The Owl Killers

by Karen Maitland

  How could any man who daily held in his hands the flesh and blood of our Lord have been so hardened as to have cast this poor woman out? Even the lowliest servant in a manor is granted some straw to lie on and a place near the fireside when he is too frail to work. St. Andrew’s could have bought the offices of some goodwife to nurse her. Any fool could see that she would not have troubled them long in this world.

  beatrice

  cATHERINE RUSHED INTO THE KITCHEN just before Vespers. It was obvious from her breathless excitement that the new arrival wasn’t the usual leper or cripple.

  “She isn’t sick,” Catherine whispered reverently. “She’s a saint. I heard Healing Martha say her mind has already left this world—”

  Osmanna interrupted. “How can she not be sick if she’s dying?”

  “Oh no, she’s not dying. She has abjured her sinful body.” Catherine pronounced “abjured” carefully as if she tasted a new fruit. “Servant Martha told me so,” she said triumphantly. “Andrew eats no food at all, but is sustained by the love of God and the blessed Host, which turns to honey in her mouth. And her body gives off a sweet perfume, like roses after a storm.”

  “Have you smelt it?” Osmanna asked.

  Catherine hesitated, crestfallen. “Only the Marthas are allowed to see her.”

  “She must be so beautiful if she is a saint,” little Margery said. “Does she have long hair right to the floor like Saint Catherine?”

  “I expect so.” Catherine beamed. “It’ll probably be golden.”

  Osmanna opened her mouth to speak, but I managed to catch her eye and shake my head. I could see she didn’t believe any of it. I wished she could take more joy from life like Catherine. Osmanna behaved more like an old woman than a carefree girl, as though youth had been ripped out of her. Her face looked more hag-ridden than ever, as if she wasn’t sleeping at all. I longed to put my arms around her and comfort her—that’s what she needed—but Osmanna wouldn’t let anyone come close.

  father ulfrid

  sINCE FIRST LIGHT I’d been sitting at my table in the tithe barn waiting. The villagers shuffled in one by one, twisting their hoods in their hands. Some carried baskets or sacks, but those were half empty. Many came with nothing. The story was always the same.

  “The harvest, Father. It’s ruined. I can’t pay the church tithe. We’ve not enough left to feed ourselves this winter.”

  It wasn’t just the grain; they hadn’t been able to tithe the full measure of hay back in June and what little they had had gone mouldy in my barn. Many sheep had died from the fluke and the cold wet spring had killed half the lambs, so that the tithe on lambs, wools, and hides was also far short of what it should have been. Hens and eggs too. It had been the same tale for months. They couldn’t pay their full tithe. Some couldn’t pay at all.

  Alan had been one of the first to arrive with a block of salt wrapped in sacking. He dropped it with a thud on the long wooden table.

  “Saltcat, Father; it’s what’s owed.”

  I turned the pages of the ledger tracing down until I found his name. “You’re valued at two saltcats a year for the tithe, Alan, and you brought none in spring.”

  I flicked back the edge of the sacking. Even I could see that the cone of salt was about a third shorter than it should have been.

  I looked up at Alan. He was a burly, thickset man, a hard worker by all accounts. He’d managed to rise up to become a weller, the most skilled job there was in the salterns, for he had to boil the brine and collect the good salt at exactly the right moment before it could be spoiled by the bittern salts that came after.

  “It’s short measure, Alan. A tithe is given not to me but to God. It is a grievous sin to withhold what you owe from God.”

  Alan folded his muscular arms and scowled. “You think rain only spoils the crops, Father. Salt mould won’t form on sand, not unless sun and wind can get to it. We need dry weather for the saltcats to harden too. We’ve barely worked half the days we ought this year and the year afore that. Worked like an ox those days we could, all night too without sleeping, but we can’t make salt without mould.”

  He leant forward, resting his great hands on the table. Like many workmen his hands were bound up in filthy rags to protect them from the rough work.

