The Wise Woman

Sixteen

The old lord kept Alys with him after dinner, he had a letter by messenger from his cousin in London. The man had come slowly, overland up the Great North Road, travelling with others delayed by snowdrifts. The news he brought was a week old. But gossip and rumours have a long life. Lady Jane Seymour had been given her own apartments at Greenwich Palace – as grand as those of the Queen. Rochford, the Queen's brother, was not to be elected to the Garter. That honour was given elsewhere. The King had danced with Lady Jane Seymour all evening. The King and the Queen were to watch a May Day joust together but the court was seething with stories of a quarrel between the Queen and King when she had stripped the baby Princess Elizabeth naked and thrust her at him, demanding if he could find a flaw, a single flaw, on the chubby little body. Another perfect child would follow the first, she swore. But the King had turned away.

Alys read the letter to him and then burned it when he nodded to the fire. There was also a letter from the College of Heralds. Lord Hugh wanted to add a quartering to his shield to greet his new grandson. There was a precedent for the honour in Catherine's family and the old lord and the college were haggling about the justice of the claim and the price that would have to be paid for the added lustre to Hugh's name. He shook his head at their demands. 'I must watch my ambition,' he said. 'See what ambition is doing to the Boleyns, Alys. The safest place to be is halfway down the hall. Not too near the top table.'

There was a lease sent from the Bowes manor for his inspection. A tenant was resisting a change of his holding from entry and occasional fines to an annual rent. He wanted to pay his fines in goods but the castle was hungry for cash. Alys read the medieval Latin of the lease slowly, stumbling over the archaic words. Lord Hugh watched the flames in the fireplace, nodding first with concentration and then with weariness, and then his eyes slowly closed. Alys read on a few sentences more and then softly laid down the parchment and looked at him. He was fast asleep.

She rose quietly from her chair and went softly to the arrow-slit in the westward wall and looked out. Below her on the far side of the river-bank she could see Lady Catherine walking awkwardly, wrapped in furs, one hand on Hugo's arm. He was leaning towards her so that he could hear what she said above the rushing of the water. Even at that distance Alys could see Catherine's adoring gaze up at Hugo and her smile.

The old lord was dozing behind Alys, the fire crackled in the grate. Alys watched how Hugo leaned towards Catherine and how he helped her across the muddy parts of the path. At a distance Morach followed, with a basket on her arm and Eliza Herring walking at her side. The other ladies must have stayed indoors. Behind them were two armed servants on horseback. Hugo was taking no chances with the safety of his wife and unborn son.

Alys felt her hands hurting and looked down. She had clenched them into fists and her nails had marked four deep red sickles into each palm. 'Oh God, this jealousy is my crucifixion,' she whispered, but she stayed watching, unable to leave the window. Catherine slipped a little on the mud and Hugo caught her with one arm around her waist. Alys could almost hear her laugh as Hugo held her, then she turned her face up to him and his dark head came down and he kissed her.

Alys felt her cheeks burn. Somewhere, from the back of her mind, came the memory of the doll which she had thrown in the moat. The three dolls were hidden in the purse on a piece of string dangling out of the garderobe, waiting for the time that they could be buried. Alys had kept her mind away from them with the same disciplined blindness that she stopped herself thinking of the nunnery, of her mother, or of fire.

But when she saw Catherine slip, so near to those deep icy waters, she thought again of the little doll of Catherine which she had thrown far out into the green waters of the moat and which had bobbed and turned its face to her, and then smiled at her and nearly drowned her from its own power and malice.

'Oh, but I'm safe now,' Alys said aloud. 'I'm safe here indoors, while you are out there.'

She glanced back into the room. The old lord was snoring, his cap askew, his head on one side. The warm glow of the firelight flickered red on the stone walls. The deerhound dozed before the fire, paws twitching now and then in his dream.

'Nothing could hurt me here,' Alys said. She looked back out of the window. 'But you…' she whispered to Catherine. ' You are very near the water. And the spell on the dolls was very potent. So potent that your husband went to you and loved you with such passion that he has forgotten all about me. It was my power in the dolls that drew him to you. It was my power in the dolls that put that baby in your belly. And the doll for you was drowning, Catherine. Your doll was drowning.'

