Sin Eater: A Novel Read online

  ‘Tilly was in the household of Lady Katryna when I was her lady of the privy chamber,’ she says noisily to Black Fingers. Then, as if to answer why she should know the affairs of servants, ‘It was a small household.’ The Painted Pig steals a look at the Willow Tree. ‘He looms like a hangman, does he not?’

  Black Fingers dips his own ruff like a screen so he can nestle his lips to her ear. I can’t catch what he whispers. Whatever he says, the Painted Pig tries to fit her face into a smooth mask, but it doesn’t work. She steps away from him and smiles tightly. ‘You are a comfort.’

  Black Fingers catches her hand and brings it to his lips.

  Suddenly there’s a cry by the door and a rustle of skirts. I look up to see the Queen, her bosom puffing and cheeks reddening beneath her face paint.

  I want to scream, The ladies were poisoned! The hearts not recited! Your favourite is a murderer!

  My head’s gone light and my stitches burn. I start to rise off my stool towards the Queen.

  Black Fingers sees me from the side of his eye. His hand darts to his hip where his dagger, the one that ripped into my neck, sits brightly.

  I drop back down onto my stool and take up the bread. But Black Fingers’s hand stays at his dagger, his fingers around the handle. Three and a half paces to the door. I ready my feet to run.

  But it’s the Queen who moves first. She crosses direct to the Painted Pig and strikes her full across the face. It’s such a blow the Painted Pig falls, great skirts and all, nearly taking Black Fingers with her. He pulls his arm away just before she can drag him down.

  The Queen shakes where she stands, looking between Black Fingers and the Painted Pig, ‘Would you betray me?’

  The Painted Pig blocks her face and honks, ‘Your Grace! I never!’

  Black Fingers pulls at his ear again. ‘You cannot think . . . Your Grace, you cannot believe—’

  ‘I believe what I see,’ the Queen interrupts. ‘Your lips were on her hand.’

  ‘If cordial affection towards a longtime friend brings you distemper,’ says Black Fingers, ‘then I shall leave you in peace.’

  ‘You do not have my leave to go,’ the Queen cries before he can take a step.

  ‘I will not be leashed like a dog,’ he whispers, sharp-like.

  The Queen’s shaking grows stronger, and I think for one terrible moment she, too, might have been poisoned.

  ‘Your Grace.’ The Willow Tree appears at her side.

  His voice seems to break through the Queen’s rage. Her shaking quiets. ‘Help her up,’ she orders. Several folk work to right the fallen Pig.

  ‘Your Grace,’ the Painted Pig says once standing again. ‘I am an old candle next to your young light. Your sunlight! That you think I, who have been like an auntie to you, could presume . . .’ She seems to grow wary of her own words and lets them fritter away.

  The Queen looks past the Painted Pig to Black Fingers. She assays him. He lowers his head and raises his hand. After a heavy moment of held breath, the Queen takes it. They find seats before the coffin.

  Black Fingers holds the Queen’s hand, but his eyes are on the deer heart. I daren’t not eat it. Not with him there watching. So for a second time, I do it. I eat a deer heart from a murdered woman’s coffin.

  It’s only after I’ve eaten every bite that I recall the Queen didn’t even startle at seeing the heart.

  13. BARLEY GRAIN

  MOTHERFUGGER, I CURSE to myself as I step carefully down the servants’ stairs. It comes out unbidden, strange and filthy in my mouth. And right all the same. This is why we have cursing. I never understood what made folk do it. But now I know. All our dire feelings stain the heart, and the stains bloom into curses. I don’t know how to sort this mess. The ways I’ve tried have only put me in danger.

  The rain’s finally come, and it’s coming down hard. I sit on the bottom step of a set of stairs near the kitchen to wait for it to let up. It clinks like piss in the pot, but nicer because it’s just rain.

  A maid walks down the passage. I’m enough in the shadows that she doesn’t notice me. Another maid, tall and pimpled, comes out of the kitchen, her cheeks pink with heat. This pimpled maid rolls her eyes. ‘Cook’s moaning about ladies requesting special dishes.’

  ‘He’s always moaning about making food,’ says the first maid. ‘Why’d he become cook?’

  ‘It’s the Queen’s revels that’s got him out of temper. Hasn’t been a feast this grand since the old king. Best not have come with a request,’ warns Pimples.

