The Owl Killers

by Karen Maitland

  There were voices outside the window, a woman’s voice and murmuring words too low to be distinct, excited laughter, then a thump against the wooden door.

  “I told you, she’s not coming. I saw her ride off towards the forest,” the woman said.

  “So, the bitch really believes she can stand against the Aodh, does she? It will be her last ride.”

  “Don’t you fancy a ride, Master? Come on—it’s a pity to waste the evening.”

  The man laughed. I knew that deep mirthless laugh. It was my cousin Phillip.

  “I usually prefer them young and tender, but why not? Most of the women in this village think they have to put up a show of resistance. It gets a little tiresome. They are all strumpets under their skirts; it makes a change to find an honest slut.”

  There was a resounding slap on well-rounded flesh and the woman laughed.

  “God’s blood … what you wearing?” Phillip was panting. “It would be easier to bed a virgin abbess, and don’t think I haven’t tried.”

  “If you’re too weak, I’d best find a man who can keep his end up.”

  Another slap, a squeal and low chuckle.

  “I could fuck you till dawn and still have strength enough to whip you bloody for the whore you are.”

  “Could you now? Why don’t you put your prick where your mouth is and prove it then?” The voice belonged to Pega!

  Phillip was grunting hard like a farrowing sow. I stuffed my fingers in my ears, but I could still hear the moans and pants as they copulated against the wall. How could they? How could she? She must have known I could hear them; why else would she have come here? I wanted to scream at them to go away, but they’d only laugh and do it all the more. A final groan and it was over.

  For a long time I could hear nothing except their deep panting breaths. Then finally Pega spoke. “I’ve wine here; that’ll get you going again. Come on, drink up. I warrant it’s better than that arsehole of a priest is supping tonight.”

  “I can swear to that,” Phillip answered. “I’ve suffered the pig’s piss that priest calls wine more than once. Where did you steal this from?”

  “The house of women, of course. The leader doesn’t stint herself there. Straight from France this. Sit yourself down and rest a while. Get your strength up; you’ll be needing it. I’ve a few tricks to show you that I warrant none of your highborn ladies can teach you.”

  “I bet you learned … a thing or two from those women … heard those foreign whores can …”

  Phillip’s voice trailed off into heavy snores. There was what sounded like a heavy kick into a mass of flesh, but the snores continued unabated.

  “Osmanna?”

  Pega’s outline suddenly filled the window, blocking out the white. Only someone as tall as she could reach it. In the darkness I couldn’t make out her expression, but I could smell his sweat on her. I crouched against the wall. I couldn’t bear her taunting, not now.

  “Osmanna!” The whisper was more urgent this time. “Osmanna, I know you’re awake. Stand up where I can see you.”

  “Won’t there be time enough to mock me tomorrow?” I said bitterly. “Why must you come tonight? I’ve no doubt you’re going to watch me burn. That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, revenge on my family?”

  “Osmanna, listen to me, I—”

  “I’ve already heard you, Pega. Do you creep out to whore every night? Or did you find it amusing to do it outside my window and force me to listen? So you’ve had your fun; now for pity’s sake go and leave me alone.”

  “Listen to me, you sour-faced little cat,” Pega snapped. “No one from the beguinage can get near this place. Tutor Martha, the others, they tried. The only way I could do it was to fuck that bastard Phillip to get him off guard. You can’t just walk up to a man and give him drugged wine. He’d have known something was up. There are ways of dealing with a man, which you’d know if you’d ever had to survive in the world for yourself, m’lady.”

  “Am I supposed to be grateful that you sacrificed your virtue just to speak to me? It didn’t sound much of an effort from here. Don’t tell me they’ve sent you as my confessor?”

  “Nobody sends me anywhere,” Pega retorted. “I came ’cause I’d a mind to, though God alone knows why I bothered. You are the most stubborn, stuck-up vixen that ever drew breath. Anyone who offers you their hand in friendship gets their whole arm bitten off.”

  “So why don’t you go and leave me alone?”

