The Butcher Bird

by S. D. Sykes

  My head was thick and my eyes were crusted. ‘What are you doing?’ I groaned. ‘What’s wrong now?’

  ‘Come quickly, Oswald. Mistress Cooper is bleeding to death.’ She shook me to emphasise her point. ‘There’s blood everywhere.’ Then she pulled a face. ‘It has ruined my new feather mattress.’

  I pulled a tunic quickly over my head and followed Mother into the ladies’ bedchamber, where Eloise lay across the bed in a white linen gown that was stained with red. She looked up at me plaintively, her face cold and white.

  I ran to take her hand, which was limp and sweating. ‘What’s happening?’ I asked her.

  She indicated that she wanted me to draw closer. I obliged, and when my ear was by her mouth she whispered, ‘Get me a bucket, Oswald.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m losing the child.’

  I felt faint. ‘No, no. You can’t be.’

  ‘I am.’

  Mother pulled me away. ‘What’s she saying to you about a bucket?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be listening,’ I snapped.

  ‘I only heard the part about the bucket, Oswald. I wasn’t listening when she mentioned losing the child.’

  It took me a moment to focus. The room was too warm and smelt of blood. ‘Just get a bucket,’ I said.

  Mother frowned. ‘That won’t cure the problem.’

  ‘It’s too late for a cure, Mother!’

  Mother crossed herself at these words, and staggered with some dramatic effect to a bench at the other side of the chamber. ‘Shall I ask Master de Waart to return?’

  ‘What do you mean? Has he seen Eloise already?’

  She crossed herself again. ‘She was nauseous, Oswald. And melancholic.’

  I looked about the bed and found a large clay mug. Inside, leaves and flowers swilled about a mucky brown brew that smelt foul and bitter. ‘What is this?’ I asked, thrusting the mug under Mother’s nose. ‘Is this one of de Waart’s cures?’

  ‘Yes,’ she stammered. ‘I think it is.’

  ‘What’s in it? Cow dung? Bird shit?’

  Mother pushed back her hair. ‘Of course not. Mistress Cooper asked for some herbs.’

  ‘Which herbs?’

  She waved her hand at me. ‘I can’t remember, Oswald.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘She said they would help to settle her digestion.’ Mother mopped at the corner of her eye. ‘Her constitution is far too dry and hot, Oswald. It is no wonder she feels nauseous. If I was her, I would—’

  I grasped the foolish woman by the arm and shook her. ‘God’s bones Mother. Which herbs did she ask for?’

  ‘I believe it was Parsley and Mint.’ She sighed and looked into the distance. ‘Or was it Penny Royal and Tansy?’

  Eloise slipped off the bed and was now leaning against the wall with her arms upstretched. ‘Where’s the bucket?’ she wheezed, as I tried to lay a comforting hand upon her back. ‘Get me the bucket.’

  ‘I’ll go and get it,’ I said.

  Her face was twisted with pain and she was panting like a thirsty dog. A pool of blood was forming at her feet. She pulled up her gown and squatted upon the floor, causing Mother to flee the room with her hand in front of her mouth.

  In truth I was tempted to do the same, for Eloise was now groaning and writhing, and any words of sympathy were met with a scowl or even a screamed curse.

  ‘What did de Waart give you?’ I asked, when she relaxed for a few moments.

  She resumed her pose against the wall. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s poisoned you, Eloise.’

  She placed one hand on her back and wailed as a great clot of blood slipped greasily down her leg and onto the floor. I wanted to be sick. But instead I collected a sheet from the bed and wrapped up the bloody mess without looking too closely. For I knew what the soaking sheet contained. It was the essence of a small and barely formed life.The child I had seen in the shadows.

  Thankfully Gilbert arrived with a bucket, for Eloise continued to bleed. It seemed as if the flow would never stop, though I tried to stem it with the sheets from the bed. I called for Ada, and she brought some woollen blankets and some linen swaddling of Henry’s that Clemence had left behind.

