The Raven's Head

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Don’t . . . want to be . . . bird.’ His small chest heaves in sobs.

  He has to repeat it several times before Father Arthmael catches the words. He laughs. It is a strange laugh, like the excited bark of a fox.

  ‘You are not to be a bird, Regulus. You are a lion. The young lion. The king-slayer.’

  He reaches down and lifts the cover from the basket. Inside is a small flagon, a beaker and several small packages wrapped in sacking. Father Arthmael lifts them out, and sets them down beside an unlit brazier. Finally, from the bottom of the basket, he pulls out a length of woollen cloth, dyed to the colour of a poppy petal.

  He smiles and, folding it carefully, returns it to the basket. Then he removes a small flask from a leather sheath that dangles from his belt. Ignoring the flagon, he pours liquid from his own flask into the beaker and hands it to the hiccuping boy. ‘Drink.’

  Walking in the hot sun, struggling up those steps with the basket and crying have all conspired to make Regulus extremely thirsty. He takes a sip from the beaker before he has even sniffed it. The liquid is thick, like mead or cream. It is sweet, herby and bitter all at the same time. He doesn’t much like the taste, but he needs to drink. He gulps it down.

  Father Arthmael unwraps a jar. The smell of honey rolls across the chamber. He holds out the jar, inviting the boy to dig his fist in and break off a piece of honeycomb. Regulus stuffs the comb into his mouth, chewing it happily. His father brought home honeycomb whenever he found a wild bees’ nest and Regulus and his brothers would chew it just like this, squabbling over who had the biggest piece. Except that he hadn’t been Regulus then. He had been another boy, with another name.

  Father Arthmael, still kneeling, leans towards him. ‘Listen to me, Regulus. What you will be asked to do tonight will be far beyond your understanding, but you must trust me. Tonight, two great powers will come together in this tower – Albedo, the white ablution, the rebirth born of fire, and Nigredo, the black death of putrefaction. Black and white, do you understand, Regulus? Only one of them may emerge from the tower. The other must descend into the tomb. He must die so that from his death the elixir of eternal life may be created. And he must die at the hands of the young king. You must slay him. But the old king will not want to die. He will tell you that it is I who must be killed, but you must not listen to him. Remember what I told you in the orchard – he is a wicked man. He is all the foulness and corruption that is the Nigredo. He is the black death and it is he who must enter that dark tomb.’

  Regulus is not listening. He’s sleepy and there are too many words, all jumbled together. All he can think about is whether he will be allowed to have more of the honeycomb.

  ‘Have you watched your father kill a deer or a goat by cutting its throat? Remember how he pulls the head back to expose the throat then makes one deep slash. It is so easy, isn’t it? So quick. Over in the single flash of a knife. That is what you will do, just like your father. I will bind the black king for you, so that he cannot resist. I will pull back his head and you will slice his throat, here.’

  Father Arthmael seizes the boy’s hand and presses it to his own throat, so that he may feel and see exactly where he is to cut.

  ‘The blade I have brought for you to use is new. It is sharpened so keenly that even a baby could kill with it. It will be all over in the beat of an angel’s wing. Then I will send you home, just like Mighel. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Regulus can feel a buzzing in Father Arthmael’s throat as he speaks. It tickles his fingertips making him giggle.

  But he can hardly stand now. The floorboards are undulating as if they have been turned to water. His legs have vanished. He crumples slowly into the abbot’s arms. Father Arthmael catches him and gently cradles him, staring down into the boy’s half-closed, unseeing eyes.

  ‘Sleep now, little king, and when you wake it will be night and you will obey my every command. You will listen to my voice, only to my voice, and do exactly as I tell you. You will kill the old king and you will both enter the fire together. In the flames, youth and age, the living and the dead will melt into one and the fire shall consume them.’

  Chapter 51

  There are two fountains springing with great power. The one water is hot and belongs to the boy. The other water is cold and is called the virgin’s fountain. Unite the one with the other that the two waters may be one.

  Odo is standing on the other side of the gate as she enters, his great fingers grasping the ring of keys. Today he seems more like a gaoler than ever, for Gisa knows that when the Vesper bells sound he will not be waiting to unlock it again. She will not be returning to the other world tonight. She will not be able to reach the child.

