Sinful Folk: A Novel of the Medieval Era

The novel Sinful Folk is narrated by a desperate mother who carries a hidden secret and a terrible grief. In December of the year 1377, the village of Duns in northeast England suffered a great tragedy.

Sinful Folk is the story of a mid-winter journey through the eyes of Mear, a former nun who has lived for decades disguised as a mute man, raising her son in secret in an isolated village. Mear begins her pilgrimage in terror and heartache, and ends in triumph and redemption. Posted below for your reading pleasure is an early version of chapter 1.

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O young Hugh of Lincoln, slain also
By the cursed Jews, as is well known –
For it was not but a little while ago –
Pray also for us, we Sinful Folk,
That, of his mercy, God so merciful
On us his great mercy multiply,
For reverence of his mother Mary. Amen.


– Geoffrey Chaucer,
The Prioress’s Tale The Canterbury Tales

In December of the year 1377, the village of Duns in the northeast of England suffered a great tragedy. Four of its young boys were burned to death in a house near the center of the village. It was the dead of winter, and the house burned to the ground. The charred bodies of the boys were recovered and identified.

As was common with many tragic events in that century, it was supposed the Jews were to blame. It should be noted that all Jews were forcibly converted or expelled by order of the English Crown, some fifty years earlier, in 1325.

Although most English peasants at that time had never traveled during the course of their lives more than twenty miles from the place of their birth, five men from the village of Duns loaded the bodies on a cart and journeyed over 200 miles to London. The men went there to present the bodies at the King’s seat, and to demand justice against the Jews.

The historical record is clear on these few facts.

History does not record any further details about the incident -- neither the motivations, intentions, or experiences of the men who undertook this arduous journey are noted. Not a single person from the village is identified, not even the guilty party.

The King’s response is also not a matter of record.

When the explosive crackling of the fire becomes undeniable, finally I listen to the terror that has all night long been resounding through the frantic beating in my breast, the dry terror that fills my throat, the fear that came with the pricking of the rat’s nervous feet in the darkness.

Christian has not come home all the night long.

I know, for I have lain in this utter darkness for hours now with my eyes stretched as wide as pits in the ground, yearning for my son’s return.

In the early hours, I told myself that the sound was of frost cracking, perhaps the river ice breaking up. I persuaded myself of this until the noise was an undeniable roar. Then I lied to my own heart, as one lies to a frightened child, one whom you know cannot be saved from the conflagration. I lied that the sound was unseasonable weather: a sudden rainfall piercing the gray clouds overhead, the sound of thunder.

I lied. For all along, I knew the thunder was too near.

Finally, I sat up in the sweat-soaked heap of blankets, and gripped my hope to me once more, a small bird quaking in the hovel-built nest of my heart. Now I could hear the crackling of the flames clearly. Yet I cannot go outside until I perform the rituals that have now been part of my life for nearly twenty years.

I wrap my bosom tightly, binding the womanly shape of my body into that of a eunuch. Then I stand and bath my face with icy water from the bathing dish. The motion of the laving water upon my shivering skin is like to every Compline and Matins when I rose. As the water touches my face in the thick darkness of the night, it seems to me that not a year has passed since I was last a prentice in the Abbey of Canterbury. The memory seems so present to me, I can nearly recall my vanished devotion. I am baptized once more, in my depravation.

I find fireplace soot, and carefully I smear the edges of my smooth jaw, the sallow cheeks and the soft upper lip with a faint tinge of blackness. Sometimes Christian would laugh at this, and tell me no one cared anymore about my beard. And sometimes I laughed too, recalling Theresa of Avignon, that spoiled heiress of the French throne, who shared my vows at Canterbury. Every morn, regardless of her vows – or perhaps, against them – she would anoint her face with perfume and smear ointment on her skin, transforming her freckled countenance to one more pleasing, at least in her own eyes. In those moments, I realize that perhaps this sooty ritual is my own paean to womanhood. Just like Theresa, I have carried with me a type of vanity: if I cannot be a woman, I will be as ugly a man as I can muster.

