The Wise Woman

Six

As the days grew darker and colder in November Alys' work as the old lord's clerk increased. He grew more frail and tired quickly. When a messenger arrived with letters in English or Latin he would summon Alys to read them to him, he was too weary to puzzle them out himself. When young Lord Hugo came to tell him about judgements in the ward, or disputes over borders, or news from the wider world, from the Council of the North or from London itself, he would have Alys by him, sometimes taking notes of what the young lord was saying, sometimes standing behind his chair listening. Then when Hugo was gone, with a swirl of his dark red cape and a mischievous wink at Alys, the old lord would ask her to tell him, over again, what Hugo had said.

'He mumbles so!' he said.

The tension between the old lord and the young one was clear now to Alys. The young lord was the coming man: the soldiers were his, and the castle servants. He wanted to make the family greater in the outside world. He wanted to go to London and try for a place in the King's court. The King was a braggart and a fool -wide open to anyone who could advise him and amuse him. The young lord wanted a place at the table of the great. He had embraced the new religion. Father Stephen, another ambitious young man, was his friend. He spoke of building a new house, leaving the castle which had been his family's home since the first Hugo had come over with the conquering Normans and taken the lordship as his fee and built the castle to hold the land. Hugo wanted to trade, he wanted to lend money on interest. He wanted to pay wages in cash and throw peasants off their grubbing smallholdings and make the flocks of sheep bigger still on long, uninterrupted sheep-runs. He wanted to mine coal, he wanted to forge iron. He wanted the sun shining full upon him. He wanted risks.

Old Lord Hugh stood against him. The family had held the castle for generation after generation. They had built the single round tower with a wall and a moat around it. Little by little they had won or bought more land. Little by little they had made the castle bigger, adding the second round tower for soldiers, and then the hall with the gallery above, adding the outer wall and the outer moat to enclose the farm, a second well, stables and the great gatehouse for the soldiers. Quietly, almost stealthily, they had wed and plotted, inherited and even invaded to add to the lordship until the boundaries of their lands stretched across the Pennines to the east, and westward nearly to the sea. They kept their power and their wealth by keeping quiet – keeping their distance from the envy and the struggles around the throne.

Lord Hugh had been to London only half a dozen times in his life, he was the master of the loyal excuse. He had gone to Queen Anne's coronation, where a man was safer to be seen in support than absent, wearing sober clothes and standing at the back, the very picture of a provincial, loyal lord. He voted by proxy, he bribed and negotiated by letter. When summoned to court he pleaded ill health, dangerous unrest in his lands or, lately, old age; and at once sent the King a handsome present to please the errant royal favour. He knew from his kin at court who were the coming men and who were likely to fall. He had spies in the royal offices who reported to him the news he needed. He had debtors scattered across the country who owed him money and favours. A thousand men called him cousin and looked to him for favour and protection and paid him with information. He sat like a wily spider in a network of caution and fear. He represented the power of the King in the wild lands of the north, and took his place on the great Council of the North, but never more than once a year. He never showed the family wealth or their power too brightly, for fear of envious southerners' eyes. He followed the traditions of his father and his grandfather. They lived on their lands, riding all day and never leaving their own borders. They sat in their own courts. They handed down justice in their own favour. They announced the King's laws and they enforced those they preferred. They did very well as obscure tyrants.

Their greatest rivals were the Prince Bishops and the monasteries, and now the Bishops were fighting for their wealth and could be fighting for their lives. The old lord saw the good times opening slowly for his son, and for his son's unborn, not-yet-conceived heir, and his son after him. Hugo's grandson would be as rich in land as any lord in England, would command more men than most. He could throw his influence with Scotland, with England. He would own a little kingdom of his own. Who could guess how far the family might rise, if they waited and used their caution and their wisdom as they always had done?

But the young Lord Hugo did not want to wait for the great lands of monasteries to come his way in maybe five, ten years from now. He did not want to wait for the sheep to be shorn, the copyholders' fines to be slowly increased, the annual rents brought in. He wanted wealth and power at once. He had friends who owned wagons, one who had a fleet of barges, one who was mining coal and iron ore, another who spoke of ocean-going ships and prizes to be had from countries beyond Europe, beyond the known world. He spoke of trade, of business, of lending and borrowing money at new profitable rates. He never showed his impatience with his father, and Alys feared him more because of this single, uncharacteristic discretion.

'He wants to go to London,' she warned the old lord. 'I know,' he said. 'I am holding him back and he will not tolerate it forever.' Alys nodded.

'Have you heard more?' the old lord asked. 'Any plots, any plans? D'you think his impatience grows so strong that he would poison me, or lock me away?'

Alys' nostrils flared as if she could smell the danger in the question. 'I have heard nothing,' she said. 'I was only saying that the young lord is impatient to make his way in the world. I accuse him of nothing.'

