The Owl Killers

pisspuddle

iF THE TWO OF YOU DON’T stop squabbling, I’ll tell your father and then neither of you’ll be going to the burning tomorrow. There’s me trying to help your poor dear father out of the goodness of my heart and all you two can do is mither me until my head’s fit to burst. And you can get out of here now.” Lettice flung a ladle of water at the dog trying to slip in through the door behind her. It growled, but slunk off.

“Now see what you’ve done,” William hissed in my ear. “It’s all your fault, you little pig’s turd.”

“I can’t be doing with you two under my feet all day,” Lettice grumbled. “Make yourselves useful: Fetch some water-and not from the well that’s still cursed and will be until that wicked girl is ashes. You go down to the river, draw the water from there, and mind you find a nice clear patch, don’t be bringing me back a pail of mud. Now off with you, before I tell your father to take a switch to the pair of you.”

She hung a pair of leather pails strung together with a rope over William’s shoulder and shooed us out of our cottage.

William shoved me aside and hurried ahead of me down the path, trying to leave me behind. I had to run to catch up with him. It really annoyed him if I walked with him, that’s why I did it, even though I’d sooner walk by myself. It was hard keeping up with him. Although I was better, my legs still felt wobbly.

I didn’t remember much about being sick. It was all a jumble-the flood, being ill, the Owlman. Sometimes I didn’t know what had really happened and what was just a bad dream.

I don’t know how long I’d been in the house of women, but I woke up in a room that was bigger than two cottages together and had lots and lots of beds in it with people moaning. I was scared. I’d eaten the food the grey women had given me and it was witched and now I was going to waste away and die. I’d felt the birds pecking me, like Lettice said. I was so afeared I yelled and wouldn’t stop yelling, but Lettice came to rescue me, not a moment too soon, she said.

I thought Mam would be waiting for me at the cottage. But she wasn’t there. Father said she wasn’t ever coming back. I didn’t believe him and I kept crying for her till Father smacked me. I still cry, but only at night and I stuff my blanket in my mouth so he can’t hear me.

“Stop trying to walk next to me,” William said, deliberately nudging me into the bushes. “You think I want everyone to see me walking with a girl? And you needn’t think you’re coming with me tomorrow, ’cause you’re not. I don’t know what you want to come for anyway. You’ll be pissing yourself and crying for Ma… Anyway, you’ll be bawling before the flames even touch her.”

“I won’t so!”

“You will too. You don’t even know what happens, do you?”

“Neither do you,” I said. My legs were shaking, but I wasn’t going to drop behind.

“I do ’cause Henry told me.” William looked all smug. “He’s seen loads of burnings in Norwich. Shall I tell you?”

I knew it was going to be horrible and I didn’t want him to tell me, but if I said no, he’d make me listen. I shrugged, trying to look as if I really didn’t care.

“First all her clothes burn off and you can see her bubbies and everything. And her skin starts to blister and pop, then it melts and starts running down her legs. The stench is powerful. Just one whiff of it and you’ll be sick as a dog, and she’ll scream and scream and scream and you’ll never be able to get the scream out of your head.”

I pressed my fist against my mouth and shuddered. I already felt sick.

William grinned down at me. “See, I told you, Pisspuddle-you’re scared.”

I ran a few steps ahead of him, so he couldn’t see my face. “Doesn’t bother me. I’m going to go to the Green afore it gets light, so I can get right in the front.”

“Oh yeah.” He grabbed me by my braids. I wriggled and tried to kick him, but his arms were too long and I couldn’t reach him. I bit him hard on the arm, hard as I could. He squawked like a strangled goose and let go.

“Just wait till I catch you, you little turd!”

I ran down the path as fast as I could, round the tanner’s yard and up towards the Green. William was pounding after me, but the pails slowed him down. My legs had cramps and I’d got a stitch in my side.

