The Owl Killers

december

this night at sunset, the winter solstice begins. it is a night for divination, when maids stick pins in onions to summon their future lovers.

“good saint thomas, do me right.

send me my true love tonight.”

wE HAD HELD OUR MASS for Saint Thomas’s Eve in our chapel at midnight. Each festival we celebrated was new and different, for in the past we’d always attended St. Michael’s Church on feast days. I tried to capture the joy of it for the women, but I knew some of them missed the spectacle and colour of the parish church, seeing the village bright with merriment and music, the young people dancing and everyone filling their bellies after the fast, though this year there was precious little feasting or joy in the village.

In the morning we conducted a service in the infirmary for the patients and the poor from the village. We did not say Mass, of course. Many of the village women came to the service, poor thin creatures with dead eyes, and a beaten-down look about them. I was pleased they came to us. It renewed my resolve and purpose. We were not mistaken in our call to come to this land.

But the presence of some villagers did not gladden me. They knelt throughout the service, mouthing their prayers with great exaggeration while their thoughts were fixed only on the meat pies and clothes they knew we’d distribute when the service was over. Their faces lit up, not at the word of God, but at the smell of a goose pudding.

As I stepped out of the infirmary, I had to fight to stop the door being snatched from my hand by the wind. I pulled my cloak tightly about me. Ralph was limping across the courtyard on his crutch, dragging a little trolley behind him, the rope tied round his waist. Shepherd Martha had made it for him, so that he could take the crippled child for her walk. Now they seemed forever chained together as if one sentence had been pronounced upon them both.

“Blessings of Saint Thomas upon you, Ralph, and upon you, child.” I bent and laid my hand on her head. She jerked back. “How does she fare, Ralph? She looks better today, some colour in her cheeks.”

Ralph looked down at her as tenderly as any doting father. “Ella’s well, Servant Martha. I was afeared I’d lose her these past weeks, for she wheezed so that her lips turned blue and she could scarcely snatch a breath, but Healing Martha cured her.”

“God cured her, Ralph.” I corrected him. “Healing Martha is but His humble instrument.”

There was a discreet cough behind me. “God’s humble instrument hesitates to interrupt you, Servant Martha, but there is a soul who would speak to you.”

Healing Martha nodded towards a woman who stood close to the wall, sheltering from the bitter wind. Kitchen Martha was trying to talk to her, but the woman was ignoring her. Her eyes were on me. She looked as if she wanted to approach me, but was afraid. No doubt she feared the leprosy. Ralph saw the look on her face too. He limped away, dragging the trolley behind him.

I beckoned the woman forward, but she remained pressed against the wall. It was impossible to tell her age. Her face was haggard with hunger, but her eyes, sunken deep into dark hollows, had an unnatural brightness about them such as you see in those on the edge of madness. I moved closer, but before I could prevent her, the woman fell on her knees in the dirt, clasping my cloak with her webbed fingers, talking and weeping with such agitation that I couldn’t make out a word she said. I pulled the woman up from the ground and gave her a little shake to bring her to her senses.

“Calm yourself, sister. What do you want of us? Is someone sick?”

She shook her head vigorously, sobbing harder than ever.

“What ails you? I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what you want.” Perhaps the woman was a simpleton; the village abounded in them.

“My baby…”

“You have a little son or daughter?”

“Not anymore. It’s dead. It didn’t live but a week or two. And my husband says we must bury it under the midden, before Father Ulfrid finds out. My husband will not pay the soul-scot.”

I laid a consoling hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss, sister. God in His mercy grant you strength to bear His will. Do I understand aright? You are seeking soul-scot to bury your baby?”

The woman shook her head and clutched at me again. “No, you must bury it here, else the Owlman’ll eat its soul. You can keep it safe.”

“Your baby will be safe in the churchyard. No harm can come to a Christian child there. And we’ll find the soul-scot for you to give to Father Ulfrid, though you had best not tell him that the money came from us.”

“I don’t dare take it to the priest! It wasn’t baptised. My husband said he wouldn’t name it afore the priest. Said the brat was none of his getting.” The woman was staring around wildly, looking at anything except me. She pulled at her skirts as if she was trying to tear something away.

Healing Martha put an arm around her. “And is that true? Was the baby not your husband’s child?”

The woman shook her head miserably. “Phillip D’Acaster came calling. We were behind with the Manor tithes… I couldn’t refuse him. When the baby was born it had no… web… on its hands. My husband said that proved the bairn was not his.”

I began to understand. The woman had good reason to weep. If her husband would not acknowledge the child before a priest, she’d be brought to trial for adultery. From the little I knew of him, Phillip would deny his part in it and no one would dare to stand against him. But this poor woman couldn’t deny the evidence of her sin. She’d be lucky to escape from the court with a public whipping and a heavy fine that would drive the family into even greater poverty than that which had forced her to those desperate measures. And I’d little doubt that once the court had finished with the woman, her husband would extract his own retribution from her for exposing him to the whole village as a cuckold. A chilling thought seized me.

