Hugo shot a despairing look at Alys. The room was as hot as a bread-oven. Alys' face was flushed, her forehead damp with sweat. The mud on Hugo's boots was dried to dust by the heat, his wet clothes were steaming.

'Drink some more mead,' Alys said, without turning round. She slammed the scorching lid of the warming-pan and then wrapped it in a towel and thrust it into the bed under Catherine's feet.

'I'm so cold, Alys,' Catherine said. Her voice was high and thin, like a child. 'I'm so cold, Alys. Can you not give me something to make me warm?'

Alys turned to the chest and pulled out one of Catherine's great fur cloaks with the hood. 'Sit up a little,' she said. 'We'll put this around you like a shawl, and you can have the hood over your wet hair. You'll soon warm up.'

Together they raised her in the bed. Alys looked away when her robe fell open and the rounded part of her belly was exposed. She looks like a mead-pot, Alys thought irritably, all gross curves. Beside the plump naked woman, Alys felt herself to be a shadow, a spectre of darkness. She tucked the thick furs around Catherine and then pulled the bedclothes up again.

'Warmer?' she asked.

Catherine nodded and tried to smile, but her face was still white. Hugo held her cold hands in his own. He turned them over, her fingernails were blue.

'Should she be blooded?' he asked Alys. 'Should we sent for a surgeon and bleed her?'

Alys shook her head. 'She needs all her blood,' she said. 'She's choleric in humour. She'll warm up.'

'And the baby?' he asked. He turned a little away from the bed so Alys could hear him, but Catherine could not. 'The baby is the most important thing. Will the baby be all right?'

Alys nodded. She had a very sour taste in her mouth. She did not want to put her face too close to Hugo, she thought her breath would smell foul. 'I doubt this will harm the baby,' she said. 'You will be laughing about this in a few days. Both of you.'

Hugo nodded but his face was dark with worry. 'Pray God that's so,' he said.

Alys turned away. 'I have to go to your father,' she said. 'He sent me to find news of Lady Catherine. Shall I send one of the other women in to sit with her?'

Hugo shook his head. 'I'll go to him,' he said. 'And I'll come back at once. You stay here and watch over her. I trust you to care for her, Alys. You know how much this child means to me. He will be my future -and my freedom. He will make my fortune this autumn if we can get him through to a safe birth and to his grandfather's arms.' Alys nodded. 'I know,' she said. Hugo turned back to the bed where Catherine lay, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the baking heat of the bedroom. 'I am going to tell my father that you are safe and well,' he said. 'I will leave Alys here to care for you, and I will come back in a few moments.'

Catherine nodded and lay back, her jaw clenched to keep her teeth from chattering. Against the dark furs her skin was white as thick vellum. The door shut quietly behind Hugo as he went out.

The two women were alone. The room was silent. In the gallery outside the bedroom door, Catherine's other women waited around the fire twittering like nervous birds. Catherine did not have the strength to call them, she could not reach out her hand to the bell. She was as much in Alys' power as if Alys had her bound and gagged and a knife whetted ready for her throat.

Alys turned from the door and came slowly to the foot of the bed. Catherine's pale brown eyes looked up at her.

'I felt as if I was pushed,' she said. Her lip trembled, like a little child that has suffered some unimaginable unkindness. 'I felt as if someone pushed me. But there was no one there.' Alys looked back at her, her face impassive. 'I heard a humming noise, a loud humming noise -like bees, or like a person humming – and then I felt someone push me, push me hard, push me into the water,' she said.

Alys' lovely face was clear, her blue eyes confident. 'These are fancies,' she said, her voice lilting, sweet as a song. 'You have had a grievous fright. Pregnant women have these fears, my lady. There was no one near you, my lady. How could anyone hum and throw you in the river?' She laughed gently.

Catherine put a hand out of the nest of furs towards Alys. 'Will you hold my hand, Alys?' she asked pitifully. 'I am afraid. I feel so afraid.'

Alys came a little closer. She could hear the humming in her own head now, like a drowsy hive. She knew that if she touched the smallest fingertip of Catherine's white cold hand she would succumb to temptation and snatch up the pillow and crush it down over her frightened face. The humming was too loud to resist. 'I have been cruel to you, Alys,' Catherine said, her voice a thin thread. 'I have treated you unkindly and tormented you. I was jealous.'

Alys kept her face blank, and held on to the noise of the humming. Louder and louder the noise swelled, while Catherine beckoned her closer.

'I am sorry,' Catherine said softly. 'Please forgive me, Alys. Hugo looked on you with such desire I could not bear it. Please forgive me.'

The humming was drowning out thought. Catherine was reaching out for her. Alys' hands trembled with the desire to lock around her fat neck and squeeze and squeeze until there was no breath left in that plump, white, indulged body.

'Please, Alys,' Catherine said pitifully. 'You do not know what it is to feel jealousy such as I felt for you. It led me into the sin of unkindness to you. I know I taunted you and tormented you. I am afraid I made an enemy of you. Forgive me, Alys. Please say you forgive me.'

Alys stepped a little closer. Catherine's face was pitiful. Alys found herself smiling, warm with joy at what she was about to do. Catherine reached out for her murderer with imploring hands. Alys took another step closer, stretched out her own hands…

'For the sake of Our Lady,' Catherine said. 'Take my hand, Alys, and say you forgive me.'

At the name of the Holy Mother Alys checked, closed her eyes for a second and shook her head. She took a deep breath. The humming sound burned angrily in her head for a moment and then rumbled softly away, deep and soft, as if a dark swarm had gone back to a cave, to hide for a while, until their time should come again.

