Sin Eater

by Megan Campisi

  “What’s her catch?” asks the second shadow, taking an eyeful of the room but nodding toward me. “She’s not a rogue, is she? I’m not paying duties to angle in these parts.”

  “She has her mysteries,” says Paul from the hearth. “ ’Tis the price of sanctuary.”

  “Is it sanctuary?” says the first shadow. “The door was marked so, but I’ve never been at sanctuary like this. It smells of death and it’s got a sin eater and a leper.” He glances at Brida, who eyes him back. “What’s next? Egypsies and Eucharistians up there?” He looks up the ladder.

  “You are free to leave!” says Paul, hard.

  The first shadow shifts, taking the measure of Paul. Paul is young and strong, despite his scars. The shadows have had many a lean year.

  The first shadow raises his hands for peace. “We’re just here a short time. Do our business while the Queen’s revels are on, then be on our way.” He pokes his thumb back to his staff. I see the hole that his hand had covered around its top. That’s where he puts a hook for angling. Anglers look for unshuttered windows and hook out linen and clothes to sell. It’s not a very clever or dangerous sort of dodge, usually done by folk who’re not very clever or dangerous.

  The second shadow takes a step back and says, eyes to the floor, “We thank ye for your hospitality.”

  “Fine,” says Paul.

  I turn back to the ash letters, tracing my finger over them a second time.

  Frederick leans over to look. He points to the little N with the dot next to it. “This is the mark for a constable, no?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” the first shadow says, puffing himself up. “Upright rogues never use beggar’s marks.”

  “You found the sanctuary sign on the door well enough,” says Frederick, sharp-like.

  The shadow’s silent.

  Brida squints. “Constable mark has a dot under, not beside it.”

  Beggar’s marks. Sanctuary sign on the door. My mind chases after their words. Is that what the messenger took for a witch’s mark? A picture language for beggars and vagabonds. It explains why all sorts of folk keep coming in.

  Jane looks up from her oysters and wipes her brow with the back of her hand. “What she’s drawn in the ash isn’t marks, it’s reading.” Her voice is flat and tired.

  “Your doxy’s spoken,” says one of the shadows to Frederick.

  Frederick takes a closer look at what I’ve drawn. He shakes his head. “I read Anglish, French, and some Latin”—he looks to Jane—“and this is not a word.”

  Paul looks more closely. “The old tongues have different letters.”

  Jane dumps the oysters into the pot. “Must ask a physician or a Jew.”

  I click my teeth. How the fug am I to do that? The only physician I’ve met is a pig-slaughtering witch, and all the Jews were converted or driven away by the old king. Then I recall the musicians in the Domus Conversorum. The ones I threw burning wax at to scare.

  “Not happy, this one,” says the first shadow, waving his hand at me like I’m giving off a smell. “Not happy at all.”

  I hiss and run at him like a goose. He steps back, nearly tripping over Brida’s stump of a foot, and grabs the second shadow’s arm. “Oh, fug! What’s she doing?!”

  I keep at them. The first shadow grabs his angling staff. With his head turned to the side, he waves it blindly in my direction like a sword. “Stay back.”

  I herd them toward the door until both shadows stumble out of my house. Then I pick up the ewer and a rag.

  The bang of the door startles the shadows who are hurrying away down the lane. I look over the mark on my door, two eyes astride a woman shape. I squeeze the water from the rag and scrub. This house is my sanctuary. It will be home for who I choose only. A reeking leper, a peevish cripple, a gabby-goose actor, a pregnant whore, and her bastards. My folk.

  22. BRANDY POSSET

  I SLEEP SO SOUNDLY, it’s midday before the knocking pulls me out of bed. Hearing the messenger say Bessie’s name is sort of like an exhale I’ve been holding in. I didn’t want her to die, but there’s relief in no more waiting.

  Lee and Tom are at the Eating, of course, and other faces I know. And yet they seem different. It’s like my old memories were all looking through one window into a house and now I’m looking in through a different window. It’s the same room inside, but the light hits it different. Tom’s a grown man, with hair coming out of his ears. Gracie Manners, who always knew everything there was to know, has three children pulling at her skirts and the look of an old daffodil. Even the house seems different from Bessie’s Recitation. Smaller.