'Tssk,' the old lord said impatiently. 'I need you to be ready to accuse him, Alys. You are in my daughter-in-law's chamber, you hear the gossip of the women. Catherine knows full well that if she does not conceive a child within the year I will find a way to be rid of her. Her best way would be to get rid of me before I make a move. Hugo is mad for the court and for London and I block his way south. Listen for me, Alys. Watch for me. You go everywhere, you can hear and see everything. You do not need to accuse Hugo or Catherine, either one or the other. You just have to tell me your suspicions- your slightest suspicions.' 'I have none,' Alys said firmly. 'Lady Catherine speaks of your death as an event in the future, nothing more. I have never heard her admit that she fears a divorce or an annulment. And Lord Hugo comes to her rooms only rarely, and I never see him outside your chamber.'

He was silent for a moment. 'You don't see Hugo outside my room?' he confirmed.

Alys shook her head.

'He does not waylay you?'

'No,' Alys replied.

It was true. Either Morach's tisane had worked, or the old lord had made his wishes plain. When Alys rode back to the castle from Morach's cottage, Hugo had shot her one unrepentant wink, but never ordered her to his chamber again. After that, she kept out of the young lord's way as much as she could, and kept her eyes on the ground when she had to walk past him. But one cold morning, in the guardroom below the old lord's private chamber, she was coming down the little staircase as Hugo waited to walk up.

'Always in a hurry, Alys,' Hugo said conversationally. He took her sleeve in a firm grip between two fingers. 'How is my father today?'

'He is well, my lord,' Alys said. She kept her eyes on the stone flags between his riding boots. 'He slept well, his cough has eased.'

'It's this damp weather,' Hugo said. 'You can feel the mist coming off the river, can't you, Alys? Doesn't it chill you to the bone?'

Alys shot a swift upward look at him. His dark face was bent down towards her, very close, as if she might whisper a reply.

'I have no complaint, my lord,' she said. 'And the spring will come soon.'

'Oh, not for months and months yet,' Hugo said. 'We have long days of darkness and cold yet to come.' He whispered the words 'darkness and cold' as if they were an invitation to the firelit warmth of his room. 'I do not feel the cold,' she said steadily. 'Do you dislike me?' Hugo asked abruptly. He dropped her sleeve and put both hands either side of her face, turning it up to him. 'You told my father that I had invited you and that you were unwilling. Do you dislike me, Alys?'

Alys stayed still and looked steadily at the silvery whiteness of the falling band of his collar, as if it could cool her.

'No, my lord,' she said politely. 'Of course not.' 'But you never came to my room,' he observed. 'And you told tales to my father. So he told me to keep my hands off you. Did you know that?'

He held Alys' face gently. She stole a quick look at his eyes; he was laughing at her. 'I did not know that.'

'So you do like me then?' he demanded. He could hardly hold back his laughter at the absurdity of the conversation. Alys could feel laughter bubbling up inside herself too.

'It is not my place, my lord, to either like you or dislike you,' Alys said primly. Under his fingers her cheeks were tingling.

Hugo stopped laughing, held her face still with one hand, and with a gentle fingertip traced a line from the outside of her eye, down her cheek-bone to the corner of her lip. Alys froze still, unmoving beneath his caress. He bent a little closer. Alys shut her eyes to blot out the image of Hugo's smiling intent face coming closer. He hesitated, a half, a quarter of an inch from Alys' lips.

'But I like you, Alys,' he said softly. 'And my father will not live forever. And I think you would feel the cold if you were back on Bowes Moor again.'

Alys stayed mute. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. His lips were very close to hers. She could not move away from his kiss, she could only wait, passive, her face turned up, her eyes slowly, drowsily closing. Then his hands left her face and he straightened up. Alys' eyes flew open; she stared at him in surprise.

'In your own time, Alys,' he said pleasantly, and he swung out of the room and ran up the curving stairs of the tower to his father's room.

No one had seen them, no one had heard them. But Lady Catherine knew.

When Alys was summoned to the ladies' chamber to sew, Lady Catherine waved her to a stool near her own chair, where she could watch Alys' face as the others talked.

'You're very quiet,' she said to Alys. Alys glanced up with her polite, deferential smile. 'I was listening, my lady,' she said.

'You never speak of your own kin,' Lady Catherine said. 'Do you have any family other than the mad old woman on the moor?'

'No,' Alys said. 'Except those at Penrith,' she corrected herself.

Lady Catherine nodded. 'And no sweetheart? No betrothed?' she asked idly. The other women were silent, listening to the interrogation.

Alys smiled but made a tiny movement of her shoulders, of her head, to signify her regret. 'No,' she said. 'Not now. Once I had a sweetheart,' she glanced to Mistress Allingham. 'You would know of him, Mistress Allingham. Tom the sheep farmer. But I had no portion and I went away to Penrith and he married another girl.'

'Perhaps we should dower you, and send you off to be wed!' Lady Catherine said lightly. 'It's a dull life for you here, where no man sees you and nothing ever happens. It's well enough for us – we're all married women or widows or betrothed – but a girl like you should be wed and bearing children.'

Alys sensed the trap opening up before her. 'You're very kind, my lady,' she said hesitantly.

'That's settled then!' Lady Catherine said brightly. Her voice was as gentle as a diamond scratching glass. 'I will ask my Lord Hugo to look among the soldiers for a good man for you, and I will give you a dowry myself.'

