The Ravenmaster

by Christopher Skaife

  When I had applied to become a Yeoman Warder, but before my interview, we visited the Tower to explore our potential new home. Like all the other tourists, we took in all the sites and had a wonderful day. But as my wife walked through the doorway of Beauchamp Tower, she suddenly stopped and would go no farther. She became pale and seemed quite overcome. She could not bring herself to look around the lower floor and hurried out. Naturally, I followed her and asked if she was okay. She told me that as soon as she walked into the room she was overcome with a terrible feeling of dread, as if someone didn’t want her to go any farther, as if she wasn’t welcome there. She was really spooked.

  Shortly afterward, when I had secured the job, the first house we were allocated was on Tower Green, next to the Bloody Tower and within sight of Beauchamp. For the whole time we lived on Tower Green, my wife never ever went near the Beauchamp Tower, and still refuses to do so today. She’s not a superstitious person at all—she’s not someone who’d jump at a shadow—but she is by no means the first person to sense something wrong there.

  So no, I don’t believe in ghosts. But I believe what I’ve seen and what people tell me. I believe that what we call ghosts might exist in our imaginations and that somehow, for some reason, we conjure them up when we are profoundly affected by our circumstances and our surroundings. Is that the ghost of Anne Boleyn? Are those the wraithlike figures of the boy princes? Or is it just you and your imagination?

  26

  AND SO TO BED

  You can’t just call a raven to bed. I mean, that would be ridiculous, right?

  Right.

  So I’ve had to develop a few strategies and methods.

  I bang my stick and then I call them to bed.

  You don’t believe me? Well, let’s just see, shall we. I’ll get the stick. It’s a special raven-calling stick that I had made for me by a long-lost raven-worshipping tribe over in South America. Alas, no, it’s not. I used to use a shepherd’s crook, but I’ll admit that was a bit of a pose. Now I just use an old broom handle. It does the job.

  But first I need to check the water in the water bowls. Make sure there’s no debris lying around. Tidy up the remains of any pigeon strikes.

  Ravens normally sleep during the hours of darkness, and although they don’t actually tuck their head under their wing, they do shut both eyes and nestle down. Our ravens normally signal to me when it’s time for bed by heading off to their favorite nighttime positions around the Tower and falling silent. I can sense when they’re ready.

  Anyway. Here’s the stick. I use it partly to guide the ravens toward their cages, but really it’s to stop me falling over on the Tower’s often slippery and uneven ground. Walking around in the dark, whistling and calling while guiding ravens in the general direction of the enclosure can be more difficult than it sounds. I’ve had enough trips and falls to last me a lifetime—and I thought being an infantry soldier was dangerous!

  Do you remember I told you that when we release the birds in the morning we have to do it in a particular order? Well, they like to go bed in the same way every night, without exception, except in reverse: the system requires that the dominant raven pair go to bed first, followed by the others. There can be no deviation from this rule. This is one of the Ravenmaster’s Rules, remember?

  And do you also remember that I said that sometimes even I don’t follow my rules? Well …

  This was a few years ago. December. It was my birthday. My wife and I had booked a restaurant not far from the Tower. My wife was all ready to go and looking wonderful, as usual. I, on the other hand, prefer to leave getting ready to go out until the last possible moment. Dressing up smart reminds me too much of work. I’ve spent my whole life in uniform, so I tend to make the most of every moment when I can be wearing just my T-shirt, my jeans, and my favorite Ravenclaw beanie. I had plenty of time.

  The evening was particularly cold and miserable. There was that persistent light English drizzle that soaks you to the skin. I peered out of my living room window at the dark gray stone walls. The light was fading fast. It was still a little early to put the birds to bed, but I decided it would probably be fine just once to hurry them along.

  * * *

  I put on my waterproof jacket and my Wellingtons and my beanie and let my wife know that I was off to do the ravens: it’s reassuring to know that on dark, wet nights, somebody knows where you are. Normally I take my phone with me, just in case. On this occasion I didn’t.