  Before I leave, I pass through the kitchen. Sitting on a shelf is the old salt bowl painted with bluebells. I take it with me to add to my sin eater box. A token of Bessie.

  * * *

  My feet look mottled under the surface of the water in my fountain. Like the Painted Pig and Paul’s skin. I go to pull my shawl around my shoulders and remember again I left it at the castle.

  A few folk come through the square. They see me and go about their business direct, not dallying about. Two children timidly cross to an alley, and I hear the beginnings of a bat-the-stone game.

  The sun sets through great, pink clouds. I pull my feet from my fountain and dry them on my skirt. As I do, I see the picture I thought was a witch’s mark. A picture language for beggars. I recall the pictures in Corliss’s tapestry. Mayhap the secret’s in them. Once I think on it, the animals at the Queen’s feet aren’t difficult to figure. Family badges are often animals. The lion could mean Black Fingers. The stag would be the Country Mouse’s family. The boar, another loyal family. But what the tapestry means beyond that, I don’t know.

  As I walk home through Northside, it comes to me that it’s not just Bessie’s place and my old neighbors that seem different. The whores lining the tavern row drop their eyes before I pass. And no boys push each other at me for sport. They keep out of sight. I walk down the middle of the road and folk move out of the way, just like they did for the old Sin Eater. Like the ruby sea in the Maker’s story.

  I pass the apothecary lane. A physician or a Jew, Jane said might know the word in the tapestry. Would an apothecary have enough learning? I remember how the apothecaries fled from me after my throat was cut. I hawk a good bit of spittle into the dirt of their lane, hoping I’m watched.

  I stand again before the Domus Conversorum. There’s no music coming from within this evening, just cool darkness. The last time I was here I stirred up fear. Now I need the musicians’ help. I listen for any sign of them, but there’s nothing. Mayhap I dreamed them up.

  Just then I hear the deep music of the chest rumbler, the stringed instrument as big as a man. It moves through me again, making me feel wistful, but I don’t know for what. Music’s like a spell that way; you feel things you don’t mean to. Even though I’m a curse, I say a little prayer for protection.

  The stairs are as dark as before, and at the landing there’s just one flicker of light, this time coming from a door at the other end of the passage. I knock gentle, then push it open.

  My mouth widens in delight. It’s a workshop as fine as any I’ve seen. All along the walls stand curved, wooden bodies of lutes and viols. The dark-haired, wiry man who played the chest rumbler sits with it between his legs fixing a string. Next to him is a worktable with joinery tools and other bits of wood that look to be pieces of instruments. On the table and floor are curls of wood like thick ribbons. It’s the workshop of an instrument maker.

  The Instrument Maker lays the chest rumbler down as gentle as a babe, then rises back up to face me, a pincher tool clenched in his fist.

  I hold out my hands to say I mean no harm, but the Instrument Maker only tightens his grip on the pincher.

  “Is mine place,” he says. It’s like what Hairy Ears said before. “What you want?”

  I wave his gaze away. He closes his eyes halfway like he’s laughing. Mayhap he’s poor-sighted. I pick up a tallow candle from t
he worktable to light my S collar. He cries out and ducks behind his bench. He remembers the hurled candles from my last visit.

  I wait. When he’s sure I’m not throwing things, he stands back up. I show him the S again.

  “Sin eater, yes,” he says. “I see it. What you want?”

  My guts drop. What creature looks into the eye of a curse outside the protection of a Recitation? Mayhap the musicians truly are spirits.

  The Instrument Maker’s eyes keep their crease but lose their warmth. “I have not this belief,” he says as if sin eaters are unicorns or elephants that some folk believe in and some folk don’t.

  And then, as if he truly is a spirit, he asks the very question sitting on my own tongue: “Why you not have fear?” He goes on. “The vagabondi who come, they have fear because all the lies your folk tell of Jews. They leave us in our peace. Why you not have fear? Why you come molest us?”

  Molest them? I laugh before I know it.

  The Instrument Maker roars at me in anger.

