me your fingers,' she said 'Show me them.' Hugo laughed. 'It was only a dream, sweetheart. See!' He stepped back into the room and held out his right hand for Alys to inspect. In the bright dawn light from the arrow-slit she looked at the back of his hand. The fingernails were perfect, smooth and strong. His fingers were long and well-proportioned.

Alys gave a little hidden gasp of relief and turned his hand over. On each finger there was a perfect whorl -his fingertips were sound.

'We're both as fey as each other!' Hugo exclaimed. He bent down and gave her a quick buss on her cheek. 'Let me go, Alys! I'm going hunting!'

'Are your ears all right?' she demanded, as he went to the door.

He turned and grinned at her, as feckless as a child. 'Yes! Yes! Every part of me is well, and some parts of me are superb! Now may I go?'

Alys laughed unwillingly, her heart lightening despite her fear. 'Go then!' she said.

The door banged and he was gone. Alys pulled up the covers and slid down into the warmth where his body had lain. She shrugged her shoulders against her night fears. 'I won't think about it,' she said to herself as her eyes closed. 'I won't think about it.'

Catherine's door was open when the women came into the gallery in the morning. She was sprawled across the bed, door flung wide, waiting for them.

'I'll have my breakfast here!' she yelled. 'You, Ruth, bring me bread and ale. I'll have some roast beef or venison, and some goat's cheese. I fasted last night and I am hungry today. Fetch it for me at once.'

Eliza shot a quick irreverent grin at Alys. 'She's drunk!' she whispered. 'Good God, what now!'

Alys stepped up to the door. By Catherine's bed was the jug they kept in the cupboard of the gallery; it was rolling on its side, leaving a trail of red lees over the floorboards. 'Where did you get wine, Catherine?' Alys asked. Catherine's face was flushed, her hair tousled, her eyes bright. 'Went down to the hall at dawn!' she said triumphantly. 'I can serve myself when I need, you know. I'm not some whey-faced child that they can torment. I've been Lady Catherine here for years. I kicked a page awake and he brought me dinner and wine. I've been drinking ever since.' The women fluttered behind Alys in consternation. 'Downstairs in her shift,' Ruth said softly. 'Oh dear!' Alys bit back a smile. 'You're drunk,' she said concisely to Catherine. 'You had better eat some bread and then sleep. You'll be sick enough later.'

Catherine shook her head and pointed imperiously to her window. 'I give the orders here, Alys. I am not yet commanding a pig and a cow on the edge of the moor. I am not yet set aside and shamed for the benefit of you and whatever you carry in your belly! Go and fetch me some more wine. I'll have clary wine – that's a good wine to drink in daylight. And I'll have ale with my breakfast! And then tell them to bring me a bath. I shall bathe and wear my rose and cream gown. And I shall dine in the hall today.'

Alys heard Eliza's giggle smothered from behind her hand. She turned around. 'She's impossible,' she said to the women. 'One of you sit with her. We'll have to do as she wishes. She'll pass out with the drink soon enough.'

'She can't go down to dinner like this,' Ruth said, scandalized.

Alys shook her head. 'She'll be sick long before dinnertime if she's been drinking all night.'

'My breakfast!' Catherine shouted imperiously, with the authority of the enormously drunk. 'At once, girl!'

No one had called Alys 'girl' for many months. Alys smiled wryly and nodded towards Catherine. 'At once,' she said with mock obedience. She closed the heavy carved door and pointed to Ruth and then Mary.

'You fetch her breakfast, what she wanted. It makes no difference, she'll be vomiting it up in moments. And you, Mary, go to the kitchen and tell them to set water to heat, and order her a bath.'

The two nodded. Alys led the rest of them downstairs for their breakfast, and waited in the lobby for the old lord and David to come down the stairs from the round tower. 'Good morrow, Alys,' the old lord said. Alys stepped forward and kissed his hand. David opened the door for the two of them and they entered the hall together.

