Alys turned over in her sleep, her hand stretched out, seeking him. 'My love,' she said very softly.

Alys was sick the next day, heavy-eyed, white-faced, poisoned with the wine. She would eat nothing and would drink only water. Indeed, the whole castle, from Hugo down to the poorest scullion, had drunk better than they had drunk all year and were paying the price.

It was not until after dinner that any of the women felt better. Then Lady Catherine commanded them to sit in the gallery and sew while she spun. Alys was ordered to read aloud from a story book.

Alys, nauseous and with her head throbbing, read until the badly printed words danced before her eyes. They were love stories, tales of ladies in castles and knights who worshipped them. Alys let her mind wander as she read the romance – life was not like these stories, she knew.

'Lord Hugo carried you up the stairs last night?' Lady Catherine's arid voice cut into the reading. Alys blinked. 'Carried you all the way to your room, did he?' 'I am sorry, my lady,' Alys said. 'I cannot remember. I was faint and I did not know what I did.'

'Did he carry her?' Lady Catherine turned to Eliza. 'Yes,' Eliza said baldly. She ached inside this morning and she blamed Alys that Hugo's lust had soured into violence.

'Into your room?' Lady Catherine asked. 'Yes,' Eliza said again.

'You were with them?' Lady Catherine confirmed. Eliza hesitated. She would have given much to have her revenge on Hugo by telling that he had ordered her to stay outside. But the risks were too great. The young lord's anger was swift and unpredictable, and she had stains on her gown and two silver sixpences which would support an accusation against her.

'Yes,' she said. 'He tossed her down on her pallet and told me to watch her and make sure she did not vomit and lie in it like a dog.' Alys' pale skin flushed crimson. 'How disagreeable for him,' Lady Catherine said in mild triumph. 'I think you had better drink ale in future, Alys.'

'I think so too, my lady,' Alys said quietly. 'I am very sorry.' Lady Catherine nodded with a glacial smile and stood while Mistress Allingham moved the spinning wheel for her into a patch of winter sunshine which fell on the wooden floor, brightly coloured from the stained glass of the oriel window.

'Did he do that?' Alys whispered urgently to Eliza. 'Did he throw me down?'

'He lay beside you,' Eliza said spitefully. 'I've saved your skin with my lady by not telling. He gave me two silver sixpences to keep watch. I stood guard at the door while he tossed you down on your pallet and stripped you and lay beside you and stuck his finger in you.'

Alys went white and looked as if she might fall. 'It's not possible,' she said.

'It happened,' Eliza said harshly. 'I saw him do it.' 'But I feel nothing,' Alys said.

'What are you girls whispering about?' Lady Catherine interrupted.

'About the colour of the silk, Lady Catherine,' Eliza said at once. 'I think it is too bright. Alys wants to keep it as it is.'

Eliza lifted up the tapestry which Alys had painstakingly stitched in the previous week and Lady Catherine considered it with her head on one side. 'Rip it out,' she said. 'You are right, Eliza, it needs to be a paler colour, anyone could see that. Alys will have to stop reading and rip it back and do it all again.'

Alys picked up a pair of silver scissors and started snipping at the cloth, the work of seven days to be done all over again. Eliza bent over it.

'It didn't hurt because you wanted it,' she whispered. 'You let him take your gown off and you took his hand and guided it in, just like any slut! And after all you've said about not wanting to go with a man.'

Alys felt her world shift and heave. 'It's not possible,' she said.

Eliza shrugged. 'Don't you remember anything?' Alys closed her eyes. Vaguely, like a dream, she could remember a sleepy sensuality, a confidence and an affection which she had never felt in her waking life. She remembered a gesture, rolling over on her side and pulling his arm over her, tucking his hand between her thighs. She flushed a sweating scarlet. 'Oh my God,' she said.

'What d'you remember?' Eliza demanded eagerly. 'What did you say to stop him?'

Alys shook her head wordlessly. 'I desired him,' she said. Her voice was hollow with her unhappiness. 'What?'

'I was drunk and I desired him,' Alys said again. 'If he had wanted to take me he could have had me. You would not have stopped him, and I would not have wanted him to stop. He could have had me like any little whore in the castle, I would have had no words to stop him. I felt wanton. He could have had me.' She rubbed the back of her hand hard against her eyes. 'I am lost unless I can stop this sickness,' she said. 'I will lose everything unless I can guard myself. I am lost unless I take my power. I must guard myself with all the power I can hold.' Abruptly she threw down her sewing and went to the door.

'Alys!' Lady Catherine commanded. 'What do you think you are doing? How dare you march out of the room without my leave?'

Alys rounded on her, her eyes, her whole face, blazing with anger and despair. 'Oh, go your ways, Lady Catherine!' she said bitterly. 'I have no fear of you now. The one thing you could have taken from me has gone. I was not born to be a woman like you, a woman like these… ' She made a sharp, dismissive gesture at the four women whose stunned faces were turned to her, gaping. 'These pitiful slaveys. But now I have seen myself truly. I am no better than any of you. There is nothing about me which is special. I am a sinner and I am a fool. But at least now I see my way clearly. Now I am a woman without fear.'

Lady Catherine recoiled from her anger, but then blustered, 'Don't speak to me like that, girl, 'I'm taking my power,' Alys swore. 'You will not call me girl again! You will not rule me! And your husband will not have me as his plaything. You have driven me to it between you and I am taking my power!'

'Stop!' Catherine shrieked. Alys threw her a look like a burning brand and slammed out of the room. They could hear her feet pattering down the stone steps and then the bang of the door of the great hall. 'Is she leaving?' Mistress Allingham asked. Only Lady Catherine stayed seated, the rest of them crowded to the wide oriel window and craned their necks to see the steps from the great hall below them into the garden, and the path to the gatehouse over the inner moat.

'She's going,' Eliza confirmed. 'She's in the garden heading for the gate. Shall I run after her and order her to be brought back, my lady?'

Lady Catherine's face was pale, her mouth pressed tight as she marshalled her fears and her suspicions. 'Let her go,' she said. 'Let her go.'

The old lord did not miss Alys until that evening just before supper, when he wanted a letter written. David came to the women's quarters to ask for her and Lady Catherine kept her plain face blank as she told him that Alys was missing.

'I will come in her place,' she said. She threw a dark cloak around her shoulders, pulled the hood over her head, and followed him to the old lord's room in the round tower. On the dark corner of the stairs they passed young Lord Hugo, openly waiting for them. He put out his hand to stop her.

'Alys,' he said. She had never heard that tone from him before, he poured a world full of yearning into the girl's name.

His wife put back the hood of her cloak. Her bony face gleamed hatred at him, her eyes were filled with triumph. 'I thought so,' she said, venom in her tone. 'I thought so.' Hugo recoiled. 'Madam, I… '

David the seneschal exchanged one look with Hugo and went on up the stairs to the old lord's chamber, out of earshot.

'Don't bother pretending,' she said passionately. 'I wondered what hold she had over you and the old man. I suppose she has been bedding you both.' Her mouth worked angrily. 'Bedding you both! Him in his dotage and you who run after anything in a skirt! As soon as I saw her in that whore's dress I knew what was happening. But I waited and I watched. And I saw you eyeing her and I knew what you were thinking. God knows I've seen it often enough! God knows I've seen you looking at one woman after another with that smile of yours and that hot look. Then I saw you look at her, and I saw you carry her out of the feast. Carried her to her bed, did you? And paid that fool Eliza to look the other way! Paid that fool Eliza to play blind, and to lie to me, and to laugh at me behind her hand. And paid her to play the slut!'