The Raven's Head

by Karen Maitland

  She no longer cares that the canons might hear her now. She wants them to hear. But in truth no one inside those high walls would hear even a whole army marching down the road, over this rain and wind.

  She stops. She has reached the place, though she cannot see it.

  ‘Peter! Peter! Talk to me!’

  She can hear the water surging along the ditch, but it would be useless to search for the plank she has hidden to bridge it. She crawls over the sodden grass until she can feel the edge of the ditch, then gingerly lowers herself into the torrent of icy water. Her feet sink deep into the mud and filth. The current buffets her sideways, threatening to knock her over and drag her under. For a terrifying moment she can’t move her feet.

  She lunges at the grass and plants that cling to the bank on the other side of the ditch, and drags herself free. Planting her legs wide apart and clinging to a thin cleft, she slides her free hand along the streaming stones towards where she thinks the hole must be. A torrent of water gushes out of the wall, pushing her hand away. She edges closer, forcing her hand into the hole. There is still a gap, a narrow gap above the cascade. The water has not yet filled the tunnel.

  ‘Peter,’ she screams above the roar, ‘take my hand.’

  She pushes her numb fingers into the hole and now she understands why the water rushing out has not filled the drain. Something is wedged against the roof of the tunnel, the force of the water pressing it against the stone. She feels hair rippling in the current. She feels the hard skull, the soft cheek, the limp arm. Still she goes on praying. Let him be alive. Please let him be alive.

  Only when the final lightning bolt of the storm flashes across the black sky, only when she glimpses the blue lips, the unseeing eyes fixed wide in terror and despair, only then does she finally stop praying, for she knows her prayer will never be answered. She has come too late.

  Epilogue

  Under the Astrological House of Gemini, the Twins, in the year of Our Lord, 1225

  Our Stone is the leaven of all other metals and changes them into its own nature. As leaven, though of the same nature with dough, cannot raise it, until from dough it has received a new quality it did not possess before, so our Stone cannot change metals until it itself is changed.

  Gisa returned before dawn. She was soaked and shivering uncontrollably, but she said not one word about where she’d been. She huddled, steaming, in front of the hearth fire, staring into the flames. Whether she slept or not, I don’t know. I certainly did, but when I woke again, I found her still lying in same place, gazing into the embers, though young Regulus had somehow wriggled across to her in spite of his cast and lay clinging to her leg as if he feared she might vanish if he let go.

  After we had raided the kitchens for breakfast, I searched the stables until I found a small cart on which I could carry the boy, though it was Gisa who finally had to show me how to hitch it up to one of the horses. She insisted she would take nothing from the house, save some food for the journey. She certainly wouldn’t survive on the road if she thought pride would fill her stomach or warm her bones.

  I knew only too well that a handful of dried meat doesn’t last long, or buy you a dry bed in an inn, so I purloined a few things I knew I could sell to keep both of us in comfort. I ignored the goblets and boxes with their strange engravings, anything that might be traced back to the manor, and took only what no one could identify, plain pieces of silver and pewter, which I hid in sacks and kegs beneath the smoked meat and flour. Gisa would be grateful to me when she was sitting by the roaring fire in a tavern instead of huddled at the roadside in the rain.

  The first and only time I saw Gisa cry in the whole of that nightmare was when she realised the birds in the tower had also died in the flames, trapped in their cages. She started to sob as if the birds had been her own pets. I think if she’d thought even one of them might have survived I’d have been hard pushed to stop her going back into the smouldering ruins to release it.

  Instead, she went round every room in the manor and collected up all the caged birds she could find, taking the cages outside and opening the doors one by one. Some birds flew free at once, making for the safety of the tallest trees they could see. A few scuttled across the ground, running to hide under bushes, as if they had forgotten how to fly, but some just sat in their prisons staring at the open door, and even when we shook the cages they clung to the sides chirruping piteously as if they were afraid to leave.

  ‘We’d better get on the road,’ I urged. ‘The flames must have been seen from the town last night. I don’t want to be here when the sheriff arrives. Even I’d find it hard to think of a tale to explain this.’