“Sister, tell me truthfully as you will answer to God on Judgement Day: Did the child die either by your hand or by that of your husband?”

The woman looked horrified and fell on her knees again, clutching at my skirts. “No! I swear it by all things holy, the bairn sickened and I could do nowt to save it. It’d not suckle, though I nursed it day and night, it just kept wailing. I was up night after night with it, for my man couldn’t abide to hear it cry. When everyone had gone to the fields I lay down on the bed for I was that tired with rocking it all night, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. When I woke it lay cold aside me. It’s witchery, that’s what it is.”

Healing Martha patted her briskly on the shoulder. “Now, sister, let’s have no talk of that.” She shook her head at me. “There’s no need to look for evil in this, Servant Martha. This poor woman is so malnourished that I doubt any infant born to her could have thrived, especially if she kept the child hidden in the cold and damp of those village hovels.”

I couldn’t let her bury an innocent child beneath a dung heap, but neither could I cast her into the merciless hands of the Church. And besides, even if the Church did grant burial, an unbaptised infant would be laid on the north side of the graveyard among the mad and the unshriven. No fitting place for a babe to wake on Judgement Day.

“We’ll give the child a Christian burial close by our chapel. No demon will dare come nigh him there. Now where is the baby?”

“Hidden in a chest at home,” the woman muttered, still refusing to meet my eyes.

“Then fetch him here.”

She shook her head. “I daren’t bring him in daylight. All the men will be in the forest this night, dancing the sun round the fires for the winter solstice. Women’ll keep safe behind their doors. There’ll be none to see me.” She pointed to the copse in the opposite direction to the forest. “In there’s a great oak that’s tumbled over, but still grows where it lies. I’ll bring it there… tonight.”

Healing Martha frowned. “But aren’t you afraid to venture out for fear of the Owlman? I heard that no villager sets foot out of doors after dark now, unless they are in a group and well armed.”

The woman’s eyes flashed wide and she moaned, pressing her hands tightly across her mouth as if she was terrified to speak, but finally she grasped my sleeve. “You will come tonight,” she pleaded urgently. “You’ll come yourself. It must be you… If you don’t… Swear you’ll come.”

“You have my word that I will come in person,” I told her. “Return home now. I will meet you tonight at the tree you describe at the Matins hour. But you haven’t told me your name, Mistress.”

The woman hesitated. “Aldith,” she whispered, then turned and hurried away.

As we walked away from the gate, Healing Martha fell into step with me. “That wind cuts right through my old bones. I never thought I’d say it but I’d welcome a good frost or even some snow if only it would calm this nagging wind.”

Healing Martha was very dear to me, but she did have some decidedly infuriating habits, not the least of them making blithe and inconsequential remarks when she knew I was waiting to hear what was clearly occupying her mind. It was always a sign that she disapproved of a decision I had taken.

“Our Lord commands us to bury the dead.” I was annoyed. I shouldn’t have to justify myself to her of all people. “We cannot allow a body of an innocent baby to be thrown on a dung heap. We can’t force open the gates of Heaven to receive the soul of an unbaptised child, but we can at least preserve it from the Evil One until the Day of Judgement.”

Healing Martha lifted her head and watched a flock of seagulls being tossed and buffeted by the wind. “Gulls flying inland. It means there’s a storm brewing out at sea.”

“I’m not interested in the wretched gulls. Just tell me why we should not bury this child?”

Healing Martha stopped and looked up at me. “Why was the woman so insistent that you must meet her, when any beguine might collect the child? And suppose her husband asks what she’s done with the corpse or she whispers the matter to a friend? It could be all round the village in hours. Have you thought what it would mean if this reaches the ears of Father Ulfrid? We are already excommunicated. If he learns of this, he will be furious. There is no knowing what he might do.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Healing Martha held up her hand. “Yes, I know what you’re going to say: We have no choice. Our duty is to obey God, even if it means disobeying the Church. Forgive me, old friend, but aching bones and this irritating wind sometimes make us ancient ones long for a day or two of peace.” She sighed. “There are times when I wish the spiritual life was not quite such an adventurous one.”

“But you agree we must bury the baby here.”

Healing Martha smiled wearily. “I’ve known you long enough to know that nothing I or anyone else said would stop you doing what you were convinced was right. You are as stubborn as old Saint Thomas himself.”

“Then… will you go with me tonight?”

“You know full well I wouldn’t let you go alone even if you were going to lay siege to the gates of Hell itself.” She chuckled and patted my arm. “Someone has to carry the bandages.”