“Who gave you the right to physic Healing Martha?” Beatrice snapped. “You know no more than the rest of us-a great deal less, I should think. Healing Martha was the only one with the skill to mend others and now she has neither the wit nor speech to tell anyone how to heal her.”
Catherine made a little high-pitched sound like a puppy whimpering. She stared towards the infirmary, her eyes brimming, her hands shaking helplessly by her sides.
Beatrice put a protective arm around her. “This child is in no state to work; her hands are like ice. I’m taking her inside to get warm-otherwise she’ll be ill herself. And we don’t want to tax Osmanna with another patient, do we?” she added, glowering at me.
Beatrice gently guided Catherine out of the barn and across the yard. And as the rain wetted her again, the dried blood on Catherine’s hands began to run and dripped from her fingers into the puddles as she walked.
Pega sighed. “Looks like it’s just you and me, lass. Come on, grab the skin.”
We carried the heavy skin across to the vat and edged it in, trying not to splash ourselves with the lime.
“You seen aught of Servant Martha since the night of the storm?” Pega asked, her gaze fixed on the delicate task of sliding the skin in without touching the burning liquid.
“I don’t think she’s left her room. She let me bind up her arm, but she didn’t speak. She just sat, staring at the wall, and there was such a strange expression on her face, as if she’d seen…”
“A demon?” Pega finished.
I glanced up at Pega to see if she was taunting me, but for once I could see she was serious.
I nodded.
“The Owlman,” Pega said gravely. “Servant Martha didn’t believe in him afore, but I reckon she does now. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known, but I tell you when she staggered towards us out of the storm she looked near to broken, as if she’d been put to the rack.”
“Have you… have you ever seen the Owlman, Pega?”
Pega shook her head vehemently. “No, and I don’t want to. My grandam told me the last time he flew, though it was years before she was born, the Owlman caught a villager in his talons one night and carried the man right up to the church tower. Still alive he was. They heard him crying for help as he was carried over the cottages. He was still screaming from the tower for hours after, but no man dared to go up to rescue him. Then at the darkest hour the screams stopped and in the morning, there was a pile of bones lying beneath the church tower, picked clean, but still bloody. They say-”
“Shepherd Martha told me of the sheep.” We both started violently as a voice rang out from the door. Servant Martha, looking almost as wet as she had that night, strode across to us, limping slightly. She threw back her sodden hood and peered into the vat. She still looked deathly pale. There were dark hollows around her eyes and she cradled her arm protectively.
“Servant Martha! I didn’t expect… Are you feeling better?” I asked.
She looked down at me. “You attended to my arm most efficiently, Osmanna. I’ve no doubt it will fully recover.” Her tone was brittle. “Where are the others? I understood Beatrice and Catherine were assisting you with this task.”
“Beatrice took Catherine inside,” Pega replied. “State little lass was in, she was no use to man nor beast. This business with Healing Martha has scared her half to death. Others too.”
“I do understand Healing Martha’s condition has distressed them, Pega. I am not entirely blind or deaf. And I acknowledge that I am at fault in not speaking to all the beguines immediately. But I needed time to… pray.” The crisp voice suddenly faltered. Servant Martha swallowed hard, as if she was trying to choke back an emotion she would not permit herself to betray. “It was hard… difficult.”
Pega gripped Servant Martha’s shoulder. “Whatever you saw in the woods that night, you can speak of it. You needn’t be afeared folks’ll not believe you.”
“I don’t know what I saw… The lightning… The raven… I can’t…” Servant Martha closed her eyes tightly. She seemed to be trying desperately to shut something out. Then she took a deep breath and drew herself upright.
“There is a great deal of work to be done. These floods will cause severe hardship in the village, but then I do not need to tell you that, Pega. We must offer every assistance.” She nodded curtly to Pega then to me, and walked towards the barn door, a little more slowly and stiffly than she had done when she entered. As she pulled her hood back over her head, she turned.
“At this testing time, Osmanna, all the beguines must be of one mind and one purpose to support one another. Strength in the community is forged by us partaking of the one holy bread. We must lay aside our own spiritual quests and strive for unity. The Mass on Sunday will be said both in gratitude for God’s mercy in sparing Healing Martha and to pray for her recovery. I know how much you want to see Healing Martha restored to full health and strength, Osmanna, and therefore I trust you will demonstrate as much on Sunday-to everyone.”
Servant Martha ducked under the waterfall cascading from the barn roof and disappeared out into the driving rain.
Despite the cold, I felt my cheeks burning. I turned away, trying to hide my face by pulling stray shreds of flesh from the remaining hide.
“That woman never uses one word if she can torment ten,” Pega muttered. “Why doesn’t she just tell you she wants you to take the Host?” I could feel her looking down at me, just as Servant Martha had done.
“There’s a few not coming forward to take the Host now that you’ve refused. But I’d not have thought you’d be the one to disapprove of a woman leading the Mass, Osmanna. Beatrice, now-she’s different. There’s always been a rub between her and Servant Martha. But I’d have wagered you for one who’d have had your heart set on doing it yourself someday.”
“Is that what you think?” I blazed. “That I’m refusing the Host, because the Church says it’s forbidden?”
“Isn’t it?”
I stared at her. “You know it’s not. You know none of the women think that.”
She shrugged. “How am I to know why you’re refusing it? You talk about it to others, but you’ve never explained it to me.”
“I didn’t think you’d be interested in anything I’ve got to say. I’m D’Acaster’s daughter, don’t forget. I thought you hated all our family.”
“You’re D’Acaster’s brat all right.” She held up her webbed hand. “You think because I’ve got this, I’m as thick as pig shit, an ignorant whore who can’t read or reason.”
“You’re not stupid, Pega, far from it. You’re so clever you can take anyone’s words and twist them up into a rope to hang them. You want to know why I don’t talk to you? It’s because this is too important to me to have you ridicule it, like you do everything else.”
Pega flinched. For the first time ever I saw pain in her eyes. She dropped the edge of the hide and wiped her hand across her face, leaving a glistening smear of blood and grease on her forehead.
“Aye well, maybe it’s true,” she said softly. “But you learn to do that. Sometimes words are all you’ve got to defend yourself. I’m strong, yes, but still no match for a strapping work-hardened man. You think I wouldn’t have got beaten to shit a hundred times over, if I’d not learned how to turn a drunk and make him laugh? Becomes a habit after a while, but it doesn’t mean I…” She looked away.
I fingered the sticky wetness of the hide, hating what I just said and the hurt on her face. I wished that she’d come back with one of her barbed taunts, but I knew she wouldn’t.
“Ralph gave me a book called The Mirror of Simple Souls,” I told her. I’d never told anyone. “It was written by a beguine in France. I don’t understand some of it, but she writes things I’ve never heard Servant Martha say. Wonderful things. That a soul who truly loves God does not need to seek Him through sacraments. Pega, I know Servant Martha is right when she says we don’t need a priest or the Church; we can take the sacraments for ourselves. But the book says why do we need the sacraments at all? Servant Martha is just making another church. It is ten times better than Father Ulfrid’s church, but why can’t each one of us just speak to God for ourselves?”