The Medieval Murderers: The False Virgin

Mildryth woke with a start, thinking the door had opened and her mistress had returned, but the room was empty. A gust of wind again rattled the door and shutters, and she realised it was that which had woken her. The fire had burned so low it was little more than glowing embers. She hastened to put more kindling on it and blow it into life. Beornwyn should surely have been back by now, especially with a storm rising. If the wind was this strong down in the valley in the lee of the hill, it would be a hundred times worse where St Oswald’s church was perched, on the highest spot above the sea.

Mildryth laid the altar cloth aside and crossed to the door. She opened it a little trying to peer out into the darkness, but the wind snatched it from her hand and flung it wide. Putting her weight against it, the bondmaid forced it shut. She stood with her back against the door, gnawing her lip. Her mistress couldn’t struggle home alone in this wind. Suppose she slipped and hurt herself, or a tree came crashing down?

She hesitated. Beornwyn had given strict instructions she wasn’t to be interrupted. She needed absolute peace and solitude to draw close to God. Mildryth had heard tales of men and women who’d been disturbed while they were sending their souls out among the spirits, and their souls had not been able to return to their bodies. They had woken from their meditations as the walking dead, never to return to life.

But surely the noise of the wind in the trees would have already disturbed Beornwyn’s meditations. A long low rumble of thunder banished any uncertainty in Mildryth’s mind. Her mistress hadn’t even taken a lantern to guide her way home on such a dark night. She must go and help her.

Mildryth swiftly rewrapped the altar cloth and replaced it in the chest before lighting a horned lantern with a taper from the fire. She picked up a long sharp hunting knife and slipped it into her belt. If the Vikings came, she would feel better knowing she had something she could use to defend herself. She swaddled herself in an old patched mantle and once again wrestled with the door, having to set the lantern down and drag the door with both hands to close it against the wind.

There was no one about at this late hour. Even the hounds had taken shelter, and besides, they knew the villagers too well to bark at any with a familiar scent. The main gate in the high fence around the village would be barred now, and the watchman hunkered down behind it, trying to keep warm. But Beornwyn always came and went at night using a place in the fence behind the mead hall where several planks had been worked loose by some of the village boys who used that route to sneak in and out in defiance of their elders. It was invisible unless you knew where to find it. Mildryth found the spot and crawled through.

As she laboured up the track to St Oswald’s church, the trees were bending low and the night was so dark it made her eyes ache trying to peer into it. Twigs and last year’s dried leaves were dashed against her face, stinging her skin. Several times her heart thudded in her throat as she thought she saw men running towards her between the trunks, but it was only the shadows of branches whipping back and forth in the dim yellow glow of the lantern. She drew the mantle tighter about her face and struggled on up the hill, though the wind was pushing her back with every step. Every so often she stopped and cast about with the lantern in case her mistress was lying hurt somewhere. But soon she realised it was futile. First find out if Beornwyn was still in the church, then if she was not, Mildryth could make a thorough search.

The wind was gusting even more fiercely on the top of the rise. The church reared up in front of her and she struggled into the shelter of it. In the lee of its walls, the wind was considerably lighter, though as it tore through the branches of the trees on either side, the noise was so loud that an army might have been marching within feet of her and Mildryth would not have heard them.

She hesitated, then lifted the latch on the door and pushed it open, shutting it quickly behind her. The shutters of the church rattled and the flame of a single fat candle on the altar guttered wildly, then righted itself as the draught died away.

Mildryth edged forward, keeping the lantern low to the floor for fear that the light might startle her mistress from her meditation and cause her harm. As she did so, she thought she saw something long and pale lying in front of the stone altar. She stopped and slowly raised the lantern. A wolfskin was stretched out on the ground, next to a basket of meats, bread and cheese, and a flagon with two gold-rimmed horn beakers placed next to it. A woman was lying on the wolfskin. She was naked. Her long mousy-brown hair had been loosened from her plaits and fell in waves over her breast. Her face was half hidden, cradled on her bare arm and, judging by the steady rise and fall of her ribs beneath the milky skin, she was sleeping soundly.

Mildryth was so dumbfounded she could scarcely take in the scene. She stood swaying back and forth on her heels until at last a single word forced its way from her mouth.

‘Beornwyn!’

The girl gave a slight wriggle and sleepily opened her eyes. For a moment she stared up at Mildryth, almost lazily as if she thought she was someone else. Then she gave a stifled cry of recognition and sat upright.

‘I… I gave orders I was on no account to be disturbed. How dare you follow me here?’ She scrambled to her feet, her face flushed.

‘The wind… it was strong… a storm’s coming,’ Mildryth said. ‘When you hadn’t returned I feared you were lying hurt somewhere.’

Slowly, slowly the meaning of what she was seeing was beginning to take form in her mind. ‘I thought… I thought every night you’d been coming here to pray. You told me you were keeping vigil, praying that you might remain a virgin of Christ. But you’re not praying…’

She stared at the two beakers arranged beside the flagon, at the meats, at the naked breasts of her mistress. ‘You’ve been with someone. Who? Who have you been meeting here?’

Beornwyn came towards her, her chin lifted. ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you, a bondmaid. What business is it of yours who I meet?’

‘But you want to be a nun, that’s all you’ve ever wanted. You told me. You told me you didn’t want to be married to Aethelbald. It’s all been a lie!’ Mildryth wailed.

‘I can assure you, it most certainly is the truth that I don’t want to marry that snake Aethelbald, because… because I am in love with another. There, does that satisfy you?’

‘Who? Who are you in love with?’ Mildryth demanded furiously. ‘You are sworn to Christ!’

Beornwyn hesitated. She had the grace to look a little abashed, but the expression stayed on her face only for a moment before she lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Cynwulf, son of the thane Oswy. He is the man I love. I cannot help myself.’

‘But his father is the man your father branded a traitor and coward.’

Beornwyn nodded. ‘Now do you see why I must meet him in secret? Do you really think my father would accept Cynwulf as a son-in-law? What else could I do? I have to be with him. I cannot give him up.’

Mildryth took a pace back, holding her hands up in front of her as if she were trying to push the knowledge away. ‘All this time I thought you were preparing to be a nun, all this time I thought you were so holy… and you’ve been meeting him… no, not just meeting him, you’ve been sleeping with him in this very church. I thought you were a virgin, but you’re nothing but a fornicator, a sinner, wicked, wicked-’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Beornwyn stepped swiftly forward and slapped Mildryth hard across the cheek. ‘I love Cynwulf. I have always loved him and I will always be faithful to him, as if I was his true wife, which I am in all things but name.’