Alys shrugged. 'I was an ordinary maid,' she said. 'You asked me to put aside my power for love of you -and so I did. But then you found – did you not? – that there are many ordinary maids in the castle. But only one witch.' Hugo laughed, a little shaky. 'A witch,' he repeated.

'With witches' skills.' He moistened his lips with his tongue. 'I scarcely believe in witchcraft, Alys. You will have to deal with a modern man, an unbeliever.'

Alys smiled, confident in Morach's herbal skills. 'Oh, Hugo,' she said, a laugh in the back of her voice. 'You believe and disbelieve at will. But when you are out on a cold moor with the mist around you and the river rising, you see dark magic and know fear. And when you are here with me, in this room, you will be enchanted and know your deepest desires.' 'You've changed,' he said.

Alys nodded. 'I have found my mistress, the dark mistress of all wise women, and I have learned from her. I had to become one with her as if I were her lover. And now I know her skills.'

'What are they?' Hugo asked. 'Your mistress' skills?' Alys put her hands to the back of her gown and slowly, almost casually, began to untie the ribbon laces. Hugo watched in silence as she shrugged it off her shoulder. She was naked underneath. She pushed it down over her hips and stepped out of it. She wore no shift, no undergown. Hugo hissed an indrawn breath at the sight of her body and at the realization that she had planned this seduction. She had dressed herself after her bath so that she would be naked before him this day. He reached out to snatch at her but Alys gestured to the chair.

'Be seated, Hugo,' she said, magnificently formal in her nakedness.

Hugo stepped obediently towards the chair, stumbling as he reached it. Alys watched him intently. 'Is it hard for you to walk, Hugo?' she asked. He opened his mouth to frame a reply, moving slowly.

'Hard for you to walk, or talk, or reach for me,' Alys said. 'All you can do is watch.'

Hugo, slack-muscled, entrapped by the drug, lolled in the chair, his eyes, darkly dilated, never leaving Alys' white body with the bush of golden hair.

'I will tell you what my mistress taught me,' Alys said, her voice a low, hypnotic song. 'She taught me to dance so that a man cannot move for desire.' Alys' hair fell in a fair curtain over her shoulders, over her breasts, she stretched to one side and then another. Hugo could not take his eyes from her moving body.

'I can't move,' Hugo said thickly.

'She taught me to summon my sisters to touch me,' Alys said. Her hands cupped her own face, closed over her throat, smoothed down together over her breasts. The nipples, rosy and hard, flickered through the curtain of hair. Alys threw her head back so her throat was bared, cupped both her breasts in her hands and walked towards Hugo. 'I will always have pleasure,' Alys whispered. 'I will always have pleasure for the asking. My sisters will come to me at any time, any time I ask. And they will stroke me and lick me and kiss me. Can you see them yet, Hugo? They are coming to us both. They come to pleasure me and to please you.'

His mouth fell longingly open. Alys stood astride him and rubbed first one breast and then another against his lips. Hugo quested for her touch, turning his head like a baby. His hands clenched on his thighs but he could not reach out and hold her.

'My mistress has come now,' Alys said in an awed whisper. 'She is in the room with me now. Oh God! D'you see her, Hugo? She is naked like I am, and her hair is black. Her touch burns my skin like fire and her kisses make me long for more and more. With her are my sisters, ten, twenty girls, all naked. All come to dance for you, Hugo!'

Hugo could not take his eyes from Alys but he felt in every corner of the room the gathering of women. He sensed their eyes upon him and the growing heat of their bodies. Alys, watching him all the time, stroked her hands down across her belly to the perfect indentation of her navel.

'Can you feel me, Hugo?' she asked. 'Can you feel me, and all my sisters and my cunning mistress? Can you see us, all naked, can you see the stars in our hair and our smiles?'

Hugo shuddered, a great involuntary shiver which shook his whole body. 'Alys.'

Alys' hand smoothed down her belly to the golden bush of hair. 'Look, Hugo,' she said. 'In all your nasty little games with Catherine, has she ever stood proudly before you and let you see her?' Wordlessly, Hugo shook his head. 'Then look at me,' Alys said, I am not ashamed, I am not afraid. No man hurts me, no man torments me. My sisters and I give each other delight that no man could ever match. But we will let you be with us, Hugo. We will let you roll with us, play with us, excite us.' With both hands she parted the hair and rubbed her forefinger delicately against her pink opening flesh. 'Let me,' Hugo said urgently. 'Let me, Alys.' She raised her head again and smiled at him, mockingly. 'Ah! You must wait,' she said. 'You must wait until you can see us all. All my sisters want you to taste them, all of them want to touch you. We are all hungry for your touch, Hugo. My sisters and me. D'you see us? Do you see us now?'

