The Wise Woman

Thirty

Alys worked until dinner. Lord Hugh trusted her to draft his replies to routine letters and then read them back to him for his scrawled signature and the stamp of his seal. However, some things he kept to himself. There were letters from London which came in a packet of linen with the seams stitched and sealed. He cut it open, sitting in his chair by the fireside, and burned each of the secret pages after he had read it.

At noon David came to the chamber. 'Dinner is ready, my lord,' he said.

Lord Hugh started up from his thoughts and stretched his arm out to Alys. 'Come away, Alys,' he said kindly. 'Come down to dinner with me. This is weary work for you, are you sure you are not too tired?'

Alys rose from the table and followed him from the room. She saw David's acute glance at the whiteness of her face and the slope of her shoulders.

'Does it fare merrily with you, Alys?' he asked. 'Merrily, merrily?'

She looked at him without bothering to conceal her dislike. 'I thank you for your wishes,' she said. 'I hope they come back to you threefold.'

The dwarf scowled. He clenched his hand into the fist with thumb between second and third fingers, the old protection against witchcraft, crossed himself with the fist, and kissed his thumb.

Alys laughed in his glowering face. 'Mind Father Stephen does not see you,' she said. 'He would accuse you of popish practices!'

The dwarf muttered something behind her as Alys, with her head high, followed the old lord down the stairs and into the great hall.

Hugo and Stephen were placed either side of Lord Hugh, Stephen on his right in honour of his return to the castle and to mark the old lord's favour. And the power of the new Church, Alys thought sourly. Alys was seated on the other side of Stephen.

She said nothing while the servers brought the silver ewers and bowls and Lord Hugh and then all of them washed their hands and dried them on the napkins. David watched over the pouring of the wine and then the pottage was served.

'Are you well, Mistress Alys?' Stephen asked her courteously.

'I thank you, yes,' Alys replied. 'A little weary. My lord has made me work hard this morning. He had to reply to the King's letters and we have the sheriff's court here this afternoon.'

'Hugo and I have added to the burdens of the court,' Stephen said. 'We took up a witch today.'

The tables nearest to the high table fell silent, the diners strained forward to listen. Most people crossed themselves. Alys felt her throat tighten.

'My lord!' she exclaimed. She glanced down the table at Hugo. 'God keep you both safe and well!'

'That is my prayer,' Stephen said. 'And it is my duty to preserve myself and my bishop's diocese from these evil creatures.' He glanced around him and raised his voice so that they could all hear him. 'There is no defence against witchcraft except fasting, penitence and prayer,' he said. 'No subscribing to another witch to protect you. That way you fall deeper and deeper into the hands of the one who is their master, who stalks this earth seeking for souls. The True Church of England will protect you by seeking out all witches and destroying them, root and branch, even down to the smallest, least twig.' There was silence. Stephen was impressive. 'Yes,' Alys said. 'We must all be glad of your vigilance.'

He turned his head to her. 'I have not forgotten the injustice of your ordeal,' he said softly so that no one else could hear. 'I carry it with me in my heart, to remind me to avoid popish practices like the ordeal and to keep my own conscience in these matters. I never use the ordeal in my work. I question – question with sight of the rack, and then with torture only where necessary – but I never test a witch with an ordeal any more. I made a mistake that day in giving way to Lord Hugh and Lady Catherine. I have never made that mistake again.'

'But you torture?' Alys asked. Her voice trembled slightly. She sipped her wine.

'Only as it is ordered, for those suspected of felonies,' Stephen replied gently. 'The law is strict in this matter. First comes questioning, then showing the rack to the prisoner and questioning again, and then, and only then, is questioning under torture allowed. When I know I am doing God's work in this godless world, and obeying the law in this lawless world, I can do my duty without anger or malice; or fear that I am doing wrong through my own blindness.'

Alys stretched her hand to her wine again. She saw it was shaking. She hid both her hands in her lap, out of sight under the damask tablecloth.

'And who is this witch you took up today?' she asked.

'The old woman you accused,' Stephen said. 'The old woman who lives by the river on the moor. We were riding out that way hunting and we met with the soldiers who were taking her over the border to Westmorland -as you desired.'

