The Village 3

(i)

 

With night came a thunderstorm. Rain beat the thatched roofs of the dwellings and turned the village square into mud. Pigs and dogs wandered through the market place. The great oak tree that stood at the
gateway to the forest creaked and groaned.

 

Men of faith laboured through the night to construct a solid enclosure at
the village entrance. They drove timber frames into the sodden earth
and fixed thick branches as cross pieces. It was a weak barrier but a
barrier all the same. When they had finished they returned to their
dwellings, fearing the devil was about to appear.

 

Mattie watched them from behind her doorway. The child was asleep, wrapped in swaddling. When the men were out of sight she too crossed the square, this time in the direction of the gaol.

 

She was sodden and her skirt was heavy with mud when she arrived. Her father was asleep, covered in the dank straw. She lit a tallow candle and emptied the basket before him. He stirred and pulled angrily at his
chains.

 

Fully roused, he began to eat. His teeth - blackened, the gums raw – had been causing him pain. Every so often he took a long drink of ale and massaged his cheeks.

 

Why had the villagers been summoned to church ? he asked.

 

Mattie shook her head.

 

Had she sold anything to the Reeve ? Had he given her money ?

 

Hidden in her skirt was a coin. She pulled it out and gave it to her father.

 

Tired, he left the food and lay down in the straw. She covered him with a
piece of sackcloth. Her father said: ‘Be on your way.’

 

Covering her head with her shawl she went outside. The rain was heavier now and her feet sank into freezing pools of water. As she ran she heard quiet lamentations from the houses all around.

 

Mattie stopped outside the ill-fitting door. She knew that somebody was
inside her dwelling. She sensed danger. Yet still she entered.

 

The fire had dwindled. The child moved in its sleep. She took a single
step forward and felt an intruder’s hands around her waist.

 

His hand, wounded and bound by a piece of muslin, moved over her breasts to her mouth. Playfully, she bit into the bandage. As she did so her shawl was removed and her skirts pulled down.

 

She didn’t struggle. When he bent her forward and eased himself into
her, she groaned, fell to kneeling, and held her body steady.

 

It was soon over. He broke away from her and began to rummage for food.

 

Mattie lay still. She watched him – the father of her child - in the fire’s low light. He was bearded, strong and tall – an outsider, a peasant from one of the neighbouring villages. He rarely spoke. Whether this was in response to her affliction or out of habit, she didn’t know.

 

She remained on the floor, watching him drink ale from a leather pouch.
He had fallen upon her in the forest the previous spring. Mattie was
checking her traps. He made himself known and crept up on her from
behind the trees. She giggled at the game. And afterwards, when she
realised one of her traps had given up two rabbits, he sat beside her
and watched as she skinned them and placed them in her sack.

 

He soon fell on her again and her belly grew. Mattie’s father had struck
her and vowed to kill the man responsible. But the prospect of a son and heir mellowed his temper. When the child was born Mattie’s father doted on it, proclaiming that the boy would be a leader of men, strong enough to reclaim land in the name of common folk. And when, at market, Mattie pointed at the man responsible, her father took him aside and fell into talk.

 

Mattie’s lover drank his fill and returned to her. He lay beside her and began to explore her body with his hands. His brow was beaded with sweat; the pads of his fingers like hot coals. His eyes, glazed and red,
seemed to burn in their sockets.

 

Her thoughts drifted to the fence she had seen in the moonlight as she
ran back from the gaol. Why had a fence been put up ? To keep out her
lover ? She smiled at the thought. Wyclyffe, the priest, was always telling the village girls to be vigilant...was always telling them to lock their doors so as to disavow mortal sin.

 

Bored with his explorations, the bearded man pulled himself up and went over to the child. Mattie lay still. The child moved and gave a faint
cry. Mattie, roused by a sense of danger, got up and hissed.

 

The man laughed and went out into the darkness. She watched him walk in the heavy rain across the deserted market place in the direction of the gaol. Now she was sad to be alone.

 

The child began to cry. She picked it up and offered it her breast. Her
stomach burned and she felt cold. As she rocked her child she sang a
silent hymn, a hymn that thanked Christ for His mercy toward them.

 

 

 

(ii)

 

The storm continued. ‘This is a good sign’, thought the Reeve. ‘The
infected air is being cleansed with water.’

 

He was standing at an upstairs window. A month had passed since he’d
confined his family to the manor house. The boy, he knew, was growing
restless. Despite its great size the house was becoming oppressive. The child needed fresh air in his lungs. But the Reeve was still loathe to run the risk of contamination. Only when the planets had aligned would it be safe to venture out again.

 

From the window he saw the mute girl. He leaned close to the glass and
squinted. She was walking towards the manor house carrying her basket. The basket was uncovered. Thomas Blanford snarled. He had
insisted that she cover any food that she brought to him. He went
downstairs, cursing.

