Sin Eater: A Novel

by Megan Campisi

  ‘Another poppet was found,’ is what the plump one says back.

  The skinny one gets pale. ‘It made the fire in the lady’s room?’

  The plump one shrugs. ‘Poppet was found in the Queen’s bedchamber. Made of beeswax and dressed like the Queen herself.’

  ‘The castle’s full of witches!’ hisses the skinny one.

  An old body who looks like a steward steps over, and the maids drop their shoulders into cleaning the blackened stones. ‘I’ll have no more mouth-running from you two,’ the steward says. ‘A heretic traitor’s trying to frighten the Queen and her suitors is what’s about. The fire, the poppet, the blood – the Queen’s secretary told us himself, and he isn’t a man to be wrong.’ The steward steps in front of me, and moves his arm like I should follow.

  He leads me down a set of stairs and along a corridor. Just as he turns a corner, he stops short. He looks to the wall and clears his throat. Beyond him I see a man and woman pulling out of an embrace in an alcove. The man is Black Fingers.

  ‘My lord,’ the steward calls. ‘I’m bringing the sin eater to . . .’ His voice falters.

  ‘Then do it!’ Black Fingers says, sharp-like.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ The steward nods and skirts around Black Fingers, eyes direct on the corridor ahead of him. Black Fingers remains where he stands, masking the woman he’s with, still in the alcove behind him. I see only her pale pink skirts as we pass.

  We arrive at the door of the third fire victim. Mush Face stands against the wall in her plain wool dress, a basket in her hands.

  ‘Has the Queen’s physician gone, milady?’ the steward asks her.

  Mush Face nods. ‘But none came to the door when I knocked.’

  The steward steps up to the door and gives a loud rap. ‘Sin eater’s come!’

  ‘I’ve been waiting,’ Mush Face calls out. But it’s not the steward she’s speaking to. Behind us down the corridor comes Fair Hair. In a bright pink stomacher and pale pink kirtle. She was the one embracing Black Fingers.

  ‘I was looking for something to bring her comfort,’ Fair Hair says to Mush Face, raising a small basket of her own. She joins Mush Face by the door. Fair Hair’s stomacher, I notice, is too tight and her breasts are like rising dough pushing out of the open partlet at the top. She’s plumped up. I’m not the only one who seems to notice. Fair Hair wriggles under Mush Face’s gaze. ‘May we see her?’ She nods towards the door.

  The steward coughs. ‘The sin eater’s been requested, milady.’

  Fair Hair sighs. ‘Perhaps we should return later.’

  ‘Let’s wait,’ Mush Face says back, placing her basket against the wall outside the chamber.

  The steward knocks again.

  ‘Is lavender or sage better for headaches?’ I hear Fair Hair ask Mush Face.

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘You spent so much time with the old midwife,’ Fair Hair answers. ‘Or were you contemplating joining a trade so you could afford some new sleeves?’

  A maid finally opens the chamber door. The steward gives a small nod and leaves down the passage. While the maid’s announcing me, I see Mush Face’s hands disappear into her wide sleeves, the only ones I’ve seen her wear. ‘Are you certain it’s your head that pains you?’ she says low to Fair Hair. ‘I heard it was your belly.’

  Fair Hair hisses right back, ‘Perhaps you should watch what you say, lest you wind up with a witch’s pin in your cunny.’ I don’t let my step show my startlement, but I steal another small look at the two ladies as I go in. Fair Hair’s cheeks are as pink as her stomacher. Mush Face stares back at her with an odd look. Almost like respect.

  The woman inside’s face is bare, but I still recognize the Painted Pig. Her eyes are ringed with red, and her unpainted cheeks have a faint mottle that reminds me of Paul’s skin. Her hand flutters to cover it under my look. ‘White lead paint poisons the skin,’ she says. ‘The more one uses, the more one must use.’

  I find a stool. The Painted Pig’s left foot is bandaged. The rest of her seems untouched. ‘I may not die from my burns,’ she says once we’re alone. ‘But somefolk meant to kill me. I fear greatly for my life. I wish to recite my sins now, lest my opportunity be lost.’