'I cannot marry,' Alys said suddenly. 'I cannot marry and keep my skills.'

'How is that?' Lady Catherine asked, opening her grey eyes very wide. 'You do not need to be a virgin to be a healer unless you deal in magic, surely?'

'I use no magic,' Alys said swiftly. 'I am just a herbalist. But I could not do my work if I belonged to a man. It is time-consuming and wearisome. My kinswoman lives alone.'

'But she's a widow,' Mistress Allingham interrupted, and was rewarded with a swift, small smile from Lady Catherine.

'So you can wed and still keep your arts,' Lady Catherine said triumphantly. 'You are shy, Alys, that is all. But I promise you we will find you a fine young husband who will care for you and use you gently.'

Eliza Herring and Margery tittered behind their hands. Ruth, who feared Lady Catherine more than they did, kept very silent and stitched faster, bending low over her work.

'You do not thank me?' Lady Catherine asked; her voice was clear and underneath it – like an underground river – was a current of absolute menace. 'You do not thank me for offering to dower you? And have you married to a good man?'

'Yes, I do indeed,' Alys said with her clear, honest smile. 'I thank you very much indeed, my lady.'

Lady Catherine turned the talk to the gossip of London. She had a letter from one of her distant family in the south which spoke of the King and his growing coldness towards the young Anne Boleyn, his new Queen, even though she was big with his child again. Alys, who blamed the King and the whore, his pretend Queen, for all her troubles, smiled an empty smile as she listened, and hoped that Lady Catherine had been merely amusing herself by tormenting her with promises of marriage.

'And the new Queen was nothing more than a maid-in-waiting in the old Queen's bedchamber when she took the King's fancy,' Eliza Herring said tactlessly. 'Think of that! Serving a queen one day and being a queen yourself the next!'

'And the one he looks to now, Lady Jane Seymour, has served them both!' Margery said. 'Served the old Queen – the false one I mean – and now Queen Anne,'

'A fine place to have at court, a lady-in-waiting,' Eliza said. 'Think how high you might rise!'

Lady Catherine nodded but her face was impassive. She looked at Alys as if to warn her. Alys ducked her head down and sewed.

'Those are London manners,' Catherine said with soft menace. 'And what is right and proper for the King is not always a course for his subjects.'

'Of course not!' Margery said, flustered. 'Besides, if Queen Anne has a son, he will cleave to her! No King would put aside a wife who gave him a son! It is only barren wives who get that treatment!'

Catherine's face went white with anger.

'I mean…' Margery stumbled.

'The King's marriage was annulled because Catherine of Aragon was his brother's wife,' Catherine said icily. 'That was the only reason for the annulment of the marriage, and you have all sworn an oath of allegiance recognizing the King's rightful heir and the truth of his marriage to Queen Anne.'

The women nodded, keeping their heads down.

'Any talk of divorce at the whim of the King is treason,' Catherine said firmly. 'There can be no divorce. The King's first marriage was invalid and against the law of God. There can be no comparison.'

'With what?' Eliza asked dangerously.

Catherine's grey eyes stared her down. 'There can be no comparison between your positions and the Queen's ladies,' she said with acid clarity. 'You are none of you high enough to wear scarlet, whatever borrowed clothes Alys may use. I hope that none of you would want to overset the natural order, the God-given order. Unless Alys hopes to see herself in purple? Married to a lord?'

The women laughed in a nervous, obedient chorus.

'Who did the gown belong to, Alys?' Catherine asked vindictively.

'I was told it belonged to a woman called Meg,' Alys said, clearing her throat and speaking low.

'And do you know who she was, Alys?' Catherine asked.

Alys lifted her head from her sewing. 'Lord Hugh's whore,' she said softly.

Catherine nodded. 'I think I would rather wear brown than flaunt borrowed colours,' she said. 'I would rather wear honest brown than the gown of a whore who died of the pox.' Alys gritted her teeth. 'Lord Hugh ordered me to wear this gown, I have no other.' She shot one look at Catherine. 'I hope I do not displease you, my lady. I do not dare disobey Lord Hugh.' Catherine nodded her head. 'Very well,' she said.

'Very well. But you had best borrow only the gown, Alys, and not the manners of the last owner.' Alys met Catherine's hard, suspicious gaze. 'I am a maid,' she said. 'Not a whore. And I shall stay that way.'

After that she kept even more carefully away from anywhere that she might meet the young lord. When he came to his father's room she sat in a corner, in the shadows. She put off the cherry-red gown which the old lord had given her, and asked if she might take a new one from the box. She chose a dark blue one, so dark that it was almost black, and wore it with a black stomacher tied as flat as a board across her belly. It was too large for her and came too high up under her chin, hiding the swell of her tight-pressed breasts. She rummaged in the box and found an old-fashioned gable hood in the style which had gone out with the old queen, the false Queen Catherine. Alys scraped back her growing curly hair into a black cap pinned tight. Then she pulled the gable hood on top of the cap and pinned it down. It was heavier than her wimple and hotter with her hair underneath, but it reminded Alys for a moment of the steady pressure of the wimple and the bindings around her face which she had worn for so long.

