The Owl Killers (47 page)

t
HE OWL MASTER SLIPPED OUT OF OUR COTTAGE
. I held my breath and crouched as small as I could behind the bushes. His big feathered head turned this way and that, like he was watching what everyone did even through the walls, then he slipped between the cottages. I crept forward to see where he’d gone, but he’d vanished.

As soon as he’d gone, Lettice beckoned to me from the door of our cottage. She was always in our cottage now. I wished she’d go away and leave me and William alone. I dragged my feet over to her as slowly as I dared.

“You’re as filthy as a beggar’s ear, child. What ever would your mam say? This infernal mud.” She spat on the corner of her apron and scrubbed at my cheek with it. “Now you listen. Owl Master said those outlanders have come back to the village to hand out food. But you’re not to take anything from them. You hear?”

“But I want something to eat,” I wailed. “I’m so hungry.”

“Hungry or not, that food is witched. How else would they have so much food when there’s not a bite left in the village?”

“It’s not witched. I’ve had—”

“Had what?” Lettice demanded. “I hope you’ve not been near those women, my lass, or your father is going to give you such a thrashing when he gets back from the salterns.”

“I haven’t, honest, I haven’t.” But I felt my cheeks burning. “I just meant that I saw some villagers taking food from them yesterday and they didn’t die or turn into toads or anything.”

Lettice snorted. “You can be witched and not know it. I knew a poor woman who was overlooked by old Gwenith’s daughter. She started to have terrible nightmares of monstrous birds that pecked away at her. In agony she was, poor soul. She wasted away and died afore the year was out. Now those outlanders are harbouring that old
Gwenith’s granddaughter. She’s the cause of this flood and those women are helping her. There was no trouble in Ulewic until they arrived, and we’ve had nothing but ill fortune since. Am I right?” She crossed herself. “So you mind what I say and stay away from those women.”

“You’re not my mam. I want my mam!” I shouted.

Lettice shook her head sadly. “Wanting won’t bring her back, my dear.”

I FOLLOWED THE GREY WOMEN
out of the village and back along the track. They didn’t see me, ’cause I darted behind the bushes and they were too busy talking.

The village looked like a bog. Green water weed clung high up on every wall. Great pools filled the hollows in the fields. The water had mostly gone from the roads except for big puddles, but everything inside the cottages and outside was covered in thick squelchy mud, so deep it came right up to my calves.

Beatrice was pressing the corner of her cloak over her nose. “That stink! I can even taste it. I suppose we should be thankful the wind’s blowing it away from the beguinage.”

“Be thankful you’re not living in it,” Pega said.

“Why don’t they at least burn the corpses of the drowned animals?” Beatrice grumbled. “That dead cat lying in the road was so bloated its guts had burst open. I retched from one end of the street to the other from the stench of it.”

Pega laughed. “A newborn babe pukes less than you do, Beatrice. You’ve the stomach of a princess. Eaten too good all your life, that’s your trouble. Villagers have enough to do digging the middens out of their homes and scratching around for a bit of dry straw and bracken to lie down on of a night without bothering about what’s lying in the street. Besides, I reckon there’s fever taking hold in the village. That bairn curled up in the doorway, he was ailing and no mistake.”

Several of the women nodded. “I saw a few like that. One had a nosebleed.”

“And I saw two little girls, vomiting and scouring.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing serious, just the runs,” Beatrice told them. “Those children will scavenge anything. Most likely they’ve been eating some putrid scraps they’ve found. I’ve seen no sign of D’Acaster’s men in the village. Hasn’t his steward sent anyone to help?”

“From what I hear, Phillip’s got every man out hunting meat for the Manor.” Pega spat into the ditch. “He’d watch a bairn drown in a puddle at his feet sooner than bend down and pull it out, even one of his own bastards.”

She stopped and turned, peering in my direction even though I was sure she couldn’t see me. Then she grinned. “Come out, little mouse. There’s no one from the village to see you now. You hungry?”

I looked carefully up and down the road, before I crept out. Pega held out a big piece of cold mutton in her giant hand.