Alys was silent for a moment, her bewitching whisper falling into the quietness of the room.

'I had a Seeing of Hugo and me together,' she murmured. 'Perhaps that meant you died, Catherine. Perhaps you're going to die. Perhaps you're going to drown. Perhaps you're going to drown now.'

Walking a short distance behind the couple Morach paused and put her head on one side as if listening to some distant noise.

'Perhaps it will happen now,' Alys whispered. She was pressing up against the window-sill, leaning her whole body against the cold stone, forcing her will through the very walls of the castle.

'Perhaps now, Catherine,' she said. She started humming, very deep in her throat, a powerful sleepy noise like a swarm of toxic bees. 'Perhaps now,' she whispered yearningly. 'The water is very deep and very cold, Catherine. The rocks are very sharp. If you slip and fall now, you will be swept downriver and by the time they get you out, "your lungs and your belly will be filled with icy water. You nearly drowned me. I know how it feels. And soon, you will know it too.'

Morach was standing as alert as a hound listening for the horn. Then she whirled towards the castle and stared towards it, raking the arrow-slits with her stare as if she were looking for Alys, almost as if Alys had called loudly and clearly towards her. She looked straight towards the narrow slit of window in the great tower where Alys stood. For a moment the two women stared towards each other and Alys knew that – despite the distance, the narrowness of the arrow-slit and the darkness of the room – Morach was looking into her eyes and reading her mind. Then Morach yelled a wordless warning and started running towards Catherine.

Hugo turned at the shout and his hand went to his sword. Catherine swung around and lost her footing on the mud of the path, stepped backwards, and with the awkward misbalance of pregnancy stumbled on the very edge of the path. Her arms flailed like a helpless child. Alys, watching with burning eyes, was humming louder and louder, deep in her throat; and it was as if the power of the sound was pressing down on the little figure, wrapped tight in bulky furs. Catherine clawing helplessly at the air, her mouth wide in a scream, fell slowly backwards. Then she was gone – head over heels, clear over the rocks at the edge of the river, into the deep pool and down into the fast flooding waters.

Hugo tore at his sword and flung it aside, yelled at the soldiers for help, and jumped down on to the rocks and boulders at the river's edge, throwing himself towards the water. But Morach was quicker. In an instant she dived out over the rocks, deep into the pool, and went down below the water like a questing otter. She came back up and duck-dived again.

'Get out of the way, Morach,' Alys breathed through the window, shaking with dismay. 'You're my kin, not hers. You're working for my interests, not hers. Leave her, Morach. Leave her be!'

Morach shook her head, as if to rid herself of a voice in her ears, and dived. There was a flash of white as her feet kicked in the air and then a flurry of colour of drowned cloth as she surfaced with Catherine in her arms. Hugo waded in, waist deep in the water, and grabbed Catherine. Alys could see that she was limp, perhaps stunned. She knew the woman was not dead. It would have been a rare piece of luck if she had broken her neck or staved in her head on a rock. Hugo gathered Catherine into his arms and then reached out a hand for Morach. One soldier jumped down and passed the two women up to his fellow on the bank. Alys watched it all, dry-eyed, white-faced. She watched Hugo scoop Catherine back into his arms for a stumbling run towards their horses. She saw Catherine grab the pommel of the saddle with one limp hand as she was handed up on to the horse, and Morach was tossed up behind one of the soldiers. The little cavalcade moved out of sight around the curve of the tower and Alys guessed they would hurry back into the castle by one of the sally-ports. At any moment now there would be an alarm and people running, and everyone worried about Catherine and praising Morach.

Alys pushed herself stiffly away from the window and pulled out a footstool to sit at Lord Hugh's feet and watch the flames of the fire. She shivered a little as she remembered the icy greenness of the moat. Then she leaned forwards and put her chin on her hands and stared with blank, unseeing eyes into the very heart of the redness – and waited for the noise and the shouting to start.

She did not wait long. Lord Hugh jumped out of his sleep at the yell from the great hall which echoed up to his room.

'What is that? What is that?' he demanded. 'Alys! Are we under attack? What is that noise?'

