The Owl Killers

beatrice

aS SOON AS THE WOODEN GATE of the beguinage banged shut behind us, the wind pounced as if it had been lying in wait. It was a raw wind, whipping across the marshes straight from the sea. But we told each other it would feel warmer once we were in the shelter of the copse. The other beguines ambled ahead of us down the path laughing and chattering. They wouldn’t have been laughing if they’d heard what I had in the forest on May Eve.

You could tell they’d already forgotten all about the Beltane fire now that it was daylight. They were like a pack of little children: When Servant Martha said there was nothing to worry about, they actually believed her. They were gullible enough to believe anything that woman said. They couldn’t see through her like I could. But Pega was still worried about the fire-I could see that-so don’t you tell me there was nothing to worry about.

Pega and I threaded our staves through the rope handles of several empty tubs and shouldered them between us. She strode ahead down the muddy track, her rump, as broad as an ox, swaying as she walked. Little Catherine and I trailed pathetically behind, taking two steps to Pega’s one. The wooden staves ground against my shoulders. Pega was the tallest woman I’d ever seen. Gate Martha says the villagers called her the Ulewic Giant. So with my being so much shorter than she was the full weight of the laden staves was tipping back on me, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of asking her to slow down. She’d tease me for the rest of the day.

The sodden track had been churned to mud by the many hooves and cart wheels that had passed over it for the fair. I stumbled several times and tried to take small steps, but Pega showed no fear of falling. Nothing and no one could tumble her, unless she’d a mind to let them, which in her younger days she had with a frequency that had earned her a reputation as the most accommodating woman in the village, or so that wicked old gossip Gate Martha said.

We were the last to reach the copse. The other beguines were already scattered among the trees, clearing away old undergrowth from around the trunks. The buds were beginning to open and the branches of the birches shivered in their bright green mist. As if the sap was bubbling up inside them too, the young children and some of the women were playing a boisterous game of tag, shrieking and giggling as they chased one another.

Pega smiled. “Best get started, then we can all join in. Move your arse, lass,” she yelled to Catherine. “Get those holes bored.”

Poor little Catherine had only just caught up with us, but she obediently scampered off to the nearest tree and tried in vain to screw one of the augers into the bark. She could never tell when Pega was teasing.

Pega, grinning, elbowed her aside. “Out the way, lass; at this rate we’ll be here till Lammas. If my mam had whelped a reckling like you, she’d have drowned it at birth.”

Pega rolled up her grey cloak and flung it to one side. Something fell to the ground from her belt. I picked it up. It was a sprig of woodbine wrapped around a twig of rowan.

“Servant Martha would be furious if she knew you were wearing this.” Our sour-faced leader had expressly forbidden the wearing of the charm during the days of Beltane to keep away witches and evil spirits.

“Aye, but what Servant Martha doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” Pega winked, took the twig, and stuffed it into her leather scrip. “A little extra protection never comes amiss and I’ve a feeling we are going to need all the protection we can get.”

“Because of the fire last night? Gate Martha said it meant trouble for us.” So I was right: Servant Martha didn’t know what she was talking about, as usual.

“There was trouble for someone in that fire. It was a warning, make no mistake.” Pega tossed the auger to Catherine and held out her great broad hand for a hollow reed to push into the hole. “Something’s brewing in the village and if the villagers get uneasy, the first people they’ll turn on is us. They’re suspicious of any outlanders; always have been. I grant you they were quick enough to take the beguines’ money while the beguinage was being built and who can blame them, for you were paying three times what D’Acaster would for labour. But that only made them more wary. They don’t understand the notion of a house of women who aren’t nuns or whores. For all there’s not been a man across the threshold since the building work was finished, it hasn’t stopped them gossiping. What they don’t know, they’ll invent, never fear. Someone should tell Servant Martha to take care.”

“Don’t expect me to do it,” I told Pega. “You know full well no one listens to me. Anyway, Servant Martha won’t be dissuaded by anyone, you know that. She treats the word no as if it was a gauntlet slapped across her face. The Manor’s been trying to get rid of us ever since the day we arrived and she’s never taken the slightest notice.”

