Karen Mailand - The Owl Killers

“Get out, you little whore,” I shouted. “Get out and leave me alone. I never want to see you again. I mean it this time.”

“You don’t mean it; you know you don’t. You’ve said it a hundred times before and each time you’ve come crawling back. You can’t help yourself. But you need to be careful, Ulfrido. One day you might say it and I’ll take you at your word.”

I lunged towards the bed. “You bitch, you-”

The door handle turned and the door rattled as someone shook it. But it was locked and bolted. There was a loud hammering. I froze, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure it could be heard through the walls.

The banging came again, this time more urgently. “Father Ulfrid, come quick!”

I recognised the voice at once; it was old Lettice. If she’d seen Hilary come to my door, the news would be all round the village before dawn.

The sweat on my body suddenly turned cold. I was horribly aware that I was naked. I groped frantically about me for my clothes, but I couldn’t remember where Hilary had tossed them. I was too frightened to move in case in the dark I blundered into the furniture and knocked something over. Could Lettice have heard me shouting from outside the door?

The hammering came again. “It’s poor Ellen, Father Ulfrid, Giles’s mam; she’s fair lost her wits. Crying fit to cause the flood, but she’ll give no reason. Says she’ll tell only you, Father. Giles could calm her right enough, but he’ll be in the forest with the rest of the men and I daren’t go in there, not tonight of all nights. But you could fetch him, Father… Father Ulfrid?”

Neither Hilary nor I moved. We waited, hardly daring to breathe. Then finally, after what seemed like an hour, I heard footsteps moving away from the door, then passing the shuttered window, then silence. Even so, I didn’t dare move for several minutes, afraid that she’d still be standing in the street watching the cottage for signs of life.

“God’s blood, where are my clothes? I can’t find my fucking clothes. Where did you throw them?” I was on the floor now, groping round blindly in the dark.

I felt my priest’s habit thrust silently into my hands.

We both dressed rapidly, fumbling with fastenings and knots in the darkness. The desperate panic to be clothed again served only to increase the heat in the room; sweat was running down my face. My robes stuck to my body as I tried to pull them on. I couldn’t find my hose, so I thrust my bare feet into my shoes. Neither of us spoke. I knew Hilary was as terrified of being found here as I was of anyone discovering us together.

I crossed to the door and listened. Nothing. But we couldn’t afford to take any chances. I grabbed Hilary by the arm and we stumbled to the rear door leading out to the yard. There was a small wicket gate at the back. The moon shone full on the glistening flagstones. I prayed that the shadows of the cottages would be enough to conceal Hilary from curious eyes.

As I turned back towards the house, I felt a swift hot kiss on my lips. Too late I turned, desperate to respond, but Hilary was already at the gate. I felt the loneliness burn more sharply, in that one kiss snatched away, than if the kiss had never been given. I knew I would go crawling back. I always did. I couldn’t help myself.

“I didn’t mean it,” I whispered urgently. “Forgive me, my angel. Please forgive me. I love you.” But the gate had already closed.

I returned to my empty room. The night’s breeze gusted into the cottage catching up the smell of us, the acrid sweat, the sweet-salt smell on stained bedclothes, the lingering trace of sandalwood from Hilary’s clothes. In the faint owl-light that filled the room from the open door, I thought I saw Hilary lying there still; the soft black curls of hair; the sloe black eyes dancing with mocking laughter; the full red mouth, open just enough to show the white teeth that bit upon my lip, sometimes gently, sometimes so fiercely I could taste the blood in my mouth.

This time it was me I slapped, hard, hitting my face over and over again to try to stop the awful ache that was stirring and swelling again in my groin, the demon I could not control.

Suddenly I hated Hilary, more than any man can hate anything, for making me plead, for making me into this creature I loathed and despised. I wished with all my heart that my dark angel had never been created, so that I would never have been tempted, never fallen, never sunk to this. I had never made love to anyone else, but even now, as I stood there at the foot of my empty ravaged bed, I knew that Hilary would soon be lying in the bed of another. I’d known it from the first. I’d known again and again every time we slept together that there were others, and there would always be others. The thought made me sick. I wanted to whip, to beat, to tear, to rape, over and over again, until Hilary screamed and begged me for mercy. And I would grant no mercy. I would go on until there was nothing left except a bloody pulp, but I knew even that would not be enough to kill my love.

iRAN FROM THE CLEARING, but the brambles were clutching at my skirts, dragging me back. I couldn’t find the path. I didn’t know if I was running towards the village or deeper into the forest. Taranis was here. The demon was here in the forest. I’d felt it. I’d seen the great black shadow of its wings hovering high above the smoke and flames of the burning saint. Now I could feel its foul breath hot on the back of my neck. It was so dark. I tried to run faster, but I kept blundering into trees and stumbling over roots.

Then it came crashing down on me, catching me from behind, slamming my belly against the trunk of a fallen tree, forcing me down. My face was pressed into the dirt. I couldn’t breathe. Rotting leaves filled my mouth. The stench of decay was forced into my nostrils. Its hot naked thighs were grinding my hip bones bloody against the rough bark. My ribs were cracking under the millstone of its chest. I grabbed wildly at earth and air and brambles, not comprehending what I tore, except that it wasn’t its skin, its wings, its eyes.

Wild onion is always in the forest, a sleeping thing, a harmless thing, but now, crushed and bruised, the stench of onions choked the air. A sea wind roared inside my skull. Though every sinew of my body howled and sobbed, my mouth was silent. My mouth was filled, crammed, stuffed to overflowing with the corruption of the forest. My lungs were clawing for breath against my will, because I wanted to die. I wanted to crawl into the dirt and bury myself among the worms. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. My body wasn’t mine anymore.

The monster wrenched my hair violently back as if it reined in a mare. It jerked my head back and forth as if it would snap my neck and make an end of it. But it made no end. Its iron flesh hammered my bones to the tree, again and again and again, until it had pierced me through. And then it was gone and I lay alone in the darkness.

the third and last of the beltane fire days and the eve of rood day. on this day, byres are covered with honeysuckle and rowan to protect the beasts from witches.

i POUNDED MY FIST ON THE TABLE. “God’s teeth, this time you’ve gone too far!”

Phillip D’Acaster, by way of response, settled himself more comfortably in my favourite chair, an expression of disdainful amusement on his face.

I struggled to keep my temper. “When I heard you’d taken Giles, I thought you were going to give him a beating. At worst, brand him. But as a priest I cannot be expected to countenance murder.”