As I create my new face, I am taken for a moment back to the Abbey.

Desperately, I long for the words of a prayer. I say my own half-forgotten name, invoking the queen of heaven: Alma…

… O Alma Redemptoris, redemptoris… I have lost the words to it, yet I struggle on, hoping against hope. Perhaps Christian is one of the generous carrying the useless pails of water, perhaps Christian has carried someone to safety. I hear voices outside, men rushing by.

Trapped, someone shouts, Trapped and burning! They’re burning, God help them, they’ll be dead by now!

The words of the prayer desert me, the abbey is gone, and with it my youth, my innocence, and my memories of womanhood. Inwardly, I curse my pride and long for the faith I’ve long since lost. The sound of the flames is picking up in the wind across the heath.

I fear to go out. For what can I do? I cannot go out and ask questions in this place where I have lived for fifteen years, because to them I am but a mute beggar, a man who came bereft into their village with a tiny son who grew up knowing that his mother’s proper name was Papa, that his mother never spoke except to murmur to him in a cracked whisper late in the night. I am a man to them, and a broken, mute one at that. One who is capable of lending a hand in the building of a roof or the mucking out of a stable, who is grateful with his eyes for the smallest bit of copper, and a man who is still a bit of a mystery I imagine, even to these close-mouthed and close-eyed villagers. For this is a man whose son can weave and sew like no man’s son ever born, and this is a man who can take a broken wineskin thrown to him in sympathy, and make it whole once more. Perhaps one or more of them suspects my training in the Abbey. Perhaps no one cares anymore, as Christian never tires of telling me.

But what if he is wrong? What if those remain who do care? What if this fire was started to see if I smoked when lit? Who would turn their mute beggar over to the King’s officers? What sport would that be, to watch a mute turn on the spit? Even as my heart belies me, I think it is impossible for this fire to be connected to me and my secrets. I have disappeared to most – I have made myself nothing. A harmless, albeit peculiar, man. A man who is bereft both of desire and of tongue, a man who is not worth a thought.

The flames rise again, I can hear the west wind coming strong across the heath. It is a demon, roaring as it takes the building apart. My memories cease in an instant. Christian would have come to check on me already, if he were able. The crackle is like that of hell itself.

I am pierced to the root, all of my veins bathed in a liquor of terror.

Despite my quaking heart, I crawl out into the frigid air. The cobblestones are wet with splashed water. In the dance of the fire, the wet stones glow with the reflected flames, as if covered with draining blood. A slaughterhouse of horrors is what I face across the village square. The largest house in the village is consumed: the windows are wreathed in flame, every piece of wood steams as if it is melting. The roof seems supported not by heavy timbers, but by ropy masses of blazing smoke.

It is the home of Benedict, the weaver, and it is the home where my son is apprentice. Benedict’s home is the very place Christian went, late that night, to finish the garments called for by our Lord, the Knight Peter of York, who was to be called to Prince Edward of Woodstock’s Court, perhaps to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, perhaps to fight once more on the endless battlegrounds of France. We are such who are not privilege to these noble journeys, we simply touch the garments of those who go.

Then I am transfixed by the flames, just as any beast is frozen in the light of a sudden torch. The smoke is strangely pungent and rich, even as it chokes and claws at my nostrils and my throat. I wrap a rag across my face and stare upward. The roof catches, the sound of it a rushing swirl of darkness visible, rendering useless all the efforts of the men who throw water from the square, from rooftops, from any vantage point sheltered from the heat.

Closer the flames seem to me now than the house across the square ever used to be. Madly, the crowd rushes around me who stands there, horror-stricken and immovable. The men – and women too – move like so many ants on an anthill threatened by a rising tide. There is no order to their motion, only the desperation to save their houses, their village, their children, their friends.

I look into all their faces, my mute yearning enough to communicate my desire. As I see each face I know, I cast them away, looking to the next, hoping to see in another wide pair of eyes, another yearning mouth, the one I seek: Christian’s face. More than once I imagine I do see him coming towards me, soot-blackened, red-eyed from lack of sleep perhaps, but whole and hearty.