Breakfast was a meal taken without ceremony at the castle. There was too much to do in the early hours of the day for much delay. The kitchen sent out a continuous stream of messes – four-person platters of bread and cheese and cold bacon. Serving-women and men went around the hall serving ale and hot water. People came and went, with a quick bow to the high table when one of the lords was seated and dining.

Hugo was long gone – out hunting with Stephen. Most of the soldiers were fed and at their posts by the early light. Alys sat at the lord's side and ate the best bread with him and drank a small cup of hot water with a sprinkling of chamomile on the top.

'What's the brew?' the old lord asked. 'Chamomile,' Alys said. 'For calmness.' The lord gave a snort of amusement. 'Calmness is for the grave,' he said. 'I'd rather have panic any day. Tells me I am still alive.'

'Then you should have been born a woman,' Alys said.

He gave a quick guffaw of laughter. 'God forbid!' he said. 'What panics are you suffering, little Alys?'

'Catherine,' Alys said. 'She got hold of some wine in the night and she's still carousing this morning. She thinks of coming to dinner, primped up in her best, and winning back your affection.'

The old lord slapped the table with his hand and roared with laughter. Men taking breakfast on the nearby tables looked up, smiling, and one shouted, 'Share the jest, my lord!'

Lord Hugh shook his head, his eyes streaming. 'Women's troubles! Women's troubles!' he called back. All the men smiled and nodded.

'So!' he said, when he could catch his breath. 'When may I expect this seduction?'

Alys nipped the inside of her lips to contain her irritation and sipped her tea. 'She will come down to dinner unless someone prevents it, and she will make a scene and shame herself and shame you,' she said. 'If she spews all over you and over the young lord it will not be so merry, I suppose. We cannot stop her in the gallery. We cannot order the servants not to give her wine. She will have her own way unless you order it.'

Lord Hugh was still chuckling. 'Oh lord, Alys, don't bring me these hen-coop troubles,' he said genially. 'Give her wine and a drop of one of your sleeping herbs in the cup. Send her to sleep for a few hours and when she wakes sober and sick she'll have learned her lesson. I'll have the papers through in a few days and she can sign them and leave the castle forever.'

'In a few days?' Alys confirmed.

Lord Hugh nodded. 'Aye. So you can drink ale for breakfast and not handfuls of grass, my dear.' He chuckled again. 'Calmness. Oh Lord!'

Alys smiled thinly and broke some bread on her silver plate. 'Hugo tells me you have settled on the young girl for his bride,' she said. 'The little girl of only nine?'

Lord Hugh nodded. 'The best choice,' he said. ‘I was torn. I'd have liked to see a quick wedding, bedding and birthing, but the girl's family are the very people we need as kin. And she herself is from fertile stock. Her mother had fourteen children, ten of them sons, before she died. All before she was twenty-five!'

'A fortunate woman indeed,' Alys said sarcastically.

Lord Hugh did not hear. 'The wench will come and live here and we can school her as we wish,' he said. 'If you'll be kindly to her, Alys, you can stay by her and serve her. She's no fool. She's been serving as a maid in the Howard household and at court since she was seven. She'll be fit to bed at twelve I should think. I may yet see her son.'

'And my son?' Alys pressed.

'He'll be mine as soon as he is born,' the old lord said. 'Don't fret, Alys. If he is a strong and bonny child he'll be my heir and you can stay as long as she permits and as long as we desire. This is a good outcome for you, as it happens. Your luck follows you like your shadow, does it not?'

'Like my shadow,' Alys assented. Her voice was low and quiet. Lord Hugh could hardly hear her. 'My luck follows like a shadow,' she said.

He pushed his plate away from him and a page came up with a silver bowl and ewer and poured water for him to wash his hands. Another came up with embroidered linen and he dried his hands.

'We dine early,' he reminded Alys. 'There are the rest of the trials this afternoon. I shall rest this morning. They weary me, all these stolen pigs and missing beehives. And besides, the law changes with every messenger that comes. It was better in the old days when I did just as I wished.'

