The Owl Killers

father ulfrid

sINCE FIRST LIGHT I’d been sitting at my table in the tithe barn waiting. The villagers shuffled in one by one, twisting their hoods in their hands. Some carried baskets or sacks, but those were half empty. Many came with nothing. The story was always the same.

“The harvest, Father. It’s ruined. I can’t pay the church tithe. We’ve not enough left to feed ourselves this winter.”

It wasn’t just the grain; they hadn’t been able to tithe the full measure of hay back in June and what little they had had gone mouldy in my barn. Many sheep had died from the fluke and the cold wet spring had killed half the lambs, so that the tithe on lambs, wools, and hides was also far short of what it should have been. Hens and eggs too. It had been the same tale for months. They couldn’t pay their full tithe. Some couldn’t pay at all.

Alan had been one of the first to arrive with a block of salt wrapped in sacking. He dropped it with a thud on the long wooden table.

“Saltcat, Father; it’s what’s owed.”

I turned the pages of the ledger tracing down until I found his name. “You’re valued at two saltcats a year for the tithe, Alan, and you brought none in spring.”

I flicked back the edge of the sacking. Even I could see that the cone of salt was about a third shorter than it should have been.

I looked up at Alan. He was a burly, thickset man, a hard worker by all accounts. He’d managed to rise up to become a weller, the most skilled job there was in the salterns, for he had to boil the brine and collect the good salt at exactly the right moment before it could be spoiled by the bittern salts that came after.

“It’s short measure, Alan. A tithe is given not to me but to God. It is a grievous sin to withhold what you owe from God.”

Alan folded his muscular arms and scowled. “You think rain only spoils the crops, Father. Salt mould won’t form on sand, not unless sun and wind can get to it. We need dry weather for the saltcats to harden too. We’ve barely worked half the days we ought this year and the year afore that. Worked like an ox those days we could, all night too without sleeping, but we can’t make salt without mould.”

He leant forward, resting his great hands on the table. Like many workmen his hands were bound up in filthy rags to protect them from the rough work.

“It’s not just weather, Father; there’s the flour. We need flour or sheep’s blood to take off the scum from the brine, but if the sheep are dying and grain fails, prices go up and we have to pay whatever merchants charge ’cause we can’t make salt without them.”

“I know it’s hard, Alan,” I said sympathetically, “but-”

“No, you don’t know, Father!” Alan roared. “What do you know of sweating over the pans day and night in the steam and smoke of the fires? You think it’s easy?”

He picked at the knot in the rags on his left hand and slowly peeled off stained cloth. He thrust the huge hand in front of my face. The skin on his palms was peeling off and between each of his fingers there were deep raw cracks. He turned the hand over; every joint of his fingers and thumb were covered with great open sores.

“Salt does that, Father, dries out the skin so it cracks wide and won’t heal up. You ever felt the sting of salt in an open wound, Father? When you have, you’ll know all about hard.”

But I had felt it. I knew a salt sting only too well. The scars on my back burned again, as I felt once more the coarse salt rubbed into flayed flesh, the agonising fire of it, building and building until I thought I would faint, except the pain itself kept from me that mercy.

I stared at Alan’s hand, wondering what it must be like to feel that smarting day after day and have to force those fingers to work through that burning. Alan bandaged his hand again with a fumbling haste, as if he was ashamed that he had shown his wounds to me.

I dipped my quill into the black ink. “I’ll record that you have tithed the full amount, Alan. I only have to send a quarter of the tithes to Norwich; the salt you’ve brought will be enough to satisfy that quarter. Then… then you can bring what you can for the parish later, when things improve.”

He flinched as if he had been forced to beg and was humiliated by it. He did not look at me as he walked away.

Alan was by no means the last I said those words to that day. I knew what each cottager was supposed to bring. It was all carefully recorded in the ledgers: what each holding was worth; what land they worked; what stock they had. Every croft, toft, field strip, beast, and workshop in Ulewic had been valued and assessed. The Church had calculated how much they could wrest from each household, but those calculations were based on good years. There was no allowance made if the harvest was poor or the beasts died. To surrender a tenth of all produce and labour in a good year was difficult enough. In a hard year, a tenth of next to nothing meant starvation.

