The Raven's Head

by Karen Maitland

  Having started the rumour, all I had to do was wait just long enough for my quarry to grow desperate, then stroll in with a tale to restore their good name and, with it, their appetite and their sleep. If they wanted the tale discovered in some ancient chest, I could easily oblige, just as old Gaspard had done. My tales glittered with immortal beings, demons and merfolk, noble knights and holy men, daring rescues and deeds of courage that any family would be proud to name as their own, and for which they would be glad to pay. After all, if you are going to invent a past, why not make it a thrilling and glorious one? Who wants to boast of a dull old hearth-hugger for an ancestor?

  Things were going well, better than well, and I saw no reason why they should not continue that way, until the day I arrived at the river. I’d been planning to make my way south to try my luck in some of the wealthier towns. Men can easily hide their vices in the bigger cities, but it’s in the market towns where gossips’ tongues wag the fastest, and rich merchants fear most to lose their reputations.

  But no sooner had I resolved to head south than ill-luck seemed to beset me. Within moments of turning onto the road, I trod on a nail that pierced the soft leather of my shoe and was driven deep into my foot. I managed to pull it out, but my foot was throbbing like the devil and my shoe was slippery with blood. A carter, who passed me on the road and saw me limping, took pity on me and allowed me to scramble up beside him. I think he was glad of conversation to break the monotony of the journey.

  He was jovial enough at first, but as the miles crept by, he seemed to grow uneasy. I caught him giving me sideways glances as if he thought he might unwittingly have given a ride to a revenant or a demon in disguise. I knew the cause only too well. It was Lugh! He was stirring in his wooden nest beneath my cloak, snapping his beak rapidly and giving deep creaking calls, which sounded as if the wood was cracking beneath us. Several times the driver pulled the horse to a standstill and leaped off in alarm to examine the wheels and shafts, clearly fearing the worst. I shook the box and tried to muffle the sounds beneath several folds of my cloak but it was to no avail. Lugh would not be silenced.

  Then that wretched bird gave the raven’s pruk-pruk-pruk of alarm, so raucously and so close to the carter that he almost fell off his seat. Almost at once the raven’s head was answered by a flock of six curlews flying over us, each calling shrilly in turn. At that, the carter jerked his horse to a halt. The sudden and violent tug on the reins made the poor beast rear in the shafts and come close to overturning the cart. The driver turned, his face blanched beneath his tan. ‘Off! Get off!’ he shouted, prodding me with the stout handle of his whip. ‘Bad luck, that’s what you are.’

  ‘What have I done?’ I asked, bewildered.

  He gestured wildly at the empty grey sky. ‘Called up the Six Whistlers, that’s what. Searching for the seventh, they are, and I reckon you’re it. It was you they was answering. I heard ’em clear as well water. Death you are, death and disaster.’

  He gave me another violent shove that sent me tumbling off the cart and I landed on my backside in the dirt. He threw my small sack at my head, then brought the whip down on the horse’s back and drove off as if the hounds of Hell were baying behind him. I only just managed to roll over in time to escape being crushed by the cartwheel.

  ‘This is all your fault, Lugh!’ I said, as I dragged myself to my feet and tried to brush the mud off my clothes. ‘What did you have to start screeching for? You’ve just lost us our ride!’

  But Lugh neither stirred nor croaked. He lay so still anyone would have thought he was only a lump of silver.

  The place where I’d been so ungraciously dumped by the carter was a desolate spot. We’d been so busy chattering that I hadn’t fully taken in my surroundings, but now I saw that I was on a raised track that ran close to the banks of a broad river. In every direction there was nothing but sucking marshland and black, reed-fringed pools. In the far distance, perched on tiny islands, were clusters of mud-coloured hovels, distinguishable from the marsh that surrounded them only by the thin plumes of mauve smoke that rose above them. We’d seen a few of the inhabitants earlier, paddling around the twisting waterways in flimsy coracles, fowling or catching eels. Their skin and clothes were the same hue of brown as the oozing mud that had spawned them. They’d stared sullenly at the cart as we’d passed them. I was sure that if I’d made any sudden movement they would have plopped into the water like voles and vanished. I couldn’t see much chance of them offering me a bed for the night or a bite to eat, but I didn’t relish the prospect of spending the night on the lonely marsh track.