'What of the old woman?' Alys asked.

Lord Hugh turned as he was going out of the door. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Father Stephen was talking with her again, after his supper last night. And this morning he went out riding with Hugo. She may not come to trial, Alys. It is Father Stephen's decision if she has no case to answer.' He grinned. 'She was leading him a merry dance as he told it at dinner last night. She is as learned as he and when he reproached her in Latin she defended herself in Greek and he was hard-pressed to follow. I suppose I shall conduct her trial in Hebrew for the purity of the language!'

'Might he release her?' Alys asked.

The old lord shrugged. 'Maybe,' he said. A mischievous gleam came into his eyes. 'Do you wish to appear for her?' he asked. 'Her learning and your quickness would be a formidable defence, Alys. Shall I tell Stephen that you will speak for her? Is it your wish to stand before us all and defend a papist and traitor, no matter what it costs?' His dark eyes scanned her face, his smile was cruel.

Alys ducked her head. 'No, no,' she said hastily. 'No, she is nothing to me. Father Stephen shall be the judge. I cannot be involved in this. I have too much to do, and my health needs all my care. I cannot be troubled with this as well.'

Lord Hugh gleamed his malicious smile. 'Of course, Alys,' he said. 'Leave it to us men. I'll let you know if we need chamomile.'

He swept out through the door, his wide flared surcoat swaying from his shoulders. Alys heard him laughing as he went up the stairs to the round tower. She finished her cup of chamomile tea in silence and then led the women back to the ladies' gallery.

Catherine was singing loudly. They could hear her from halfway down the stairs. Eliza snorted with laughter as they opened the door and saw Catherine seated in her old chair before the gallery fire, a jug of ale in one hand and a cup in the other.

She beamed as she saw them. 'My handmaids!' she said. 'My companions!'

'You must go to bed,' Alys said, stepping forward. 'You will be sick with all this drink, Catherine.'

Catherine waved the jug.

"Now Robin did a courting go – To the leafy woods so green, And Marion his lady-fair…'

'This is impossible,' Alys said through her teeth.

‘I want my bath now,' Catherine ordered abruptly.

Alys looked towards Mary. 'They're bringing it,' she said, dropping a curtsey. 'But she wanted your herbs and oils in it, my lady.'

'Like last time,' Catherine said with drunken enthusiasm. 'When you bathed me in perfume flowers and rubbed me with oils and Hugo came and had us both.' There was a gasp from all the women. 'When it was so nice, Alys. When you lay on me and licked my breasts and poked me with your fingers. Like that.'

Alys shot a warning glance around the women. Eliza's face was scarlet with suppressed laughter. Ruth was white with shock and she was crossing herself against the sin of venery.

'Get the bath,' Alys said to Mary. 'She can have herbs in it.'

The women stood in silence seething with unspoken gossip while the servants carried in the heavy wooden bath-tub, draped it with linen and then poured in churn after churn of hot water. Alys fetched mint oil from her chest of goods, hoping that it would sweat the drink from Catherine's sodden blood. Catherine gaped blankly at the gallery fire and did not see the curious glances of the servants as they came and went with the hot water.

'He will return to me,' Catherine said suddenly. 'He can have me and he can have Alys. What man could resist? I have my dower lands and Alys is with child. I will accept the child. What man could want more?'

Alys grabbed Catherine under the elbow and nodded Margery to support her from the other side. 'Hush, Catherine,' she said warningly as they tottered towards the chamber where the bath was steaming and scented before the blazing fire. 'Hush. You shame yourself with this talk.'

'I will accept you,' Catherine said, looking at Alys. 'I will love you like a sister and we can all live here together. Why not? We are the lords. We can live as we please. And Hugo would be happy with us both.'

'Hush,' Alys said again. Her brain was working fast. Hugo might indeed accept a life financed by Catherine's dowry and inherited by Alys' children. The dynastic ambitions for the new young bride were his father's – it had always been his father's plots and schemes – Hugo wanted his place at court, he wanted the money for his voyages and his ventures, he wanted to sink mine shafts and quarry lime, but if Catherine and Alys could make a truce and Alys bear him a son, he might abandon the venture of another wife.

