to see her for a little while, and I need some herbs.’
The old lord looked at her and smiled his slow smile. ‘But you’ll come back,’ he said.
Alys nodded. ‘You know I’ll come back,’ she said. ‘There’s no life for me on the moor now, that life is closed to me. And the one I had before. It’s like a journey down a chamber with doors that shut behind me. Whenever I find some safety I have to move on, and the old life is taken from me.’
He nodded. ‘Best find yourself a man and close all the doors for good; those before you, and those behind you,’ he said.
Alys shook her head. ‘I won’t wed,’ she said.
‘Because of your vows?’ he asked.
‘Yes …’ Alys started and then she bit the words back. ‘I’ve taken no vows, my lord,’ she said smoothly. ‘It’s just that I am one of those women who cannot abide bedding. It goes with the skill of herbs. My cousin Morach lives alone.’
Lord Hugh coughed and spat towards the fire which burned in the corner of his room, smoke trailing through the arrow-slit above it. ‘I guessed some time ago you were a runaway nun,’ he said conversationally. ‘Your Latin is very weak in profane language, very strong for sacred texts. Your hair was shaved, and you have that appetite – like all nuns – for the finest things.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Did you think, little Sister Blue-eyes, that I have not seen how you stroke fine linen, how you love the light from wax candles, how you preen in your red gown and watch the light glint on the silver thread?’
Alys said nothing. Her pulse was racing but she kept her face serene.
‘You’re safe with me,’ Lord Hugh said. ‘Father Stephen is mad for the new ways and the new Church – he’s a fanatical reformer, a holy man. Hugo loves the new Church because he sees the gains he can make: the reduction of the Prince Bishops, fines from the monastery lands, the power that we can now claim – us peers working with the Crown – and the spiritual lords cast down.’
He paused and gave her a brief smile. ‘But I am cautious,’ he said slowly. ‘These turnabouts can happen more than once in a lifetime. It matters not to me whether there is a picture or two in a church, whether I eat flesh or fish, whether I pray to God in Latin or English. What matters more is the Lordship of Castleton and how we weather these years of change.
‘I won’t betray you. I won’t insist that I hear you take the vow of loyalty to the King, I won’t have you stripped and flogged. I won’t have you examined for heresy and when you fail given to the soldiers for their sport.’
Alys scarcely registered the reprieve.
‘Or at any rate,’ the old lord amended, ‘not yet. Not while you remember that you are mine. My servant. My vassal. Mine in word and body and deed.’
Alys inclined her head to show that she was listening. She said nothing.
‘And if you serve me well I shall keep you safe, maybe even smuggle you away, out of the country, safe to an abbey in France. How would that be?’
Alys laid her hand at the base of her throat. She could feel her pulse hammering against her palm. ‘As you wish, my lord,’ she said steadily. ‘I am your servant.’
‘Fancy an abbey in France?’ the old lord asked pleasantly.
Alys nodded dumbly, choked with hope.
‘I could send you to France, I could give you safe conduct on your journey, give you a letter of introduction to an abbess, explaining your danger and telling her that you are a true daughter of her Church,’ the old lord said easily. ‘I could give you a dowry to take to the convent with you. Is that what it takes to buy your loyalty?’
‘I am your faithful servant,’ Alys said breathlessly. ‘But I would thank you if you would send me to a new home, abroad.’
The old lord nodded, measuring her. ‘And serve me without fail until then, as a fee for your passage,’ he said.
Alys nodded. ‘Whatever you command.’
‘You’ll need to stay a virgin I suppose. They won’t accept you in the nunnery otherwise. Has Hugo been tugging at your skirts yet?’
‘Yes,’ Alys said precisely.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I said nothing.’
The old lord let out a sharp bark of laughter. ‘Aye, that’s your way, my cunning little vixen, ain’t it? So he no doubt thinks he’ll have you, and I think you’re sworn to my interest and all along you follow your heretical beliefs, or your mysterious arts, or your own sweet way which is none of these, don’t you?’
Alys shook her head. ‘No, my lord,’ she said softly. ‘I want to go to a nunnery. I want to renew my vows. I will do anything you ask of me if you will see me safe into my Order.’
‘Do you need any guarding against my son?’
Alys shook her head slowly. ‘I wish to see my kinswoman. I could stay with her tonight,’ she said. ‘She will advise me.’
He nodded and rested his head against the back of his chair as if he were suddenly weary. Alys went silently to the door. As she turned the handle she glanced back: he was watching her from under his hooded eyelids.
‘Don’t poison him,’ he said sharply. ‘None of your damned brews to kill his ardour. He needs a son, he needs all the vigour he has. I’ll tell him to stick it to his wife when he feels his lust rising. You’re safe under my charge. And I mean to honour my promise to see you safe behind walls when your work here is done.’
Alys nodded. ‘When would that be, my lord?’ she asked in a small voice, careful not to betray her anxiety.
Lord Hugh yawned. ‘When this damned marriage business is settled, I should think,’ he said carelessly. ‘When I am rid of the shrew and I have a new fertile daughter-in-law in Hugo’s bed. I will need you to work secretly for me until I can see my way clear, but I won’t need you after that. If you serve me well in this one thing, I’ll put you back behind convent walls again.’
Alys took a deep breath. ‘I thank you,’ she said calmly, and left the room. She paused outside his door and leaned against the wall, looking out of the arrow-slit. The air which blew in was sharp with the cold from the moor. For the first time in months Alys felt her heart lift with hope. She was on her way back to her home.
She borrowed a fat pony belonging to Eliza Herring to ride to Bowes, confident of her ability to manage the overfed old animal, riding astride with the red gown pulled down over her legs, one of the lads from the castle running beside her. As the pony picked its way around the filth of the wet street she saw a few doorways open a crack to eye her, and a thrown handful of stones spattered on the wall behind her. She nodded. She had no friends in the village. She had been feared as a cunning woman and now she would be reviled as the lord’s new whore, a village girl vaulted to the highest place in their small world.
She left the letter with the steward of the castle knowing that even if he dared to break the seal and open it, he would not be able to read the Latin. She ordered the lad to go back to Lord Hugh’s castle. She would be safe going on alone. The road from