I reached out, then drew back. What if it was witched and I died from the birds pecking at me? But I was so hungry and the mutton smelt so good. I snatched the meat from her hand and tore at with my teeth. I didn’t care if I died; I had to eat it.

The women all smiled, all except the tall fierce one. She’d hurt her arm. Two flat pieces of wood were tied tightly to it. She looked down, frowning. “Tell me, child, why are many of the villagers refusing to take food from us? They must be hungry like you.”

“’Cause Owl Masters say it’s … witched,” I whispered. “Lettice has made a witch jar. She pissed into it and stuffed it full of pins and thorns. Then she put it under the hearth. She says when the fire gets hot, it’ll scald your bowels and stab you till you confess.” I glanced up, suddenly afeared. “You’re not burning now, are you?”

The women in grey laughed and shook their heads.

But the fierce one looked crosser than ever. “Did no one teach you such practises are wicked, child? If you are afraid of anything, you should pray and God will … He must surely hear the prayers of a child.”

She looked sad and worried. Maybe someone she loved got lost in the storm, like my mam. I wanted to give her a hug to make her feel better, but I was too scared of her.

t
HE INFIRMARY WAS PEACEFUL
and quiet after the mess and chaos of the village. I paced slowly from cot to cot, blessing the occupants. Ralph waved at me respectfully. The twisted child lay cradled asleep in his lap. I longed to climb into one of the cots myself and sleep for a month.

The pain in my arm kept me awake most nights and I used the prick of it to drive me to my knees in prayer. That at least I should have been able to do, keep vigil through the dark hours. Even if my limbs were hacked off, my tongue torn out, my eyes blinded, and my ears sealed, I should still have been able to perform the work of prayer. But I could not pray. Healing Martha’s distorted face floated constantly beneath the surface of my thoughts like one drowned.

If I had gone back to look for Healing Martha, instead of following Gwenith’s granddaughter, could I have protected her? If I’d had the faith and courage to fight that demon, could I have saved her? But the question that tormented me the most, the one I could not push away, was why had she been chosen to face that battle alone and not me? Was her faith so much greater than mine?

I stood before His altar and held in my hands the deepest mysteries of life, both of this world and the next. It was my words that transformed base bread and wine into His very flesh and blood for others to consume. But I was only the ditch through which water flowed, leaving me behind, empty and cold. Yet what right had I to ask for anything more? A priest is but an instrument, a knife, a spoon, a bowl. When all is said and done, it is women’s work, this feeding.

I finally made my way to the bedside of my old friend. I’d wanted to move Healing Martha back to her own room, but I knew it wasn’t practical to do so. Andrew could be left for hours at a time, except in her last few days, but Osmanna, who had been working in the infirmary ever since the night of the storm, assured me that Healing Martha must be watched constantly. She struggled sometimes to clamber out of her cot and if she slipped she couldn’t right herself.
More than once Osmanna had found her choking on her own saliva. We couldn’t spare someone to watch her in her own room day and night, at least not yet.

Healing Martha smelled of lavender and stale urine. She’d slipped down the cot and her head was lolling to the side liked a hanged man. She peered at me with her open eye and her good fist clutched at the coverlet.

“Gar.”

“What is it, Healing Martha, what are you trying to say?”

She took a harsh breath.
“Gar. Gar. Gar!”
she shouted, her good hand pounding her leg in frustration.

I couldn’t believe that such a fury could emanate from any so weak, let alone Healing Martha. Osmanna came hurrying up. Slipping her arms under Healing Martha’s arms, she hauled her back up the bed. Then she carefully arranged her head on the pillow, as if she tidied John the Baptist’s head upon the platter. Healing Martha sank back, both eyes closed, her breath rasping.

“Is that what she was asking for? To be lifted up?”

Osmanna looked pained. “I don’t know. She makes that sound over and over to whoever is near. Sometimes she shouts it, other times she whispers. No one understands what it means.”

“I dare say it has no more meaning than a baby’s cry. How is she?”

“She’s quiet most of the time, staring for hours into space and I don’t know if she is awake or sleeping. Sometimes, Servant Martha …” she hesitated and glanced uneasily back at the spectre in the bed, “when I look at her she’s weeping. I can’t tell if it’s because she’s in pain. I don’t know if I should give her something.”

