'It's too late,' Alys said thoughtfully. 'The old lord is determined.'

Catherine was still rolling drunk. She staggered as Mary untied her shift and pulled it off over her head. It took three of them to steer her safely into the bath. She sat on the low stool in the tub and leaned her head back against the linen-covered side.

'You could deter him,' she said. She was slurring her words and her eyelids were drooping. 'You could persuade him. There is my dowry and your child. He wants these things.'

Alys rolled up her sleeves and roughly rubbed Catherine's shoulders and grimy neck. The folds of fat hung loosely around her body now that the baby had gone.

'Or if the old lord died,' Catherine suggested. Her voice was far too loud for safety. Margery, at the window, heard her. Eliza, waiting by the door, heard her. Mary, airing the shift before the fire, turned quickly and stared at Catherine lolling in the tub, lazy, corrupted.

'Don't say it!' Alys said sharply. 'My lord is well and will live for many years yet, please God.'

Catherine opened her drunk, unfocused eyes and smiled at Alys. 'It's true though,' she said. 'Hugo would never have the will to set me aside. Hugo likes his pleasures at once. He would never wait for a nine-year-old bride. These are not his plots and schemes. If the old lord was gone we could live well, us three.' 'Hush,' Alys said again. It was true. If the old lord died and Hugo inherited tomorrow then Catherine would stay as nominal lady of the castle and Alys' position would be assured. Hugo had neither the energy nor the skill to rid himself of Catherine and negotiate a new marriage. And besides, he liked his comforts and his easy way of life. Catherine as lady and Alys as mistress was an ideal combination for Hugo, giving him wealth and sensual pleasure without effort.

'More hot water,' Catherine said, 'I will lie in the bath and drink more wine.'

Eliza sniggered at that, but a sharp look from Alys sent her from the room.

'Give her more hot water and a cup of watered wine,' Alys ordered. 'I am going to my room. It is too hot for me here.' She turned to Catherine. 'After your bath you must lie down and sleep,' she said firmly. 'You can dress in your rose gown after your rest. I will have you awakened in time for dinner, but you must sleep now.'

Catherine was already drowsy. Her large features, blurred in the scented steam, were soft with sleep. 'All right, Alys,' she said agreeably. 'But will you come and touch me? Will Hugo come and mount you while I watch? Like we did before?'

There was an utter silence in the room. 'You are dreaming,' Alys said roughly. 'Bawdy dreams, Catherine. Your humours are too hot. Your bath has overheated you. You must rest.'

She turned and went quickly from the room before the others could read the guilt in her face. As she shut her chamber door she heard a soft scandalized shriek and the babble of whispers at the oriel window in the gallery, as the women fled from Catherine's room to repeat what she said. Alys went to the arrow-slit window and looked out.

Over the bridge the white road uncurled itself around the hill and then headed straight as a Roman spear over the moor. The fields at the riverside were a dusty yellow-green. The hay was cut, the corn was in. They were tossing straw into windrows and would gather it this month. In the higher fields beyond the river there were cows picking over the hayfield stubble. Beyond them was the rough green and grey hide of moorland with a few sheep scattered across it. The heather was in flower and a traveller crossing the moor would have to wade through thigh-deep clumps of purple and walk all day in a cloud of sweet pollen. The fords would be dry, a man could walk northwards across the high hills and drop down into dale after dale – the Greta, the Lune, Cotherstone – without ever wetting his feet or finding a drop of clean water to drink.

Alys looked at the thin track of the white road and wondered where her little dolls were now, and if they were still walking wearily towards the castle, still trailing a little thread of candlewax slime behind them wherever their tiny feet pattered. They would make slow progress along the dusty road, leaping aside into the grass at the roadside for fear of cartwheels and feet and the dangerous clatter of hooves. The doll of the old lord would be hobbling, the doll of the miscarried woman trailing slime, and the doll of Hugo staggering sightlessly with his blunt insensate hands stretched before him.

In the warm air blowing through the arrow-slit Alys shivered, as cold as if she were trapped in a dank cave with flood water rising.

A flock of pigeons wheeled and turned in the sunlight, their feathers bright and golden, moving as one. They flew like a fletch of arrows straight towards Alys at the window and then wheeled at the last moment and settled out of her sight on the round tower, where the pigeon lad would settle them in their boxes and cut the messages from their cherry-red legs. Alys shuddered and drew back from the window, lay down on her bed and stared upwards at the rich green and gold embroidery of the tester above her head.

