The Owl Killers (40 page)

“Me help the Owl Masters? Do you think I have forgotten that you defiled my church and desecrated the grave of a Christian child laid to rest in holy ground? After what you did, do you really think I would ask you for help?”

“What the Aodh did, Father. I’ve told you before: I am but his trusted servant.”

“Oliver’s poor mother is beside herself with grief. You might at least have the decency to return what is left of the child to her, so that she can bury her son again.”

Phillip picked at a fleck of mud on his sleeve. “The whore brought it on herself. The Owl Masters warned her to pay up and she defied them. It has been a salutary lesson for the rest of the villagers. And it should be a lesson to you too, Father. I suggest you seriously consider what the Aodh might order the Owl Masters to do to
you
, when he learns that you are refusing to pay your debts.”

“Do you think I can be threatened as easily as your ignorant villagers?” I slammed my fist against the table. “Your uncle may be able to order the murder of a serf without anyone outside the village asking questions, but I am
a priest
. Harm me and the Church will see you hanged and burning in the fires of Hell. I may not like the Commissarius spying on me, but as long as he is watching me, you and your
Owl Masters can do nothing. As for repaying you by Twelfth Night, you said yourself you daren’t tell the Bishop about the silver, so why should I give you any money at all, when there is nothing you can do about it if I don’t?”

I felt exhilarated, as if I had broken out of a dungeon. I hadn’t realised the truth of what I’d said until it burst out of me in a fury. Phillip and his uncle were powerless to act against me over the money. They could do nothing to me at all.

Phillip sat quite still for a few moments, his face impassive. Then he rose, and moved towards the door. I felt a surge of pleasure. He knew he was beaten. But suddenly he spun round. Too late, I glimpsed the flash of metal. The blow was so savage I was knocked to the floor. White-hot sparks of pain exploded in my skull. I clutched at my ear and cheek as hot blood poured from the gash. An iron spike, shaped like the talon of a great bird, lay in Phillip’s hand. He bounced the sharp blade casually as if debating whether to slash again.

“How dare you strike a servant of God!” I yelled both in fear and outrage. “When the Commissarius learns—”

“When the Commissarius learns that his priest has been meeting a filthy little sodomite here in Ulewic, I think he’ll pay me four times what you owe. And as for the exquisite pain the Commissarius will take pleasure in devising for you … I wonder what he’ll do to you; stick a red-hot iron spit up your arse and roast you like the perverted little pig you are? Come now, did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out about—what’s your whore-boy’s name—Hilary?”

My legs buckled and I sank onto my knees, gagging in an effort not to vomit in front of him. I was shaking violently. Blood oozed between my fingers and dripped onto the rushes. The room was spinning and not just from the pain. I was falling down and down into the blackest, deepest pit.

Phillip balled up my white altar cloth and threw it at me. “Stop snivelling. Get up!”

I clambered shakily to my feet and staggered into a chair, pressing the linen cloth to the burning gash.

“Now, Father, are you quite sure you don’t want to help us?”

I didn’t need to look at his face, to see the triumph that was written
there. I knew this had gone way beyond mere money. “What … what do you want?”

D’Acaster’s nephew settled himself comfortably in the chair again and smiled. “You know, Father, I find your words have touched my conscience, after all. We should return the body of that little boy to his poor grieving mother. But first, just to show she has learned her lesson, Aldith can perform a little task for us. But we’ll need you to put the matter to her, Father. For some strange reason, she doesn’t trust us. You are her priest; you can persuade her to do what is required.”

“And what … is required?”

“We want her to deliver a message, that’s all. Then she will be reunited with her son.” Phillip picked up a poker and stabbed at the dying embers in the hearth, sending a shower of sparks flying upwards.

“Now, Father. This is what you will say to Aldith …”

w
E HAD HELD OUR MASS
for Saint Thomas’s Eve in our chapel at midnight. Each festival we celebrated was new and different, for in the past we’d always attended St. Michael’s Church on feast days. I tried to capture the joy of it for the women, but I knew some of them missed the spectacle and colour of the parish church, seeing the village bright with merriment and music, the young people dancing and everyone filling their bellies after the fast, though this year there was precious little feasting or joy in the village.

In the morning we conducted a service in the infirmary for the patients and the poor from the village. We did not say Mass, of course. Many of the village women came to the service, poor thin creatures with dead eyes, and a beaten-down look about them. I was pleased they came to us. It renewed my resolve and purpose. We were not mistaken in our call to come to this land.

But the presence of some villagers did not gladden me. They knelt throughout the service, mouthing their prayers with great exaggeration while their thoughts were fixed only on the meat pies and clothes they knew we’d distribute when the service was over. Their faces lit up, not at the word of God, but at the smell of a goose pudding.

As I stepped out of the infirmary, I had to fight to stop the door being snatched from my hand by the wind. I pulled my cloak tightly about me. Ralph was limping across the courtyard on his crutch, dragging a little trolley behind him, the rope tied round his waist. Shepherd Martha had made it for him, so that he could take the crippled child for her walk. Now they seemed forever chained together as if one sentence had been pronounced upon them both.

“Blessings of Saint Thomas upon you, Ralph, and upon you, child.” I bent and laid my hand on her head. She jerked back. “How does she fare, Ralph? She looks better today, some colour in her cheeks.”

Ralph looked down at her as tenderly as any doting father. “Ella’s well, Servant Martha. I was afeared I’d lose her these past weeks, for she wheezed so that her lips turned blue and she could scarcely snatch a breath, but Healing Martha cured her.”

