The Owl Killers

servant martha

oUT!” I COMMANDED. “Get out now, go on.” I sternly pointed at the open door of the refractory.

Leon, Shepherd Martha’s shaggy black hound, regarded me amiably as if he couldn’t possibly believe I was addressing him, and continued padding towards Shepherd Martha who was sitting at the long dining table. He flopped down in front of the fire, and rolled over at her feet in full expectation of having his belly rubbed.

Tutor Martha and Kitchen Martha exchanged grins. Both of them knew that the wretched hound took no notice of anyone except his mistress. “Couldn’t we let him stay?” Kitchen Martha pleaded. “You know the poor little thing starts howling if we shut him out.”

“As long as he doesn’t start licking his… Just don’t let the hound roam around the room,” I snapped.

Poor little thing indeed! He was nearly as big as a donkey and just as obstinate. But there was no point in insisting Leon was put out. Trying to remove him would only delay us and I was impatient to get the regular council meeting of the Marthas over quickly tonight. There was barely an hour before the evening service and I wanted plenty of time to prepare myself to receive the child, Agatha, as our new beguine.

Healing Martha limped into the refractory, swaying under the weight of a basket. She carefully unpacked several phials of oil, placed one on the table in front of each of us, and eased herself down onto the nearest stool.

“What you’ve got there?” Merchant Martha asked, striding in through the door. As always, she was the last to arrive.

“I call it lice oil, but I dare say I could find a grander name for it.” Healing Martha looked more weary than usual, her face drawn and blue eyes half closed as if she was ready to fall asleep where she sat.

I rose and poured some ale from the jug, handing a beaker to Healing Martha. She nodded her thanks and taking a long thirsty gulp from the beaker then waved it in the direction of the bottles. “Juniper berries and delphinium seeds crushed in oil to kill the lice, and a little rosemary too. Rosemary won’t kill the lice, but it will lift your spirits.”

“I assure you, Healing Martha, I certainly haven’t got lice,” I told her firmly.

But Healing Martha merely smiled in that irritating all-knowing way of hers. “Trust me, Servant Martha. That old woman we took into the infirmary this afternoon was crawling with them. I need to treat everyone who might have come into contact with her or her daughter; otherwise they’ll spread through the whole beguinage.”

A haggard-looking woman had brought her old mother to the beguinage gates begging us to take the old woman in. She said her mother’s wits had fled. The old woman repeatedly threw off all her clothes and was often found wandering the village naked. She mistook her grandchildren for her own brothers and sisters, long since dead, and tried to cook food for them in the middle of the night. The daughter was afraid to sleep in case the old woman burned the cottage down about them as they lay in bed.

I’d bent close to the daughter to speak about her mother out of the old woman’s hearing. And Healing Martha was right: If the mother had lice, the daughter would have them too. I knew what those cottages were like, everyone sleeping in the same bed or sharing the same blanket on the floor for warmth. I started to itch at the mere thought and before I knew it I was scratching and saw that the others were doing the same.

Healing Martha chuckled. “There, what did I tell you? You’ll need to rub yourself with the oil from head to toe and wash all the clothes you were wearing too. Even if you haven’t got them, it will make you feel better.”

I tried to change the subject, so that I wouldn’t think about the itching. “With the old woman, how many have you in the infirmary now?”

“Seven and that’s nearly all the cots we have. We really must add another room to the infirmary to make space for more.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Merchant Martha already shaking her head.

Healing Martha had seen the gesture too. “There will be others brought to us, Merchant Martha, of that I’m sure, and if any beguines fall sick over winter, we’ll not have room enough to care for them.” She gestured to the oil. “If cots are crammed too close together lice won’t be the only things that will spread through the beguinage.”

“And where do you think the money is going to come from?” Merchant Martha asked tartly. “Even doing the work ourselves, materials still have to be paid for. A new infirmary is not the only thing we need; I’ve a list as long as a pickpocket’s arm.”

Tutor Martha’s earnest young face was creased with concern. “But if the wool fetches a good price this year at the Bartholomew Fair… I mean… we’ll surely be able to build the new room then. And thanks to Shepherd Martha’s good husbandry we shall have wool to sell come August. Many others in these parts won’t be so fortunate, so the wool is bound to fetch more than last year, isn’t it?”

Tutor Martha was always quick to give credit to the achievements of the other women, although I feared she praised the children far too much. It wasn’t good for them.

Shepherd Martha’s expression hovered somewhere between a grimace and a bashful smile. She hated attention to be drawn to herself; in fact, I think she’d have been much happier if she could have spent her life entirely with her animals and never had to deal with people.

But we did have to be grateful to Shepherd Martha. The pasture that had looked so green and lush after the winter rains had deceived us all. The hungry sheep driven onto it rapidly sickened and died of foot rot and the fluke. Shepherd Martha spotted the first signs early and wasted no time in getting our sheep to higher ground, though the grass was poorer there. Thanks to God’s mercy and Shepherd Martha’s vigilance most of our ewes had escaped the sickness, but the Manor and the villagers stuck stubbornly to the richer pasture and they had paid a heavy price for it.