  ‘But I have,’ says the first maid. ‘Calf liver. The lady gave me fourpence to give him for it,’ she adds as if that should settle things.

  ‘Is it for a certain fair-haired, young lady with a growing appetite?’ Pimples smiles.

  ‘Do you . . . What do you mean?’ the first maid asks.

  ‘She’s the one got the cook moaning with her requests!’ answers Pimples. ‘One appetite gets another, as the old wives say.’ Pimples says this last part like she means more than she says.

  ‘She’s with child?’ mouths the first maid.

  Pimples hushes her, then checks the passage. As she does, she catches sight of me in the shadows. ‘Maker mine!’ she starts.

  The first maid follows Pimples’s eyes to me. ‘What the fug is she doing here?!’ she hisses.

  ‘Come for your girl who wants the calf liver, is what,’ whispers Pimples. ‘She’s on with a certain man the Queen fancies. Queen had his wife pushed down a stair. Your girl’s going to need the sin eater soon enough.’ The first maid crosses herself.

  At that moment the Painted Pig arrives noisily in the corridor. Pimples and the other maid press themselves against the wall. Pimples bumps a small tapestry with her bottom.

  The Painted Pig’s eyes work over the maids like they’re meat that’s turned at a market. ‘Do you know where my maid is? She was meant to bring my correspondence last evening. I’m expecting a letter from my cousin.’

  The two maids shake their heads.

  The Painted Pig sees the tapestry behind Pimples askew. She tilts her head. ‘That weaving is worth a goodly amount more than you. If I were the Queen, I should have your bottom sliced off for touching it.’

  Pimples, flushing nape to brow, pulls away from the hanging, grazing the Painted Pig’s silk skirt with her soiled apron as she does. ‘Fat cow,’ the Painted Pig snaps, and walks past the cringing maids.

  I wait till she’s about to pass me to stand up sharp. The Painted Pig pulls back like a donkey. Her hand reaches for her waist as if she were wearing old faith prayer beads, but none are there. She crosses herself instead and goes on.

  I don’t know why I did it, but it feels good to have folk mind me, even if it’s a fearful sort of minding. It makes for a change.

  Once the rain lets up, I go out of the scroll door and cross the courtyard. A gaggle of messenger boys plays marbles just outside the castle gate. The game knocks off when they see me, and they call out a whole list of names. But I just walk on towards home. The taste of the second deer heart is still on my breath, and I’ve remembered one thing that still might help with my muddle.

  My door creaks threateningly in its poorly repaired frame. Inside my house, Paul, Brida, and Frederick are just waking. I find the Sin Eater’s book and go to the foot of Frederick’s stretching body.

  ‘Why, she’s in a fluster, now,’ announces Brida, pushing herself up with her one good arm.

  ‘And must we wait upon her fluster?’ asks Frederick, unwilling to look my way.

  Brida just says again, ‘She’s in a fluster.’

  ‘Then we’ll play at pantomimes to guess,’ Paul mutters from under a cloak he’s using as bedclothes.

  ‘Tell her to leave us in peace,’ Frederick directs Brida. I throw the book onto Frederick’s chest. ‘Oh-ho! Beware, we have been trained in broadsword and epée,’ Frederick warns. ‘At least the simulacrum.’

  ‘Well enough to be the Queen’s own players at her glorious festivitie
s for the Norman envoy,’ says Paul.

  ‘Just read the book again, will you?’ pushes Brida.

  Frederick sighs. He pulls himself up to sitting and looks to Paul. ‘Might I have a cup of ale to whet my stone?’

  ‘Brida?’ suggests Paul.

  ‘Paul!’ scolds Frederick.

  Paul fetches the drink while Frederick opens the book. ‘We were at the D’s, was it?’

  It will take too long. I point to the book and pat my chest to indicate a heart.

  ‘She wants to tell us something,’ Brida interprets. Paul and Frederick keep their eyes on Brida. ‘She’s beating her breast.’

  ‘Pantomime it is,’ calls Frederick. ‘Arms and fingers are marvellously expressive if you use them properly. Sweeping gests, please. No fiddling-at-your-hems mummery.’ He’s certainly mocking me.

  ‘Is Frederick to read or not?’ asks Paul.