'You look like a nun,' the old lord said. And when he saw her swift guarded look at him he said, 'No, wench, you're safe enough. You look like a woman who is trying to be invisible. Who are you hiding from, Alys? Lady Catherine? Hugo?'

'The other gown was dirty,' Alys said evenly. 'I have sent it to be washed. And it is time I wore a hood.'

Lord Hugh raised his white eyebrows. 'You can have your pick of that chest of clothes,' he said. 'And tell David to show you the other chest. You might as well wear them as anyone else while you are here. When you leave they must stay.'

'Thank you,' Alys said quietly. 'Is it not an offence for me to wear scarlet, my lord? I thought only a wife of a landholder could wear red?'

Lord Hugh chuckled. 'I enforce the law of the land. The laws are what I say. And anyway, women don't matter.'

The castle was preparing for the feast of Christmas and the turkeys and geese gobbled innocently on extra feed. The old lord developed a cough which kept him awake at nights and made him tired and irritable during the day. Alys went out in the dawn frost to pick fresh herbs in the little garden outside the kitchen door and bumped into a man, wrapped thick in a cloak, coming in.

He put out a hand to steady her, gripped her arm. As soon as he touched her she knew it was Hugo.

'I gave you a fright.' His smile gleamed from the shadow of his hood. He swept her with him back into the warmth of the kitchen. Servants were sleeping on the floor before the fire and on the benches. Hugo kicked two or three with his booted foot and they staggered sleepily out of his way. He pulled up two stools and thrust Alys down by the glowing embers.

'You're frozen,' he said. He took her hand. Around her fingernails her fingers were blue with cold.

'I was picking herbs with the ice on them,' Alys said. 'Your father's cough is a little worse.'

Hugo took her cold hands and put them between his warm palms. As the feeling came back into her numb fingers Alys grimaced, pulled her hands away and shook them. Hugo laughed softly and leaned forward to recapture them. 'I've been out all night,' he said. His voice was low; no wakeful servant could hear them. 'Don't you want to know what I have been doing, Alys?'

Alys shook her head slightly and looked away from his intent face to the fire.

'I met some friends who think as I do,' he said. 'One of them is the son of landowners, a wealthy man though not noble. Another is the son of a trader. We're all young, we all want a share of the new world which is coming. We are all held back by our fathers.'

Alys made a little movement as if she would rise. Hugo tugged her back to the stool with a handful of her cape. 'Listen to me,' he said softly. 'See how I trust you.'

Alys turned her face away, Hugo kept his hold on her.

'One of my friends plans to set his father aside, have him declared insane and take his land and his wealth. His mother has agreed to support his claim, his wife too. A wicked way to treat your father, is it not, Alys?'

Alys said nothing. Hugo saw that her face was rosy from the warmth of the fire but around her dark blue eyes the skin was white. He knew she was afraid.

'I would not do that, Alys, unless I was tempted very badly,' he said. 'But my father stands in my light -d'you see it, Alys? If it were not for his order that I stay here I would be in London. If it were not for his schemes to keep Catherine's entailed lands I would be free of her. If it were not for his ambition to be hidden, his passion for peace, I would be at court, chancing my life and my wealth for tremendous prizes. Can you see how impatient I am, Alys?'

Alys' lips were pressed together. Hugo had hold of both her hands. If he had not held her fast she would have clapped them over her ears.

'Your chance will come, when God wills,' she said as he waited for her to reply. 'You will have to be patient, my lord.'

He leaned forward so his face was very close to hers. 'And if I am not patient?' he asked. 'If I am not patient and I found someone to assist me? If my father were ill and no one could heal him? If he died? If then I set my wife aside? If I were rid of my wife? Rid of my wife and looking for a woman that I could trust, to hold the castle for me while I was away. A woman who could read, who could write? A woman who would be mine, sworn to my interest, dependent on me? A woman who would be my ears and eyes. Like you watch and listen for my father?'

Alys could not move. His whisper was hypnotic, he was luring her into some trap which she could not foresee. 'I have to be free,' she said in a low voice of longing. 'Do I tempt you, Alys?' he asked softly. 'The wealth and the power?'

He saw her eyes darken slightly as if with desire. 'And pleasure,' he went on. 'Nights and long days of pleasure with me?'

Alys jerked backwards as if he had thrown cold water in her face. She pulled her hands free.

'I have to go,' she said abruptly.

He rose as she did and slid one hand around her waist, holding her close to him. His mouth came down towards her. Alys felt her head tip back, her lips open.

Then he released her and stepped back.

Alys staggered a little, off balance.

'Go now,' he said. His dark eyes were bright with mischief. 'You can go now, Alys. But you are learning who is your master, are you not? You cannot hide behind my father for much longer. I have had many wenches and I know the signs of it. You desire me already, though you hardly know it yet. You have taken the bait like a salmon in the spring flood. You may swim and swim but I shall land you at last. You will dream of me, Alys, you will long for me. And in the end, you will come to me and beg me to touch you.'

He smiled at her white face.

'And then I will be gentle to you,' he said. 'And I will make you all mine. And you will never be free again.'