  This was only my second or third year as Ravenmaster and it had been a difficult time. I was on what you might call a steep learning curve. This was soon after a fox had killed two of the ravens. I just wanted the year to be over and to be able to start afresh.

  I walked the short distance from our house in the Casemates onto Tower Green. Darkness had only just started to engulf the White Tower, casting sinister shadows down below. It would only be a matter of time before the Tower foxes came out to play.

  I had a glance around. Merlina was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t unusual. So I thought, I’ll go and put the other ravens to bed first, then come back and look for her. It was important not to let Merlina know I was on a deadline. She’s extremely smart and perceptive, as you know, and if you’re stressed out, she senses it and refuses to come near you. A bit like an old dowager duchess, she does not like emotional displays of any kind. She finds too much enthusiasm or passion a real turnoff. At the slightest hint of emotion she will fluff her feathers at you, strut around in circles, cronk at you in disapproval, and then walk off until you calm down. Sometimes I wonder if she is the reincarnated spirit of Queen Victoria, or if she’s been watching too much Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

  * * *

  “I’ll be back for you shortly, Merlina,” I muttered into the night air, walking back toward the old night boxes.

  And how convenient! Munin and Jubilee were right there waiting for me. Munin was pacing up and down a nearby grassy bank. She didn’t like being out in the dark and preferred the security of Night Box 5, which is where they both slept before the new enclosure. Jubilee was standing on the ancient, dilapidated Cold Harbour wall, one of the ancient walls of the Tower, waiting patiently to follow Munin in. They were ready for bed.

  The only problem was that Munin and Jubilee weren’t supposed to go in first. They were the second mated pair in the pecking order. If you want to keep a raven as a pet—though I would strongly, strongly advise against it, don’t even think about it—you could keep them wherever it is you choose for twenty years or more and they would be quite happy to stay there. I know people who’ve kept ravens in their houses. The moment you change something, anything, all hell is going to break loose. I know this. Everyone who works with ravens knows this. Never mess with the raven routine. But that night, I was foolish. I broke my own rules. I steered Munin and Jubilee into their night box. Great! I was two ravens down. I was on a roll.

  Fool.

  Next I went to get Erin and Rocky. As the dominant pair, they should have been the first two to go to bed. But I was sure they’d forgive me. It was my birthday, after all. And my wife was waiting for me. We had a table booked. I’d had a long and difficult year. Come on, guys, give me a break. This is why anthropomorphizing gets you into trouble: because ravens really don’t care about your dinner plans.

  I walked up the steep, wet, grassy bank on the Tower’s south lawn, where Erin and Rocky would ordinarily be waiting for me, only to discover that they’d walked off in a huff, having being passed over for their normal bedtime privileges. They’d hopped up onto the wooden steps that lead to the southern entrance of the White Tower and were perched as high as they could possibly get, looking down at me from inside the steps, on one of the huge oak beams.

  I checked my watch. Time was ticking on. My wife was waiting. So up I went. I was younger then and would often climb the beams under the White Tower steps in order to rustle the ravens down from their roost. This was going to be easy. Not a problem. First I tapp
ed at the beams with my shepherd’s crook, hoping that would encourage them down, but they refused to budge. Erin just shuffled along the beam farther away, closely followed by Rocky. Fine. I went straight after them, in almost total darkness, climbing up on the beams one by one. In moments I had them within touching distance.

  Which is when my foot slipped on the slick ancient wood and I crash-landed, crotch first, onto a fat oak beam, which was better than falling and smashing my head open, obviously, but I can recall the excruciating pain even to this day. I did not move for a long time, for fear of further damaging my delicate parts.

  Cronk. Cronk. I looked up and I swear to you, Erin and Rocky were laughing at me. Regaining my balance, I pulled myself up once more and started climbing again, cursing the day I decided it would be fun to be the Ravenmaster.

  When I finally made it to the beam Erin and Rocky were perched on, I was actually rather proud of myself for climbing up in the dark, despite being injured.

