Alys shrugged. 'I was with Lord Hugh,' she said. 'Catherine cannot have me at her beck and call.'

Mistress Allingham raised her thin eyebrows but said nothing.

Eliza brought Catherine's ivory writing desk. A quill stood ready in the matching pot of ink, there were smooth sheets of paper and a short candle for the sealing wax, with some scraps of ribbon. Alys took it on to her lap with satisfaction, touched everything, smoothed the paper, brushed her fingertip against the feathers of the quill.

She took up the pen and wrote. ‘I am sending these things to you by messenger because I cannot come today as I intended. Lady Catherine at the castle is ill and I am commanded to care for her. For your safety and my own I will not endanger us nor bring us to their attention by insisting otherwise. I will come as soon as I can. Say nothing to the messenger. Send me no reply. I will come as soon as I can.

When she had finished writing she folded the paper three times and dripped sealing-wax in three puddles along the join, pressing the little seal into each one. The seal was a miniature version of Hugo's family crest, used by the ladies of his family for generations. Alys carefully drew an elegant 'A' underneath each seal and then let it dry.’

'What are you writing?' Eliza asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

'There is a new wise woman come to Morach's old cottage,' Alys said. ‘I don't know who she is or where she comes from. But I am sending her some things. When my own time comes I shall need a wise woman to deliver my child. If she is skilled and good-natured I shall summon her.'

The one at Richmond has a fine reputation for childbirth,' Mistress Allingham offered.

Alys nodded. Then I will send a gift to her too,' she said. 'It is well to be prepared.’

'It couldn't happen to you, could it?' Eliza nodded towards Catherine's door where Catherine lay asleep in bed, tears sliding out from under her closed eyelids, her sheets soaked with white, creamy slurry. Alys shook her head.

'They are saying that it is a weakness in Hugo,' Eliza volunteered. 'That he cannot get a woman with child and that if he does the child does not take.'

Mistress Allingham pursed her lips. 'This miscarriage is like none I have ever seen before,' she said. 'Lady Catherine does not bleed.'

Alys lowered her voice to match theirs. 'There is a corruption in her humours,' she said. 'Remember how the child was conceived. She is always too hot or too cold. I did what I could to bring her into balance but the child was conceived in heat and dryness and lost in damp and coldness. I can make Catherine well, but I cannot change her nature. No one can make her fertile. No one can make her clean.'

'Then he'll put her aside,' Eliza hissed, her face alert. Alys nodded and put a finger across her lips. The two women exchanged one bright look. 'And you carrying his child!' Eliza noted. Alys smiled at her and got to her feet, shaking out the folds of the bright green gown. 'And you said I was falling,' she reminded Eliza. 'You were taunting me with falling low. You called me a whore.'

Eliza flushed red. 'I beg your pardon,' she said. 'I spoke wrongly to you, Alys… Mistress Alys. I spoke too freely, and I was mistaken.'

Alys nodded. She went to her chamber and took the old dark blue gown from her chest, the gown the old lord had given her from the leavings of his whore Meg. Alys shook out the folds. It would drape around Mother Hildebrande – she had grown so slight and stooped. But it was made of good thick wool and would keep her warm, even in that damp cottage. Alys folded it up and went downstairs through the deserted great hall, to the kitchen.

The place was quiet. The cooks and servers had slipped out to Castleton, to lie in the fields by the river, to visit friends, to carouse with the off-duty soldiers. The kitchen-lad was there, dozing by the spit he turned all day. There was a big cooked haunch of beef on the spit, left from dinner.

'Wake up,' Alys said peremptorily. He was on his feet in a second, rubbing his eyes with one grimy hand. When he saw Alys he shrank back.

Alys smiled at him. 'I am sending some food to a wise woman on the moors, and a gown,' she said. 'You may take it for me. You may ride my mare out.' The lad blinked.

'Put together a basket of everything you can find which is good to eat,' Alys said. 'A big cut off that joint, bread, fruit, some sweetmeats and a pitcher of wine.' The lad hesitated.

'Go on,' Alys said. ‘I will tell the cook I ordered it.' He nodded and went to one of the beams where a dozen baskets were hanging. He lifted one down and went to a larder set against the cool outside wall of the castle.

