The Wise Woman

Ten

The night drew in, darker and colder, and Alys, still hidden in her refuge at the bakehouse, heard the shouts and clatter of supper and then the querulous voices of tired servants clearing up. From the courtyard she could hear the shouts of servants who were leaving the castle and going into town, she could hear the march of the soldiers coming from their duty at the castle gates, a few steps in rhythm and then a disorderly straggle towards the guardroom, a few shouted jests and then the numbing silence of night. Still Alys waited, shrouded in silence and darkness, waited for the moon to rise above the dark squat bulk of the great hall, waited for the last flickering candles to go out at the little windows. Waited for the peak of the night, sitting on the cooling hearthstone of the bakehouse fire.

As it grew more and more chill she took a ragged old coat from the back of the door, wrapped it around her thin shoulders and put a few little pieces of kindling into the embers. When they flickered into flame she tossed on a dry log. Then she sat very still, watching the flames and saying nothing. Alys sat still and silent in a little island of solitude, as if she were waiting for something to come to her – some clarity or some hope. She knew that she was a sinner; far, far from the God of her mother, from the God of her innocent childhood in the nunnery. Despite the hours on her knees, despite the smile on the face of the statue, she would not be forgiven for running from her sisters when the fires of hell had opened around them. She would not be forgiven for the sin of lust. She could not take the devil on loan. She was so far from the peace of Christ that she vomited if she ate his bread.

Alys threw on another log. The firelight flickered and threw ominous moving shadows around her. Out in the yard someone screamed in mock fright and cried out 'Jesu save me!' but Alys did not cross herself. She knew that she alone, of all the castle, could never be saved. She squatted at the stone hearthside like a stone herself, and watched the flames burn up her hopes, her chance of returning to the abbey, her chance of forgiveness. All night she watched and waited by the dying fire as a mother will watch by the bed of a dying child. All night Alys watched her future cool and crumble, and finally faced her despair. 'I'm lost,' she said softly, just once. All her plans – of escape from the castle, of return to an abbey, of the revival of the Church of Rome and a haven for her – they were all gone. Alys knew that she would never be an abbess nor even a novitiate again. She could not trust herself in a holy place. God had put his mark on her – as she had feared – during that panic-stricken run. She could not whisper in the confessional, she could not eat the sacred bread. Holy wine would curdle if she came close – and turn to blood. Holy water would ice over. The holy bread would rise up in her throat and choke her and if she vomited it out on the chancel steps they would all see, everyone would see, the wafer untouched by her soiled, sinful mouth. No abbess could miss the signs of a woman mired in sin, a woman given over to the devil. She could not coax nor lie her way back to sanctity. She could not confess and be absolved. She was in too deep. She was in too deep. She was black as the deeps of the river at midnight.

Alys breathed out a long, slow sigh of despair. The old life was gone indeed, as surely as Mother Hildebrande – and all her wisdom and love and kindness -was blown away on the moorland winds in a puff of white ash and charred gown. The old life was gone and Alys would never have it back.

She sat and mourned for it, for two long hours, with her eyes on the flames and the white consecrated wafer gleaming palely among the red hot embers. Alys watched it – unburned, not even charred – and knew she was far from Christ, and from His mother, and from her own mother, the abbess. She was as far away from them already as if she were in hell.

At that thought she paused and nodded. 'I'm damned,' she said wonderingly. 'Damned.' She had a moment of pity for herself. In quieter times, in an easier world, she would have made a good nun, a holy woman, a wise woman. As wise and beloved as her Mother Hildebrande. 'I'm damned,' Alys said again, tasting eternal judgement on her tongue. 'Damned without hope of forgiveness.'

She sat still for a few moments longer, then she reached for the fire tongs and hooked the unburned wafer out of the flames. It was cool to the touch. Alys looked at it and her face was stony in the presence of a miracle. Then she took it between her hands and tore and ground it until it broke into one, twenty, a thousand pieces, and she fed each little piece to the flames until they caught and burned and were gone. Alys smiled.