As evening approached, the trickle of villagers and their excuses dried up and I was left sitting alone. I flicked over the pages of the ledger. Scarcely a figure in the long column of numbers was accurate. If anyone inspected these records… but they wouldn’t. The Bishop would not trouble himself about a piss-poor parish in the back of nowhere. Even in a good year, what St. Michael’s sent to Norwich must have hardly amounted to a spoonful of all the tithes collected from the rest of his diocese. Bishop Salmon would concern himself only with the wealthy parishes, which had far more opportunity to cheat him. He could never afford the number of clerks it would take to check the records of every little scabby village church.

God, how long would the Bishop keep me exiled in this place? I wasn’t suited to be a parish priest. What did I know or even care about the value of a pig or the price of some mangy hen? I had done my penance for Hilary. Hadn’t I suffered enough? I couldn’t stand another year in Ulewic and if I couldn’t get Bishop Salmon to recall me to the Cathedral soon, I would be forgotten and left here to rot for the rest of my miserable life. It had happened to others.

I could still smell the bustling streets of Norwich, the spices and wines of marketplaces. I could hear the shouts of the merchants and goodwives as they urged passersby to taste honeyed fruits and sweet pickled herring, pastries sprinkled with cinnamon and sweetmeats flavoured with rosewater. I could feel the soothing musky oils that attendants in the stews massaged into limbs warm and supple from the hot baths. And Hilary. Hilary’s soft hand on my buttocks. Hilary’s hot tongue licking all the way up the inside of my thigh until-

“Is this the best they can manage, Father? The Bishop is going to be so disappointed.”

I jerked violently. Phillip D’Acaster was leaning on the wall by the door in the fading light, his arms crossed, watching me with amusement.

“Bishop Salmon is a compassionate man,” I replied. “It’s been a bad harvest as well you know, Phillip. People can’t tithe what they haven’t received.”

He shrugged. “The villagers don’t seem to have any trouble paying their Manor dues. But then the Owl Masters are excellent at encouraging them.”

He sauntered across the barn and perched on the edge of the table, looking down at me. I quickly slammed the ledger shut.

“The Owl Masters could help you collect your tithes too, Father. You only have to say the word. They’d have no trouble filling this barn for you.”

“I don’t need to use threats and intimidation in order to gather my tithes. The villagers are mostly good honest people; they will pay when they can.”

I rose from my stool, clutching the ledger to my chest. It was hard to make my words carry any authority when Phillip was smirking down at me. “And since you’ve raised the matter, Phillip, you can call the Owl Masters to heel and stop them threatening the house of women. I heard what happened at the Bartholomew Fair; it was all round the village. I told my parishioners and I’m telling you: If those women defy the Holy Church in any way, as a priest ordained by God I am more than capable of dealing with them; but so long as they do not cause trouble and content themselves with charitable works, I have no quarrel with them.”

“Even when they bring a filthy leper through the village against your orders?” Phillip slid off the table and prowled round the barn, feeling the hides and peering into half-empty sacks. “And I hear the house of women have taken in another guest right under your nose this very day, that anchorite Bishop Salmon expelled. Let’s hope that doesn’t reach His Excellency’s ears, Father. It might look as if your authority was slipping-badly.”

He sauntered back and stood in front of me, feet planted well apart in his usual arrogant stance. “I know you are hoping for a reprieve, Father. You want to go back to your comfortable post in the Cathedral and who can blame you? Sumptuous lodgings, good wine, and a city teeming with beautiful women-the Owl Masters could help you get all of that back. In a few months, weeks even, you could be lying in a very comfortable bed again. Of course, it would be up to you whether you were lying there alone. I wouldn’t dream of encouraging a man of God to fornicate.” He flicked the ledger with his finger. “All you have to do is ask, Father, and all of this would be over. You think about that.”

He winked and strode out of the barn.