'There must be some mistake,' Alys said breathlessly. 'I never accused her of being a witch. She frightened me. She came on me alone in the wood. She called me by another name. But she was a harmless old woman. No witch.' Alys could hardly speak over the noise of her pulse in her head. She had no breath for anything more than short sentences.

Stephen shook his head. 'When we stopped to see that they handled her gently – soldiers like a game, you know – she asked who we were and when we told her Hugo's name, she cursed him.' 'She would not!' Alys exclaimed. Stephen nodded. 'She named him as the destroyer of the nunnery and of the holy places. She said that he would die without an heir because he had done blasphemy and sacrilege and that the vengeance of her god was upon him. She called on him to repent before more women voided the devil's slime, which is all that he can father. And she begged him to release a woman named Ann. That was the last thing she said – let her go!'

'This is awful,' Alys said. 'But just the ravings of a mad woman.'

Stephen shook his head. ‘I have been appointed by my bishop to search out these witches,' he said. 'There is one in every village, there are dozens in every town. We must root them out. People are frail, they run to these wizards in times of trouble instead of fasting and praying. The devil is everywhere and these are troubled times. We have to fight against the devil, we have to fight against witches.'

Alys gave a trembling little laugh. 'You are frightening me!' she protested.

Stephen broke off. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'I did not mean to. I am hot in the pursuit of evil, I forgot your condition and the delicacy of your sex.'

There was a little pause.

'And this mad old woman,' Alys said lightly. 'Won't you let her go? I should be sorry if my complaint against her brought her to this charge.'

Stephen shook his head. 'You misunderstand the seriousness of her crime,' he said. 'When she speaks of her god it is clear she is speaking of the devil, for we know that the Holy God does not curse men. He sends misfortune to try them, for love of them. When she speaks of Hugo as a destroyer of the popish false church, it is the devil crying out against our glorious crusade. We are snatching souls from the devil every day. He enjoyed an easy time with the Romish priests feeding people with lies and fears and superstitions and magic of all kinds. Now we are pushing the light of God across the country and casting the devil – and his followers like this old woman – into the fiery furnace.'

The brightness of the sunlight through the high east windows dazzled Alys, the room was spinning around her as Stephen spoke. 'Oh don't!' she said, in sudden agony. 'Stephen, remember how it was for me when you gave me the ordeal. Remember my terror! Spare this poor old woman and send her away, send her to Scotland! Send her to France! Spare the foolish old thing. She did not know what she was saying, she is mad. I saw it when I met her. She is mad.'

'Then how did she know of Catherine's illness, if not through sorcery?' Stephen asked. 'It has been kept most quiet. Only you and Catherine's ladies and Hugo knew of it. Not even my Lord Hugh knew of her scouring white slime.'

'These things are talked of,' Alys said rapidly. 'Gossip is everywhere. She is probably one of those horrible old women who sit in the chimney seat and chatter all day. I sent her a gown and some food, she probably gossiped with the messenger. Don't burn her for being a foolish, ugly, old woman, Stephen!'

'We won't burn her,' Stephen said.

Alys looked up into his pale, determined face. 'You won't?' she asked. 'I thought you said you would cast her into the fire.'

'I meant that when she dies she must face the flames of hell, the fire of the afterlife,' Stephen said.

'Oh,' Alys said. 'I misunderstood you.' She breathed out on a little laugh. 'I am so relieved,' she said. She put her hand to her throat and felt her hammering pulse quieten beneath her touch. 'You won't burn her,' Alys said again. 'You won't burn her.' She laughed uneasily. 'Here I was, trembling with fear that I had brought an old lady to the stake!' she said. 'I was fearful for her. But you won't burn her, even if she should be charged. Even if she were found guilty. You won't have her burned.' 'No,' Stephen replied. 'We hang witches.'