  “It’s not just weather, Father; there’s the flour. We need flour or sheep’s blood to take off the scum from the brine, but if the sheep are dying and grain fails, prices go up and we have to pay whatever merchants charge ’cause we can’t make salt without them.”

  “I know it’s hard, Alan,” I said sympathetically, “but—”

  “No, you don’t know, Father!” Alan roared. “What do you know of sweating over the pans day and night in the steam and smoke of the fires? You think it’s easy?”

  He picked at the knot in the rags on his left hand and slowly peeled off stained cloth. He thrust the huge hand in front of my face. The skin on his palms was peeling off and between each of his fingers there were deep raw cracks. He turned the hand over; every joint of his fingers and thumb were covered with great open sores.

  “Salt does that, Father, dries out the skin so it cracks wide and won’t heal up. You ever felt the sting of salt in an open wound, Father? When you have, you’ll know all about hard.”

  But I had felt it. I knew a salt sting only too well. The scars on my back burned again, as I felt once more the coarse salt rubbed into flayed flesh, the agonising fire of it, building and building until I thought I would faint, except the pain itself kept from me that mercy.

  I stared at Alan’s hand, wondering what it must be like to feel that smarting day after day and have to force those fingers to work through that burning. Alan bandaged his hand again with a fumbling haste, as if he was ashamed that he had shown his wounds to me.

  I dipped my quill into the black ink. “I’ll record that you have tithed the full amount, Alan. I only have to send a quarter of the tithes to Norwich; the salt you’ve brought will be enough to satisfy that quarter. Then … then you can bring what you can for the parish later, when things improve.”

  He flinched as if he had been forced to beg and was humiliated by it. He did not look at me as he walked away.

  Alan was by no means the last I said those words to that day. I knew what each cottager was supposed to bring. It was all carefully recorded in the ledgers: what each holding was worth; what land they worked; what stock they had. Every croft, toft, field strip, beast, and workshop in Ulewic had been valued and assessed. The Church had calculated how much they could wrest from each household, but those calculations were based on good years. There was no allowance made if the harvest was poor or the beasts died. To surrender a tenth of all produce and labour in a good year was difficult enough. In a hard year, a tenth of next to nothing meant starvation.

  As evening approached, the trickle of villagers and their excuses dried up and I was left sitting alone. I flicked over the pages of the ledger. Scarcely a figure in the long column of numbers was accurate. If anyone inspected these records … but they wouldn’t. The Bishop would not trouble himself about a piss-poor parish in the back of nowhere. Even in a good year, what St. Michael’s sent to Norwich must have hardly amounted to a spoonful of all the tithes collected from the rest of his diocese. Bishop Salmon would concern himself only with the wealthy parishes, which had far more opportunity to cheat him. He could never afford the number of clerks it would take to check the records of every little scabby village church.

  God, how long would the Bishop keep me exiled in this place? I wasn’t suited to be a parish priest. What did I know or even care about the value of a pig or the price of some mangy hen? I had done my penance for Hilary. Hadn’t I suffered enough? I couldn’t stand another year in Ulewic and if I couldn’t get Bishop Salmon to recall me to the Cathedral soon, I would be forgotten and left here to rot for the rest of my miserable life. It had happened to others.

  I could still smell the bustling streets of Norwich, the spices and wines
of marketplaces. I could hear the shouts of the merchants and goodwives as they urged passersby to taste honeyed fruits and sweet pickled herring, pastries sprinkled with cinnamon and sweetmeats flavoured with rosewater. I could feel the soothing musky oils that attendants in the stews massaged into limbs warm and supple from the hot baths. And Hilary. Hilary’s soft hand on my buttocks. Hilary’s hot tongue licking all the way up the inside of my thigh until—

  “Is this the best they can manage, Father? The Bishop is going to be so disappointed.”

  I jerked violently. Phillip D’Acaster was leaning on the wall by the door in the fading light, his arms crossed, watching me with amusement.

