cast him into a sleep. But that was nigh on a hundred years ago, maybe more. I never thought he’d fly again, not in my lifetime.”
“God save us…” Mam squashed me tightly against her leg.
“Amen to that, for there’s not a cunning woman left in these parts, save old Gwenith. God grant that her grandam taught her the words to bind the demon, else there’ll be no stopping him this time nor them that wakened him.”
She crossed herself again. “You heard about poor Aldith’s little Oliver, of course you have, who hasn’t? Still not a sign of the little lad’s body. The dear woman’s beside herself. In and out of her cottage every day I am, to comfort the dear soul, fair wearing myself out with it. But at the end of the day what can you say to her? They’re dark arts indeed that take the body of an innocent boy for their work.” Lettice inched closer to Mam. “You want to keep those bairns close by, my dear.”
Mam whirled me round to face her. “You two inside now and stay there. From now on neither of you sets foot outside the door till the sun’s full up and I want you indoors before the Vespers bell. You hear me?”
“But, Mam,” William groaned.
“Now inside, both of you, and no more arguments.”
Mam landed a stinging slap on my backside and pushed me towards the door. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t said a word. William was the one who was arguing.
William kicked the doorpost as he passed, but he daren’t say anything to Mam. He threw himself down next to the fire.
“Stupid lasses. I’d not have run away screaming from the Owlman. I want to see him. She needn’t think I’m going to stay in.”
“Me neither.” I tried to look as sulky as him and kicked the nearest stool. It tumbled over, scattering a bowl of beans which Mam had left on top. They trickled into the thick layer of rushes on the earth floor. Mam would kill me! Why did she have to put them there? I scrambled to pick up the tiny beans, but every time I grabbed one bean, it made more of the others disappear.
“You’re going to get a really good skelping this time, when Mam sees that,” William grinned, deliberately scattering them even more with his foot.
My stomach somersaulted. I could still feel Mam’s hand across my backside from the slap. I crept to the door. I could slip out while she’d still got her back to it, gabbing to fat Lettice.
“Listen, did you hear that?” William said, rushing to the window.
“What?”
“Wings, great big wings swooping down. Look! Quick, did you see it, that black shadow? I wouldn’t give much for anyone’s chances out there alone.”
Lettice had said it was a bird bigger than John with an owl’s head and great big talons. Only the day before, I’d seen a falcon swooping down on a vole. It had perched, with one foot pinning down the little body, ripping out the fur with its hooked beak and tearing at the entrails until its beak was all red with blood. I shivered. What could a bird as big as a blacksmith do?
father ulfrid
i STARTED VIOLENTLY as I emerged from the latrine. I hadn’t heard the boy creep into my yard. Alan’s son, William, was leaning against the doorpost, chewing a twig and idly scuffing his bare toes in the dirt. He grinned when he saw he’d startled me.
“If you’ve a message you should knock on the door,” I snapped. I was the parish priest, for God’s sake. Did they think they could just wander in and out of my house, as if I was a common serf?
“Did,” he said without removing the twig. “You never answered.”
“That means I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
People had been banging on my door all day, especially that old gossip Lettice, but I couldn’t face anyone. I still felt sick when I thought about All Hallows’ night and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I’d made excuses to myself. That straw effigy they burned on the fire had been stuffed with henbane. I’d recognised the foul lingering stench in the embers of the fire the next morning. Henbane befuddles anyone who breathes the smoke and sends them into a stupor. It’s been known to drive men mad. I’d been drugged, robbed of my senses, so how could I have fought that demon?
But deep down I knew that, drugged or sober, I would not have had the guts to stand against that monster. Even when I was confronting old Gwenith, I had not been able to summon up the holy words to protect myself from her, and witch though she undoubtedly was, she was a mere mortal.
William was still watching me with a grin on his face. Had the brat heard that I’d run away and come to gloat?
“What do you want, boy?” I growled.
“Heard something, thought you might want to know, ’bout the house of women. They’ve got a relic in there, that saved ’em from the black bane.”
“Whose relic?” I demanded.