'Damned,' she said again, and this time it sounded like a direction for her to follow.

She knew now she would stay in the castle until she could see which way the wind blew for the old lord and for young Hugo. There could be no abbey, no convent in the future. Alys would be in the world forever and she would take her power in the world with her woman's strengths and the power of a woman damned to hell. She had to turn the eyes of Hugo from her. She had to make him lie with his wife. Catherine had to conceive. Any other outcome from today's black business would end badly for Alys, she knew. Her only chance of using the castle as a stepping stone to higher things, her only chance of escape, was to see the man she desired turn away from her and return to his wife. To watch her triumph, and to see a son in her arms.

Alys nodded, her face brightening in the firelight. If she could accomplish that – then she would be safe for months, even years. She was high in the old lord's favour, she would earn Catherine's gratitude. Between the two of them she might build a reputation which could take her to the highest houses in the land. Even if she only stayed with Lord Hugh and won his complete trust she would eat well and sleep warm and be free to travel when and where she wished. But Lady Catherine must conceive. If she did not conceive, and soon, she would look around her for a scapegoat. There would be another ordeal. And then another after that. And in an ordeal by water, or an ordeal with fire, or an ordeal with holy wine, in any one of them Alys would fail. And then she would face a nightmarish death.

'I have no way out,' she said softly to herself.

In the early hours of the morning, when the bakehouse was as dark as pitch, and reason and the learned code of morality at its lowest ebb, Alys leaned forward and pulled out the log which hid the candlewax figures.

With the cloak as a shield around her shoulders she ranged the three figures on the lap of her blue gown and started to chant the spell Morach had taught her. The words meant nothing to her but as she whispered them into the silence of the darkened bakehouse they seemed to shroud her in power, a new power, one she could claim as her own. The rhythm of the words was like a song. Alys said them over and over, three times, in a low monotone. As she said them she stroked the wax dolls with her fingers until the wax grew as warm as skin, and took the glow from the fire. Three more times Alys whispered the spell to them, and caressed them, and made them her own, then she thrust her hand into the purse at her girdle and brought out a twist of paper. Wrapped in it were three hairs. The long brown one Alys stuck on the head of the doll to represent Lady Catherine, the short black hair was from Hugo, and Alys had one long silver hair from the old lord's comb.

The dolls gleamed in the firelight, each one with a strand of hair, each one moving slightly as Alys stroked them and whispered to them, naming each one of them and claiming them for her own. The embers sighed and settled in the fireplace like the whisper of a ghost. In the dim firelight and the shadows of Alys leaned forward to see more clearly. The little wax torsos moved very, very slightly under her gentle fingertips. The dolls were breathing. They were alive.

Alys let out a little sigh of awe and fear. She leaned over them and looked at them more closely. Then she put the one to represent the old lord carefully down on the hearthstone. 'I want nothing from you,' she said softly to it. 'I want you to be well and strong. And I want you to care for me and protect me for as long as I wish to stay here. And then I want you to let me go.'

The little doll's face was impassive in the firelight. Alys watched it for some moments. Then she took up the doll which was the young lord. For a moment she looked at it, at the clear features and the strong arrogant face. Then gently, very gently, she drew her fingernail across its right eyeball.

'Don't see me,' she whispered. 'Don't watch for me. Don't look at me with love. Don't notice me when I come into a room, don't turn to catch sight of me. Be blind to me. Be blind to me!'

She stroked her finger gently over the other eye. 'Don't look at me, don't notice me, don't watch for me! Be blind to me! Be blind to me!' she said again.

She blinked to clear her own gaze and was surprised to find tears on her checks. She rubbed them aside with the back of her hand. The little figure of Hugo was sightless, a smooth smear where each eye had been. Alys nodded. She felt shrouded in her own power. The tender, longing part of her was stilled, hidden. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness, her face shone with a sense of her own magic. She looked witchy. She licked her lips like a cat.

