The Owl Killers

november

welsh virgin who refused the suit of prince caradoc. in his rage, he cut off her head and where her head struck the ground a miraculous well appeared. her uncle, saint beuno, replaced her head on her shoulders and she was restored to life.

tHE DOOR OF THE REFECTORY OPENED, sending the tallow candles guttering wildly and scattering the rushes with fallen leaves. Gate Martha hurried down the long length of the table towards me. At once all the women ceased their chattering and watched her expectantly.

“That pinch-mouthed priest is outside, Servant Martha. He’s demanding to see you, but he says he’ll not set foot across our threshold.”

“Then that suits both of us,” I said tartly, “since I would never allow him to enter.”

I sighed, pushed aside a steaming bowl of pork pottage which I had not even had the chance to taste, and rose. Healing Martha also heaved herself up.

“Stay here and finish your supper, Healing Martha. I don’t need a chaperone. I doubt that my virtue is in danger.”

“I have no doubt that you would be quite capable of defending your virtue against an entire crew of shipwrecked sailors, but I don’t think it is desire for your body that brings the priest to our door,” she murmured, but not quietly enough to prevent Shepherd Martha and Dairy Martha from overhearing, judging by the grins they were struggling unsuccessfully to suppress.

I glared at Healing Martha, but she merely answered me with a serene smile and followed me out of the refectory and across the courtyard to the gate. On my instructions Gate Martha bolted the gate behind us, though I had no doubt she’d have her ear pressed to the wood. It was dusk and the icy wind was whipping the treetops. Neither of us had stopped to fetch our cloaks and both of us shivered in the wind. The priest was marching up and down the track, his hands clasped behind his back. He came to a halt at a little distance from us as if he was afraid we had some contagion.

“You wished to see me, Father Ulfrid. I assume the matter must be of some import to bring you here on such an inclement evening?”

The priest cleared his throat as if he was about to deliver a sermon. “It has come to my attention that you have in this house of women a piece of the sacred Host. I am told this Host was vomited by the anchorite Andrew on her deathbed and preserved intact from the flames of a fire.”

So the rumour had finally reached him. Healing Martha warned me on the day Andrew died that a miracle does not bring peace, but I had foolishly begun to believe that, for once, my old friend might be wrong. Andrew’s miraculous Host had lain undisturbed in the chapel for almost a month now and I had begun to hope that God had answered my prayers and the danger was now safely past. But if Father Ulfrid had learned about the miraculous Host, what else did he know?

“Might I inquire who told you this?” I asked.

“It does not matter who told me. The point is how did Andrew acquire this Host in the first place? I did not give it to her nor, I imagine, did the priest at St. Andrew’s. So the question remains: Who did?”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my face impassive. I prayed Healing Martha was able to do the same, but I dared not look at her, knowing that the priest would immediately interpret any such glance as a sign of guilt.

“Did not this anonymous informant answer that question for you, Father Ulfrid?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed,” he replied triumphantly. “I know all that has been going on here, Mistress, every abomination that has been committed within these walls.” His pale grey eyes blazed in fury. “How dare you allow a friar to give Andrew the holy bread? Only consecrated priests are permitted to administer the sacraments. You have damned Andrew’s soul to Hell in this mockery of the rites and you have damned your own soul along with hers. Did you really think this friar would not be seen creeping to your gates at night? What other wicked practices did he perform within these walls? Did your women have sex with him? Did you?”

I felt my breath pour out in sheer relief. The priest did not know the truth after all. He believed the Franciscan had given the Host to Andrew with his own hand. I would not attempt to deny it. Father Ulfrid was outraged enough that a friar had usurped his right as a priest, but that a woman might do it was beyond his wildest nightmare. Thanks be to God, he had such a dull imagination that the possibility had not even entered his head.