'I'll go and see, my lord,' Alys said smoothly. She went to the door but as she opened it David came in. 'Nothing to alarm you, my lord,' he said swiftly. 'The Lady Catherine had a fall in the river and Lord Hugo has brought her safe home. She is being put to bed by her women. Her wise woman says she thinks the child is not hurt.' 'God be praised!' the old lord said, crossing himself.

'Tell her I'll come at once. Alys! D'you hear that! Catherine near-drowned and the heir with her! God's breath! That was a narrow escape!' 'I'd best go to her,' Alys said.

'Yes, yes. Go and see how she is and come straight back to me. I'll come and see her myself when she permits. And tell Hugo to come to me as soon as his wife is settled.'

Alys slipped from the room and ran down the stairs to the ladies' gallery. The place was in uproar. Servants were running around with wood-baskets, ewers of hot water, jugs of mulled wine and hot mead. Catherine's women were shrieking orders and then cancelling them, snatching up Catherine's hands to chafe and kiss. Hugo, supporting Catherine, was yelling for them to put a warming-pan in Catherine's bed and clear the room so she could be undressed. Morach, ignoring the hubbub, dripped a wet path to Alys' chamber. She checked when she saw Alys in the doorway and their eyes met.

'You swim like a witch,' Alys said, not caring who heard her.

'And you curse like one,' Morach replied, venom in her voice,

'Why meddle?' Alys asked, dropping her voice so her words were lost in the shouting. 'You heard my power, you know what I was doing. Why meddle in my work?'

Morach shrugged. 'That's a death I'd wish on no one,' she said. She shuddered as if she was chilled to her soul. 'I'd hate to die by water,' she said. 'I couldn't stand by and see a woman die by water. Not a young woman, not a young woman with child, not one that I'd served. You're a harder woman than me, Alys, if you could have stood by and watched her drown.'

'I was holding her under with all the power I have,' Alys said through her teeth.

'And I pulled her out,' Morach said, blazing. 'There are some deaths no woman should suffer. I'd rather any death than drowning. I'd rather any death in the world than going under the water and choking my way to hell.'

Alys glanced around her. Eliza Herring was within earshot, though screeching instructions to a servant. 'Thank God you were there,' Alys said loudly.

Morach gleamed under her dripping mat of grey hair. 'Thank you for your good wishes.' She pushed past Alys and went into their little room, slamming the door. Alys turned and clapped her hands together. 'You men!' she said, her voice clear above the noise, 'Out! All of you! We cannot get Lady Catherine abed with you all here. Eliza! Turn down her bed. You girl!' – to a passing maid – 'Get those warming-pans into her bed. And you' – to another – 'see the fires are banked high in her chamber and this one.'

The room emptied at once. 'Out of the way!' Alys said crossly to the maidservants and to Catherine's ladies who still cluttered the room. She took Catherine's other arm and she and Hugo led the shivering woman into her chamber and lowered her into a chair by the fire.

'Fetch towels and sheets,' Alys ordered Hugo, without looking at him. She pulled off Catherine's sodden fur cloak and dropped it on the floor. Then she unpinned her head-dress, undid her gown, and stripped her with hard hands until the woman was naked.

Hugo passed her the towels and both of them rubbed her hard all over until her white skin glowed pink and the roughness of the gooseflesh had subsided. Then Alys wrapped her tight in the warm sheets and Hugo lifted her into bed. Alys piled rugs on top of her and pulled the warming-pans out to refill them with fresh embers, while Hugo gave her hot mead to drink. Her teeth chattered pitifully on the cup. Alys, at the fireside, shovelling embers, hunched her shoulders. 'I'm cold,' Catherine said.

Hugo shot a despairing look at Alys. The room was as hot as a bread-oven. Alys' face was flushed, her forehead damp with sweat. The mud on Hugo's boots was dried to dust by the heat, his wet clothes were steaming.

'Drink some more mead,' Alys said, without turning round. She slammed the scorching lid of the warming-pan and then wrapped it in a towel and thrust it into the bed under Catherine's feet.

'I'm so cold, Alys,' Catherine said. Her voice was high and thin, like a child. 'I'm so cold, Alys. Can you not give me something to make me warm?'