She held the little figure of Hugo closer, then she started to work on his fingertips. With delicate little movements she started to scrape the tips of his fingers away.

'Don't long to touch me,' she said. 'Don't touch me. Don't long for the feel of my skin. Don't stroke your hand against my face. Don't caress my hair. Don't reach for me, don't hold me. I am stealing away your desire to feel me. I am stealing your power to feel me. Don't touch me, don't reach out for me, don't caress me.'

The fingertips of both hands were flattened; the fingernails, so delicately carved by Morach, had melted away. 'Don't touch my body, or my face, or my hair,' Alys said. 'Don't put your hand between my thighs, or on my breasts, or hold the nape of my neck. Don't desire the feel of me. Don't touch me.'

She laughed, a low delighted laugh, at the tingling sense of her own power which flowed so powerfully from her belly to her fingertips, down to the soles of her feet. Then she heard the echo of her laugh in the deserted bakehouse and looked around her fearfully. She hitched her cloak a little closer, turned the doll of Hugo to one side and started stroking at his ear.

'Don't listen for me,' she said, her voice a low whisper. 'Don't hear my voice. Don't have pet names for me. Don't recognize my voice among all others. Don't listen for my singing. Don't waken when you cannot hear my breathing in the bed beside you. Don't harken for me when I am away. Don't listen for my step when I am close.'

Delicately she stroked at one ear until it was smoothed quite away, and then she turned the doll around and stroked and rubbed the second ear until it too was gone.

Then she put the doll on its back on her lap again and pressed her index finger to its lips. 'Don't speak to me,' she said. 'Don't whisper to me, don't sing for me, don't joke with me, don't pray for me.' With jerky little motions she scratched at Hugo's mouth. 'Don't call me,' she said. 'Don't call me. Don't dream of me and speak my name, don't wake and say my name. Don't let my name come to your lips.'

His mouth was a smooth smear, but still Alys rubbed and rubbed at it.

'Don't kiss me,' she said. 'Don't put your mouth on mine. Don't put your tongue to my lips. Don't lick me, or kiss me, or bite me. Don't take my body into your mouth. Don't suckle at my nipples until my breasts ache for you. Don't bite my neck or my shoulders or my belly. Don't take me in your mouth and tease me with your tongue and suck me till I cry out in pleasure and beg you to do more.'

Hugo's mouth was a shapeless hollow. Alys had rubbed his lips until there was nothing there. The wax had melted and the mouth was eroded. An ugly little monster was all that was left of what had been a miniature copy of Hugo. An ugly little monster, blinded like some cave-dwelling fish, fingerless like an aborted baby, earless, toothless, gumless, lipless, with just a gaping hollow where his mouth had been.

Alys laughed again and her laughter was harsh with a wild panic.

'And now you, my Lady Catherine,' she said softly. Very gently, with infinite care, she took up the doll which was Catherine and set it on her lap beside the doll of Hugo. She turned them to face one another and jiggled the grotesque penis against the female doll. She rubbed it against the doll's mouth, rubbed it against her neck, her belly. Then she rocked them together in an obscene dance. She pressed the dolls together, and then took them apart again. She slipped the gross wax penis into the female doll, and took it out again. Then she laid the female doll on her back and pressed the male doll down on top of her so the penis slipped into the monstrous maw, and they stayed together.

Alys took a scrap of ribbon from the purse at her girdle and fastened the two dolls together. In the firelight, the little female doll seemed to gleam with contentment, the flickering light made her cheeks pink and warm. On top of her, tied fast, was the eyeless, earless, fingerless, mouthless monster which was Hugo. Alys let them rest together on the floor at her feet and stared at the fire.

After long, long minutes she shook herself from her reverie and bent down and took the two of them up.

'So,' she said. 'Hugo is hot for Catherine. He cannot let her alone. He is like a man obsessed. He is a man half mad with desire. He itches constantly for the feel of his cock inside her.