Father Ulfrid interpreted my silence as an admission of guilt, for when he spoke again, the anger had left his voice, replaced with a cold authority. “You and all your women will present yourselves at the Mass next Sunday, barefoot and clad only in your shifts. I shall hear your confession before the whole congregation and you shall perform full and public penance for your crimes. You will-”

“For what shall we do penance?” I interrupted him. “Have you forgotten the news that brought you here? God preserved the blessed Host in the flames. Would our Lord have vouchsafed us such a miracle if His blessed body had been defiled in the manner of its giving? Andrew herself begged for the sacrament knowing the nature of the one who would give it to her. Could a saint on her deathbed be so misguided and remain a saint?”

Father Ulfrid’s face blanched with fury at my challenge. “That Andrew was unable to swallow the holy body of our Lord is proof that her sins still lay heavy upon her and God had rejected the mockery of the Franciscan’s absolution.” The priest’s fists were clenched tightly. It appeared to be costing him a supreme effort not to strike me. “That you tried to destroy the evidence of your heinous sin in the fire is proof beyond dispute of your guilt in allowing this travesty. God preserved the holy body from the flames to expose your crime for all to witness.”

He stepped forward and thrust his face in mine trying to force me to cower away, but I was taller than him and he couldn’t achieve the effect he wanted. I stood my ground.

“Father, am I to understand that you deny that Andrew died a saint? It is strange, is it not, that a miracle should follow on the death of a sinner? I warrant that many have taken the Host with sins still unconfessed lying heavy upon their souls, yet no such miracle has followed their sin.”

For a moment he hesitated and seemed to be at a loss for an answer. Then his chin tilted up. “The sacrament was plainly forced upon her without her consent while she lay helpless, in an effort to condemn her. From jealousy and malice, you and that friar sought to drag her soul to Hell along with yours. You will present yourselves on Sunday as I have directed and you will deliver the miraculous Host to me on that day and before all the people.

“If you fail to do so, you and all within this beguinage will be excommunicated. You will be forbidden to attend Mass. All the blessed sacraments of the Church will be denied to you and to your women. If you refuse to repent, you will die unshriven and you will be denied a Christian burial. The Devil himself will carry you screaming straight to the eternal fires of Hell. I will make certain every man, woman, and child in Ulewic knows that no Christian soul shall be permitted to trade with you or set foot within your gates without suffering the same penalty. How many will bring their sick to you knowing they are condemning them to everlasting torment?” He crowed the last words out with the triumph of a man who knows he has won.

“Spare me your threats, Father Ulfrid. You have already excommunicated half the village because they will not pay their tithes. So why wouldn’t they come to us? Can you excommunicate them twice over? As for the sick, most are here because the Mother Church in her great charity has already damned them and driven them out. The churches are emptier than a pauper’s purse and little wonder, for men get more solace from the alewives than from their priests. More stand now outside your church than within it. What difference does it make if you forbid them burial in the churchyard, since they cannot afford the soul-scot you charge them to be buried there? Those who still look to God make their prayers far away from the church, where the air is sweeter and their voices are not smothered beneath your hypocrisy and greed.”

I was shaking and couldn’t trust myself to say more in case my voice faltered. With great deliberation, I turned my back on him and, linking my arm through Healing Martha’s, led her back inside.

“I need that relic!” he screamed after us. “I must have it. I am your priest. You cannot refuse me. In the name of the Holy Church I command you-” He was still shouting threats as Gate Martha bolted the gates behind us. She drew us over to her brazier in the entrance to the little shelter next to the wall. Healing Martha and I warmed our hands gratefully over the glowing wood.

“Coming here to demand our relic, I’ve never heard the like.” Gate Martha laid a horny palm upon my arm. “You pay no heed to him, Servant Martha. He’s all wind and fart. The women of Ulewic know fine rightly what you do for them and most are grateful, for it’s more than they get from him and his kind.”

Just as I thought, behind the gate she had been listening to every word.

“You answered well.” Healing Martha patted my other arm.

