Alys smiled steadily, her eyes mysterious. 'It is nearly time for supper,' she said. 'You have not slept, it was no dream. I was here, you were here, all of them were here with us for all of that time.'

Hugo leaned forward, grabbed her hands. 'They were?' he demanded. 'It was no dream? They were here, your sisters? And we were together, all of us?'

Alys laughed a deep ripple of pleasure. 'Oh yes,' she said silkily. 'We were all here and you enjoyed every one of us. It was such pleasure, Hugo, wasn't it?'

'Yes,' Hugo assented, dazed. 'Oh yes. My God, Alys. I've heard of such things but I never dreamed they could happen. But I saw them! I touched them.' 'You touched them!' Alys agreed, smiling. 'You touched us all. I promised you a time beyond all the times you had ever had. What did you expect, Hugo? Some whorish tricks? Or your nasty cruelties with Catherine? I can give you your dreams – the cream of your desires – nothing less.'

Hugo leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes again. 'I feel drunk,' he said. 'I feel as if I drank for a week and then dreamed for a year.'

Alys shrugged. 'Time means nothing when you are with us all,' she said. 'And my kisses and my sisters' kisses are powerful wine for a man.'

Hugo opened his eyes and looked at her, his gaze suddenly piercing. 'Is this a trick?' he asked acutely. 'Is it a trick you have played on me? With herbs or poisons or some stuff? Tell me the truth, Alys. I never want more pleasure than you gave me – but I am awake now and want to know the truth. I am not some country clown at a fairground to be fooled. It makes no difference to my love for you – so tell me. Was it the wine you gave me? Or some trickery?'

Alys laughed. 'You tell me, Hugo,' she said. 'You have been drunk many times – have you ever been potent like that in drink? Have you ever seen my sisters before when you were drunk or sober? Have you ever woken clear-headed, feeling strong after drinking?'

She gambled on the power of the earthroot. 'You know what you saw. You know what you did! Was it one woman or twenty? Did you have the pleasure of one woman, or did you have the pleasure of twenty? Was it me, or was it me as the mistress of your dreams, and all of my wicked, desirable sisters?'

Hugo nodded, leaned back and closed his eyes again. 'Deep, deepest magic,' he said. 'There were many, many of you. And you, Alys, as mistress of them all.'

Alys smiled and rose up from the stool and stood before him. 'Yes,' she said calmly. 'I am mistress of them all. I am in my power. And the pleasure you have with us I can give you whenever I wish. Whenever you ask and whenever I consent.'

Hugo's eyes darkened with the remainder of the drug and with desire. 'They will come again?' he asked.

Alys smiled. 'Whenever I summon them,' she said. 'My sisters and I – we like to play with you, Hugo.'

Hugo smiled. 'Alys,' he said. 'My love.'

All through the next week, and the week after, Catherine was sluggish and tired. In the morning her women found her pillow damp with her sweat and tears. She slept badly at night, dreaming of her long-dead mother, and her father who had been reported for speaking treason against the King and died in the cold cells of York prison while waiting for his trial. During the day she mourned Morach – the only friend she had made in all the years she had spent as Lord Hugh's ward and young Hugo's wife. It was as if the loss of Morach had added to all the losses she had felt in her life and her grief for all of them overflowed and oozed from her eyes, from between her legs, from the very pores of her skin, in a steady unstoppable, cold dampness.

Catherine, who had been a tyrant to her women and a bully to the servants, ceased giving orders or making demands. Alys had nothing more to do than sit with Catherine in the morning before dinner, and then again in the afternoon while Hugo went riding alone. Catherine drank deep of clary – a French red wine – which Alys assured her would build her blood, and ate at dinner and supper like a pig in farrow, with shameless gluttony. Dazed and sleepy from the wine, belching with rich food, and weary as her pregnancy entered its fifth month, Catherine dozed on her bed every afternoon after dinner, and fell asleep immediately after supper every night. If Hugo desired, he and Alys could be together all afternoon and all evening while his wife dozed and – after she fell into a drunken sleep – all night. He did desire. The earthroot worked its potent magic nearly every day and Alys found he needed smaller and smaller doses to fall into his waking dreams of desire. When he came out of them, blear-eyed and slack-muscled, he always told Alys that she was his love, his only love. After a month of drugged hallucinatory love-making he seemed as addicted to Alys herself as to the earthroot. She had no need to weave dreams and fantasies – the smell of her, the taste of her, the pleasure he took in her body was enough to throw him into his feverish lust. Alys had him enthralled in the deep tangled forests of his own desires and Hugo never struggled to be free.

'Got him on your line, have you?' the old lord asked her one morning as she watched Hugo crossing the courtyard below the round tower window.

'My lord?' she asked, without looking round. Watching Hugo warmed her heart with a sweet glow of possession: Hugo was hers now, no one else even tempted him. His quick lusts and careless satisfactions in dark doorways were finished, all the women in the castle knew it. Hugo was infatuated, mad for Mistress Alys. The only woman who did not know it was Lady Catherine.

'On your line,' the old lord repeated. 'Hooked, netted and landed. Does he thrash much in the net, pretty Alys? Or is he one of the steady ones – a couple of thrusts and he is spent?'

Alys giggled involuntarily. 'Hush,' she said. 'That is no way to talk of the young lord.'

'And does he talk much more of London?' the old lord demanded. 'Going to the court and leaving me? Or that damned voyage of his?'

Alys' smile was proud. 'Not at all,' she said. 'The voyage is still in his mind, his heart is still set on the thousand pounds. But other men will sail the ship, he will not leave the castle now. I can hold him.'

'Hold him until that ship is left port and you will have my gratitude,' the old lord growled. 'Can you keep him till next spring?'

'He will not leave me when I am carrying his child,' Alys said. 'And I know Hugo, when he sees the son I shall give him he will not be able to tear himself away. I will keep him safe for you, my lord.'

Lord Hugh nodded. 'See you do,' he said. 'But don't keep him from his work on the land. He should be out there, talking with the men. There are markets where they are skimming the fees they owe us. There are farms months behind in their rent. There are tenants dying, wedding, birthing, changing their leases and not paying us the proper fines. In every village there is an agent who reports to us and pays us the fees. Every one of them is taking his share of what is rightfully ours. There's his new house being built and the workmen taking their time, I'll be bound. He should be out there, enforcing our rights, not playing hunt-the-flea in your shift, Alys.'

Alys shook her head. 'It is Catherine he sits with during the day,' she said. 'I would ride out with him, what could be better for us all than my eyes and ears on the land as well as his? But Catherine keeps him home during the hours he used to be abroad. If you complain of him neglecting his work on the land then it is Catherine you should blame.'

The old lord scowled. 'Still sickly is she?' he demanded impatiently. 'What ails her?'

Alys shrugged. 'She is weary,' she said. 'She feels weak. She is eating to keep up her strength but the more she eats the heavier she gets and the lazier she feels. Her strength and her power seem to be fading away. Perhaps she will be better when the weather is warmer. She needs the sunshine. And she misses Morach still.'