'And she…' Alys said slowly. 'She is contented. She is his beast. She is his brood mare, his whore, his dog for the whipping. He can do what he likes with her, she feels he can do no wrong. She forgets everything else -everything else,' Alys said with emphasis. 'She forgets fears and rivals and enmities because she is exhausted and drained and then filled with joy again as her husband runs back to her like a thirsty dog runs to his trough of water.'

The bitterness of Alys' vomit was still on her tongue. She hawked and spat into the flames.

'He looks at no other woman,' she said. She jiggled the two dolls together. 'He desires no one else. He thrusts into her as if he would fuck his way to paradise.' 'And she loves it,' she said with distaste. She held the little dolls together for a moment longer and then untied the ribbon which bound them. They fell apart at once, as if the male doll were glad to be rid of the binding. Alys frowned a little, wondering what it meant. Then she set the doll Hugo down beside his sire on the hearthstone and started to stroke the female doll's belly.

'His seed is in you,' she said softly. 'And you conceive a boy. You get fatter, the baby grows.' Alys' clever fingers moulded the wax into a new shape. Catherine became monstrously large. 'You grow and grow,' Alys said. It sounded more like a curse than a spell for fertility. 'Nothing will stop you. No fear, no shock, no accident. You grow larger and larger and your appetites are gross. And then…' Alys paused. 'You take to your bed in labour. And from your pain and travail you bring forth a son who is the image of his father.'

Alys paused. Her lovely face was twisted with anger and with jealousy.

'And then you reward me,' she said sternly to the grossly swelling doll. 'You pay me a purse of gold and your blessing. You give me enough money for me to go far away, wherever I will. And you and I part and I never have to see you or your husband again.' Alys gathered the three dolls on her lap. 'The spell is done,' she told them. 'And you brought it all on yourselves. These are the destinies you desired, or the destinies you forced me into making for you. The spell is done and it starts to work this very day.'

She slid the three into her purse again and slipped down from her stool to the hearthstone before the fire. She pulled the cloak around her and closed her eyes. Within seconds she was asleep.

As dawn broke, and the cocks crowed and the animals called and then the people awoke, Alys slept on. She slept without dreams to remember. But all night and all the early morning, the tears welled up from under her closed eyelids in a constant unstoppable flood. And her hands remained clenched in fists, the thumb between the second and third fingers, in the old, old ineffectual sign against witchcraft.

When the bakers' lad came in just after dawn to stoke the fire he found her there, her tangle of golden hair dirty in the ashes, and when he shook her awake and she sat up, the ashes still clung to her, so that she looked like Morach, an old woman with a wild shock of grey and white hair. Her face was dirty and in the shadowy dawn the smears looked like hard lines from years of longing and no satisfaction. The bakers' lad had never seen Alys before and he recoiled from her.

'I beg your pardon, dame!' he said swiftly, and when she struggled to her feet he took to his heels and was off into the courtyard where the grey light of dawn made the castle appear icy and white.

Alys followed him out of the open door as far as the well in the centre of the yard. She crooked a finger at him. 'Pull me water,' she said, her voice a hoarse croak.

The boy came nervously towards her but stayed out of reach. 'Promise you won't hex me?' he said.

Alys laughed, a bitter sound, and hawked and spat. 'I promise,' she said. Then she looked at him and her blue eyes gleamed with malice. 'Not this time, at any rate.'

The boy trembled but came closer and wound down the bucket. Three times he had to drop it before it smashed through the ice in the well. Then he wound it up, filled to the brim. Alys cupped her hands and scooped up the icy water and drank greedily.

'Now go to your work,' she said. 'But tell no one you saw me.' 'I won't, lady! I won't,' the boy promised eagerly. Alys looked at him until he nearly shrivelled with fear. 'I shall know if you do,' she said with emphasis. Then she turned away from him and went wearily to the women's quarters to wash and change her gown and comb her hair. The purse with the three candlewax dolls knocked at her thigh with every step she took.

