Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

looking down on her. She didn't see the figure of death lean over her, flicking water from his hyssop twigs as he parodied the blessing of the marriage bed. But she felt the drops fall on her naked face and feet and winced as if they were drops of boiling oil.
    The groom, encouraged by playful kicks to his bare backside, crawled towards the prone woman until he was straddling her. Feeling him above her, she raised her hands to try to push him off, but the gesture was useless. Even a woman sound in limb would have been hard put to push his weight off her. She, with her twisted hands and wasted body, stood no chance.
    One of the more sober village women took pity on her. ‘There, there, lay still, my duck, and it'll soon be over,’ she crooned, catching the bride's wrists and pinning them gently but firmly against the cross behind her head.
    ‘Is that what she says to you?’ one of the men called out to the woman's husband. The crowd roared with laughter.
    ‘Go on, my son; give her all you've got. We're all counting on you, so see you make a good job of it.’
    The bridegroom stared round, mouth hanging open, unable to believe that he was at last being given permission to do to a woman what had always been forbidden him. How many girls had he longed to do this to? Had he tried several times when he was younger and been repulsed? Perhaps he'd been given a sound thrashing into the bargain by the girls' brothers or his own father. Now everyone in the village was urging him to do it. This might be a dream; he might wake up soon.
    After it was all over, the women helped the bride to a dark corner and pressed her hands round a beaker of hot spiced ale.
    ‘There, there, my duck, at least you didn't have to look at him. Believe me, with a husband like mine, there's many a night when I wish I was blind.’
    They left her crouching on the ground under the graveyard wall. She pressed her back hard against the sharp flinty stones as if pain was the only certainty she could trust inand then she wept. She wept silently, as she did everything; her eyes were sightless, but they could still make tears.
    She could console herself with the wedding gifts from the village though – a few pots and pans, an armful of rushlights, some blankets and a pallet, hens and a cockerel, a bag or two of flour and a single-roomed hut which had once been used to store salt, so at least it was dry and had a good stout door. It was a palace compared to what she had owned up until that morning and since the whole community had pitched in she was better set up than many a village girl could expect to be when she wed.
    So what if she had no choice in her bridegroom? In that, she was no different from any highborn lady in the land, even a merchant's daughter. For if land, trade or money is entailed, then marriage is simply a business transaction to be negotiated by the parents. Many a bride on her wedding night has passed from girl to woman with her eyes tightly shut and her teeth clenched, praying it will soon be over. No, all things considered, you could argue that the crippled bride had been treated no worse than any royal princess. But then, the flames of a fire are not made less painful by the knowledge that others are burning with you.
    I had not yet given the bride a wedding gift myself. I took out of my scrip a little wisp of stiff coarse hair bound up with a white thread and placed it in her lap. She touched it tentatively, a puzzled expression on her face.
    ‘A wedding gift for you, a relic. A few hairs from St Uncumber's beard. You know of St Uncumber?’
    She slowly shook her head.
    ‘Her real name was Wilgefortis. She was a princess of Portugal whose father tried to force her to marry the King of Sicily, but she'd taken a vow to remain a virgin, so she prayed that the Blessed Virgin would make her unattractiveto her betrothed and her prayers were answered with a beard that sprouted on her face. The King of Sicily withdrew in horror when he saw it