The Owl Killers

beatrice

i HATED THE NIGHTS IN THE INFIRMARY, the patients moaning and whimpering in their sleep, the snores and the constant irritating coughs which you didn’t seem to notice in the daytime. Healing Martha couldn’t attend night and day, else she’d have ended up in the infirmary herself. But there always had to be someone on duty at night, to fetch a pot for those too weak to get out of bed or a cordial for a fever. So we all had to take turns, not the Marthas, of course, for they had other duties, but us mere beguines who had no domains of our own.

I’d just managed to get an old woman settled when the door burst open and Healing Martha staggered in under the weight of Osmanna, who was draped round her shoulders and doubled up with pain. Little Catherine was supporting Osmanna on the other side, white with fear.

“Bring a lamp, Beatrice, quickly now,” Healing Martha said as she and Catherine dragged Osmanna to a cot in the corner of the room.

When I returned with the lamp, Osmanna was lying on her side, legs drawn up, but even in that position I could see her shift was soaked in dark red blood. As another spasm of pain gripped her she bit hard on her fist, closing her eyes tightly against the agony.

“You go back to bed, Catherine; we’ll take care of her,” Healing Martha said.

Catherine seemed rooted to the spot, staring down at Osmanna, a stricken expression on her face. “Is she going to…”

Healing Martha put her arm round Catherine and led her to the door. “You did well to fetch me, Catherine, but now try not to worry.”

“She said not to, but I had to… all that blood.” Catherine was staring back over Healing Martha’s shoulder. She looked as if she might vomit.

“You did the right thing. Now get some sleep.”

Healing Martha gently pushed Catherine out into the darkness of the courtyard and firmly closed the door behind her.

Healing Martha returned to the cot and tried to straighten Osmanna’s legs, but she twisted away, shaking her head violently.

“It’s only cramps… my menses.”

“You poor child.” I stroked her hair, which was damp with sweat. “I’ve never seen menses this bad. It could be ague or green sickness. You’ve scarcely eaten a thing these past weeks. It’s those wretched books-”

“Yes, thank you, Beatrice,” Healing Martha said, elbowing me aside. “Why don’t you go and see if you can get Hilda back to bed?” She jerked her chin in the direction of the old woman who was wandering down the infirmary towards us, clearly fascinated by what was going on.

The cot on which Osmanna lay, like all those in the infirmary, was screened on three sides by wooden back, end, and side panels, which were too high to see over, and by the time I had settled the woman, Healing Martha had positioned herself so as to block Osmanna from view on the one remaining open side. Every time I approached, Healing Martha kept sending me to fetch things-a bowl, cloth, water, or a cordial for pain. But I could hear Osmanna’s moans and I could glimpse enough to see her arch her back, and sink again as the pain subsided.

Suddenly I understood what was happening to her. I’d felt those pains myself, not once, nor twice, but on seven occasions in my life, and I knew only too well what they meant. Osmanna was losing a child before its time.

But how could she be? She was only a child herself and how could she have got herself pregnant living in the beguinage? She never went out unless she was forced to and then only when she was with a group of us. If she was pregnant it must mean she was already with child before she came to us. Was that why her father had sent her in here? Because she had disgraced the family?

I stood in the shadow behind the wooden panel of the cot. Healing Martha was talking softly, so as not to disturb the other patients.

“Osmanna, why didn’t you come to me? Did you think we would have cast you out if we’d known? Is that why you tried to get rid of the baby?”

I felt my heart lurch and I swayed, almost knocking against the panel. This was not a miscarriage. That girl had deliberately tried to kill her own baby.

“I didn’t…it just happened.” Osmanna gasped out. “I couldn’t help…”

Healing Martha bent lower over the cot. “Listen to me, child. I am not judging you. If there is any sin in this, it is ours. We should have made you understand that we would never have cast you out. This is a beguinage, a place of refuge. Many women came to the Vineyard in Bruges when they were with child that was not of their husbands’ getting or when they had no husband. We cared for them and raised their children. They were as frightened as you and they would have done what you have done, if they’d had no one else to turn to.”

“You don’t understand, I didn’t… I didn’t,” Osmanna sobbed.

“Child, I’ve been a physician for nigh on fifty years and I know when a foetus is lost accidentally and when deliberately. I will not ask who did this to you, for I trust it was no one within these walls, but you must tell me all that they did, so that I can help you. If you do not, you may lose your own life too. You must trust me.”

Osmanna moaned again. The bed creaked as she arched away from the pain, but I had no pity for her now. I hoped she was in agony; she deserved to be.

“Healing Martha, you have to understand I couldn’t have it… I couldn’t… It was not like those women… I couldn’t give birth to it. I had to get it out of me. It wasn’t a human baby… It was a monster, a demon… It was growing inside me. There was no one else who could help me… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Hush now,” Healing Martha soothed. “What’s done is done. I can tell something sharp was used to pierce you, but was anything else put inside you? An herb? A stone? Did they give you some potion to drink? No one blames you, but you must tell me exactly what happened.”

I stumbled away and ran from the room, not caring that the door slammed after me. Not caring that I woke everyone. I had to get away from her.

Not blame her? How could I not blame her? To murder your own child in the womb, what kind of woman could do such a terrible thing? Didn’t she know how hard it was to conceive a child? Did she know what a miracle it was, how some women would give everything they had just to have a baby of their own? A child you had carried and given birth to, a tiny fragile life to hold in your arms, someone to love and care for that no one could ever take from you. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I’d ever wanted, a baby of my own. Hundreds, thousands of women have children, not just one or two but five, six, a dozen even. All I wanted was one. It wasn’t much to ask and here was Osmanna throwing my dream away, as if it was a filthy rag. She could have given the baby to me. If she didn’t want the child, I would have gladly taken him. I would have loved him more than any child has ever been loved. She murdered the child I could have had. She killed my baby.

