The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory Page A

daughter-in-law, and you’ve seen my son. D’you see now why I let you meet no one, why my food is tasted?”
    “You mistrust her,” Alys said.
    “Damned right,” the old lord said with a grunt. He slumped into the heavy carved chair at the fireplace. “I mistrust them both. I mistrust them all. I’m cold,” he said fretfully. “Fetch me a rug, Alys.”
    Alys took one of the fur-lined rugs from the bed and tucked it around his shoulders.
    “You have to sleep with her women,” he said abruptly. “I can’t keep you here, it would make matters worse for you if they thought you were my whore. But you will keep your mouth shut about me and my business.”
    Alys fixed her dark blue eyes on him and nodded.
    “And you will remember that it was I that sent for you, that it is I who command here, and that until I am dead you will be
my
clerk and servant and none other. My spy too,” he said abruptly. “You can listen to her ladyship and tell me what she says of me, what she plans. And Hugo.”
    “And if I refuse?” Alys asked, her voice so soft that he could not take offense.
    “You cannot refuse,” he said. “You either consent to be my clerk, my spy, my cunning woman, and my healer—or else I shall have you strangled and dumped in the moat. It’s your choice.” He smiled wickedly. “A free choice, Alys, I won’t constrain you.”
    Alys’s pale lovely face was as calm as a river on a sunny still day in June. “I consent,” she said easily. “I will serve you in all that I
can
do—for I cannot make spells. And I will tell no one your business.”
    The old lord looked hard at her. “Good,” he said.

Chapter 5
    A lys’s knowledge of Latin was tested to its full extent by the letters the old lord sent all around England. He was seeking advice on how an annulment of Hugo’s and Catherine’s marriage would be greeted by his family, and by her distant kin. He suggested that she and Hugo—as second cousins—were in too close kinship, and that was why their marriage was barren, and should—“perhaps,” “possibly,” “mayhap”—be annulled. His letters were a masterpiece of vague suggestion. Alys translated, and then translated again to hit upon the right tone of cautious inquiry. He was measuring the opposition he would face from his peers and rivals, and from the law.
    He was also preparing his allies and his friends for his own death, smoothing the way for his son. He sent two very secret letters by special messenger to his “beloved cousins” at Richmond Castle and York, commanding them to act if his death was sudden, if it looked like an accident, or if it had been caused by an illness which could be blamed on poisoning. He commanded them to seek evidence against his son’s wife; and he implored them to have her tried and executed if any evidence could be found or fabricated which pointed to her. He cast the darkest suspicions on her plans and on her feelings toward him.
    If (as a possibility only he mentioned it to them), if the crime pointed to his son—they should ignore it. The inheritance of Hugo was more important than revenge, and besides, he would be dead by then and they would have no thanks from him. Alys, her eyes never lifting from the pages before her, realized that Catherine executed for murder was disposed of as neatly, and indeed more cheaply, than Catherine set aside for barrenness. The old lord would not have died in vain if his death could be blamed on his daughter-in-law, his son set free to marry again, and a new Hugh born into the family.
    Alys bent her cropped head over her writing as he dictated, and tried to translate blind and deaf, working without taking in the sense of what he was saying, scenting the dangers which surrounded him—and her with him—like a hare senses the hounds and cowers low. She learned for the first time that the land was ruled by a network of conniving, conspiring landlords answerable only to each other and to the king himself. Each of