  I say the words to begin the Recitation. Like the last chamber, this one’s warm. It makes me want to sleep.

  ‘Covetousness, arrogance, vanity,’ she begins. She’s prepared for this. Her sins shoot off like arrows from her soul to mine. ‘Fault-finding, meanness . . .’ My eyes get heavy, and it’s my own head jerking up that wakes me. She’s quiet, as if she’s done.

  ‘Any last words—’ I start.

  ‘Did Corliss recite a sin that warranted a deer heart?’ All at once I’m very much awake. ‘Did Tilly Howe?’ The Painted Pig looks to the door, but we’re alone. ‘Well, I will not recite something I did not do, no matter the consequence.’

  She knows something about the deer hearts.

  Please say more. Please say more. Please say more.

  I remember my uncle Uric. He knew how to get folk to talk. I saw it more than once in the Daffrey kitchen. What he’d do is this: sit opposite them and say nothing. It seemed too easy, but a few minutes with quiet, terrifying Uric staring at them, folk’d rush in to fill up the silence with words.

  I look the Painted Pig direct in her red-rimmed eyes and count my breaths in silence. It takes only until eight for her to speak. ‘It was Corliss and that frumpy little midwife, in all events.’ She says it sharp-like, then stops like her body’s at war with her thoughts. ‘I shouldn’t blame Corliss. All of us were living in Katryna and Baron Seymaur’s household – Corliss and the other ladies, their tutors, Katryna and Bethany’s physicians . . . Maris was still queen and desperate to produce an heir so Angland would remain Eucharistian.’ She worries a ring on her finger. ‘We all saw what Bethany was involved with. None of us protected her well enough. Katryna, her stepmother, should have done, but she was with child and doing poorly. Bethany was a rash, choleric, untethered girl, just like her father. And Bethany’s own mother was killed for witchcraft, incest, fornication! We knew well what might happen.’

  She gazes up like her thoughts are strung across the ceiling. ‘Then Katryna died leaving little baby Miranda and Bethany alone with the baron. And only a few years later the baron was executed for treason. I remember the day he died. His badge, those golden wings, burned on the castle gates. Took two blows to sever his head.’

  She sits for a moment, then her voice gets soft. ‘We helped Bethany, but not in the way she wanted. We swore on the Maker’s name never to reveal what we did.’

  All at once, she looks direct at me. ‘I am not so thick as they all think. The secretary believes a Eucharistian is trying to dethrone our Queen, but I am sure the threat is closer to home.’ She’s got begging eyes, but I don’t know what she wants. All she’s told me is a jumble of old stories, and none that explains the deer hearts.

  The Painted Pig clutches at her hands. ‘The truth should have died fifteen years ago. It was Corliss’s folly. She wove the secret into a tapestry so one day Queen Bethany would know what we did. And now its meaning has been discovered, but not by the Queen. By whom, I don’t know. All I know is this: we’re being murdered so the crime will be revealed to the world on our coffins. But we didn’t kill a babe. Not Corliss and not Tilly and not me.’ She sinks back slow and loose, like a wrung-out rag.

  I think she’s finished, but then she says one more thing. ‘If I die, will judgement come down upon my killer?’ She looks at me as if I have the answer. I know what the Makermen say, but that’s not what she’s asking. She’s asking me, will I bring judgement on her killer.

  My lips say the words. ‘When the food is et, your sins will be mine.’ My fingers touch her shoulder to hip and back again in the Maker’s sign. And my head nods one nod.

  I will find your killer.

  She seems to breathe easier. But it’s not for her I’ll do it. I’ll do it for Ruth.

&n
bsp; 21. GARLIC

  WHEN I OPEN the door to the Painted Pig’s room, Fair Hair and Mush Face are gone. A shudder runs up my back at the sight of the Willow Tree, not two paces away. Was he listening at the door?