Catherine reached out for her. Alys stepped forward and reluctantly took her outstretched hand.

'I was jealous,' Catherine went on eagerly. 'You were so beautiful when you first came to the castle, Alys. And Hugo was so cold to me. You are so clever and so learned, and the old lord liked you – and he never really liked me. And I was afraid that you were taking them from me, both of them. My husband and my guardian. I was afraid you would take my place from me. Then I would have had nothing, Alys.' She was breathing very fast but there was no trace of colour in her cheeks. She was as white as a candlewax doll.

Alys, holding Catherine's cold hand, holding on to her own power, felt the dark swarm flowing back through her, through her veins, through her head, out through her deadly fingertips.

Her hands became icy, colder than Catherine's, colder than the winter river itself. Alys gave a little tremble of excitement and put her other hand over Catherine's clinging grip.

'I think I'm dying,' Catherine said breathlessly. 'The room is dark, so very dark, Alys. Hold my hand a little tighter, I can hardly see you.'

Alys tightened her grip as she was bid. A fierce hungry smile spread across her face. She could feel the coldness and the darkness pouring from her, pouring out through her hands into Catherine. 'Are you cold?' she asked.

Catherine shuddered. 'I am freezing, Alys! Freezing!' she exclaimed. 'And all the candles are out! And the fire out! Why is it so cold? Why is it so dark? I feel as if there is no one here who loves me or cares for me at all. Hold my hand tighter, Alys! Talk to me! I am afraid! I am afraid!'

Alys laughed, a cold ripple of sound in the brightly lit steaming room. 'I am here, Lady Catherine,' she said.

'Can you not see me? The fire is banked high, it is terribly hot. Can you feel nothing? And all the candles are lit – the lovely bright beeswax candles. The room is as bright as day, as bright as sunlight. Is it all dark for you? Is it all dark for you at last?'

'Alys!' Catherine said imploringly. 'Hold me, Alys, please! Hold me close! I feel as if the waters are taking me under. I am drowning, Alys! I am drowning in my bed.'

'Yes!' Alys said exultantly, her own breath coming fast. 'You caught me like this last time, in the moat. You called me to you and then you pulled me down! But this time it is me drowning you! I need not put my hands to your throat. I need not do more than hold your hands as you wish, and you will go down, Catherine. You will go down alone, you will drown in your bed!'

'Alys!' Catherine cried. Her voice was as thin as a thread, and at the end of the word she choked, as if a wave of green icy water had slapped her in the mouth.

Alys laughed again, madly, recklessly. 'You're drowning, Catherine!' she said, amazed at her own power. 'Morach could pull you out of the river but nothing and no one can save you from drowning! You're going down, Catherine! You're going down! You are drowning in your bed!'

The door clicked behind them and Alys whirled around. It was Hugo. Behind him was the old lord and David. He looked from one woman to the other and his face was puzzled. 'What's wrong?' he asked.

Alys took a deep breath. The bright hot room seemed to swirl around her like the colours in a swinging crystal. 'She is fearful,' she said. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away. 'And she is holding on to me so tight! I tried to call for the women but they did not hear. And I am faint.' She swayed as she spoke and Hugo stepped quickly forward. Alys lurched towards him; but it was David the seneschal who stepped forward and caught her as she fell.

Hugo did not even turn around to look at her. He had Catherine gathered in his arms and she was sobbing on his shoulder.

Seventeen

Catherine was ill for many days, through the springtime weather of May when the sun rose clear and early, and the birds sang till dusk, till the end of that storm-filled, sunshine-filled month; but she did not complain. She lay quietly in her bed which was carried across to the little window so she could sit up on her pillows and see the courtyard and the garden and the life of the castle going on. She wearied easily and she liked to have Alys by her side to read to her. 'I cannot see the print,' she said. 'My head aches so. And Alys reads so sweetly.'

Lord Hugh passed her books and poems to read, and even some of his letters from London which told of Queen Anne's trial and her execution. '"By the hand of a French swordsman, especially trained and brought over from that country,"' Alys read to Catherine.

Catherine shook her head. 'I never liked her,' she said softly. 'I was named for Queen Catherine, you know, Alys. I always thought Anne Boleyn would fall. She was an adulteress, first with the King, and then with his courtiers. I won't mourn for her. Her rise was ungodly swift.'

'No swifter than Jane Seymour's,' Alys said logically. 'She was lady-in-waiting to them both. And she will be queen in her turn. If a man is king, or even master of his destiny, he will choose the woman he wants. And she can rise as he wishes.'

Catherine turned her head on the pillow and smiled at Alys. 'A marriage for love is best,' she said contentedly. 'A marriage for love between equals is best.'

Hugo came to her every morning and sat with her until dinner. He dined with her in her chamber at noon, and the table in the big hall seemed strangely empty without them. Alys often waited on them in Catherine's chamber as they ate. Hugo took her service without noticing her. He only watched Catherine, pressing her to eat the finest things, to drink little glasses of good red Mount Rose wine from Gascony to strengthen her blood. It was Catherine who thanked Alys.

In the afternoon while Hugo went out hunting, Alys would sing to Catherine and play the lute. She would read to her and copy passages from books which Catherine wanted to learn. 'I am so glad you are here, Alys,' Catherine said sweetly one day. 'I am so glad you are here to care for me. I feel so weak, Alys, I can tell you -but don't tell Hugo. I feel so weak I feel as if I will never be strong again. I am glad to have you care for me. I don't think I would have survived my drowning without your care.'

Morach, sitting idly at Catherine's bedroom fire, shot a quick amused glance at Alys' face. Alys looked blandly back.