The Owl Killers

father ulfrid

i WAS SITTING DOWN TO SUPPER, when the trouble began. It was already dark outside and quiet. I suppose I should have realised it was too quiet. No sounds of laughter as men made their way home from the tavern, no gangs of young lads hanging around on the corner, shouting and causing trouble. That should have struck me as odd, but I was too hungry and weary to notice.

I’d been later than usual leaving the church after Vespers. Not that there had been many in church to delay me, in fact it had been almost empty, but I had stayed to pray and lost track of the time. I’d much to pray about that day, the business with Ralph, those wretched women who had defied me and brought him back into the village, and above all the longing for Hilary that kept me lying awake through the long empty nights, an accursed aching desire that I dared not confess to any living soul.

The girl who cooked for me had already gone home, leaving my supper laid out on the table, next to the unlit candle, the knuckle end of a joint of salt pork, cheese, a little bean bread. The bone seemed to have considerably less meat on it than I recalled from dinner at midday. I’d have to have words with her about that-again.

I was in the act of cutting a slice of pork when the noise exploded so suddenly that I jerked and the knife sliced across my finger. For a moment the pain of the cut blotted out the sound, but as I scrabbled around in search of a cloth to staunch the blood, the sound continued. It was coming from somewhere outside. Wrapping a rag tightly round my finger, I cautiously opened the shutter on the small window and peered out. At once the rumble became louder. It sounded as if a hundred blacksmiths had all started pounding on their anvils at once. At the far end of the street I could see the flames of bobbing torches.

I hastily pulled on my shoes, making a pig’s foot of the task as I tried to hold my throbbing finger out of the way. Snatching up my staff, for I wasn’t sure what I would encounter, I made my way cautiously down the dark, deserted street.

As I drew nearer, I could make out a crowd of people, mostly men and boys. Some held blazing torches, but most were holding iron pots, tongs, pincers, fire irons, and any other bit of metal they could lay their hands on, and were banging them together as vigorously as they could. Children were rattling bird-scarers over their heads.

They were clustered round one of the cottages, trampling over the herbs and vegetables, smashing through the fruit bushes, in an effort to get close to the shuttered windows and door. In all the chaos and darkness, it took me a few minutes to work out whose cottage this was, then I realised. It was Ralph’s.

I recognised one of the men standing near me and grabbed his arm.

“Alan, what’s happening?” I had to shout to make myself heard over the din.

He turned reluctantly towards me and bellowed in my ear. “A little rough music is all, Father. Nothing for you to fret about.”

“Why at this cottage?”

He shook his head, unable to hear the question above the noise.

Impatiently I caught his arm and pulled him a little way back down the street. His son William trailed after him, still rattling his bird-scarer. I snatched it out of his hand and glared at him. The boy looked indignantly at his father, clearly expecting him to intervene, but Alan did nothing.

“What’s going on, Alan? Ralph’s not in there; you know he isn’t.”

“His wife and bairns are.”

“And you’re terrorising them? Why? What have they done?”

“It’s for their own good, Father.” Alan shuffled his feet. “It’s a warning to them to get out. Got to burn the cottage. Only way to get rid of the sickness.”

“You can’t burn the cottage down about their ears.”

“Three nights of rough music to persuade them to leave; if they’re not gone by the third night, cottage’ll be burned whether they’re in it or not. If they’ve got any sense they’ll be long gone by then anyway.”

“They’re your neighbours, Alan. You’ve known Joan all your life. You grew up with her.”

He shrugged and I could see that I was wasting my time.

“At least send your son home, Alan. He shouldn’t be party to this.”

“Boy’s got to learn.”

William, who’d looked aghast at the thought of being sent home, grinned broadly.

“And what about your daughter, Alan; does she also have to learn?”

I pointed to a dark shadow crouching behind the bushes. I’d seen her following them and guessed neither of them knew she was there.

“I told you to stay with your mam!” Alan bellowed. “You get straight home, lass, and you’d better be abed before I get back or you’ll be sorry.”

“Yeh,” William yelled. “Clear off, Pisspuddle, this is men’s work. We don’t want you.”

I left Alan and hurried towards the cottage, shoving my way through the crowd until I reached the doorstep. I found an upturned pail and stepped up on it, trying to make myself seen above the throng. I held up my hands for silence. One or two people at the front stopped banging, but it took some time for the rest to realise I was there. Gradually the noise died away.

“You all heard what I said in church. Ralph was struck down because he was guilty of the sin of lust. He confessed it. God does not smite the innocent. Joan and the children have done no wrong.”

“She’s as guilty as her husband!” someone called out from the crowd. “She hid his sickness, kept him indoors pretending he’d the ague. She let her bairns go on playing with ours, never said a word.”

“That’s right,” another shouted. “If Lettice hadn’t managed to slip in one day when Joan was out, we’d never have known. If you ask me, Father, she’s lucky a bit of rough music is all she’s getting.”

“But I’ve told you,” I said, “there’s no reason for you to fear Joan or her children. I’ve examined them myself; there’s not a mark on them. You don’t need to burn them out.”

Alan had pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “It’s all very well for you, Father, you don’t have bairns to worry about. My wife says she won’t feel safe until every stick and stone of that cottage is in ashes.”

“And does D’Acaster know about this?” I demanded. “This is Manor property.”

“You think we’d be daft enough to do this without his say-so?”

Someone else yelled out from the back of the crowd, “Those women brought Ralph back through the village, after you said he was forbidden to set foot in the village again. You going to stand for them defying you like that?”

Young William tugged excitedly on my robe. “My father said the Owl Masters could get rid of those women soon as look at them, didn’t you, Father?”

There was a murmuring among the crowd and several heads nodded in agreement.

