The Owl Killers

by Karen Maitland

  In the long, heavy ox-wagons, women squatted among kegs and bales, chattering and singing. Children ran alongside, hitching rides and squealing with laughter when the wagon juddered over ruts. Young men scrambled across the ditches to the banks where the primroses bloomed, tossing handfuls of flowers to the giggling girls in the carts and snatching kisses from them as they hung over the sides. I longed to be in one of those carts, longed to have a boy fill my lap with primroses. But I knew no one would ever try to snatch a kiss from me.

  I was dressed hours before the rest of the family and paced impatiently up and down the great hall, desperate to be out there among the crowds. But my mother and sisters insisted on every pleat of their veils being pinned evenly. I think they did it on purpose to keep everyone waiting, knowing the May Fair could not begin without us, for my father, Lord Robert D’Acaster, owned the fair’s charter.

  And it was my father who finally led the procession of our family and servants through Ulewic towards the Green. He strutted ahead with his fat legs wide apart like a little boy who’d wet his breeches. Despite the chill of the day his fleshy face was already flushed and sweating with exertion. My mother dragged on his arm, walking with her eyes downcast as if she was afraid of what she might see. My twin sisters, Anne and Edith, followed her, clinging demurely hand in hand. No one would ever think we were related.

  I look like a boy, as my mother was always telling me, too short and too thin and too plain. I’ve my mother’s brown hair except that mine is curly, and as usual that morning, my hair refused to stay in its bindings however much the maids tore at it with combs. They’d grumbled and cursed, for they were sure my mother would blame them, but they needn’t have worried. She always blamed me for everything, why not that as well?

  Anne’s and Edith’s hair, of course, lay smooth and obediently bound and coiled round their ears, just where the maids had pinned it. Both my sisters had inherited my father’s sandy hair and the pasty moon-face of my mother. And she guarded the twins’ virtue more closely than her own jewels. For my father was determined that neither should so much as raise her eyes to look at a man, before she was safely wed.

  My father, resolved to keep his wealth in the family, had promised one of my sisters to his nephew Phillip. Which twin Phillip picked was immaterial to my father. But so far Phillip had resisted making his choice; he was having too much fun with their serving maids. At least I wasn’t on offer. Though I was only a year younger than the twins, I would never be offered to anyone. As my sweet sisters never failed to remind me, I was born under the Demon star and not even old beggar Tom would dare to take me to bed. I suppose I should have been grateful for that.

  My cousin Phillip had wandered away from our procession before we even reached the Green. I could see he was already bored and was searching for someone to play with, for he constantly looked around him, winking and leering at any half-passable woman, ignoring the greetings and bobs of all others.

  People said Phillip looked exactly like my father when he was young, but there the similarity ended, for my father considered fornication the greatest of all the vices. The servants whispered that it was a wonder Lord Robert had ever sired any children for he had never been seen to touch my mother affectionately and indeed often stared at her as if she repulsed him. He was constantly ordering poor Father Ulfrid to preach that fornicators and adulterers would roast in the hottest pit of Hell, even though Father Ulfrid tried to protest this pit was reserved for greater sinners. But if the sermons were intended to curb my cousin Phillip’s appetites, they had no effect, for he was rarely in church to hear them.

  A great shout went up from the crowd. The prize ram, shorn and greased, had been set loose. Young single men, already stripped to the waist, shoved each other as they set off in pursuit, urged on by cheering girls. The ram, as if sensing what its fate would be, easily outmanoeuvred them at first, racing round the Green and through the carefully tended gardens, with the lads whooping after it, dodging the sticks and pots brandished by the shrieking housewives whose herbs ram and men were trampling. But eventually the animal tired and though, when cornered, it made a brave effort to charge its tormentors, the leader of the pack of youths grabbed its horns and wrestled it to the ground.