Alys turned from him and stumbled towards the kitchen door.

'You're in very deep now,' he said softly to himself, as she pulled the door open and fled across the lobby to the great hall. 'You're in very deep, my Alys.'

For twelve nights Alys lay wakeful, waiting for the dawn light to come with winter slowness. For twelve days she moved in a dream through her work for the old lord, writing what he ordered without taking in any sense of the words. She picked herbs for him and brewed them or pounded them according to their potency. She sat in Lady Catherine's chamber and nodded and smiled when they called on her to speak.

For twelve days she waded through a river of darkness and confusion. She had never longed more for the quiet certainties of Mother Hildebrande. She had never missed those ordered easy days more acutely. For twelve days Alys wandered around the castle like a ghost and when she heard a door bang, and Hugo's merry whistle, she found she was trembling as if she had an ague.

She was by the castle gate when he rode in from hunting one day, his cap lost – blown away on the moor – his face bright. When he saw her he vaulted from the saddle and tossed the reins to one of the men.

'I have killed you a grand dinner, Alys!' he said joyfully. 'A wild boar. They will stuff it and bring its head in and lay it at your feet! And you shall eat rich meat and dark gravy and nibble on the honeyed crackling! My Alys!'

Alys fumbled for her basket. 'I am fasting,' she said breathlessly. 'It is Saint Andrew's day, my lord. I do not eat meat today.'

He laughed carelessly, as if none of it mattered at all. 'That nonsense!' he exclaimed. 'Alys, Alys, don't cling to the old dead ways that mean nothing to anyone any more! Eat fish when you want to! Eat meat when you are hungry! Don't let me ride out all day, and chasing a wild boar too, and then turn your face away from me and tell me you won't dine with me!'

Alys could feel her hands trembling. She held the basket tighter. 'You must excuse me,' she said. 'I…'

There was a shout from behind them as someone drove a cart through the narrow gateway. Hugo pressed forward, his hands either side of Alys' head. She shrank back against the wall and then felt him, deliberately, lean his warm body against her. Her stomacher was like armour, her gable hood like a helmet. But when Hugo pressed against her she felt the heat of his body through her clothes. She smelled the clean, fresh smell of his linen, the sharp tang of his sweat. His knee pressing against her legs, the brush of his thick padded codpiece against her thigh, was as intimate as if they were naked and alone together.

'Don't you long for a taste of it, Alys?' he asked, his voice very soft in her ear. 'Don't you dream what it would taste like? All these forbidden good things? Can't I teach you, can't I teach you, Alys, to break some rules? To break some rules and taste some pleasure, now, while you are young and desirable and hot?'

And Alys, in the shadow of the doorway, with the warmth of him all around her and the whisper of his male temptation in her ear, turned her face up towards him and closed her eyes and knew her desire.

As lightly as a flicker of candleflame he brushed his lips against her open mouth, raised his head and looked down into her tranced face with his smiling dark eyes.

'I sleep alone these nights,' he said softly. 'You know my room, in the round tower, above my father's chamber. Any night you please, Alys, leave my father, climb higher up the tower instead of running to be with those silly women. Climb higher up the tower and I will give you more than a kiss in a gateway, more than a taste. More than you can dream of.' Alys opened her eyes, hazy with desire. Hugo smiled at her. His wicked, careless smile. 'Shall you come tonight?' he asked. 'Shall I light a fire and warm the wine and wait for you?' 'Yes,' she said.

He nodded as if they had struck an agreeable bargain at last; then he was gone.

That night Alys ate the wild boar when they brought it to the women's table. Hugo glanced behind him and she saw his secret smile. She knew then that she was lost. That neither the herbs nor the old lord's warning to Hugo would stop him. And that no power of will could stop her. 'What's the matter with you, Alys?' Eliza asked with rough good nature. 'You're as white as a sheet, you haven't eaten your dinner for nigh on two weeks, you're awake every morning before anyone else and all day today you've been deaf.' 'I am sick,' Alys said, her voice sharp. Bitter. Eliza laughed. 'Better cure yourself then,' she said. 'Not much of a wise woman if you can't cure yourself!'

Alys nodded. 'I shall,' she said, as if she had come to a decision at last. 'I shall cure myself.'

On that night, when Alys felt her skin burn in the moonlight and she knew the moon would be lighting the path to Hugo's room through twenty silver arrow-slits, and that he would be lying naked in his bed, waiting and yet not waiting for her, she rose and went to Lady Catherine's gallery where there was a box of new wax candles. Alys took three, wrapped them in a cloth, tied the bundle tight and sealed the string. The next morning she sent it by one of the castle carters to Morach's cottage, telling him it was a Christmas gift for the old lady. She sent no message – there was no need.

On the eve of the Christmas feast one of the kitchen wenches climbed the stone steps to the round tower to tell Alys that there was an old woman asking for her at the market gate. Alys dipped a curtsey to the old lord and asked him if she might go and meet Morach.

'Aye,' he said. He was short of breath, it was one of his bad days. He was wrapped in a thick cloak by a blazing fire and yet he could feel no warmth. 'Come back quickly,' he said.