Alys turned to the chest and pulled out one of Catherine's great fur cloaks with the hood. 'Sit up a little,' she said. 'We'll put this around you like a shawl, and you can have the hood over your wet hair. You'll soon warm up.'

Together they raised her in the bed. Alys looked away when her robe fell open and the rounded part of her belly was exposed. She looks like a mead-pot, Alys thought irritably, all gross curves. Beside the plump naked woman, Alys felt herself to be a shadow, a spectre of darkness. She tucked the thick furs around Catherine and then pulled the bedclothes up again.

'Warmer?' she asked.

Catherine nodded and tried to smile, but her face was still white. Hugo held her cold hands in his own. He turned them over, her fingernails were blue.

'Should she be blooded?' he asked Alys. 'Should we sent for a surgeon and bleed her?'

Alys shook her head. 'She needs all her blood,' she said. 'She's choleric in humour. She'll warm up.'

'And the baby?' he asked. He turned a little away from the bed so Alys could hear him, but Catherine could not. 'The baby is the most important thing. Will the baby be all right?'

Alys nodded. She had a very sour taste in her mouth. She did not want to put her face too close to Hugo, she thought her breath would smell foul. 'I doubt this will harm the baby,' she said. 'You will be laughing about this in a few days. Both of you.'

Hugo nodded but his face was dark with worry. 'Pray God that's so,' he said.

Alys turned away. 'I have to go to your father,' she said. 'He sent me to find news of Lady Catherine. Shall I send one of the other women in to sit with her?'

Hugo shook his head. 'I'll go to him,' he said. 'And I'll come back at once. You stay here and watch over her. I trust you to care for her, Alys. You know how much this child means to me. He will be my future -and my freedom. He will make my fortune this autumn if we can get him through to a safe birth and to his grandfather's arms.' Alys nodded. 'I know,' she said. Hugo turned back to the bed where Catherine lay, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the baking heat of the bedroom. 'I am going to tell my father that you are safe and well,' he said. 'I will leave Alys here to care for you, and I will come back in a few moments.'

Catherine nodded and lay back, her jaw clenched to keep her teeth from chattering. Against the dark furs her skin was white as thick vellum. The door shut quietly behind Hugo as he went out.

The two women were alone. The room was silent. In the gallery outside the bedroom door, Catherine's other women waited around the fire twittering like nervous birds. Catherine did not have the strength to call them, she could not reach out her hand to the bell. She was as much in Alys' power as if Alys had her bound and gagged and a knife whetted ready for her throat.

Alys turned from the door and came slowly to the foot of the bed. Catherine's pale brown eyes looked up at her.

'I felt as if I was pushed,' she said. Her lip trembled, like a little child that has suffered some unimaginable unkindness. 'I felt as if someone pushed me. But there was no one there.' Alys looked back at her, her face impassive. 'I heard a humming noise, a loud humming noise -like bees, or like a person humming – and then I felt someone push me, push me hard, push me into the water,' she said.

Alys' lovely face was clear, her blue eyes confident. 'These are fancies,' she said, her voice lilting, sweet as a song. 'You have had a grievous fright. Pregnant women have these fears, my lady. There was no one near you, my lady. How could anyone hum and throw you in the river?' She laughed gently.

Catherine put a hand out of the nest of furs towards Alys. 'Will you hold my hand, Alys?' she asked pitifully. 'I am afraid. I feel so afraid.'

Alys came a little closer. She could hear the humming in her own head now, like a drowsy hive. She knew that if she touched the smallest fingertip of Catherine's white cold hand she would succumb to temptation and snatch up the pillow and crush it down over her frightened face. The humming was too loud to resist. 'I have been cruel to you, Alys,' Catherine said, her voice a thin thread. 'I have treated you unkindly and tormented you. I was jealous.'

Alys kept her face blank, and held on to the noise of the humming. Louder and louder the noise swelled, while Catherine beckoned her closer.

'I am sorry,' Catherine said softly. 'Please forgive me, Alys. Hugo looked on you with such desire I could not bear it. Please forgive me.'

The humming was drowning out thought. Catherine was reaching out for her. Alys' hands trembled with the desire to lock around her fat neck and squeeze and squeeze until there was no breath left in that plump, white, indulged body.

