The Raven's Head
Authors: Karen Maitland
Copyright © 2015 Karen Maitland
The right of Karen Maitland to be identified as the Author of
the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
This Ebook edition was first published by Headline Publishing Group in 2015
All characters in this publication – apart from the obvious historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 1 4722 1507 9
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Contents
© John C. Gibson
Karen Maitland travelled and worked in many parts of the United Kingdom before settling for several years in the beautiful medieval city of Lincoln, an inspiration for her writing. She is the author of
The White Room
,
Company of Liars
,
The Owl Killers
,
The Gallows Curse
,
The Falcons of Fire and Ice
and
The Vanishing Witch
. She has recently relocated to a life of rural bliss in Devon.
Step back in time with Maitland’s dark tales
‘Karen Maitland neatly captures the spirit of primitive superstition’
Daily Express
‘Passion and peril. A compelling blend of historical grit and supernatural twists’
Daily Mail
on
The Falcons of Fire and Ice
‘A ripping tale . . . full of colour and detail’
Daily Telegraph
on
The Gallows Curse
‘Scarily good. Imagine
The Wicker Man
crossed with
The Birds’ Marie Claire
on
The Owl Killers
‘Glorious . . . a thrillingly horrible vision of the Dark Ages’
Metro
on
The Owl Killers
‘Combines the storytelling traditions of
The Canterbury Tales
with the supernatural suspense of Mosse’s
Sepulchre
in this atmospheric tale of treachery and magic’
Marie Claire
on
Company of Liars
‘A richly evocative page-turner which brings to life a lost and terrible period of British history, with a disturbing final twist worthy of a master of the spine-tingler, such as Henry James’
Daily Express
on
Company of Liars
Never trust your secrets to a Raven, when you are not its true master . . .
The Raven is waiting.
France, 1224. Vincent stumbles upon a secret that could destroy his master and a naive attempt at blackmail leaves him on the run and in possession of a silver raven’s head.
The Raven is coming.
Vincent escapes to England but every attempt to sell the raven’s head fails and instead he makes his way from town to town, selling lies and stories to line his purse.
The Raven is here.
He hears of a Baron, a man whose reputation should make him a buyer for the head . . . or a story. Vincent demands an audience with Lord Sylvain, but it might be the last demand he makes. It doesn’t pay to deal with an Alchemist.
Some might think the Raven was seeking passage home.
The White Room
Company of Liars
The Owl Killers
The Gallows Curse
The Falcons of Fire and Ice
The Vanishing Witch
And know that the head of the art is the raven who flies without wings in the darkness and in the brightness of the day: in the bitterness that is in its throat the nigredo, the blackest of black, will be found.
From
Artis aurif,
1610 edition
Take some ‘stone’. Divide it into four parts – air, fire, earth and water. I am unable to discover that it can be done in any way other than the following. A human being lives, dies, and depends upon blood. Likewise the stone. Consequently they say that this stone is a living stone, and therefore because there is no higher soul than a human being, they take the stone of a human.
Avicenna, a Persian physician (AD 980–1037)
One for sorrow
Two for mirth
Three for a funeral
Four for a birth
Five for heaven
Six for hell
The seventh takes your soul for the Devil to sell.
One of several versions of a traditional rhyme for counting magpies, known as witch birds
England
Hudde
– an under-forester
Meggy
– Hudde’s wife
Wilky
– their five-year-old son
Jankin
– one of Wilky’s older brothers
Pouk
– the dog
France
Vincent
– seventeen-year-old apprentice to Gaspard
Gaspard
– aged scribe and librarian in the household of Philippe
Philippe, Le Comte de Lingones
– wealthy nobleman in the French court of King Louis VIII
Amée, La Comtesse de Lingones
– Philippe’s daughter
Estienne
– Philippe’s deceased great-grandfather
Hélène
– Philippe’s deceased great-grandmother