The Owl Killers

january

thirteen-year-old roman martyr, who refused marriage, was put in a lunatic asylum, then sentenced to be burned. when the fire would not light she was killed by the sword. it is thought unlucky to name a child agnes, for she will go mad.

tHEY BROUGHT ME GIFTS-a thin white shift and a tall conical hat, pointed like the horn of a unicorn-offerings for a virgin. Three of them crowded into my tiny cell, locking the door behind them, Father Ulfrid, my cousin Phillip, and a slack-mouthed youth, Phillip’s page. They filled the cell, blocking out the afternoon light. I pressed against the rough wall, sick with fear at what they would do under the cover of the twilight they’d brought with them.

Phillip made a mocking bow. “Oblige me, m’lady, by removing your clothes, all of them, then clad yourself in this.” He held up the loose white shift, but when I reached for it, he snatched it back.

“Don’t be so hasty. You must strip yourself first.”

He leered and moved a step closer as if he hoped I’d refuse so that he could do it for me. They waited. I wanted to turn my back, but that would only make me more vulnerable. Instead, I faced them, trying to slip my clothes off without taking them away from my body. At least Father Ulfrid lowered his eyes. Phillip smirked, cracking his knuckles, and the boy blushed to the roots of his straw-coloured hair as he goggled frog-eyed up and down the length of me. I was naked. I clutched my kirtle against me, trying to keep covered, my back pressed to the cold sharp stones of the wall. Phillip snatched my clothes away. I wrapped my arms across my body, trying to cover my hideous scar with my hand.

“Modesty?” Father Ulfrid stared contemptuously. “There’re no dresses where you’re going. Have you not paid heed to the paintings on the church walls? They’re put there for the instruction of foolish girls like you. Heretics bound together in the eternal fires of Hell, bare and naked for all the devils in Hell to torment.”

He dragged the shift out of Phillip’s hands and thrust it at me. I hurried to drag it over my head, feeling their gaze groping my body as I struggled to cover myself.

“She’ll be bare-arsed long before the Devil comes for her.” Phillip leant over me, laughing, crushing me against the wall, his hand resting on the wall beside my head. I could smell the sweet wine on his breath. He twisted a curl of my hair round his fingers. “As soon as the flames touch you, this pretty little shift will shrivel away and every hair on your body along with it. You’ll be trussed up there on that bonfire as flesh-naked as a scalded pig. The whole village will see what you’re marked for before your flesh melts away to tallow.”

The young boy giggled nervously. “Maybe we’ll put a grease pan under her to catch the drips. Lay the rushes in it and we can burn her all winter.”

“All winter?” Phillip pulled away from me. “It’s precious little light you need then, boy. There’s not enough fat on her to dip a pennyweight of rushes.”

The floor was writhing under me. My face was burning, but I was freezing cold. A wave of bile rose in my throat. I crouched against the wall, vomiting onto the stinking straw, shivering uncontrollably.

“Are you cold, my sweet cousin? Never mind, you’ll be warm enough tomorrow.”

He cuffed the page boy around the head. “Get on with it, boy; there’s a flagon of wine waiting for me at the Bull Oak Inn.”

It was only then I saw that the boy was holding a pair of sheep shears.

I tried to scramble to my feet, but Phillip seized both my wrists, crushing them together. The boy leant over me and grabbed a handful of my hair. There was a grating rasp and he tossed the hank of cropped hair down on the filthy straw. He grabbed another handful and that too fell, then another and another, until all my hair lay among the vomit in the straw. I hadn’t realised I had so much hair until I saw it scattered in front of me. My scalp felt raw and cold, as if someone had tipped ice over my head. Phillip let me go and I crumpled down onto the straw. It was as if this was happening to someone else and I was hovering somewhere overhead, watching it. Perhaps I wasn’t there at all, I am a ghost, I told myself. I am invisible.

Father Ulfrid thrust the tall hat at me. “See there.” He shook me. “Look at it, girl.”

I tried to focus my eyes to read the name written on the hat in red letters-Lílíth.

“That’s your rightful name. For as your father said, you were born under her evil star. You cannot be allowed to die with a saint’s name upon you. You need a demon’s name to send you straight to hell.”

He stood the hat opposite me, the name turned towards me, like a judge. The door crashed open and shut again, the key grated in the lock. I was alone again.

I sat where I was dropped, as cold as a drowned man. My scalp prickled, but I didn’t want to touch it. Even if I did, I couldn’t have lifted my arms. My body didn’t obey me anymore. I stared at the long brown curls lying among the straw. Heretics, harlots, and nuns-all shorn. Why do men fear our hair so much? The dank stones dug into my back, but I felt no pain. I floated somewhere beyond it. I knew what they said they would do tomorrow, but it couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. It was only a bad dream. I would wake up soon.