  “Bishop Salmon is a compassionate man,” I replied. “It’s been a bad harvest as well you know, Phillip. People can’t tithe what they haven’t received.”

  He shrugged. “The villagers don’t seem to have any trouble paying their Manor dues. But then the Owl Masters are excellent at encouraging them.”

  He sauntered across the barn and perched on the edge of the table, looking down at me. I quickly slammed the ledger shut.

  “The Owl Masters could help you collect your tithes too, Father. You only have to say the word. They’d have no trouble filling this barn for you.”

  “I don’t need to use threats and intimidation in order to gather my tithes. The villagers are mostly good honest people; they will pay when they can.”

  I rose from my stool, clutching the ledger to my chest. It was hard to make my words carry any authority when Phillip was smirking down at me. “And since you’ve raised the matter, Phillip, you can call the Owl Masters to heel and stop them threatening the house of women. I heard what happened at the Bartholomew Fair; it was all round the village. I told my parishioners and I’m telling you: If those women defy the Holy Church in any way, as a priest ordained by God I am more than capable of dealing with them; but so long as they do not cause trouble and content themselves with charitable works, I have no quarrel with them.”

  “Even when they bring a filthy leper through the village against your orders?” Phillip slid off the table and prowled round the barn, feeling the hides and peering into half-empty sacks. “And I hear the house of women have taken in another guest right under your nose this very day, that anchorite Bishop Salmon expelled. Let’s hope that doesn’t reach His Excellency’s ears, Father. It might look as if your authority was slipping—badly.”

  He sauntered back and stood in front of me, feet planted well apart in his usual arrogant stance. “I know you are hoping for a reprieve, Father. You want to go back to your comfortable post in the Cathedral and who can blame you? Sumptuous lodgings, good wine, and a city teeming with beautiful women—the Owl Masters could help you get all of that back. In a few months, weeks even, you could be lying in a very comfortable bed again. Of course, it would be up to you whether you were lying there alone. I wouldn’t dream of encouraging a man of God to fornicate.” He flicked the ledger with his finger. “All you have to do is ask, Father, and all of this would be over. You think about that.”

  He winked and strode out of the barn.

  servant martha

  iBLEW OUT THE CANDLES in the chapel as the women, yawning, shuffled off to their beds. Finally, when the chapel was in darkness save for the eternal flame hanging above the altar, I closed the door and made my way wearily towards my own room.

  The precious hours of dark between Lauds and Prime promised something more important even than sleep: the chance of solitude away from the chatter and noise which filled the courtyard all day long. There were a hundred problems constantly plucking at my sleeve and I found myself longing for just a day, an hour even, away from them. Usually I took great comfort in the kneeling forms of the women gathered around me in the gentle candlelight, but that night I’d found even their quiet breathing a distraction from my prayers.

  Across the courtyard, a glimmer of yellow flame shone dagger-thin through the shutters of Andrew’s room. She had been locked away from the world for ten years, for her every waking moment spent in communion with our Lord. She didn’t even have to concern herself with who would feed her, still less with who would feed them.

  My sister Eleanor was like that. As a child she had no idea what effort it took to put food on the table or clean linen in the cupboard. She simply expected that it would be there whenever she reached out her hand for it, and it was. I kept house for my father, and the household was well run: the accounts in order, always a good table for his guests, the beds sweet and clean, and servants who troubled him with nothing. And yet I don’t think he spoke more than a dozen words a day to me, but his face lit up at the sound of her voice if ever my sister’s husband brought her to visit, which wasn’t often. Eleanor’s visits became even rarer after our father took to his bed, when he could no longer control his bowels and shook with the palsy. She said the stench made her sick and soured her milk. Dangerous for pregnant women and nursing mothers, she said, and she was always in one condition or the other.