  ‘I’ve come to take the list of foods,’ he says as if to the Painted Pig, but I know it’s meant for me. I stand before him and tell him the foods, smelling the same musty smell I did when he took the list of foods after Corliss’s Recitation. I wonder that he doesn’t let a steward or maid bring the list to the kitchen clerk.

  Once he’s gone, I lean against the wood-panelled wall to have a think. I still smell smoke in the air, and there’s tracks of ash along the floor.

  Let it tell you, comes Da’s voice.

  I let what I already know come back to me. Corliss and Tilly Howe were poisoned and hearts placed on their coffins, saying they murdered a royal babe, even though they never confessed such a thing.

  The Painted Pig’s door was stuck with pitch and a fire set in her room. She was meant to die next. Her words echo in my head. We’re being murdered so the crime will be revealed to the world by our coffins.

  It’s like the fairy tale of Mr Fox where Clever Mary kills him and, in so doing, shows the town his crimes. If the Painted Pig’s right, the killer isn’t blaming them for another folk’s crime. The killer truly believes they killed a babe. But they didn’t.

  So who did? And what babe? And who placed the hearts on their coffins?

  It’s like thinking through honey. What would my mother say?

  Look to your advantage.

  Knowing something others don’t is an advantage. That’s the root of every rogue’s play, know more than your mark. The Painted Pig’s given me something most others don’t know: a tapestry with a secret. Mayhap that’s where I’ll find my advantage. And I have a mind which tapestry she means. Diana of the Wood, the one from the Queen’s sitting room that Fair Hair said Corliss gave to Bethany.

  I daren’t go back to the Queen’s quarters to look at it with Black Fingers so eager to torture me. But I don’t need to. The tapestry’s stuck in me like porridge in the gullet.

  I slide down the wall until I’m crouched on the floor. In my head I go around each part of the tapestry.

  The naked Queen under a full moon. Easy to remember, that.

  Her hand against the trunk of a tree, a winged fairy in its branch, coming out of a flower.

  The Queen’s other hand on her belly. Something about the belly, I remember, felt wrong.

  A blue boar curled like a dog at her feet. A lion too, and a stag.

  Each small bit I recall helps me remember more, like the links of a chain necklace bringing me round to the pendant.

  There was a word too, woven into the tapestry’s leafy border. The word had letters from my name: two little N’s and between them was a curved line with a dot next to it like a tree leaning over one apple. Under the apple tree was a little gallows. Under the second N was a little worm. Would the word help unravel the riddle? It doesn’t seem very secret to have a word in plain sight. Then again, I don’t know what reading’s like. Mayhap it’s a very rare word or a word only some folk can read.

  I think about what I’ve got from the tapestry, and I know what I need. It’s waiting for me at home. I go to wrap my shawl around me, but it’s not there. I took it off in the Country Mouse’s room. I chide myself for forgetting. At least it’s near him, I can’t help thinking.

  Passing through the town square I come upon a newspanto touting the upcoming revels to mark the end of the Norman emissary’s visit. A feast in the field beyond the castle. The crowd’s larger than usual, packed with folk already come to town for the festivities. It’s just a few days away. I used to love feast days, not that everyday folk were invited. It was only highborn folk, but older girls and boys could get work scrubbing pots or carrying dishes to and fro. There were lots of scraps to eat.

  Cakes and comfits, I think. Roast potatoes. My belly rumbles. Mayhap it’s thinking on the feast, or that I’ve become accustomed to regular feedings, but I’m dreadfully hungry.

  I walk on into Northside smelling the stink get stronger and stronger until I reach Dungsbrook. Almost home. My belly rumbles again. Rich gravy atop a chop.

  A laugh barks out of me with the horridness of my own thought. A chop is for betrayal. How could I wish for such a thing?

  I turn onto my lane. There are two messengers outside my door. ‘Was a fire in the castle,’ the first announces. He’s got the Queen’s badge on his arm. He must have been sent before they discovered I was already at the castle.

  The second boy straightens up. ‘Fever at the jail.’

  I try not to be grateful.

