Karen Maitland - The Owl Killers

g ILES KNEW THEYD COME FOR HIM , sooner or later. He didnt know where or when, he didnt know what his punishment would be, but he knew that there would be one. A dead owl had been left in front of his door in the middle of the night. He hadnt heard them leave it; you never did. But at daybreak when he left his cottage to work in the Manors fields, he had found it there, sodden from the nights rain. It was their sign, their warning.

He had buried the owl quickly, before his mother could see it. He didnt want her to know what was coming. She was too old and frail, had seen too many tragedies in her life to bear the strain of yet another. But from then on he had waited, waited for a hood to be thrown over him from behind as he pissed against a tree, waited for a quarterstaff to crack down on the back of his head as he walked down the track, waited to be dragged from his bed in the night. They might take him from the forest or from the tavern or from the church. They might take him in the early morning or in the evening or in the middle of the day. However much you stayed on your guard, somewhere, at some hour, the Owl Masters would find you. All you could do was wait.

He had thought about running; of course he had. Hed come close to doing it more than once. But a serf could not leave without his lords consent. And even if, by some miracle, he did make it safely to a town where he could lie low for a year until he was declared a free man, he knew they would take revenge on his mother. And if they didnt, Lord DAcaster surely would.

But it had been weeks now since the dead owl had been left at Giless door, and when the sun was shining, he was able to convince himself that the Owl Masters wouldnt come after all. He knew he had been a fool to bed the maid after DAcaster had given his permission for her to wed another. But the girl was married now and they had not been near each other since. Wasnt their separation punishment enough? He tried to tell himself the Owl Masters would be satisfied with that, but in the long dark hours of night, as he lay awake tensing at every sound, he knew in his guts they would not.