  I stumble, dropping the candle. He’s a fiend. Or mad.

  He runs at me, and I scramble for the door. But it’s the candle he’s gone to, stamping out the flame just as it’s catching the wood curls strewn on the floor. “Leave!” he screams.

  I’m backed against the door, my heart thudding against my rib bones.

  “Leave!” he screams again.

  But I won’t. I squeeze my eyes shut, and hush my pattering heart. I am a curse I have Daffrey blood.

  I hear the Instrument Maker’s angry breathing.

  I live with lepers and actors, I tell myself. I survived Black Fingers. And Black Fingers’s cutthroats. I am here to mend my muddle. As I say these things to my heart, it gets steadier. My guts get stiller.

  The Instrument Maker is still breathing hard, his body ready to fight. Nevertheless, I summon my blood and do what I’ve come for. I walk slow and steady to the worktable and trace the letters from the tapestry in the wood dust.

  The first letter like a little N.

  The leaning apple tree with the gallows under it.

  The second little N with a worm below.

  The Instrument Maker’s breath settles, and his head tilts as he looks over the letters.

  “I do not know your words well,” he says.

  I smooth out the wood dust and try the tapestry letters once more.

  The Instrument Maker comes in closer. His body loosens. “Ah, is Hebrew, yes?”

  I don’t know. I point to the letters.

  “Chav-vah,” he sounds out, as if hawking up spittle. He traces the letters with a brown finger, its nail pared short. “Chavah,” he repeats. “Why you want know this word?” he asks quiet.

  I need him to tell me what it means. I point at it again.

  “You come here for this?”

  I nod.

  Suddenly his eyes crease into a smile, and his mouth opens into a laugh. He’s like a spring day this man, thunder one moment, sun the next. “Why for this?” he says easily. “Why you come and the candles throwing? Why?” He looks into my eyes like he’s truly searching for the reason, but there’s something else too. Something different. He’s looking at me like I’m folk. Like there’s nothing about me that’s cursed or vile. I haven’t been looked at like this since I became a sin eater. Not even by the Country Mouse.

  I move my hand like Frederick does when he talks, urging the Instrument Maker to say more, to tell me what the word means.

  “Chavah, yes? You know this name?”

  I shake my head.

  “Is from the holy book we share.” His eyes crease again. “Chavah: Eve.”

  It catches me in the guts. But his face is open, and his eyes don’t blink. He’s speaking the truth.

  “Eve,” he says again, seeing the question on my face.

  The word above the tapestry’s picture of the naked Queen is Eve? It’s not possible. Or if it is, it’s blasphemy. Eve was the foulest sinner in all Makerdom, the original rebel who fell from grace.

  A noticing flutters up from my heart. The Queen’s belly in the tapestry was wrong somehow. It was all one smooth belly. Why did I find this odd?

  Because there should be a hollow in the center. A navel. It’s the sign we all carry that we’re woman-born. Only one woman in the world wouldn’t have it because she was made direct by the Maker himself. Eve.

  The Instrument Maker is right. The picture shows the Queen as Eve. But whyever would the Queen’s dear friend Corliss make such a terrible tapestry?

  “You have surprise it is Eve’s name.” The Instrument Maker tilts his head. “Well, one of her names. She has two, yes?” He sees my confusion. “Chavah, but also Isha. The mother and the woman… no, the mother and the virgin, yes?”

  I choke back a giggle. There’s no sense in his words.

  His head jerks back like he’s going to become angry again. I cover my lips and look down in apology. After a moment, he seems to accept it and continues, “Chavah and Isha, the mother and virgin. The Eve who has the baby, and the Eve who has not yet had the baby. Two different names.”

  Livestock have different names, like how cattle are called heifers before they’ve gone to the bull and are called cows after they bear a calf. Mayhap the old tongue does too.

  He points again to the letters in the wood dust, “This is one name for Eve.”

  The riddle is that our Queen is the virgin Eve?

  “Chavah,” he repeats. “The Eve who has the baby.”