  She can still feel the grasp of Peter’s tiny hot fingers as he clung to her hand through the hole. She tried to explain, warned him to make the food and ale last as long as he could, but thirst is driving him mad. As she walked away, the boy pleaded with her to come soon and the ache of his cries echo in her ears even in here.

  She has to fight hard to stop herself trying to wrench the gate open again. But it is already too late. The gate is locked and barred. Odo usually looks somewhere over her head when he addresses her, but today his gaze flicks towards her face. There is an embarrassed curiosity in the glance, as if he is looking at someone for the last time. He grudgingly informs her that Sylvain is not in the tower, but Father Arthmael is up there in the laboratorium.

  She is almost relieved. She fears both men, but she cannot face Sylvain today, knowing what she owes him, what he says she owes him. The knowledge has left her numb, dead. But once Father Arthmael has delivered his instructions, he will leave, as he did before. Then she will have the chance to search again for the book.

  That book is the hope, the talisman she has used to ward off the despair that has been wrapping itself about her since the moment Sylvain revealed the vile truth. But she will not accept it is the truth. She will never believe it. She drives the knowledge from her mind with that one fragile hope – if she can read the book, if she can heal little Peter, release him from that stone prison, then somehow her own past will shatter too, like some evil spell.

  She drags her feet up the two flights of stairs and finds Father Arthmael seated on a stool in the upper chamber in his immaculate white robes. Her heart thuds as she sees his fingers tracing symbols on a page of a book, his mouth working silently as he chants beneath his breath. She glimpses the gold leaf of the sun emblazoned on the cover, impressed into the human skin. She knows it is the book. But Sylvain would not have left it here by accident.

  Sylvain’s laboratorium is transformed. The flasks and glass tubes, the griffin’s-egg vessels and the many bottles have been cleared away. In their place, cages of birds swing from the rafters. They flap their wings as she takes the final step up into the chamber, flinging themselves at the bars, screeching their calls of fear. They are wild creatures. They cannot comprehend doors and locks. They are breaking their wings in their desperation to be free.

  She is so distracted by the piteous birds that it takes her a few moments to realise that Father Arthmael is not alone. A small boy lies asleep on the floor at his feet, naked save for a length of scarlet cloth draped over one bare shoulder, the other end twisted about his waist as a loincloth. A narrow band of gold cloth, like a coronet, circles his red curls. His face rests on his arm, and tiny beads of perspiration spangle his upper lip. He looks even younger than Peter. But this boy seems peaceful, unhurt. Will he be safe here? If what Sylvain told her is true, he would not allow a child to be harmed, but if that part is true then . . .

  Gisa makes an uncertain curtsy towards Father Arthmael. But he continues to read as if she is of no more substance than the air, though she knows he’s seen her, for his gaze darted towards her as she emerged through the hole in the floor. She stares hungrily at the book, as if her will can dissect away the skin and reveal the words that lie like bones beneath.

  ‘You are to fill the brazier and prepare the ca
ndles as you’ve been shown before,’ he says, without lifting his gaze or hand from the page.

  ‘The boy . . .’ she says uncertainly. ‘Perhaps I should return later so as not to disturb him.’

  ‘He will not wake, I assure you.’

  She arranges the kindling, placing the charcoal in the brazier fragment by fragment, and finally standing a pot of fumigant beside it, with which to colour and perfume the smoke once it is burning. Though she works softly, every new movement causes the little caged birds to cry alarm and dash themselves against the hard iron bars, till she is almost in tears knowing the pain and fear she is causing them. But the task must be completed or Father Arthmael will not leave.

  She circles the room, putting fresh candles on the spikes on the walls and trimming the wicks with a pair of tiny iron shears. In front of each one she slips a sliver of dragon’s blood. She shudders as she does so, thinking of that cellar far below, but there is no stone coffin up here, only the abbot, the boy and the birds. Father Arthmael drove the demons and the dead back into the earth. Surely he will not permit them to rise up again now. She glances around the chamber, searching for anything she might inadvertently have neglected to do.

