The Wise Woman

Eight

Lord Hugh was sitting at the fireside in his little stonewalled room when Lady Catherine stormed in, without knocking. He lifted his gaze from the fire as he saw her and raised one eyebrow.

'I sent for the maid,' he said. 'I asked for Alys.' 'She can be your clerk no more,' Catherine said. She spoke softly but her voice trembled with an undertone of passion. 'I have to speak to you, my lord, I have to demand that you find her and bring her to trial.'

'What's she done?' Lord Hugh said wearily. 'Run off? Is something missing from your chamber?'

'Worse than that!' she hissed. 'A thousand times worse than that.'

She waited to see if the old lord seemed impressed. He held his peace.

'My lord, I accuse her of the worst crime of all,' she said. She was panting in her eagerness to ruin Alys. 'I accuse her of a crime worse than murder itself.'

'What's she done?' he asked again.

'She is a witch,' she said.

There was a stunned silence in the hot little room.

'I don't believe it,' he said blankly. But Catherine was on to his momentary hesitation like a striking adder.

'You suspect her yourself!' she said triumphantly. 'You've been closer to her than anyone! And you suspect her yourself!'

'I do not,' the old lord said; but his tone was uncertain.

'Well, I accuse her!' Catherine's voice rang out. 'I accuse her of witchcraft. She has bewitched the Lord Hugo. He has just abused me to my face and said that he will not rest until he has her. That is witchcraft at work, my lord, and your son is the prey.'

A little colour came back into the old lord's face. 'Faith, Catherine!' he said easily. 'I had thought we were speaking of the black arts! You've seen Hugo hot for a wench before now. It'll pass.'

He put a hand out to her and smiled at her with an effort. 'Come,' he said kindly. 'It galls you, I know, but she's just one of Hugo's flirts. There's naught there to cry witchcraft over except the magic a young girl weaves when she's hot. It's no more than that.'

Catherine's face was white with malice. 'No, my lord,' she said venomously. 'You misunderstand me. Lord Hugo tells me that he could have had her and he did not. He has forsworn taking her without her consent. He tells me she cast a spell so that he could see a future with her as his woman. He says that he will throw away my dowry lands, aye, and the whole castle, to have her and the son he believes she will conceive. That is witchcraft, my lord, not courtship.'

The old lord shifted uneasily. 'I'll see Hugo,' he said. He reached out to the table beside him and rang a small silver bell. A servant came running and was ordered to find the young lord. Lord Hugh looked at Catherine.

'You may leave,' he said.

'No,' she said.

She met his astounded look without fear. 'I will stay,' she said. Her yellow teeth were bared in open malice. 'I say he is bewitched, I say you are half bewitched too. It needs a woman with a clear head here. It needs the witch-taker. I dare not trust your judgement, my lord, for your own safety I dare not trust it.'

The old lord's eyes flared at her. 'You can stay, but you must be silent.'

'Call Eliza Herring also,' Lady Catherine suggested. 'She went with my lord and the witch when he carried her from the hall. She will know what passed between them.' The old lord nodded.

'And your chaplain,' she urged. 'Father Stephen. He is a holy man, and a true servant of yours. I ask for nothing more than my safety and your safety and the safety of Lord Hugo. If she is a witch as I think then she should be taken, my lord. Taken and tested and strangled.'

'This is nonsense…' the old lord started. 'Wind and women's malice… When Hugo comes he will explain all.' He gathered his strength. 'And you will say nothing,' he ordered. 'You will hold your tongue. I permit you to stay but if you speak I will have you thrown from my chamber. I can do that, Madam, remember it.' 'I'll be silent,' she promised readily. 'But ask him one thing before you release him and before you believe the lies he will tell for her.' 'What?' he grunted.

'Ask him how you are to die,' Catherine said, her voice strong with spite. 'The witch foretold your death as well as her triumph over me. She said you will die next year.' Lord Hugh gasped.

'Who should know better?' Catherine asked silkily. 'She gives you your medicine, she handles your herbs. She is by your side when you are ill. If she did not hex you outright she could poison you. And now she has promised him your death.'

Lord Hugh shook his head. 'She is my vassal,' he said, half to himself. 'She is my little maid.'