  Eventually the torrent of her bleeding began to ease, and Eloise lay down upon the bed and slept. I looked upon her face, which was both beautiful and serene, and my feelings became confused all over again. I had never loved Eloise, but I had been in her thrall. It could only have been a bewitchment, but as I watched her sleep, I began to wonder if it might grow into more.

  But these thoughts were delusions. Born out of my youth and sentimentality.

  I kept a vigil at Eloise’s bedside, and when she woke and asked for beer, it was I who held the pewter cup to her mouth.

  ‘Are you feeling better?’ I asked, tipping the warm beer onto her cracked lips. I had asked Ada to bring the best ale, which was both strong and dark.

  She grunted a response. I took her to be slightly delirious.

  I picked up her small hand from where it lay on the bed sheet and stroked it. ‘I’ll make de Waart pay for this. But we will have other children. We’re both young enough.’

  Her eyes opened at this.

  ‘I think we should still marry, Eloise. Despite what’s happened.’

  She gave a small laugh, which soon dissolved into a cough. ‘But what if I disagree?’

  ‘Do you?’

  She took her hand away and turned away from me.

  ‘We’ll speak about this when you’re recovered,’ I said.

  ‘No we won’t.’ She yawned. ‘There’s nothing to say. The child is gone. There’s no reason for the marriage.’

  I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Rest, Eloise. You’re exhausted.’

  But this attempt at compassion only seemed to inflame her, for rather than close her eyes, she summoned the courage to sit up. ‘What would be the point in marrying you, Oswald?’

  I hesitated. ‘It was just a suggestion.’

  ‘A poor one.’ She thumped the bed. ‘I wanted our child to inherit Versey.’

  ‘Versey has an heir already. Henry de Caburn.’

  She poked her finger into my arm. ‘That boy is not the son of my dead brother. You know that. He’s a bastard conceived by your sister and her manservant.’

  I went to protest, but suddenly she seemed so deflated that I lifted the pewter cup to her lips instead. I dismissed her bitter words about Henry as a consequence of her sorrow. ‘Have another sip, Eloise. It will revive your spirits.’

  She pushed the cup away. ‘Tell my servants to prepare my carriage. I’ll be leaving in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t be foolish, Eloise. You’ve just lost a child.’

  Now she sighed. ‘Oh Oswald. You are so naïve. I did not lose this child.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I expelled it.’

  ‘What?’

  She pointed to the concoction in the clay mug. ‘What do you think’s in there? A tonic for melancholia?’

  I stuttered. ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s a brew of herbs. To expel a child before the quickening.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t want to marry you, Oswald. And I don’t want your child. Can I make it any plainer?’

  I sank onto the bench.’

  ‘Don’t be sentimental. This is the practical solution to our problem.You will not give me Versey. And I would not make you happy.’

  ‘You killed our child.’

  ‘Not a child, Oswald. Look into that sheet and you’ll see what it was. Just a clot of blood and flesh. Nothing more.’

  I put my hands to my mouth. I will admit to feeling sick. ‘No. I don’t agree.’

  She leant over and tried to touch me. ‘Listen. I’ll tell you the truth of this matter.’

  I pushed her away. ‘Keep away from me. You’re evil.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re ta
lking about.’

  I wanted to cry. ‘Yes I do. It was a child. A son. I saw him in a dream.’

  She grabbed my hands in her own, and would not let go. ‘You must see things from a woman’s point of view for once.’ She squeezed my hand tighter. She spoke into my face, with passion and urgency. A ball of spittle hit my skin. ‘We are traded in this world. Sold to old men who we don’t care to marry. Handed over as easily as a cage of chickens in Cheapside market.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘It is, Oswald. We have so little control over our lives. So do not deny us this. To sometimes choose who we bring into this world and who we don’t.’

  I wanted to say something, but my mouth was dry.

  She regarded me for a while and then settled back down in the bed. ‘I would not have been a good wife for you, Oswald. Soon you will be pleased of this.’

  ‘No I won’t.’

  She only smirked, but as I watched Eloise leave the next day, the pleasure came sooner than I had expected.