'It's too late,' Alys said thoughtfully. 'The old lord is determined.'

Catherine was still rolling drunk. She staggered as Mary untied her shift and pulled it off over her head. It took three of them to steer her safely into the bath. She sat on the low stool in the tub and leaned her head back against the linen-covered side.

'You could deter him,' she said. She was slurring her words and her eyelids were drooping. 'You could persuade him. There is my dowry and your child. He wants these things.'

Alys rolled up her sleeves and roughly rubbed Catherine's shoulders and grimy neck. The folds of fat hung loosely around her body now that the baby had gone.

'Or if the old lord died,' Catherine suggested. Her voice was far too loud for safety. Margery, at the window, heard her. Eliza, waiting by the door, heard her. Mary, airing the shift before the fire, turned quickly and stared at Catherine lolling in the tub, lazy, corrupted.

'Don't say it!' Alys said sharply. 'My lord is well and will live for many years yet, please God.'

Catherine opened her drunk, unfocused eyes and smiled at Alys. 'It's true though,' she said. 'Hugo would never have the will to set me aside. Hugo likes his pleasures at once. He would never wait for a nine-year-old bride. These are not his plots and schemes. If the old lord was gone we could live well, us three.' 'Hush,' Alys said again. It was true. If the old lord died and Hugo inherited tomorrow then Catherine would stay as nominal lady of the castle and Alys' position would be assured. Hugo had neither the energy nor the skill to rid himself of Catherine and negotiate a new marriage. And besides, he liked his comforts and his easy way of life. Catherine as lady and Alys as mistress was an ideal combination for Hugo, giving him wealth and sensual pleasure without effort.

'More hot water,' Catherine said, 'I will lie in the bath and drink more wine.'

Eliza sniggered at that, but a sharp look from Alys sent her from the room.

'Give her more hot water and a cup of watered wine,' Alys ordered. 'I am going to my room. It is too hot for me here.' She turned to Catherine. 'After your bath you must lie down and sleep,' she said firmly. 'You can dress in your rose gown after your rest. I will have you awakened in time for dinner, but you must sleep now.'

Catherine was already drowsy. Her large features, blurred in the scented steam, were soft with sleep. 'All right, Alys,' she said agreeably. 'But will you come and touch me? Will Hugo come and mount you while I watch? Like we did before?'

There was an utter silence in the room. 'You are dreaming,' Alys said roughly. 'Bawdy dreams, Catherine. Your humours are too hot. Your bath has overheated you. You must rest.'

She turned and went quickly from the room before the others could read the guilt in her face. As she shut her chamber door she heard a soft scandalized shriek and the babble of whispers at the oriel window in the gallery, as the women fled from Catherine's room to repeat what she said. Alys went to the arrow-slit window and looked out.

Over the bridge the white road uncurled itself around the hill and then headed straight as a Roman spear over the moor. The fields at the riverside were a dusty yellow-green. The hay was cut, the corn was in. They were tossing straw into windrows and would gather it this month. In the higher fields beyond the river there were cows picking over the hayfield stubble. Beyond them was the rough green and grey hide of moorland with a few sheep scattered across it. The heather was in flower and a traveller crossing the moor would have to wade through thigh-deep clumps of purple and walk all day in a cloud of sweet pollen. The fords would be dry, a man could walk northwards across the high hills and drop down into dale after dale – the Greta, the Lune, Cotherstone – without ever wetting his feet or finding a drop of clean water to drink.

Alys looked at the thin track of the white road and wondered where her little dolls were now, and if they were still walking wearily towards the castle, still trailing a little thread of candlewax slime behind them wherever their tiny feet pattered. They would make slow progress along the dusty road, leaping aside into the grass at the roadside for fear of cartwheels and feet and the dangerous clatter of hooves. The doll of the old lord would be hobbling, the doll of the miscarried woman trailing slime, and the doll of Hugo staggering sightlessly with his blunt insensate hands stretched before him.