“God
cured her, Ralph.” I corrected him. “Healing Martha is but His humble instrument.”

There was a discreet cough behind me. “God’s humble instrument hesitates to interrupt you, Servant Martha, but there is a soul who would speak to you.”

Healing Martha nodded towards a woman who stood close to the wall, sheltering from the bitter wind. Kitchen Martha was trying to talk to her, but the woman was ignoring her. Her eyes were on me. She looked as if she wanted to approach me, but was afraid. No doubt she feared the leprosy. Ralph saw the look on her face too. He limped away, dragging the trolley behind him.

I beckoned the woman forward, but she remained pressed against the wall. It was impossible to tell her age. Her face was haggard with hunger, but her eyes, sunken deep into dark hollows, had an unnatural brightness about them such as you see in those on the edge of madness. I moved closer, but before I could prevent her, the woman fell on her knees in the dirt, clasping my cloak with her webbed fingers, talking and weeping with such agitation that I couldn’t make out a word she said. I pulled the woman up from the ground and gave her a little shake to bring her to her senses.

“Calm yourself, sister. What do you want of us? Is someone sick?”

She shook her head vigorously, sobbing harder than ever.

“What ails you? I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what you want.” Perhaps the woman was a simpleton; the village abounded in them.

“My baby …”

“You have a little son or daughter?”

“Not anymore. It’s dead. It didn’t live but a week or two. And my husband says we must bury it under the midden, before Father Ulfrid finds out. My husband will not pay the soul-scot.”

I laid a consoling hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss, sister. God in His mercy grant you strength to bear His
will. Do I understand aright? You are seeking soul-scot to bury your baby?”

The woman shook her head and clutched at me again. “No, you must bury it here, else the Owlman’ll eat its soul. You can keep it safe.”

“Your baby will be safe in the churchyard. No harm can come to a Christian child there. And we’ll find the soul-scot for you to give to Father Ulfrid, though you had best not tell him that the money came from us.”

“I don’t dare take it to the priest! It wasn’t baptised. My husband said he wouldn’t name it afore the priest. Said the brat was none of his getting.” The woman was staring around wildly, looking at anything except me. She pulled at her skirts as if she was trying to tear something away.

Healing Martha put an arm around her. “And is that true? Was the baby not your husband’s child?”

The woman shook her head miserably. “Phillip D’Acaster came calling. We were behind with the Manor tithes … I couldn’t refuse him. When the baby was born it had no … web … on its hands. My husband said that proved the bairn was not his.”

I began to understand. The woman had good reason to weep. If her husband would not acknowledge the child before a priest, she’d be brought to trial for adultery. From the little I knew of him, Phillip would deny his part in it and no one would dare to stand against him. But this poor woman couldn’t deny the evidence of her sin. She’d be lucky to escape from the court with a public whipping and a heavy fine that would drive the family into even greater poverty than that which had forced her to those desperate measures. And I’d little doubt that once the court had finished with the woman, her husband would extract his own retribution from her for exposing him to the whole village as a cuckold. A chilling thought seized me.

“Sister, tell me truthfully as you will answer to God on Judgement Day: Did the child die either by your hand or by that of your husband?”

The woman looked horrified and fell on her knees again, clutching at my skirts. “No! I swear it by all things holy, the bairn sickened and I could do nowt to save it. It’d not suckle, though I nursed it day and
night, it just kept wailing. I was up night after night with it, for my man couldn’t abide to hear it cry. When everyone had gone to the fields I lay down on the bed for I was that tired with rocking it all night, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. When I woke it lay cold aside me. It’s witchery, that’s what it is.”

Healing Martha patted her briskly on the shoulder. “Now, sister, let’s have no talk of that.” She shook her head at me. “There’s no need to look for evil in this, Servant Martha. This poor woman is so malnourished that I doubt any infant born to her could have thrived, especially if she kept the child hidden in the cold and damp of those village hovels.”

I couldn’t let her bury an innocent child beneath a dung heap, but neither could I cast her into the merciless hands of the Church. And besides, even if the Church did grant burial, an unbaptised infant would be laid on the north side of the graveyard among the mad and the unshriven. No fitting place for a babe to wake on Judgement Day.

“We’ll give the child a Christian burial close by our chapel. No demon will dare come nigh him there. Now where is the baby?”

“Hidden in a chest at home,” the woman muttered, still refusing to meet my eyes.

“Then fetch him here.”

She shook her head. “I daren’t bring him in daylight. All the men will be in the forest this night, dancing the sun round the fires for the winter solstice. Women’ll keep safe behind their doors. There’ll be none to see me.” She pointed to the copse in the opposite direction to the forest. “In there’s a great oak that’s tumbled over, but still grows where it lies. I’ll bring it there … tonight.”

Healing Martha frowned. “But aren’t you afraid to venture out for fear of the Owlman? I heard that no villager sets foot out of doors after dark now, unless they are in a group and well armed.”

The woman’s eyes flashed wide and she moaned, pressing her hands tightly across her mouth as if she was terrified to speak, but finally she grasped my sleeve. “You will come tonight,” she pleaded urgently. “You’ll come yourself. It must be you … If you don’t … Swear you’ll come.”

“You have my word that I will come in person,” I told her. “Return
home now. I will meet you tonight at the tree you describe at the Matins hour. But you haven’t told me your name, Mistress.”

The woman hesitated. “Aldith,” she whispered, then turned and hurried away.

As we walked away from the gate, Healing Martha fell into step with me. “That wind cuts right through my old bones. I never thought I’d say it but I’d welcome a good frost or even some snow if only it would calm this nagging wind.”