Philippa Gregory - The Wise Woman

Alys gave a trembling little laugh. 'You are frightening me!' she protested.

Stephen broke off. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'I did not mean to. I am hot in the pursuit of evil, I forgot your condition and the delicacy of your sex.'

There was a little pause.

'And this mad old woman,' Alys said lightly. 'Won't you let her go? I should be sorry if my complaint against her brought her to this charge.'

Stephen shook his head. 'You misunderstand the seriousness of her crime,' he said. 'When she speaks of her god it is clear she is speaking of the devil, for we know that the Holy God does not curse men. He sends misfortune to try them, for love of them. When she speaks of Hugo as a destroyer of the popish false church, it is the devil crying out against our glorious crusade. We are snatching souls from the devil every day. He enjoyed an easy time with the Romish priests feeding people with lies and fears and superstitions and magic of all kinds. Now we are pushing the light of God across the country and casting the devil – and his followers like this old woman – into the fiery furnace.'

The brightness of the sunlight through the high east windows dazzled Alys, the room was spinning around her as Stephen spoke. 'Oh don't!' she said, in sudden agony. 'Stephen, remember how it was for me when you gave me the ordeal. Remember my terror! Spare this poor old woman and send her away, send her to Scotland! Send her to France! Spare the foolish old thing. She did not know what she was saying, she is mad. I saw it when I met her. She is mad.'

'Then how did she know of Catherine's illness, if not through sorcery?' Stephen asked. 'It has been kept most quiet. Only you and Catherine's ladies and Hugo knew of it. Not even my Lord Hugh knew of her scouring white slime.'

'These things are talked of,' Alys said rapidly. 'Gossip is everywhere. She is probably one of those horrible old women who sit in the chimney seat and chatter all day. I sent her a gown and some food, she probably gossiped with the messenger. Don't burn her for being a foolish, ugly, old woman, Stephen!'

'We won't burn her,' Stephen said.

Alys looked up into his pale, determined face. 'You won't?' she asked. 'I thought you said you would cast her into the fire.'

'I meant that when she dies she must face the flames of hell, the fire of the afterlife,' Stephen said.

'Oh,' Alys said. 'I misunderstood you.' She breathed out on a little laugh. 'I am so relieved,' she said. She put her hand to her throat and felt her hammering pulse quieten beneath her touch. 'You won't burn her,' Alys said again. 'You won't burn her.' She laughed uneasily. 'Here I was, trembling with fear that I had brought an old lady to the stake!' she said. 'I was fearful for her. But you won't burn her, even if she should be charged. Even if she were found guilty. You won't have her burned.' 'No,' Stephen replied. 'We hang witches.'

When Alys came to her senses she was lying in her bed, the dark green tester she so loved above her, the curtains half drawn around her to shade her face from the bright sunlight pouring in the arrow-slit window. For a moment she could not remember the time, nor the day. She smiled like a child at the richness of the fabric all around her, and stretched. Then she heard the soft crackle of a fire in her grate, and was aware of the warmth of the setting sun on her whitewashed walls. Then she remembered the quiet terror of Stephen's promise, and Mother Hildebrande facing a charge of witchcraft that afternoon, and she cried out and sat upright in bed.

Mary was at her side. 'My lady,' she said anxiously. 'My lady.'

'What time is it?' Alys asked urgently. 'I don't know,' Mary said, surprised. 'About five o'clock, I suppose. The people are just leaving from the trials. It is not suppertime.'

'The trials are over?' Alys asked.

Mary nodded. 'Yes, my lady.' She looked anxiously at Alys. 'Will you tell me what I can fetch you?' she asked. 'Should you not have something from your chest of herbs? You are very pale, my lady. You fainted at dinner and they carried you up here like a dead woman. You have lain still all this long time. The old lord himself came up to see you. Have you nothing I may fetch you?'

'What happened at the trials?' Alys asked.

Mary frowned. 'I have been up here with you,' she said, with a trace of resentment. 'So I couldn't see nor hear them. But Mistress Herring told me that they branded one man for thieving and Farmer Silter was warned for moving his boundary posts. Peter Marwick's son was summoned -'

'Not them,' Alys interrupted. 'The old woman charged with witchcraft.'

'They didn't try her,' Mary said. 'They questioned her under torture and she is not a witch. They released her from the charge of witchcraft.'

Alys felt a sense of ease flow through her whole body, from her aching jaw, through her clenched fists, to the soles of her feet. Her skin glowed as if she had just stepped, tinglingly clean, from a bath. She felt the blood rise up in her veins and warm her clammy skin.

'They released her,' she said, tasting hope, as sweet as new desire.

They changed the charge,' Mary said. 'She is to face a charge of heresy. She will be tried tomorrow in a second day of the court's sessions.'

Alys felt the room heave and yaw like a sailing ship out of control. She clung to the fine linen sheets as if they were safety lines in a storm-rolling sea.

'I can't hear,' she said pitifully. 'I did not hear you, Mary. Say it again.'

‘I said she is to be tried tomorrow for heresy,' Mary said loudly in her rounded country accent, like one talking to an old deaf woman. 'They say she is no witch, but a heretic. A papist. They will try her tomorrow after dinner.'

Alys lay back against the pillows, her eyes shut. The child in her belly stirred and kicked against the pounding of Alys' rapid pulse. Alys felt her sins massing against her. Her stomach churned in terror, her heart fluttered.

'Get a bowl,' she said thickly to Mary. ‘I am going to be sick.'

Mary held the bowl while Alys vomited a stream of undigested pottage from dinner and then her breakfast of bread and meat and ale, and then yellow bile, until she was retching and retching on an empty belly and bringing up nothing but clear saliva.

Mary whipped the bowl out of the room and came back with a ewer and a napkin moistened with cold water. She sponged Alys' face and her neck – hot and sweaty under the heavy weight of her hair. She held a glass of water to her lips.

'Is it the sweating sickness?' she asked Alys anxiously. 'Or is the child pressing against your belly too hard? The old lord should not make you work so! Can I fetch you something to eat?' Alys leaned forward. 'Help me up,' she said. Mary protested but Alys threw back the covers and held out her hands. 'Help me,' she ordered.

They had laid her on her bed in her blue gown and put covers over her. The gown was hot and creased. Take this off,' Alys said.

Mary unfastened the gown and shook it out, laying it in the chest.

'I will wear my green gown,' Alys said. Mary slipped it on over Alys' head. Alys stood still and let her dress her, like an old pagan stone on the moors, dressed with scarves.

Her legs were trembling and Mary helped her across the gallery and down the stairs to the great hall. The servants were pulling the tables and benches back into their usual places after the disruption of the trial. She let Mary help her to the door to the garden and then she waved her away. She stepped out of the shade of the hall on to the cobblestones of the yard and out into the garden to find the old lord. He was sitting in the arbour, enjoying the evening sunshine. Eliza Herring and Margery were sitting beside him. Eliza was playing her lute.

Alys paused for a moment, watching them. The old lord's white hair shone in the sunshine, Eliza and Margery's dresses were bright – yellow and blue, summertime colours. Behind Lord Hugh's head an espaliered peach tree was showing fat fruits. Before them were half a dozen formal flower-beds with twisting gravel paths around them edged with box. And on the left, in the far corner of the castle wall, was the tower with the staircase to the second storey and a doorway only on the second storey. The lower storey had neither windows nor door. It was a blind tower of solid stone. It was the prison tower and the only way into it was through a trapdoor in the guardroom floor down rough steps. And the only way out (they said as a joke) was in a coffin.