The Butcher Bird

by S. D. Sykes

  ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘Let me take your hand.’ She held out a pair of pale, skeletal hands, while her fawning eyes and distorted grin continued to nail me to the spot.

  ‘Stop looking at me,’ I said, now using every drop of my remaining strength to refuse her hands before stumbling towards the door.

  ‘Don’t go, sire,’ she said, trotting after me. ‘We could talk a little further.’

  ‘Get away from me.’

  She followed me outside, and now the cold air stabbed at my chest, sharp as a claw. I struggled back over the small bridge, and before the woman could say another word to me, I had mounted Tempest and ridden away at speed.

  I didn’t dare to look back.

  * * *

  I woke later that day, staring at the canopy that drooped from my bed frame like the jowls of a mastiff. I had no recollection of riding home, and clearly I had just fallen into bed, since I still wore a riding gown and muddy leather boots.

  And what was I contemplating, as I lay upon this bed? It was not poor Catherine’s murder. Instead it was the king’s law. The Statute of Labourers. Mistress Salt’s plan had worked. She had so riddled my head with her argument that I was not even tempted to reach under the mattress for my favourite manuscript.

  As I ran my eyes along each dusty wrinkle in the canopy, I now questioned my strict and determined adherence to the Statute. Perhaps Agnes Salt was right? Who would know if I were to add a few pence here and there to the wages? The villagers were hardly likely to confess such a matter. But it would only take one gossip or blabbermouth to give me away. And then how would I stand with the earl, as it had been his specific order to restrict wages. In fact, he regularly sent his steward, an odious man named Edward Hatcher, to check over my accounts, just to see if I was behaving myself. I might want to help my tenants. I might even be tempted to free my villeins.They were struggling for survival. I could see that. But what was I to do? My hands were tied.

  Chapter Nine

  I never returned to the boys’ dormitory at the monastery. Instead I slept every night in the infirmary. To begin with, I had a small bed at the foot of Brother Peter’s, but as I grew older, Peter secured me a chamber of my own. It was a small and private cell that was kept for the care of any rich and influential benefactor who might wish to be tended to by monks in their later years. But it was rarely in use, as these benefactors either died soon after their entrance to the monastery, or they tired of our strict, monastic life and decided to return to society and take their chances on Heaven.

  I was educated by Peter. I assisted Peter in the infirmary. I ate with Peter. My life centred around the man, and his life centred around me. I even felt able to speak with him concerning my unbelief, though I knew it troubled him greatly. Sometimes he even blamed my blasphemy for driving him to drink – but this was not the case. The man was already a drinker, long before I bothered him with my arguments and questions.

  I would tell you that it was the Plague that had finally deadened my heart to the Church and its teachings. That God did nothing to save his own people from its greedy tongue, so how could there even be a God? Many of the most saintly were taken, and many of the most sinful were spared. But my unbelief went further than this easy equation. It was a furrow that had grown deeper with every year I spent at the monastery, and though I had tried repeatedly to cover it with the soil of prayer and reflection, it eventually became a chasm that could not be filled. Peter warned me against such thoughts. He tried to turn my mind back to the Church, but I could not be convinced that there was anything other than the earth and the sky in the universe. Where was the evidence? My one promise to Brother Peter was this: if I could not believe in his God, then I would, at least, keep my feelings to myself.

  For many years I did. I obeyed Peter. But when I was around thirteen years of age, I began to notice another boy about the monastery who seemed to share my lack of enthusiasm for mass. His name was Edmund, and years before, he had been the boy who advised me to feign sleep when the abbot came prowling. We had not communicated in the meantime. In fact, I did not communicate at all with any of the boys. If they saw me, they laughed. If I saw them, I cast my eyes to the floor and walked more quickly. I was like a rare bird, kept in a cage by Peter, away from the sparrows of the yard.

  A couple of times, at vespers, or even in the early dawn at lauds, Edmund caught my eye. I looked away on the first few occasions, afraid that he might be trying to mock me, or catch me in some sort of mischief to amuse the other boys. But after a while, I relented. Edmund was worth looking at, I will say that much. He was a tall boy, with broad shoulders and the handsome, even features of a Roman statue. I was both pleased and embarrassed that he had noticed me.

