© 2009

the beguinage

SERVANT MARTHA Flemish leader of the beguines.

HEALING MARTHA Elderly physician and Servant Martha’s oldest friend.

MERCHANT MARTHA Sharp-tongued trader for the beguinage.

GATE MARTHA A dour local beguine.

KITCHEN MARTHA Flemish cook.

BEATRICE Flemish beguine.

PEGA Local beguine, giantess, and ex-prostitute.

CATHERINE Teenage local beguine.

the manor

AGATHA/OSMANNA Youngest of Robert D’Acaster’s three daughters.

ROBERT D’ACASTER Lord of the Manor and father of AGATHA and her twin elder sisters, ANNE and EDITH.

PHILLIP D’ACASTER Lord Robert’s nephew and steward.

the village of ulewic

FATHER ULFRID Parish priest.

GILES Serf and son of ELLEN, his aged mother.

JOHN Village blacksmith.

LETTICE Elderly widow and village gossip.

ALDITH Mother to little son OLIVER.

1st Family

PISSPUDDLE Village child.

WILLIAM Pisspuddle’s tormenting older brother.

ALAN Father of Pisspuddle and William.

MAM Mother of Pisspuddle and William.

2nd Family

RALPH Father to MARION and her two brothers.

JOAN Ralph’s wife.

outsiders

OLD GWENITH Local healer and cunning woman, or wise woman.

GUDRUN Old Gwenith’s granddaughter.

ANDREW Young female anchorite.

FRANCISCAN FRIAR Friend and protector to the anchorite Andrew.

BISHOP’S COMMISSARIUS Envoy from the Bishop of Norwich.

HILARY Friend of Father Ulfrid.

gILES KNEW THEY’D COME FOR HIM, sooner or later. He didn’t know where or when, he didn’t know what his punishment would be, but he knew that there would be one. A dead owl had been left in front of his door in the middle of the night. He hadn’t heard them leave it; you never did. But at daybreak when he left his cottage to work in the Manor’s fields, he had found it there, sodden from the night’s rain. It was their sign, their warning.

He had buried the owl quickly, before his mother could see it. He didn’t want her to know what was coming. She was too old and frail, had seen too many tragedies in her life to bear the strain of yet another. But from then on he had waited, waited for a hood to be thrown over him from behind as he pissed against a tree, waited for a quarterstaff to crack down on the back of his head as he walked down the track, waited to be dragged from his bed in the night. They might take him from the forest or from the tavern or from the church. They might take him in the early morning or in the evening or in the middle of the day. However much you stayed on your guard, somewhere, at some hour, the Owl Masters would find you. All you could do was wait.

He had thought about running; of course he had. He’d come close to doing it more than once. But a serf could not leave without his lord’s consent. And even if, by some miracle, he did make it safely to a town where he could lie low for a year until he was declared a free man, he knew they would take revenge on his mother. And if they didn’t, Lord D’Acaster surely would.

But it had been weeks now since the dead owl had been left at Giles’s door, and when the sun was shining, he was able to convince himself that the Owl Masters wouldn’t come after all. He knew he had been a fool to bed the maid after D’Acaster had given his permission for her to wed another. But the girl was married now and they had not been near each other since. Wasn’t their separation punishment enough? He tried to tell himself the Owl Masters would be satisfied with that, but in the long dark hours of night, as he lay awake tensing at every sound, he knew in his guts they would not.

And now, tonight, they were finally here, crowded into the tiny room, their faces hidden behind their feathered owl masks, their clothes concealed beneath long brown cloaks. For an instant he was almost relieved, almost wanted them to get it over with, but then blind fear seized him and it was all he could do to stop himself falling to his knees and howling for mercy.

His mother was standing in front of him trying to shield him, as she had often stood between him and his bellowing father when he was a small boy. Then he had cowered behind her skirts, but now he moved her gently aside. Better he push her away than them. He could do it tenderly; they would not, and he didn’t want to hear her old bones crack. Listening to her sobs was torture enough.

“Please, Sirs, please don’t take him. He’s all I’ve got. I’ll starve without him. Merciful heaven have pity… Take me instead. I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t hurt my boy, I beg you.” Her swollen twisted fingers gripped Giles’s sleeve as if she could physically wrest him from their grasp.