The warm evening sun gilded the enclosed garden. Surrounded by the castle walls, the garden was sheltered from wind, a trap for heat. Drowsy bees stumbled from plant to plant. Alys walked down the narrow paths, her green gown brushing against the herbs, releasing their scent. Ahead of her, in the flower garden, Ruth and Margery were sitting in the shade of a bower. They glanced towards Alys but did not approach her. The bakehouse to Alys' left was quiet and cold. The old round prison tower behind it was silent. Alys perched on the walled edge of a bed of mint and let the sun beat down on her uncovered head. The purple flowers sweated their scent into the still air. In the orchard beyond the flower garden there were birds singing piercingly sweet. Beyond the orchard, in the outer manse, a horse whinnied in greeting.

Alys slid the letter from her sleeve, and spread it on her knees to read.

'Dear Daughter in Christ,' Hildebrande had begun, incriminating Alys in the first three words. Alys glanced around. There was no one near. She tore off the top of the letter before even looking at the rest, scrumpled it in her hands, pushing her sharp fingernails through the soft paper, shredding it as she stuffed every scrap into her purse.

‘I do not discuss with you the reasons for your delay. There can be no reasons for delay when the will of the Lord is plain to us. Tell Lady Catherine to be of good heart and trust in Our Lady who knows her pains well. You may visit her later and care for her. I expect you this evening.

There was a gap in the writing, then, in a more rounded hand as if the mother was speaking to her daughter, not the abbess to a disobedient nun, the letter went on:

Please come at once, Ann. I am fearful not for myself though I am weary and I cannot light the fire or draw water, I am fearful for you. What are you doing in that castle which makes you so slow to obey?

'I knew she would not know how to light the fire,' Alys said irritably. She smoothed the letter out on her lap. In the sunlight of the garden, Hildebrande aching with arthritis, struggling with a tinderbox, too frail and too old to lug a bucket of water up to the cottage from the steep river-bank, seemed a long way away.

Alys scrunched the paper into a ball in her hand and thrust it into her purse to burn later, then she stretched out her legs before her. The green gown fell elegantly around her. Alys turned her face up to the sunlight and closed her eyes.

'You will turn brown, Mistress Alys, brown as a peasant,' a voice said softly.

Alys opened her eyes. David the steward stood before her, at his side was a young woman of about sixteen. She was fair, golden-headed; her hair brighter than Alys', her eyes a lighter, more sparkling blue. Her body was full; Alys noticed the tightness of the bodice over her firm young breasts and the shortness of the skirt of her gown as if she were still growing.

'This is Mary,' David said, gesturing to the girl. 'She is to be your maid, as Lord Hugh ordered.'

Alys nodded, staring at the girl. The girl looked back, taking in every inch of Alys' gown, her long golden-brown hair, her green hood.

'Has she been in service long?' Alys asked coldly. 'All her life,' David said promptly. 'She was serving in a tradesman's house in Castleton. She caught my eye because she is bright and quick. I thought she would suit you. I didn't want one of the drabs from the kitchen to wait on you. They are as slow as oxen and as dull.'

Alys nodded again.

'You're very pretty,' she said to the girl; she made it sound like an insult. 'How old are you?' 'Sixteen, my lady,' the girl answered. 'You call her Mistress Alys,' David corrected sharply. 'Mistress Alys is not the lady of the castle. She is Lady Catherine's woman only.'

Alys gave David a look which would scratch glass. 'Since she is to be my maid I suppose she can call me what she pleases, as long as it pleases me.'

The dwarf shrugged his strong shoulders. 'As you wish, Mistress Alys.'

'Are you betrothed or married?' Alys asked the girl. 'No, my lady,' she said breathlessly. 'I am a virgin.' Alys shot a hard, suspicious look at David. He smiled blandly at her.

'You can wait in the ladies' gallery until I send for you,' Alys said abruptly. The girl dipped a curtsey and went into the castle.

David remained. He took a pinch of lavender and sniffed it, savouring the smell, demonstrating his ease and comfort.

'She is very beautiful for a peasant girl,' Alys observed.

'Yes, indeed,' David replied.

'Very like the girl in the field who took Hugo's flowers at haymaking.'

'Her sister, actually,' David said. He squinted up at the blue sky. 'Very like her, now I come to think of it,' he said thoughtfully.

Alys nodded. 'Do you think to supplant me with some plump sweeting, David? Do you think Hugo would put me aside for a sudden fancy, when I carry his child and he has been besotted with me for months?'