  There was nothing for it but to start walking in the direction I’d been travelling with the cart and hope that I’d stumble across some wayside inn or remote abbey where I could seek shelter for the night. But my injured foot was throbbing painfully and, after hobbling along for a mile or two, like some old crone, I feared I’d be spending the night on the marshes after all. I’d not seen even a single cottage along the track, except those far out on the marsh islands, and the sun was already sinking low in the sky.

  So, you can imagine my relief when I spotted a man punting across the river towards me, heading for a rough wooden jetty. I hurried down the bank as fast as my foot would allow and limped over the boggy ground to the river’s edge. But all my enquiries about inns and abbeys were met with a silent shake of the head.

  ‘Marsh it is all the way along the Yare. Marsh till you reach Norwich that way or the isle of Yarmouth t’other. Take you days to reach either one on foot, and by the look of it, that foot of yours might not make it at all. Closest town’s on t’other side of the river. Langley, they call it. I reckon you’d be best making for there.’

  ‘But there must be places for travellers to stay along the track,’ I protested.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Never set foot on track, me. River takes me anywhere I want to go. What’d be the sense in walking, when she’ll carry you?’ He pushed his fingers under his hood and scratched his head. ‘Course, I could take you across to t’other side, if you’ve the money to pay. Three pennies it’ll cost you.’

  I’d hesitated. I’d been wary of ferrymen ever since that little rat had told Charles and his henchmen which road I’d taken. Threepence to cross the river was sheer extortion and, for all I knew, there was an abbey just round the next bend in the track with a warm pilgrim hall and an infirmarer who would treat my foot.

  ‘You want to cross or not?’ the boatman demanded. ‘Make up your mind ’cause owl-light’s not far off and I’ll not work the river then, too dangerous. All manner of outlaws hiding out in these parts, and if they don’t cut your throat, it’s liable to be ripped out by the great black shuck.’

  I knew he was only trying to scare me, but even without devil-dogs and cut-throats, the marsh was no place to go blundering around at night. ‘You can take me across,’ I reluctantly agreed. ‘But the crossing is only a few strokes. It’s not worth more than a penny. I could swim it.’

  He snorted. ‘I’ll not stop you. The bailiff pays me fourpence for every drowned body I fish out of the water.’

  We finally settled on twopence, though I knew I was being robbed.

  He steadied me as I climbed into the rocking punt. We were halfway across the river when a curlew rose up from the reeds and flew low over our heads, shrieking like a soul in Hell. The seventh Whistler had cried out and the wooden box hanging at my belt suddenly burned as cold as ice.

  Chapter 34

  Making her fair as Luna, she coils anon towards the splendour of the sun.

  Gisa climbs up the wooden steps, keeping close to the wall and treading as softly as she can in the hope that the stairs will not betray her with a creak. If Sylvain is lost in his books or sublimations and she can reach the store room without him hearing her, she can work for an hour or two before he descends or calls her up to his laboratorium. Even when he is absent her body is always tense, her ears straining for the sound of his tread.

  At night her body
aches as if she has been harvesting all day in the fields. The work she does for Sylvain is not hard. It should not make her muscles sore, but whenever she is in the tower her body is always rigid, like some child’s poppet carved from wood. Only when she is alone in her bed, when Aunt Ebba’s querulous demands have finally given way to her snores, does it feel as if a great stone has been lifted from her ribs and for a few hours she can breathe freely again. But dawn comes too quickly. The hours of the night melt as swiftly as snowflakes on her cheek.

  Gisa’s heart jolts as she emerges through the trapdoor. This morning Sylvain is not safely occupied among his steaming flasks but is standing in the store room, her room, his hooked finger tracing along the line of labels on one of the shelves.

