The Owl Killers

january

accused of being unworthy to hold office, bishop wulfstan pushed his crosier into the shrine of edward the confessor. he challenged his accusers to pull it out, but no one could for it was stuck fast; then wulfstan effortlessly drew the crosier from the shrine himself proving his fitness for office.

wE WAITED IN THE CHURCH, pressed side by side on the assortment of small narrow benches and stools brought down from the Manor and carried in from any cottage that still had a stick of furniture worthy of the name. Braziers had been lit inside the church and the air was stifling, fetid with dung-caked shoes, wet wool, wood smoke, and stale sweat. The thick yellow flames of the tallow candles curdled the faces of the people, souring clothes of red, green, and brown to a single hue of rancid butter. The tallows added their own oily fumes to the stench. Father Ulfrid was clearly not going to waste good wax candles on this affair, for who knew how many might be burned before this trial was over.

Two ornate empty chairs, flanked by several lesser ones, stood upon a dais before the altar. They were empty. The Bishop’s Commissarius was dining with Robert D’Acaster and Father Ulfrid. So the villagers were obliged to kick their heels and wait until their masters had finished filling their bellies. I had no doubt they would be well filled, for D’Acaster would want a good report made to the Bishop. There was no sign of Osmanna. But a small gap had been left in front of the dais that no one had filled, a hexed circle in which none dared tread.

All around, the men-for they were mostly men-fidgeted, farted, laughed, and gossiped, waiting for the play to begin.

Beatrice was seated beside me. She had not said a word to me since we left the beguinage. Her eyes were clouded as if her spirit inhabited some distant place. I had tried to convince Father Ulfrid that she was not well enough to testify, but the more I argued, the more determined he seemed to bring her.

I had managed just a few whispered words alone with Beatrice, cautioning her to say as little as possible. I warned her that if anything should come to light about the Masses we had conducted, her life would be in danger no less than mine. I hoped that would be enough to bring her to her senses and make her guard her tongue, but I could not be sure. She would not even look at me.

I knew it wasn’t Osmanna’s blood that Father Ulfrid wanted: It was mine. The Church would try to use her to trap me. It was not just Osmanna who was on trial here-it was the whole beguinage. I could only pray Beatrice understood that.

The crowd stirred as the church door was flung open and their masters entered. A few made halfhearted attempts to stand and make small ungainly bows as D’Acaster passed through the crowd, but most kept their seats.

Robert D’Acaster’s face was shiny and dripping with perspiration as if he was carved of melting tallow. His foot missed the step of the dais; for a moment he teetered between falling backwards and tipping headfirst onto the dais. Phillip D’Acaster hastily grabbed him and hoisted him up. He flopped down into one of the carved chairs, which visibly bowed under his weight. Dinner had evidently been washed down with large quantities of wine.

Father Ulfrid took one of the lesser chairs on the dais, while the other great carved chair was occupied by a man who looked as if he had dined on nothing but dried bread and bitter herbs. At first glance he seemed to be an aged man, with dark hollow eyes, and sharp cheekbones. Even his gestures were ancient, as if he had sat for many years in some great debating chamber or in a library poring over books, but on closer inspection, I could see that he was no more than thirty, probably a deal younger.

The man crushed on the other side of me on the narrow bench elbowed me in the ribs. “That’s Bishop’s man, that is. You want to watch him. They say he caught his own brother lying with a man and he witnessed against him. Then he watched while they sliced off his brother’s nose and ears. What kind of bastard would do that to one of his own?”

The Bishop’s Commissarius gathered his fur-trimmed gown closely about him as if he feared a draught, though no one could possibly have been cold in that church, unless he had iced water in his veins instead of blood.

The crowd began murmuring again as the door opened for a second time and Osmanna was led in by a rope bound around her wrists. Some of the villagers hissed. Others crossed themselves and drew back as she was led between the benches, as if they thought she might have some contagion.

Osmanna stared straight ahead of her. She was pale, but two unnaturally bright spots of colour stained her cheeks. She was not wearing her beguine’s cloak. Without it, she looked fragile and vulnerable. Wisps of straw clung to her skirts. Her long hair was loose and tangled as it had been that day I first saw her in her father’s house.

A venomous murmur swelled up around the room as if a swarm of bees was gathering. Phillip D’Acaster leant forward, regarding Osmanna with an undisguised leer as he might look at a tavern wench. Clearly, the sight of a young girl bound and dishevelled aroused the basest of desires in him. I felt sick with disgust.