  “’Cause I’m as stubborn as you are. I heard about the way you faced down old D’Acaster. Though how he ever came to spawn a salty brat like you is a mystery only your mam can answer. For all my talk, I’d not have the stomach to see this through, not to that end. You’ve the faith to equal any saint. I wish I’d a gill of it.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong, Pega.” I said softly. “It’s not faith. It’s hatred.”

  “Is it now? Aye, well that I can understand. I’ve seen hatred drive many a man to face the kind of death that would make faith shrivel in its tracks. Do you hate your father that much? It seems we’ve something in common after all.”

  I rushed towards the window and tried to reach up to her. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to feel a warm human hand in mine. “I’m scared, Pega. I am so frightened. You cannot begin to know how much. I can’t face it … haven’t the strength … Help me, Pega, please help me!”

  I tried not to cry, but the tears were forcing their way out. A rough hand pressed down on mine, solid and warm as if Pega had the strength to pull me through the tiny space and out into freedom. I clung to her hand like a lost child, wanting her never to let me go, as if she could keep me from all the terrors of this life and the next.

  “Pega,” I pleaded, “give me something sharp, your knife or a piece of broken flagon, anything so that I can kill myself before morning. I can’t face the flames, Pega. I can’t do it.”

  “You think I came here to help you kill yourself? I’ve thieved, lied, and fornicated for you this night, lass. You think I’m about to add murder to the list?”

  “It wouldn’t be murder, if I did it. Pega. Please help me. Please, I beg you. Don’t let them burn me, Pega, please.”

  “Course I’m not going to let them burn you, lass. What do you think I’m here for? But we have to hurry. Your cousin’s snoring away like an old boar now, but I don’t want to be around when he wakes up. The pig’ll have a head like a swarm of hornets when he does and serves the bastard right.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get you out of here, of course; what did you think I came for? The Commissarius kept the key himself, he’d not entrust it even to Phillip. So we’ll have to take you out through the roof, lass. It’s only thatch.”

  “But I can’t reach it.”

  “No, but I can. They didn’t call me the Ulewic Giant for nothing. I’ve a rope I can use to haul you up once I’ve made a hole. Someone must have been praying some pretty powerful prayers for you, lass—this sea-mist is sent from Heaven. It’ll cover us while I work and our tracks while we make off.”

  Her face vanished from the window and I heard the sound of the reeds being torn away above my head. Gradually a bright white patch began to glimmer through the dark roof.

  “But we can’t go back to the beguinage, Pega. They’ll come looking for me there and for you too. Phillip’s bound to tell them what you did.”

  “Phillip’ll never admit he let himself be tricked by a whore. But he’ll come looking for me, make no mistake, and I’ve no intention of being around when he does. No, lass—you and I are going to have to disappear. Boat to France, then who knows where? I’ve a hankering to see more than this poxy village before I die. We might not make it, and if they catch us, we’ll likely burn together. But they’ll have to catch us first and we’ll give them a run for their money. What say you, Osmanna: You willing to take a chance? You and me together, lass. I reckon with your learning and my brawn, together we could take on the world.”r />
  january

  saint vincent of saragossa’s day

  spanish martyr and the patron saint of drunkards, he refused to sacrifice to heathen gods and was roasted on a gridiron and left in the stocks to die. six ancient english churches bear his name.

  pisspuddle

  iT WAS THE HIGHEST TREE I’d ever climbed. I could see forever, right over Ulewic and the hills beyond it. I was balancing on the branch and I wasn’t even holding on. I just had my hand pressed against rough bark above, but I wasn’t gripping it, just resting my hand. I could walk that branch without holding on if I wanted, but I wasn’t going to, not yet.

  There’d be a fair next May Day, I knew there would be. The tumblers would come again and this time they’d take me. I’d be ready by then; if I practised all winter, when the spring came, I’d show them. I’d show everyone. I’d steal Father’s big sharp knife and cut the webs between my fingers and then Ulewic would have to let me go, for I wouldn’t belong here anymore. With the tumblers I’d travel way beyond the hills to castles and towns bigger even than the forest. And one day we’d come back here to the fair. I’d be wearing a red and gold costume and William wouldn’t even recognise me and I wouldn’t even speak to him, not once.

