'I don't know,' she said, her instinct to save herself conquering her terror. 'It must be some vile illness in you. It must be some corruption in your body. You are sterile and all you can conceive and all you can void is this muck.'

Catherine barely flinched, she was so deep in horror. 'My fault,' she said slowly as if she were learning a lesson almost beyond her understanding. 'Something wrong inside me.'

'Yes,' Alys said, careless of Catherine's foundering shame.

They were silent again.

'Hide it,' Catherine said. 'I want no one to know.' She glanced towards the fire. 'Burn it.'

Alys nodded. Catherine dragged herself up from the bed, gasping with the effort, and the two women pulled out the lower sheet, ripped it into half and then ripped it again. Each piece they rolled up and put on the little fire. It smouldered darkly, and when the wax caught fire it flickered and spat, burning with an ominous yellow flame. The smoke smelled like a tannery.

'Your hair,' Catherine said, her voice shaky. 'And your face.'

Carefully she picked the wax out of Alys' hair. Alys rubbed at the skin of her face until it was free of the little white scabs. She shuddered as she picked them off her skin. 'Your gown,' Catherine said.

Alys' red sleeves were white to the elbows with the stuff, the front of her gown was spattered with white dots. Alys stood while Catherine undid her gown and then she stepped out of it. From Catherine's chest she took an old gown which Catherine had not worn since her pregnancy. Catherine laced her into it silently. Alys took a clean sheet from where it was airing by the fire and made up the bed.

'They'll have to come in and see you,' she said.

Catherine nodded. 'They'll ask for the body,' she warned.

Alys nodded. She took a bowl and poured in a little water, tore up a napkin and tied it into little knots, tossed in half a cup of red wine and threw the rest on • the bed. It spread in a deep red stain. Then she covered the bowl with a cloth from the table. 'No one will look too close at that,' she said. 'You may get away with it.'

Catherine had gone a sickly yellow colour. ‘I feel faint,' she said.

Alys nodded. 'See them, and then you can rest,' she said with scant sympathy. 'How do you think I feel? I am ready to vomit.' She went to open the door.

'Alys,' Catherine stopped her. Alys turned.

'Swear you will never tell anyone. Never anyone!' Catherine demanded.

Alys nodded.

'Especially not Hugo,' Catherine said. 'Swear to me that you will never tell Hugo that I had…' she broke off. 'That I had a monster inside me,' she finished.

Alys' face was hard. 'He will have to know that you cannot conceive,' she said tightly.

Catherine paused. She looked at Alys at if she was seeing her for the first time, reading the coldness of Alys' grim face.

'Yes,' Catherine said slowly.

'I won't tell him that it was monstrous,' she said. 'He will never know from me that you voided lumps of white clay. Smelly lumps of clay.'

Catherine dropped her eyes. 'I am ashamed,' she said, very low.

Alys looked at her without pity. 'I will keep your secret,' she said. ‘I won't tell him about that.' She paused for Catherine's reply. When none came she slipped out of the door.

Hugo was waiting nearest the door but at Alys' entrance everyone in the crowded gallery stopped talking and looked towards her. The old lord and David came towards her at once. Alys clasped her hands together and looked down.

'My lord,' she said. 'Lord Hugo. I have some very sad news. The Lady Catherine has been brought to bed too early and she has lost the child.'

There was a buzz of conversation and comment. Hugo's eyes burned into Alys' face, his father was as black as thunder.

'She is able to see you,' Alys said to Hugo. She met his look with one of infinite tenderness. ‘I am so sorry, Hugo,' she said. 'There was nothing anyone could do for Catherine. She was too sterile and sickly from the start.'

He pushed past her and went into Catherine's room. The old lord came up and took Alys by the sleeve.

'What caused the miscarriage?' he demanded. 'She came down to supper yesterday, did she overtax her strength?'

Alys leaned her mouth towards his ear. 'The child would have been malformed,' she said. 'It's as well it is gone.'

The old lord looked as if he had been struck. 'God, no!' he said. 'No! A filthy cripple from my stock! And after all these years of waiting!'

'Can she have another?' David the steward pressed close to Alys. 'In your opinion, Mistress Alys? Will Lady Catherine conceive again?'

Alys met his gaze. 'I think not,' she said. 'You should summon a physician perhaps to judge. But in my mind I am certain. She can conceive no normal child.'

The old lord slumped down into a chair, rested both his hands on his cane and gazed into the distance.

'This is a bitter blow, Alys,' he said softly. 'A bitter blow. Catherine's baby gone, and her chances of another. All in one afternoon. A bitter blow.'

Catherine's door opened again and Hugo came out. His face was set. The line between his eyebrows was deep, his mouth grim. 'She'll rest now,' he said. 'Someone go and sit with her.'

Eliza and Ruth dipped a curtsey and slipped into the room.

'She said she'd see you, Sir,' Hugo said to his father. 'She wanted to ask your blessing.'

'Blessing be damned,' the old lord said, struggling to his feet and thumping his cane on the floor. 'I'll not see her. She's barren, my son! And she's wasted more years in this castle than I care to count. I'll see her when she's fertile. No point sitting by the sick bed of a barren woman. No point in a barren woman! Twenty-three bastards I sired, to my knowledge; and three legitimate children, one son. I've never looked twice at a barren woman by my knowledge, and I never will.'

He snapped his fingers for the page to open the door and stamped towards it. The people in the chamber drew back to let him pass, fearful of his rage.

'You,' he said, pointing to Alys. 'Come to my room! I've got work to do!' Then, as Alys moved towards him, her belly thrust forward against the flowing lines of the gown, he checked himself. 'No, ' he said. ‘I had forgotten. Go and rest yourself. Go and sit down and sew or sing or something. But keep yourself well, Alys.

'David! Pick her out a maid to do her fetching and her carrying for her. And see she has a comfortable chair in her room. She must rest. She must rest. She must stay well. She's carrying Hugo's child. And see that she has what she fancies to eat. Get her whatever she wants! Anything that she wants she must have!' David bowed, his quick, sharp smile raking Alys.

'Yes, my lord,' he said. The old lord nodded. 'Keep her safe,' he said.

'No more riding out for you, Alys, you must stay home in safety.'

He looked at Hugo. 'Don't let her get as fat as the other one,' he said. 'That was the problem there.

Keep her like you would a good brood mare, well-fed but not gluttonous. She's to sit beside me at table every night so I can see what she eats.'

Hugo nodded, unsmiling. 'As you wish, Sir,' he said coldly. ‘I am taking my horse out for a while. I am sick to my soul of these women's doings.'

The old lord nodded. 'Damn right,' he said irritably. 'All that talk and all that expense and then a barren sow at the end of it.'

The two of them left the room, Hugo clattering loudly down the stairs and shouting for his horse. Slowly, the serving-women and men and the off-duty soldiers and the pages straggled from the room, whispering as they left, whispering slander, scandal, ill-willed rumours. Alys stood in the centre of the room, unmoving. As everyone went out they dipped a low curtsey or a bow to her. Alys did not smile, did not acknowledge the homage beyond a curt nod of her head. Then David and Alys were alone.