‘I have promised to live with her should I ever leave here,' Alys said.

The old lord nodded. 'And she was satisfied with that? Sounds very thin to me.'

'She thinks Hugo will take another wife from far away,' Alys said. 'She does not know that I carry Hugo's child in my belly. She is a fool. Her own worries and her own fears blind her. Not even her ladies have dared to tell her that I carry Hugo's child. She is so selfish, so drowned in her own needs, that she does not even see me. She understands nothing. She thinks I am a passing fancy, she does not see clearly enough to see me as Hugo's lady.'

The old lord had turned away, Alys could not see his face. But the stillness of his back warned her.

'You thought that you would be the new wife?' he asked.

Alys found that her breath was coming fast. The sense of fear and anger in her belly which she had felt while watching Hugo flirting in the courtyard was flooding back. She felt her face grow cold and then flushed.

'Yes,' she said bravely. 'I may not be noble and I bring no dowry. But I am the only woman ever to conceive and to carry his child. When my son is born he will be the only heir you have. You know as well as I that Catherine is not infertile – you have had physician after physician to look at her. You know it is Hugo's seed which is weak. If you bring another wife you will only have another barren marriage. It is only I who can conceive with Hugo. Only I who can carry his child full term. When I give birth to a son in the springtime you do not dare not to have us wed by then, and the child legitimate!'

The old lord, his back still turned, threw back his head and roared with cruel, mirthless laughter. Alys smiled nervously, hoping to share his humour.

'I dare?' he asked, turning around to face her. 'You tell me: I do not dare? Oh, my pretty slut, I dare greater things than that!' He stepped across the chamber and thrust his bony hands in front of her face, counting off points on his fingers. 'One: Hugo is not to marry a base woman from God knows where, of God knows what family or parents. Two: I don't take gambles on appearances.' He patted her lightly in the belly with the back of his hand. 'You could have a cripple in there, like Catherine had. You could have a girl.' He spoke as if cripple and girl were equally abhorrent. 'You could have a dead baby or an idiot boy.'

Instinctively Alys put her hands over her belly as if to block out the words. He pushed her hands away. 'Or wind. You could fail to go full term,' he said cruelly. 'You could miscarry like Catherine. You have six months to get through yet, my little whore, it's not likely I'll buy without seeing what I'm getting, is it?'

Mutely Alys stared up at him, her hands in her lap, palms uppermost. 'And thirdly,' he said loudly. 'If it is a son, and hale and hearty, Hugo does not marry you, you little fool. We make the son legitimate! I adopt him as my heir. We want the child, we don't want you! We never wanted you except for clerking and Hugo's pleasure!' Alys was white-faced, her hands were shaking. 'What made you think you could snare me, you little slut? Have you forgotten who I am? You seem to have forgotten your own base blood as soon as you had colours on your back. But me? Have you forgotten who I am? I am the lord of all the land around me for hundreds of miles! My family was planted here by William the Norman King himself, and I have fought and schemed for every acre under my foot. You might forget yourself – God knows you're not memorable! But me? Have you forgotten my family? Have you forgotten my power? Have you forgotten my pride? Have you forgotten who I am?'

Alys rose unsteadily to her feet. 'I am unwell,' she said. She could feel her face trembling. It was hard to form the words. 'I will leave you, my lord,' she said.

'Sit down, sit down,' Lord Hugh said impatiently, his anger blown away in a moment. He thrust her into the chair and stamped over to the table and poured her a glass of wine. Alys took it and sipped. He watched the colour creep back into her cheeks.

'I warned you,' he said gently. 'I warned you not to try to overleap the boundaries, God's own boundaries, between the noble and the rest.'

The wine was steadying Alys. 'Hugo loves me,' she insisted softly.

The old lord shook his head. 'Alys, don't talk like a fool!' he begged. 'You please Hugo. You are a pretty woman, desirable and hot. Any man would want you. If I were not frail and old, I'd have you myself. But don't think these things are decided on whim, on pleasure in a face, or a night's lust. Not even the King himself consults his appetites in this. It's a political decision, always political. Hunting for heirs, hunting for new alliances. Making power, consolidating power. Women are just pawns in this game. Hugo knows as well as I that the next marriage has to be done well, to our advantage. We need a connection with a rising family of the southeast – someone close to the King. Hugo is right – the King is more and more the source of power, of wealth. We need a family high in favour at court.'

Alys put down the glass. 'And do you have one in mind?' she asked bitterly.

'I have three!' the old lord said triumphantly. 'The de Bercy family, they have a wench of twelve they would let us have, the Beause family – they have a girl too young, only nine – but if she is big and forward for her age she might do. And the Mumsett family – they have a girl on their hands whose marriage contract has collapsed. She's twenty. The right age for Hugo. I need to know why her engagement failed, but she might do.'

The wine was spreading through Alys' body like despair. 'I did not know,' she said dully. 'You never spoke of these to me. You never wrote to them. You never received letters from them. I did not know. How have you made these arrangements? I never wrote for you.'

Lord Hugh chuckled. 'Did you think you saw all my letters?' he asked. 'Did you not think that David writes for me, in Latin, aye, in English and Italian, or French too? Did you not think that Hugo writes for me sometimes? Did you not think that when it is deep, deep secret then I write for myself and send it out by a bird, releasing the bird with my own hands so that no one knows but me and a clever, secretive bird?'

Alys shook her head. 'I thought you trusted me alone,' she said. 'I thought I was close to your heart.'

The old lord looked at her with compassion. 'And they call you a wise woman!' he said with gentle mockery. 'You are a fool, Alys.'

She bowed her head.

'What will become of me?' she asked.

'I'll keep you as my clerk,' the old lord offered. 'There will always be a place for you in my hall. You will nurse your child for the first two years. I will not take him away from you before then. When he has tried his first steps I shall take him for my own and you can please yourself.'

‘I can stay here?' Alys asked.

'As his nurse, if you watch your tongue. As long as Hugo's new wife does not object. She will have the rearing of your son. He will be brought up as her child.'

'She gets Hugo and the castle and my son,' Alys said numbly. 'This girl you do not even know. She gets Hugo and the castle and my son and I get nothing.'

Lord Hugh nodded. ‘I could send you to France to a nunnery when the baby is taken from you,' he offered. 'I'll give you a dowry and the name of a dead man. You could go back to the nunnery as a widow. I will do that for you.'

'I have lost my faith,' Alys said with weary dignity. 'Step by step in this castle I have fallen into sin and lost what little faith I ever had. The life I have led here would have robbed the faith of a saint.'

The old lord laughed shortly. 'Forgive me,' he said. ‘I am just a layman, I cannot dispute these things. But surely the life you lived here would have proved a saint. This should have been a good test for a little fledgling saint.' Alys bowed her head under his mockery. 'Well then, you have your final haven,' he said, a ripple of laughter in the back of his voice. Alys looked at him dumbly.