  The floor swivels away from my feet, and I clutch for the table. Queen Bethany had a baby. The Instrument Maker darts forward and takes my arm to steady me. The warmth is startling. When was the last time I was touched? Paul closing the wound in my neck? Paul’s touch was a bird scratching. This is like finding something I didn’t know I had lost. The missing of it is there now, digging at the little plum stone in my heart. Before I can help it, I’m clutching him back.

  The thoughts swell up in my head, crashing like water down a mill wheel. Queen Bethany had a baby, and Corliss wove the secret into a tapestry in a language none but the most learned would know. Paul and Frederick didn’t even see the shapes as letters. I only took them for Anglish because I know so little.

  Notions push like key bits against the wards in my jammed lock. The lock isn’t open yet, the wards are still jammed, but I’m starting to get the shape of the jam.

  The murdered babe I ate two hearts for, it belonged to Queen Bethany. No, she wasn’t Queen yet. She was of an age with me, as Tilly said, but in line to the throne, unmarried and living with her stepmother Katryna. What would she and her dearest friends have undertaken to save her from ruin? Corliss, her governess; Tilly, a midwife—would they have killed her royal bastard?

  If this news were to come out, Bethany’d be ruined, even after all this time. The Norman prince and the other suitors would refuse her. She would most like lose her throne. A woman who beds out of wedlock is a whore. And a whore who kills her own child is worse than that. What folk would accept such a woman as their ruler?

  An enemy of the Queen is killing the women so the world will see their coffins and know the truth like Master Fox in the fairy tale.

  But there’s a second secret. The babe didn’t die. Hearts were placed on the coffins to make it look like it did. The key knocks against the wards in my lock again. The more I think on it, the less sense it makes.

  All I know is the Queen had a baby. The ladies who knew are dying. And the Queen’s bastard may be alive.

  23. SALT

  I STUMBLE HOME AFTER dark and crawl onto my mattress. In my dream, Ruth’s placing stones on my chest, one for each sin I’ve eaten. Fornicating, gossiping, not praying as one ought. A whole pailful for greediness and lust. Incest. Killing a royal baby.

  The Sin Eater wears a badge like nobles do: a face with the lips sewn shut. Behind her the countess I saw in the castle dungeon is singing a song about cuckoo birds laying eggs in other birds’ nests. But then the dream changes, and it’s
my own sins that are piled on: stealing, thinking ill of the dead, betraying the Sin Eater.

  Then it shifts again, and it’s my mother, not the Sin Eater placing the stones. Stones for sins that make no sense, like giving birth to a fairy with wings and burning rich, yellow beeswax candles down to nubs. My mother wears a badge of a fox with grapes in its mouth, dripping juice. Then my granddam comes, adding more stones. I wake choking for breath, but there’s nothing on my chest.

  I lie back on the mattress. My dream was like a narrow well that’s too dark to see down into, but something’s floating up, bobbing and breaking at the water’s surface. Something I’m meant to see in the murk. Candles. What was it? No, beeswax. The poppets were made of beeswax, not tallow. Only a rich folk could have made them.

  I climb downstairs to use the piss pot. Brida’s on my-now-her rug. Jane’s children are there too, all in a snoring heap though it must be midday. Jane herself is awake. At first I think I must still be dreaming, because Jane’s standing before a large panel of wood painting a picture. But I’m not dreaming. She’s got a brush and pots of paint, and her picture looks just like a big house, but in a stranger style. I can’t fathom why she’s doing it. A pregnant whore painting a picture inside a sin eater’s house. A rapping at the door pulls me from my wonderings.

  It’s just one messenger outside. He’s a little taller than me, black hair circling his head like wool. He’s older than the usual boys. Must be from a poor family without a penny to send word by messenger. He’s harder than the usual boys too. Something in the eyes that looks right through your clothes to your naked skin. His eyes flick to my face then to the roof of my house, a tight little curve cutting into his cheek as one side of his lips rises in a smile. The name blooms in my mind as he says it. “Daffrey. Recitation for the old woman.” He’s changed since I last saw him, but now I make out the face I once knew. My cousin tucks his fingers into his waist as if out for a stroll, as if it’s an idle morning and not the one when our granddam is dying.