  After a few weeks of passing secret glances, Edmund came to speak to me in the herb garden. There was nobody else around, and it was early evening. We should have been at vespers, but we were both playing truant. I remember our conversation began shyly. Why was he there? Why was I there? But soon we put aside such talk and we were laughing – about the warts on Brother Thomas’s chin, the poor food in the refectory, or the boredom of mass. We met often after that occasion, usually in the herb garden in the evenings. I was able to shirk vespers by pretending that I needed to care for an elderly monk. I don’t know how Edmund came to miss the prayers, as he wouldn’t say. But nevertheless, we kept our meetings a secret. A joyful secret.

  I will admit this. I began to look forward to those meetings more than any other part of my daily life – a life that celebrated nothing other than routine and silence. We discussed our thoughts and ideas. Edmund felt the same way as I did regarding our religion, but we both had had nobody else to confide in for all these years. Can you imagine how welcome it was to find a confidant, after so long?

  Peter noticed a change in me, complaining that I was becoming withdrawn and secretive. Then he complained that I had become opinionated and vain. He even caught me looking at myself in the polished silver of the chalices, to see if my face had become any more handsome. I was never pleased with my reflection, for it did not match the beauty and perfection of Edmund’s face. Peter asked me repeatedly to confide in him, to tell him what was happening to me. Why my openness had suddenly frozen over. But Peter would not stick his nose into every crevice of my being. My friendship with Edmund was my secret. Not his.

  Not long after, Peter caught Edmund and me together in the garden. We were trying to throw a stone through a hole in the wall that led out into the orchard. At the time I thought it had been our excitement at hitting the tree on the other side that gave us away. We cheered each time the stone passed through the hole. But now I think about it, Peter had probably been following me. Spying was entirely in his nature. He sent Edmund back to vespers with a clip around the ear, but I was punished more harshly. I was not allowed to leave the infirmary for three weeks. I was more miserable than it is possible to be, during my confinement. I would neither speak to Peter, nor even look in his direction. I knew my behaviour was driving him to drink more, since he was hard to rouse from his bed in the mornings, and more bad- tempered than ever. But I could not forgive his interference.

  When the three weeks were over and my punishment was complete, I looked about for Edmund at every mass, but his fine head was nowhere to be seen. I even grasped the courage to speak to one of the other boys – choosing a studious, unpopular boy who was more likely to answer my questions. His reply caused me to run to the infirmary in tears, for Edmund had been moved to another monastery, and I knew I would, never see him again.

  Peter tried to comfort me, but I pushed him away. I even threw a candlestick at the man. Peter was behind Edmund’s removal – I knew that much. Of course he denied it at first, but I would not believe his stories. Even then I knew him to be a consummate liar. Eventually he confessed that he had been instrumental in moving the boy, but then had the affront to argue that it had been for my own good. How could that be – I wanted to know? Edmund was my friend. My onl
y friend. Peter tried to stroke my head to comfort me, but when I still rejected him, he told me the vilest of lies.

  Edmund was not my friend at all, he said. Instead he was the abbot’s boy – responsible for recruiting the other pupils and oblates that the abbot had his eye upon. If Peter had not stepped in at this early point, then he would not have been able to protect me later, once Edmund had lured me into the abbot’s trap. I did not believe this story then. I do not believe it now. It stank, but, in retrospect, it did not deserve my response – for I accused Peter of removing Edmund because he wanted me for himself.

  He was disgusted by my words. He denied the charge vociferously. He was only concerned for my welfare, and one day I would discover the truth about his affection for me. What truth was this, I demanded to know. Tell me now. He tried to speak, but the words would not come out, and then he seemed to lose all courage. At the time I took this to be nothing more than a lie, but, of course, I know now what he was tempted to tell me. The secret that both bound us together and threw us apart.

  Perhaps he should have told me then?

  Instead he kept his silence, and as the months went by, I slowly forgot Edmund. But a distance grew between Peter and me. A distance that Peter filled with drink.