  A great book lies open on the table. She has seen him studying it many times. The words twist and wind between symbols on the page, sometimes circling the tiny images like chains, as if they’ve been put there to prevent the strange beasts crawling out of the book and creeping away.

  Some of these images she understands – drawings that describe the arrangements of flasks and distillation tubes or astrological diagrams showing which signs belong to water, or fire, which signs oppose each other and what they govern. But there are other pictures she does not understand – rows of spherical flasks, which Sylvain calls the philosopher’s eggs, each containing a serpent, lion, salamander, pelican or the disembodied head of a bird, the beasts rising and falling amid tears of liquid or floating flames.

  Sylvain continues to search among the boxes. ‘Grey wolf, I need grey wolf.’

  Gisa is puzzled. He is searching the shelves on which the minerals are stored, but surely he must know that all the animal substances, including the wolf’s hair, testicles, tongues, hearts and suchlike are stored on the opposite wall, for he arranged them thus. She gestures vaguely towards them, hesitating for fear she is seeming to correct him.

  ‘The parts of the wolf . . . are over here, my lord.’

  He turns to stare at her, frowning, and for a moment she fears she has angered him.

  ‘Ah, no, little swan. It is antimony I seek.’ He taps the great book. ‘The noble art is written in code to deceive those who think themselves wise. The arrogant believe they can read it, just as they think they can read the mind of their God. They cannot.’ A spasm of savage anger contorts his face but only for a moment. He traces his finger over the spider crawl of letters. ‘“The sun must be devoured by the green dragon,”’ he reads. He glances up, smiling. ‘You understand that?’

  She shakes her head, knowing he does not intend that she should.

  ‘The sun, sol, represents gold and you know there is little that can consume gold, save aqua regia, the king’s water.’

  ‘Aqua regia is red, sometimes yellow, but never green,’ she blurts out.

  If she had uttered those words at home Aunt Ebba would have flown into a rage. Women should not know about such things, far less question them. But Sylvain looks far from angry. He is staring at her, his mouth slightly open and a distant, almost lustful expression in his eyes, which she cannot interpret.

  ‘She said that too,’ he murmurs to himself. ‘Those were almost her exact words.’

  He paces across the chamber towards Gisa. She is staring at the floor, willing him not to come closer, but he does. He slides his fingers beneath her chin and raises her head. She tries to pull away, terrified that he means to kiss her, but instead he examines her face as intently as he searched the shelves, as if he expects to find the antimony there.

  ‘You share her thoughts, but what else, Gisa? Do you have her desires too? Her treachery?’

  His tone has grown hard again. His cold fingers tighten around her jaw, almost lifting her off her feet. His hand presses against her throat. She gasps for breath.

  His hand drops and he walks back to the book. ‘You are quite correct. Aqua regia is red, as I shall show you, but when I do, you will observe that it turns green as it devours the gold. That is what the scholar meant by the green dragon.’

  Gisa, anxious to drive him back up to his own domain, hurries to the shelves, lifts off a box and hands it to him. ‘Antimony . . . grey wolf,’ she says, opening it to reveal the silvery-grey lump. ‘Shall I grind some for you?’

  He nods. Then, seeing her gaze straying again to the strange drawing in the book, he closes it carefully and cradles it in his arms. ‘This book intrigues you, I think?’

  ‘My uncle does not possess a copy.’

  Sylvain’s lips twitch into a thin smile. ‘No other copy exists.’ He holds it out. ‘Feel the binding.’

  Suddenly conscious that her hands have grown sweaty, she rubs them against her gown before touching the leather cover lightly with one finger. The cover is adorned with a golden sun haloed by great flames and the hide stretched over the wooden covers beneath is softer and smoother than any calf or pig skins that bind her uncle’s books. But, then, not one of them is as valuable as this book.

  ‘Soft, is it not?’ Sylvain says. ‘As well it might be, for it’s bound in the flayed skin of the man who wrote it.’

  He laughs, as she snatches her hand away. ‘There is no higher soul than that of man and it is from man that the stone of eternal life must be drawn. Therefore the book that contains the knowledge of that stone must be wrapped in human flesh. No matter how sick a man might be, no matter what his deformities, his healing lies within these pages.’

