I strode out into the courtyard. Gate Martha hurried along in my wake. The gate was wide open and a throng of people jostled on the threshold, mostly men but there were a few women among them. Two of the men had even pushed their way inside.

“Why didn’t you lock the gate and make them wait outside?”

Gate Martha made some vague gesture towards the crowd. “Too many of them. They pushed against it and wouldn’t let me shut it.”

“Then why open it in the first place?”

“Said they’d sick, Servant Martha, and I thought…”

I would have words with her later about what she thought.

A little knot of beguines huddled to one side of the gate. They seemed unwilling or unable to do anything, but Osmanna stood with her back to me directly in front of the men. She appeared to be remonstrating with them, though I couldn’t make out what she was saying above the mutterings of the crowd. Whatever the girl’s faults, at least she’d the mettle to challenge them. Courage often walks with stubbornness. But what she was saying was having little effect; the crowd was jeering. Suddenly Beatrice broke from the group of beguines and pushed her way in front of Osmanna, her fists clenched in fury.

“What are you asking Osmanna for?” she shrieked. “Don’t you know she doesn’t believe in the sacraments? She thinks the Host is no more holy than the crusts you throw to your pigs. She says faith is all you need to save you. So where are your Owl Masters? You’ve got faith aplenty in them, haven’t you? You don’t need a mouldy piece of bread.”

“Beatrice!” I grabbed her and tried to drag her back, but she jerked away from me, screaming at the men.

“Don’t you know the fever has gone? You sacrificed an innocent girl to stop it, so it must be so. If your children are still sick, go and ask your Owl Masters why. Go ask your priest. They murdered her. They promised you her death would rid you of the fever. Why come to us? Don’t you know we sent you the fever? Do you want us to send you something worse? Get out! Get out!”

Beatrice raised her right hand, the fingers spread like claws pointed towards them. For a moment they held their ground, then as one they turned and ran. She slammed the gate behind them and sagged against it, visibly shaking. Gate Martha hurried up and swung the beam across the gate.

The beguines clustered around Beatrice, stroking and soothing her, patting her, praising her for sending the villagers packing. They were all smiling and joking in their relief. It was hard to know whether Beatrice was laughing hysterically or crying.

The only one who didn’t move was Osmanna. She stood where Beatrice had pushed her. She was deathly white, her eyes wide with fear and shock. We stared at each other in silence. I knew she wanted me to reassure her, to tell her that no one would take any notice of what Beatrice had said. Her eyes were pleading with me to say that the villagers wouldn’t understand.

I knew what she wanted me to say, but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t lie, not even to comfort her. I felt the blood draining from my own face. I turned away. Beatrice was still being congratulated and comforted. Had she any idea what mischief she had just done? There was no undoing her words. All we could do now was wait and pray.

ulfrid was an englishman who tried to convert the people of sweden by preaching against paganism. in 1028, after chopping up a statue of thor with an axe, he was lynched and his body thrown into a marsh.

tHE BISHOP’S COMMISSARIUS STOOD on a mounting block peering in through the single slit window of the village jail. Ulewic’s jail was not a large one, but then it didn’t need to be, for it contained no furniture. It consisted of nothing more than a round, reed-thatched room, built of stone, much the same size and shape as the Manor dovecote. At present it had only one occupant, although it could accommodate three or four men-six or eight, if they were forced to stand pressed together.

The jail boasted a stout wooden door and a narrow barred window set too high in the wall for a prisoner to see out or anyone to look in unless, like the Commissarius, they were standing on something. The bars on the window were unnecessary, for only a starving cat could have squeezed through the small gap between the thick stones, but its builders had taken no chances. No one would escape their stronghold.

The Commissarius’s expression betrayed nothing as he stared down into the cell. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was grey and heavy, as if it was already twilight, and it must have been even darker inside the cell.

“We didn’t know when to expect you, Commissarius,” I said, still breathless from having run from my cottage. “If I’d known you were arriving today, I would have had the bailiff waiting here with the key. But I can send for him now if-”

“That will not be necessary. I have seen all I wish to see.” He sprang nimbly to the ground. “We are on our way to speak with Lord D’Acaster.” He beckoned to a thin round-shouldered youth who hunched miserably against the wall of the jail, blowing on his blue-knuckled hands. “Take the mounting block back to the inn, boy; I will speak to Father Ulfrid in private before we ride on to the Manor. You may bring our mounts to the church and wait for me there-outside!”

The lad nodded vigorously as if he wanted to leave no doubt that he would carry out the instructions to the letter. He started off in such haste that he stumbled over the wooden mounting block as he tried to pick it up.

The Commissarius booted him up the backside as he tried to get up, which sent the lad sprawling over the block again, but his master ignored the boy’s yelp of pain and, turning, strode away in the direction of the church.

I had waited for this moment for days. I’d hardly been able to sleep or eat, thinking about it. It was as if the heavens had opened and the Holy Grail itself had fallen straight into my lap. First the witch-girl had come wandering straight into our hands, and now this. It was as if everything I did was suddenly blessed by God. Finally, finally, He had turned the tide my way. God had kept faith with me. I had been cast into a pit and thought myself abandoned, but God had remembered me in Egypt and was about to bring me forth.

I had prayed for the relic and instead I received something far better-a heretic. That prize was surely enough to cancel out any transgression I had committed in the Bishop’s eyes. I would soon be back in the comfort of the Cathedral at Norwich; then the Owl Masters could do what they liked with this shit-hole of a village; it would be far behind me.

The church was dark, for little light penetrated the coloured fragments of the stained glass windows. Only the ruby glow of the eternal lamp above the altar stood out from the shadows, but it illuminated nothing. The Commissarius prowled around, peering into the vestry and bell tower to assure himself that the church was empty. Finally he slid onto one of the stone seats which lined the walls where the old or weak rested during the services.

The wall behind him was painted with the Harrowing of Hell. I could not make out the figures in the gloom, save for the gold of the halo above the head of Christ, but I knew it well enough. Christ standing before the prison of Hades in His winding sheet, breaking the prison door down and offering release to the dead who crowded behind it. It seemed to me in that moment the most blessed of omens, that the Commissarius should have chosen to sit before that painting of redemption and liberation. His first words were also grat-ifyingly comforting.