When Alys came to her senses she was lying in her bed, the dark green tester she so loved above her, the curtains half drawn around her to shade her face from the bright sunlight pouring in the arrow-slit window. For a moment she could not remember the time, nor the day. She smiled like a child at the richness of the fabric all around her, and stretched. Then she heard the soft crackle of a fire in her grate, and was aware of the warmth of the setting sun on her whitewashed walls. Then she remembered the quiet terror of Stephen's promise, and Mother Hildebrande facing a charge of witchcraft that afternoon, and she cried out and sat upright in bed.

Mary was at her side. 'My lady,' she said anxiously. 'My lady.'

'What time is it?' Alys asked urgently. 'I don't know,' Mary said, surprised. 'About five o'clock, I suppose. The people are just leaving from the trials. It is not suppertime.'

'The trials are over?' Alys asked.

Mary nodded. 'Yes, my lady.' She looked anxiously at Alys. 'Will you tell me what I can fetch you?' she asked. 'Should you not have something from your chest of herbs? You are very pale, my lady. You fainted at dinner and they carried you up here like a dead woman. You have lain still all this long time. The old lord himself came up to see you. Have you nothing I may fetch you?'

'What happened at the trials?' Alys asked.

Mary frowned. 'I have been up here with you,' she said, with a trace of resentment. 'So I couldn't see nor hear them. But Mistress Herring told me that they branded one man for thieving and Farmer Silter was warned for moving his boundary posts. Peter Marwick's son was summoned -'

'Not them,' Alys interrupted. 'The old woman charged with witchcraft.'

'They didn't try her,' Mary said. 'They questioned her under torture and she is not a witch. They released her from the charge of witchcraft.'

Alys felt a sense of ease flow through her whole body, from her aching jaw, through her clenched fists, to the soles of her feet. Her skin glowed as if she had just stepped, tinglingly clean, from a bath. She felt the blood rise up in her veins and warm her clammy skin.

'They released her,' she said, tasting hope, as sweet as new desire.

They changed the charge,' Mary said. 'She is to face a charge of heresy. She will be tried tomorrow in a second day of the court's sessions.'

Alys felt the room heave and yaw like a sailing ship out of control. She clung to the fine linen sheets as if they were safety lines in a storm-rolling sea.

'I can't hear,' she said pitifully. 'I did not hear you, Mary. Say it again.'

‘I said she is to be tried tomorrow for heresy,' Mary said loudly in her rounded country accent, like one talking to an old deaf woman. 'They say she is no witch, but a heretic. A papist. They will try her tomorrow after dinner.'

Alys lay back against the pillows, her eyes shut. The child in her belly stirred and kicked against the pounding of Alys' rapid pulse. Alys felt her sins massing against her. Her stomach churned in terror, her heart fluttered.

'Get a bowl,' she said thickly to Mary. ‘I am going to be sick.'

Mary held the bowl while Alys vomited a stream of undigested pottage from dinner and then her breakfast of bread and meat and ale, and then yellow bile, until she was retching and retching on an empty belly and bringing up nothing but clear saliva.

Mary whipped the bowl out of the room and came back with a ewer and a napkin moistened with cold water. She sponged Alys' face and her neck – hot and sweaty under the heavy weight of her hair. She held a glass of water to her lips.

'Is it the sweating sickness?' she asked Alys anxiously. 'Or is the child pressing against your belly too hard? The old lord should not make you work so! Can I fetch you something to eat?' Alys leaned forward. 'Help me up,' she said. Mary protested but Alys threw back the covers and held out her hands. 'Help me,' she ordered.

They had laid her on her bed in her blue gown and put covers over her. The gown was hot and creased. Take this off,' Alys said.

Mary unfastened the gown and shook it out, laying it in the chest.

'I will wear my green gown,' Alys said. Mary slipped it on over Alys' head. Alys stood still and let her dress her, like an old pagan stone on the moors, dressed with scarves.

Her legs were trembling and Mary helped her across the gallery and down the stairs to the great hall. The servants were pulling the tables and benches back into their usual places after the disruption of the trial. She let Mary help her to the door to the garden and then she waved her away. She stepped out of the shade of the hall on to the cobblestones of the yard and out into the garden to find the old lord. He was sitting in the arbour, enjoying the evening sunshine. Eliza Herring and Margery were sitting beside him. Eliza was playing her lute.