  She nodded and, with a last sorrowful look at the birds still clinging to their open cages, she walked back across the grass towards the house.

  She suddenly stopped. ‘Where’s my mother?’

  I gestured towards the back of the tower.

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘No, believe me. You don’t want to see her. Besides, we daren’t delay any longer. If the bailiff or one of the White Canons finds us here, they might take it into their heads that we started the fire. And with both of us stinking like kippers, we’d have as much chance of proving our innocence as a fox caught in a chicken coop with a mouthful of feathers.’ I gestured towards the smoking ruins. ‘There are bodies in there, remember?’

  But Gisa could be a stubborn little vixen when she wanted, and I found myself pressing my sleeve to my mouth as I led her past the smouldering tower, reeking of wood smoke, burned dung and charred flesh. I held the branches of the yew trees aside so that Gisa could squeeze through and jerked my chin towards the door of the chapel. Though the sun had risen, flooding the garden beyond with light, not a single shaft penetrated the yew grove. Twilight never departed there.

  Taking a deep breath, Gisa turned the iron ring and pushed the door open. I watched her vanish down the steps. But a few moments later, she was back.

  ‘She’s not there.’

  ‘I thought it was a carved effigy at first, lying on the marble slab, but look at it more closely.’

  She frowned. ‘There is no effigy.’

  I sighed impatiently. Couldn’t she see what was right in front of her? I’d no wish to go into that place again, but I could tell I was not going to get her to leave until her curiosity had been satisfied.

  I pushed past her and took a couple of steps down. ‘Look, there . . .’

  But Gisa was right. The slab was bare.

  ‘But . . . I don’t understand . . . The body was stretched out on that. It was right there.’

  I peered around in the gloom, wondering if for some reason she had been moved to the floor, but the charnel house was so small, there was nowhere to conceal a body.

  Gisa gazed up at me, her eyes shining in the gloom. ‘Do you think . . . Do you think Sylvain succeeded . . . that she really has come back to life?’

  She, too, gazed round the tiny chamber, as if she thought her mother might be standing somewhere in the shadows, waiting to speak to her.

  ‘I imagine Sylvain moved her body to the tower in preparation for whatever alchemy he intended and it burned in the fire. It was covered with wax, so it was probably one of the first things to catch. We won’t find any of it now.’

  I saw her shrink into herself, as if she’d been slapped, and I cursed myself. Why had I said that? I could have let her go on hoping. Where would be the harm?

  Awkwardly, I turned away, to give her time to recover herself.

  At the far end of the slab of marble, something caught my eye. I hadn’t noticed it when I first came in – it had been too dark to see clearly – but now as I moved my head I saw the faint ghost of light from the open doorway glinting on something.

  I moved closer, stretching out my hand curiously and instantly drawing it back with a cry. The raven’s head! It was as shiny and bright as the day Philippe first showed it to me.

  Gisa gestured towards it. ‘I saw that in your chamber
when you were lying sick. Is it yours?’

  She moved closer, but I caught her arm and pulled her back. ‘Don’t touch it!’

  Startled, she stared at me. ‘But it’s valuable. You could sell it.’

  ‘A king’s ransom couldn’t buy that.’

  I charged out of the chapel as rapidly as I could, half fearing the accursed thing would come bouncing after me. In truth, to this day, I don’t know if the pruk-pruk-pruk I heard as we left that yew grove came from the head or from the three ravens that sat upon the roof of the charnel house, watching us depart.

  Gisa hid under some sacks in the back as I led the horse and cart out across the little drawbridge, for she was determined the apothecary and his wife should believe her dead and she didn’t want to be seen by anyone from the town. It was as well she did, for the road was already crowded with townsfolk. They were milling around outside the manor walls, muttering and pointing at the smoking ruins of the tower. Even though we left the gate to the stableyard wide open, it seemed none dared to cross the forbidden threshold. But finally a bored child slipped from his mother and ran in, ignoring her commands to come back. She had no choice but to hurry after him. Seeing that she hadn’t been turned to stone or struck by a thunderbolt, the rest of the townsfolk crept inside, still talking in whispers as if afraid to disturb the ghosts that dwelled there. I wondered how long it would be before they plucked up the courage to start looting. I guessed it would take only one person to snatch something up and the rest would quickly follow.

