The Owl Killers (20 page)

If Merchant Martha kept up this pace we’d soon be back inside the beguinage, and what joys awaited us there. Heavy bales of wool and cloth to be unloaded in this baking heat, soiled bedding to be stripped in the infirmary, and pigs waiting to be fed with the mess of scraps. I longed to walk in the fields and feel the grass round my legs and the sun hot on my back, just a few minutes of peace before we were back in the noise and endless chores of the beguinage.

Holding tightly to the edge of the cart, I said, “Merchant Martha, can you stop the cart? The motion is making me queasy. Let me off here and you go on. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

Merchant Martha reluctantly pulled on the reins and the cart wheels crunched to a halt.

Pega glanced back, all concern. “I’ll walk with you, Beatrice.”

“No, no,” I said hastily. I wanted to walk with my own thoughts, without anyone’s chatter ringing in my ears. “You go on with Merchant Martha. She shouldn’t travel by herself with a loaded cart; it’s not safe.”

I clambered down and set off at a good steady pace along the track behind the cart. Pega looked back anxiously a couple of times, but I waved cheerfully to reassure her. The cart gradually pulled further and further ahead and, before long, it disappeared from view behind a coppice on the curve of the track. Now that the cart was safely out of sight I slowed down and let my feet carry me into a patch of fallow land. Slipping off my shoes and hose, I revelled in the soothing coolness of the grass under my feet. Out of sight of track or cottages I threw myself down in the long grass and lay on my back gazing up at the rooks lazily flapping towards the distant trees.

A soft hum of insects buzzed around the flowers. Butterflies with purple eyes on their wings tumbled and flipped from one flower to the next. My mother once told me that butterflies are the souls of unbaptised children who cannot enter purgatory or Heaven or Hell. You
must take care never to kill a butterfly, she said, for if you did you’d be killing a child.

I closed my eyes. The sun burned red through my eyelids. It was so hot. The Vineyard in Bruges had been cool in the summer. The canal wound round our walls and slipped in under the boat gate, sparkling and dancing in the sun. The children splashed on the bank and ran barefoot in the cool, damp grass, laughing as it stroked their hot feet. Sometimes I ran with them. There were always little children and babies there, plentiful as daisies on the Green. But they weren’t my children. They were never my children.

That last time I convinced myself it would be different, lying in a bed, stifling in the heat of a roaring fire with a swarm of women buzzing round, whispering too softly for my ears. Fingers plucked at my shift and kneaded my belly. Another pain, sharp and short, not like before, then a gush of hot liquid flooding across my thighs, and with that came red-raw agony that went on and on, building in waves until I thought it was splitting me in two. I screamed. I couldn’t stop screaming even after the pain had gone.

The room grew dark. I was so cold, shivering, despite the heap of covers they had piled upon me. When I opened my eyes again, the women were gone. I called for them to bring my baby to me, but no one came. I could hear him crying. I could see the crib rocking as he thrashed his little fists in anger. I struggled from my bed and fell to my knees. The floor tipped as if it was a raft afloat on the open sea. I dug in with my fingers and crawled inch by inch across to the crib. It was empty.

I howled. I howled until they finally came running, pressing their fingers against my mouth, trying to make me stop, but they didn’t bring my baby. They didn’t let me hold my baby.

The midwife swore that this child drew breath and she had baptised him, so the priest would permit him to lie in the family tomb. But we both knew he had not. For more than a week he had not stirred inside me. The midwife gave me a potion to bring on the labour after the fever began, but she spoke of it to no one. The priest took one look at the infant and knew the midwife had lied. My husband wouldn’t look at him at all. And my son,
my son
was not buried in the family tomb.

The midwife was a kindly woman. She told my husband that the infant had been born too soon, but I had carried this one the longest and the next was sure to be born alive. But there was to be no next one. That night my husband took my maid to his bed and I knew he wouldn’t come again to mine.

For months I kept the empty crib beside me, hoping, but even as I rocked it, some part of me knew it would always be empty. Even now in the night I still rise, half asleep, at his cry and the creak of his cradle rocking. Pega grumbles at me to go back to sleep, saying it’s only the wind whining through the rafters or the mice squeaking in the thatch. But some nights I dream that it’s not the wind I can hear, but my child scratching with his tiny fingers at the fastened shutters, trying to come back to me.

I SENSED THAT SOMEONE
was coming towards me and rolled over onto my belly. A young girl with a wild tangle of long red hair was ambling though the meadow. I’d seen her before—Gudrun the witch-girl, the girl without a tongue. I crouched lower in the grass. But she was wandering lost in her own world, blowing on the puffball of a dandelion, watching the clouds of downy seeds drift around her head. She reached out to grasp a handful and blew them away again, sending them swirling up into the blue sky.

The sun was beginning to sink, hot and red, drifting down to the softly rounded hills. The girl turned her face to it. She pulled her shift over her head and let it fall to the ground. Then, naked as a fawn, she began to dance. Turning in slow circles, her arms outstretched to the source of light and heat, as an infant to its mother. Faster and faster she spun, her flaming hair flying out around her, her arms wide, her back arched. Her ribs slid up and down beneath her white skin. Then breaking out of her circles, she ran and leaped through the meadow, scattering scarlet poppy petals, which drifted down in dizzy spirals to the golden grass.

A butterfly came to rest on her outstretched hands. She held it out on the tips of her fingers, swaying slightly with the poppies as if a soft breeze rocked her. A second butterfly alighted on her arm, another on her back and on the tip of a strawberry nipple, still more on her
shoulders, her buttocks, her thighs and in the mass of her fiery hair. Her naked body was covered by the delicate red and purple wings. Her skin trembled and shuddered in tune with their fluttering. She knelt carefully, facing the sinking sun. The flames of her hair haloed her upturned head as she slowly stretched out her butterfly hands to receive the sacrament of light from the dawn of time.