Alys threw her black cloak around her and slipped like a shadow down the stairs. The guardroom was empty except for one half-dozing soldier. Alys walked through the great hall past half a dozen men who were sprawled on the benches, sleeping off their dinner-time ale, through the servers' lobby to the kitchen.

The fires were burning, there was the smell of roasting meat and game hung too long. The floor had been swept after the midday meal and piles of bloodstained sawdust stood in the corner, waiting to be taken out. The cooks ate well after the hall had been served, the kitchen staff had emptied the jugs of wine and dozed now in corners. Only the kitchen boy, stripped down to his shorts, monotonously turning the handle of the spit roasting the meat for supper, stared at Alys as she walked through, her skirts lifted clear of the muck.

She walked out of the kitchen door and through the kitchen garden. The neat salad beds ran along one side of the path, the herbs were planted on the other, all edged with box-hedging. At the tower which guarded the inner ward the guards let her through with a ribald comment to her back, but they did not touch her. She was well known to be under the old lord's protection. She walked across the bridge which spanned the great ditch of stagnant murky water and then across the outer ward where the little farmyard slept in the pale afternoon sunshine and a blackbird sang loudly in one of the apple trees. There were hives and pigsties, hens roaming and pecking, a dozen goats and a couple of cows, one with a weaned calf. There were sheds for storing vegetables and hay, there was a barn. There were a number of tumbledown half-ruined farm buildings. Alys knew from her work for Lord Hugh that they would never be repaired. It was too costly to run a complete farm inside the castle walls. And anyway, in these days, there was no threat to the peace of the land. Scotland's army never came this far south and the moss troopers threatened travellers on lonely roads, not secure farms, not the great Lord Hugh himself.

Alys walked through the farmyard area towards the great gate where the portcullis hung like a threat and the drawbridge spanned the dark waters of the outer moat. The gate was shut but there was a little door cut into the massive timbers. There were only two soldiers on duty, but an officer watched them from the open door of the guardroom. The country might be at peace but the young lord was never careless of the safety of the castle, and the soldiers were expected to give him value for money. One of the guards swung the door open for Alys and she bent her head and stepped out into a sudden blaze of winter sunshine. As the shadow of the castle lifted from her, Alys felt free.

Morach was waiting for her, dirtier and more stooped than ever. She looked even smaller against the might of the castle than at her own fireside.

'I brought them,' she said, without a word of greeting. 'What made you change your mind?'

Alys slipped her hand through Morach's arm and walked her away from the castle. The market stalls were set out along the main street of the town, selling fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs and the great pale cheeses from the Cotherstone dairies. Half a dozen travelling pedlars had set out their stalls with fancy goods, ribbons, even pewterware for sale, and they shouted to passers-by to buy a Christmas fairing for their sweethearts, for their wives. Alys saw David walking among the produce stalls, pointing and claiming the very best of the goods and nodding to a servant behind him to pay cash. He bought very little. He preferred to order goods direct from the farms inside the manors which belonged to the castle. Those farmers could not set their own prices, and anything the lord required could be ordered as part of the lord's dues.

She drew Morach away, past the stalls and the chattering women, down the hill, and they sat on a drystone wall which marked the edge of someone's pasture and looked down the valley to the river which foamed over the rocks at the foot of the castle cliff.

'You're getting prettier,' Morach said, without approval. She patted Alys' face with one dirty hand. 'You don't suit black,' she said. 'But that hood makes you look like a woman, not a child.' Alys nodded.

'And you're clean,' Morach said. 'You look like a lady. You're plumper around the face, you look well.' She leaned back to complete her inspection. 'Your breasts are getting bigger and your face finer. New gown.'

Alys nodded again.

'Too pretty,' Morach said shrewdly. 'Too pretty to disappear, even in a navy gown and a gable hood the size of a house. Has the tisane worn off? Or is it that your looks fetch him despite it?'

'I don't know,' Alys said. 'I think he speaks to me for mere devilry. He knew I did not want him and he knows his wife watches me like a barn owl watches a mouse. He is playing with me for his sport. He takes his lust elsewhere. But the devil in him makes him play with me.'

Morach shrugged. 'There's nothing you can take to stop that,' she said. 'Lust you can sometimes divert, but not cruelty or play!' She shrugged. 'He'll take his sport where he wishes,' she concluded. 'You will have to suffer it.'

'It's not just him,' Alys said. 'That icy shrew his wife says she'll give me a dowry and have me wed. I thought it was just a warning to stay clear of her damned husband, but one of her women, Eliza, is wife to a soldier and she said that Lady Catherine has told one of the officers that she's looking for a husband for me.'

'It can't be done unless the old lord consents,' Morach said, thinking aloud.

'No,' Alys agreed. 'But if the soldier is told that we are as good as betrothed, and Lady Catherine pays over a dowry, and then sees that we are alone together…'

Morach nodded. 'Then you're raped, and maybe pregnant or poxed, and you've lost the game,' she concluded with a grim smile. 'No return to an abbey for you with a belly on you or pox-scabs on your pretty face.'