David opened his eyes in amazement. 'Of course not, Mistress Alys! I merely obeyed Lord Hugh. He said you should have a maid of your own, my task it was to find you one. If she is not to your liking I can send her away. I will tell the young lord that the maid I suggested was too pretty for your liking, and I will find some plain old woman. It is no trouble at all.'

'It is no matter,' Alys said abruptly. 'I am not afraid, David. You can bring a hundred such as her and throw them into Hugo's path. They will not conceive his child.

They will not take my place. They may amuse him but they will not sit at the high table. D'you think the old lord will prefer a village wench to me?' She laughed sharply, enjoying the small man's angry face. ‘I will employ the girl. She can do my sewing for me and run errands.'

'Up to Bowes Moor perhaps?' David asked quickly. 'To see the new arrival there? Another wise woman, in your old cottage. Who is she, Alys? Another kinswoman who is no kin at all? Or Morach returned from the dead?'

'Hardly a ghost!' Alys said, swiftly recovering from the change of tack. 'No, it is a travelling wise woman who has a fancy to stay at the cottage. I sent her some goods and a message because I shall need a wise woman in the spring, when my time comes. Either she or the one at Richmond will have to come out to me.'

‘I see.' David turned to go. Alys breathed out in relief at having come through his questioning so well.

'And why should the kitchen-boy pretend to be mute?' David asked. 'Why could he not speak to her? Does she know secrets that she might share if someone asked her?'

Alys laughed aloud, a note as blithe as the birdsong from the orchard. 'Oh, the silly lad!' she exclaimed. ‘I ordered him not to tire her with his chatter, nor eat the food on the way, nor stop to play with his friends. And next thing he thinks he has to act like one struck dumb! I wish I had been there to see him acting like a mute simpleton!'

David smiled thinly. 'He is a fool that boy.' He nodded his head to Alys and left her. Alys watched him go, her face stiff with her unconcerned smile until he was gone.

The sun was burning on her back. Alys felt flushed, her thick mane of hair made her neck and her head hot. She was sweating. Her green gown was strapped too tight, the stomacher too stiff. She went indoors for the cool and the shade. As she climbed the stairs to the ladies' gallery she felt a deep weight of pain in her head and the skin behind her ears tightened on her skull like pincers.

Mary was in Alys' bedchamber, straightening the counterpane on the bed, gawking out of the window.

'Everything so fine, my lady!' she exclaimed as Alys came in. 'So fine and so pretty!'

'Unlace me,' Alys said, turning around. The girl unfastened the stomacher and then the gown and caught them as Alys slid them off and let them fall. 'I have a headache,' Alys said. 'Close the shutters over the window and go and sit in the ladies' gallery. I want to be alone. Call me an hour before supper.'

'I'll put your gown away,' Mary said. She took the green gown and moved towards the chest of Alys' herbs and oils.

'Not that one,' Alys said sharply. 'I am a herbalist, a healer. I keep all my medicines in there. You must never go to that chest. You must never touch it. Some of the tinctures are very delicate and they would spoil if anyone but me touched them. The other chest is for my clothes.'

The girl bobbed a curtsey and folded Alys' gown carefully into the chest. She shut it with a bang. 'Sorry, my lady,' she said. Alys lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes. 'I was told to tell you that Lady Catherine wanted to see you,' the girl suddenly said. 'I forgot to tell you at once.'

'Tell her I have a headache and I am resting,' Alys said, without opening her eyes. 'I will come to her at suppertime.'

Mary bobbed another curtsey and went out. The draught from the open windows of the gallery caught the door and banged it shut. Alys winced. Through the door she could hear Mary speaking to Eliza.

'My Lady Alys is lying down,' she said. 'She will see Lady Catherine at suppertime.'

Even in her pain Alys smiled. 'My Lady Alys,' she said to herself. 'My Lady Alys.' Alys knew she had to see Hildebrande. She could not trust anyone in the castle with messages – David's information was too precise, too accurate. He knew everything that went on within the castle and without. She dared not send another message, she could trust no one. And Hildebrande, the fool, was as capable of sending a verbal command as an unsealed letter. She sat by the old lord at supper and picked at the food on her plate.

'You are not eating, Alys,' he said at once. 'Are you unwell?'

Alys summoned a smile. 'A little sickly, my lord,' she said. 'And I have run out of the powders I need.'