The Raven's Head

by Karen Maitland

  A small child sitting in the back of the cart saw me limping along behind them. She smiled shyly and waved. I waved back. She must have said something to the woman leading the beasts, for she turned her head, regarding me curiously, then stopped the wagon. She walked a few paces back towards me as I approached. Her eyes narrowed in the glare of the bright autumn sunshine. ‘What happened to you, lad? You look like you’ve been wrestling a herd of bears.’

  I saw no reason not to tell her the truth, at least part of it. ‘I was ambushed yesterday on the forest track. Three of them. I only got away because they were disturbed.’

  She tutted angrily. ‘Robbers are getting bolder by the day and the nobles who are supposed to protect us only shift their arses to do anything if it’s one of them that gets attacked. Quick enough to take our taxes, they are, but don’t give a cat’s turd for us the rest of the year. You want to report it to the Watch, soon as you get to the town – get a posse out to hunt them down . . . Meantime, you’d best ride in the wagon. Otherwise, by the look of you, the vultures and ravens will be pecking at your liver before the day is out.’

  She helped me into the back of the ox-wagon and settled me down in what little space there was between baskets of round cheeses, eggs and nuts, flagons wrapped in hay, two young billy goats and the runny-nosed child. My stomach growled at the smell of the cheese and it took every mote of control I had not to break a piece off, but if I did, I’d probably be thrown straight back onto the road again.

  Jolting along in the back of the wagon as it rattled over the stones was, if anything, more painful than walking, but since I scarcely had the energy for the latter, I accepted the punishment gratefully. At least lying down I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder to see if Charles was about to leap out at me. He’d hardly attack me in front of witnesses. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.

  We trundled unchallenged through the gates in the thick walls. The guards evidently recognised the woman and, at any rate, were far more interested in interrogating the pedlars in case any might be spies of the English king or could be conned into paying bribes to be allowed to pass with their packs intact.

  I parted company with the woman and her children as soon as we reached the marketplace. She barely acknowledged my thanks for she was already hard at work shouting her wares, between yelling at the boy to mind his sister and tether the bleating goats to the wagon wheels, where passing customers could admire them.

  The heavenly aroma of roasted meat, new bread, fresh-baked pastries and sweetened tarts drifted past my nose and set my mouth watering. Everywhere I looked men, women and children seemed determined to torture me by wafting delicious food within inches of my face. There were girls balancing trays of roasted sheep’s feet, spicy blood sausages and boiled tongue on their heads, women selling eggs pickled in brine, men slicing thick wedges from great hams and children sucking dragées of hardened spiced honey. My stomach wasn’t just grumbling, it was roaring.

  I had intended to seek out one of the town’s burgeis without delay and demand that he send word of the treachery at once to the king. Food, I told myself, could wait. Besides, there was a good chance that as I was bringing news of such importance I would be invited to dine as an honoured guest, especially if the burgeis’s wife took pity on me, as the woman with the wagon had done. I imagined a pretty young serving maid tenderly bathing me and the burgeis’s wife anointing my bruises with some sweet unguent before tucking me up in a soft bed and feeding me with ‘whatever the poor boy fancies after his terrible ordeal’. But my stomach would not be satisfied by promises. It demanded food now, at once, immediately! And that was my undoing.

  I limped up to one of the women selling roasted pigeon squabs wrapped in smoked bacon, which were just begging to be popped into my mouth. I dragged myself towards her, hoping that if I looked pitiful enough, she’d be generous. But she barely gave me a glance until I handed over a coin from the small supply Philippe had given me. She was about to tuck it away in the purse that dangled at her waist, but hesitated, glancing down at it again. She brought it close to her eye to examine it. Then she stared up at me. She turned to a woman standing behind her selling knives and prodded her in the back. She handed the coin to her with a jerk of her head in my direction.

  The knife-seller also seemed to take an uncommon interest in the small silver coin. She gave me a long, hard look then lifted her head and started yelling.

