The Village 5

(i)

 

Wyclyffe stood in the long room of the manor house listening to the Reeve’s son. The boy was jabbering. His eyes were filled with tears. The mute-girl, he said, had turned into the devil. She had grown horns
and gnawed through the rope that bound her to the hanging tree.

 

‘She is cursed’ said the Reeve. ‘Like her father – cursed and damned.’

 

He was standing behind his seated son. When he spoke he held a tiny bag of scented flowers to the side of his nose.

 

‘Why was the boy in the forest at such a late hour ?’ Wyclyffe asked.

 

The Reeve’s wife, holding her son’s hand, said: ‘He was bewitched,
father. The girl bewitched him and made him go to her. With the help
of the devil she lured him into the forest.’

 

There was no doubt the boy was shocked by what he had witnessed. But Wyclyffe sensed that he was not being told the truth. Still, he was
unable to resist the Reeve’s demand that they go and examine the girl for themselves. ‘If she is an agent of the devil, father, she must be exorcised of his presence or done to death.’

 

Wyclyffe nodded. The Reeve’s insistence to punish the girl for her father’s escape had pained him. And yet, it seemed that the devil had indeed taken possession of her soul. Was this another test from God ? If so he knew that he had to find the strength to crush the devil’s hold on the village. Wyclyffe blessed the Reeve’s son and said: ‘Let us go to her now.’

 

The men of faith accompanied them. They walked down the hill, through the deserted market place, until they came to Mattie’s dwelling. The Reeve told the men to stand ready with their weapons.

 

Wyclyffe, holding a lighted torch, pushed the disjointed wooden door and entered the foul place. The child was asleep. Mattie was standing by the hearth, shivering.

 

She did not look frightened and, as he raised his lamp so as to see her
better, he thought it strange that her face was so clear and unmarked.

 

‘There’s your witch’ said Thomas Blanford. His words were muffled. Only
Wyclyffe had crossed the threshold of the dwelling. The Reeve remained outside, sniffing his bag of herbs.

 

Wyclyffe made the sign of the cross. Mattie went over to the sleeping child.

 

‘Leave it be,’ Wyclyffe said.

 

Mattie did as the priest commanded.

 

Blanford, peering through the open doorway, told Wyclyffe the dwelling was unclean. ‘You must reclaim this place’ he said. ‘And if you are unable to reclaim it in God’s name, then we must drive away the devil with fire!’

 

Since Wyclyffe’s arrival in the village, Wyclyffe and Blanford had driven
the devil away on many occasions. An old woman who stole bread from
the marketplace had the devil beaten out of her. A waif who screamed
obscenities was taken to the river and held under. Each time Wyclyffe
had implored the Reeve to be merciful. Each time his plea had been
ignored.

 

Wyclyffe took a step forward. The girl remained calm, so he asked her: ‘Are you sick, child ?’

 

Mattie shook her head.

 

‘She’s lying’ said the Reeve. ‘Her flesh has been blackened by the
devil’s footprints.’

 

The priest ignored him. He moved closer to the girl, and asked her again: ‘Tell me the truth – are you sick ?’

 

She wanted to share her secret – the secret of the black marks that had
surfaced and disappeared. And by sharing her secret she hoped that the priest would be able to understand – that God had taken her marks away. Mattie pressed her hands against her heart. Her father’s appearance had confused her…planted doubts in her mind. Now she
stood before the priest imploring forgiveness. Could he not explain to her God’s peculiar will ?

 

She lifted her jerkin. Some of the men standing on the threshold of the
dwelling laughed. The Reeve covered his eyes and shouted: ‘Vile whore!’

 

Wyclyffe stared at the girl’s chest. Her breasts were smooth and white –
surprisingly so, considering the harsh nature of her life. The sight of her unblemished flesh intrigued him. He knew that he should turn his head…knew that to gaze upon a partially clothed woman was a sin. And yet he was unable to look away. The girl had indeed cast a spell on him.

 

The Reeve walked forward and slapped the girl’s cheek, saying. ‘Cover
yourself, you wretch!’ She did so. The men standing by the door continued to laugh. Mattie’s child woke and began to cry. Wyclyffe
turned away.

 

‘She has not been infected,’ he said. ‘It was a figment of the boy’s
imagination. Perhaps your son mistook shadows for welts.’

 

Thomas Blanford had been made to look a fool and his son was to blame. Later, in the manor house, the Reeve hit Nicholas’s legs with the
tally stick. If the girl had been marked by plague, he demanded, why
had the black welts disappeared ? Why was the girl still alive ? The
boy cried out that he had seen the marks with his own eyes. He pleaded for mercy but was shown none. And when the Reeve was done he ordered his son to his room, where he was to remain until the
planetary conjunction.

 

 

 

 

(ii)

 

The days passed. The men of faith patrolled the perimeter of the village.
Wyclyffe sat at his desk and prayed.

 

The villagers, frightened that the devil was roaming outside, remained
within their homes. Some refused to go out - even to gather wood for
the fire. Others cried that they were starving. Each morning Wyclyffe
went from house to house and distributed food taken from the church
store. The Villagers asked him: ‘When will the devil be driven from
our midsts ?’ to which he replied that they were all in God’s hands.

