The Owl Killers

father ulfrid

iS YOUR FATHER AT HOME, WILLIAM?”

The boy glanced apprehensively back over his shoulder into the cottage, then finally he drew back a little from the doorway so that I could squeeze past him. Like all the cottages in Ulewic, this one reeked of the dung heap and decay. The sodden rushes had been gathered up from the floor and thrown into rotting piles in the street. But the earth floor and walls of the cottage had been soaked in flood water awash with all the excrement and refuse from the cottagers’ middens, and there was no way of throwing out that stink.

Alan sat hunched over a smoking fire that only served to draw up a foul clinging mist from the earth floor, chilling the bones. His eyes were unfocused and his hands trembled slightly. I’d seen those signs in many of the villagers since the flood. They were drinking some concoction made from the dried heads of the white poppies that infested the marshlands. It fuddled the mind like strong wine, and blunted the edge of their hunger, numbing the misery. But it was an evil substance, for it robbed a man of all will to labour and eventually sent him mad. I was shocked to see a strong hardworking man like Alan under its influence.

I coughed, but he did not stir or rise to offer me his seat. “God keep you and the children, Alan.”

“God will keep us, will He?” he growled. “He’d best do it then… I can’t. Salterns have gone.” He flung his arm wide, in a wild uncontrolled gesture. “Sea took them, took it all back. My father worked them and his father afore him. Been working them so many generations, no one knows for sure who made them. But they’re gone, just like that, in one night. There’s nowt left.”

“But at least your life was spared, Alan. Many of the other men and boys weren’t so fortunate.”

“Fortunate-that what you call it? Some fortune. How am I supposed to feed my bairns now? You got an answer for that, Father?” Alan spat a glob of yellow phlegm into the flames, which hissed and spat back at him. “D’Acaster’ll be demanding his rent for this pigsty. Church’ll be screaming for their tithes, isn’t that right, Father? All you ever want is money, whole fecking lot of you… Owl Masters too-you’re all a pack of scavenging dogs fighting over our guts. What good are any of you to us? You with your Latin prayers, Owl Masters with their bonfires. There’s not one of you could stop the river taking what she wanted.”

What was I supposed to say to him-Pray and repent? God will forgive and all shall be restored? I knew better than anyone that a whole sea of prayers would not induce God to forgive and restore.

I’d prayed that St. Michael’s would be filled for Christmas and it was. God had sent a flood to herd the villagers into the church, a captive congregation for the Commissarius to see, but God’s vicious joke was that that very flood had also kept the Commissarius away. As the waters receded, the villagers ebbed away again. And as soon as the roads became passable the Commissarius would return. Like a tethered bird, a wing-beat of escape was all I’d been granted, and now it was only a matter of time before I was brought crashing down.

Alan peered up at me from beneath heavy lids. “Why did you come here, Father? See for yourself-we’ve nothing left. Between the Church, the Manor, and the Owl Masters, you’ve taken it all. And what you didn’t get your greedy fists on, the river took.”

I gritted my teeth. “I came to discuss a Mass for the soul of your poor wife.”

“They’ve found Mam?” a voice whispered. I turned to see William standing behind me, his small thin body tense and alert.

“No, no. I’m sorry. They’ve found nothing yet.”

“But they’ll keep looking, won’t they?” the child said desperately.

“I told you, boy, your mam’s gone,” Alan bellowed. “There’s no use you hoping she’s going to come back. Your mam’s dead, boy, dead and gone. If Black Anu takes you as her prey, that’s it, boy.”

“Only God takes life, Alan,” I snapped. God’s balls, I couldn’t stand much more of these numbskull villagers and their stupid superstitions! Why did I even bother to waste my breath preaching to them? The church pigeons took more notice of me than they did.

I took a deep breath and tried to swallow my anger. “If your poor wife has drowned, we will make every effort to recover her body and give her a decent Christian burial in holy ground, so that she may rest in peace.”

“Let it alone, Father. You’ll not find any in these parts that’ll take a corpse from water. If they do, they or one of their own family will drown afore the year is out. Same’ll happen to you, if you try. Cross’ll not protect you, no more than it did in the churchyard at Samhain,” he added, sneering.

I wanted to punch him. I’d been drugged, for Christ’s sake. What could I have done? “I’m no coward! I know that’s what you and the rest of this devil’s arsehole of a village thinks, but I’m not afraid of-” I faltered as a terrible stench filled the room, overpowering even the stink of mildew and decay. Someone was whimpering in the corner.

“William!” Alan roared. “I told you to take that brat outside to shit!”

“I did,” William protested, scuttling over to the corner. “But I no sooner take her out than she does it again.”

He pulled his little sister up from the pile of rags on which she lay. Excrement was running down her legs and dripping onto her bare feet, and the child was moaning and clutching her belly. Her head flopped against her brother’s shoulder as he dragged her out of the cottage.

I turned to Alan, who had slumped back in his chair. “That child is very sick. Have you any medicine for her?”

He wiped a weary hand over his eyes. “How am I supposed to know what to do for her? Her mam did all that. I can’t take care of a sick bairn.”

Alan heaved himself from the stool, bracing himself against the wall, his legs too unsteady to support him. He groped along a shelf until he found a small jar and scraped a little of its black, sticky contents into a beaker with his fingernail. I grasped his arm.

“No, Alan, you must keep a clear head. What would your poor wife say if she was here? Your son’s a good lad, but he needs your help.”

He shook off my arm violently, almost striking me in the face as he flailed out.

“William’s not my brat! Haven’t you eyes to see that? Let Phillip D’Acaster take care of his own bastards. If you want to meddle, Father, try starting with those whores and witches in the house of women. How is it they’ve got food, when there’s none in this village? How come none of their beasts got the murrain and the flood didn’t even touch them? ’Cause they put the evil eye on us, that’s why. All this is the women’s doing.”

He stumbled back to the stool. “You want to know something else, Father?” He wagged a trembling finger at me. “I heard tell that even when the Owlman was sent out against them, they escaped, and I’ll tell you for why-’cause they’ve got that relic. Protects them against anything and turns the curses back on us. As long as they’ve got that relic, there’s no one can touch them. Ulewic won’t be safe till we get it away from them.”

I knew he was thinking I was useless. The whole village was laughing at me, because I, a priest, could not make a gaggle of women obey me. Those women would pay for making a mockery of me; they’d pay dearly.

I clenched my fist around my iron cross. “I swear I will get it, Alan. One way or the other I will force them to give it to me.”