  ‘Here! That’s him! That’s the thief what stole the silver bird. See, here’s the proof!’

  She held up the coin between thumb and forefinger, although it was so small that I doubt anyone could have made out what it was. Heads turned and I glimpsed a few people beginning to move towards me.

  For a moment I was too stunned by the accusation to do anything other than gape, but when I saw the expressions of hostility and greed on their faces I knew that any attempt at explanation would be useless. I felt a hand clutching my sleeve and, without even looking to see who had seized me, I grabbed the wrist and jerked the man forward so that he pitched head first into the roasted-pigeon seller. Then I ran.

  ‘After him! There’s a bounty on his head,’ someone yelled.

  I’d thought I was too stiff and battered to do anything more than creep along like some old dotard, but fear can make the body do what the will alone never could. I dodged around stalls, stacks of pots and animal pens. Fortunately the marketplace was crowded and those charging after me were as much hampered by the throng of people as I was. Most of the older men quickly dropped back and returned to their stalls, afraid to leave them unattended. But some youths, spurred on by the promise of a reward for my capture, were not so easily discouraged. Several times they almost caught up with me, but fortunately their way was frequently blocked by a stout goodwife dithering in their path or a man with a great pannier on his back, giving me just enough time to wriggle past and away.

  The pain, which had been numbed by that first rush of fear, now flooded back and I knew my legs were about to give way. I ducked and crawled beneath a cart that stood behind a cloth-covered booth. I wriggled as far as I could into the shadow and lay flat, my limbs trembling with exhaustion, listening to the shouts of my pursuers as they searched for me.

  I had badly underestimated Philippe. Even as I cursed him to the hottest fire of Hell, I had to admit that he was a genius. He’d planned for every contingency. Obviously not trusting that idiot Charles to make a good job of killing me, he’d made quite sure that if I did elude my assassins and reach the town, I’d be arrested as a thief. It simply hadn’t occurred to me to examine the coins he’d given me. Why would it? But they must have been marked. Every man and woman in the marketplace had plainly been warned to look out for them.

  And when I was arrested for theft, who would I be tried by? My master, Philippe, of course, because I was a servant at the château and he was the king’s bailli. A smoked eel had more chance of swimming away than I did of not being convicted. I’d hang, there was no doubt about it. And, knowing Philippe, he’d probably have me flogged to the bone first.

  I groaned. If I hadn’t been aching already, I’d have kicked my own backside black and blue for ever opening my mouth. Why hadn’t I just kept quiet about that wretched book? I was the most frog-witted, dung-brained idiot ever to draw breath. I certainly couldn’t report the forgery to the burgeis now, even supposing I could get as far as the town hall. I couldn’t hide under the cart for much longer either. The owner might return and drive off at any moment. By now someone would have alerted the Watch that I was in the town and they’d have started a thorough search.

  I crawled forward and tried to wriggle out of my hiding place, only to see the face of a curious little girl staring upside down at me.

  ‘What you doing?’ she demanded.

  I put my finger to my lips and flapped at her to go away, but instead she crawled under the cart with me, plainly settling in for a companionable chat. That was all I needed. Sooner or later her mother would miss h
er, call for her, and the child would lead them straight to me.

  ‘What you doing?’ she repeated.

  ‘I’m playing hide and seek,’ I whispered.

  The child beamed. ‘Can I play?’

  ‘Of course, but we have to hide in different places, don’t we? And if people start calling your name, you mustn’t answer. You have to keep hiding and pretend you can’t hear them.’

  She nodded eagerly.

  ‘Why don’t you hide here, while I find another place? Do you know another good place to hide?’

  The child sucked a grubby finger thoughtfully. She flopped onto her stomach and pointed between the wheels to a small yard squeezed between two houses.

  ‘I hide in there when Mam’s angry, under the stairs.’