  “Come on, you two, off you come,” I said, tapping the beam gently with my crook, which I still held firmly in my hand.

  Erin and Rocky took one look at me, and like BASE jumpers throwing themselves from the highest clifftop, they jumped off into complete darkness.

  By the time I was back on terra firma, they had sauntered into their home, Night Box 4. I wished them good night, cursed them under my breath and shut the night box door behind them—rather harder, I confess, than I should have.

  Right. Four ravens down, three remaining! I opened Night Box 3 for Porsha and Night Box 1 for Hugine. Porsha and Hugine were females and preferred to go to bed separately. These two never normally gave me the runaround. But now everything and everyone was out of sync and I was beginning to feel the pressure.

  Fortunately for me, though, Porsha and Hugine were as good as gold that night. They both hadn’t yet established themselves within the hierarchical order, so it didn’t matter to them so much about the upset in the usual bedtime rituals and routines.

  Hugine was hanging out on the west side of the White Tower, while Porsha was standing on the Maltese Cannon over on the east side of the Tower. God bless her, as soon as she saw me, Hugine glided down to her night box, went straight in, and I shut the door behind her. Wonderful! What a beautiful raven she was, and so obedient! It was looking like my birthday celebrations might be back on track. Porsha followed suit. She was a raven who liked her own company and didn’t really socialize with any of the other ravens, choosing to spend her time posing for photographs on top of the cannon. She always did a lap of honor of the south lawn before going into her night box, and this evening was no different. Straight off the cannon, one lap around the lawn, and home to bed!

  So, all ravens to bed on the south lawn area. I secured the outer cage door, wished the ravens good night and walked away.

  * * *

  Only one more raven remained: the dowager duchess herself, Merlina.

  Darkness now completely enveloped the Tower. I stood in the center of Tower Green and called out in Ravenish.

  Merlina didn’t reply. I checked my watch again. My wife would now be standing by our front door.

  I hurried off to look for Merlina in her favorite places, to see if she was playing hide-and-seek, as she likes to do when she wants to hold me up. First I searched the holly tree. No sign of her. Then I searched both Christmas trees on Tower Green—I’d seen her climb up the center of the trees a number of times during December and pop the lightbulbs using her beak. Again, nothing.

  I widened my search and climbed the steps of the Bloody Tower to see if she was perched on the top of Raleigh’s Walk. She liked to look over at the boats going up and down the Thames. No doubt Sir Walter Raleigh did exactly the same thing four hundred years earlier during his imprisonment in the Tower. But Merlina wasn’t up on the wall. I came down the steps a bit sharpish. I’ve never felt entirely comfortable on Sir Walter’s walkway. Something about it always makes me feel sad.

  Anyway, time was getting on. At this rate, I was going to miss my birthday meal. And worse, I was keeping my wife waiting. I would have to go to DEFCON 2. I hurried to the storeroom to get out the shark’s eye—in the army that’s what we call a bright searchlight. If Merlina was hiding in some dark recess, the shark’s eye would soon flush her out.

  I walked around the Inner Ward again, shining the shark’s eye. Nothing. Our table was booked for 2100. I now had less than one hour to find a raven, get ready for my night out, and get to the restaurant. Not absolutely impossible, but my window of opportunity was closing fast.

  I walked under the archway of the Bloody Tower, up the cobbled incline toward Tower Green, when suddenly I heard a faint cronking sound. I stood motionless for a moment, straining to hear the noise again.

  It must have been my imagination, so I carried on walking. But as I got to the boardwalk steps, I heard it again, only this time it was clear. Kn-ck, kn-ck, the distinctive clicking sound Merlina and I use to acknowledge each other. I couldn’t make out where the sound was coming from, so I called back to see if she would answer. To my great relief she did. Fantastic! I had found her. It was a Christmas miracle!

  The miracle was short-lived when I realized just where she was. She had managed to scramble under the wooden platform that leads into the lower chamber of the Wakefield Tower, where we keep our instruments of torture. There was a gap of all of about eight inches and Merlina had managed to cram herself in there.