Papa, he will say. Papa, what are you doing? Did you not know I was helping Benedict weave this night?

I begin to see the same faces circle past me once more, every one of them frantically carrying water. Now they are dousing the houses near to Benedict’s, protecting the rest of the village. Slowly it comes to me that I have seen all the living folk of this village: there are no others left. Only a few are not here – the very young, of course, and Jack, whose foot was trampled by the cow, and Phoebe, whose swelling progress with child I have watched circumspectly and with yearning. Even now, in the midst of this terror, she may be feeling the pangs of child-birth, bringing a new soul to this pit of horror. My body clenches with hers in this agony, remembering my only son.

There are no others who can be accounted for.

The others that are missing must be the ones they spoke of, the ones who were caught in the flames this night. They could be nowhere else – this conflagration is a beacon that could be seen in far-off Sherwood. And they are the young, the brave, the foolhardy. Silently, I count on my fingers, to know how many are missing: Breton the swarthy boy, Matthew the miller’s son, Stephen the second son of the weaver, Jonathon the only son of Lochan the carpenter, and my own, my young Christian, the one who is always ready with a laugh, a joke, a jibe.

Yet there is no laughter now. His face has not passed me. Desperately, I turn around once more, searching each face – wishing, not for the first time, that I could use the tongue that lies silent within my mouth. A slow horror rises in me, the thought that if I had moved myself earlier in the night, instead of lying terrified within, like some petrified and helpless child, I might have saved him. If I had dared more than I have dared in twenty years, it is possible I might have seen him again. It is only a perhaps, but as always, I find a new cause to curse myself.

The house has fallen apart, split wide like a carcass ready for roasting. One of the brave few who have carried water now steps up onto the smoldering threshold, and cries out, falling to his knees. He wraps his arms in soaked clothes and steps into the smoke. A sound goes up from him – he says they are close to the door – it is an agonized cry. I hear in his voice the same loss of hope I now feel sink through my deadened soul.

A moment later, out comes the man again, dragging a charred body. Then another, and another. There are five of them in all. All the missing are accounted for.

The smell is nauseous, yet it makes my mouth water. It is like roast pig, and like burned wool.

My love for Christian conquers all of my long-suffered semblance, almost makes me break my vow. For a moment, without conscious seeming, my mouth opens. Almost, a cry comes out of my mouth, I can feel my tongue form his name. But I am fortunate – the fire covers any sound. Now the people are frantic around me, soaking the thatched roofs nearby with endless buckets of water. And I stand marooned in the rushing crowd, frozen as the other mothers are frozen over the bodies of their sons. Yet I do not approach. I cannot. My heart will not move forward.

The day is almost upon us though. The black night is lessened, the dark shapes of the houses and the trees are now like paper cut out from darkness itself, silhouettes against the faint blue light in the east. The burned house, with its horrors, is now only gray and ember-filled in the approaching dawn.

The crowd has slowed its frantic work, the danger past for the moment. Now, for the first time, I can hear the cries of children. No doubt those cries have been all around me for hours. Yet I had ears only for one cry, and that never came.

The heap of blackened bodies is now almost surrounded by the families of these young men. They were the best our village had to offer. Out of seeming respect, or perhaps simply to keep back from the stench of the burning, the crowd gives the families a wide berth. There is also such a space around me, an unnatural gap between my neighbors and me, as if their flesh shrinks back from my grief. Slowly, I find myself moving forward into the empty circle before the house. For though I cannot speak, all know of my loss. Yet I cannot move of my own volition. So they are bolder than I am. My neighbors are the ones who finally force me forward.

The men of the families are speaking to each other, in low furious tones. Benedict sweeps his hat from his bald head and throws it on the ground. He is defending himself, he has also lost a son this night, and I can hear his voice vibrate in agony between fury and grief. It seems Benedict was not even present this night at his own establishment. He had taken his wife to see to Phoebe. I was right, it seems, she did birth this night. But what were the boys doing here, if not working for their master Benedict? He is as much at a loss as the rest of us.