  I’d walk the whole length of the springy pole and when the two men holding the pole on their shoulders bounced it upwards, I’d somersault and land on it again, my fingers spread wide like flowers. Everyone would cheer, especially William; then I’d speak to him, but only so he’d know it was me.

  I’d be rich then. Father would beg me to stay the night in the cottage and say that I could have all the best bits from the pot and tell William he’d have to sleep on the floor, but I’d not go. I’d be feasted at the Manor. Father and William would have to wait in the rain in the courtyard outside. If they were nice to me, I’d have a few scraps sent out to them from the table, but only if they were really nice, otherwise I wouldn’t.

  “Get down here, Pisspuddle!”

  The sudden shout startled me. I slipped, grabbed for the branch, and hauled myself back up again. My knees stung like fire, skinned on the rough bark. It hurt. It was all his stupid fault, bellowing like that. He made me slip. I hated him.

  “I’ll leave you here in the dark by yourself and the Owlman’ll get you!” William bellowed.

  “No, wait, I’m coming, William, don’t go.”

  I looked round trying to find the quickest way down. I couldn’t remember how I got up here.

  “I’m going right now!”

  Below me I could see him walking away from the tree.

  “No, wait, wait. Look, the sea fog is coming in again. I can see it from here. Look, William, look!”

  A thick mist was rolling across the fields, tumbling over itself, sliding along the ground, then rearing up again.

  “This’d better not be one of your games.” William swung himself up into the tree and quickly reached the branch below me. He was good at climbing.

  “Isn’t, look there.”

  The huge wall of fog drifted beyond the village. William sniffed the air and slapped me across my head. I had to grab on tight with both hands to stop myself falling off.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “You wouldn’t know it if your own arse was on fire. That’s no fog. That’s smoke that is, you daft beggar.”

  “What’s afire?”

  William shrugged. “House of women, I reckon.”

  “Are they burning the women too?”

  “Lettice says they’re gone.” William craned to get a better view. “She said Father Ulfrid went out there and there wasn’t a soul left. It was like they’d all vanished in the night.”

  The girl they were going to burn was gone too. The door of the jail was still locked, but there was a big hole in the roof. Father Ulfrid said the Owlman had come in the night and torn the roof open with his talons. He ripped her heart out of her chest with his beak and ate it right in front of her while it was still beating. Then he carried her soul straight to Hell in case she repented in the flames and Satan was cheated of her. Father Ulfrid said she was his greatest prize because she was so wicked, but I didn’t believe she was wicked at all.

  I was sorry they’d gone. Servant Martha hadn’t got angry when I gave her the hair and the feather. She held them in her hands for a long time staring at them, and then she said softly as if she was remembering something,

  “He has freely given me my free will. How easily we forget that we have chosen what we are and can choose what we will become. …”

  She looked at me then and gave a tiny sad smile. I’d never seen her smile before. “Remember to choose, child.”

  William whacked my leg. “C’mon, we’ve got to get going. It’ll be dark soon. What did you have to climb up here for anyway, you daft beggar? You’ll fall.”

  He held my ankle and pushed my foot down safely onto the next branch, then the next, till I was down.