  Gisa’s head jerks up. ‘This book tells you how to heal any condition? Even something physicians cannot cure? You are sure?’

  Sylvain laughs again, for the expression on her face is one of undisguised hunger. ‘Though a man be already crossing from this life to the next, though he lies buried in his grave, what is written here will restore him to such perfect life and health as even the angels have never known.’

  Gisa hurries along the path in the cold shadow of the wall of the manor grounds. She cannot escape the feeling that the stones will suddenly open like the panels in the Great Hall and she will be dragged back inside. It is only when the wall ends that she slows her pace. For a mile or so, she can breathe easily. There are no walls here. Only stunted birch scrub and willows flank the track and beyond them the red-gold glints of light from the setting sun as it catches the breeze-riffled water of the marsh pools.

  But all too soon another wall looms up beside the track, separated from it by a water-filled ditch – the great, grim walls of Langley Abbey. Their shadow, too, stretches cold and dark across the track, oozing out towards the distant town, where the smoke from the hearth fires rises into the chill evening air.

  Gisa hesitates. She has no wish to linger here, but no desire to return to her uncle’s house either. Aunt Ebba will be waiting on her throne of pillows, querulous, impatient, demanding to know every detail of the furnishings of the manor house with which she intends to regale the endless stream of goodwives who are ravenous for the smallest scrap of gossip. She will not believe Gisa if she tells her she does not enter the house.

  ‘Help me! Lady . . . help!’

  The cry is so tremulous, so faint, that Gisa thinks she has mistaken the words for the call of some marsh bird. But it comes again. She spins round. She can see no one, but she’s certain it is a child’s voice. Is it coming from behind the abbey wall?

  ‘Who’s there? Come out where I can see you.’

  She has heard tales of drowned souls or malicious spirits who call from the marsh pools to lure the living to their deaths. She does not quite believe them, but now, in this half-light . . .

  ‘Stuck . . . I’m stuck.’

  The cry is coming from somewhere low down. Gisa walks along the lip of the water-filled ditch peering into the thick green water. She sees something and scurries towards a dark shape a few yards ahead, until it resolves itself into a rotting tree-trunk.

  A tiny movement catches her eye. It is probably just a scrap of cloth fluttering in the breeze, yet she moves closer. The fingers of a child’s hand are poking out thro
ugh a drainage hole between two massive stones in the base of the abbey wall. Gisa kneels on the edge of the ditch, leaning over as far as she dares.

  ‘What are you doing down there?’

  ‘Hid under the big vat . . . heard someone coming so I crawled down the hole where the water goes . . . into the tunnel . . . but there are lots of tunnels, full of mud and water . . . It was dark, so dark . . . saw light . . . but hole’s too small . . . can’t get out.’

  The child’s teeth are chattering violently. Gisa can see little of the boy’s muddy face, but what she can see is smeared with streaks of blood, as is his hand. He is hurt, though she can’t tell how badly.

  ‘Can you find your way back to the hole you climbed into?’

  ‘It’s dark . . . don’t want to go back into the dark and—’

  ‘I’ll get help.’ Gisa begins to struggle to her feet. ‘I’ll fetch the White Canons. They must know other entrances to the drainage tunnels beneath their abbey. They’ll soon have you out.’

  ‘No, no!’ the boy sobs. ‘They’ll kill me. Don’t tell. Please don’t tell.’

  She does not believe anyone would kill the child, but there is no mistaking the abject terror in his voice. Something terrible must have happened to drive a little boy to hide himself down there, something that the child is far more afraid of than the dark.

  ‘Hush now. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. But we’ll have to think of some other way of getting you out. Stay by the hole. I’ll fetch you some food and . . .’

  And what? What else can she bring to help him? The boy needs warmth. His wounds will need tending, too, else cold and wet will kill him in hours. She must fetch an iron crow as well, or something she can use to prise out one of the stones. There is no such tool in her uncle’s shop, but she’s seen one in the blacksmith’s forge. If she could take it while he is at supper . . .