Alys paused for a moment, watching them. The old lord's white hair shone in the sunshine, Eliza and Margery's dresses were bright – yellow and blue, summertime colours. Behind Lord Hugh's head an espaliered peach tree was showing fat fruits. Before them were half a dozen formal flower-beds with twisting gravel paths around them edged with box. And on the left, in the far corner of the castle wall, was the tower with the staircase to the second storey and a doorway only on the second storey. The lower storey had neither windows nor door. It was a blind tower of solid stone. It was the prison tower and the only way into it was through a trapdoor in the guardroom floor down rough steps. And the only way out (they said as a joke) was in a coffin.

Alys walked across the grass, her green gown hushing around her legs, through the maze of paths, a couple of hens and a cock scattering before her, until she came before Lord Hugh.

'Alys,' he said with pleasure. 'Are you better already? You gave us a fright. I've never seen so deep a swoon. Sit down! Sit down!'

He brushed Eliza and Margery off the seat and waved them away. They curtsied and wandered off, their heads together. Alys sat on the sun-warmed bench beside Lord Hugh.

'How sweet the air smells,' she said idly. 'And how well the garden is doing.'

'It's not big enough,' Lord Hugh said. 'My wife always wanted me to lay a formal pleasure garden. But I never had the time, nor the desire to throw money away for a posy of flowers.' He flapped his hand irritably at the hens which were picking at the flower-beds. 'They'd eat them all,' he said. 'Where's the kitchen-lad? They should not be out here!'

Alys smiled. 'What was she like, your wife?' she asked.

Lord Hugh thought. 'Oh, good,' he said vaguely. 'Wellborn, religious. Dull.' He racked his brains. 'She read a good deal,' he said. 'Lives of the saints, church books, that sort of thing. She had very black hair – that was her best feature. Long, thick, black hair. Hugo has her hair.'

'Did she die young?' Alys asked. The old lord shook his head. 'Middling,' he said. 'She was forty or thereabouts – a good life for a woman. She was ill with all her childbirths. And miscarriages. Lord! She must have had a dozen. And at the end all we had to show for it was two worthless daughters and Hugo.'

A companionable silence fell between them, Lord Hugh smiling at some old memory, Alys sitting beside him, composed.

'That old woman,' she said casually. 'What became of her?'

'The suspected witch?' Hugh roused himself. 'Oh, she was no witch. They put her to question under torture and she said nothing that could be called witchcraft. Even Stephen accepted that, and he sees a warlock in every doorway.'

Alys chuckled, a strained, unconvincing sound. 'He's very enthusiastic,' she said.

Lord Hugh cocked an eyebrow at her. 'Everything to gain,' he said. 'It's the King's Church now. Progress upward and there is the King's court at the top and God's heaven beyond that. A tempting enough prospect, I should think.' Alys smiled and nodded.

'I don't know where it will all end,' he said. 'I shan't see the end of it, that's for sure. I used to think they would go back to the old ways but I can't see how any more. The abbeys are half destroyed, the priests have all taken the oath to honour the King. Still, it is Hugo's inheritance. And he's all for the new ways. He will have to find his path through them. I don't doubt he has the skill. As Stephen ascends, Hugo rises too. They have hitched their stars together.' Alys nodded again. 'The old woman…' she started.

'A papist,' the old lord said. 'Accused of heresy and treason. When they got her off the rack and drenched her with cold water until she could speak again, she denounced them all, and said she was ready to die for her faith. We'll try her tomorrow. I doubt she'll recant. She's a powerful woman.'

'Can't she be released?' Alys asked. 'Shipped off somewhere? She's such an old lady and she will die soon anyway. She's no danger to anyone.'

Lord Hugh shook his head. 'Not now she's arrested,' he said pedantically. 'She's in the court records, Stephen knows of her. His report goes to his bishop, mine goes to the council. She can't just disappear. She has to be tried and found innocent or guilty.'

'But on what you say, she's bound to be guilty!' Alys exclaimed. 'Unless she recants, she's bound to be found guilty.'

