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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'About last night…' Margery interrupted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Did he?' Alys asked tersely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eleven

It was bitterly cold all February. The river froze into great long slabs of grey and white ice. When the ladies walked along the path beside the river they could see the water dashing along beneath the thick skin. Alys shuddered and drew as far back as the snowy banks would allow. In the second week a thick mist blew across the moors from the south-west and the women stayed indoors for one long winter day after another. It was dark when they woke, then pale and cloudy and brooding all day, then dark again at three in the afternoon. Sounds were muffled in the fog and from the window in the gallery you could not see the river below – from the old lord's room high in the round tower you could neither see nor hear the castle courtyard.

Alys spent all the time she could with the old lord in his little room in the tower. It was warm there and the lord and his steward David were quiet easy company. She wrote as she was bid, restrained condolences to the Princess Mary for the death of her mother, the Dowager Princess Catherine of Aragon, she read to the old lord from bawdy, unlikely Romances and listened to his anecdotes and memories of battles and jousting and of the time when he was young and strong and Hugo had not even been born.

The mood in the women's gallery above the great hall was ominous. Lady Catherine plunged from hysterical gaiety, when she commanded the women to play and sing and dance, into a deep sullen anxiety when she would sit at her loom without weaving and sigh. The women bickered among themselves with the fretful irritation of caged animals. And once or twice a week, like a water-wheel turning against its will, Lord Hugo would come to the women's chamber, bearing a jug of mead.