 

The food from the store could not last long. Because winter was
approaching and the days were growing short Wyclyffe asked the Reeve to see that a daily cauldron of pottage was cooked for those most in need. ‘Some of the villagers – the young, the infirm, the old - will require extra sustenance’ he said. ‘It is our duty to provide it.’

 

The Reeve’s wife agreed and said that she would oversee the task. Her
husband scowled. It was not his wife’s job to provide sustenance for the villagers, he said. And where was the food to come from ? Wyclyffe set down a bag of coins to placate him.

 

‘Send men to slaughter the remaining animals. They must also dig a pit in the forest for the dead. Use this money to buy their favour – and their silence.’

 

The Reeve tipped the coins out of the bag. It was money, he knew, that
had been paid to the church by those seeking pardons for sins committed. ‘And what of their souls ?’ the Reeve asked. ‘What use is a well-fed man if he is destined to languish in Hell ?’

 

Wyclyffe looked into the Reeve’s eyes and said: ‘If the devil is victorious then we will have hell upon earth.’

 

 

 

(iii)

 

Mattie’s child was weak. She kept it swaddled in a blanket and offered it her breast but feared the child had lost the will to live. In the cold of the dwelling its cries diminished into a moan. She covered the child with straw and set it down in its bed.

 

Was her father still waiting for her in the woods ? His appearance had scared her. And his insistence that she follow him had left her in despair. To follow him would mean a return to how life had once been. He expected her to serve him, as her mother had done. Wyclyffe had told Mattie to remain in her dwelling – warned her against fleeing with
her father. And yet she was overcome with guilt. Shouldn’t she honour her father’s wishes ?

 

Outside, the village was deserted. Mattie packed her basket with scraps of bread, berries, and cooked fish. She would leave the bundle in the
forest as a gift for her father should he return. Silently, she slipped out of her dwelling and made her way across the market place towards the hanging tree.

 

 

 

(iv)

 

The Reeve saw the mute girl pass by the manor house through his spy glass. Seeing her trudging wearily left him satisfied. She had made him look foolish in the eyes of the priest. And for that she would be punished. When it was safe to return to normal living, he would have
her run out of the village. He believed that evil men produced evil
offspring. And seeing her now, taking food to her father, proved his
theory. On the morrow the Reeve would order men to wait in the forest
and catch the fugitive once and for all.

 

He snapped shut the spy glass and looked at his wife. She was sitting at
the table, filling tiny packets of muslin with dried flowers. He asked her whether it was time to take gruel to their son. She nodded. Yes. He had jogged her memory. She got up and filled a bowl from the stove.

 

She carried it up the stairs and stood outside her son’s room. She
knocked three times and told him she would leave the bowl outside.

 

Her son’s faint voice asked whether he would soon be allowed to come
downstairs. But her husband had warned her that their son might play on his mother’s natural feelings of mercy. If he did so, she was to resist him. The boy had to be punished for telling such wild untruths.

 

She stood firm outside the door, her hands clasped. ‘When you have seen the error of your ways’ she said.

 

‘Please, mother – I know that my father feels aggrieved. And for that I am truly sorry.’

 

‘Then are you now willing to confess your sin ? Confess that you lied ?’

 

The boy fell silent. Then: ‘Mother – I saw the girl with my own eyes. Her
flesh was alive with foul, black sores.’

 

She reprimanded him, although it pained her to do so. That he could still
refuse to acknowledge his error caused her concern. Rebelliousness had never been in the boy’s nature. It had to be stamped out.

 

‘Then you will go hungry.’ She took up the bowl and returned downstairs.

 

Inside the room the boy was lying on his bed, listening to the gentle sound of rain. He couldn’t understand why his father refused to believe him. He had seen the foul imprint of the devil on the girl’s breasts. He had seen the sores on her stomach and neck. Soon, he began to doubt himself. Had it been a trick of light ? Had the moon disposed unlikely shadows from the hanging tree ?

 

He tried to sleep but his mind raced with unfamiliar thoughts. He
remembered a time when he was a child and his father had donated
money to repair the church. Each day the Reeve and his son had stood
and watched the construction work. The child marvelled at the way men
carried heavy stones on their shoulders, piling them on the ground for the masons to dress. Some of the stones were set aside for a master mason who sat on a wooden stool carving the heads of gargoyles. The man was old and wore a woollen hat. One day the child had stood beside him, watching the sharp chisel flake the stone. Occasionally the old man drank from a leather pouch hanging around his neck. When asked what it was he was drinking the man spat on the floor and said: ‘Ale. All this dust makes my throat burn.’

 

He thought of the old man now, wondering what had become of him. He was in heaven, surely. His life had been honourable. Every time the boy
looked up at the church and saw the two gargoyles on either side of the door it was as if the old mason in the woollen hat was there, looking down on him, spitting on the floor. That someone of low breeding could execute such beautiful work in the name of the Lord had always filled the boy with joy.

 

He began to doze, his head filled with images from that time. And as he
drifted to sleep he smacked his lips, just like the old man. In his dreams he felt hot and his dry throat began to burn.