'But what if she were suborned?' Catherine said quickly. 'What an enemy she would make against you! Think where you have put her, my lord! You have raised her as high as David, your confidant! She knows all your secrets, she nurses you. If she were turned against you by ambition, or lust…' The door opened and Hugo came in. Catherine whirled around at the sight of him and fled behind the old lord's chair. With her hand resting on the high back of the chair and her eyes fixed on her husband's face it looked as if the two of them were united against him.

The young lord took in the scene in one rapid glance and beamed in mockery at the sight of his wife's white face.

'Why, Catherine, we meet again,' he said pleasantly. Then he took two swift strides forward and knelt before his father. 'My liege,' he said. 'I'm told you sent for me. I hope I have not kept you waiting?'

The old lord put out his hand and rested it for a moment on his son's dark curly head. Catherine's sharp eyes saw he trembled slightly.

'The Lady Catherine has brought me some troubling news,' he said softly. 'And she has named Alys, my clerk, as a witch. She says you are bewitched, Hugo.'

Hugo got to his feet and shot Catherine a merry glance. 'I think there is no witchcraft here but the magic of a maid,' he said. 'You should not have troubled my father with a quarrel between us, Catherine. It would go ill for you if I ran to him every time I have a complaint against you.'

She took a breath at the warning tone in his voice, but the old lord silenced her with a gesture.

it's no jesting matter,' he said flatly. 'Catherine says that Alys promised to conceive your son and that I will die. Is this true?'

Hugo hesitated. 'She did not know what she was saying…'

'Was she in a trance?' The old lord leaned forward, his face grave.

'No.' Hugo hesitated. 'The maid was drunk, or half asleep. It was the wine talking.'

'Witches can use wine to give them the Sight,' the old lord warned. 'Did she know you?'

Hugo hesitated, remembered Alys' confident chuckle and the warmth of her voice as she said 'none better'.

'I don't know,' he said. His mind was racing to see a safe way out for Alys. 'I don't know, Sir. I spoke with her very little.'

'When was this?' the old lord asked. Catherine, restrained by her promise to be silent, leaned forward as if she would suck the words from her husband's mouth. 'Yesterday, after the Twelfth Night supper,' Hugo said unwillingly. 'When I took her to her room – at your command, my lord, you remember. She was drunk.'

Catherine nodded. The old lord shot a look at her over his shoulder. 'Stand a little further off, Catherine,' he said. 'And remember your promise to hold your tongue.'

Hugo's eyes narrowed. 'My Lady Catherine has perhaps mistaken some words I said to her in the heat of a quarrel,' he said to his father. 'It would ill become me to tell you what she said, or did in the darkness of the stairway. Let it suffice that she struck me, and abused me, and angered me and I was perhaps too harsh with her. She begged me to take her like a whore on the stairs and I was offended to see my lady – and your daughter-in-law – hold herself so cheap.' There was a little gasp of horror from Catherine at Hugo's calculated betrayal. 'There is more, Sir, and it is worse,' Hugo said pointedly. 'But I will not weary you with it. I am prepared to ask her forgiveness, and let this quarrel end here.'

The old lord cocked an eyebrow at Catherine. 'Is this all there is?' he asked. 'If Hugo begs your pardon, and makes amends to you as a husband,' he stressed the word 'amends' and the heat of Catherine's constant desire rose up in her sallow cheeks, 'then is the quarrel ended, and Alys can work for me. She need not serve as a lady in your rooms if you have taken against her, Catherine. And Hugo need not see her.'

'No,' Lady Catherine said with an effort. 'Not until Father Stephen has heard this, my lord. And not until we have heard from Eliza.'

At the old lord's frown she leaned forward. 'Lord Hugo says it is naught but a quarrel – but that is the witchcraft speaking,' she said urgently. 'Of course he would try to protect her! We have to inquire further, not just to protect him, but to protect you, my lord. It was your death she foretold.'

The old man crossed himself. 'Send for Eliza,' he said to his son. 'And send for the priest.'

Hugo shrugged as if the trouble were hardly worth it and then he opened the door of his father's room and shouted 'Holloa!' down the stone steps to the guardroom. One of the lads came running. 'Fetch Eliza Herring and Father Stephen,' he said.

The three of them waited in awkward silence until the tire-woman and the priest came in. Lord Hugh scowled impartially at them both.

'I have called you, priest, to listen to a discourse,' he said. 'It seems we have need of your wisdom.'

Father Stephen nodded solemnly, his dark, intense glance taking in Catherine's high colour, and Hugo's concealed rage. Eliza shrank back as near to the door as she could, in a white-faced trance of guilt.