Yet I am no longer listening. I touch each of the bodies, and something in me whispers silently the words of the last rite, wishing against all reason that my faith would return to me. For we have no priest in this village. I look down at the faces. If I still believed in such fictions, the souls of these innocents would be trapped in limbo for eternity. A cold God to condemn children to such punishment. So silently, I bless each body, knowing God hears even the prayer said in unbelief. There is a choking sound, and a moment later I realize my cheeks are wet.

Andrew! a voice speaks to me, and I turn, blinded and terrified, trying to cover my tear-streaked face. Ach, Andrew, there is no shame in tears. For all of us have lost.

It is Lochan, the carpenter. The closest thing I have found in this village to a friend. Long have I watched him, bringing him wood or tinder for his fires. Sometimes I have wondered if he suspected, if he saw through my soot-stained skin to the woman underneath. For I longed for him, in my own mute way. Always though, I knew that I deceived myself most of all – he would have been as shocked as any if I were to reveal my subterfuge. The care that Lochan showed was only that from one man to another.

It is brotherly love that he shows me now, putting an arm around my slight shoulders, holding me as I sob, silent as ever, even in my grief.

Let me help you find him, Andrew. I blink up at him, confused. All around us, the men are talking, their voices more heated than before. But Lochan is not concerned with them, he speaks only to me.

Ach, I’ve seen you touching the bodies. You make the sign of the cross. I wonder who else has seen me, who else knows that I make the sign of priests and nuns. He’s over here though, the nearest to the house, the last brought out.

When we find him, he is separated a little from the others. The boy I birthed, out of hatred, and out of love. The child I hid as my own, the one who knew every one of my secrets.

His body is burned, but I would know the chain he wears around his neck, as I would know my own flesh. The chain is a duplicate of my own. Against that blackened flesh, the silver glimmers faintly, like treasure unearthed from deep underground.

I fall to my knees. Lochan leaves me there, on the ground, and goes to another body. A groan comes out of him, a sound to shake the earth. His son.

The men are still talking, and soon Lochan joins them, his voice hoarse though he has spoken little.

They tell me later that I waited on the ground, seeming to pray, all through the time they spoke. To me, it seemed a mere moment that I waited, stricken to terror by a God that would do this to me, who would take away my last sustenance, my comfort in age. I stir only when they lift the body next to me from the ground. I look around, blinking in the sudden daylight. They are putting the bodies on a cart.

No one speaks to me of this. Lochan has other concerns, he is tending to his family. And none else in the village speaks to a mute man, for the mute cannot respond.

No one else writes here. I taught Christian what I knew of letters, but we kept this a secret. I did not want to be accused of witchcraft.

So the village has always acted as if there is no point in consulting me. They must think, what use is a conversation with a fence post, with a muted log? They move my son without speaking to me, who wait here, bowed down to the ground.

I rouse myself, finding something within I thought had been beaten out of me long ago. I push through the gathering crowd. Tom Barker – he is a braggart – is boasting about what he will do to the miscreant responsible for this horror.

Miscreant! He shouts, thumping his stout belly with a fist, as if this horror is the theft of a card of wool or a few sticks of firewood.

For they did this against the Christ too – they destroyed him in his youth. For our saviour, and our Lord, I swear it!

I nearly laugh – Tom Barker is the last person who should swear before God. I know his exploits too well to think him a warrior of Christ now, after all these years. But he has lost his son, perhaps I should allow him a moment of grace. But no grace has been given me, how can I find it in myself to pass on?

The one with hair like wheat-chaff, the one called Salvius, he lets out a shout: The Jews did this! The Jews!

The cry is picked up by the crowd: The Jews, The Jews, the Jews! Against the Jews!

