The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland Page A

house.
    HOLDING OUR SKIRTS OUT of the infernal mud we scuttled, heads down, through the driving rain to a long, low building. Kitchen Martha pushed me down on a stool in front of the fire and shook the rain from her cloak before unwrapping a steaming slice of bough cake from her scrip.
    “Eat it up, child, while it’s hot. I’ve seen a plucked chicken with more colour in its cheeks. I don’t know what Servant Martha was thinking of, talking on like that, when even a blind man could see you were near to fainting. How can anyone listen to anything on an empty belly?”
    The smell of the spiced honeyed batter suddenly made me realise how ravenous I was. I bit off a great mouthful of thick sweet batter and soft baked fruits inside and gulped it down greedily.
    “Steady, don’t burn yourself, child.”
    Kitchen Martha turned to poke the fire. Her hands were dimpled like rising dough and scarred with a hundred tiny burns, probably from years of cooking. No one could have called her pretty; her bulbous nose was lumpy and pitted and her cheeks crazed with red veins. But she had merry eyes and a mop of greying curls that, like mine, refused to stay in their bindings.
    I gazed around me. We were in a long room. Narrow wooden cotswere ranged along the sides and between each of them was placed a simple banded wooden chest. Rough stools were set around a long table in the centre of the room with books and quills neatly stacked upon it. I longed to see what the books were, but I was afraid to pick them up. At the far end of the room several tallow candles were already set for the night around a crucifix. Night! Soon it would be dark again.
    I shivered, pulling my cloak tighter around myself. My ribs and stomach ached. As I shuffled my feet, the smell of thyme rose up from the herb-strewn rushes on the floor. I longed to fill my body with the sharp cleanness of its smell. They say thyme expels the worm that gnaws at the mind and drives you mad. But nothing could drive that worm out. It was inside me. That demon was inside me and nothing I could do would expel the horror of it from my body. I took another gulp of air, but the scent had dissolved and I could not bring it back.
    “And this is where you will sleep, child.” Kitchen Martha was pointing to the cots near the door. How long had she been speaking? What else had she said?
    “I think that those four cots are unoccupied. You may choose whichever you wish. That chest has spare kirtles and the grey cloaks. You’re sure to find one that fits. You can put your own clothes in that one, though they’ll want cleaning before they’re stored away.” She came closer and turned my face to catch the light. “That’s a nasty cut. How did you come by it?”
    I flinched away from her touch. “It isn’t anything, just a scratch.”
    “Come with me and I’ll ask Healing Martha to look at you; she has many ointments that will soothe it.”
    “Don’t touch me. I’ll tend it myself.” I could hear myself shouting, but I couldn’t stop. “Go away and leave me alone!”
    Kitchen Martha looked startled. Her hand stretched out awkwardly as if she wanted to soothe me, but she withdrew it. I felt sick and every part of me was burning. I just wanted to hide in some dark corner and never come out.
    “The other children will be joining you shortly.” Kitchen Martha waddled to the door. “Cheer up; you’ll soon make friends.”
    I waited until the door had closed behind her, then chose the cot in the corner furthest from the occupied ones and lay down, curling up in a ball under my cloak. The straw in the pallet rustled under me. It was harder than the bed I was used to, but at least the cot was too narrow to share.
    All day I’d been wandering round stuck in a waking nightmare. I hurt so much that I couldn’t even think about where I was being taken or what would happen to me. Now, lying in a strange bed, I suddenly realised that for the first time ever, I was alone among strangers,