The Owl Killers

father ulfrid

i STARTED VIOLENTLY as I emerged from the latrine. I hadn’t heard the boy creep into my yard. Alan’s son, William, was leaning against the doorpost, chewing a twig and idly scuffing his bare toes in the dirt. He grinned when he saw he’d startled me.

“If you’ve a message you should knock on the door,” I snapped. I was the parish priest, for God’s sake. Did they think they could just wander in and out of my house, as if I was a common serf?

“Did,” he said without removing the twig. “You never answered.”

“That means I wasn’t to be disturbed.”

People had been banging on my door all day, especially that old gossip Lettice, but I couldn’t face anyone. I still felt sick when I thought about All Hallows’ night and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I’d made excuses to myself. That straw effigy they burned on the fire had been stuffed with henbane. I’d recognised the foul lingering stench in the embers of the fire the next morning. Henbane befuddles anyone who breathes the smoke and sends them into a stupor. It’s been known to drive men mad. I’d been drugged, robbed of my senses, so how could I have fought that demon?

But deep down I knew that, drugged or sober, I would not have had the guts to stand against that monster. Even when I was confronting old Gwenith, I had not been able to summon up the holy words to protect myself from her, and witch though she undoubtedly was, she was a mere mortal.

William was still watching me with a grin on his face. Had the brat heard that I’d run away and come to gloat?

“What do you want, boy?” I growled.

“Heard something, thought you might want to know, ’bout the house of women. They’ve got a relic in there, that saved ’em from the black bane.”

“Whose relic?” I demanded.

“A woman. Ann… no, a man’s name… Andrew, that were it. She was dying and she puked up the Host. The women tried to burn it, ’cept it wouldn’t burn. It was a miracle, they reckon.”

“Who told you this, William?”

“My sister, that’s who. She didn’t want to, but I said if she told me a secret, I’d not tell Mam about the beans. Father says girls and women have always got secrets.” He grinned again. “It’s true, ’cause my sister says those women are keeping that relic a secret.”

A relic in this dung heap, was it possible? If it really was a miracle, then no wonder the women in the beguinage were keeping quiet about it. They knew they had no right to keep it there. Any pieces of the sacred Host, miraculous or not, had to be stored in a consecrated place, in a church or a monastery. Those women were not even nuns; they shouldn’t be touching Christ’s body, never mind keeping it among their pots and pans. If the Bishop got to hear of it, he would insist that it was removed to Norwich at once.

But how had the anchorite Andrew come to vomit the Host on her deathbed? I was not called to give her the Last Rites. Had they summoned a priest from another parish? If so, he had pocketed the scot that should have come to St. Michael’s. The insult to me as a priest was bad enough, but I needed every penny of the scots and tithes I could raise. Somehow I had to get money to redeem the silver. And now, as if things weren’t desperate enough, I learned that another priest was stealing from me. Was this the only scot he’d deprived me of? How many more of my souls had he shriven or infants baptised?

William was watching me slyly. “Reckon that secret’s worth something, isn’t it, Father?” He thrust out a grubby hand.

“What?” I’d forgotten the boy was still there. “Come inside, I’ll find you something.” I said it without thinking; then with a sinking feeling I realised there probably wasn’t a coin in the house to pay him with.

“No, wait. There’s something else I want you to find out. Who brought the Host to the house of women? Can you discover that?”

He looked scornful. “Course I can. But what’s it worth?”

“Bring me that information and I’ll pay you double.”

William narrowed his eyes like a shrewd old peddler, calculating a profit. “Pay me for today first.” He pushed his way past me into the cottage, as if to make it quite clear he wasn’t going away until he got his money. He was learning fast. How could I blame the boy, when it seemed even my brother priests couldn’t be trusted?