  ‘There is nothing more to be done. You may go,’ Father Arthmael says softly, as if he understands the unspoken question.

  She is torn between relief and desperation. Each time she passed behind Father Arthmael, she tried to peer over his shoulder at the pages of the book, but she could only glimpse part of a circle, or a crowned man. The words that twine about the drawings were too small to read and she dared not move closer. If only he would lay the book aside.

  ‘I could watch the boy for you, Father Arthmael . . .’ she offers, ‘. . . if you wished to visit Lord Sylvain . . . or return to the abbey.’

  ‘You are not required here,’ he says quietly. ‘Lord Sylvain has another task for you.’

  She can think of no excuse to remain, and though she longs to snatch the book from his hands and run away with it, where could she run to? It occurs to her that Father Arthmael cannot leave either unless Odo or Sylvain unlocks the gate.

  Everything is still now, motionless. Even the birds have fallen silent. They crouch, hunched, on the floors of their cages, as if they have abandoned any hope of release and simply wait for death.

  Odo, too, is waiting, waiting at the bottom of the tower for her to emerge. She trails after him across the lawn, past the lavender and rosemary, but instead of turning towards the hall, he leads her instead to the door at the base of the turret where Laurent sleeps. He unlocks the door and stands aside. It is plain he means her to enter.

  ‘Am I . . . am I to go upstairs to where the young man . . .?’

  ‘Stay or go up. It makes no difference. Master will come when he’s ready.’

  He flaps his hand impatiently, and as soon as she steps over the threshold, he pulls the door shut behind her, with a bang that echoes from the walls. She hears the iron key grate in the lock on the other side of the door. Has Sylvain ordered her to be locked in, or is it mere malice on the servant’s part?

  A tiny part of her thrills at the thought that Laurent may be upstairs. She tells herself that it is because she fears to be locked in alone, but she knows it is more than that. She wants to be with him. She edges a few steps up the spiral staircase, softly calling Laurent’s name. There is no answer. She climbs higher until she reaches the door of the painted chamber. She tries not to look at the nightmare images on the wall, but a flash of red catches her eye, and she sees a figure she does not recall noticing before – a young boy, dressed in a scarlet loincloth, a strip of the red material trailing across his shoulder. But the child in the painting is not asleep. He is in the grip of an old man who is falling backwards into a tomb, and dragging the boy down on top of him.

  She gives a little cry – the boy in the painting so much resembles the child in the tower. The door of the chamber beyond opens abruptly. Laurent is standing there, leaning against the door for support. He looks both frightened and relieved.

  ‘I thought you were Sylvain.’ He peers over her shoulder with such intensity that she turns, expecting to find someone behind her. ‘You’re alone?’ he demands.

  ‘Odo brought me here, but he’s gone. We’re locked in.’

  ‘I know that!’ he says. ‘They’ve kept that door locked ever since I tried to escape. I keep trying it. But I think Odo and Sylvain have the only keys and there’s not much likelihood of either of them forgetting to lock it.’

  He turns back into the room, but only as far as a chair that has been placed just inside the doorway. ‘I don’t know which is worse – looking at those paintings or watching that black mould growing. Each time I turn my back or fall asleep that foul slime creeps closer. But I can’t bear to be out there either. I can’t stop staring at the girl on the wall. They’re identical. Can’t you see it? The girl in the painting is the one in the . . .’

  He is gabbling incoherently. ‘Sylvain says he needs one more thing . . . the most important of all.’ Laurent’s eyes frantically search her face. ‘What else is he going to take from me? You made the bag for Sylvain. You must know what else he plans to do to me . . . Tell me! You have to tell me!’

  His fingers pluck at his scarlet robe in agitation. It is the same shade of red that the sleeping child wears. Gisa finds herself turning back to the boy in the painting, the boy who is being dragged down into the grave.

  ‘Have you come to take something from me?’ Laurent persists. ‘Was it you who came here while I slept and cut . . .? Did you steal my shadow? . . . Blood . . . he said something about a boy’s blood.’ He stares down at her hands, as if expecting to see a dagger grasped in her fingers.