I tore round the corner so fast I didn’t even see the Owl Master standing in the shadows until he grabbed me. He clamped his leather-gloved hand across my mouth, and before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled a stinking sack over my head and arms. He tipped me over his shoulder. He was walking fast. My chest was banging hard against him and it hurt. I struggled and kicked, but I couldn’t get free. I heard a heavy door creak open, then he stopped. And he dumped me down on the rushes. I curled up tightly in a ball, too scared to move.

“Here’s the brat, Father.”

“Did you have to bring her like that? You’ve frightened her half to death.”

I heard a man laugh, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Doesn’t the Church teach that fear is the beginning of wisdom? Just make sure she does the wise thing, Father. Otherwise, I’ll be having that little chat with the Commissarius about a certain pretty lad of your acquaintance.”

I heard scuffling in the rushes and Father Ulfrid yelped as if someone was hurting him.

“Make no mistake, Father-one way or the other the Aodh is determined to finish that foreign woman tonight, her and her whole house of witches. You will bring her to him, or you will be pleading for death yourself before dawn breaks.”

A door banged with a great hollow echo.

I shrank as I felt fingers tugging the sack off my head.

Father Ulfrid was bending over me. He pulled me to my feet. We were standing inside the church.

“Are you hurt, child?”

I shook my head, my heart pounding in my throat, glancing round to see if the Owl Master was still here, but he wasn’t. I tried to edge towards the door, but Father Ulfrid caught my arm.

“There is nothing to be afraid of, child.” Father Ulfrid knelt down so his face was close to mine. He was sweating, even though it was very cold in the church. “Listen carefully, child. There is something you must do for me. It is very important. Do you know the foreign women that live outside the village?”

I shook my head.

Father Ulfrid frowned impatiently. “Yes, you do. You were taken there when you were ill, remember? The women in grey.”

“I never talked to them, ever.”

“I need you to talk to them now. I want you to go there and ask the woman on the gate if you may speak to the leader, the one they call the Servant Martha. Can you remember that?”

“Mam says I mustn’t go near them, ’cause they take little girls and sell them as slaves across the sea.”

“But you were in their house and they didn’t sell you, did they?”

“Only ’cause Lettice came and rescued me afore they could.”

“Enough of this nonsense.” Father Ulfrid struggled up from his knees and stood over me. I backed away, but he held my shoulders. His hands pinched.

“You were seen talking to the women before you were ill. You took food from them. You know what happens to little girls who tell lies, don’t you?”

He pulled me round and pointed at the wall where demons with bird heads on their chests were poking the screaming sinners into the flames of Hell.

“Now, child, you are to go to the house of women and ask for Servant Martha. When she comes, you are to give her these.”

He pulled something out of his pocket. “Hold out your hands, child.”

I shoved my hands behind my back, scared he was going to hit me with a switch, but he grabbed my wrist and pushed something into it. It was soft, and when I looked down, I saw it was only a lock of curly brown hair, tied up with a piece of torn grey cloth.

Then he took my other hand and pushed a single long feather into it.

“You are to give these to Servant Martha, but you must put one in each of her hands, like I have done to you. Then you must say just one word-choose.”

“Choose what?”

Father Ulfrid shook his head. “Pray you never need to know that, child. Now you go and do exactly what I’ve told you. And if she asks you who sent you, you must say the Owl Masters. You must not mention me, do you understand?”

I didn’t understand. Why did I have to take a stupid feather to that woman? What if she asked me who gave it to me? Father Ulfrid had just said I’d go to Hell if I told lies. The grey woman would get angry if I wouldn’t tell her. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.

I dropped the feather and the hair and ran towards the door, but it was too heavy. I couldn’t wrench it open before Father Ulfrid caught me. He dragged me back and spun me round to face him.

“If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, the Owl Masters will take you to the top of the church tower and leave you up there alone in the dark for the Owlman. Are you going to do it? Or shall I call them? They’re waiting-”