“I’ve talked with Osmanna at great length,” I said, more softly. “But she has hardened her heart. And she has only two days left.”
“But she can’t mean to persist to the end,” Tutor Martha said. “Perhaps if I speak with her … that is, I don’t mean to imply, Servant Martha …”
I knew exactly what she meant to imply. “Pray continue, Tutor Martha, you may as well speak your mind. Everyone else has.”
“I only meant that perhaps it has become a matter of pride. You know how obstinate she can be when faced with anyone she regards as an authority. Perhaps if I or someone else …”
“You’re welcome to try, Tutor Martha, you or anyone else. I wouldn’t want it said that we did not attempt every means to bring her to reason.”
Tutor Martha nodded, looking much relieved.
“But you should take someone with you,” I cautioned. “There’s much hostility against us in the village. Remember what happened to the mute child.” Why bother to warn them? They wouldn’t take any notice.
“I’ll accompany you,” Merchant Martha announced firmly.
Tutor Martha swallowed hard and inclined her head. “I’m most grateful for your offer, Merchant Martha, but do you think … that is, I wonder if …”
“I believe what Tutor Martha is struggling to say,” I explained, “is that she thinks that, like me, you lack the skill of sweet coaxing.”
“I know exactly what Tutor Martha thinks of my tongue, Servant Martha, but if she’d had to deal with as many rogues and clodpolls as I have in my life, she’d soon learn to keep hers well sharpened. And just you think on this, Tutor Martha: Hunger’s a sharper edge than my tongue, as you’d soon know if I stopped using it to bargain for our food. Maybe if you’d been harder on the girl yourself and not flattered her into thinking she was clever, it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“Enough, enough, this is no time to turn on one another.” God grant me patience. I couldn’t endure another argument tonight.
“I ask your pardon.” Merchant Martha grimaced. “You’re right; a crabby old woman like me is not the best person to reason with her. I’d likely lose my patience and box her ears. I give you my word, Tutor Martha, not one word shall she hear from me, but I’ll go with you all the same, to drive the cart and keep an eye on you. I can smell the fart of trouble coming even before the maker lets rip.”
Tutor Martha smiled and extended her hand, gripping Merchant Martha’s for a moment or two.
“I’ll go too,” Shepherd Martha said. “At least the sheep have never complained about my tongue.”
“If that’s settled, you should all get some sleep,” I said hastily, seeing Kitchen Martha about to open her mouth again. “Leave the candles. I’ll pray here a while. Alone.”
They lumbered stiffly to the door and dragged it open. The wind rushed into the chapel, extinguishing half the candles and scattering the charcoal in a shower of sparks. The door banged shut behind them.
Whatever they said to her, I knew Osmanna would not recant. Something had happened in the church that afternoon, something that put her beyond fear. One minute she was a frightened little girl, willing to say anything, do anything to save herself; then, that look on her face which came from nowhere. What was it that made her change in an instant? It was as if a demon had entered her. I watched it happen repeatedly in my head, but I couldn’t make sense of it.
When the Commissarius pronounced the sentence of “death by burning,” even the villagers seemed stunned. Osmanna’s knees buckled and her face turned the colour of parchment. She stood trembling, her eyes pleading for someone—anyone—to rescue her. The Commissarius paused, waiting for the full measure of his words to take root in her and for the gasps of the crowd to die away. Robert D’Acaster looked at Phillip and nodded. It was as if the two men already knew and approved the sentence. Then the Commissarius spoke again and the crowd held their breath.
“Agatha, there is a way you may be spared the flames. Make full and public confession of your heresy, leave the beguinage, and marry. Your excommunication shall be lifted and you shall receive the Host publicly before all; then you will live out your full span as an obedient wife and faithful daughter of the Church.”
Osmanna lifted her head with an expression of such abject relief and gratitude upon her young face it seemed she would have hugged him if her hands had not been tied. He was watching her closely and triumph flickered in his eyes.
