The Owl Killers

december

“saint thomas grey, saint thomas grey,

the longest night and the shortest day.”

at solstices and equinoxes when the winged demon, lilith, queen of the night, flies over the world, her menstrual blood falls into the ponds and rivers, polluting the water. so on this day all liquids in the home have to be kept covered and no one can drink water from wells or streams, or bathe in rivers or lakes, for fear of being cursed by her blood.

wE SEARCHED FOR HEALING MARTHA half the night until long after we were exhausted. We were soaked to the skin and aching all over from a hundred near falls in the treacherous mud. It was a wonder we didn’t all die of cold or break our necks. If we had done so, it would have been Servant Martha’s fault. I’ll tell you this, if she’d been the one lost in the storm, I’d have gone straight to bed and left her out there to find her own way home. If she was fool enough to go out there at night, she’d only herself to blame, but you couldn’t leave a frail old woman out in that rain, could you? And we all loved Healing Martha.

The lightning passed over, but the rain continued to beat down in torrents, turning paths and roads to running streams and fields into lethal mantraps. I found myself sprawling in the mud so often I thought my boots had been greased, but soon my skin was so numb I didn’t even feel the grazes and bumps.

We shouted to Healing Martha, but our voices were drowned out by the howling wind and if there was a reply we wouldn’t have heard it over the drumming of the rain. We clung grimly to one another in the darkness, afraid of vanishing like her, afraid of being snatched away. I cursed Servant Martha roundly under my breath for putting us in this danger, and I can tell you I wasn’t the only one damning that woman to Hell and back.

It was Pega who called a halt in the end, but no one offered more than a token protest. Healing Martha was not on the road leading to the beguinage, but that meant nothing. She could have been anywhere out there in the enormity of the storm. In the dark we might easily have passed within feet of her and neither seen nor heard her, nor she us.

It was pointless continuing; we were just groping around in a fool’s game of blindman’s buff. But all the same we felt guilty abandoning Healing Martha to the night. What if she was unconscious in a ditch that even now was filling with water? What if she was lying somewhere in agony from a broken leg, praying we’d come, or worse still, believing that we’d never come? Still clutching one another, we battled back through the blinding rain, telling ourselves that Healing Martha had probably taken shelter somewhere or that she might already be safely back in the beguinage. But none of us believed that.

I WOKE, GASPING, as a log collapsed in the embers of the fire, sending a shower of red sparks spitting onto the hearth. The rush candles had burnt out. A thin sliver of morning light was already sliding in beneath the shutters of the refectory. Osmanna crouched down to rake the fire, adding fresh logs and banking down hot ash on top to make them burn slowly. Pega, already shod, tossed Catherine’s cloak on her lap.

“Up off your arse, lass, and help me fetch a bier from the infirmary.” She nodded at Merchant Martha. “We’ll meet you at the gate.”

Kitchen Martha, struggling to bend down far enough to fasten her sodden shoes, froze half in and half out of one. “Saint Andrew and all his angels defend us, Pega, you surely don’t think-”

“You mustn’t talk like that, Pega!” little Catherine said desperately. “Healing Martha isn’t dead. God will protect her.”

“Have I said she’s dead?” Pega snarled. “If Healing Martha was thrown from her horse, which she must have been since the beast came back without her, then like as not she’s hurt her back, for it’s none too sound at the best of times. If she could walk she’d be here by now, so it stands to reason she must be lying hurt somewhere. How would you have me carry her home-slung over my shoulder like a flitch of pork?”

Merchant Martha nodded. “You heard Pega, Catherine. Make yourself useful. Don’t stand there biting your nails.” She knelt and pulled Kitchen Martha’s shoe on for her. “As for you, Kitchen Martha, we need you here tending the pots and pies. Healing Martha will be in want of a good hot meal when she returns, as will we all.”

Kitchen Martha opened her mouth to protest, but Merchant Martha was having none of it. “Have some sense, woman. If we all come back hungry and tired, we don’t want to have to wait around for hours while you cook.”