'It's all right, Eliza,' the old lord said kindly. 'No one is accusing you of anything.'

She was trembling so much she could hardly speak. Her black eyes shot from the young lord to her stony mistress.

'All we need is for you to tell the truth,' the old lord said gently. 'Whatever you tell us – whatever it is, Eliza – you are under my protection. You can tell the truth.'

'Put her on oath,' Lady Catherine said, trying to speak without opening her mouth.

The old lord nodded and Hugo shot a look at his wife, measuring her courage that she dared speak when she had been ordered to silence.

'On oath then,' the old lord said. He nodded to the priest who stepped forward to the table by the little window and brought a bible forward.

'Do you promise on the Holy Book, on the sacred life of Jesus Christ and His holy Mother and God the Father to tell the truth?' he asked Eliza. 'Remember that the power of the devil is very strong in these disturbed times. You have to be on the side of God or surrender yourself to hell. Will you tell the truth?' 'Amen,' Eliza muttered. 'I promise. Oh God!' 'Tell us what took place when Lord Hugo carried Alys from the hall last night,' the old lord said. 'And tell us everything. And remember you will roast in hell if you lie.'

Eliza crossed herself and shot a quick scared glance at Hugo. He was watching her impassively. She shuddered in her fright. 'The young lord told me to go with the two of them,' she started. Then she stopped like a sweating filly on a twitch.

'Go on,' the old lord said crossly. 'You're on oath to speak!'

'He told me to wait outside the door of our chamber, to keep watch,' she said. Her eyes were fixed on the old lord.

He nodded impatiently. 'And he took her in and had her? Go on, wench, you will surprise no one here!'

Eliza moistened her lips. 'No,' she said. 'I crept after them, to watch. I was curious. Alys spoke so much of her virginity – of her dislike of men. I was curious to see her with my lord.'

She broke off, shooting a quick look at Lady Catherine's marble face.

'Go on,' the old lord said grimly. 'He tossed her down on her pallet and stripped her down to her shift,' Eliza said. 'He pulled his breeches down and he went on top of her.'

Lady Catherine hissed like a snake. The old lord put a hand out to silence her.

Eliza looked quickly from Catherine's suppressed anger to the young lord's threatening black smile. 'I dare not speak!' she burst out. The old lord leaned forward and snatched her arm, dragged her to her knees before him. 'I am the master here,' he said. 'Even now in my dotage. I command here still. And I order you to speak and I promise you my protection – whatever you say. Now tell me, wench – what happened when he lay on her?'

'She hexed him!' Eliza said with a little moan. 'I heard her chuckle and she said a spell or something – I couldn't catch it – and then she turned her back to him and fell asleep.'

'He didn't have her?' the old lord asked incredulously. 'Didn't have her when he had stripped her and lain on her?'

Eliza shook her head. 'It was her doing,' she said. 'She reached back to him, and took his hand and wrapped his arm around her, and she put his hand on her…' she broke off. 'On her cunt?' the old lord asked frankly. Eliza nodded, gulped. 'Then what?' he asked.

'He asked her if she knew him, and what year it was, and how old she was,' Eliza said in a little rush, her eyes fixed on the old lord. 'I couldn't hear it all,' she said. 'She spoke very low.'

'Did you hear anything at all?' the old lord asked. 'The truth now, wench!'

She nodded. 'I think she said she was eighteen,' she said. 'I think she said it was 1538.'

Catherine let out her held breath in a long, satisfied sigh. The old lord looked towards his son. 'Did she foretell my death?' he asked. Hugo nodded. 'Yes, father,' he said honestly. 'And this other stuff – her conceiving your son. She said all this?' Hugo shrugged. 'Aye,' he said. The old lord shrugged. 'Did she say how I'd die?' he asked.

Hugo shook his head. 'I didn't ask. She was talking like one half asleep. I was too surprised to question her and…' He broke off. 'And?' the old lord asked.

'I felt very tender towards her,' Hugo said awkwardly. 'I've never felt like that with a woman before, not even a favourite whore. I felt as if I wanted her to sleep. I felt as if I wanted to guard her rest.'

The old lord barked a short laugh. 'That's not witchcraft – that is love,' he said briefly. 'I thought you'd never fall for it, Hugo. You're on a merry road now!'

For a moment the two men grinned at each other, warm with fellow-feeling.