  I tried so hard to provide for the beguines and to take in every broken soul that men had rejected. Yet at every turn I found obstacles hurled in my path and sometimes, Christ forgive me, it felt as if the obstacles came not from the Devil, but from God Himself. Was God so jealous that He punished us for the time we gave to the wretched and sick that might have been used to worship Him? I could not believe that. Yet what if I was wrong? That night I could not find even words for my prayers, but Andrew’s prayers were given angels’ tongues.

  I WAS SHAKEN AWAKE. My legs were so stiff and numb that I pitched forward as I tried to rise. It was still dark. I must have fallen asleep where I knelt beside my cot.

  Gate Martha caught my elbow and helped me as I struggled to my feet.

  “What … what is it?” I asked her.

  “The grey friar who came with Andrew is outside,” she whispered. “I told him to go away and come again after Prime, but he insists he must speak with you now, Servant Martha. He’ll not budge.”

  “I thought he had returned home with Andrew’s mother. What can he want and in the middle of the night?”

  As usual she shrugged, but her yawns told me that for once she had no real curiosity to find out. She just wanted him gone from her gate, so that she could return to her warm bed.

  Wrapping my cloak around me I followed the light from Gate Martha’s lantern towards the gate. Taking the lantern from her I slipped outside, instructing her to bar the gate behind me. If there was trouble outside I had no wish to invite it in.

  It was a cloudy night. I held the lantern up before me, but saw only trees and shadows. One of the shadows spoke. I spun round, my heart pounding. The lamp illuminated only a thin nose beneath the cowl pulled down low over his face.

  “Servant Martha, forgive me for disturbing you at this hour, but it’s safer for all of us if I’m not seen here. Can we be overheard?”

  I knew he was thinking of Gate Martha. I led the way down the track a few paces to reassure him we were alone. Then I turned to him impatiently.

  “What do you want of us?” I was half dead with tiredness and in no mood for courtesies. “Do you bring another sick soul to us?”

  “No, I bring this.”

  He held out a small wooden box. In the flickering lantern light I could just make out the image of our crucified Lord carved upon its lid.

  “For Andrew,” the friar said. “It is the body of our Lord. Seven pieces. You must give it to her each day after she makes her confession to you. It is all the nourishment she will take.”

  I shrank back. “You should not even have such a thing in your possession! Where did you get it?”

  “Please don’t ask me, Servant Martha. It is better you do not know. But you must take it, for Andrew’s sake. You know that your priest will not give her the sacrament daily; indeed it is very likely he will refuse to give it to her at all once he knows that she was sent away from St. Andrew’s and what is said of her. But she must have it, else she will die in s
pirit as well as in body.”

  “Do you have any idea what you are asking?” I demanded. I found myself glancing round fearfully, even though I knew there was no one near. “I cannot give our Lord’s body to Andrew or to anyone and nor can you. Have you not eyes to see, Brother? I am a woman. You know as well as I do that only a consecrated priest may administer the sacraments. For you, a friar, to dare such a thing is sin enough, but for me … Don’t you realise that the penalty for committing such a blasphemy would be flogging and imprisonment at the very least, even mutilation or worse?”

  He was still holding out the box to me as if I hadn’t spoken at all.

  “Servant Martha, I know that your sister beguines in the Low Countries have done so before, when the priests have refused them the sacraments. And I ask not that you take this for yourself, but that you offer it as a servant of our Lord to a soul in need. How can that be a sin? The lowliest servant may offer venison to a guest in the King’s hall, though he himself owns neither deer nor forest. Did not the first Christians share the bread and the wine among themselves, each giving it one to another? You know the love that Andrew has for our Lord. She needs no priest to mediate for her; she is risen beyond that. She reaches out to her soul’s love, her sacred bridegroom, and He to her. They have no need of a marriage broker. For her soul’s sake and yours, do not separate her from her Lord.”

  I shivered and drew my cloak tighter around me. The light from the candle in the lantern danced on the box held out before me and the crucified figure on the lid seemed to move his arms, stretching them out to me. I found my fingers closing around the box and I cried out as they grasped it. The box was warm, as if the figure on it was carved of living flesh.