  ‘She’s quite cross, as much as I can tell,’ says Brida. Her gaze is fixed just to the side of my body. I pat my chest again and point to the book.

  ‘Her chest,’ Brida says.

  ‘Love,’ Paul guesses. ‘She would like Frederick to read about the sins of love?’

  ‘Passions,’ sings Frederick. ‘A sin of passion. Seduction. Adultery.’

  ‘You’ve covered adultery. Dried raisins,’ reminds Paul.

  Brida asks, ‘Is it a sin you wish him to read of?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Yes? No?’ Frederick looks to Brida.

  ‘A food, then?’ Paul asks.

  Yes! I smile wide.

  ‘I believe that’s right,’ Brida says. ‘Oh, she’s happier now.’

  ‘And which food would that be?’ asks Brida.

  ‘A heart, it would seem,’ says Frederick, finally grasping my meaning.

  ‘I was going to guess a heart,’ calls Paul.

  Brida lowers herself onto her back before the fire.

  ‘Are you unwell?’ Paul looks her over closely.

  ‘Time for a rest is all,’ she sighs.

  ‘We’ll get you a bone broth,’ says Paul. ‘A nice, hot bone broth.’

  ‘Sounds nice, that,’ sighs Brida.

  Frederick reads through the pages, his thumb marking each line of words as he searches for sins that warrant a heart. Paul joins him after a piece, reading over his shoulder. ‘My, my. Should you, Brida, ever consider jarking, our rare-voiced patron will eat pickled turnips upon your grave.’

  ‘Have you not found the heart?’ Brida asks Frederick.

  ‘I thought it would be found under “killing”,’ Frederick answers. ‘But here we are entering the L’s. Very few sins starting with L.’

  ‘Lust, of course,’ reads Paul.

  ‘Ah, here! The M’s,’ says Frederick. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘What is it?’ Brida asks.

  ‘Murder,’ Frederick answers.

  ‘There are quite a few hearts to be eaten,’ reads Paul over Frederick’s shoulder. ‘Bird, rabbit, lamb, even fish.’

  Frederick runs his finger along the page. ‘Bird heart is for murder without design.’ He stops and looks up. ‘Is it murder if it’s without design? I take issue with the wording here. Paul, it should be killing, not murder, if it’s unintended. Am I wrong?’

  ‘I heartily agree,’ Paul says back.

  ‘Who claims authorship of this singular tome?’ asks Frederick. He looks at the first pages. ‘None.’

  I suck my teeth.

  Frederick turns back to the M’s. ‘Rabbit for murder in defence of one’s life or as a soldier in battle. Again, I amend it to killing. Pig heart for wrathful murder. I grant the use of murder in this instance.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ agrees Paul.

  ‘Lamb heart for murder of a babe. Cock heart for murder of your father. Swan for murder of your mother. Bear for murder of royalty. Deer for murder of a royal babe. Goat for—’ Frederick stops when my breath catches. ‘Eureka, I surmise.’

  Deer heart for the murder of a royal babe.

  Maker mine, what have I stumbled upon? Corliss and Tilly Howe have both been poisoned and hearts placed on their coffins that claim they murdered a royal child. But I know from their Recitations they never did.

  Questions come into my head so quick I can hardly sort them all. Why would somefolk slander Corliss and Tilly like this? To throw blame off themselves? To harm the women and their kin by ruining their names? That’s all I come up with.

  And what royal child or children were murdered? There surely must be those with a claim to the throne who died young, but apart from the babes Maris lost in her womb, I don’t know of them.

  Tilly said a heart would be on her coffin, so she knew something of the matter. What did she know?

  The questions keep on, but the only one I can conceive an answer for is this: why might a royal child be murdered?

  This one’s easy to figure. Killing a royal babe changes who’s next in line for the throne. Many folk might consider murder if it meant they could rule over all of Angland. I get a cold feeling when this thought comes, because it makes it seem like Queen Bethany could be the murderer – after all, she’s ruling over all of Angland now. I close my mind against the thought. To think such a thing is treason. But it creeps back through like a draught under a door.

  Who besides Bethany might kill a royal babe? The answer is anyfolk who profited when she became Queen.

  Of course Black Fingers. He nearly killed me for speaking of it. Twice. And at Corliss’s Eating it sounded as if he had ambitions for the throne.

  The Willow Tree. With Bethany as Queen, he’s one of the most important men in Angland.