'And for a little drab from the moor,' Hugo said wonderingly.

His father chuckled. 'You can never tell,' he said softly. 'And you'll fall hard, Hugo. I wager you do! She'll lead you a dance, that girl!'

'Never mind that!' Lady Catherine hissed. 'There is witchcraft here! What of her naming the year as 1538? What of her calling herself eighteen? How old is she now? Sixteen! And it's 1536! And what of your death? And what of me? She is in league with the devil, she is foretelling our ends – and in only two years unless she is stopped now!'

The old lord nodded. 'What d'you think?' he asked the priest.

The man's face was brooding. 'I know not what to think,' he said. 'It looks very bad. I should want to think and pray for guidance. God will send us a sign to protect us from these terrors within our walls.'

Lady Catherine leaned forward, her eyes glittering in the candlelight. 'Your own lord is threatened with death in a year's time and you know not what to think?' she asked. The priest stared back at her, unafraid. 'There is malice in the witness against her,' he said levelly. 'Maybe this wench dislikes her, you certainly have reason to hate her, my lady. If she is accursed then it will show in her speech and behaviour. I think we should see her and judge her on her behaviour when she is accused.'

'And let her enchant you all!' Catherine cried out. 'Be still, Madam,' the old lord rumbled. He nodded to Hugo. 'Call for Alys,' he said. 'We'd better have her here.'

The priest looked briefly at Catherine and seated himself at the table in the window. 'She will not enchant me,' he said briefly. 'I have ordered many witches to their deaths. I have watched many women take ordeals where strong men have turned aside sickened. I am merciless in the work of God, Lady Catherine. If she is on the side of the devil then she should surely fear me.'

Hugo strolled to the door, shouted for a servant again and ordered him to seek Alys. 'I believe in none of this,' he said conversationally. 'No magic, no witches, no spells. I believe in the world I can see and touch. All the rest is fairy-tales to frighten little girls.'

Father Stephen exchanged a glance with him. 'I know you like to think so, Hugo,' he said with affection. 'But you go dangerously close to heresy yourself if you deny the fallen angel and the battle against sin.' Hugo shrugged.

A silence fell for a few moments. Eliza edged nearer to the door.

'May I speak?' Catherine asked. The old lord nodded.

'I may have been hasty,' Catherine said, her voice level. The old lord bent a piercing look on her face. 'I was angry with my husband and angry with the wench. I may have been hasty in my accusations.' They waited. Hugo eyed her with open suspicion. 'As you say, my lord, Hugo is not necessarily bewitched. He could be in the grip of desire and tenderness.' Her voice did not shake with her jealousy, she held herself in iron control. 'I may feel affronted as his wife, but as the lady of the castle, as your ward, it does not concern me,' she said.

The old lord nodded. 'And so?' he asked drily. 'Only one thing in all of this is left to worry me,' she said.

The old lord waited.

'Your safety, Sire,' she said. 'If the girl wishes your death then she is well placed to harm you. And if she is a witch then we are all in danger. We have to know if she has black arts before we can judge whether or no to send her away. If she has powers then we cannot treat her like a naughty servant. She would do us all grave ill. We have to know. For our own safety.'

The priest nodded. The old lord glanced at him. 'What do you suggest, Lady Catherine?' he asked.

Catherine took a breath. She did not look at her husband. 'An ordeal,' she said. 'A test for her. To see if she is a witch or no.'

Hugo flinched involuntarily. 'I like not these ordeals,' he said. A glance from his father silenced him. 'Priest?' the old lord asked.

'I think so, my lord.' Father Stephen nodded. 'We have to know if her healing gifts are godly or not. And Lady Catherine is right to think that she can neither be sent away nor kept here while we are all in ignorance. Perhaps a gentle ordeal? Eating sanctified bread?'

A look of disappointment crossed Catherine's face, swiftly hidden.

'Did you hope to swim her, Catherine?' the young lord asked maliciously. 'Or set her in a burning haystack?'

'None of that! None of that!' the old lord said impatiently. 'She may well be a good girl and an honest servant with naught against her but your desires, Hugo, and her own special gifts. We'll do what the priest says. She'll take sanctified bread on oath and if it chokes her then we'll know what to do.'

Eliza's eyes were as round as saucers. 'Shall I go?' she asked.

'Stay!' the old lord said irritably. 'Where is the wench?'