'By God, you look sour,' Morach said cheerfully as they went to bed one evening. 'Pining for the young lord?'

Alys shrugged a thin shoulder, jumped into the bed and pulled the covers up to her ears.

'Painful, ain't it?' Morach said. 'This nonsense of love? You'd have done better to keep him at arm's length forever than to love him and lose him without even having him. You'd have done better to forget your promise to him to surrender magic, just as he has forgotten his promise to you.'

'He hasn't forgotten,' Alys said fiercely. 'You know nothing about it, Morach. I haven't lost him. He asked me to wait for him and I am waiting. When he comes home it will all be different. I am waiting. I am happy to wait for him.'

'You look it,' Morach said ironically. 'You're losing your looks, your face is white and strained. You get thinner every day. Your breasts are less and less, your belly is as flat as a dice-board. If you wait much longer you'll be worn out with waiting.'

Alys lay down and turned her face to the wall. 'Bank up the fire before you come to bed,' she said coldly. 'I'm going to sleep.'

Morach and Lady Catherine had made a surprising alliance. Every day and every evening they chattered and gossiped in the overheated gallery. Alys sat as far as she could from the fire and watched the two of them. 'Like a pair of old hags together,' she said under her breath

Morach was not afraid of Catherine like the rest of the ladies; and Catherine, a bully by nature, was amused to have met her match. One day Morach insisted on going to her cottage though the snow was thick and wet and the sky low and threatening. Lady Catherine forbade it. 'You can go tomorrow,' she said.

Morach nodded, and went to her chamber and came out with a cape around her shoulders and a shawl over her head.

'I said you could go tomorrow,' Catherine said impatiently.

'Aye,' Morach said, unmoved. 'I could go tomorrow, and I could go the day after, or next week. But it's my desire to go today.'

Catherine snapped her fingers. 'You'd best learn, Morach, that in this castle you do things by my desire. Not yours.'

Morach gleamed her slow secret smile. 'Not I, my lady,' she said. 'I am different from the rest of them.' 'I can still have you whipped,' Catherine threatened. Morach met her angry look without fear. 'I wouldn't advise it, my lady,' she said. Then she turned her back and went from the gallery as if she had permission to leave and Catherine had wished her 'God speed'.

There was a stunned silence and then Catherine burst into loud laughter. 'God's truth, the old woman will be hanged,' she said. The women chimed in with the laughing, exchanging scared glances. Alys alone sat silent. When Morach came back in the evening, after having completed her own mysterious business, Catherine behaved towards her as if they had never disagreed.

One day, at the end of March, Hugo sent a letter to Catherine saying he would be home within a few days. She flushed pink with pleasure.

'Hugo is coming home,' she announced. 'And within the week! I have missed him.' She smoothed her gown over her rounded breasts. 'I wonder if he will see a difference in me. What d'you think, Alys?'

Alys was watching the logs in the fire. 'I expect so, my lady,' she said politely.

'D'you think he will desire me as he did before?' Catherine asked. 'D'you remember those wild nights when our son was conceived? D'you think he will still be mad for me?'

Alys turned a blank, insolent face towards Catherine. 'Maybe,' she said. 'But you had best have a care, lady. It would be a sad end to your ambitions if your rough games shook the baby out of your belly.'

Catherine shot a look at Morach. 'That can't happen, can it?' she asked in sudden fear. 'That can't happen?'

Morach pursed her lips. 'Depends what you do,' she said. 'Depends how he likes it.'

Catherine laughed a ripple of excited laughter. She leaned towards Morach and whispered in her ear. Morach chuckled. 'That shouldn't harm the baby,' she said out loud. 'Not if it pleases you!'

Catherine put her hand on her heart and smiled broadly. Then the two of them put their heads together and whispered like village girls outside an alehouse.

Alys felt unreasonably irritated with Morach. 'Will you excuse me, my lady?' she said rising to her feet. 'I have to read to Lord Hugh before dinner.'

Catherine barely looked up to nod dismissal. Morach was whispering something behind her hand.

'And then he did what?' Catherine asked incredulously. 'I did not know that men could do that. What did his wife say – in heaven's name?'

Alys shut the door behind her and leaned back against it and closed her eyes. She could hear the ripple of laughter even through the massive wood. She turned wearily and went down the stairs, through the lobby and up the winding narrow staircase of the round tower to Lord Hugh's chamber.

Hugo was there. He was sitting on a stool at his father's feet as Alys walked into the room and he sprang up to greet her. Alys staggered and her face went white and then blushed red.

'I did not think to see you for days yet,' she said. 'Hugo, oh Hugo!'

He took her hand and squeezed it tight to warn her to be silent. The old lord looked from Alys' thin flushed face to his son's bright smile.

'I came home early,' Hugo said levelly. 'I have a great scheme to lay before my father and I wanted to see you all again. How is my wife? Is her pregnancy going safely?'

'She is well,' Alys said. She could hardly speak for breathlessness and she did not want to speak of Catherine. She wanted to hold him, to touch his face, the soft skin around his eyes, to kiss his merry smile. She wanted to feel his arms around her as he had held her that one night, that first night, and his kisses on her hair.

'What is this scheme of yours, Hugo?' the old lord asked. He beckoned to Alys to stand behind his chair and she crossed the room to his side and watched Hugo's animated face as he talked.

'It's Van Esselin,' he said. 'He has plans to fit a ship for the longest voyage they have ever undertaken -around Africa, even as far as the Japans. He has the ship's log from a Dutch pilot that shows a clear passage. I have seen it, it is true. And he plans to take goods and baubles to trade all along the way and to come back with a cargo of spices and silks and all the rich trade. It's a great opportunity for us, Father. I am certain of its success.' Trade?'

'It's not huckstering in the butter-market,' Hugo said quickly. 'It's honourable trade. It's a great adventure, as exciting as a war, as distant as a crusade. The world is changing, Father, and we have to change with it.'

'And what if this great ship sinks?' the old lord asked cynically.

Hugo shrugged. 'Then we have lost the wager,' he said. 'Van Esselin asks us only for a thousand pounds to back him. We can gamble a thousand pounds for the rewards this promises to bring.'

'A thousand pounds?' Lord Hugh repeated incredulously. 'One thousand!'

'But think of the return, Father!' Hugo said urgently. 'We would get it back twenty, maybe fifty times over. If they bring back spices and silks they can sail into London and make a fortune in a sale on the quayside itself. Or they can bring it back to Newcastle, or even take it up to Scotland. People are desperate for spices -think of the prices we pay in the kitchen! This is the way for us to make our fortune, not struggling to get our rents from snow-bound farmers!'

Lord Hugh shook his head. 'No,' he said slowly. 'Not while I am lord here.'

Hugo's face grew dark with one of his sudden rages. 'Will you explain to me why?' he asked, his voice shaking.

'Because we are lords, not traders,' Lord Hugh said with disdain. 'Because we know nothing of the sea and the trade your friend does. Because our family's wealth and success has been founded on land, getting and keeping land. That's the way to a lasting fortune, the rest is mere usury in one shape or another.'