“Like the father of the prodigal son, your father has been most generous and forgiving, Agatha. He has offered a fine gift to the Church as a penance for your sins and he has already found you a suitable husband, a widower who has nobly agreed to take you of his charity.”
The look of fear was subsiding on her face. Like a drowning man feeling a rope pulling him to the shore, she saw that her rescue was assured. If she had only replied then, all would have been well. She would have agreed to anything they demanded of her. I could see from her face that she would have gladly wed the foulest ass in Christendom if it pulled her from the flames.
But D’Acaster chose that moment to lumber from the dais. He lurched drunkenly towards her and clapped a heavy hand on Osmanna’s shoulder to steady himself. She almost buckled under his weight.
“Never fear, girl. Your betrothed’s well past his prime. Old age has dimmed his sight, so be grateful he won’t see your blemishes. And if he still has the filthy appetites of lust, he can always ride his whore-bride in the dark.”
The crowd shrieked with laughter and Osmanna, her cheeks scarlet, hung her head in shame. The shock of the sentence had left her thoroughly cowed and if he had led her out there and then, she’d have followed him, meek as a nun. But D’Acaster, encouraged by the laughter of the villagers, spun Osmanna round to face them. He stood behind her, his arm around her waist and his mouth against her neck. He grabbed a fistful of his daughter’s hair in his hand, jerking it up and down like a small boy playing ride-a-cock-horse.
For an instant she seemed to go rigid. Her eyes widened in horror, then her face became a mask of pure hatred. I have never seen such a look on any maid’s face, not even on a man’s before he plunges in a dagger. Those closest to her stopped laughing abruptly, as if they too realised that something had changed. Despite her wrists being tied she jerked her elbow back, striking her father in his belly with such viciousness that D’Acaster loosed his grip on her and staggered backwards, gasping and clutching his side. She whirled around to the Commissarius.
“I will not marry and I will not receive the Host. If you want my life, you take it. For I’d rather die and burn in Hell for all eternity than owe my life to that man you call my father.”
She spat out the words with such force that every man in the room seemed to have the breath knocked out of him.
D’Acaster lurched towards her again and gave her a resounding crack across her face with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling against the dais. The crowd let out their breath in a roar of approval.
“I’ll send you to Hell myself, m’lady I knew from the first day I clapped eyes on you that you’d come to this. You were born under the Demon star, Lilith’s star. That evil queen of the night, that loathsome hag who fouls our wine and water with her woman’s blood and steals men’s seed while they sleep. And that devil’s whore, that … that … demon harlot marked you as her own. I tried to rid myself of your curse by fire with my own hand. I tried to make you pure like your sisters, but God saw the whore you were in the cradle and branded you with your fate.”
He hauled her to her feet and, spinning her round once more to face the crowd, tore down the front of her kirtle and thrust her at the gawping men. Her right breast tumbled out, small, white, and perfect, but it was not that that the men were staring at. It was her left breast, or rather the place where it should have been. Instead of a breast there was a fist-sized hollow in her chest, covered by puckered skin, scarlet as an open wound—the mark of Saint Agatha. The church was abruptly silenced.
“There, do you see, do you see it?” D’Acaster urged them, thrusting Osmanna towards them. He was clearly not getting the reaction he expected. Men stared horrified at the breasts, then averted their eyes, embarrassed and unnerved.
No one moved. As if to break a spell, the Commissarius stood and gestured to the man who had brought Osmanna into court to take her away.
“Leave her alone to think a while. I’ve known many a heretic more obstinate than she come to their senses when they’ve had time to reflect upon the agonies that await them at the stake. Did not the blessed Saint Paul himself say it is better to marry than to burn?”
Father Ulfrid laughed dutifully, but no one else joined in. All were trying to leave the church as fast as they could struggle through the doorway. The Commissarius, bellowing for his young clerk to follow, swept from the dais. As he drew level with me he stopped and leant towards me, his lips almost brushing my ear.