  Mostly I hated William, but sometimes since Mam got taken and Father went strange, he looked out for me. Sometimes it felt like William was all I’d got left. It was just the two of us now. When the tumblers came in spring, maybe I’d take him with me. William didn’t have a web. So we could run away together, far, far away and nothing could ever pull us back to Ulewic. Maybe that’s what we’d choose to do one day, very soon.

  epilogue

  sMOKE BILLOWED UP FROM THE RUINS of the beguinage. Only the buildings burned. They had been stripped of anything moveable as soon as the women and their curse were gone from the village. Looted for valuables first by the Manor, as was their liege-right—even thieves know their place—then by the villagers gleaning for broken furniture, food, pots, and sheer curiosity. The Manor found little worth the bother of their efforts except the livestock, wine, and stores of grain, but the villagers were always glad of any prize they could snatch from their neighbours, be it a straw pallet or a patched blanket. Tables and benches rejected as too rough and plain for the Manor were carried off on cart or foot. They were far too big to fit inside the cottages, but good wood was hard to come by and they could always be made into doors to keep out the cold, or hurdles to keep in the sheep. Even the dead got their dues, for a tabletop makes a serviceable bier.

  The villagers stripped the beguinage to the bare bones, but in this world even bones have their scavengers, and finally the beggars were allowed their turn at the carcass. They all took something, even the slowest and feeblest cripple scuttled away with crocks and scraps, for the meanest rag is a fur robe to a naked man.

  Too occupied with fighting for the spoils, no one so much as glanced at the two slender mounds in the dirt outside the chapel walls. One was almost grassed over now, invisible. The other, smaller, strip was still bare. A little wooden trolley stood at the foot of the grave. A boy snatched it up; it would make a fine toy. The villagers trampled the tiny grave flat, not knowing or caring that the wasted body of a child lay just below their feet. It was only little Ella, that was all. But she had been loved. Ella and Gudrun, they had both once been loved, and love needs no cross to mark it.

  Father Ulfrid hurried straight to the chapel. The green altar stone with its bloodred flecks, the chalice, and the paten were all gone. Carefully wrapped in wool they were safely stowed in the beguines’ chests on the ship bound for Flanders. There was nothing left to show that women had ever served at this altar.

  Father Ulfrid was not expecting to find anything of value, but even so he had convinced himself that the reliquary containing Andrew’s Host would be there, waiting for him. The Commissarius had ordered the beguines to surrender it to the church and the Commissarius could not be disobeyed, for he held the keys of Hell in the next world and in this.

  But the reliquary was not standing on the altar where the priest expected it to be. Unable to bring himself to accept that his last hope of salvation had vanished, Father Ulfrid spent a long and fruitless time turning the chapel upside down inch by inch, even brushing the rushes aside to see if the
re were any signs of it having been buried in the ground. Pale with frustration, he scoured the walls of the chapel desperate to find any loose stone or niche that he had overlooked. But at last he had to admit that the miraculous Host was gone.

  He glared up at the walls, choking with rage. He had been so obsessed with searching for the reliquary that he had barely glanced at the wall paintings, but now he saw them. The paintings were finished at last. The serene eyes of the dying beguine looked down on him, her triumphant smile undisturbed by his rage. Her long hair flowed from under her invalid’s cap, bright and shining as if she was a girl again, and the Son of God Himself held out a hand from Heaven towards her, a bridegroom welcoming his bride. Every muscle and bone in the priest’s body were so racked with hatred that he felt as if his sinews were tearing themselves apart. He snatched the knife from his belt and gouged into the plaster, chipping and scratching away at that painted face like a cornered rat.

  “Whore! Heretic! Blasphemer! Cunt!”

  He tore at the body like a torturer with a flesh rake, obliterating breasts, loins, and hands until only a space remained, a hollow outline of an empty woman.

  As he spun away, he stumbled hard against the stone altar. A dark red stain, the size and shape of a holy wafer, marred the whiteness of the stone; for a moment, Father Ulfrid thought it was his own blood. Without thinking, he reached out to wipe it away, but as his palm touched the red stain, he yelped in surprise, clamping his stinging hand under his armpit. He examined his palm. A burning livid red sore was etched deep into it, as if an iron nail had been driven right through it. Aghast he stared at the wound, then he fled from the chapel, leaving only the Virgin staring sadly down above the altar.

  Outside, the Owl Masters were waiting, blazing torches at the ready. Dry straw and rags had been dipped in tallow and stuffed under eaves and in the crevices. Piles of dry rushes had been heaped inside the open doorways.