Pega groped in her scrip for a lump of wax which she kneaded with unnecessary vigour. “The beguinage may be outside the Manor’s rule, but there’s those in these parts who have their own rules and they set no limits to them. No one defies them. Those that do live just long enough to regret it.”

“But if they break the law…” I said.

Pega shook her head impatiently. “If you were birthed in these parts you’d know there are some forces too powerful to be brought to heel, leastways not by the Law or the Church. They’re ancient forces that were worshipped on the mound where St. Michael’s Church stands long afore the parish church was ever built. They’re stronger even than D’Acaster or the King himself. Nothing and no one can stand against them, not even Servant Martha.”

“But there is a church over the place now, as you said, and no one worships in the old way anymore. This is a Christian land. It has been for centuries.”

“Not for some. Not for the Owl Masters.”

Pega pushed the softened wax around the reed to hold it in place and angled it downwards. Almost at once a thick cloudy liquid began to drip into the tub beneath.

“The Owl Masters’ve always been in this valley. They’re toadsmen, horse whisperers, some calls them. They’ve great powers over beasts and men, can stop a runaway stallion in its tracks or get a stubborn one moving. They can see in the dark where normal men’d be blind. And years ago, afore the D’Acasters arrived, the Owl Masters were the law here. Could punish any man as they pleased, even put him to death.

“But when Church and Manor came to the valley, the Owl Masters’ reign was over; it was the King’s law ruled then. But Ulewic folk still carried on going to Owl Masters in secret to get things sorted out. Quarrels over women and disputes that they were afeared to take to the Manor or Church Courts, cause everyone knows you make a complaint to them and you’re just as likely to find yourself fined as the man who’s wronged you. Besides D’Acaster and the priest don’t understand Ulewic affairs, not if it’s to do with rights or grudges going back generations.” Pega frowned. “But of late there’s been talk of the Owl Masters doing more than charming horses or settling fights. Some say they’re taking the law back into their own hands and more besides. It’s been nigh on a hundred years since they last tried and none in these parts will ever forget what happened then.”

She shuddered and stared back in the direction of the forest. “You know I hate D’Acaster and his whole tribe of vermin, but I’ll tell you this, Beatrice: The powers of any lord in this land are nowt compared to what the Owl Masters can do.”

I shivered. The man who’d worn the stag’s hide that night, had he been one of them? Was it their power he’d been trying to gain? If he was, he’d failed. I’d heard his death screams. No one could have survived those creatures. My skin crawled just thinking about them. I longed to tell Pega and ask her what it meant, but how could I? I couldn’t explain what I was doing in the forest at night.

“Are the Owl Masters going to kill us?” little Catherine whispered fearfully. She looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

Pega grinned. “Don’t you fret, lass. You’ve nothing to worry about as long as I’m around. Any man tries to hurt you I’ll rip his bollocks off and give them to you, to play marbles with them.”

Catherine giggled and blushed furiously, managing to look at the same time shocked and delighted.

Pega had a wicked grin and a mischievous tongue to match, but you couldn’t help liking her. I don’t think she ever repented her past life, no matter what the Marthas believed. To repent you must regret, but Pega never regretted. As a cow is born to give milk, Pega was born to give pleasure. A lecherous gap between her front teeth and generous breasts that turned men into little suckling pigs at a glance-no virgin could ever be molded in such a form. Pega practised the trade her body fitted her for. It put bread on the table of her family and more besides. Not from the village lads, she said-they’d think to have a girl for the price of a fairing or for nothing if they could-but merchants and clergy could pay for their comforts and Pega saw to it they did.

When she came to join us in the beguinage, the Council of Marthas gave her the name Pega, after the blessed virgin saint; new life, new name, her virginity restored. Yet in a way, I think that she never really lost it. Perhaps virginity can only be taken, not given.

Catherine, on the other hand, was from a good family, highborn, and if her mother hadn’t died so young I dare say the girl would have been kept closeted at home until her wedding night. But after her mother died, her father thought Catherine would stand more chance of keeping her virtue if she came to us till she was of age rather than remain under the same roof as her brothers and their wayward cousins. From what I’d heard of that pack of young devils, there wasn’t a maid left in the household worthy of the name. Mind you, if her father had ever met Pega, he might have thought twice about sending his daughter to us to safeguard her innocence.