  I slept in my clothes all night, feeling uncomfortable and stiff when I woke at first light, as I had neither closed the curtains about the bed, nor even pulled the counterpane over my head. The air in the room was chilled, with condensation forming a dank gauze over the tapestry on the wall. I went to sit up, but my head felt heavy and my mouth dry, as if I had drunk a gallon of best ale the night before. Except that I hadn’t. It had been nothing more than a mug of Agnes Salt’s mead. I rubbed my head, in an attempt to wake myself up, but only succeeded instead in provoking memories of my visit to the strange woman.

  I changed my shirt and braies, wiped some mist from the window and looked out over the fields to a line of bare trees on the distant ridge, their dark branches feeling upwards at a cold, white sky. A thin veil of mist hung over the fields, and then, though it pains me to admit this, I felt as lonely without Brother Peter as I had felt since his disappearance. I had a murder to solve and unhappy villagers to appease. I had nobody to talk to.

  It was then that the idea came to me. I would visit Joan Bath. She could be blunt and uncompromising – but I trusted her more than any other person on the estate. I was tying my boots when a shouting and commotion from outside distracted me. From the window, I could see that Gilbert was chasing the two de Caburn sisters across the dewy grass towards the forest. He held a wooden club aloft and was waving it as fiercely as Orion hunting with Artemis. They disturbed a great flock of starlings that flew into the air in a cloud of beating wings. The girls were too fast for Gilbert, and easily outpaced his tired old legs, forcing him to slump down upon a stack of logs, with only the energy to shout and wave his stick, while the girls disappeared into the trees.

  I wondered then whether I should venture outside to discover what crime the girls had committed, but decided against such an enquiry. I was bored of Gilbert’s complaints about Mary and Rebecca. Only the previous afternoon he had moaned to me that they wouldn’t brush their hair or wear their shoes, and that they were stealing meat from the kitchen.

  I finished dressing and then crept down the steps, but found my servant at the bottom of the stairwell, standing in my path. I groaned. ‘What is it Gilbert? I’m in a hurry.’

  He tried to catch his breath. ‘I don’t know what to do with them, sire.’

  I was tempted to push past, but the man seemed genuinely upset. ‘Is it Lady Mary and Lady Rebecca?’

  He nodded. His chest was heaving up and down like a ship at sea. ‘I was grafting some pear whips onto the dwarf apple stocks. And those little devils pulled them up and threw them into the barrels.’

  This was bad behaviour indeed – but something about this latest piece of mischief made me want to smile.

  Gilbert noticed the curl of amusement upon my lips and scowled. ‘I’d taken months to graft those maiden pears, sire. Now they’re sticking out of a barrel of night soil like a pair of battle flags.’

  ‘Can’t the trees be saved?’

  ‘No.They’re poisoned.’

  I thought of the large wooden barrels that stood at the bottom of the chute beneath the garderobe. ‘But don’t you spread the contents of the barrel onto the vegetable garden?’

  Gilbert now swapped his frown for a look of bemusement. ‘Only after it’s been dried and mixed. And I spread it sire. I don’t stick a load of shit in a pot and try to plant seeds in it.’

  I felt a fool, so tried once again to circumvent the man. ‘I’ll sort out a suitable punishment for the girls.’

  Gilbert cheered up at this suggestion. ‘I’ll lock them in the cellar.’

  ‘No. Don’t do that.’

  He frowned again. ‘But they deserve it, sire.This isn’t their first transgression. Oh no. Not in the least. They are thieves, the pair of them. Always stealing the best meat from the kitchen and then disappearing into the woods with it.’

  I will admit to sighing at this point. ‘They have a cat. I’ve told you that before.’

  ‘Well I: ve never seen it.’

  ‘It’s big and grey.’ Gilbert went to answer, but this time I did push past. I was thoroughly tired of this conversation. ‘Why don’t you lock them into the ladies’ bedchamber? That might cool their spirits.’

  ‘That’s if I can find them, sire.’

  ‘They’ll come back when they get hungry.’