  The beast, garlanded, was led into the churchyard. There, with one swift slash, its throat was cut, and steaming blood gushed out into a basin held beneath. The beaming victor’s face and chest were painted scarlet with the blood. Then he mounted a ladder placed against the arch over the church door. Dipping both hands to the wrist in the proffered bowl, he smeared the ram’s blood on the gaping pudendum of the naked old woman carved at the top of the arch, the one they call Black Anu.

  “Ka!” the villagers yelled, cheering and whistling. And soon the ram was turning on a spit, sending sweet smoke into the damp air.

  I turned to watch the acrobats. They had balanced a long pole on their shoulders and a little girl, dressed in scarlet with a tiny pair of wings fastened to her back, was stepping daintily along the pole as confident as a cat on a wall. She steadied herself, her twiggy arms outstretched. The tumblers began to bounce the pole on their shoulders. The girl jumped, flipped in a somersault, and landed, wobbling but safe, on the pole again. The villagers clapped heartily as she sprang down. Women stroked her golden hair and stuffed sweetmeats into her hands. Men pinched her cheek and tossed her a coin or two like doting uncles. Children gazed at her awestruck as if she was Queen Mab.

  To screeches of raucous laughter, the mummers appeared, led by the Fool, who tripped over invisible objects with exaggerated tumbles, then feigned indignation at those who laughed at him, striking them with a pig’s bladder, which only made them laugh the more.

  The hobby-horse pranced and cavorted through the villagers, dodging this way and that as children tried to snatch the cake impaled on the tip of his lance. He teased them, offering it, then sweeping it high out of their grasp. When a lucky child succeeded in grabbing the honey cake, the hobby-horse used his lance to lift the skirts of the giggling women or goose anyone foolish enough to turn their back on him.

  Moll followed and the crowd roared. Moll was always a favourite. She was really John the blacksmith, who wore two grossly inflated bladders strapped to his chest under his kirtle. He simpered and minced through the crowd, pretending outrage as the lads tried to pinch his grotesquely padded backside. They’d not have dared that if he was at his forge.

  Moll sidled up to my cousin Phillip, winking, waggling her hips and jiggling her massive breasts against his face.

  “Here’s a riddle for you, Master—I am a great gift to women. I am hairy below and I swell up in my bed. A pretty lass pulls me and rubs my red skin. I have no bone, though I squirt white milk for her. I am so strong that I bring tears to her eyes. Tell me, Master, what am I?”

  Moll winked at the crowd and, without waiting for my cousin to reply, cried, “An onion, of course!” She wagged her finger at Phillip’s crotch. “But Moll knows what you were thinking, you naughty boy.”

  The crowd shrieked with laughter, but Phillip looked far from amused. Even on this day of licence the mummers knew not to push their luck too far: Seeing his face, they reeled away to find someone less powerful to torment.

  The noise and laughter died rapidly. The villagers drew back as Saint Walburga was led in, a giant figure with a massive conical body topped by the painted wooden head of a crowned woman, which lolled from side to side as the figure swayed forward. The withy frame of the body was woven densely with May blossom and ears of last year’s wheat and barley, so that no one could glimpse the person underneath the frame. Small children burst into tears, hiding behind their mothers, as the monstrous figure lurched towards them.

  Six cloaked men held the ropes that fastened the saint. They pulled her forward and reined her back as if she was a wild bear that might lash out at the crowd. Each of the faces of her brown-cloaked jailors was concealed by the feathered mask of the great horned eagle owl. Their eyes glinted
dark and dangerous, deep within the feathers, and their cruel bronze beaks flashed scythe-sharp in the pale sun. The village women clasped their children tight against their skirts as the Owl Masters went past.

  The procession moved on until it reached the foot of the May Tree. There the saint was tethered, pinioned by the ropes. The Fool danced up to her, but the Owl Masters shooed him away. Urged on by the crowd, he dodged lightly round the Owl Masters to slap the saint resoundingly with his fool’s bladder. The Owl Masters drew short swords from under their cloaks. Menacingly, they circled around the Fool, who spun in the middle, dodging the blades as they feinted high, then low. The crowd roared, cheering the Fool.