Once again, I am lost in the conversation. If I were not mute, I would be no use in any case. I cannot keep up with the sounds, the words, the ideas that flutter so rapidly off the tongues of others. Even in the Abbey, my Superior once said…

But they are loading a body onto the cart. It lands with a sodden thunk.
Yes, yes, they’ll keep. It’s mid-winter, by God’s bloody Son! says the taciturn and sullen Geoff, the man who is loading them. A moment later, I realize the truth of this. My teeth have been chattering all the night long, my uncovered ankles throbbing with the cold. Yet I have not noticed these things.

I am still standing there, lost in my agony, only now aware of the cold that threatens to come into my very bones. I will not wait here in the cold forever.

When they come to get Christian, I cling to him and look up at them, accusing them. I will not let him depart from me, even in this state. I will heal him, I think desperately, I will care for his body.

Why do you hold on, old Mear? someone says to me. Let the body go.

He’s the father, says another. He’s t' father. Show him pity. He cannot speak – 'e is deaf an' dumb – caint understand what has happened here.

Behind us, in the crowd, Salvius and Tom bellow, their voices husky with rage. The sound of the crowd swells and crests under the whip of this mad grief.

Justice! They cry. The Jews! Justice against the Jews – the King will hear this! Damn the Jews! Damn the Jews to hell! The Jews!

But the Jews killed our Christ, their sacrifice was accomplished, why would they kill again? There again is that firm voice of logic, the one that brought me before my Mother Superior so often. The questioning of God’s ways, she would say, is not for novices. Yet I am no novice now. I am no nun. I am no woman either. I am nothing.

And I do not care about the Jews. I care about my boy. That is my only focus, my entire soul seems tied to his sweet body, the one that is stretched out before me like a tortured penitent. I can feel his burning through my flesh, the choking smoke is in my own lungs. I want to burn with him. There is nothing left to live for. I wish to die.

Then someone comes before my vision, interrupts my sight of him. It seems that I cannot wish myself out of existence, for here I feel my body still breathing, my heart still pounding ignorantly in my bosom. And there is something I want. The men are lifting Christian onto the cart, now they are taking him away. It penetrates finally. There will be nothing left to me. Not a body, not a memory, not a grave.

I fall face down on the ground, some faint cry coming out of my throat. Then I lift my soot-stained face, smeared now with Christian’s ashes and dirt from the road, and I cry out again, an inarticulate sound, something high and keening.

Years have passed, decades even, since I made a sound where others could hear me. All turn towards me. Even the men loading the bodies on the cart now heed me.

I make a motion. I will come with them, wherever they are taking him. I will come as well.

There is some debate. People look away from me and shake their heads. Few believe that I fully understand what is going on, the pitched debate of the morning, the decisions that have been made. No one believes that I can make the journey, least of all myself.

My gestures are forceful, as I have never been forceful before in this village. Yet in this I have a right to speak. And I do speak, with my hands, my face, with all that is left to me. I will go.

Even as I force the issue, the people are muttering, looking away, their attention fading and drifting from my momentary spectacle.

Some vague demon left in me compels me to strive for this last act. Again, I make a sound as only the mute would make. This time, as loud as I can muster. It is the first such howl I have made in a decade. My throat is filled with rust, my tongue cleaves to my teeth, I cannot speak, I know I cannot.

But again I make that sound. And they listen. They will allow me to go, wherever they are taking my son’s body.

I stumble back to the tiny house – built by Christian and myself, after so many years of sleeping in the woodcutter’s shed – and I take what I will need. A few loaves of dark bread, dried mutton, most of the furs with which we make up our bed, and the tarnished silver chain to match the one my son bore. I take also a small pot of soot, for my face in the night.

They say they are going to seek retribution against the Jews for this night, they go for justice to that highest earthly arbitrator. They go to the King. Yet do I stumble along their path for that reason, or for my own strange need?

As I struggle to catch up with the moving cart, I know that I am going only because my son is going, my world is contained in that tortured and blackened husk.

Where else would I go, but with him?

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If you're interested in being an EARLY READER drop me an e-mail. The novel is forthcoming in 2012.

Reaching Me: Ned Hayes · Seattle WA · 206.321.7981 · nedhayes AT gmail.com