Alys looked around her. The floor was strewn with herbs. Dried and old, they had not been changed for months. Some hens and a cockerel pecked around on the floor, their white and moss-coloured droppings marked the stone slabs. The fire on the other side of the room smouldered around a great trunk of pine. It would be stoked up for supper and then banked in overnight. One side of the kitchen wall was a block of stone with half a dozen hollowed sinks for burning charcoal to scald sauces and heat little pans. Everything around it was covered with a light coating of black dust.

There were no locks on the cupboards. Every storeroom was open, the flesh room, the fish room, the confectionery room. Even the ale cellar was open. Alys thought of Hugo's plan to move to his new house and cast off the free-living retainers, and saw something of the savings he would make.

'Get a jug of wine with a stopper,' she said. 'The best wine.'

The lad came out of the larder, the basket filled with food: half a round cheese, two loaves of bread, a cut of the meat, a bowl of early cherries, a thick slice of ham, a pot of almond paste with currants. 'There's a pot of bucknade,' he offered. It was one of Mother Hildebrande's favourite dishes but she would not eat meat on a saint's day or a holy day. Alys could not remember the church calendar which had once been so familiar to her.

'No,' she said. 'Is there any blanche mange?' Blanche mange was mashed chicken or rabbit, sweetened with honey and served with a pinch of sandalwood to make it pink. Mother Hildebrande would eat white meat on a fast day if they could get no fish. The lad nodded and went to the larder, filled a pewter bowl and came back into the main kitchen tying a coarse linen napkin over the mouth of the bowl.

He put the basket on the table and then went to the wine cellar for the wine. It was stored in huge casks, chocks hammered in underneath one end so the wine flowed downwards to the tap. Alys could hear the wine pouring into the jug, then the lad came back into the roasting kitchen, pushing the stopper home and wiping the jug on his smock. Alys took it from him, folded the gown around it to keep it safe in the basket and then led the way to the stables.

The simple lad was there, sprawled on a hay bale in the sunshine, picking his teeth with a straw.

'Put a saddle on my mare,' Alys said to him. This boy is doing an errand for me.'

He jumped to his feet and nodded, grinning and laughing at her.

'And see him through the gate,' Alys said. 'He is carrying those goods on my orders.'

She handed the letter to the spit-boy. 'Give this to the old woman,' she said. 'She will not harm you.' She paused for a moment, waited for him to feel her power. 'You may not speak with her,' she said slowly, impressively. 'If she speaks to you say nothing. Just shake your head. She will think you are mute. You may not say one word to her.'

The boy nodded. 'Not one word,' Alys said slowly, softly. 'And do not wander on the way or eat the food. I shall know if you deliver less than you set out with. I shall know if you have disobeyed me and spoken with her.' He shook his head and gulped nervously. 'Do you know where the wise woman of Bowes Moor lives?' Alys asked. 'The cottage by the river, before you come to the stone bridge?' The lad nodded.

'Take these goods there,' Alys said. She drew the letter out and tucked it down the side of the basket so it was completely hidden. 'This letter too. Don't show it to anyone and don't lose it. I shall know if you do.'

The lad nodded again.

Alys smiled at him. 'When you return this afternoon I shall give you a sixpence,' she said.

The boy looked at her.

'Yes?' Alys asked.

'Could I have instead a scrap of ribbon of yours?' he asked. 'Or something you don't need. An old kerchief?'

'Why?' Alys asked.

He dropped his gaze to the floor. 'To ward off beatings,' he said. 'In the kitchen they say that you have the power to get anything you want. That you can do anything you like. I thought if I had a relic of yours…'

Alys shook her head. 'I am just an ordinary woman,' she said. 'A healer with special skills, holy skills. Nothing of mine is a talisman. I am just a healer with holy powers. I do nothing for my own ends.'

The lads exchanged one secret, disbelieving look. Alys chose to ignore it.

'Be as quick as you can,' she said, walking from the stable yard. 'And send word to me when you are safe back.'

Twenty-seven

Despite Alys' careful instructions, Hildebrande sent a letter back with the kitchen-lad. It was written on coarse paper, the back of a bill from an inn with a stub of lead. It was unsealed. Alys' lips compressed when she saw it. Anyone could have read it on its journey to her and she would not even know. It was typical of Hildebrande to care nothing for their safety, she thought. The woman was mad for martyrdom, rushing towards exposure and danger. She had been so long out of the world she had no idea of the dangers, the peril she was forcing on Alys. Alys gave the lad the sixpence she had promised and tucked the letter into her sleeve. She went out into the herb garden to read it.