  I bumped into Mother as she descended the stone steps from the solar. In her hand she held a clay mug and was sniffing gingerly at its contents. Her small dog Hector was jumping up at her dress as if the mug might conceal a titbit or treat. Since I had left Somershill to search for Henry, Mother had reclaimed Hector as her fawning pet, and equally he had forsaken his life as a dog.

  Immediately recognising the crude brown vessel Mother held as the mug containing Eloise’s herbal concoction, I tried to take it from her. ‘What are you doing with that?’ I said.

  She pulled the mug away from me and protected it beneath the folds of her gown. ‘It smells foul, so I thought I might rub it into my feet. They say Tansy dissolves calluses.’

  ‘Amongst other things,’ I said bitterly.

  She frowned. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just give it to me, Mother.’

  She placed the mug beneath the folds of her gown. ‘But these herbs are difficult to find, Oswald. This shouldn’t go to waste.’

  I grabbed the mug before she had a chance to object further. ‘Find de Waart. I’m sure he has some more he could sell you.’

  She reddened. ‘I think he’s left Somershill.’

  I marched away. ‘I hope so. For his own sake.’

  Mother pursued me, with Hector now barking at my heels – thinking that I was making off with his pot of treats. I kept ahead of them both until they caught up with me by the moat. Mother was panting. ‘I’m sorry about Eloise,’ she said.

  I threatened Hector with my foot and then poured the vile concoction into the moat, where the slop of sodden flower heads and sludgy leaves soon dissolved into the other foul soup of filth and kitchen waste. Even Hector was reluctant to descend the slippery banks to investigate further.

  Mother touched my cheek with her scaly hand. ‘It’s better that Eloise ridded herself of the child.’

  I grasped her hand. ‘You knew what she was doing?’

  She pulled her fingers away with surprising vigour. ‘I suspected her. Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She picked up Hector and wiped the spittle from about his mouth. ‘Mistress Cooper didn’t want the child. So who was I to stop her?’

  ‘But it’s . . .’

  She kissed Hector’s head. ‘It’s what? Evil? Barbaric?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She whispered into my ear. ‘This is a cruel world for women, Oswald. Sometimes herbs are all we have left.’

  I looked back at Mother, and suddenly I knew.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I arrived at the Long Ditch just in time. There was a cart outside the cottage, one end loaded with a cauldron, a bench, and a rolled mattress, the other jammed with a collection of stone bottles, leather pouches, and glass vials containing some herb or root. The familiar mewls and moans of Mary Tulley’s three infants cut through the air from the neighbouring cottage. The eldest boy was complaining that he was hungry, only to be ejected through the door for his troubles. He looked at me, stuck out his tongue and then crawled around to the back of the cottage, looking scrawnier and paler than the last time I had seen him. His feet were black and his tunic was perforated with holes.

  Agnes looked up as I crossed her threshold. ‘Sire?’

  ‘Where are you going, Mistress Salt?’

  ‘To visit my sister.’

  ‘With all your belongings?’

  ‘She’s a widow and needs help with her children.’

  ‘Then bring them here. You’re not free to move from this estate.’

  She smiled, revealing the pink of her gums. ‘Sire. You must be thirsty. Let me fetch you some mead.’

  ‘No thank you. The last time I drank your mead, it nearly poisoned me.’

  ‘It can be strong, sire. For a young man.’ She stepped around the embers of the fire and tried to fix me with her eyes. So large and blue, like two pale orbs.

  ‘Sit down,’ I told her.

  She inclined her head. ‘I don’t have a stool. It’s on the wagon.’

  ‘Then sit on the floor.’

  She hesitated. And then, with a show of reluctance, she dropped to the dusty floor and took some time to find a comfortable position. Once she had settled, I made sure to keep behind her and prop the door open.

  ‘What’s on your mind, sire?’ she asked me. ‘You seem agitated.’

  ‘The murders of two infants, Mistress Salt.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes. Poor Catherine and Margaret. Killed by that lunatic, John Barrow.’ She twisted her neck to look at me. ‘And his bird.’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ I said.

  ‘I’m only stretching my back, sire.’

  ‘Stay still. And don’t look at me.’