  It’s the same jail cell where I waited what seems a life ago for a sentence that didn’t come. Or, rather, came different. Ten prisoners and two turnkeys have been buried in a common grave. Six Simple Eatings are laid out in the cell. The families who brought them remain outside on the road where the air passes freely and no infection is like to touch them.

  The loaves are small, but I know now why the Sin Eater had a slow way about her. Six loaves in one sitting is a great lot. I squat on my haunches since there’s no stool. As I eat the first loaf, the recorder comes to my mind. Grey Beard in the dungeon said the recorder made his own wife a sin eater. So why did he choose me?

  The recorder sentenced me in more than this life, I think. A true curse. When it’s his turn to pass, I’ll be sure to thank him in kind.

  I chew the second loaf of bread. It’s good. I look for a baker’s mark, but it’s homemade. The others still left to eat don’t look nearly so nice.

  The day passes to evening. Some of the families go. The air cools, and finally it’s me in the jail cell, blue like a rock cave, licking cream from a bowl. I haven’t slept in a good long while. It’s in the noticing that I get weary.

  My belly is heavy above my hips as I walk home. Rounding the corner onto my lane in Dungsbrook, I see shadows idling outside my door. I get taut as a bow, readying to run. But then the shadows step out into moonlight. Old bodies, bent and cracked, not cut-throats. No fight in them at all.

  ‘Who’s that come?’ says one shadow as I near them. He carries a long staff, his hand over its top.

  ‘Frederick’s doxy,’ says the other. At first he looks to be a hunchback, but it’s just a sack hung over his shoulder.

  The first shadow gives me a good look, then raps the other shadow on the arm, ‘It’s not! It’s verily not! ’Tis a sin eater.’ He turns and covers his eyes.

  ‘Hardly fat enough for a sin eater,’ says the second shadow, his eyes on the dirt lane. Then: ‘’Tis a poor idea, a sin eater’s place as a stalling ken. A poor idea.’ He spits and shifts the sack.

  ‘Don’t offend her now.’ The first shadow doffs his dark cap in my direction, then pulls the second shadow’s cap from his head.

  ‘What’s that for?’ the second shadow says, but he follows the other, taking a step away from the door so I can go in.

  My home has become an inn. Brida is seated in a corner, sipping from a bowl. Frederick lounges by the fire with Jane’s children, chatting with Paul, who has his rags wrapped carefully about his face despite the warmth. An inn and an ordinary house as well, since Jane is also about, stirring a pot over the hearth. Then the door opens behind me, and the two shadows come in too, caps still in their hands. The first shadow places his staff by the door.

  ‘Coins in the basin,’ calls Frederick from the fireside. ‘For the feed pot. We take no profit from it.’ His eyes walk past me. ‘Our benefactress has returned!’

  I thought I had made myself mistress of my own house, but now I see they’ve been creeping up on me. They’re like the slow rot that overtakes roof thatch. I’m on top of it, you think each day. Not so bad, you tell yourself. Until the one day you wake in a pile of rotten thatch and nothing over your head but white sky. If my mother were here she’d chase them all out, but first I need something from them.

  I go
direct to the hearth, where there’s a bed of grey ash. Jane scoots out of the way, taking a platter of oysters with her. I kneel and draw the letters I remember from the tapestry in the ash. Jane’s children dart forward to see what I’m doing. Jane gives the older boy a hard slap across the hand that makes him howl.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Frederick, gathering the boy into his arms and nuzzling his belly until giggles take over. Frederick looks at the ashes and shakes his head. ‘Don’t know that one.’

  One of the shadows speaks up hesitantly. ‘You talking to a sin eater? That’s bad truck.’

  ‘I’m talking to the room at large,’ Frederick says. ‘A solilo-quy, not a dialogue. If she overhears, so be it.’

  The first shadow looks at Frederick doubtfully. ‘Lot of words there.’

  ‘What’s her catch?’ asks the second shadow, taking an eyeful of the room but nodding towards 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 a not 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.’