The old lord shrugged. 'Yes,' he said simply. He leaned his head back against the sun-warmed stones. 'You could bake bread on this wall,' he said. 'It holds the heat like an oven.'

'It serves no good purpose to execute her,' Alys insisted. 'She's so old and frail that people will hate you and Hugo for hurting an old woman. They could turn against you. It's hardly worth the risk.'

The old lord turned his head to Alys. 'It's out of my hands,' he said gently. 'She is accused before the court and I will try her tomorrow. Stephen will be reasoning with her and questioning her. She wanted no one to represent her. If she does not repent, take the Oath of Supremacy and acknowledge the King as head of the Church, then she has to die. It's not whim, Alys. It's the law.'

'Couldn't you…' Alys started.

Lord Hugh turned his head towards Alys and his look was acute. 'Do you know her?' he asked sharply. 'Was she from your old Order? Are you pleading for her?'

Alys met his eyes squarely. 'No,' she said. 'I have never seen her before in my life. She means nothing to me, nothing. I am just sorry for her. Such a foolish old woman to die for her delusions. I feel distressed that my complaint has brought her here, nothing more.'

Hugh leaned forward and clapped his hands at the hens. They scuttered out of reach. The cock flapped his wings and jumped awkwardly to the flat top of the little box-hedge. He stretched his neck and crowed.

Alys watched the deep emerald shimmer on his throat.

Lord Hugh shook his head. 'It's not your fault,' he said. 'She would have preached or taught people. She would have gathered people around her. She would have come to our attention one way or another. And then we would have had to take her up. She is an old fool looking for sainthood, that one. She would never have taken the easy route, never altered her faith and her vows to suit the times. She's a foolish old martyr. Not a wise woman like you, Alys.'

Alys walked slowly into the castle through the doorway of the great hall. After the golden sunshine of the garden the smoky darkness of the great hall was a relief. She walked without purpose, without direction. Hugo was riding out to his new house, practising archery, riding at the dummy in the tilt-yard, or trifling with one plaything or another. Hugo would make no difference. Alys paused at the top of the hall and leaned against the table where the senior soldiers sat for their dinner.

Hugo was like a child. His father's long life and power had kept Hugo as a merry child – happy enough when things were going well, sullen and resentful when his will was crossed. He would not save Mother Hildebrande at Alys' request. He would not care enough. Not for her – a poor old woman who should have died last year. Not for Alys.

There were men sleeping off their dinnertime ale in the shadows of the hall, on the benches under the tables. Alys walked quietly past them, mounted the dais and drew back the hanging over the lord's doorway. One of them turning over in his sleep caught sight of her and crossed himself. Alys saw his gesture. Superstition hung around her still. She must remember that she was not safe herself. She put a hand to her belly. Her only safety was in the baby she carried: Hugo's son. She started wearily to climb the stairs to the ladies' gallery.

She might carry Hugo's son but the old lord had planned all along to take the child from her and adopt him as his own. Alys had not thought of that. She had not known that such things could be done. She had thought that the baby boy would be her passport into the family. She paused on the stairs, waiting for her breath to come back and the dancing black spots to go from her vision.

'I am ill,' she said aloud.

If she was ill then Catherine would not insist that they share a bed, Lord Hugh would not threaten her. If she was ill and in her own bed then no one could blame her when Mother Hildebrande rushed upon martyrdom without Alys saying one word to save her. No one could blame Alys for Mother Hildebrande's hunger for sainthood, especially if Alys were ill.

'I am ill,' she said again with more conviction. 'Very ill.'

She walked slowly up the steps to the ladies' gallery and opened the door.

It was empty and quiet. Mary was sitting at the fireside, stitching some plain work. She laid it aside when Alys walked in and bobbed her a curtsey.

'Lady Catherine has been asking for you, my Lady Alys,' she said pleasantly. 'Shall I tell her you are here? Or should you lie down?'

Alys looked at her with dislike. 'I will see Lady Catherine,' she said. 'She was disturbed when she looked from her window and saw you flirting with her husband in the courtyard.'