'Please, Alys,' Catherine said pitifully. 'You do not know what it is to feel jealousy such as I felt for you. It led me into the sin of unkindness to you. I know I taunted you and tormented you. I am afraid I made an enemy of you. Forgive me, Alys. Please say you forgive me.'

Alys stepped a little closer. Catherine's face was pitiful. Alys found herself smiling, warm with joy at what she was about to do. Catherine reached out for her murderer with imploring hands. Alys took another step closer, stretched out her own hands…

'For the sake of Our Lady,' Catherine said. 'Take my hand, Alys, and say you forgive me.'

At the name of the Holy Mother Alys checked, closed her eyes for a second and shook her head. She took a deep breath. The humming sound burned angrily in her head for a moment and then rumbled softly away, deep and soft, as if a dark swarm had gone back to a cave, to hide for a while, until their time should come again.

Catherine reached out for her. Alys stepped forward and reluctantly took her outstretched hand.

'I was jealous,' Catherine went on eagerly. 'You were so beautiful when you first came to the castle, Alys. And Hugo was so cold to me. You are so clever and so learned, and the old lord liked you – and he never really liked me. And I was afraid that you were taking them from me, both of them. My husband and my guardian. I was afraid you would take my place from me. Then I would have had nothing, Alys.' She was breathing very fast but there was no trace of colour in her cheeks. She was as white as a candlewax doll.

Alys, holding Catherine's cold hand, holding on to her own power, felt the dark swarm flowing back through her, through her veins, through her head, out through her deadly fingertips.

Her hands became icy, colder than Catherine's, colder than the winter river itself. Alys gave a little tremble of excitement and put her other hand over Catherine's clinging grip.

'I think I'm dying,' Catherine said breathlessly. 'The room is dark, so very dark, Alys. Hold my hand a little tighter, I can hardly see you.'

Alys tightened her grip as she was bid. A fierce hungry smile spread across her face. She could feel the coldness and the darkness pouring from her, pouring out through her hands into Catherine. 'Are you cold?' she asked.

Catherine shuddered. 'I am freezing, Alys! Freezing!' she exclaimed. 'And all the candles are out! And the fire out! Why is it so cold? Why is it so dark? I feel as if there is no one here who loves me or cares for me at all. Hold my hand tighter, Alys! Talk to me! I am afraid! I am afraid!'

Alys laughed, a cold ripple of sound in the brightly lit steaming room. 'I am here, Lady Catherine,' she said.

'Can you not see me? The fire is banked high, it is terribly hot. Can you feel nothing? And all the candles are lit – the lovely bright beeswax candles. The room is as bright as day, as bright as sunlight. Is it all dark for you? Is it all dark for you at last?'

'Alys!' Catherine said imploringly. 'Hold me, Alys, please! Hold me close! I feel as if the waters are taking me under. I am drowning, Alys! I am drowning in my bed.'

'Yes!' Alys said exultantly, her own breath coming fast. 'You caught me like this last time, in the moat. You called me to you and then you pulled me down! But this time it is me drowning you! I need not put my hands to your throat. I need not do more than hold your hands as you wish, and you will go down, Catherine. You will go down alone, you will drown in your bed!'

'Alys!' Catherine cried. Her voice was as thin as a thread, and at the end of the word she choked, as if a wave of green icy water had slapped her in the mouth.

Alys laughed again, madly, recklessly. 'You're drowning, Catherine!' she said, amazed at her own power. 'Morach could pull you out of the river but nothing and no one can save you from drowning! You're going down, Catherine! You're going down! You are drowning in your bed!'

The door clicked behind them and Alys whirled around. It was Hugo. Behind him was the old lord and David. He looked from one woman to the other and his face was puzzled. 'What's wrong?' he asked.

Alys took a deep breath. The bright hot room seemed to swirl around her like the colours in a swinging crystal. 'She is fearful,' she said. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away. 'And she is holding on to me so tight! I tried to call for the women but they did not hear. And I am faint.' She swayed as she spoke and Hugo stepped quickly forward. Alys lurched towards him; but it was David the seneschal who stepped forward and caught her as she fell.

Hugo did not even turn around to look at her. He had Catherine gathered in his arms and she was sobbing on his shoulder.