PEGA TURNED OVER with a grunt as I burst noisily into the room we shared.

“What the devil… Beatrice, is that you?”

“Are you awake?” I demanded.

She groaned by way of answer.

“Do you know what Osmanna has done? What that little slut…” I paced up and down the cramped confines of the room.

“God’s arse, Beatrice, it’s the middle of the night! Will you stop thumping about and go to bed.” Pega pulled the covers over her head.

I sat down on the end of my cot, but was up again almost immediately, too angry to stay still.

Pega struggled to sit up, the boards of her cot creaking in protest. “What is it?” she grumbled. “You may as well tell me now you’ve woken me. I can see I’m not going to be allowed to sleep until you do.”

I sat down again, this time on the end of her cot, and launched into the tale, hardly stopping to draw breath. There was silence when I finished. For a moment I thought she’d fallen asleep again. The fire had burned too low to see her face properly.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” I demanded.

“Is the lass all right?” she asked gravely.

“What? Who cares if she’s all right? Haven’t you been listening to me? She murdered her own baby.”

“I heard.” Pega sighed. “Poor little reckling. She must have been scared to death.”

“Aren’t you appalled?” I demanded.

“Why would I be?” she said. “There’s many a woman been forced to do what she’s done, but none do it lightly. They know fine rightly it could kill them. And if they survive that, there’s the fear the law will see them hanged if it’s discovered. I pity any woman driven to it. And to think Osmanna said nowt all this time. Now we know what was ailing her.”

I could not believe Pega’s reaction. I thought she’d be as outraged as I was.

“That’s Lord D’Acaster’s daughter you’re talking about, Pega. Have you forgotten what her family did to yours? That little bitch is no better than her heartless father-worse, much worse.”

Before she could reply, there was a gentle knocking on the door. It opened and Healing Martha peered into the room. “I thought I might find you here, Beatrice.”

She edged painfully inside and groped for the end of my cot. “Do you mind if I sit?”

I said nothing, which she seemed to take for assent, and she sat down heavily on my cot. She was breathing hard. All I could hear was the sound of her laboured breathing and my own blood pounding furiously. If Healing Martha was expecting me to apologise for my noisy departure, she was going to have a long wait.

“Beatrice, I came to ask if you would be so kind as to return to the infirmary,” Healing Martha said at last. “I need someone to watch them for the rest of the night, if you-”

“I’ll go,” Pega broke in. “I’ll not get back to sleep now, anyhow.”

I could feel them both looking at me. I knew Healing Martha was expecting me to say I’d go back, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t trust myself to be in that room with that girl. They had no right to expect me to.

Healing Martha eased herself off the cot. “If you’re sure, Pega, thank you.”

Pega, with another glance at me, rose hastily and began to pull her kirtle over her shift. “Osmanna, is she… Is the lass going to be all right?”

“Beatrice told you-”

“That Osmanna had lost a bairn. Doesn’t go easy with a woman, that.”

“No, it does not,” Healing Martha said. “She’s had a bad time and it’s not over yet. Now that everything has been expelled, I’ve been able to staunch the bleeding a little, but not entirely. But I’m more worried about the danger of the womb festering. Once putrid matter sets up inside a body, it is hard to stop. I will do all I can, but I would value your prayers for my skill and her healing.”

I could not believe what Healing Martha was asking. “You expect us to pray for her?” I blurted out. “After what she did, she deserves everything that happens to her and more.”

It was too dark to read Healing Martha’s expression, but I could see her shake her head. “No, we were the ones who failed her. We shouldn’t blame any woman for what she does in desperation. The fault is ours that Osmanna did not feel safe enough here to confide in us and let us help her.”

I sprang to my feet. “She murdered a baby in cold blood. She murdered an innocent child. She should hang. After what she did, you should let her bleed to death.”

Pega grabbed my shoulder and shoved me roughly back down on the bed. I think she thought I was going to hit Healing Martha. Maybe I would have; I wanted to smash something. I could not believe that they were both defending her.

“She’s just a young girl,” Healing Martha said gently, “and she was terrified, Beatrice. We might have done the same at her age.”

“What she did was wicked… evil! I could never have done that. I’d have given my life to protect my baby, no matter how young I was.”

Healing Martha said more quietly still, “I know you would, Beatrice. But if it’s any consolation, Osmanna’s child would not have lived no matter what she did or didn’t do. It was…” She hesitated, pressing her hand over her mouth. The knuckles gleamed bone-white in the darkened room. Finally after a long silence she collected herself. She swallowed hard. “I’ve never seen a foetus so malformed,” she said softly. “Trust me when I say there are times when it is better that a baby never draws breath, for men would not be kind to such a child.”

Healing Martha shuffled to the door. There she paused, her hand on the latch. “I cannot forbid either of you to discuss this with the other beguines, but if you can find any compassion in you, you will not spread abroad what has happened tonight. The fault is mine more than anyone’s. Perhaps the Marthas in Bruges were right; perhaps I have grown too old to be a physician. I should have realised that first night she came to us what had happened to her-the bruise on her face, the scratches and her fear. I was blind not to see it. Even now Osmanna will not speak of it, but I do not believe that she consented to the act that got her with child. She has suffered in more ways than we can imagine.”

“Are you going to tell Servant Martha?” I asked bitterly. “Osmanna is her favourite; shouldn’t she know?”

Healing Martha’s chin jerked up. “No, Beatrice, Servant Martha does not need to know. I will tell her only that Osmanna is ill. Servant Martha would only blame herself. And a true friend does not lay another burden upon someone who is already laden.”