  ‘Or when their imaginary cat is,’ he shouted after me, as I finally made my exit.

  I knocked at Joan’s door to find that she was not quite as pleased to see me as I had hoped she might be. In fact I would say she was a little flustered, and suddenly I had the impression she was about to go out somewhere. She was wearing a black gown and a silk veil that was arranged modestly about her face. Looking at the woman, nobody would have guessed Joan’s previous profession, for these days she looked every bit as demure as a minoress. I will say this, however. Her gown bore none of the coarseness of a nun’s simple scapular, for the wool was of the finest quality.

  I took a seat at her long table while she lit a tall wax candle and stoked the fire in the centre of the room. Her boys were sent outside as ever – this time to clip the ewes’ hooves, for she wouldn’t discuss one single matter in front of them.

  ‘So what brings you back here so soon, my young lord?’ she asked, as she settled herself onto the bench beside me. ‘I thought I had offended you the last time you visited.’

  ‘I wanted some advice.’Then I coughed, for this was an awkward admission. ‘I needed to speak to somebody.’

  She remained impassive at my entreaty. ‘What about your mother? Why don’t you talk to her?’ I pulled a face. I didn’t need to say more.

  She folded her arms. ‘So what’s the problem? Are you in love again?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Then I hesitated, suddenly lacking the courage to say the next words out loud.

  ‘Is it about wages? Or the murder?’ she prompted.

  I sighed. ‘Both.’

  Joan regarded me for a few moments, as if sizing up a ram. Did I deserve any of her time and effort? I passed the examination, for she got up from the bench, walked over to her crusader’s chest and pulled out a wicker-covered bottle of wine. It was dusty and looked as if it had come back from the Levant, along with the chest itself. She pulled at the cork and poured me a good measure into one of her pewter cups.

  ‘I thought you might be going out somewhere,’ I said, letting the warm liquid roll down my throat. I still felt unwell from Agnes Salt’s mead, but this wine was soothing and welcome.

  Joan shrugged. ‘I was. But it’s nowhere important.’ She shuffled a little closer to me on the bench. So close that I could catch her perfume. Cinnamon, and the sweetness of newly-gathered hay.

  She took my hand. ‘So, Oswald. Have you changed your mind about
the men’s wages? Is that why you want to talk to me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She withdrew her hand immediately. ‘That’s no good, is it? As a lord, you have to know.’

  ‘Very well. I’m thinking about it.’

  She poured me some more wine. ‘Don’t think too long. Delay will mean you lose your men. Some to other estates. Some to starvation.’

  I took another gulp of the wine. ‘It’s not easy, you know. I would be breaking the law. And the earl sends that thug Edward Hatcher to check through my accounts.’

  She stroked my arm lightly. It felt maternal and reassuring. ‘If the man is a thug, then you can beat him with cunning,’ she whispered. ‘Pay your men more, but swear your reeve to secrecy.This Edward Hatcher will never know.’

  I stifled a groan and looked about Joan’s room to see a new crucifix hanging on the wall. It was of the most delicate and intricate copper enamelling. Joan seemed to read my mind. ‘The sales of my fleeces are going well.’ Though I doubted this, since her sheep would not be sheared until the summer.

  She quickly turned the subject back to wages. ‘So you’ll do it? You’ll raise wages.’

  This time I did let the groan surface fully. ‘Yes. Very well. When the time is right.’

  Joan stood up. ‘Well done to you, Oswald,’ she said as she disappeared into the curtained end of the cottage and returned with a salted knuckle of ham and a great slice of seed cake. I was starving, as I had not had breakfast, and this was the most welcome of feasts.

  As I devoured the contents of my plate, she watched me, but did not eat herself. ‘So what about the child’s murder?’ she asked. ‘You’re no closer to finding the culprit?’

  ‘No. I seem to be going in circles.’

  ‘But you still have Barrow under your protection?’

  I nodded. ‘He’s locked in one of my towers. For his own safety.’ ‘And there have been no further murders since you locked him away?’

  I turned to her sharply. ‘I thought you, of all people, would resist jumping to the easiest conclusions.’