“Leave the lids, you can fasten them later,” Dairy Martha called over to us. “All the food will be gone if you don’t come and eat.”

Every birch trunk that was thick enough to be tapped now had its own reed dripping with the precious sap, and most of the beguines had already settled themselves on heaps of fallen leaves and were tucking into the food with hearty appetites.

Kitchen Martha took no notice of fears of poor harvests; as far as she was concerned the beginning of winemaking was an excuse for a feast, and the great baskets set on the ground seemed bottomless. Out of them came round loaves of bread, pastries as big and broad as Pega’s hands, whole chickens with crisp golden skins glazed with honey and spices, tiny brown pigeons wrapped in slices of smoked pork, thick wedges of milky white cheese, dried apricots and figs, and great flagons of ale and cider.

Smiles and grins broadened as bellies filled. One woman pulled out her pipes and began to play and those who weren’t too stuffed to move joined in the songs, while the children danced around, mostly out of step with the music, but no one cared.

I leaned back against a tree. We were sheltered from the worst of the wind among the trees and I was full and sleepy. “This is almost as good as being back in the Vineyard,” I muttered, yawning.

“Tell me again about Bruges.” Catherine asked eagerly. I’d forgotten she was there. The girl loved to hear stories about the Vineyard. I sometimes wondered if she thought it was Heaven, not the Vineyard, I was describing. Perhaps it was.

“It’s beautiful. We have everything you could want there. A canal comes right inside, bringing water for the latrines and washing right to the door. Our own church, houses, an infirmary, a library for the books, stillrooms for herbs and cordials, and dairies full of butter and cheese. In autumn the air is so heavy with the musts of wine and mead, cider and perry, that it almost sends you to sleep the moment you set foot over the threshold. And every woman who crosses the bridge and enters the gate passes beneath the word Sauvegarde-the place of refuge.”

“So why leave such a paradise?” Pega asked with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

God alone knows how many times I’d asked myself that question in the three years we’d been here in England. I suppose in part, though I could never explain it to Pega, it was the very order and permanence of the beguinage that made me feel ill at ease. I was stepping into another woman’s house again. I was reading labels and lists of supplies written in someone else’s hand. Afraid to change anything that was so neat, so ordered, and so settled; having no reason to change it, except to make it mine and it wasn’t mine.

My life had always been written in another woman’s hand-first my mother’s, then his mother’s. My mother-in-law’s hand was on everything. Her order on the linen in the presses, her pattern in the herb garden, her recipes steeping on the shelves, her words, her virtue, her fecundity hanging over me, like a birch rod above a child. There was no Sauvegarde from that.

So when they talked about founding a new beguinage in England, I couldn’t wait to volunteer. Among so many in the Vineyard I knew I would remain a beguine, but in the new beguinage I would become a Martha. I’d have a domain of my own. I could arrange things any way I chose. Do you really think that Servant Martha’s motives for coming were any more pure than mine? Don’t you tell me she was called by God, as she wants everyone to believe. Pure ambition, that’s all that called her, but at least I’m honest enough to admit what I wanted. I only wanted some small thing to call my own, not an empire like Servant Martha’s determined to have.

Anyway, we set sail from Flanders within the year. I’d never been aboard a seagoing ship, but Merchant Martha knew what we were facing. The sailors swore at her as she followed them round testing every rope and knot holding our supplies, but that didn’t stop her. You wouldn’t believe the stench from the bilges, like a thousand rotten eggs constantly beneath your nose. I felt sick before we’d even left our moorings.

A storm blew up as we left the coast and headed into open sea. The others tried to comfort one another with thoughts of England where cattle lazed in the sweet water meadows and children played in the sun, but all I could think about as the ship juddered and rolled were the tales the sailors told of whirlpools big enough to swallow mountains and leviathans that could break the back of a boat with a single flick of their tails. Icy spray dashed over me, drenching me and leaving me gasping. I clung to the side of that ship and vomited again and again. I thought I’d drown. I prayed to drown, just to end it.