She must have dozed. She was wakened by a banging on her door and a high, sudden scream of fear, the noise of running feet, and someone calling her name in a voice sharpened with terror. Alys had jumped from her bed and torn open her door before she was awake.

'Is it fire?' she demanded urgently. Then she swayed and leaned back against the door. 'What is the matter?'

'Lady Catherine!' Eliza said. She took Alys by the shoulders and shook her awake. 'It's Lady Catherine. She's drowned! She's drowned! Come at once!'

Alys stumbled but Eliza dragged her forwards, across the gallery and to Catherine's chamber. Alys, still dazed, looked around all the faces expecting to see Morach soaking wet, her shock of white hair slicked down by river water, beaming with pride and saying 'I saved her!'

'Wake up!' Eliza said. She pushed Alys roughly towards Catherine's doorway. There were many people crowded into the gallery, soldiers and servants, all of them milling helplessly around and shouting instructions. 'Warm her up!' 'Fetch Father Stephen!' 'Put her in her bed!' 'Give her usquebaugh!' 'Burn horsehair!'

Alys, pushed by Eliza, fought her way into Catherine's chamber and fell back when she saw the bath-tub.

Catherine was blue. Her staring, blank face and all over her flaccid body was stained veinous-blue. Blue fingernails, blue feet, blue lips, white-blue face.

Someone had heaved her up out of her bath-water and then let her slide in again so her head was tipped back against the edge of the bath, limp as a doll. She looked like a dreadful parody of the sensual Catherine who had shouted for wine and more water. A woman who had given herself up to selfish pleasures and was now given up to death.

'How did this happen?' Alys asked. Her voice was still croaky from sleep. She coughed to clear it.

'We left her alone,' Eliza said. Alys could hear the grief and guilt in her harsh tone. 'She wanted to be alone and we shut the door and left her. God knows what I was thinking of. I knew she was drunk. But she was maudlin and dull. She ordered us out of the room and we went. We left her.' 'Did she fall?' Alys asked.

'I'd have heard if she had fallen,' Ruth said sharply. Her face was nearly as pale as Catherine's horrid whiteness. 'I was listening for her call. I was not gossiping about sin and lechery. If she had fallen I would have heard. I heard nothing. Nothing.' She broke off, and turned her face away, a handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. 'Nothing,' she said.

'She was drunk,' Mistress Allingham said. 'I think she just slid under the water and could not get herself out again.'

'Can you do nothing?' Eliza demanded. 'Open a vein, bleed her! Something!'

Alys shook her head. 'Nothing,' she said slowly. 'There's no blood pumping around Catherine any more. She's dead.'

She drew back. 'Close the door. Get these people out of here,' she said. 'Send for someone to cover her nakedness and lift her out of the bath. The old lord will have to be told, and Hugo. They should not see her like this.'

There was a movement among the crowd in the gallery as they went to obey Alys.

‘I’ll tell the old lord,' Alys said numbly.

Ruth gave a loud, thin cry and ran to her room. Eliza turned to go after her. 'Odd,' she said. She paused and looked at Alys. 'That she should escape drowning in the winter river, bobbing with ice floes, treacherous with rocks, and then go under in her bath.'

Alys shook her head, half closed her eyes. 'It is a nightmare,' she said honestly. 'A nightmare.'

Thirty-two

They dressed Catherine's cold, water-logged body and they laid her in the little chapel which stood by the gatehouse in the outer manse, a branch of candles at her head and at her feet. Father Stephen, rushed off his horse from hunting and into his black archdeacon's gown, ordered prayers to be said for her soul, but there were no nuns and no monks to keep a vigil for Lady Catherine. All that had gone and no one knew how to mourn for the lady of the castle any more.

Father Stephen told four soldiers the prayers which should be said and they kept a vigil like a guard duty. But it was not done well. Everyone knew that it was not done well now there were neither monks nor nuns to pray for the soul of a woman drowned while deep in sin. Ruth stayed by the makeshift coffin, one hand on the side, her head bowed, fingering her rosary and saying the prayers she had learned as a child. She would not be moved away.

The other women tried to pull her away to the gallery and Eliza stood before her, trying to hide her, when Father Stephen came into the chapel. He raised his eyebrows at the murmur of Latin prayers and the click of the rosary beads but one glance at Ruth's agonized white face prevented him from interrupting her.