Eliza fell on her the moment she was through the door, with the others not far behind. 'Where have you been? You've been out all night!' Eliza exclaimed. Then, when Alys started to reply, 'Never mind that!' she said impatiently. 'Never mind! You'll never guess what's been happening here. All night! All night!'

The other women, bright-eyed and half hysterical, collapsed into laughter. Alys felt herself smiling, catching their amusement despite her weariness. 'What?' she asked.

'Lord Hugo!' Eliza said. 'You'll never guess. He's been here, with my lady, all night long. And we saw, we saw…'

'Tell it right!' Margery reproved. 'Tell it from the beginning.'

'I'll not hear it,' Ruth said. 'Lady Catherine is sure to come in and catch you tattling, Eliza.'

'Well go sit with her then!' Eliza said impenitently. 'And if she comes – cough so we can hear you. But I've got to tell Alys. I shall die if I don't.'

'Silly girl,' Mistress Allingham said indulgently. 'Not that we didn't have a night of it! Indecent!'

Ruth went out of the room and Eliza dragged Alys to a footstool and sat at her feet.

'After supper,' she began breathlessly, 'Lord Hugo came up here and said he would like to hear us singing and playing. Ruth played the mandolin and I sang, and then Margery sang. He said my voice was very sweet and he smiled at me – you know how he does!' 'Yes,' Alys said wearily. 'I know his smile.' Eliza winked. 'Well, you would of course. My, you're a sly one! I never knew you were hot for him. I thought you were wedded to the single state! And there you were all along…'

'About last night…' Margery interrupted.

'Yes!' Eliza said. 'Well, after we had sung he called for some mead and he made us all have a glass with him, and then he took the bottle, as bold as you please, and said to Lady Catherine. "I think we will have need of this to quench our thirsts this night."' Eliza's eyes grew wide with double meanings. 'Then he said, "Though I will give you enough to drink, my lady, I promise you! Your mouth will run over with it!"' Alys swallowed convulsively. 'Vile,' she said softly. 'There's worse than that!' Eliza said with delight. 'They went into the room together and we were just left there, imagine how we felt! We didn't know whether to go or stay. Ruth was for going but I said – we haven't been dismissed, he might want something – so we stayed.

'Then we heard it. First of all we heard them talking, quietly, so we couldn't hear the words. Then we heard Lady Catherine say, "I beg you, my lord, I beg you to give me a son. Do it to me!"' Eliza gave a squawk of laughter and clapped a hand across her mouth.

'Ruth left then, you know how she is. But we stayed. And then we heard Lady Catherine moaning. She sounded like she was in pain so we thought we should go in, but then we thought not. Over and over again she was saying: "Hugo, Hugo, please, oh please.'"

'What was he doing?' Alys asked. She thought she knew.

Eliza licked her lips. 'We peeped,' she said. 'We opened the door really and she had the curtain drawn across it so they didn't know. I peeped around the curtain, I thought I could say we were worried for her if they caught me. Catch me! They wouldn't have noticed if we'd danced in singing.'

'What was he doing?' Alys asked. She was very white. 'He had made her kneel before him,' Eliza said, her voice a delighted whisper. 'He had his cock out and he was hard as a spear -I saw it! And he was rubbing it all over her face, her eyes, her ears, her hair, everywhere. And rubbing himself on her neck and the front of her nightgown.'

Alys was very still, she was thinking of the little dolls and the obscene dance she had made them do before she had tied them together with the ribbon.

'He ripped her gown,' Eliza said. 'And she just knelt there and let him do what he wanted. And he rubbed himself against her breasts. She was shameless. She was there with her gown ripped to her navel and her arms tight around his bum just moaning and moaning for more.'

Alys put a hand to her forehead, she was cold and wet. 'And then?' she asked. 'I suppose he had her?' Eliza shook her head. 'Worse,' she said. 'What?' Alys said.

