The Wise Woman. Philippa Gregory
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and real ally. He tells me he owns me outright, he has me trapped, afraid of a charge of heresy, afraid of being exposed as a nun. The young lord wants to ensnare me as a pawn against his father, or else he desires me, or he wants to play for the cruelty of it. And Lady Catherine will throw me to a rapist to punish me for taking the old lord’s trust and the young lord’s eye. I must have some power in this, Morach. I am like an unweaned babe among wolves.’
Morach nodded. ‘You need woman’s power, as I did,’ she said. ‘Your Christ will not keep you safe. Not now. Not against real danger and the lusts of men. You need another power. The old power. The power of the old goddess.’
Alys nodded. ‘I’ve no choice,’ she said. The cold air around her seemed very still and silent. ‘I’ve no choice,’ she said again. ‘I have been driven so far and now I am at bay. I have to use what power I can. Give me the things.’
Morach glanced around; the meadow was deserted, the noise of the market was behind them. No one was watching. She unwrapped the cloth bundle and Alys gasped at what she saw.
They were three perfect models, three convincing likenesses, as good as the statues in the chapel. Lady Catherine’s flowing gown and her cold sharp face were carved out of the wax as precise and white as a cameo. Her gown was opened at the front, her legs spread. Morach had scratched the wax at her vagina to give the illusion of hair and the vagina was a deep, disproportionate hole made with a warm bodkin.
‘They fit!’ Morach said with a harsh giggle. She showed Alys the model of the young Lord Hugo. She had graven his face in his hard look – the one Alys and all the castle dreaded. But around his eyes there was the tracery of lines from his ready smile. Morach had modelled him a penis as big as a codpiece. ‘He must wish to be that size!’ she sniggered.
She took the two candlewax dolls and showed Alys how they slotted together. ‘That’ll turn his lust towards her,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘You’ll be safe when he is like this.’
The last doll was the old lord. ‘He’s thinner than that now,’ Alys said sadly. ‘Thinner and older looking.’
‘I’ve not seen him for a long time,’ Morach said. ‘You can shape him how you wish – use a warm knife for carving, and your fingers. But take care.’
Alys looked at the three little statues with distaste. She uncoupled Lord Hugo and Lady Catherine and wrapped them up again. ‘What care?’ she asked.
‘Once you’ve made them your own, claimed them as models for the life, then whatever you do to them takes place,’ Morach said softly. ‘If you want the old lord’s heart to soften, you cut into his chest, carve out a little piece of wax, mould it into a heart, warm it till it melts, and drip it back into the hole. Next morning he’ll be tender as a woman with a new baby.’
Alys’ dark eyes widened. ‘Is that true for all of them?’ she asked. ‘I could make Lady Catherine sick by pinching her belly? Or make the young lord impotent by softening his prick?’
‘Yes,’ Morach gleamed. ‘It’s a powerful piece of business, isn’t it? But you have to make them your own, and you have to make them represent those you mean to change. And – as I warned you – they can obey you too well. They can … misunderstand.’
There was a silence in the winter meadow. Alys met Morach’s eyes. ‘I have to do it,’ she said. ‘I have no safety without some power.’
Morach nodded. ‘This is the spell,’ she said. She put her mouth to Alys’ ear and chanted over some nonsense words, part Latin, part Greek, part French, and partly mispronounced and misheard English. She said it over and over again until Alys nodded and said she knew it by heart.
‘And you must take something from each of them,’ she said. ‘Something which is close to them, a bit of hair, a bit of fingernail, a paring of skin, and stick it on the part of the doll where it came from. Little fingernail to little finger, hair to the head, skin to where it was cut. Then you have your doll and your power.’
Alys nodded. ‘Have you done it before?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Morach said decidedly. ‘There wasn’t the urgency. I’ve had women ask me to soften their husband’s heart but it’s easier done with herbs in his dinner than a wax candle. I’ve had someone wish a man dead, but I’d never do it. The risk is too great. I always thought the risk was too great to make one of these.’
‘Why’ve you done it now?’ Alys asked directly.
Morach looked into her smooth young face and said, ‘You don’t know, do you? All your learning and all your planning, and you still are ignorant.’
Alys hunched her shoulder. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’
Morach put her dirty hand over Alys’ clean one. ‘I did it for you,’ she said gruffly. ‘I did it to give you a chance, to help you gain what you want, and to save you from rape by a soldier or by the young lord or by both. I don’t care for your dream of a nunnery but I do care for you. I raised you as my own daughter. I wouldn’t see you on your back under a man who cares nothing for you.’
Alys looked into the sharp old face. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. She looked carefully into Morach’s dark eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.
‘And if it goes against you,’ Morach said challengingly, ‘if it’s found, or if they know they’ve been hexed, I want my name out of it. You tell them you carved this yourself, it was your own idea. That is the condition. I’ve made them but I won’t take the danger of them. You tell them they are your own if you are ever caught. I want to die in my bed.’
The moment of tenderness between the two women was dispelled at once.
‘I promise,’ Alys said. She caught the look of suspicion on Morach’s face. ‘I promise,’ she said again. ‘I will make you a solemn oath. If anyone finds these I will tell them they are my own, made by me and used by me.’
‘Swear on your honour, on your old abbess, and on your God,’ Morach said insistently.
Alys hesitated.
‘Swear you will say they are yours,’ Morach demanded. ‘Swear it or I’ll take them back!’
Alys shook her head. ‘If anyone finds them I am lost anyway,’ she said. ‘Owning them would be enough to see me hanged.’
Morach nodded. ‘Throw them in the moat on your way home if you’ve changed your mind,’ she said. ‘If you need magic there’s a price to pay. There’s a price for everything. The price for this is your oath. Swear by your God.’
Alys looked at Morach with desperation in her face. ‘Don’t you see?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you know? I can have no God! My Lord Christ and Our Lady have turned their faces away from me. I ran from them when I left the convent and I hoped to take them with me. But all my efforts cannot keep them by my side. I kept the hours of prayer while I lived with you, Morach – as far as I could guess the right time. But in the castle they are near to being Protestants, heretics, and I cannot. And so Our Lady has abandoned me. And that is why I feel lust for the young lord, and why I now put my hand to your black arts.’
‘Lost your God?’ Morach asked with interest.
Alys nodded. ‘So I cannot swear by Him. I am far from His grace.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘I might as well swear by yours,’ she said.
Morach nodded briskly. ‘Do it,’ she said. ‘Put your hand on mine and say, “I swear by the Black Master, by all his servants, and in the power of all his arts, that I will own these dolls as my own. I wanted them, I have them, I acknowledge them.”’
Alys shrugged and laughed her bitter laugh again – half crying. She put her slim white hand on Morach’s and repeated the oath.
When she had finished, Morach captured her hand, and held it. ‘Now you are his,’ she said slowly. ‘You’ve summoned him now. You must learn