“Healing Martha would not weep for pain. Look how she suffered with her back without complaint these many years. She weeps for the evil she has seen. Her tears are prayers, Osmanna, prayers for those who have not repented. Didn’t our Lord Himself weep over the stiff-necked people of Jerusalem?”

Osmanna looked unconvinced. Perhaps I sounded unconvincing. I hoped that’s why Healing Martha wept. I prayed it was.

“You look weary, Osmanna. Have you been in here all day?”

“I don’t mind. I want to.”

“I’m glad of it, but get yourself some ale and take it out in the courtyard. The cold air will revive you. I’ll watch here.”

She smiled gratefully and walked away, her feet dragging in the rushes.

I took Healing Martha’s right hand. It lay like a dead fish in mine. I squeezed it, but there was no response.

“I’ve neglected you, Healing Martha. Forgive me. You know that I’d spend every day at your bedside if I was free to do so, but I’m not. The women are frightened. They depended too much upon you. I’m guilty for not having recognised it long ago. They shouldn’t depend on any save God alone. I must show them that the beguinage will continue without you. I can’t be seen to keep vigil over you as if I too missed you.”

Her expression didn’t change.

“In a few days we are to elect a new Martha. Someone must take responsibility for the infirmary. Not that she will ever replace you,” I added hastily. “I’ve prayed these past days for guidance, Healing Martha, but I’m no closer to the answer, for there’s no one who clearly stands out as your successor, no one who has your skill and maturity. I wish you could be with us in the meeting. You could always examine a seedling and tell which way it would grow.”

Healing Martha made no response. Her head lay at ease where Osmanna placed it on the pillow. Osmanna handled her well, and the rest of the patients too. Ralph, old Hilda—they all seemed to respond to her. The infirmary looked ordered and calm, almost as it was under Healing Martha’s rule. Not as tidy, but the patients appeared content enough.

But Osmanna was much too young to be appointed as the Healing Martha. She was scarcely more than a child. Then again perhaps she was the young blood we needed; a new beguinage needed young beguines who could carry on the vision long after we ancient ones were dead. If Osmanna was trained up as a Martha, allowed to sit in Council and listen to the debate, she would learn, and maturity would come in time.

I leaned closer to Healing Martha. “Is that what you meant the night of the storm, when you said, ‘The fault in the pupil is the virtue in the leader’? That we should make Osmanna a Martha?”

Healing Martha’s eyes did not flicker.

I squeezed her hand. “I know the Marthas think I should never have taken you out that night. They do not say it to my face, but I see the reproach in their eyes whenever they speak of you. And their condemnation is nothing compared to my own guilt over what I’ve done to you. But God ordered us to bury the dead. I was doing what God commanded and I trusted Him to keep faith with us.

“I have searched alone in that place since and there’s no trace of either the baby or that poor woman’s corpse. Aldith’s body simply vanished. But it
was
there. The woman had been ripped apart. We both saw it. I touched it. Did the Owlman devour them both? If that’s so, I not only failed you, my old friend, I failed to protect the soul of the child Aldith entrusted to me. I’ve always believed that faith could defend me against anything. But where was God that night? Why did He abandon me?”

Healing Martha’s good eye opened and I realised I was shaking her arm. Tears trickled down, settling in the wrinkles of her face.
“Ga,”
she whispered. Her face twisted into a devil’s mask as she struggled to make the animal sound. That demon had destroyed her mind and body as surely as if he had eaten her from the inside.

I closed my eyes and saw that creature again, those eyes, ringed with fire, the great black bottomless pupils that seemed to draw me closer and closer until I was swallowed up in the darkness of them. What evil lay at the bottom of them? What horrors had Healing Martha seen in them to freeze her face forever in this glimpse of Hell? I had not believed that such a monster could exist and now—now he was more real to me than God. Each time I tried to pray I saw his face. I heard the crack of his savage beak and smelt the foul stench of his breath. That demon reared up before my face as if the prayers I was offering were made to him. And God was silent; He was nowhere and nothing.