I was grateful for their kindness, but exasperated by their easy reassurances. They didn’t seem to have grasped what had just happened.

“Did you not hear what the priest said?” I snapped. “He is going to excommunicate all of us. How many beguines will stay with us when they discover that they will be denied the blessed body of our Lord? What if one of them should have an accident or fall ill and they die without the Last Rites?”

Gate Martha looked at me as if I was sun-touched. “But you’ll give the sacraments, as you did Andrew.”

I stared at her, unable to believe I’d heard her aright. “Do you understand what you are saying? It is unthinkable.”

“Why so?” she stubbornly persisted.

“Because… because the Church forbids it, you know that.”

Two furrows, like iron bars, deepened between her eyes. “Church forbade you to give it to Andrew, but you did it all the same. Whatever others may believe, I’m the gatekeeper and I know the Franciscan did not come within these walls, any more than Andrew could walk to the alms window. So it stands to reason, you must have given it her. Don’t fret,” she added, seeing my startled expression. “I’ve said nowt to the rest. But the way I see it, if you gave the Host to Andrew, why not to the rest of us? Aren’t we good enough, is that it? We’re no saints, that I’ll grant, but I reckon sinners stand more in need of His meat than saints.”

Healing Martha had warned me that Gate Martha knew what I’d done, but if she had worked it out, how many of the other beguines had also done so? How long before that rumour reached the priest’s ears as well?

I shook my head. “It’s far too dangerous. We have already been betrayed. It could have been a beguine, one of us who-”

“Don’t talk daft. It wasn’t a beguine.” Gate Martha poked another log into the brazier. “You think the whole of Ulewic hasn’t been asking themselves why our cattle were spared the murrain? Owl Masters have spies everywhere. They’ll have been watching the track to the beguinage. But there’s no reason any of the villagers need find out you’re giving us the Host. Not if we’re careful. Say Mass at midnight; all in the infirmary’ll be sleeping then.”

Gate Martha made it sound so simple. Maybe she was right; it was the only thing I could do. I would not lead the beguines in an act of public penance and humiliation. It would devastate the women and destroy any faith the villagers had in us. And neither would I surrender the relic to the priest. The beguines had put their faith in it, and how could I continue as Servant Martha if they saw me intimidated into relinquishing it? But the beguinage would not continue without the sacraments. The beguines were devout pious women who had dedicated their lives to God; they would never stay if they believed they were condemning themselves to Hell.

I sank shakily onto the bench, grasping the reality of the wood, solid in my hands. My fingertips dug into its unyielding form so hard they hurt, but I couldn’t seem to let go of it.

The first Christians broke bread and shared among themselves. Why not us? Why should we not do as they did? Women sow the fields, reap the grain, grind it, shape it, and bake it-why then do we shrink from placing it in the mouths of God’s children?

I thought I glimpsed the faintest of smiles on Healing Martha’s face, as she watched me. Were my thoughts so transparent to her? I rose without speaking and walked towards the chapel. But even without turning, I knew Healing Martha and Gate Martha were exchanging silent nods, smugly certain that they had persuaded me.

THE CHAPEL WAS EMPTY AND SILENT. The chill air leached the heat from my bones. Lights from the candles flickered like moths across the dark walls, setting the painted figures dancing in and out of shadows.

The women had gone to their beds. Only Healing Martha knelt with me. I couldn’t see her face, so deep was it shrunk inside her hood, but I knew she prayed; I could feel the spirit rising from her. Was she praying for me? I stared up at Andrew’s reliquary on the altar, resting like a tiny coffin between two candles.

Andrew had placed herself, body, mind, and spirit, under the protection of the Church, that holy shield beneath which all fragile human souls find refuge. The shield of faith and obedience passed from hand to hand in an unbroken chain of male consecration, stretching all the way back through the darkness of persecution to Saint Peter and through his hand to our blessed Lord Himself. Through that chain a priest may touch Christ’s hand and may grasp the very power of God.