  I had no idea how I was going to get her out. The platform sits above a big stinking pit, about twenty feet in width and seven feet in depth. It was once the site of an old Georgian guardhouse, but it now has no function whatsoever, apart from collecting stagnant rainwater, tourist rubbish, and pigeon carcasses. I always refer to it as the Pit of Doom. It was now the only obstacle between me and my birthday celebrations.

  I climbed over the black iron fence that wraps its way around the grassy areas of the Tower and got down onto my belly. The grass was soaking wet, but at this stage I didn’t care. The insides of my legs were already painfully bruised from my unfortunate encounter with Erin and Rocky. I had walked what seemed like miles looking for Merlina, and I was soaked to the skin. What more could possibly go wrong?

  I shone my shark’s eye under the platform to see if indeed it was Merlina there and not the ghost of Christmas past, and called to her again. She didn’t call back, but I could make out the silhouette of her beak, and that was good enough for me. She had tucked herself right at the very back of the tiny crack and was out of reach even with my crook at its fullest extent. I would have to venture into the Pit of Doom.

  Wading into the seven-foot-deep pit was something I certainly didn’t want to do, since I’m rather shorter than seven feet and had no desire to drop down into a well of filthy stagnant water. Fortunately there is a set of narrow steps attached to the wooden uprights that line the pit, presumably there for the maintenance boys to access the area. If I could just ease myself around the pit on the steps I’d be able to reach into the gap for Merlina.

  I lowered myself onto the first step, putting my foot on it to see if it would take my weight. No problem. Second step, good, all okay. Third step: CRACK.

  I had one of those life-flashing-before-your-eyes sorts of moments and the next thing I remember is sinking down into the stinking pool of water as rubbish and rotting pigeon carcasses swirled around me. I couldn’t believe my luck, or lack of it. I dragged myself out of the stinking water, and as I did so, I made direct eye contact with Merlina, who had crawled out of her hiding place and was perched directly over me, wagging her beak.

  I’ve seen it many times during my military career: when things just can’t get any worse, for some reason you start to laugh. This was one of those moments.

  We never got out for my birthday dinner. Fortunately my wife also saw the funny side of the story. We stayed in that night for a romantic meal of beans on toast for two.

  That’s another thing you definitely need as a Ravenmaster: a sen
se of humor. And a forgiving partner.

  Now let me call the birds in—in the correct order. I’ll bang the stick.

  Erin and Rocky.

  Harris and Gripp.

  Munin and Jubilee.

  That’s the way to do it.

  27

  GREAT TRADITIONS

  So the birds are back in their enclosure for the night, safe from the foxes, and I hope by now I’ve answered most of your questions. There is one important question, though, that people don’t tend to ask, which I suppose is really only for me to ask: What’s the future of the ravens at the Tower?

  To be honest, it feels like I’ve only just begun with the work I want to do here. I’ve been able to make a lot of changes since I took over as Ravenmaster, with the full support and encouragement of the staff of Historic Royal Palaces, particularly in terms of how we care for the ravens. I believe the changes we’ve made have been absolutely necessary. Our visitors have greater levels of expectation than ever before, especially when it comes to the ravens’ welfare, and these days we’re all much more informed about how animals should be treated. I’ve been able to develop my own ideas about what I think we should do with the birds and I’ve been privileged to work with a brilliant team of assistants and volunteers to be able to make it happen.

  Being in the army taught me to take responsibility. When I was young I was always in a gang, but I was always on the periphery. I enjoyed being part of the pack, but I also tended to hang back a bit and observe. I was reluctant to commit. But now I see the importance of making plans, working with your team to carry them through, and assessing the consequences. I can remember going back to my battalion to take over as Drum Major when I was in my early thirties and realizing I’d come full circle: twenty years after arriving as a boy soldier, I was running the platoon. Now, to be a Yeoman Warder, and also to be the Ravenmaster and a part of Team Raven, it’s a great source of pride to me, as well as a great responsibility.