The Owl Killers

servant martha

tHE INFIRMARY WAS SILENT. The shutters were closed against the cold and only a few tapers burned, barely penetrating the twilight. Most of the patients had gone, those who still had families to collect them. Maybe Merchant Martha was right. Maybe the villagers knew the Owl Masters were planning to attack the beguinage, so they’d rescued their own relatives while there was still time to get them out.

Beatrice was gone too. We knew something was wrong when we saw the door of the pigeon cote flung wide open and the birds wheeling round its roof. At first I feared she might have harmed herself in there, but she’d not done that. The cote was empty, save for the candles. She must have collected up every wax candle in the beguinage and set them all burning. It was a wonder they hadn’t set fire to the straw.

Pega and some of the others had looked for her, but she was not in the fields or barns. I knew we wouldn’t find her. Guilt over Osmanna doubtless weighed heavy on her mind and perhaps she thought the other beguines blamed her, so she had simply slipped away. I should pray for her. I had let her down as I had the others, but how could I pray for her when I couldn’t even pray for myself?

A soft hand stroked mine. From her pallet, Healing Martha lay watching me. I could see the embers of the fire reflected in that one open eye. “I am tired, Healing Martha, so very tired. Tomorrow they will burn Osmanna and all my thoughts should be with her and there is nothing I can do.”

Healing Martha’s hand squeezed mine gently as if encouraging me to continue.

“Merchant Martha thinks we should return to Bruges. All the women are packed and ready, waiting for me to give them the word, but I can’t give it. I have failed so many people-you, Osmanna, that poor child Gudrun. I cannot fail again. The decision I make, I must make for the whole beguinage, not just for the beguines here now, but for all the women who will join us in the years, even centuries to come. And for the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do. If the pagan hordes were massed against us, then our duty would be clear, but when it is the Holy Church herself that seeks to destroy us, on what do we stand? Pater misericordiam, why will God not answer me?”

“Gar.”

Not that noise again. Why was that sound the only one left to her, a mockery of a word, so utterly meaningless?

“What do you want, Healing Martha, a drink perhaps, is that it?”

“Sa… gar.”

“Yes, I heard you. Are you cold? Shall I stoke up the fire?”

What was I doing in the infirmary? My duty was to be in the chapel, praying, but my prayers vanished into a void. I didn’t even know if Healing Martha could hear me, but at least her one sound, senseless though it was, was better than cold silence.

“Sau… garde.”

I stared at her. “What? What did you say?”

“Sauve… garde.”

This time there was no mistaking it. Sauvegarde-the inscription written above the gateway to the Vineyard in Bruges.

“Is that what you’ve been trying to say all these weeks? No, Healing Martha, no! You cannot ask me to go back to Bruges. We might as well be nuns sheltering from the world, hiding behind thick walls. But we are not called to be safe. I thought you of all people understood that.”

She winced and I cursed my own tongue. Hadn’t I hurt her enough?

“Forgive me, Healing Martha. I’ve been selfish. You’re old and sick and it’s right that you should return to spend your last days in the Vineyard with people to care for you properly. I should have listened to you with more patience and realised you were asking to be sent home.”

There was a surprisingly sharp slap on my hand. I rubbed my skin more to acknowledge the rebuke than because it stung.

“Sauvegarde!” She tapped the side of my head and then her own.

“I believe she’s asking you what Sauvegarde means, Servant Martha.” I jumped at the sound of Merchant Martha’s voice behind us.

“We all know what it means, Merchant Martha,” I snapped. “Refuge-the place of refuge.”

“Refuge for what, though?” Merchant Martha asked mildly. “I think she’s saying you have not understood it.” Merchant Martha sat down on the edge of the cot. “Tell me why you became a beguine.”

“To serve God,” I said impatiently.

“Then why not serve God as a nun or anchorite or wife? What did you find in a beguinage?”

“Freedom. Somewhere I could be-”

“That’s it, Servant Martha-in a beguinage, you had the freedom to be yourself, do what you thought was right, not what others told you to do. Thoughts. That’s what Healing Martha is trying to tell you. What we safeguard is not our bodies, but our freedom to think.

“I don’t hold with what Osmanna did, you know that. There was a time when if I’d had the care of her, I’d have taken a strap to her backside, as well you know. But that day in the Marthas’ Council you said, ’Osmanna desires to seek the truth for herself.’ You gave her the freedom to do that. You and me, we may not have liked the truth she found, but she’d the right to try to find it. And if there is to be true refuge for thought, then we must be free to explore any path without hindrance. That’s what you taught me that day in council, Servant Martha. It’s taken me a while to accept it. You know me, I’m a stubborn old goat, but even old goats can change.”

Merchant Martha slipped off the cot, she touched my shoulder, just for a moment, before she walked away.

Healing Martha squeezed my hand again. For a moment, I thought I saw her smile, then a sudden spasm of pain twisted her face. Her hand dropped mine and clutched at her chest. She coughed, choking and wheezing, struggling to reach for the cup of herbed wine beside her. I held it to her lips. She drank and slumped back, shaking with the effort. A few drops of the red wine had spilled into her open hand. She gazed at them wonderingly, then slowly closed her fist, letting the drops run through her fingers and fall onto my open palm. By the glow of the fire’s embers, I watched her eyes close. Her good hand fell limp in mine. The flame on the rush candle guttered and died, leaving only the scent of smoke.