Yet here I knelt asking Andrew for her grace, while refusing to submit my will to the Church. Worse than that, seeking, as I asked for her blessing, to take powers upon me that are denied even to ordinary men.

A gust of wind tore at the chapel door and the candle flames guttered. Healing Martha clambered painfully to her feet and limped to the door. I followed. Together we walked back towards our rooms, drawing the sharp night air into our lungs. We paused at the door of Healing Martha’s cell.

She lent wearily against the wall in the darkness, massaging the small of her back. “You are resolved now?”

“I can see no other way to hold the beguinage together. But will the women accept the Host from my hands?”

“Our sisters in Flanders have given the Host to those whom the Church has cast out. The Marthas know that and they will help you to convince the others. But there is something more you have not yet considered.”

“Can the matter not wait until tomorrow, Healing Martha?” I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep.

She took my hand and squeezed it. “I wish it could, but you need to understand what you are about to do. The Host which the Franciscan brought-there are only three pieces remaining. Even broken, it will not be enough.”

“Then we must get word to the Franciscan to ask him to resume his visits. He will help us, I’m sure.”

“No, no, old friend, that he must not do. It would be dangerous for him and for us. You heard Gate Martha-they are watching the beguinage.”

“Then we must find someone else to bring it. Someone the priest will not suspect.”

She shook her head. “You know what punishments are meted out to anyone caught giving the Host to those who have been excommunicated. We’ve no right to ask it of others.

“As for us, we must pray the Franciscan is never found. Even the strongest of men can be broken by the Church’s interrogators. Father Ulfrid may be as blind as a mole in sunlight, but there are others whose vision is clearer. If the friar were to confess that he never came within our walls, they would not be slow to reason out your role in this play and if they did, the matter would not end with excommunication. Not for you, not for any of us. Father Ulfrid wouldn’t plead clemency for a newborn babe inside these walls.”

I felt like screaming in exasperation. “Healing Martha, you were the one urging me to give the Host to the women. What have we been wasting time talking about this for, if there is no Host to give them and no hope of obtaining any? We have failed. We may as well pack up now, tonight, and return to Bruges. The beguinage cannot survive here.”

As if it heard me, a sudden gust of wind howled around the beguinage walls. Doors and shutters rattled and a leather pail skittered across the courtyard.

Healing Martha pulled her cloak tighter around herself. “There is only one thing you can do, old friend. You must consecrate the Host yourself.”

“No! To give the Host that is already consecrated, that is one thing. I would merely be acting as the servant, passing a dish offered by a host to a guest. But I cannot consecrate it. I cannot take bread and turn it into His flesh.”

“It’s but another small step and you are already walking upon this path.”

“I cannot do it,” I insisted. “How could you even think it? I’m not a priest. I am not a friar. I am not even a man.”

“It is not the merit of the priest who turns bread into flesh. It is God who turns bread into flesh and even when that priest has sinned, still the bread becomes flesh.” Healing Martha grasped my wrists and turned the palms of my hands upwards. “So why should God not make flesh of bread held in these hands?”

Why was she asking this of me? I was exhausted. Hadn’t I carried enough in these past weeks? And now, instead of supporting me, she added this terrible weight. Around me lay the closed shutters of the other rooms, the fastened doors, the impenetrable shadows of the empty courtyard. It was a cloudless night. A thousand stars flickered like distant candles in the violet sky. And behind each candle in the darkness was a face watching, waiting, listening. They were silent. They would give me no sign. They would only judge. They would abandon me to choice and condemn me when I chose wrongly.

Healing Martha pushed the door of her room open. She turned to look back at me. The glow of the fire behind her in the darkened room surrounded her with a halo of light.

“Tell me, Healing Martha,” I said softly. “How did we come to be walking down this road and not notice where our steps were leading? When did we turn onto this path?”

“It matters not how or when, old friend. We are set on the path now and there is no going back. There is no going back.”