Saint Mary's Church

The Witch's Daughter, Chapter 16: Hilde is escorted from the Priory and seeks out Father Stephen. But a burly man and a strange encounter in the Vestry changes her plans.

The stiff breeze had a blown apart the banks of grey, and the summer sun glared down accusingly over a tall stack of puffy white cloud. In the town below them, down the gentle slope of the priory hill willows shaded the main road, but here Hilde and Gobnait stood by the Priory bridge with no shade, and no shelter from the blustery summer winds. Hilde’s hat was pulled down hard over her hair, but the wind threatened to pick off her hat and whipped at their coats. Gobnait put her hand to her coif as a gust caught it.

“Are you sure seeing Father Stephen is a good idea?” Gobnait asked.

“He always was friendly to my Father. Mama didn’t take me to church much. But I’m sure he’ll help. He does not like that Bishop at all. And he knows a lot. I have to see him,” Hilde said. She shaded her eyes against the glare of the sky.

“I’ll have to leave you here, Hilde,” Gobnait said, raising her voice. She put her hand on Hilde’s arm. “But listen carefully. You must say nothing about the Bishop. Nothing, do you hear?”

“What do you mean?” Hilde asked, leaning close to be sure she heard Gobnait. It seemed wrong to be protecting this false churchman.

“And nothing about what Gráinne confided in you either!”

Hilde half laughed, disbelief written on her face. As much as she respected Gobnait as a teacher, she struggled to make sense of this. If only she hadn’t lost the flask with Indretach’s stamp that she’d found in the Bishop’s chamber.

“And he just gets away with it?” Hilde blurted out the question.

“That is not for you to decide. And Gráinne is really upset and scared. Hilde, I’m surprised at you. It will be dealt with, but you must let the Priory handle this,” Gobnait said. Her eyes narrowed, and then she looked down.

“I never meant to corner her like that. Honestly! She has to understand. My Mama’s life is on the line! What she knows is so important!” Hilde said. She gestured back toward the Priory, where in Hilde’s imagination she now saw the older nun downcast in her cell.

“You’re just a girl! You have no idea Hilde!” Gobnait shook her head slowly.

Gobnait drew her woollen habit across herself, and folded her arms. She turned back toward the rickety wooden bridge over the Muck River, toward the Priory, toward her duties. Hilde spluttered a protest but it was lost to the winds, and the nun had already turned, not seeing her beseeching hands. Hilde put her fists by her side, shook them and clenched her jaw.

The clumping of the nun boots diminished as she crossed the mud spattered timbers of the Priory bridge. The dark silhouette of the Priory’s walls as the sun moved overhead toward the west seemed to absorb the figure of Gobnait as she crested the bridge and disappeared.

It seemed Hilde’s hopes of absolving her Mama of the crazy accusations of Emma, Alice and the rest shrank to a dot as well. Gobnait being upset with her was a bad turn, her writing seemed the best chance of countering the doubtful Bishop’s fistful of parchments. How did she let the clay vessel with its potent symbol slip from her hands?

Hilde turned her feet down the mild slope from Priory hill toward the town.

Cooler and quieter down among the riverside trees of Duncormac’s shallow valley, Hilde paused a moment.

Saint Mary’s church steeple raised its modest wooden spire against the noonday sky. The front door was open, and a heavy set man loitered on the front steps. There was no sign of Father Stephen. From Hilde’s best memory a small door opened on to a ladder at the back but it was for the seldom used wooden bell-tower, and likely latched from inside.

There has to be a way in. Hilde checked her disguise and walked on.

The graveyard’s stone memorials stuck up from yellowed grass and trampled mud, like the teeth of an old sage, testaments to centuries of lives and deaths. A seldom used lane ran between the graveyard and the main church building, ruts left by the last time a casket arrived here. The lane petered out as it ran down through lupin and hawthorn to the willows that marked the rivers edge below.

A graveyard in Kilkenny, Ireland © 2024 Sarah Smith

Angry starlings flew in a small formation swooping and banking between the trees, eventually settling on the eaves of the church after bickering for a time.

Hilde slowed her pace as she drew close and the man continued to hang his head. The clay plastered timbers of the church’s walls towered higher as the ground fell away toward the river at the back, the only public door being the large one in front that the burly chap occupied. Hilde touched her face. The grime of the charcoal still in place, Hilde took a deep breath and straightened her boys tunic, and pulled her cap down over her curls.

Tiernan O’Rourke looked up as Hilde approached, and moved to block the door. He wiped a rheumy eye, and blinked at Hilde. He’d always smiled at her in a weird way during the yearly village fair, and nodded at her and her father when they went to church. But the years had not been kind to him, and now he was more guarded. Hilde shivered despite the warm day.

“Confession?” he asked, leering into the bright sky.

Hilde shook her head.

“Well, lad, I’m next to see Father Stephen,” Tiernan said, as he glanced back into the church, and then folded his arms. He peered at Hilde, turning his head as if his good eye might discern more. “You’ll have to wait. Whatever it is ye seek.”

Hilde’s face reddened, under her grimy patina. She tugged on the front of her cap and ducked her head, in acknowledgement. She marched quickly away from the stairs, and around the side of the church toward the vestry. It lay in the same modest building as Father Stephen’s rooms, apart from and behind the church proper.

It seemed O’Rourke’s eyes were boring into the back of her head as she walked. And with no plan but to escape his interest Hilde went straight toward the vestry’s steps.

An older man’s wheezing laugh came from inside, and halted Hilde in her stride. The door to the vestry stood open, and while a row of pegs with coats and a line of boots on the floor blocked her view she saw the legs of a man spread out at his ease. A shrill cackle followed, from another, then the faint sounds of movement. Two pairs of feet sounded on the floor, and a woman’s voice. Hilde moved down the slope a little, behind a stand of hawthorn.

The room was supposed to be for Gods work, meetings of the group that kept up the yards, gravestones and buildings; for prayers and bible study. Adults doing what was needed for the good of the village. But it sounded unless Hilde’s ears were mistaken like the clink of stoneware cups. And it was only just past midday.