I felt my jaw clench. Gossip spreads faster than floodwater in a village. I knew what the men were thinking: If a priest can’t even get women to do what they’re told, why should we listen to him?

“They are not in defiance of the Church, because the house of women lies outside the village. Those women took Ralph in out of Christian charity. It was a kindly act, but an extremely foolish one. I have no doubt they will come to regret their actions.”

“So you’re saying you can’t do anything,” Alan said. “My lad’s right; if you can’t, the Owl Masters can.” At that, everyone began talking and I had to raise my voice still louder to compete with them.

“If Ralph ever sets foot in this village, I will deal with him, but if he keeps to the house of women, then he is out of the village and you need have no fear for your children. But if you care about your families as much as you say you do, you will not turn to the Owl Masters. They are a dangerous and ungodly force, and the sooner decent men like you make it clear there is no place for them in this village, the better. There is no power stronger than the power of God and the Church. If you trusted in that, you would not need the Owl Masters.”

Alan shook his head stubbornly. “Aye, well, you being an outlander, Father, you’d not understand.”

“I understand that anyone who does not submit to the authority of Christ and the Church has placed himself under the authority of the Devil. The Owl Masters set themselves against the laws of God.” I looked down sternly at Alan’s son. “And you know what happens to those who consort with the Devil, don’t you, William?”

The men looked mutinous and began to mutter furiously among themselves. I could feel their anger rising. It was no use fighting them. If D’Acaster had consented to the cottage being burned or had even ordered the Owl Masters to do it, which he might well have done if he thought Ralph guilty of lust, then I wouldn’t be able to prevent it. The best I could do was to make sure that Joan and her children were not inside it when it went up in flames.

“Go home now, all of you. I’ll talk to Joan, persuade her to leave without the need for all this. And if I hear of anyone laying hands on this cottage before the family’s safely out, he’ll have God to answer to.”

The villagers looked at one another, then began to peel off in twos and threes and make their way back through the darkened streets. Most were heading in the direction of the Bull Oak Inn.

I walked round the cottage to make quite sure no one was still lurking in the shadows. Even in the darkness I could see the garden was wrecked, everything broken or trampled into the mud. I knocked on the door and stood shivering, listening for sounds on the other side. A chill wind had sprung up and in my haste I had not stopped to throw on a cloak.

“It’s Father Ulfrid, Joan, open the door. It’s safe, they’ve all gone.”

There was a long pause, followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged away from the door. Finally it opened a crack.

“I’m alone. Let me in, Joan.”

The door opened just wide enough for me to slip through, then it was slammed and bolted. Joan stood bundled up in her travelling clothes. Her two little sons and her daughter, Marion, were clinging to her skirts, their white frightened faces snotty and tearstained. Joan struggled to lift a heavy pack onto her shoulders.

“You’re surely not thinking of setting out on the road tonight, Joan?”

“Been warned, Father; best go tonight before… there’s more trouble.” Like Ralph, she couldn’t bear to look me in the eyes.

“I agree it’s not safe for you to stay here tonight, but come home with me, have a bite to eat and rest. The children must be famished.”

She shook her head firmly. “Thank you kindly, Father, but we’re going tonight. I’ve a cousin in Norwich. She’ll maybe take us in. It’s far enough away for them not to have heard about…” She trailed off, unable to say the word.

“But that’s miles away. A woman can’t travel in the dark by herself. There are all kinds of outlaws and madmen out there. God knows what they’d do to a woman alone. What about your brother in the village, won’t he take you in?”

“And have his family burned out as well? He’s not been near us since word got out and I don’t blame him for that. He’s his own bairns to think of.”

“Then you must come home with me. No one will dare to hurt you as long as you’re in my house. I promise I’ll help you get to Norwich. I’ll-”

“Like you helped my husband, Father? Did you keep Ralph safe? Did you?”

The boys cringed at the fury in their mother’s voice, clutching her legs and burying their faces in her skirts. Little Marion began to sob.

“Ralph was your friend, Father. He always defended you; no matter what was said about you in the village, he’d not believe it. And you… you paraded him in front of the whole village like a beast. You tied him up. You forced him to stand there in that grave while you threw earth at him. And you declared him dead, Father. A living man, my husband… and you said he was dead, in front of his friends, his neighbours, his family… in front of his own bairns. You told them their father was dead.”

For the first time that evening she looked at me, tears of hatred glittering in her eyes, but she dashed them away angrily.

If she had punched me in the stomach, I could not have felt the words harder. She had no right to blame me after all I’d done to try to protect her and Ralph. I’d known ever since that day I spilt the hot wax on his hand that Ralph had the dread disease. I’d tried to keep it hidden, but when that wretched gossip, Lettice, had barged her way in, there was no hiding it anymore. It was all round the village before I could recite a paternoster. If I’d failed to publicly pronounce him dead as the Church insists, the D’Acasters would have reported me to the Bishop. Phillip was just waiting for that chance. And Bishop Salmon had made it only too plain-if I failed in my duty in any way, this time the punishment would be worse, much worse.

“Joan, believe me, I didn’t want to do it. But I had no choice. I only did what the law demanded. If I hadn’t done it, another would have. The villagers might even have taken matters into their own hands. At least this way he’s safe.”

“No thanks to you,” she spat. “Those women who took him in may be outlanders, but they were more of a friend to him than you ever were. I’m not learned, Father. I can’t read, but I know what mercy is. Mercy is what those women have, no matter what’s said about them. That leader of theirs, she’s got more charity in her little finger than all you priests put together. Stay in your cottage? I’d rather get my throat cut on the road than sleep one more night in Ulewic.”

She seized the children and pulled them towards the door. On the doorstep she turned. “You know, Father. I hope that what they say about you and that nun is true after all, because then you’ll rot in Hell where all priests belong.”

She stepped into the darkness and was gone.