'There's worse,' Alys said miserably. 'He talks to me of his plans and his ambitions, he tempts me to join his cause. He is seducing me while I watch him.' 'For desire?' Morach asked.

'I don't know!' Alys burst out. 'For desire or devilry, or worse.' 'Worse?'

Alys leaned forward and spoke in Morach's ear. 'What if he wants me in his power to suborn me against the old lord?' she whispered. 'What if he wants me to spy on the old lord, to copy his letters? What if he takes me as a pawn in his game to play against the old lord?'

Morach shrugged. 'Can't you tell him "no"?' she asked.

'Tell the old lord what he's doing and claim his protection?'

Alys met Morach's look with a fierce glare. Morach scanned her pale, strained face, and her eyes which were filled with a new expression, a kind of hunger.

'Why, he has caught you and you are ready to own it at last!' she said with sudden insight. She burst into a cackle of laughter. 'You're hot for him! My little nun! You're dragging yourself into hell with desire for him! Your Lady couldn't protect you from the heat between your legs then! Your God has no cure for that after all!' Alys nodded grimly. 'I desire him,' she said bitterly. 'I know I do now. I feared that I would when I came to you for the herbs. But I thought if I could keep the thought away then I could keep myself safe. Then I thought I was sick of some illness, I was burning up with heat, I could not sleep, I could not eat. When I see him I feel as if I shall faint. If I do not see him I feel sick to my very soul with longing for him. I am trapped, Morach. Damn him – he has caught me.'

Morach whistled softly as if she would summon a storm. 'Have him then,' she said simply. 'It should cure your heat. That's what they always say. Take him like you would take a bottle of wine, drink yourself sick of him and then never touch him again. I can show you a way to have him and not get with child. Have him and satisfy your hunger. Why not?'

'Because I am a bride of Christ,' Alys said through her teeth. 'I cannot taste him and gamble that once or twice or even a hundred times will be enough. I am a nun. I should not even be in the world and this is the reason. I should not be able to look on a man. And now I have looked, and seen him, and I want him more than my life itself. But I am still the bride of Christ and Hugo must leave me alone. You forget very easily, Morach. You forget my vows. But I do not!'

Morach shrugged, unrepentant. 'Then what will you do?'

'I dare not trust him, and I fear the jealousy of his wife,' Alys said. 'I have to find a way to have some power in this net they all weave. I am ensnared every way I turn and they play with me – each one of them -as if I were a village simpleton.' Morach nodded.

'They use me,' Alys went on in a low, resentful undertone. 'The old lord has me as his only friend and real ally. He tells me he owns me outright, he has me trapped, afraid of a charge of heresy, afraid of being exposed as a nun. The young lord wants to ensnare me as a pawn against his father, or else he desires me, or he wants to play for the cruelty of it. And Lady Catherine will throw me to a rapist to punish me for taking the old lord's trust and the young lord's eye. I must have some power in this, Morach. I am like an unweaned babe among wolves.'

Morach nodded. 'You need woman's power, as I did,' she said. 'Your Christ will not keep you safe. Not now. Not against real danger and the lusts of men. You need another power. The old power. The power of the old goddess.'

Alys nodded. 'I've no choice,' she said. The cold air around her seemed very still and silent. 'I've no choice,' she said again. 'I have been driven so far and now I am at bay. I have to use what power I can. Give me the things.'

Morach glanced around; the meadow was deserted, the noise of the market was behind them. No one was watching. She unwrapped the cloth bundle and Alys gasped at what she saw. They were three perfect models, three convincing likenesses, as good as the statues in the chapel. Lady Catherine's flowing gown and her cold sharp face were carved out of the wax as precise and white as a cameo.

Her gown was opened at the front, her legs spread. Morach had scratched the wax at her vagina to give the illusion of hair and the vagina was a deep, disproportionate hole made with a warm bodkin.

'They fit!' Morach said with a harsh giggle. She showed Alys the model of the young Lord Hugo. She had graven his face in his hard look – the one Alys and all the castle dreaded. But around his eyes there was the tracery of lines from his ready smile. Morach had modelled him a penis as big as a codpiece. 'He must wish to be that size!' she sniggered.

She took the two candlewax dolls and showed Alys how they slotted together. 'That'll turn his lust towards her,' she said with satisfaction. 'You'll be safe when he is like this.'

The last doll was the old lord. 'He's thinner than that now,' Alys said sadly. 'Thinner and older looking.'

'I've not seen him for a long time,' Morach said. 'You can shape him how you wish – use a warm knife for carving, and your fingers. But take care.'

Alys looked at the three little statues with distaste. She uncoupled Lord Hugo and Lady Catherine and wrapped them up again. 'What care?' she asked.

'Once you've made them your own, claimed them as models for the life, then whatever you do to them takes place,' Morach said softly. 'If you want the old lord's heart to soften, you cut into his chest, carve out a little piece of wax, mould it into a heart, warm it till it melts, and drip it back into the hole. Next morning he'll be tender as a woman with a new baby.'

Alys' dark eyes widened. 'Is that true for all of them?' she asked. 'I could make Lady Catherine sick by pinching her belly? Or make the young lord impotent by softening his prick?'