  The Queen’s ladies too. They’re Bethany’s loyal friends.

  Or was it not about Bethany at all, but her faith? The countess in the dungeon plotted to kill Bethany to put a Eucharistian on the throne. Mayhap others tried the same.

  The questions swirl thick and muddy. I can’t sort them all out. Somefolk is killing the Queen’s women and then blaming them for a royal child’s murder. That’s what I know.

  I climb up to the loft and lie down on the mattress, but my head’s full of bees. My eyes settle on the wooden boxes lining the shelves up and down the wall. I wonder what’s in the rest of them. I open the shutter to let in the moonlight and take a box from the lowest shelf.

  A lock of brown hair tied with a silk ribbon

  A seashell, pale and glimmering like it’s wet

  Three caraway seeds wrapped in a kerchief

  That’s what’s inside. No rhyme or reason. I replace the box on the shelf and take out another.

  An old embroidery of a wren done poorly like by a child

  A hazel twig to clean your teeth

  A nightshift

  Three straight pins, as you use for pinning clothes

  In a third box, I hear clinking before I open it.

  A folded linen smock

  A head coif

  Bunches of soft blood moss

  Short blood breeches for the monthly courses

  At the bottom of this box I find coins, a whole handful, but not Anglish. Two have square holes cut in them. And flat against the bottom is a parchment. I lift it out, but it crumbles between my fingers. As it falls away, I feel something inside. I brush away the pieces. A pressed violet.

  Usually you keep one sort of thing in a box like blood moss or tools. But these boxes are all odd collections. I look over the shelves. Twelve’s as high as I know how to count with surety, and there’s more than that. What are they, and why are they on the wall of the Sin Eater’s house?

  I reach up to the top shelf and take a box from there. It’s covered in a thick layer of dust that gets up my nose. I’ll be sneezing out black snot tomorrow.

  A hare’s paw, like folk keep for good luck

  A toadstone amulet

  A wax portrait, cracked with age, of a girl in a hairstyle and dress far out of fashion

  There’s a kerchief too. It has two letters I know embroidered on it, an E an
d W. It’s not Ruth’s. Mayhap it’s the girl in the portrait’s. I look again at what’s in the box. The hare’s paw. The amulet. Could they also be the girl’s? A superstitious girl from a long time ago . . .

  And then I grasp it all at once. She was a sin eater too, this girl in the wax portrait. It’s her box. Each box is from a different sin eater. It’s their belongings. There’s no folk to pass them on to when they die, so their leftovers stay here. I look again at how many boxes there are. They must go back so many years. Leading up to now. To me.

  So many women slept in this loft. Mayhap on this same mattress. I curl back onto it, sniffing the ticking as if I might smell them in it. All I smell is old hay and mildew, but it sort of warms me, knowing there were others before me, even if they’re not here now. It makes me feel like an us again.

  As I fall into sleep, I wonder if any of them would know what to do with my muddle of poisonings and deer hearts.

  14. CROW’S MEAT WITH PLUM

  MERCHANTS’ HOMES, I’VE come to find, are best on a cold day. Lattice windows, oak panelling, and hangings on the walls are all meant to fight the cold and damp. But when the day is warm and dying being done within, a wealthy home gets foul. I hate to think what Recitations might be like in high summer.

  I’m let in by the maid, who steps aside for me to find my own way. By now I know to follow my nose to the burning herbs. But today there’s a different smell. Old eggs.

  Through a crack in the bedchamber door I see two old bodies, one abed, wrapped in rugs. He must be the one awaiting the Recitation. The other old body, I’m surprised to see, is the gnarled Willow Tree, the Queen’s physician. He’s bent over the bed looking at something. Between the men is a parchment with circles and figures. I don’t know whether to wait or go in, so I wait.

  ‘An enema of Aurum potabile?’ I hear the Willow Tree say.

  ‘I never saw the need,’ the dying man says back. ‘My birth chart foretold longevity, robust health, and wealth.’

  ‘Told by a rogue crystal gazer.’

  ‘A scryer,’ the dying man agrees. ‘Came round two years ago in winter, offered to cast this birth chart.’ The dying man farts. A moment later the smell of eggs comes strong through the door crack. ‘The rogue claimed to have foretold the Virgin Queen. I believed him,’ says the man.