Mary gave a little gasp of surprise. 'The young Lord Hugo will take his pleasures where he wishes,' Alys said distantly. 'But do not flaunt yourself, Mary. If you distress Lady Catherine she will turn you out of the castle.'

Mary's cheeks were blazing. 'I am sorry, my lady,' she said. 'It was just words and laughter.'

Alys' look was as sour as if she had never heard words or laughter, or seen Hugo's hot, merry smile. 'If your humour is lascivious you had better avoid the young lord,' she said coldly. 'It would go very ill for you indeed if you offend his wife. You told me yourself your father is poor and out of work. I suppose it would be difficult for all of them at home if you returned without your wages and without hope of work in service again.'

Mary dipped her head. 'I beg your pardon, my lady,' she said humbly. 'It won't happen again.'

Alys nodded and went into Catherine's room, the taste of spite very sweet and full in her mouth.

Catherine was dressed, sitting in a chair by the window, looking out over the courtyard and the garden, the sun-drenched wall of the inner manse and the tops of the apple trees in the outer manse. The smooth round prison tower stood like a dark shadow behind the little bakehouse. Alys, looking past Catherine out of the window, saw nothing else.

'How well you are looking, Catherine!' Alys said. Her voice was high and sharp, the words a babble. 'Are you feeling better?'

Catherine's face when she turned to Alys was bleak with sorrow. The old hard lines had reappeared from the rosy plumpness of pregnancy.

‘I just saw you in the garden,' she said. 'Talking to the old lord.' Alys nodded, her face alert.

‘I have been a fool,' Catherine said suddenly. ‘I called your girl in here and asked her if you were with child and she curtsied to me and said, "Yes, my lady," as if it were a known fact, as if everyone knew!' Alys drew up a chair and sat down. 'Is it Hugo's?' Catherine asked fiercely. 'Is it Hugo's child? I must have been blind not to see it before. When you walked across the garden I could see how you thrust your belly forward. Are you with child, Alys? Hugo's child?' Alys nodded. 'Yes,' she said quietly. Catherine opened her mouth wide and began to cry soundlessly. Great drops of tears rolled down her sallow face. She cried shamelessly like a hurt child, her mouth gaping wide. Alys could see the white unhealthy furring on her tongue and the blackness of one bad tooth. Catherine snatched a breath and swallowed her grief. 'From when?' she asked.

'June,' Alys said precisely. ‘I will give birth in April. I am three months pregnant now.'

Catherine nodded, and kept nodding, like a little rocking doll. 'So it was all lies,' she said. She took a scrap of linen from her sleeve and mopped at her wet face, still nodding. 'You will not come with me to the farm, that was all lies. You will stay here and have Hugo's child and hope to rise higher and higher into his favour and into the favour of the old lord.' Alys said nothing.

Catherine gulped back sobs like a carp bubbling in the fish ponds. 'And while I thought that you would come to love me and that you were pledged to live with me you were scheming to have me sent away so that you and Hugo could romp together in public,' Catherine said, nodding wildly. 'You have shamed me, Alys. You have shamed me before the whole castle, before the whole town, before the country. I thought that you were my friend, that you would choose me instead of Hugo. But all this morning when I was talking with you and planning our life together you were playing with me. Scheming to have me sent away.'

Alys sat still as a rock. She felt the high flood-tide of Catherine's anger and grief wash around her but leave her dry.

'You have betrayed me,' Catherine said. 'You are a false friend. You are untrue.' She choked on another rich sob. 'You act the whore with Hugo and you are sweet as a daughter to the old lord,' she said. 'You play the false friend with me and you queen it among my women. There is no truth in you, Alys. Nowhere is there a scrap of honour or truth. You are meaningless, Alys, meaningless!'

Alys, her eyes on the round tower without windows, inclined her head. What Catherine said was probably true. 'Meaningless'. What would they be doing with Mother Hildebrande in there now? Alys rose to her feet. 'I am not well,' she said. 'I am going to my chamber to rest before supper.'

Catherine looked up at her pitifully, her sallow face wet with her tears. 'You say nothing to me?' she asked. 'You will leave me here as I am, grieved and angry? You do not defend yourself, you do not even try to explain your false faith? Your disloyalty? Your dishonour?'