The Bishop’s Commissarius swept his gaze around the room and all fell silent. He nodded to his clerk, sitting at a small writing desk below the dais. If the Commissarius was young, his clerk was still younger, scarcely out of clouts, with the pimples of youth sprouting fresh upon his face. He was hastily slicing quill after quill as if he thought he would be called upon to copy out the whole Bible before the afternoon was out.

The Commissarius coughed impatiently. This only made his poor clerk start violently like a birched schoolboy, sending his quills rolling to the floor. A rough gale of laughter ripped through the room as he scrambled to retrieve them.

The Commissarius looked slowly from Beatrice to me and back again. Then he unfurled a ringed finger and beckoned to me. I stood.

“Mistress, I judge you to be the leader of the women, the one they call the Servant Martha, is that correct?”

I nodded, trying to steady my breathing.

The Commissarius turned to D’Acaster. “She will not be required to swear an oath, for she is excommunicated and the lips of the damned shall not be permitted to blaspheme the name of God. Such persons may not bear witness against a godly man, but against other malefactors they may be heard, for the Devil will denounce his own.”

He turned back to me, jerking his chin up as if he was about to order a scullion to empty a pot.

“Mistress, we solemnly charge you to speak the truth before us this day, lest you find yourself under the sentence of this court, if indeed any woman so lost to the mercy and grace of our blessed Lord is capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood.”

“Commissarius,” I replied, “we are ever mindful that our blessed Lord is witness to all our discourse in both light matters and grave, in private and in public; therefore we speak the truth by custom. Unlike some, we need no oath to chasten us to do so.”

I could hear collective intake of breath from the villagers behind me. Father Ulfrid stirred, as if to speak, but the Commissarius silenced him with a raised hand without taking his eyes from mine.

“I sincerely pray for your sake that it is so, Mistress. Very well, let us begin.” He turned to the clerk. “You may record that no oath was taken, therefore her words are to be accorded little weight.”

“If our words are to be paid so little heed, may I ask why you have troubled to bring us here?” I asked.

The mouth of the Commissarius curled in a slight smile without engaging his eyes.

“It takes but a feather to tip the scales of justice, Mistress. But that aside, His Excellency the Bishop wishes to know how far this poison has spread. Are we here to lance a boil, Mistress, or must we sever the whole limb?” He stared pointedly at Father Ulfrid, who gnawed his lip as if he feared the warning might be directed at him.

“The girl Agatha resides with you under your care and authority, does she not?”

“Osmanna is a beguine. She lives and works with us.”

“But Agatha,” he enunciated the name as if I was deaf, “obeys you and your rule.”

“Osmanna,” I countered firmly, “obeys God and God’s rule. Beguines keep no rule but that which God Himself dictates to them.”

There was a whimper from the clerk beneath the dais and all eyes turned in his direction.

“Well?” The Commissarius spat out the word.

“I beg pardon, Sir, but what am I to write?”

“Write, boy? Scribe what is said, no more, no less; surely that is simple enough even for you a dolt like you.” He raised his eyes to Robert D’Acaster. “My own clerk fell sick with a fever, God damn him. So they saddled me with this numbskull.”

The hapless clerk half rose, sat again, then rose hastily once more. “But, Sir, I meant what name? Agatha or-”

“Agatha, you blockhead, that is the name by which she was baptised. Now sit down and write, boy, before I kick your backside so hard you’ll be hopping like the frog-wit you are from now until Saint Stephen’s Fair.”

The crowd rocked with laughter. Phillip grinned and winked at Father Ulfrid, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

The Commissarius held his hand up for silence. He waited until he had full command of the room.

“Mistress, a man of good report has sworn on oath that the girl, Agatha, cast the Blessed Host of our Lord into the mud to be trampled by filthy swine. What say you to this?”

There was an exaggerated gasp of horror from the crowd, though it could not have been a new revelation to anyone, if it had already been testified.

“Commissarius, you yourself have told the court that we are excommunicated,” I replied. “Where would she have obtained the Host to desecrate? Has Father Ulfrid given it to her?”

Father Ulfrid leant forward and whispered rapidly in the Commissarius’s ear, who nodded before continuing.

“I am informed that a certain Franciscan friar was in the habit of bringing you the Host. An act which is against all the precepts of our Holy Mother Church as I’m sure you are aware, Mistress, and for which you were rightly excommunicated. Doubtless it is from the same source that the girl obtained the Blessed Host for her abominations.”

“Commissarius, Father Ulfrid himself has set watch for the Franciscan since he discovered the matter. Surely you cannot think that the friar slipped by so diligent a watch?”

The Commissarius glared at Father Ulfrid, who looked decidedly uncomfortable. Phillip D’Acaster smirked with satisfaction, clearly relishing the sight of the priest lost for words.

