The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory

before them all by weeping for loneliness and loss at the dinner-table.
    The lords’ table was served with fillets of salmon and salad of parsley, sage, leeks, and garlic. Alys watched them as they were served. The greens were fresh, from the kitchen garden she guessed. The salmon was as pink as a wild rose. It would have been netted in the Greta this morning. Alys felt the water rush into her mouth as she looked at the pale succulent flesh, shiny with butter. A serving-lad shoved a trencher of bread before her spread thickly with paste of meat sweetened with honey and almonds, and his fellow poured more ale into Alys’s goblet.
    Alys shook her head. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “I want to rest.”
    Eliza Herring shook her head. “You may not leave the table until Father Stephen has said grace,” she said. “And until the lords and my lady have left. And then you must pour your mess into the almoner’s bowl for the poor.”
    “They eat the scraps from the table?” Alys asked.
    “They are glad of it,” Eliza said sharply. “Didn’t you give to the poor in Penrith?”
    Alys thought of the carefully measured portions of the nuns. “We gave whole loaves,” she said. “And sometimes a barrel of meat. We fed anyone who called at the kitchen door. We did not give them our leavings.”
    Eliza raised her plucked eyebrows in surprise. “Not very charitable!” she said. “My Lord Hugh’s almoner goes around the poorhouses with the bowl once a day, at breakfast-time, with the scraps from the dinner and supper table.”
    The priest, seated at the head of the table below the dais, rose to his feet and prayed in a clear, penetrating voice in perfect Latin. Then he repeated the prayer again in English. Alys listened carefully; she had never heard God addressed in English before, it sounded like blasphemy—a dreadful insult to speak to God as if he were a neighboring farmer, in ordinary words. But she kept her face steady, crossed herself only when the others did so, and rose to her feet as they did.
    Lady Catherine, the old lord, and the young lord all turned toward the door beside the waiting-women’s table.
    “What a lovely gown you have,” Lady Catherine said to Alys, as if she had just noticed it. Her voice was friendly but her eyes were cold.
    “Lord Hugh gave it me,” Alys said steadily. She met Lady Catherine’s gaze without flinching. I could hate you, she thought.
    “You are too generous, my lord,” Lady Catherine said, smiling.
    Lord Hugh grunted. “She’ll be a pretty wench when her hair is grown,” he said. “You’ll have to take her into your rooms, Catherine. She did well enough sleeping by me when I was sick. If she is to stay, she’d best have a bed with your women.”
    Lady Catherine nodded. “Of course, my lord,” she said pleasantly. “Whatever you command. But if I had known you needed a clerk I could have written your letters for you. I daresay my Latin is a little better than this…this girl’s.” She gave a light laugh.
    Lord Hugh shot a dark look at her from under his white eyebrows. “I daresay,” he said. “But not all my letters are fit for a lady to read. And all of it is my own business.”
    Two light spots of color appeared on Lady Catherine’s cheeks. “Of course, my lord,” she said. “I only hope the girl can serve you.”
    “Come to my room now,” the old lord said to Alys. “Come, I’ll lean on you.”
    He gestured Alys to his side and she stepped before Lady Catherine. She felt the woman’s resentment like a draft of cold air behind her. She held still a shiver which seemed to walk from the base of her spine up to the cropped, cold nape of her neck. Then Lord Hugh’s heavy hand came comfortably on her shoulder and he leaned on her as she led him from the great hall, across the lobby behind it, and up to his room in the round tower.
    He did not let her go until the door was shut behind them.
    “Now then,” he said. “You’ve seen the she-dog, my