“A woman. Ann… no, a man’s name… Andrew, that were it. She was dying and she puked up the Host. The women tried to burn it, ’cept it wouldn’t burn. It was a miracle, they reckon.”
“Who told you this, William?”
“My sister, that’s who. She didn’t want to, but I said if she told me a secret, I’d not tell Mam about the beans. Father says girls and women have always got secrets.” He grinned again. “It’s true, ’cause my sister says those women are keeping that relic a secret.”
A relic in this dung heap, was it possible? If it really was a miracle, then no wonder the women in the beguinage were keeping quiet about it. They knew they had no right to keep it there. Any pieces of the sacred Host, miraculous or not, had to be stored in a consecrated place, in a church or a monastery. Those women were not even nuns; they shouldn’t be touching Christ’s body, never mind keeping it among their pots and pans. If the Bishop got to hear of it, he would insist that it was removed to Norwich at once.
But how had the anchorite Andrew come to vomit the Host on her deathbed? I was not called to give her the Last Rites. Had they summoned a priest from another parish? If so, he had pocketed the scot that should have come to St. Michael’s. The insult to me as a priest was bad enough, but I needed every penny of the scots and tithes I could raise. Somehow I had to get money to redeem the silver. And now, as if things weren’t desperate enough, I learned that another priest was stealing from me. Was this the only scot he’d deprived me of? How many more of my souls had he shriven or infants baptised?
William was watching me slyly. “Reckon that secret’s worth something, isn’t it, Father?” He thrust out a grubby hand.
“What?” I’d forgotten the boy was still there. “Come inside, I’ll find you something.” I said it without thinking; then with a sinking feeling I realised there probably wasn’t a coin in the house to pay him with.
“No, wait. There’s something else I want you to find out. Who brought the Host to the house of women? Can you discover that?”
He looked scornful. “Course I can. But what’s it worth?”
“Bring me that information and I’ll pay you double.”
William narrowed his eyes like a shrewd old peddler, calculating a profit. “Pay me for today first.” He pushed his way past me into the cottage, as if to make it quite clear he wasn’t going away until he got his money. He was learning fast. How could I blame the boy, when it seemed even my brother priests couldn’t be trusted?
servant martha
wHEN THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD rides out upon the land, it befits every human soul to fall to his knees and pray that he might be spared. Yet even when the seasons were turned upon their heels and the cattle lay dead in the pasture, men fled not to God for help, but to the evil that had brought them to this pass.
The villagers who crept to our gate seeking food and medicines were bringing that evil with them and poisoning the beguinage with their gossip. A demon they called the Owlman had been seen by a pair of foolish young girls, who ran to the Manor screaming that they had been attacked by some monstrous bird. It was nonsense, of course. The girls had probably returned late having been wanton with some village lads and concocted the tale to escape a well-deserved whipping.
But however often I warned the women not to listen to such talk, it blew through our halls and I could no more hold it back than I could silence the wind. I redoubled my efforts to strengthen our little band, urging them to cloak themselves with the love of our Lord. I assured them even if such a hellish beast did exist, which it most assuredly did not, God would defend us if we were faithful to Him.
But whatever madness was raging in the village, I drew comfort from the thought that Andrew’s relic lay in our chapel and her prayers were shielding us. Shepherd Martha had lovingly carved a wooden casket to house the miraculous Host and Dairy Martha had made sketches of the scenes she would paint to decorate the box. The painting on one side of the box would depict Andrew’s birth, over which an angel hovered protectively. Another would show Andrew kneeling in prayer in her anchorite’s cell, with throngs of people stretching beseeching hands towards her. But the last would be of the miraculous Host itself blazing gold in the midst of the roaring fire, as beguines knelt before it.
The beguines filed past the reliquary every day, touching it reverently, and including Andrew in the saints they called upon to aid them. They were convinced that our beasts had been spared the murrain because Andrew’s Host was protecting the beguinage, for had not the Host been given to us just days before the murrain broke out? They said God had forewarned Andrew of the impending disaster and it was for that very reason Andrew had given up her spirit in order that she might leave us the Host to protect us. I had not told them that, but neither had I contradicted the story. I had come to believe as much myself. In those uncertain