For all her brusque manner, Merchant Martha was trying to be kind. After the night’s search, Kitchen Martha had barely managed to reach home. Such a girth as God had blessed her with was not made for walking. She was as anxious to help find Healing Martha as the rest of us, but none of us wanted to have to carry her home as well.

It was still raining hard. The courtyard was awash with puddles, bubbling like cauldrons under the falling drops. A waterfall cascaded from the roof. We made a dash through it, but chill water splashed up and rain poured down and we were wet beyond caring even before we were halfway down the road. Only Leon, Shepherd Martha’s great shaggy hound, seemed indifferent to the rain. He was bounding ahead, stopping every now and then to sniff at a bush or patch of the road.

The deep cart ruts were filled with water, so we tried to pick our way along the edges, brushing against the dripping bushes, but in places the road was awash from ditch to ditch and we had no choice but to hitch up our skirts and wade through it. Merchant Martha grabbed my arm to keep herself from falling and delivered a stream of oaths that would have made a fishmonger blush.

The river was brown and dangerously swollen. A rising torrent of mud and branches hurtled between its banks. Trees and grass on the edge were already standing in water. A dead swan hung by the neck in the fingers of a half-submerged alder. The rain blanked out the hills. The river would continue to rise long after the rain stopped and there was not so much as a crack in the clouds to give promise of that.

Pega stared at the river in dismay. “The banks’ll not hold when the tide in the creek turns and starts pushing this lot back upstream. We’d best pray we find Healing Martha quickly, afore the whole road disappears underwater. Spread out,” she called. “Search well on each side of the path. We know she set out this way, so if the horse threw her she’ll likely be lying just off it.”

The pasture beyond the fringe of scrub and trees glistened green and horribly empty. The massive horned skull of an ox rocked disconsolately on a pole in the middle of the field, a grim warning not to let beasts stray near this place for fear of the murrain. A few tattered shreds of withered flesh and hair still clung to it, but the ravens had picked the rest clean.

We reached the copse and scuttled in among the trees, not that their branches offered much protection against the downpour. Rivulets ran down the banks and dripped from the trees. Armed with our staves, we poked among the bushes and brambles, calling out to Healing Martha. The old vegetation was so sodden, I could scarcely lift it to search beneath. I was so afraid of what we might find, but more frightened of finding nothing. Please God, let her be alive.

The rest of us may have been searching frantically, but there was one person who certainly wasn’t. As I glanced up, I saw Osmanna. She stood a little way off, just gazing into the deep of the trees, not even trying to look for Healing Martha. As usual, she had no intention of getting her hands dirty.

“Aren’t you even going to bother to try to find her, Osmanna?”

She ignored me.

“Osmanna!”

But she didn’t move. She was standing rigid, her fists clenched, as if she couldn’t tear her gaze away from something. My heart began to thump. What was she staring at? Not a body, not that, please don’t let it be that!

“Wait there, I’m coming!”

My skirts caught in the brambles. I tore the cloth loose and ran towards Osmanna. I couldn’t see anything except the silvery trunks rising out of a mire of twisted undergrowth. I turned to Osmanna, trying to see where she was looking. Her eyes were fixed wide open, her lips thin and dry. Her breath came in rapid, noisy gasps.

“Did you hear a cry, Osmanna?”

She didn’t answer. She just kept staring into the trees. I knew her little game. She was sulking because for once she wasn’t the centre of attention. But if she thought I was going to fuss over her like the Marthas, she was sadly mistaken.

Suddenly she blurted out, “That smell…like onion. I’ve… I’ve smelt it before. I…”

Without warning she threw herself against me, burying her face in my shoulder, gripping me so hard it hurt.

I shoved her away. “Of course you’ve smelt it before, you stupid girl! It’s ramsons, devil’s posies. It’s everywhere here. You can’t take a step without crushing the old leaves. We’ll all stink of onion before the day is out. Why are you twittering about smells? You’re not here to pick herbs.”