'He told her to get on the bed and spread herself wide,' Eliza whispered. Alys shut her eyes briefly.

'She looked disgusting!' Eliza said in delighted shock. 'She stuck her legs right out and she opened herself with her hands.'

Alys shook her head. 'Oh, enough, Eliza! I don't want to know.'

Eliza was unstoppable. 'And he climbed on the bed and he rammed inside her as if he hated her,' she said in an awed whisper. 'Then he pulled out again and walked away.' 'What happened?' Alys asked.

'She screamed,' Eliza said. 'She screamed when he thumped in and then she screamed again when he pulled out. She was writhing on the bed like a barrel of eels. She was wild! She kept begging him and begging him to do it to her.'

'Did he?' Alys asked tersely.

Eliza shook her head. 'Not properly, not like she wanted. Over and over again he went to the bed and mounted her once, and then pulled away. And again and again she screamed for more. Then he made her get off the bed.' Alys waited in silence.

'He made her strip naked and tear her shift into pieces,' Eliza said. 'Then he told her to knot the pieces into a rope.'

'Good God!' Alys said impatiently. 'Why did you not stop him? Why did you not at least call to her?'

Eliza looked at her. 'Don't you know?' she asked. 'Are you so cold that you don't know that? She was loving it. She wanted him to treat her like that. She wanted to be his brood mare, his whipped dog. She was not his wife; she was his whore.'

Alys sat very still and let the echo of her spell wash over her and around her. She wondered how deep an evil she had done.

'He made her crawl up and down the floor,' Eliza said. 'He made her crawl on her hands and knees. He tied the shift over her eyes so she could not see and he made her crawl around. Sometimes he entered her from behind, sometimes he went to her head and forced her mouth on to him. And whatever he did,' – Eliza's voice was soft with delighted shock – 'she cried for more.'

'All night?' Alys asked coldly. She was thinking of the two dolls tied together and then their abrupt falling apart.

Eliza shook her head. 'He took the blindfold off her and he put it around his own back,' she said. 'He did it around her so they were bound together. Then he lifted her up and lowered her on to him.'

Alys could feel vomit again rising in her throat from her empty belly.

'She screamed,' Eliza said.' A long really loud scream, as if he had really hurt her that time. And the two of them dropped to the floor and he humped her on the rushes until her back bled.'

Alys hawked and spat into the embers of the fire. 'Give me some ale, Margery,' she said softly. 'This story of Eliza's makes me sick to my very heart.'

'It's done,' Eliza said with quiet triumph. 'The story's done. I said you should have been here.'

Alys sipped the ale. It was warm and stale from standing all night in the pitcher. 'Did he spend the night in her bed?' she asked, but she already knew the answer. Eliza shook her head. 'He untied the rope when he had done with her and sprang away from her as if he hated her,' she said. 'Lady Catherine was still lying on the floor and he slapped her – one cheek and then the other – and then he pulled up his breeches and left her, like that. With her back all bruised and bloody and his hand print on both her cheeks.'

Alys nodded. 'And is she grieved?' she asked, detached.

Eliza shook her head. 'She was singing this morning when I took her cup of ale in to her. She had her hands on her belly and she told me she is sure she has conceived a child. She is sure she is going to bear him a son. She has begged her way into paradise and she is content.' Alys nodded and sipped at the ale again. 'Good,' she said. 'Hugo is back with his wife, his wife is carrying his child. Neither of them will trouble me, I am spared her foul jealousy and his dangerous lusts. I can do what I ought to do – clerk for my lord and keep him and his household well.'

She got up from the stool and shook the dust from her gown. 'It has a bitter taste,' she said quietly to herself. 'I never knew it had a bitter taste.'

'What has?' asked Eliza. 'The ale? It should be sweet enough.'

'Not the ale,' Alys replied. 'The taste of victory.'