Wakenhyrst

by Michelle Paver

Maud pictured the two sets of rules as a pair of gigantic thorny walls leaning over her. She knew exactly what St Matthew meant when he said: ‘Narrow is the way, and few there be that find it.’

Around me I made out the hunched shapes of yew trees. I’ve never liked them. I read somewhere that this churchyard stands a yard higher than its surroundings because of all the bodies buried here since Saxon times. For a thousand years these yews have fed on human flesh.

For this she was taken before a great cleric in a furred hood, who said: Woman, you must not speak of God to the people. Then this creature said: But my lord, I think the Gospel gives me leave to speak of God. And the cleric said: Ah now we know she has a devil in her! For Saint Paul himself has written that no woman may preach – so that if a woman should try, it follows that she must be possessed by a devil.