“Do not think this matter will end with her, Mistress. Father Ulfrid may be a fool and easily deceived, but I am not. I know there is more to be uncovered here.”
He drew himself away from me and addressed Father Ulfrid loudly enough for any left in the church to hear.
“Beguines are pernicious tares sown by the Devil to destroy the order of man and God. It was women that destroyed the order in the Garden of Eden—Lilith, Adam’s first wife, refusing to lie beneath her husband, and Eve seducing Adam into forbidden knowledge. Now they are hell-bent on destroying the very priesthood itself, and with it the Holy Church and all Christendom. They will drag you to Hell with them if they can. I caution you not to suffer them to take root here, lest all you hold dear is destroyed and thrown in chaos.”
He stared back at me one last time then strode from the church, pushing men aside as he elbowed his way through the crowded doorway.
THE SHUTTERS RATTLED in the casement of the chapel. I thought of that cold prison where Osmanna was lying at this very moment. I tried to imagine her thoughts, the terrors that must be filling her head. Yet when I left her she hadn’t cried or pleaded. She had stood there, arms at her sides, watching the door close.
It wasn’t a calm resignation, more as if she was frozen, beyond speaking, hearing, or feeling. Her gaze had been empty, turned inwards on some revelation that seemed to consume her. I told the Marthas that I had spoken to her, but what in all truth had I really said? What could I have said? I should have told her to give up the life of a beguine and marry, but I had only to look at her to know that the argument was futile.
As for the sacrament, I’d urged her to take the Host before, in vain. Would my arguments have carried any more weight this time? And what if she had agreed to take the sacrament to save her life? If it had turned out to be a principle not worth dying for, a conviction not strong enough to sustain her through the flames, could I have persuaded her to that, knowing I would despise her for being so persuaded? Worse still, if it were to prove a belief so easily surrendered, then I had allowed the beguinage to be brought to this grave danger through nothing more than a young girl’s game. I would not, I could not, live with that.
Yet, if I couldn’t persuade her to recant, I should have strengthened her resolve. I should have comforted her. I should have told her that the fleeting pains of this fire would save her from the agonies of the eternal fires, that as a martyr she would rise straight to Heaven, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even convince myself that somewhere Heaven still existed. What if, after all, there was nothing and no one beyond the grave? If my prayers were not answered because there was no one to answer them? What if none of it mattered; if Host and wine, prayer and Mass, and everything we had worked for, had been nothing but mist blown away by the wind?
agatha
tHE LAUGHTER OF THE CROWD in the church roared in my head. Over and over I felt his hand yanking my hair, my head jerking back and forth, the heat of his groin against my buttocks, the trunk of his arm against my ribs pulling me tighter and tighter to his stinking, scalding breath. He crushed me into him until I couldn’t breathe as the hardness of his prick swelled up and uncoiled against me.
And still I didn’t understand the reason for my cold sweat of fear. I couldn’t put a name to the choking panic rising inside me until suddenly the reek of wild onion burst in my head and mingled with his sweat. And then I knew. I knew and I couldn’t wipe the knowledge from my mind. It was not the demon who raped me that night. It was him. My own father.
I’d been dragged back down into the tangle of his forest and nothing could lift me out. I stank of him and I couldn’t wash it off. I’d doused myself with the little water they gave me to drink. I scrubbed my skin with the coarsest straw I could find in the cell until my skin was raw, but still I smelt him, felt his damp paws gripping harder than a wolf’s bite. The stench of onion filled the cell, choking me. Even though the wind howled through the open bars I couldn’t gasp in enough air to breathe.
Fornication is the wickedest of sins, my father declared, but all along he had been the fornicator. He knew that night as he forced me down among the ramsons and the brambles exactly who it was he violated. He knew the next morning in his hall when he saw the marks on me. He knew when he hit me and called me a whore. He called me a whore. He made me feel filthy. He made me filthy. He put his seed inside and made me pregnant with his monstrous child. But he felt nothing, no guilt, not then and not since. The shame has all been mine and he will never feel it.