  Though I desperately wanted to run, I knew that would only draw attention to me, so I willed myself to stand up and saunter casually across. With every painful step I took I expected to hear a cry, but I reached the yard without anyone stopping me and slipped through the open gate. Fortunately, the yard and the house appeared empty. Nothing stirred, save the family’s washing, which flapped lethargically in the breeze.

  From the stacks of casks and barrels in various states of completion, the yard belonged to a cooper and I saw at once what the child had meant. An open rickety staircase led up the outside of the workshop to the sleeping quarters above. The cooper had stacked his timber at the foot of the stairs and, in the space beneath the steps, you could crouch out of sight behind the pile of wood, though you’d be visible to anyone using the staircase. It was hardly much of a hiding place for a man, though it would indeed seem secure to a small child.

  I was just deciding whether or not to try to creep away when I heard the Watchman blowing his horn for attention on the other side of the market and the hubbub of the marketplace quietened, though only slightly. Some announcement was being made, though most of the traders did not interrupt their business to listen. Any news would drift their way soon enough, if it was worth hearing. But I had a pretty good idea what that announcement might have been.

  I snatched a woman’s gown from a tree in the yard where it was drying and, for good measure, a length of linen cloth flapping beside it. Retreating behind the stairs, I began stripping off my clothes. I removed the bag containing the raven’s head. For a moment, I was on the verge of hurling the cursed thing as far as I could throw it. But what good would that do? Whether I was taken with or without it, I’d still be branded a thief.

  Very well: if they were going to hang that name around my neck, I’d live up to it. I’d take the raven’s head, and Philippe would have only himself to blame. If they were going to force me to make my own way in the world, I’d need all the valuables I could lay my hands on. Besides, I reckoned I’d earned it, all those years scribbling away as Gaspard’s slave, keeping their secrets and covering their lies. And what recompense had I ever had for all my labours? Clothes so threadbare that even a beggar would scorn to wear them and food the pigs would have curled their lips at.

  I fastened the leather straps of the bag around my waist and pulled the stolen kirtle over the top. You could have fitted me and a fat twin together into it but that was all to the good: it would conceal both the wooden box and my masculine shape. I wound the cloth around my head, and as I did so my arm brushed the stubble on my chin. Some might have called it little more than arse-fluff, especially since, like my hair, it was blond. But it would be enough to give me away, so I wound the tail of the cloth round my face, pulling it up over my chin, like a gentlewoman’s wimple. Finally I tied my own clothes round my waist under the gown, which I hoped would conceal the hardness of the box if anyone brushed against me. So clad, I stumbled from my hiding place and edged out into the marketplace again.

  Across the far side of the square, a group of men were fanning out and starting to search every wagon and booth, sweeping under carts with pikes and staves. With my head down, I sidled along the length of the square, keeping close to the buildings, and turned into the first street I came to.

  It is an amazement to me that women can walk in skirts, never mind work in them. I couldn’t seem to take two paces without the cloth wrapping itself around my legs. I was beginning to realise that they take tiny steps because a longer stride would have them sprawled face down on the cobbles in no time. I couldn’t keep this up for long. As soon as I was clear of the town, I’d change back into my own clothes or it would take me all day to walk a mile.

  As I minced round the corner, I saw ahead of me one of the town gates. For a moment I was elated. Freedom lay just yards away. But almost at once despair crashed in again for I saw that the carts, horses and men on foot were not passing through but slowing to a halt in front of the gates, forming an ever-lengthening line. The guard were searching everyone leaving the town and inspecting all the carts and wagons in which a fugitive might be concealed, even kneeling down to peer beneath them, in case anyone was hanging underneath. I’d little doubt they were doing the same at all the other gates. There was no way out except through those guards. I was trapped.

  Chapter 16

  He should reside in an isolated house in an isolated position.

  ‘We’ve come to see our lad,’ Hudde says.

  He shuffles awkwardly in front of the huge wooden gate, trying to peer in through the iron grid at the man standing behind it. He hastily removes his hood as if he is in church or in the presence of his master, then just as quickly replaces it, in case he should seem too servile. His wife, Meggy, is watching him from across the other side of the track and she’s told him to stand his ground.