The Commissarius turned impatiently back to me. “Obviously, Father Ulfrid has not allowed the Franciscan to come nigh you since you were excommunicated.” He fired another angry look at Father Ulfrid as if this was far from obvious. “Nevertheless, Mistress-”

Robert D’Acaster staggered from his chair to the back of the dais and stood with his back to us. There was a loud hissing and splashing as he pissed copiously into a pot.

“Nevertheless, Mistress, I warrant-” the Commissarius began again.

But it was impossible to ignore the noise as the piss thundered into and over the pot, a stream of yellow liquid trickling down the side of it. He shook himself dry and groped back to his chair, waving a damp hand at the Commissarius to bid him continue.

“I warrant, Mistress, you kept a store of the Host that the Franciscan brought you, thinking to use it in God alone knows what wicked abominations.”

No one had mentioned that I had been consecrating the Host. Osmanna had clearly said nothing of it; I blessed the girl with all my heart for that. But I knew I must choose my next words carefully.

“The Host of our blessed Lord is as transient as the manna which fell from Heaven, Commissarius, and as subject to corruption.” I tried to keep my tone steady and calm. “How long do you think we could have kept it? Father Ulfrid himself will testify that Andrew’s Host is a miracle precisely because it has been preserved from corruption.”

Father Ulfrid studied the floor, desperately trying not to meet the furious gaze of the Commissarius.

Robert D’Acaster’s elbow slid off the arm of the chair and jerked him from his doze. He looked around him dazed, as if he couldn’t remember what he was doing there, then clicked his fingers vaguely in the direction of a beaker on a small table just out of reach of his slumped form. D’Acaster had not looked once at his daughter, nor she at him.

“I am growing tired of these games, Mistress.” The Commissarius raised his voice sharply. “Answer me plainly: Did Agatha take the Host of our blessed Lord and cast it before the swine?”

“I will tell you plainly: She did not.”

He turned to Father Ulfrid. “There is nothing to be learnt by questioning this woman. She is dismissed.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. If Beatrice kept to the same answers, they could prove nothing. We might all yet get out of this unscathed. But would Beatrice be able to control herself? I glanced over at her; she was staring at rushes on the floor. I wasn’t sure if she’d even been listening.

I whispered, “Stay calm, Beatrice; think.”

The Commissarius frowned. “I gave you leave to depart, Mistress.”

“By your leave, I will stay.”

“As you please, Mistress.” His scowl deepened, then a slight smile flickered across his lips. “Yes, yes, perhaps you should stay, but you will keep silent.”

The Commissarius’s eyes flicked across to Beatrice. “Stand, Mistress.”

She didn’t move or even glance up.

“Mistress!”

I pushed her to her feet, but still she didn’t look at him.

“You are known as Beatrice, I believe.”

She gave the briefest of nods.

“Though doubtless that is not your God-given name, that is the name which shall be recorded, for my idiot clerk will most likely shit his breeches if we confuse his feeble brain with another.”

Laughter broke out again and again he raised his hand for silence. Beatrice stared fixedly at the dried head of a tansy flower drowning among the rushes on the floor.

“Now, my dear,” he said kindly. She glanced up at the sudden change of tone and he smiled. “There is no need to be afraid. All you have to do is speak the truth and all will be well. Do you understand?”

The leg of the man sitting beside me was trembling against mine, though whether from excitement, apprehension, or the palsy I couldn’t tell.

Beatrice nodded warily.

“Good, then let us begin. Agatha did not take the sacrament, did she?”

“No, she’s excommunicated… We all are.”

He nodded encouragingly. “And naturally she was distressed by this, by being denied the comforts of the Holy Church?”

“We… we all were.”

“Quite so. As any Christian soul would be.” He pressed the fingers of his hands together as if he was deep in thought. “But, tell me this, did Agatha seem more distressed than the others?”

Beatrice hesitated, glancing wildly at me. “Not more.”

“Not more distressed, Beatrice. Well, then, perhaps it was less?”

“No… not less.” Her voice was tremulous.

He bowed his head. “I stand corrected. Of course, you are right it was not less. In fact it was not at all. Agatha was not distressed at all, that is what you are saying, is it not, Beatrice?”

“I didn’t-”

“You see we have it on good report that Agatha declared that the sacraments are not necessary for salvation and that the Host is not transformed into the body of our blessed Lord in the hands of the priests, but remains common bread. Isn’t that right, Beatrice? Isn’t that what you told the villagers when they came to the gate? Don’t even think of denying it, Beatrice-a dozen men will swear by God’s hand that they heard you say it.”