  No one tried to stop us leaving. Apart from a few curious glances in our direction, they were far more interested in what treasures or horrors they might discover in the manor than in a dirty, dishevelled youth and a scrap of a boy. I led the horse up the track away from the town, in the direction Regulus seemed to think went to his parents’ cottage, though in truth the brat was decidedly vague about where that might be found.

  We passed a few latecomers hurrying towards the manor, and then I saw someone in the distance standing by the side of the road, gesturing for us to stop. He beamed, a wide grin that showed the empty cavern of his mouth. But almost at the same moment he seemed to recognise me and his expression turned to fear. He flung his arm across his face, as if I might give him the evil eye, and fled into the nearest grove of trees. Pity – I would have enjoyed giving him a good kicking for helping Sylvain tie us up.

  We searched the whole day for Regulus’s family. Several times he was certain he recognised turnings off the road, but before long he’d shake his head and declare this wasn’t the right path, or this wasn’t his forest, and we’d have to retrace our steps. I don’t know how he knew they weren’t the right trees – the whole damn forest looked the same to me. Towards dusk, by which time I was ready to throttle the little runt, I called a halt.

  ‘I’m famished and we need to find a safe place to build a fire and hide the cart for the night. I don’t want outlaws stumbling into us. We’ll search for your family again tomorrow, Regulus. But try to think this time. You must remember something about the place other than trees.’

  The boy glanced anxiously at Gisa, gnawing on his finger.

  ‘Well,’ I demand in exasperation, ‘can’t you remember anything about the route you took to the abbey that night?’

  ‘I . . .’ he squirmed ‘. . . don’t want to.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t want to?’

  ‘Don’t want to go back to the forest. I’m not Wilky any more. They won’t want me.’ He touched the cast on his broken leg.

  ‘Course they’ll want you.’ I tried to sound convincing. But would they? He’d told us his parents had given him to the canons. Perhaps they wouldn’t welcome another mouth to feed, especially if that leg didn’t heal straight. No one had wanted me as a brat until I’d learned to make myself useful. But we couldn’t very well leave him here.

  ‘Look,’ I said firmly, ‘it’s either your family or back to the abbey. You can’t fend for yourself. I had to at your age and I wouldn’t recommend it even with two sound legs. Who’s going to feed you or build a fire to keep you warm until your leg mends? Have you thought of that?’

  ‘Gisa could,’ he said sullenly.

  I snorted. ‘We can’t take care of you on the road.’

  If he thought I was going to saddle myself with a crippled brat, he was gravely mistaken. He wasn’t my responsibility. Besides, I suddenly realised that, for some strange reason, I wanted to be alone with Gisa.

  ‘We,’ Gisa said coldly. ‘What makes you think I’ll be travelling with you? I only came this far with you to see the boy home. Tomorrow I go my own way.’

  I was crushed and not a little hurt. I’d assumed Gisa would beg me to take her along. Of course I wasn’t in love with the girl. I’d resolved never to fall in love with any woman after the treacherous Amée, but I’d thought Gisa had taken a fancy to me and regarded me as her protector.

  ‘You’ve never lived on the road,’ I told her. ‘You haven’t the faintest notion how hard it is, especially for a woman. You’ll starve within a week, if you don’t get murdered first. You’ve no idea how many rogues and cut-throats there are out there – and don’t imagine they’ll spare you because of your sex. They’ll see you as easy prey.’

  ‘I’ve hardly lived my life so far without danger,’ she said coolly. ‘Given what my own grandfather tried to do to me, I rather think I’d be safer taking care of myself. I have skills enough to earn my bread and I must get used to being alone. My blood is tainted, remember. Whether the traitor was my father or grandfather scarcely matters, I am still attainted.’