  ‘The brothers see no one at this hour,’ the gatekeeper mutters. ‘You got a message for one of them? Been a death in the family, has there?’

  He, too, cranes his neck, trying to look over Hudde’s shoulder to see who else might be with him. Caution and curiosity are both the vices and the virtues of a gatekeeper.

  Uncertain how to reply, Hudde turns away to seek an answer from Meggy. She’s balancing a small child astride her hip, while a little girl clings to her skirts. Her other three children are engaged in a noisy and boisterous game of tag, charging up and down the track. Meggy is too far away to hear the gatekeeper’s words, but she sees the uncertainty on her husband’s face and gestures at him to insist on seeing the boy.

  ‘Well?’ the gatekeeper demands. ‘Do you want me to deliver a message or not? I’ve got better things to do than stand here talking to you all day.’ If challenged, he would be hard put to name anything else he actually has to do, but he can tell Hudde is not the man to challenge him.

  Hudde jerks his head in the direction of his wife. ‘We buried our youngest a week or so back. She’s grieving for him something terrible. Now she’s taken it into her head there’s summat amiss with our Wilky. Has these nightmares that he’s in danger and is crying for her. I tried to tell her no bairn could be in a safer place. But she won’t rest till she’s seen for herself he’s thriving. It’s only the grief as has her fretting, but you know what women are when they get a notion into their heads.’

  The gatekeeper does not know. Though he’s only a lay brother, he’s been an abbey servant for years, but even before he entered the cloisters, he’d never felt the slightest desire to have any dealings with those screeching creatures they call women. But he is beginning to grasp something of what this ignorant lump of a woodsman is trying to tell him.

  ‘A boy – you mean a child, not one of the brothers?’

  Hudde nods eagerly. ‘That’s it. Wilky, he’s our boy. Came here a few months back.’

  ‘No boy here of that name.’

  Hudde’s brow wrinkles. ‘’Bout this high,’ he says, holding his hand flat as if he was touching the boy’s head. Then he realises the gatekeeper can’t see his hand. ‘Just five summers, he is. His hair’s the colour of . . .’ he hesitates. He’s not often called upon to describe such things. ‘. . . a ladybird, that’s what it always put me in mind of. Course, without the s
pots.’

  He laughs nervously for the gatekeeper is staring at him as if he is making no more sense than a chattering squirrel. The lay brother wouldn’t know a ladybird from a dragonfly and cares even less.

  Hudde turns around and beckons to one of his sons. ‘Jankin, come here, lad!’

  The boy breaks off his game and comes running up. ‘Our Wilky’s almost the twin of his brother here, except Wilky’s shorter and his hair’s a mite redder.’ He fondles the boy’s rusty curls.

  Before the gatekeeper can reply, a hand appears on his shoulder and pulls him aside.

  ‘What is amiss here?’ the white-robed figure demands.

  They both stand away from the gate, deep in a whispered conversation. Hudde feels his spirits rise a little. He was beginning to fear the gatekeeper was half-witted, but here is the man who took his son from the cottage. He’ll soon have things sorted.

  Father John’s face appears in the grille. ‘Your son is well, Master Hudde, and making good progress with his lessons. If he was dead, you would have been informed at once. But I’ll tell the boy you were asking after him.’

  He raises his hand to close the shutter over the grille, but Hudde grasps the bars in both hands. ‘We just want to see the lad, only for a moment or two. It’s my Meggy . . . she’s that upset about losing the babe. It would comfort her so to see Wilky.’

  ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible,’ Father John says. ‘Many in the town have the bloody flux. We are permitting the boys to see no one from outside these walls for fear of the contagion. I’m sure you would wish us to keep your son safe and ensure that he’s not exposed to any danger.’

  ‘But Meggy and me aren’t sick, nor the bairns. Look at them.’