Alys rode towards Castleton without looking back.

Mary, mounted on the pony again, rode behind her.

The soldiers, rested after their dinner in the wood, stepped out blithely. The leading soldier whistled softly through his teeth. The fine weather was breaking up, there was a mist lying in swirls along the river, clumping over the still pools. The air was colder in the west, behind them there were long thick strips of cloud gathering.

'Best make haste,' the soldier in front said over his shoulder. 'It's going to rain and you have no cape.'

Alys nodded and the man broke into a slow, steady run. The mule trotted behind him, the dust beneath its hooves as white as salt. Alys, watching its long, doltish ears, jogged uncomfortably along. Behind her she heard the rapid, light sounds of her pony cantering, held in on a tight rein by Mary. Alys could taste the dust of the road in her mouth, could feel its stony dryness on the skin of her face, in her hair. She felt its crystalline deadness all around her as she rode away from Hildebrande and left her alone on the high moor.

The horses' hooves rang hollowly on the Castleton bridge. The soldier slackened his pace as they walked through the town. The market traders were gathering up their goods, a sharp flurry of wind whipped the cloth on a weaver's stall into a dozen flags. The pony shied but Mary, sitting easily in the saddle, moved with it; the mule waggled his long ears at the sight. 'Just got home in time,' the soldier said. The guards at the gates barred their way with pikes and then lifted them up in a salute to Alys. Behind them came the dull rumble of thunder.

'Here comes the rain,' the soldier said. 'You were lucky to get home dry, Mistress Alys.'

Alys nodded and let him lift her from the saddle under the shelter of the gateway.

'Someone lend me a cape,' she said abruptly. A scud of rain raced across the courtyard before them. Mary put a soldier's cape around Alys' shoulders and Alys pulled it up over her stiff gable hood. Ducking her head against the driving rain she ran across the yard, through the second gate, across the inner manse and into the great hall.

She paused inside the hall as a crack of lightning made the hall as bright as midday and then a loud peal of thunder exploded outside. A soldier at the fire jumped and crossed himself. 'Christ save us!' he said. 'That was right overhead.'

'Where is the young lord?' Alys asked him. 'Where is Hugo?'

'With his father, Mistress Alys,' he replied. 'A messenger came from the King and they are reading the letters.'

Alys nodded and went through the hall, through the lobby, to the round tower. As she climbed the tower steps her way was suddenly bright as the lightning exploded again. Alys stumbled and clung to the wall as the thunder rocked the building. ‘I will do it,' she said through her teeth.

Her gown had been soaked in the brief run across the courtyard and now it clung to her thighs, dragging her down. It was as cold and wet as the gown of a drowned woman. 'I will do it,' Alys said again.

She went up a dozen more stairs into the circular guardroom below the old lord's room. There were two soldiers playing at dice. 'Is the young lord with his father?' Alys asked them.

'Yes, Mistress Alys,' said the younger, standing to speak to her and pulling off his cap.

Alys nodded. The thunder rolled dully as if it had sped away to rage around the other tower, the prison tower.

'The storm has gone,' the lad said. 'What a clap that was just now!'

'It's not gone yet,' Alys said. She turned from the room and went up the next flight of stairs, clinging to the stones at the side of the stairs as if her knees were weak.

She had been right about the storm. As she raised her hand to the latch of the old lord's door a knife of white light sliced through the arrow-slit to Alys' feet and then a great angry roar of thunder shook the stone tower. Alys, flinching back, almost fell into the room.

Hugo, his father and David were seated at the fireside.

'What a storm!' the old lord said. 'Are you wet, Alys? Are you cold?'

'No, no,' she said. She heard that her voice was too sharp, too alarmed. She took a breath and steadied herself. 'I had to run across the courtyard but we were home before the rain started,' she said.

Hugo looked up at her. 'You should change from your wet clothes,' he said. 'My father and I are busy with messages from the King's council.'

'I won't disturb you then,' Alys said. 'I shall be ready to come and clerk for you, if you wish, my lord.' Lord Hugh nodded.

'I just thought I should tell you,' Alys said. 'The new wise woman at Morach's cottage on Bowes Moor. She is very strange. I met her in the woods when I was fetching the elm bark. She talked very wild. She frightened me.'

Hugo looked up. 'Did she do you harm?' he asked.

Alys shook her head. 'No, but I would not have her near me when I am at my time,' she said. 'I had sent her some goods and thought she might be of service to me. But she talked so wild and looked so strange. I don't like her. I don't like her being in Morach's cottage.'

The old lord was watching Alys curiously. 'Not like you to be fearful, Alys,' he said. 'Is it your condition?'

Alys shrugged. 'It must be,' she said. 'But the woman mistook me for someone else. She called me Ann and conjured me to go and live with her. She ordered me to go to the cottage and she said I would be in danger if I did not join her. She made me fearful.'

'Was she hexing you?' the old lord asked.

'No,' Alys said firmly. 'Nothing like that. I suppose it was nothing more than my foolish fancy. I do not swear against her, I make no accusation. But I cannot like her living here so close to us. Nor living there – where I like to collect my plants. And it was old Morach's cottage and now it is mine. I don't want her living in my cottage.'

'Move her on?' the old lord said, cocking an eyebrow at Hugo.

Hugo laughed shortly. 'We'll dump her over the border into Westmorland,' he said. 'They have enough mad old women there for her to merge into the crowd.'

Alys put her hand on her belly. 'I would not do her harm,' she said. 'I would not cause her to be hurt. I want you to move her gently, Hugo. I am only nervous because of my time and I do not want ill-wishing around me.'

'Oh aye,' Hugo said. ‘I’ll send a half-dozen men out tomorrow. They can put her on a horse and send her over the border. You'll not see her again. She'll not trouble you.'

'Tell them not to hurt her,' Alys said. ‘I feel it would be bad luck for me if they hurt her.'

Hugo nodded. ‘I’ll tell them to be gentle with her. Don't fret, Alys.'

She nodded. ‘I’ll leave you to your business then, my lords.' There was another flash of lightning as she put her hand on the door, and a deep rumble of thunder overhead.

'This storm will do your work for you and blow the old hag across the border,' Lord Hugh said.

'Going the wrong way,' Hugo said briefly. 'It'd blow her to Yorkshire and I'd wish that on no one.'

The old lord chuckled and Alys closed the door behind her softly.

The storm did not cease circling the castle all night. Alys went down to supper with her way lit by flashes which made the candles into sticks of black with flames of shadows. Catherine stayed upstairs, whimpering with fear at the storm and cringing when the thunder rolled. Her window was barred tight shut, with the hangings drawn, but still the quicksilver brightness of the lightning drew a rapid silver line around the curtains for one sharp second before the thunder crushed the world into blackness.

Alys' colour was high, she sparkled as if she had been brushed with lightning herself. She was wearing a bright yellow gown and her hair combed loose over her shoulders. She laughed and leaned towards the old lord, smiled across him to Hugo, nodded at the soldiers at their table at the back of the hall who gave her a ragged cheer. She drank deep of the dark red wine the old lord urged on her. She ate well.