Night shivered into day and day into endless night, but finally one morning I woke again to the sound of gulls. We were sailing into a tiny harbour stinking of decaying saltweed and rotting fish guts. There were no dwellings except for a cluster of fishermen’s huts on the slimy boardwalk. The dark green flat of the great salt marsh lay all around, belching and farting its indifference to our presence. Beyond that, a low wooded ridge marked the edge of the solid land. We had arrived in England.

Ulewic itself crouched with its back to the forest, cornered, a village pushed to the very edge of Christendom. Sullen women watched us as we passed, peering out from the dark doorways of hovels that cattle would have scorned to lie in. Bowlegged children crawled over the rubbish heaps, fighting the pigs and dogs for any filthy scrap they could pry from the mud. Even the dirt road from Ulewic went nowhere but to that mud-slimed creek, and halted abruptly at the edge as if it had been running away from the village and had thrown itself into the grey waters in despair. And to the west of this midden lay our own benighted land.

There were just twelve of us, twelve women in a foreign country. Our home was a hillock supporting nothing more than some scrubby bushes and a few moth-eaten goats, a dank wasteland trapped between a dense forest and that rat’s nest of a village. Kitchen Martha wept openly when she saw it, tears running down her fat red cheeks. The other women stood rigidly, staring as if they might conjure again the cattle and cherub-faced infants of their hopes.

Even Servant Martha, for once, was silent, her head bowed and her face shadowed in her hood. Whether she prayed or despaired I couldn’t tell. Gradually all the women turned their faces towards her, an expression of helplessness in their eyes. Servant Martha lifted her head and gazed up for a long time at the great battlements of white cloud swelling up over the flattened land. Then she gave herself a little shake, pushed up her sleeves and patted Kitchen Martha briskly on her plump back.

“Faith, Kitchen Martha, faith and hard work are all we need,” she said with grim cheerfulness. “Work was ever the master of the demon of despair.”

If Servant Martha was right, there shouldn’t have been a demon left among us, for we had worked hard enough in these past three years to conquer a legion of demons.

Pega prodded me with her staff. All around the women were hastily packing up and heading for the road to the beguinage. The wind was whipping through the trees now and a mass of purple clouds bubbled up behind us, turning the light to a thick sulphurous yellow.

Pega nodded towards the tubs filling slowly with sap. “Best get those lids tied down tight. That storm’ll not hold off much longer.”

I held the cords around one of the tubs while Pega’s deft fingers bound it tight. Pega’s hands always fascinated me. Her right hand was webbed, the fingers bound together with flaps of skin, just like a seal’s or an otter’s. The deformity didn’t stop her working, though; even with the webs, her hands were far more dextrous than mine. Gate Martha’s fingers were webbed too. Most of the villagers had the webs on one or both hands. Pega claimed that such webbing was a mark that the bearer came from an ancient village family. I think she was proud of the sign, for it showed she belonged to Ulewic.

“Who’s that with Servant Martha?” Catherine was staring up the road.

I turned to look. Two horses were trotting side by side in the direction of the beguinage. There was no mistaking the grey-cloaked figure on the larger of the two beasts. Servant Martha rode with the same grim determination as she walked, spoke, or prayed, but I didn’t recognise the other rider.

Pega peered after the riders as they disappeared round the bend in the track. “Can’t tell from here.” She cuffed Catherine lightly over the head. “Come on, lass, the sooner you get home the sooner you’ll find out.”

The first drops of rain hit us, sharp and stinging, as we hurried back towards the beguinage. Then it fell in a freezing torrent, heavy enough to knock the breath from you. Our sodden skirts slapped around our ankles. I could hardly see the gate through this curtain of water. My fingers were numb and my kirtle clung to me, twisting round my legs like wet seaweed. Gate Martha was hovering in the open gateway, an upturned bucket on her head to shield her from the downpour. She beckoned frantically as if she didn’t think we were running fast enough.

“Come in, come in! Kitchen Martha’s some warm ale mulling for you. You’ll not believe who’s come to join us! You’re not going to like it, Pega, you’re not going to like it at all.”