  She smiled and turned back to face the wall. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t care for some mead, sire? I’m sure it would settle your nerves.’

  ‘So you can poison me for good this time?’ I approached the back of her head and whispered into her ear. ‘Because you’re good at that, aren’t you?’

  She didn’t answer.

  I stepped back and once more kept my distance. Outside the door, a pigeon was pecking at something in the mud, its head bobbing methodically at the soil like a hammer. ‘Did you suggest poisoning the babies to Christina Beard and Mary Tulley? Or did they ask you to do it?’

  Agnes stiffened but said nothing.

  ‘Except Margaret wasn’t Christina’s baby, was she?’ I said.

  Agnes gave a shudder, but then quickly composed herself. She still remained silent.

  ‘The baby was the child of her simpleton daughter, wasn’t she?’ Agnes shuddered again. ‘Christina couldn’t keep such a child in her house. A bastard. Not with her devotion to the Holy Father.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Agnes. ‘This has nothing to do with the church.’

  ‘Then explain it to me.’

  She simply laughed and refused to answer. The door blew shut, leaving the room to fill with its stuffy scent. Sweet and strange odours that had worked their way into the walls from the years that Agnes had dried herbs and flowers from the rafters. I went back to the door and once again propped it open, frightened that I might be overcome by some miasma.

  ‘Let’s talk about Mary Tulley,’ I said.

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  ‘She didn’t need another mouth to feed, did she? Poor Mary. With three sons already in her house. One still clinging to her breast. And a husband who makes trouble wherever he goes.’

  Again silence.

  ‘She requested a quick and painless death for the child, didn’t she? She just wanted the baby to go to sleep and never wake up. Mary’s not a cruel woman.’

  Agnes turned around to look at me, her eyes bright against the dark of the chamber. I held her head and pushed it back to face the wall. Once again I leant over and whispered into her ear. ‘Did you tell yourself you were helping them, Mistress Salt?’

  ‘What would you know?’ sh
e spat.

  A voice came from the door. ‘Don’t blame Agnes. Please, sire.’ It was Mary Tulley. Her face was sweating and bloodless.

  ‘Don’t say anything, Mary,’ said Agnes. ‘This fool has no evidence against us.’

  ‘Both infants smelt of vomit,’ I said.

  ‘Babies always stink of vomit, my lord.’ Then she sneered. ‘Not that you’d know much on that subject.’

  ‘This was not the milky posset a baby usually brings up,’ I said. ‘This had the acrid smell of a poisoning. Was it wolfsbane?’

  Mary yelped at my words and held her hands to her mouth, causing Agnes to leap up and run to her neighbour. ‘Be still Mary,’ she said, stroking the other woman’s head tenderly. ‘Catherine didn’t suffer. She just went to sleep. This vomit was nothing more than a residue that must have slipped from her mouth. She felt no pain.’

  ‘You admit it then?’ They both looked to me, as if they had forgotten I was in the cottage.

  Mary trembled. ‘Please don’t tell Thomas, sire. Please. He would never forgive me.’

  I backed away. ‘You’ll both face a royal judge at the Hundreds court. Of course your husband will be told.’

  Mary suddenly screamed and threw herself to the floor. ‘Please, sire. Please. Don’t tell the constable. What will happen to my children if I hang? Thomas can’t look after them.’

  Instead of staying to comfort her friend, Agnes now pushed her face into mine. There was no option but to look into her eyes, though they were no longer bright and compelling. Instead they were dark and full of hatred. ‘You would sentence Mary’s whole family to death, would you? The three boys that she already has.’

  I tried to shove Agnes away, but the scrawny woman was strong. ‘She murdered an infant,’ I said. ‘With your help.’

  ‘And so did Eloise Cooper,’ said Agnes. ‘Will you report her to the constable as well?’

  I stepped back. ‘What do you know about that?’

  She laughed again, like a whinnying horse. ‘Where do you think your mother’s physician obtains his herbs? De Waart comes to me.’

  ‘To you?’

  ‘Yes! I knew why he was asking for those particular plants.’