She was staring at the tangle of leaves around her feet, as if she’d never seen them before. “Nothing, Beatrice. I don’t know what… Nothing.”

“You don’t even care about Healing Martha, do you? Why should that surprise me? Anyone who could murder her own… Just look at my kirtle! It’s ripped in three places, thanks to you.”

She flushed crimson and began to walk away.

“That’s right,” I yelled after her. “Go off in a sulk and pretend to be lost now, so that we’re forced to look for you. Well, I for one won’t bother. You can stay out here until you starve, for all I care!”

She did not turn.

God in Heaven, would this rain never stop? What on earth had possessed Servant Martha to drag Healing Martha out here in the middle of a tempest? Both of them should have had more sense. Servant Martha had given no explanation when she returned. She looked a hundred years old in the lantern light, all drabbled and drawn. When we asked her questions, it was as if she didn’t understand us. She walked through us like a ghost. Pega said she thought Servant Martha had broken her arm. I caught a glimpse of it, and the wrist did seem bent at an unnatural angle, but she wouldn’t allow anyone to look at it.

Somewhere deeper in the copse I heard Leon barking excitedly, followed by shouts and whistles. They’d found something. I barged through undergrowth in the direction of Leon’s barks. Pega and Merchant Martha were crouched over what looked like a heap of old clothes. Shepherd Martha was pulling Leon aside, patting and praising him as his tail wagged frantically. But all I could see was a pair of worn muddied shoes. The feet in the shoes were not moving. The other women stood a little way off, silent and holding one another.

“Is she…?” I blurted out as I reached them.

Merchant Martha glanced up. “She’s in a bad way. Catherine, Osmanna-fetch the bier. Hurry, we must get her back, before she perishes from cold. She’s lain in this rain all night. Move yourselves.”

Osmanna jerked into action and ran past me. Catherine followed. The others continued to stand and stare. What was wrong? Why didn’t they try to help her? I moved closer to peer over Pega’s shoulder, then clapped my hand to my mouth to stop a scream escaping.

Healing Martha was filthy, her grey hair wet and matted with twigs and dirt. But it was not her appearance that horrified me-it was her face. Flushed and contorted, it was not a human face but a grotesque, mocking caricature of the face I knew. Her left eye was open wide staring at us, but her lid drooped down over her right eye, closing it. Her mouth was twisted down at the corner; a stream of vomit and saliva had run unchecked down her neck. She made a gargling sound. Merchant Martha tried to lift up the poor woman’s head and shoulders to help her swallow, but it made little difference. Healing Martha’s breath rasped like a dog strangling on a leash.

“What happened? Has she been attacked?” I asked.

Merchant Martha shook her head. “No blood or bruises to speak of, at least not on her head anyway. She’s been struck down, that’s for certain, but not by any human hand.”

Healing Martha’s right arm hung limp, the other scrabbled at Merchant Martha’s cloak. The good side of her mouth worked furiously, dragging the paralysed side into a series of hideous grimaces. A meaningless series of noises crawled out from somewhere in her throat. “Ga. Gar.”

Merchant Martha and I looked at each other.

“What is she trying to say? God?” I bent close to her. “God has answered your prayers, Healing Martha, we will soon have you home.”

“Gar! Gar!” Healing Martha pounded her fist against the ground.

Merchant Martha shook her head. “Her wits have gone, poor soul.”

Pega pushed me aside and laid the bier down next to her. “Merchant Martha, you take the head. Beatrice, can you manage the legs?” She wriggled her arms under Healing Martha’s body. “Catherine, take her right arm and hold it up out of the way. Come on, Catherine, she’ll not hurt you! Oh, get out of the way, lass! Let Osmanna do it. Ready? Gently now, lift.”

Healing Martha’s legs flopped limply in my hands. She had wet herself. I could smell it, even though her clothes were soaked with rain. I only hoped Merchant Martha was right and Healing Martha was not sensible of her state. But as we bound her to the bier, I saw that she was weeping.