Merchant Martha clicked her tongue impatiently. “Even if we do get a good price for the wool and cloth, with last year’s harvest as bad as it was there’ll not be money to spare to add another room. Not if we insist on feeding every vagabond that comes begging at the gate.” She darted a fierce glance in my direction, as if I was the one enticing them to come.

Healing Martha patted Merchant Martha’s hand sympathetically. “I know, I know, old friend, but we can’t turn away the sick either, not when they are left helpless on our doorstep in the middle of the night, like that infant Gate Martha found just a week back. What would have happened to that little one if we hadn’t made room for him?”

At the mention of her name Gate Martha glanced up, though her hands still busied themselves with her spindle. She had found the child abandoned on our threshold at dawn, skeletally thin, but with a great swollen belly, his face and hands covered in sores.

“Bairn’s not from Ulewic that’s for sure, no web on his hands. Peddlers’ brat I reckon. They’ll not be back for it.” Gate Martha spat on her thumb and finger to wet them as she twisted the yarn. “Seems to me Healing Martha’s talking a good deal of sense; we need more room.”

“The young girl, Agatha…” Tutor Martha began hesitantly. “Since her father Lord D’Acaster has consented to her coming here, perhaps we could ask him for money towards building…”

“As beguines we ask for nothing.” I reminded her sternly. “If God moves a man or women to offer us a gift of their own free will, then we may accept. And D’Acaster-”

Gate Martha broke in, shaking her head in disbelief. “If you’re waiting for that old pinchfist to offer money, you’ll be waiting till Judgement Day. He’d not give away so much as a raddled egg in charity, least of all to us. If new rooms are wanted, we’d best trust in Merchant Martha and her sharp tongue to slice a good fat profit from the merchants.”

For once I had to agree with her. I’d refrained from telling the other Marthas that Lord Robert said I could feed Agatha to the ravens for all he cared. From his attitude to me that day, it was plain he would gladly have seen us too dangling from a gibbet for the birds to peck. Even I could now see that any hope of making peace with the Manor was stillborn. How could we possibly work with a man like that? All we could do was pray that the hostilities between us would not escalate to war.

Healing Martha beamed happily at the other Marthas. “Since we are all agreed that a new room is needed this year, it’s a sign that the Lord has moved us to this decision, so we must trust to Him to help Merchant Martha as she sells for us.”

But Merchant Maratha was determined to have the last word. “I’ll not let any man get the best of me in a bargain, you know that. But take heed all of you, unlike our blessed Lord, I can’t feed five thousand souls from a few loaves and fishes, so you’d best stop handing out alms to every wastrel that comes begging, Servant Martha. And as for you, Kitchen Martha, remember those stores of yours have got to last till next harvest, if we’ve to save the coins we got for the cloth at the May Fair at Swaffham.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Healing Martha wagged a reproving finger at me, her tired eyes twinkling. “You heard her, Servant Martha. I need that infirmary.” Healing Martha winked at me, knowing full well that yet again she had gently managed to win the Marthas over to her cause.

The meeting broke up, but before I could hasten to the chapel, Gate Martha barred my way and led me over to the fire. Something was plainly troubling her and for once the elderly woman’s fingers were not busy with her spindle. As soon as the other Marthas had left the room, she began.

“It’s D’Acaster’s girl. Is there nowhere else she can go? There must be other places that would take her in.”

I gaped at her. “Agatha? Why should she go anywhere else? She has been given into my care. What would you have me do with her? Banish her to a nunnery?”

“Girl was born under the Demon star, and the whole village knows it. Most evil star in the sky that is. Any lass born under that star belongs to the she-devil Lilith.” Gate Martha stared hard into the dying flames of the hearth fire. “There’s those in the beguinage think her coming is an ill omen. She brings a curse with her. Some of us would rest much easier in our beds if that girl was sent to a nunnery far away from this valley, where she’d not able to do harm.”

“And what harm could a young girl possibly do, Gate Martha? She is a Christian child, and she belongs to God, and God alone. No demon can touch her. And tonight we’ll seal her to God with a new name.” I patted her shoulder. “Come now, Gate Martha. You know as well as I do, that when any woman becomes a beguine she is freed from all of her past life and that includes her birth.”

“There’s some things that are not so easily shaken off.” Gate Martha picked up a stick and absently traced a pattern in the soft wood ash of the fire. I peered closer trying to make out the shape. It was a circle quartered by a cross. The old woman realised I was staring at it and hastily obliterated the symbol.

“Think on it,” she murmured. “Today is Avoiding Day, the day when Satan and his demons were cast down on the earth to make mischief. It’s a warning for those who have eyes to read the sign. Mark my words, making Agatha a beguine today of all days is begging for disaster. Just pray we don’t all live to rue the day we gave that girl a beguine name.”