In the warm air blowing through the arrow-slit Alys shivered, as cold as if she were trapped in a dank cave with flood water rising.

A flock of pigeons wheeled and turned in the sunlight, their feathers bright and golden, moving as one. They flew like a fletch of arrows straight towards Alys at the window and then wheeled at the last moment and settled out of her sight on the round tower, where the pigeon lad would settle them in their boxes and cut the messages from their cherry-red legs. Alys shuddered and drew back from the window, lay down on her bed and stared upwards at the rich green and gold embroidery of the tester above her head.

She must have dozed. She was wakened by a banging on her door and a high, sudden scream of fear, the noise of running feet, and someone calling her name in a voice sharpened with terror. Alys had jumped from her bed and torn open her door before she was awake.

'Is it fire?' she demanded urgently. Then she swayed and leaned back against the door. 'What is the matter?'

'Lady Catherine!' Eliza said. She took Alys by the shoulders and shook her awake. 'It's Lady Catherine. She's drowned! She's drowned! Come at once!'

Alys stumbled but Eliza dragged her forwards, across the gallery and to Catherine's chamber. Alys, still dazed, looked around all the faces expecting to see Morach soaking wet, her shock of white hair slicked down by river water, beaming with pride and saying 'I saved her!'

'Wake up!' Eliza said. She pushed Alys roughly towards Catherine's doorway. There were many people crowded into the gallery, soldiers and servants, all of them milling helplessly around and shouting instructions. 'Warm her up!' 'Fetch Father Stephen!' 'Put her in her bed!' 'Give her usquebaugh!' 'Burn horsehair!'

Alys, pushed by Eliza, fought her way into Catherine's chamber and fell back when she saw the bath-tub.

Catherine was blue. Her staring, blank face and all over her flaccid body was stained veinous-blue. Blue fingernails, blue feet, blue lips, white-blue face.

Someone had heaved her up out of her bath-water and then let her slide in again so her head was tipped back against the edge of the bath, limp as a doll. She looked like a dreadful parody of the sensual Catherine who had shouted for wine and more water. A woman who had given herself up to selfish pleasures and was now given up to death.

'How did this happen?' Alys asked. Her voice was still croaky from sleep. She coughed to clear it.

'We left her alone,' Eliza said. Alys could hear the grief and guilt in her harsh tone. 'She wanted to be alone and we shut the door and left her. God knows what I was thinking of. I knew she was drunk. But she was maudlin and dull. She ordered us out of the room and we went. We left her.' 'Did she fall?' Alys asked.

'I'd have heard if she had fallen,' Ruth said sharply. Her face was nearly as pale as Catherine's horrid whiteness. 'I was listening for her call. I was not gossiping about sin and lechery. If she had fallen I would have heard. I heard nothing. Nothing.' She broke off, and turned her face away, a handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. 'Nothing,' she said.

'She was drunk,' Mistress Allingham said. 'I think she just slid under the water and could not get herself out again.'

'Can you do nothing?' Eliza demanded. 'Open a vein, bleed her! Something!'

Alys shook her head. 'Nothing,' she said slowly. 'There's no blood pumping around Catherine any more. She's dead.'

She drew back. 'Close the door. Get these people out of here,' she said. 'Send for someone to cover her nakedness and lift her out of the bath. The old lord will have to be told, and Hugo. They should not see her like this.'

There was a movement among the crowd in the gallery as they went to obey Alys.

‘I’ll tell the old lord,' Alys said numbly.

Ruth gave a loud, thin cry and ran to her room. Eliza turned to go after her. 'Odd,' she said. She paused and looked at Alys. 'That she should escape drowning in the winter river, bobbing with ice floes, treacherous with rocks, and then go under in her bath.'

Alys shook her head, half closed her eyes. 'It is a nightmare,' she said honestly. 'A nightmare.'