  Suddenly the flashing swords froze, interlocked in a six-pointed sun above the Fool’s head. The Owl Masters circled and the metallic sun rotated above the Fool as he sank to his knees. The crowd was hushed, holding its breath. Only the pleading of the Fool rang out, a lone wail across the Green. But the plea for mercy was ignored. The murderous sun descended and locked around his neck. The Fool lay dead. The six Owl Masters wordlessly turned, as one, to face the crowd around them, their swords pointing at the hearts of the villagers, their savage owl faces staring them down, challenging anyone else to approach. No one moved. No one dared to move.

  Moll pushed her way through the Owl Masters. They let her pass. She bustled about the body on the ground, making great play of holding up his lifeless limbs and letting them flop to the ground. She slapped the Fool’s cheeks, pulled his jaw open and poured the contents of an empty flagon into his mouth. When that had no effect, she forced one of her massive bladder breasts into his mouth. And with that, the Fool leapt to his feet and turned a couple of somersaults just to show he was in the rudest of health.

  All of the villagers were laughing, that kind of nervous laughter which explodes when tension is shattered. Children rolled on the ground, imitating the Fool with exaggerated death throes, finally reassured that it was only a play. The mummers cavorted about Harrow Green, while the Fool kissed Moll and she boxed his ears.

  In all the commotion I didn’t notice the Owl Masters disappear. Perhaps they simply vanished back into the forest or maybe they took off their masks and brown cloaks and mingled with the crowd. Some villagers looked around nervously as if expecting to see them at their backs. The Owl Masters had no faces and no names. They might be anyone in Ulewic. Who was missing from the crowd when the Owl Masters were here? There are some questions no one is allowed to ask.

  The villagers drifted off to stuff themselves and drink and dance and drink some more. Saint Walburga alone did not move. The great straw frame squatted upon the grass. I knew there had to be someone inside. The saint couldn’t move by itself, even though the village children were convinced it did.

  THE GREEN WAS LITTERED with bones and dung, fragments of pastry and lost ribbons, crushed flowers and broken dishes. The shadows were lengthening fast and, overhead, birds began to wheel towards their night roosts. A cold breeze sprang up out of nowhere. I shivered.

  The Owl Masters returned as silently as they had departed. I didn’t see where they came from, but when I looked up there they were as if they had always been there. Those villagers who were still sober enough to stand jerked nervously as they caught sight of them. The Owl Masters seized the saint’s ropes and now stood motionless in a circle facing us. One by one the laughter and the arguments died away. Neighbour nudged neighbour until all attention was fixed upon the six masked figures.

  A girl, her hair tumbling loose and her kirtle grass-stained, was shoved and pushed by her friends to the front of the crowd. She made a tipsy curtsy, then leant forward, the tip of her pink kitten-tongue sticking out in an effort of concentration. She tossed the May garland. It landed neatly upon the top of the saint’s painted wooden crown. The girl’s giggling attendants assured her that her lucky throw meant she would be wed before the year was out. She glanced towards the young men. They jeered and pummelled one of their number, who looked as if he’d been praying devoutly she’d miss the throw.

  The Owl Masters tugged on the ropes and led the saint as she swayed unsteadily across Harrow Green towards the forest, followed at a safe distance by all the men of Ulewic, at least those who were not sow-drunk. The women watched, but made no attempt to follow. We women are not welcome in the forest.

  My heart began pounding and the palms of my hands were sticky with excitement. For nearly a month I’d been planning what I’d do, but now that it was time, I wasn’t sure if I could really do it. Suppose I was seen? Suppose my mother suddenly asked for me and discovered I was missing? But if I didn’t try, I’d kick myself later, for it would be a whole year before I could try again.

  With a long-suffering sigh, my mother signalled it was time for us to depart. She led the way, leaning on the arm of an old and trusted henchman, in the sure and certain knowledge we would all obediently follow her. My two sisters dutifully did, but I ducked down defiantly behind a cart. In all the bustle of packing up, no one noticed that I was not in the procession following my mother. That’s the advantage of being the unwanted child; no one notices when you disappear.