Suddenly I was drenched in cold terror. I felt guilty, ashamed as if I had been spying upon a couple committing some forbidden and unnatural act. As if by looking I had committed the sin myself. Without caring if I startled her, I scrambled to my feet and ran from the butterflies and the scarlet poppies. I ran as fast as I could from that hot bright meadow, and I did not once look back.

i
SAW THE GREY LADY RUN PAST ME.
She didn’t see me. She was tearing up the road towards the house of women, as if she thought Black Anu was chasing after her. Her eyes had gone strange, dark but glittery, like bright moonlight was shining out of them. I think Gudrun had witched her.

I’d seen Gudrun dancing in the meadow with her hair flying out all around her. She was naked. William and other lads swim naked in the river in summer. But I’d never seen a lass take her shift off outdoors. Maybe that’s what witches do to cast a spell. Lettice said when a witch shakes out her hair, it whips up a great storm out at sea. My father knew about storms. He often saw them when he was working at the salterns beyond the marshes. He said the waves turned grey, then brown, then they rear up like snakes, till they’re higher than a man and come crashing down on the shore. He said you have to count the waves. Eight’ll fall short and’ll not harm you, but if the ninth catches you, it’ll drag you so far out to sea they’ll never find your body.

The gate of the beguinage opened and three people came hurrying
out—Pega the giant, the fat woman who smells of honey, and the thin scary one who never smiles. They rushed past me down the road to where Beatrice was standing, breathing hard and holding her side.

“Beatrice, we were so worried,” the fat one called out. “We thought you’d returned hours ago, but you weren’t at Vespers. Then Merchant Martha told us you’d felt unwell and I was sure you had collapsed on the road somewhere. They should never have left you. Are you all right?” She pressed her hands to Beatrice’s forehead, like Mam does to me if she thinks I’m sick.

Beatrice pulled away from her. “I was tired from walking and sat down to rest. I must have fallen asleep.”

The tall thin one frowned. “You
think
you fell asleep,” she snapped. “I always know if I have slept or not.”

Pega put her arm round Beatrice and helped her back up the track towards the house of women; the other two followed. As the gate banged shut behind them, something ghostly pale drifted out over the high fence. I jumped, but it was only a barn owl going hunting.

It was late. The sun had sunk below the top of the hill and the trees had turned black. A big gust of wind made me turn round. Across the marshes the sky was already dark and thick clouds were rolling in towards the hills. Mam would be looking for me.

I picked up my heavy pail of dog dung and tried to run up the road to the village, but it kept banging against my leg. I tried to change hands without stopping, but I tripped and went sprawling onto the sharp stones. My knees burned and stung. They felt wet, but it was too dark now to see if they were bleeding.

Then, as I tried to get up, I saw a scarlet light flickering above the track ahead of me. It was flames of a torch and it was moving fast towards me. I scrambled across to the edge of the road and slithered down into the dry ditch. I didn’t want to touch the bottom with my bare feet, in case there were snakes or weasels in there, but I was more scared of what was coming towards me on the road.

I pressed tightly against the side of the ditch, holding my breath, and peered up. Four muffled shapes were coming along the track, but I couldn’t hear a single footstep. The shapes had great big heads like Saint Walburga and no legs. Maybe they were ghosts, hungry ghosts
who’d been driven out of our cottage and were hunting for something to eat. My heart was banging so loudly I was certain they’d hear it. What if they could smell me? William said Black Anu couldn’t see, but she could sniff out little girls.

I held my breath as the creatures came closer and closer, and then they were right above me. The flames of the torch swirled in the wind, lighting up their heads and I saw that instead of faces, they had great hooked beaks and feathers. I stuffed my hands across my mouth to stop myself from screaming. But then they were gone, running lightly down the grass on the side of the road, and I realised who they were. They were the Owl Masters.

I dug my bare toes into the side of the ditch and scrambled out. The stones and dirt stung my skinned knees, but I didn’t cry. Crouching low, I ran to the corner of the road and hid behind some bushes. Far ahead, I could see the torch wobbling, the scarlet flames streaming out behind. Then it stopped. The torch was moving from side to side as it lit three others. The four torches separated and began to move again. The Owl Masters were walking across a field where the grain lay in stooks, drying. It was the only field where the grain had already been cut and it belonged to the house of women.

One of the Owl Masters raised his torch, his cloak swirling out around him in the wind. He touched his blazing torch to the stook in the far corner and at once smoke and flames leapt hungrily up. I wanted to run to the gate and warn the women that the Owl Masters were burning their fields, but I didn’t dare move. William said if you ever told anyone what you saw the Owl Masters doing, they’d come for you in the night and cut your tongue out.

I watched the Owl Master brush the flames of his torch over the next stook, but just as he did, a blinding white flash lit up the sky, then came an immense clap of thunder. Raindrops, fat and hard as hailstones, pounded down. The flames on the two stooks leapt up and then they were gone quicker than a tallow flame is snuffed out. Just like Lettice said, the witch-girl had shaken out her hair and called up a storm. But what if the witch dances?

There was a deafening roar of thunder like all the hills in the world had crashed into one another. I leapt up. I didn’t care if the
Owl Masters saw me or not. I didn’t care about my pail. I just ran. Behind me the wind came screaming across the marshes from the sea. I ran faster than I’ve ever run before, slipping on the mud and splashing through the icy puddles, but I didn’t stop. All I wanted was to get home to my mam.