'Yes,' Morach gleamed. 'It's a powerful piece of business, isn't it? But you have to make them your own, and you have to make them represent those you mean to change. And – as I warned you – they can obey you too well. They can… misunderstand.'

There was a silence in the winter meadow. Alys met Morach's eyes. 'I have to do it,' she said. 'I have no safety without some power.'

Morach nodded. 'This is the spell,' she said. She put her mouth to Alys' ear and chanted over some nonsense words, part Latin, part Greek, part French, and partly mispronounced and misheard English. She said it over and over again until Alys nodded and said she knew it by heart.

'And you must take something from each of them,' she said. 'Something which is close to them, a bit of hair, a bit of fingernail, a paring of skin, and stick it on the part of the doll where it came from. Little fingernail to little finger, hair to the head, skin to where it was cut. Then you have your doll and your power.' Alys nodded. 'Have you done it before?' she asked. 'No,' Morach said decidedly. 'There wasn't the urgency. I've had women ask me to soften their husband's heart but it's easier done with herbs in his dinner than a wax candle. I've had someone wish a man dead, but I'd never do it. The risk is too great. I always thought the risk was too great to make one of these.' 'Why've you done it now?' Alys asked directly. Morach looked into her smooth young face and said, 'You don't know, do you? All your learning and all your planning, and you still are ignorant.'

Alys hunched her shoulder. 'I don't know what you're saying.' Morach put her dirty hand over Alys' clean one. 'I did it for you,' she said gruffly. 'I did it to give you a chance, to help you gain what you want, and to save you from rape by a soldier or by the young lord or by both. I don't care for your dream of a nunnery but I do care for you. I raised you as my own daughter. I wouldn't see you on your back under a man who cares nothing for you.'

Alys looked into the sharp old face. 'Thank you,' she said simply. She looked carefully into Morach's dark eyes. 'Thank you,' she said again.

'And if it goes against you,' Morach said challengingly, 'if it's found, or if they know they've been hexed, I want my name out of it. You tell them you carved this yourself, it was your own idea. That is the condition. I've made them but I won't take the danger of them. You tell them they are your own if you are ever caught. I want to die in my bed.'

The moment of tenderness between the two women was dispelled at once.

'I promise,' Alys said. She caught the look of suspicion on Morach's face. 'I promise,' she said again. 'I will make you a solemn oath. If anyone finds these I will tell them they are my own, made by me and used by me.'

'Swear on your honour, on your old abbess, and on your God,' Morach said insistently. Alys hesitated.

'Swear you will say they are yours,' Morach demanded. 'Swear it or I'll take them back!'

Alys shook her head. 'If anyone finds them I am lost anyway,' she said. 'Owning them would be enough to see me hanged.'

Morach nodded. 'Throw them in the moat on your way home if you've changed your mind,' she said. 'If you need magic there's a price to pay. There's a price for everything. The price for this is your oath. Swear by your God.'

Alys looked at Morach with desperation in her face. 'Don't you see?' she demanded. 'Don't you know? I can have no God! My Lord Christ and Our Lady have turned their faces away from me. I ran from them when I left the convent and I hoped to take them with me. But all my efforts cannot keep them by my side. I kept the hours of prayer while I lived with you, Morach – as far as I could guess the right time. But in the castle they are near to being Protestants, heretics, and I cannot. And so Our Lady has abandoned me. And that is why I feel lust for the young lord, and why I now put my hand to your black arts.' 'Lost your God?' Morach asked with interest. Alys nodded. 'So I cannot swear by Him. I am far from His grace.' She gave a harsh laugh. 'I might as well swear by yours,' she said.

Morach nodded briskly. 'Do it,' she said. 'Put your hand on mine and say, "I swear by the Black Master, by all his servants, and in the power of all his arts, that I will own these dolls as my own. I wanted them, I have them, I acknowledge them."'

Alys shrugged and laughed her bitter laugh again -half crying. She put her slim white hand on Morach's and repeated the oath.

When she had finished, Morach captured her hand, and held it. 'Now you are his,' she said slowly. 'You've summoned him now. You must learn the skills, Alys, you must know your master.'

Alys gave a little shiver in the bright wintry sunlight. 'I am his until I can get back to my abbey,' she said. 'I will loan him my soul. I am damned until I can get back to an abbey anyway.'

Morach gave a harsh laugh and struggled to her feet. 'Good Christmas,' she said. 'I'm away to collect my Christmas goods from my neighbours. They should be generous this year, the plague has stayed away from Bowes, and the vomiting sickness has passed on.'

'Good Christmas,' Alys replied and reached in her pocket. 'Here,' she said, offering a silver threepenny piece. 'My lord gave me a handful of coins for fairings. Have this, Morach, and buy yourself a bottle of mead.'

Morach pushed the coin away. 'I'll take nothing from you today but your oath,' she said. 'Nothing but your solemn oath that if they find the dolls you claim them as your own work.'

'I promise!' Alys said impatiently. 'I've promised already. I've promised by the devil himself!'

Morach nodded. 'That's binding then,' she said. Then she pulled her shawl over her head again and turned back towards the town.