Philippa Gregory - The Wise Woman

Alys tied the pony to a twisted hawthorn bush which grew at Morach's gateway, picked her fine red gown clear of the muck, and went in.

She had forgotten the stink of the place. Morach's midden was downwind at the back of the cottage but the sweet sickly odour of muck and the tang of urine hovered around the cottage, seeped through the walls. The midden heap was as old as the cottage, it had always smelled foul. The little fire was flickering sullenly on damp wood and the cottage was filled with a mist of black smoke. A couple of hens scuttered out the way as Alys entered, their droppings green and shiny on the hearthstone. Under Alys' new leather shoes the floor felt slippery with damp. The body of flood water only yards from the threshold made the very air wet and cold. At dusk the mist would roll along the river valley and seep under the door and in the little window. Alys gathered her new cloak closer and sat by the fire, taking Morach's stool without asking.

'I brought you some money,' she said abruptly. 'And a sackful of food.'

Morach nodded. 'Stolen?' she inquired without interest.

Alys shook her head. 'He gave it me,' she said. 'The old lord. Gave me these clothes too.'

Morach nodded. 'They're very fine,' she said. 'Good enough for Lady Catherine herself. Good enough for Lord Hugh's whore.'

'That's what they think me,' Alys said. 'But he is old, Morach, and has been very sick. He does not touch me. He is…' She broke off as the thought came to her for the first time. 'He is kind to me, Morach.'

Morach's dark eyebrows snapped together. 'First time in his life then,' she said thoughtfully. 'Kind? Are you sure? Maybe he wants you for something and he's keeping it close.'

Alys paused. 'He could be,' she said. 'I've never known a man to plan so far ahead. He has thought of everything, from his deathbed, to the death of the young lord's son who isn't even conceived. He has a place for me in his schemes – to work for him now, he needs a clerk who will keep secrets, and he'll see me safe to a nunnery when my work is finished.' She broke off, meeting Morach's sceptical black glare. 'It's my only chance,' she said simply. 'He says he will get me to France, to a nunnery there. He is my only chance.'

Morach muttered something under her breath and turned to climb the ladder to her sleeping platform.

'Put the water on,' she said. 'I've some chamomile to mash. I need it to clear my head.'

Alys bent her head and blew at the fire and set the little pot of water on its three legs in the red embers. When the water started to bubble Alys threw in some chamomile leaves and set it to stand. When Morach came down with her bag of fortune-telling bones, she and Alys shared the one chipped horn cup.

Morach drank deep, and then shook the bones in their little purse.

'Choose,' she said, holding out the purse to Alys. Alys hesitated.

'Choose,' Morach said again.

'Is it witchcraft?' Alys asked. She was not afraid, her blue eyes were fixed challengingly on Morach. 'Is it black arts, Morach?'

Morach shrugged. 'Who knows?' she said carelessly. 'To one man it's black arts, to another it's wise woman's trade, and to another it's a foolish old woman muttering madness. It's often true – that's all I know.'

Alys shrugged and at Morach's impatient gesture took one of the carved flat bones, then another, then a third, from the little pouch.

Morach stared at her choice. 'The Gateway,' she said first. 'That's your choice, that's where you are now. The three ways that lie before you – the castle life with its joys and dangers and its profits; the nun's life which you will have to fight like a saint to regain; or here -poverty, dirt, hunger. But…' She laughed softly. 'Invisibility. The most important thing for a woman, especially if she is poor, especially if she will grow old one day.'

Morach studied the second bone with the rune scrawled on it in a rusty brown ink. 'Unity,' she said, surprised. 'When you make your choice you have the chance for unity – to travel with your heart and mind in the same direction. Set your heart on something and stay true to it. One goal, one thought, one love. Whatever it is you desire: magic, your God, love.'

Alys' face was white, her eyes almost black with anger. 'I don't want him,' she said through her teeth. 'I don't want love, I don't want lust, I don't want desire, I don't want him. I want to get back where I belong, to the cloister where my life has order, some peace and some security and wealth. That's all.'

Morach laughed. 'Not much then,' she said. 'Not much for a drab from Bowes Moor, a runaway wench, a runaway nun. Not much to wish for – peace, security and wealth. Not a great demand!'

Alys shook her head irritably. 'You don't understand!' she exclaimed. 'It is not a great demand. It is my life, it is what I am used to. It is my proper place, my deserts. I need it now. Holiness – and a life where I can be at peace. Holiness and comfort.'

Morach shook her head, smiling to herself. 'It's a rare combination,' she said softly. 'Holiness and comfort. Most holy roads tend to the stony, I thought.'

Alys shrugged irritably. 'How would you know?' she demanded. 'What road have you ever followed but your own choice?'

Morach nodded. 'But I follow one road,' she reminded Alys. 'And they call me a wise woman rightly. This is what the Unity rune is telling you. Choose one road and follow it with loyalty.' Alys nodded. 'And the last one?'

Morach turned it around, looked at both sides and studied the two blank faces for a moment. 'Odin. Death,' she said casually and tossed the three back into the bag.

'Death!' Alys exclaimed. 'For who?'

'For me,' Morach said evenly. 'For the old Lord Hugh, for the young Lord Hugo, for you. Did you think you would live forever?'

'No…' Alys stumbled. 'But… d'you mean soon?' 'It's always too soon,' Morach replied with sudden irritation. 'You'll have your few days of passion and your choices to make before you come to it. But it's always too soon.'

Alys waited impatiently for more but Morach drank deep of the tea and would not look at her. Alys took the little purse of copper coins from her pocket and laid it in Morach's lap. Morach knocked it to the floor. 'There's no more,' she said unhelpfully.

'Then talk to me,' Alys said. For a moment her pale face trembled and she looked like a child again. 'Talk to me, Morach. I am like a prisoner in that place. Everyone except the old lord himself is my enemy.'

Morach nodded her head. 'Will you run?' she asked with slight interest. 'Run again?'

'I have the horse now,' Alys said, her voice quickening as the idea came to her. 'I have a horse and if I had money…' Morach's bare dirty foot stepped at once to cover the purse she had knocked to the floor. 'There must be an order of nuns where they would take me in,' Alys said. 'You must have heard of somewhere, Morach!'

Morach shook her head. 'I have heard of nothing except the Visitors and fines and complaints against nunneries and monasteries taken as high as the King,' she said. 'Your old abbey is stripped bare – the benches from the church, the slates from the roof, even some of the stones themselves are pulled down, and carted away for walls, or mounting blocks. First by Lord Hugo's men from the castle and now on his order by the villagers. It's the same in the north from what I hear, and the south. They'll have escaped the King's investigations in Scotland, you could try for it. But you'd be dead before you reached the border.'

Alys nodded. She held out her hand for the cup and Morach refilled it and handed it to her.

'The mood of the times is against you,' she said. 'People were sick of the wealth of the abbeys, priests, monks and nuns. They were sick of their greed. They want new landlords, or no landlords at all. You chose the wrong time to become a nun.'