I scrubbed my lips until they bled, but the blood would not wash away the hundred child-kisses I was forced to give his mouth. Hating, hating him even then and feeling the guilt of Hell because of it. Evil child. Wicked child. Child of Satan. Honour thy father. Honour thy father the priest. Honour thy Father God. Obey them. Love them. And what is the duty of a father to a child? Beat it, chastise it, bend and break it to his will, and call it love. Then call the broken thing obedient, redeemed in blood. Is this what our Father God wants—the cringing, fawning, faithfulness of a whipped dog, the frightened tears of a child crying in the night? Does He pleasure Himself on our fear?
january
saint agnes’s eve
this night is the night for divination to discover your true love. this night too the hounds of the underworld howl, foretelling impending death or disaster.
beatrice
wHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING, WOMAN?” Pega grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from the jars.
I had almost finished. Nearly every jar and flask in the infirmary was bare and waiting for me to write on it in my hand. Just two left. I tried to struggle out of Pega’s grasp, but her grip was too strong. She was hurting me.
Kitchen Martha was standing staring down at the fragments of parchment on the floor. “All Healing Martha’s labels torn off. The notes in her books all ripped out. Why, Beatrice, why?”
I hadn’t heard them come in. I’d been too busy. Kitchen Martha sounded surprised, though I couldn’t imagine why.
“I have to write new ones.” I told her patiently. Kitchen Martha was so slow-witted. You had to explain the most obvious things to her.
She bit her lip, glancing at Pega. Then stroked my arm soothingly, as if she thought I needed comforting. “But, dear, now we don’t know what any of the herbs or cordials are.”
I prodded the torn pieces with my foot. “This was written by Healing Martha. And this and this. I couldn’t leave them like that. I have to organise the infirmary. Osmanna isn’t coming back, you know. So I’m the Martha now. I must write everything myself or no one will know that it’s mine.”
“If this is you in charge, God help us,” Pega snapped. “Why didn’t you do it one jar at time? How you going to fathom what’s what now?”
I stared at her. Pega wasn’t making any sense. You had to get rid of all the old ones and start afresh. How could you write your own labels when you could still see the old ones? They wouldn’t be yours; they’d just be copies of hers.
A cart rattled across the courtyard, answered by the cries of half a doze
n voices raised in alarm. Pega was at the door before me. Tutor Martha was being lifted down from the cart. Her head lolled against Shepherd Martha’s shoulder and her eyes were half closed. They were both splattered with mud and filth. Pega swept Tutor Martha up and carried her into the infirmary. Shepherd Martha and several of the women followed.
Merchant Martha remained sitting, hunched like a crow, on top of the cart, with the reins in her hand. She didn’t seem to have noticed the cart had stopped. She too was covered in muck, as if she had been pelted in the stocks. A rotting cabbage stalk was caught in the folds of her cloak. They should never have gone into town risking their lives for that little slut, Osmanna. She was the one the crowd should have been pelting and with rocks too, not cabbages. There was a small shallow cut on Merchant Martha’s forehead, oozing a watery blood. I put my hand on hers; it felt death cold.
“You’re hurt, Merchant Martha. Let me help you into the infirmary.”
Merchant Martha looked up, almost startled to see me, and rapped my hand away.
“I must speak to Servant Martha at once. Where is she?”
“But your head’s bleeding. You must let me see to it first. It will fester if it isn’t dressed. It’s my responsibility.”
She put her hand up and touched the place, staring at the smear of blood on her fingers in surprise. “It’s nothing; don’t fuss, Beatrice.” Merchant Martha pushed me aside and clambered down impatiently. “Where’s Servant Martha?”
“In the chapel, I think.” She never seemed to be anywhere else these days. “But you have to let me make you better—”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she shook out her cloak and strode in the direction of the chapel.
In the infirmary, the beguines were clustered around Tutor Martha. “One of the village men grabbed me here.” She passed a hand vaguely in the direction of her breasts.