 

As he waited for her to arrive he thought of the girl’s father, tethered
to the wall of the village gaol. As acting magistrate he was obliged to oversee the wretched man’s trial. There was no doubt of the man’s guilt. A villein, he had reneged on his duties to the lord of the manor, the abbot, and stolen produce marked for the abbot’s table. Then he had fled to a neighbouring parish where he fell into further mischief, stealing from the market place and raising a hue and cry. When the villagers realised he did not belong in their parish, they sent him back in chains to face his punishment.

 

That punishment would have to wait until order had been re-established in the world. A keen astronomer, the Reeve had calculated that a
planetary conjunction was imminent and this re-ordering of the universe would signal the passing of God’s distemper. The alignment of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars would herald the final cleansing of the foul air, and at that time he would call the village court to session and judge the case. The Reeve had already decided to make an example of Mattie’s father. Stealing from the lord of the manor was an offence punishable by hanging and Thomas Blanford had settled his mind on this.

 

Covering his mouth with a handkerchief the Reeve part-opened the heavy oak door whereupon Mattie handed him the basket. He closed the door and examined the contents: bread, apples, cheese, and a small portion of fresh meat.

 

The Reeve’s wife entered the kitchen and said: ‘What has she brought
us ? Is it fish?’

 

Thomas Blanford pressed the sliver of meat to his nose and said: ‘No.
Rook.’

 

His wife looked despondent. ‘And how am I to cook it ? In a pan of water ? Or over an open fire ?’

 

The Reeve ignored his wife and opened the door. He threw out a coin.
‘Tomorrow you will bring us pork. Rook is for villeins. Do you understand ?’

 

He closed the door and sat by the fire. Mattie, her insides still burning, her clothes muddied, her hair soaked, picked up the coin and ran off into the storm.

 

 

 

(iii)

 

The men of faith guarded the bridge throughout the night. Peddlers and strangers were turned away. ‘Go from this place’ they were told. ‘Our
village is uncorrupted and will remain so.’ They carried pitchforks and knives. A number of the village women had joined their menfolk and held iron rods, which they heated in an open fire.

 

At the waning of the moon several of the men set off with lanterns to patrol the outer perimeters of the village. Wyclyffe watched them pass by. He could not sleep. He sat in his dwelling writing by the light of a
candle. After the ordeal of speaking to the villagers he had found himself in turmoil. His head throbbed and his throat was dry.

 

In times of strife it was Wyclyffe’s practice to reflect on the nature
of God. Hunched over his desk he wrote: God is merciful and His
son died for our sins.

 

His handwriting betrayed his uncertainty. The letters looked, to his eyes, weak and unsubstantial.

 

Wyclyffe set down his pen and held his head in his hands. For a long time now he had been questioning church teaching - the selling of indulgences, the authority of Rome. Worse, there were aspects of the communion itself which he felt to be false. Each time he laid a morsel of bread on a tongue an emptiness engulfed him. And when he offered wine from the chalice a sickness coursed through his body. Why should that be so ? Didn’t the church teach that the bread became Christ’s body ? And the wine His blood ? Wyclyffe asked aloud: Can it be true that Christ is rejecting me ? Perhaps it was merely his youth that was
betraying him. Perhaps such thoughts were being sent to him by the
devil, testing his young faith.

 

He stood and carried the candle into his sleeping chamber. There he
prepared himself for bed.

 

As he laid his head on the pillow he heard a man shout: ‘Father! Come
quick! A curse has been set upon us!’

 

Wyclyffe looked out of his chamber window. Two of the village guards were standing at his door. ‘Please father’ they said, ‘come this way.’

 

He dressed and followed the men into the dark, sodden forest. They
walked for some time until, on seeing the faint glow of lanterns, one
of the men said: ‘Over there, father.’

 

When Wyclyffe arrived other members of the guard were standing over a body. He saw fear in their eyes. The body had been covered with a
cloak.

 

‘He’s not from round here’ said another. ‘He’s from outside. Another
part of the country, I reckon.’

 

Wyclyffe knelt. He looked up at the guards, indicating that he needed more light. One of the guards made the sign of the cross and handed him a lamp. Wyclyffe hesitated for a moment, then pulled back the sodden cape.

 

The sight was abhorrent. The corpse was that of a bearded man – a man from a neighbouring village, a man who preyed on young girls. Black bulbous tumours covered the face. The mouth, stretched open in a vile grimace, offered the sight of a swollen black tongue. The stench was unbearable.

 

Wyclyffe, his system flooded with nausea, quickly performed the sacrament, before covering his mouth and turning away. Then he ordered the men to burn the corpse. As they did so Wyclyffe stood in the teeming rain and prayed for their souls.

 

 

*