  ‘I’ve taken nothing from you,’ she protests.

  A boy’s blood. Peter’s blood-smeared limbs float in front of her eyes. Man in the black robes . . . snake man. But it was the White Canons who cut Peter, not Sylvain. He would never torture a child, not if what Thomas says about him is true. Yet Father Arthmael is sitting up in his tower with another little boy, reading the precious book, the one she knows Sylvain would entrust to no one – unless that person had something he badly needed.

  She is suddenly aware that Laurent is cringing away from her as if she is an assassin come to murder him. She doesn’t understand. Why should he be frightened of her? A few days ago he was giving her cowslips and trying to walk with her. What has happened to him?

  ‘It was my hair you used to stitch the bag. I saw you! The bag Sylvain used to capture my shadow.’

  ‘Your hair . . .’ She gapes at him. ‘I didn’t know where it came from . . . Your hair?’ she repeats, staring at the lock of straight, fine hair that flops across his sweating brow. ‘No, it couldn’t have been. It was far too coarse.’

  Laurent is stammering something she cannot catch. His hands are clenched, his eyes wild. ‘But what is he going to do now?’ he yells. ‘He said he needed something else before he could bring the girl back to life.’

  ‘What girl?’

  Laurent stares at her. ‘The one in the charnel house . . . chapel . . . I don’t know what the place is. You’ve seen it . . . thought it was a carved effigy, but it’s a real body . . . a corpse preserved in wax. He says he means to resurrect her.’

  Gisa shudders. ‘Call up the spirit of a dead woman?’

  ‘He can summon spirits at any time he pleases,’ Laurent says savagely. ‘I’ve watched him. But he thinks he can do more than that. He believes he can actually make this girl live again in the flesh. But why does he need me?’ He grabs Gisa by her arms. ‘You’re helping him in his enchantments. You’re working together. Tell me what he wants!’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Frightened by the desperation in his eyes, Gisa jerks from Laurent’s grip and backs away. ‘I am as much a prisoner as you. He orders me to grind and distil, but he doesn’t tell me the uses of anything I prepare for him, not really, not in a way that I can explain. There’s a book. I’ve only glimpsed a
page or two of it, but it is not like any herbal I’ve ever seen. Whatever Lord Sylvain prepares comes from that. I’ve tried to look at it, but he keeps—’

  She’s interrupted by a harsh cry and the sound of flapping wings. She thinks a bird must have found its way into the turret and is trapped somewhere. Laurent rushes to the top of the stairs, staring down, then up at the beams above the staircase, but there is no sign of any creature. They both stand tense, listening, but only silence floods back.

  She wants to explain, to reassure Laurent that she is not his enemy, not in collusion with Sylvain. She cannot bear the fear she sees in his face when he looks at her.

  ‘Yesterday, Lord Sylvain came to the shop. Uncle Thomas had always refused to allow me to stay here, but then he changed his mind. Lord Sylvain said he needed me to work through the night. I refused, but—’

  ‘So you say,’ Laurent spits at her. ‘But you’re here anyway. This uncle of yours drag you by force, did he?’

  ‘I shouldn’t call him “Uncle”,’ she says miserably. ‘He’s no kin to me. I’m here because . . . because Lord Sylvain says I owe him a debt.’

  ‘Money?’ Laurent says. ‘Well, that debt should be easy to work off. He pays handsomely for obedience and silence, so I’m told.’

  Fury boils up in Gisa. ‘You want the truth? You can have it. I have no mother and my father was hanged when I was little more than an infant. I was left alone to starve, but Lord Sylvain says he took pity on me. He says he paid the apothecary generously to raise me as his niece. I don’t remember him bringing me to Langley. But my unc– Master Thomas tells me I owe Sylvain my life and my living, because I am attainted. Now do you understand, you numbskull? I am attainted!’

  It is only as she says the words aloud that she begins to comprehend the full misery of the sentence that was passed on her. Ever since last night her mind has lurched from one revelation to another. Thomas and Ebba are not my kin. I have no family, no one in the world. The father I loved was a wicked man, a traitor. Sylvain, the man I fear, the man I shrink from, has been my saviour, my protector all these years.