  She jerked her chin up as if the thought pleased her and she could spit her defiance in the face of the whole world.

  ‘I’ll take care of myself, too,’ Regulus said fiercely. ‘Not going back to the forest and I’m not going to the abbey! If Felix was here we’d take care of each other. We wouldn’t need no one. We swore . . .’ Tears as fat as slugs began to slide down his face. ‘Why didn’t Felix jump with me? Even if he got broken too, I would have looked after him. I would have fetched him food.’

  Regulus gazed up at Gisa as if he thought she could set a cast around his grief and mend it. ‘Father Arthmael said if I killed the man in the black robe he could make the people who are dead alive again. My – my brothers in the forest and Mighel and Peter, they’d all have come alive again if I’d killed the wizard. I should have killed him. I should have . . . It’s my fault Felix is dead! I’ll kill every man in the world to make him alive again. I will. I will!’

  He covered his head with his hands and howled. Gisa, folding him in her arms, cradled his face to her chest, rocking him back and forward. ‘It isn’t your fault,’ she murmured. ‘Killing Sylvain wouldn’t have made the dead live. Sylvain has been killed, and the dead have not come to life. But we will find a way one day. The answer is in there, I know it. We will make the dead live again.’

  Regulus raised his tear-stained face. ‘Together?’

  Gisa nodded gravely.

  ‘We?’ I asked, a trifle sarcastically.

  She shrugged. ‘If I’m to take the boy, I’ll need the cart, so I suppose all three of us will have to travel together.’ Then, seeing my grin, she added, ‘But just until he’s fit enough to walk. Not a day longer.’

  My grin only deepened. I was certain I would have persuaded her long before then that she needed me.

  A sudden pruk-pruk-pruk reverberated through the trees above us. The boy glanced up, as if he expected to see a living raven perched in the branches above us. I knew that cry came from no bird of flesh and feathers. But it was not coming from my pack.

  Gisa was staring at her own sack. The cry came again, insistent, triumphant. Her brow creased in puzzlement. She dragged the bundle towards her and began to empty it, pulling out a blanket, flint and steel for making fire and some of the meagre supplies of food she had taken from the manor. She half drew out an object wrapped in cloth that looked as if it might have been a book. I should
know: I’d seen more of those in my short life than most men see in a dozen generations. She flushed, hastily thrusting it back into the sack as if she didn’t want me to see it. But before I had time to ask her what it was, something rolled out into her lap. The setting sun caught the shining metal, turning it blood red.

  I stared at it, aghast. ‘You swore to me you would take nothing from your grandfather’s house, save food. And that . . . that is the most dangerous thing you could have chosen. I told you to leave it in the charnel house. It’s cursed, possessed. Don’t you realise that this is what led me to your grandfather’s house and nearly got us both killed?’

  She stared. ‘But I didn’t touch it. Don’t you remember? You dragged me out of there with you. How could I have picked it up?’

  ‘Then I don’t know how it got there, but I do know one thing. You have to throw it away. Now! Hurl it as far into those trees as you can and then we’re getting out of here.’

  Gisa lifted her head and gazed straight at me. When I’d first met her I’d thought her eyes were grey, almost colourless, but now in this witch-light I suddenly saw that they were the same vivid green as her grandfather’s. She lifted the silver head high into the last glittering rays of the setting sun. For one brief moment I stupidly thought she was going to do as I had told her and toss the thing into the dark mass of trees. Then I caught the expression on her face.

  ‘“Though a man be already crossing from this life to the next, though he lies buried in his grave . . .”’ she murmured. She threw back her head and laughed. ‘We shall succeed, Regulus. I know it. My grandfather failed, but we shall not!’

  And as Gisa caressed the smooth, curved beak of the raven’s head, I swear it winked at me.

  Historical Notes

  In 1215, the English barons rebelled against the unpopular King John and invited Crown Prince Louis (later Louis VIII) of France, son of King Philip II, known as Philip Augustus, to seize the English throne with their support. Philip and Louis had frequently fought the Angevins, and two years previously had defeated King John when he had attempted to retake Normandy.