Alys glanced towards the round tower once more as she turned to the door. 'Disloyalty?' Alys repeated. 'Dishonour?' She gave a shrill little laugh. 'This is nothing, Catherine! Nothing!'

'But you have lied to my face,' Catherine accused her. 'You promised to be my friend, promised to be my lover. I know you are false.'

Alys shrugged. ‘I am unwell,' she said flatly. 'I am too ill. You will have to bear your pain, Catherine. I cannot be responsible. It is too much for me.'

Catherine's face grew pale. 'Are you sick as I was?' she demanded. 'Is his child turning rotten inside you, as mine did? Is that all that Hugo can father? Candlewax?' Alys' dream of the maggot-filled roadside and then the little dolls hastening to Castleton, seeking their mother, rose very vividly in her mind. She blinked hard and shook her head to rid herself of the walking dolls. 'No,' she said. She put her hands on her belly as if to hold the baby safe. 'My baby is whole and well,' she said. 'Not like yours.'

That gesture – the simple gesture of pregnancy -broke Catherine's anger into grief. 'Alys! I forgive you! I forgive you everything! The deceit and the lies, the shame you have laid on me. Your infidelity with my husband! I forgive you if you will come with me. They will have me thrown out of the castle, I shall have to go. Come with me, Alys! We will look after your son together. He will be my child as well as yours. I will make him my heir! My heir, Alys. Heir to the manor that they will give me and my dowry which they will return. You will be rich with me. You will be safe with me and so will your son!'

For a moment Alys hesitated, weighing the odds, scanning her chances. Then she shook her head. 'No, Catherine,' she said coldly. 'You are finished. Here in the castle they are finished with you and will be rid of you. Hugo will never touch you again. The old lord will never see you. I was playing with your desires to get you to leave without making an uproar, and to do my lord a service in furthering his ends. I never meant to go with you. I never wanted your love.'

Catherine's hands were over her mouth. Her wide eyes stared at Alys over her spread fingers. 'You're cruel!' she said disbelievingly. 'Cruel! You came to my bed with Hugo, you held me in your arms this very morning! You nursed me in my sickness and kept my secret safe.'

Alys shrugged and opened the door. 'It meant nothing,' she said coldly. 'You mean nothing. You should have drowned in the river that day, Catherine. All the destinies are coming homeward like evil pigeons. She will burn, and you will drown. There is no escaping your fate, Catherine. There is no escape for her.'

Catherine looked around wildly. 'What d'you mean, Alys? What fate? And who will burn?'

Alys' face was sour and weary. 'Just go, Catherine,' she said. 'Your time is finished here. Just go.'

She closed the door on Catherine's wail of protest and went across the ladies' gallery. The other women had come in from the garden and were taking off their head-dresses and combing through their hair, complaining of the heat. Alys went through them all like a cold shadow.

'What ails my lady?' Ruth asked, as they heard Catherine's cries and saw Alys resentful face. 'Shall I go to her?'

Alys shrugged. 'She's to leave the castle,' she said succinctly. 'My lord has ordered it. She's to be set aside, the marriage annulled.'

There was a moment's silence and then an explosion of chatter. Alys threw her hands up to fend off the hysterical questions. 'Ask her yourself! Ask her yourself!' she said. 'But remember when you give her your service that she's soon to be a farmer on a little manor at the back end of nowhere. She's Lady Catherine no more.'

Alys smiled at the sudden stillness in the room. Each one of them was silent, fearful for their own future. Slowly, one after another, they looked to her.

'I will wash before supper,' Alys said composedly. 'Eliza, order a bath for me. Margery, order them to light a fire in my bedroom. Ruth, please mend my blue gown, I kicked out the hem the other day when I was walking upstairs. Mary -' she looked around. The girl was standing by the chamber door, her eyes cast down, the picture of the perfect maidservant. 'Lay out my linen, I will wear a fresh shift.'

Alys watched them move to do her bidding. Her women.