'I can see you,' Hugo said. 'And I can feel them, I can feel their hands on me.'

Alys came closer at once. 'On your hair and on your face, Hugo,' she whispered. 'Can you feel their lips on your face and on your neck? Can you smell their perfume, Hugo? The scent of their hair and their sweat and their wetness? They're ready for you. They are longing for you. D'you think you can please us? Do you think you can please us all?'

Hugo rolled his head back and groaned. Alys teased his open mouth with one nipple, then another, and she slid her wet fingers into his mouth. 'This is the taste of her,' she said. 'This is the taste of my sister the Sky Goddess. D'you like her?'

Hugo was sucking frantically, his forehead was damp with sweat, his dark curls sticking to his face, desperate with unsatisfied lust. 'Yes,' he said. 'I can see her now! I can see her white body and her hair.'

Alys leaned forward and rubbed her breasts against his face, gasping a little as his stubble scratched across her nipples. 'This is my sister the Sun Witch,' she said. 'D'you feel the warmth of her skin? She is shameless, Hugo! She cares for nothing but heat and pleasure!'

Hugo groaned aloud and butted his head against Alys' moving breasts. 'Give me your heat, Sun Witch,' he demanded. 'I want your shamelessness.'

Alys lowered herself a little to his lap, her slim thighs astride him. 'She is coming to sit on you,' she whispered. The Star Goddess, she wants to feel your body between her legs.'

The drug of the earthroot held Hugo passive. He could only arch his back as Alys lowered herself and pulled away, lowered again, and then succumbing to her own lust, gripped him with her thighs and rubbed herself against his breeches, against his padded codpiece.

'I want… I want…' Hugo stammered. Saliva drooled from his mouth, his eyes were turned up in his head, only the whites showing.

'You want us all,' Alys said. 'Every one of us in every way you can dream of.'

'Yes,' Hugo said. 'Alys, please!' Alys untied the codpiece, pulled away the flap of his breeches; he was naked underneath. He thrust upwards and she dropped her body down to meet him. As they joined she felt a great surge of pleasure bounding up through her, and she clung to the thick padded shoulders of his jacket while the waves of it washed over and over her.

'She is here!' she said triumphantly. 'The mistress of all of them has you in her thrall. Open your eyes and look at her. You are planting your seed in her, open your eyes and see the mistress you will never match, never replace, never reject.'

Hugo, drugged to the point of blindness, forced his eyes open and saw her.

'Mistress… my lady… Alys!' he exclaimed in surprise.

'I am my own mistress,' Alys said, joyful in her power. 'I am my own mistress at last.' She fell forward and clung around his neck and heard his harsh gasp as his body tightened and throbbed inside her, and then quietened.

As they grew cool she lifted herself away and pulled her cape around her shoulders, and tossed a handful of pine cones on the fire. She put the flagon of wine and the glasses back in the chest, all the time watching Hugo's deep, trance-like sleep and his flickering eyelids, as he dreamed of more and more extravagant orgies. He groaned once or twice and thrust his hips upwards, into the empty air.

Alys put another log on the fire and scattered pine needles on it so that the room smelled resinous and sweet. Then she drew up the stool and sat, hugging her knees and waiting for Hugo to wake from dreams of colours so bright, smells so pungent and touches so intimate, that they were more vivid than reality. Alys watched the man she loved rear upwards in his chair and thrust his hips into nothingness in a drugged ecstasy, calling her name once, and then again; and she felt as far away from him as if she were walking alongside the cold river-bank on the snow-blown moorland and he were dead and still in his grave.

He came to his senses slowly. He blinked and stared disbelievingly around him, shook his head in bewilderment, and then focused on Alys, calmly seated at the fireside, her hair tumbled over her naked shoulders, the cape thrown back, her bare skin warmed into a thousand tones of peach by the firelight.

'Alys,' he said. 'What hour is it? And how long did I sleep? I had such a dream!'

Alys smiled steadily, her eyes mysterious. 'It is nearly time for supper,' she said. 'You have not slept, it was no dream. I was here, you were here, all of them were here with us for all of that time.'

Hugo leaned forward, grabbed her hands. 'They were?' he demanded. 'It was no dream? They were here, your sisters? And we were together, all of us?'