  I stayed down until everyone was occupied, then I picked up my skirts and ran, dodging between the cottages, in the direction of the trees. Night was closing in fast. Only the thinnest rind of the sun still glowed orange above the bare black branches. No good girl would be out at this late hour but, as my mother was forever telling me, I was not a good girl.

  Darkness gathered early in the forest. It never really departed, but skulked among the ancient wrinkled trunks all day waiting to seep out into the meadows again. I couldn’t see the path that the men were following, but they lit torches and it was easy to keep pace with the snake of yellow flame as it wound its way through the gloom. The men were too drunk to notice another shadow in the bushes. Ahead I saw the snake of flame begin to coil into a ball of fire. I had no idea where we were for I had never been this far into the forest and certainly never alone here, but I knew we must be somewhere near the river: I could hear the sound of rushing water.

  The men had gathered in a clearing, near a massive bull oak. They held their blazing torches high, glancing around them. Crouching in the darkness among the trees, I could see without being seen. I couldn’t see my father, though, or my cousin Phillip, but I knew both must be here somewhere; both came every year.

  Women weren’t allowed to witness this. We weren’t even told what happened here. It was the men’s secret—well, not anymore, because this year I’d finally know. I nearly laughed out loud, thinking how shocked all the men would be if they knew a girl was in their precious forest, mere feet away from them.

  Saint Walburga stood alone in the centre of the clearing, faggots of wood piled up around her. She no longer moved. Whoever had animated her must have been released before we arrived. But who had been inside? It was impossible to recognise anyone; in the flickering torchlight, every man wore a mask of shadows. The men kept glancing nervously round, peering into the dark mass of the trees. They tried to jostle their way into the centre of their group as if they felt vulnerable on its edges.

  I heard a rustle in the bushes behind me and froze: An Owl Master slipped silently out of the shadows no more than a yard from me. My heart began to thump. Suddenly this no longer seemed like a game. What if I was discovered? What would they do to me? What would my father do if he learned that I’d come here? I was a witless numbskull ever to think this was a good idea. I wanted desperately to creep away before I got caught, but I daren’t move in case the Owl Master saw me.

  Then a second Owl Master appeared a few yards away on the other side of me, and another and another until there were nine of them standing motionless in a circle around the clearing, merging with the darkness, only the bronze beaks on their masks glinting in the firelight. In the clearing the villagers suddenly caught sight of them and edged closer together, like sheep encircled by dogs.

  The saint squatted in her nest of wood. The nine Owl Mas
ters stood for a moment, then, drawing their swords, strode towards her. The villagers shrank back to let them through. The Owl Masters seized flaming torches from the men standing nearby and raised them high above their heads, turning as one to face the crowd. The wind whined in the branches high above, gusting the flames of the torches, and sending shadows gibbering round the men. Outside the flickering circle of light, the darkness had grown thicker, almost solid. No one stirred.

  A voice rang out across the silent clearing, deep and distorted beneath the owl mask. It was impossible to see which of the Owl Masters was speaking.

  “Taranis will be acknowledged. He will have his due. Those who neglect to give what is owed to him, those who set themselves against the natural order of things, bring down a curse upon all of us. Will we allow that to happen?”

  “No!” the crowd roared back at him.

  “Will we permit that to happen?”

  “No!”

  “What must we do?”

  “Give him the saint! Give him Saint Walburga!”

  The villagers began to stamp their feet. The Owl Masters slowly circled the wooden saint, crouching low, carnivorous.

  “Through blood we renew our strength.”

  “Through death we renew our life.”

  “Through destruction we renew creation.”

  “Through fire we make all things fertile. Ka!”

  The chanting and stamping of the crowd gathered in strength until the trees themselves seemed to join in. Suddenly one of the Owl Masters sprang forward and plunged his sword into the saint’s body. A scream split the darkness. When he drew the sword out, blood glistened wet upon the blade.