Behind her door Catherine wept as her room grew darker. When suppertime came no one called her, and no one brought her food. She lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow, and heard the noises of eating and drinking and laughter from the hall below. It grew darker, no one came to light her fire nor bring her candles. They left her in the cool evening air in darkness.

She heard the women come upstairs from the hall and heard their low-voiced chatter. She heard Alys' laughter, edgy and shrill. But no one came to her door. No one came to see if they could be of service to her.

The silence from Catherine's chamber put a blight on the gallery. No decision had been made but somehow the new positions had coalesced. Hugo did not ask after Catherine, the old lord had not spoken of her since the miscarriage. And now Catherine's own women, who had served her since she was a girl, looked away from her shut door and did not offer her service. It was as if she were gone to live far away over the moors already, thought Alys, or drowned and buried; and she laughed again.

'I heard an odd tale today,' Eliza said, pouring the night-time cup of ale.

Ruth glanced towards Lady Catherine's door as if she feared her still.

'Tell it!' Margery said. 'But not too frightening, I need to sleep tonight.'

'I stepped into Castleton market this morning and met a woman I know selling eggs,' Eliza said. 'She had walked the moorland road this morning from Bowes.'

Alys looked up from her cup and watched Eliza's face.

'Ahead of her in the dust in the road she saw the strangest thing,' Eliza said.

Ruth shuddered and crossed herself. 'I'll not hear talk of the devil,' she warned. 'I'll not hear it.'

'Hush,' the others said. 'Go to your chamber, Ruth, if you have not the stomach for the tale. What did she see in the dust, Eliza? Go on!'

'She saw little tracks,' Eliza said mysteriously. Alys felt herself grow cold. 'Tracks?' she asked.

Eliza nodded. 'Footprints. The marks of the heels of riding boots, and a pair of shoes. As if a woman and two men had been walking on the road.' Margery shrugged. 'So?' she asked. 'They were tiny,' Eliza said. 'Tiny little footprints, the size of mice feet, she said "Tiny."'

Mistress Allingham exclaimed, 'Fairy folk!' She clapped her hands. 'Did she wish? Did she wish on the little people's tracks?'

'She followed them!' Eliza said. 'Two tracks from boots and one track from shoes, like two men and a woman.'

The women shook their heads in amazement. Alys said nothing, she sipped her ale. It went down her throat as if it were ice.

'And the little woman's footprints were dirty,' Eliza said. 'Dirty with slime like a snail. Slug juice.'

Ruth crossed herself abruptly and rose up. 'I'll hear no more,' she said. 'Nonsense to frighten children!'

The rest of the women were fascinated. 'And so?' they asked. 'What then?'

'She bent down and poked the trail with a stick,' Eliza said. 'She would not touch it.'

They shook their heads. Touching slime from one of the fairy folk could bring all sorts of dangers.

'She said it was…' Eliza whispered. They all leaned closer. 'She said it was like candlewax!' Eliza said in triumph. She sat back on her stool and looked around at their faces. 'An odd story, isn't it?'

Alys drained her cup. She noticed her hands were steady. 'Where were these tiny tracks?' she asked carelessly. 'On the road, which road? Whereabouts were they?'

Eliza gave up her cup to Margery who put them away in the cupboard with the empty pitcher of ale. 'Just a mile above the bridge,' she said. 'From Bowes Moor heading into Castleton. And coming closer. A horrible story, is it not? But she swore by it.'

Alys shook her head. 'Tiny tracks!' she said derisively. 'Candlewax! I thought you were going to frighten us with a ghost six feet tall!'

Eliza bridled. 'But it is true…'

'I'm weary,' Alys interrupted. 'Fetch Mary for me, Eliza, I'll go to bed.'

Eliza glanced at the closed door to Catherine's room. 'Should I see if she is all right?' she asked Alys. The rest of the women waited for Alys' decision. Alys, thinking of the little dolls just a mile from her door this night smiled bleakly.

'It does not matter,' she said. She laughed, a high, sharp laugh while the women looked at each other in surprise. 'Nothing is going to matter after all!' she said. 'After all this trouble. Nothing matters at all!'