The Raven's Head (14 page)

But I couldn’t follow the forest path either for I was pretty certain Charles would be waiting for me somewhere ahead. So, I struck out through the trees, creeping over the brow of the hill, relying on the darkness to cover me. Mercifully the wind was roaring through the forest. Between the creaking branches and the rattling of the dried leaves, it sounded as if a herd of deer was thundering by, so I trusted it would mask any noise I made as I hobbled up the slope.

I don’t know how long I walked. Pain and exhaustion numbed my senses, until I was blindly pushing through saplings and crawling up steep ridges, then stumbling and sliding down the other side. I was so dazed, I found myself staring dumbly at the flickering spots of yellow and red ahead of me, until I realised they were the burning torches of the distant town. I’d made it! And for now I was still alive. Unable to take another step, I’d crawled into the nearest clump of bushes and instantly fallen asleep.

Now, as I watched people passing along the track below me, I decided the best course was to join a group making their way into Ricey-Bas. If Charles was planning another ambush, even he wouldn’t dare to attack me in front of witnesses. Once there I would make my way to the town’s
burgeis
and tell them the whole story – how Philippe and Gaspard had conspired in forgery to deceive the king and, when they learned I was on my way to the town to denounce them, how they’d tried to have me killed. I would make no mention of my attempt to extract money from Philippe. That would only confuse matters and men in authority are happier if you keep things simple for them.

I had a glorious vision of the king’s men-at-arms thundering into the château to arrest them and of the king’s gratitude to me for my bravery in unmasking the rogues. A position at Court would surely be the least I could expect. My only twinge of anxiety concerned Amée. I’d no wish to see her suffer, even after what she’d done. I’d convinced myself her father had forced her to drug the food and she’d had no idea he was arranging to have me killed. She couldn’t have smiled at me like that if she’d known – no girl could. So I would protect her. In fact I’d ask the king for her hand as my reward. And while she might, I supposed, initially blame me for her father’s disgrace, when the king reminded her of how charitable my gesture was, how magnanimous my forgiveness, she would fall on her knees in gratitude that I was rescuing her from a life of degradation or seclusion in a nunnery, for it was certain no other man would take the daughter of an executed felon as his wife.

You probably think me as naïve and foolish as a newly hatched chick who wanders up to a fox and says, ‘Mama?’ And, indeed, I was back then. But look at it this way: though the seventeen years of my life hadn’t been strewn with four-leafed clovers, I had managed to avoid most of the disasters that might have befallen a boy of my cursed nativity. And in the last few hours I’d even managed to evade Philippe’s nasty little plot and the three assassins he’d sent to murder me. So, I think I could be forgiven for believing that Fortune was not averse to sprinkling a little of her luck on me, which, though I say it myself, I richly deserved. Fortune favours those who help themselves.

Besides, I’d lived for the past seven years among books and stories. They’d been my playmates, teachers, parents and priests. In books it’s always the lowly woodcutter’s son who dispatches the dragon and marries the princess; orphans outwit powerful wizards, and shepherd boys, armed only with sling-shots, kill giants who have slaughtered whole armies of warriors. Somewhere in a book I’d yet to read there had to be a tale of an apprentice librarian who defeats a wicked count and wins the hand of his beautiful daughter.

But, of course, the books do not record everything. Their writers carefully omit the stories about the dozens of hopeful woodcutters’ sons who were burned to a crisp by the dragon’s breath, or the shepherd boys whose heads were crushed like grapes or the apprentice librarians who . . . Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. No, that morning, in spite of my throbbing bruises I was foolishly and stubbornly certain that I could take on, and triumph over, Philippe and all his minions.

I inched my way down the hillside towards the track, taking care to keep to the shelter of bushes and shadows. It isn’t easy moving stealthily when you can hardly bear to move at all and have to stifle yelps of pain. But eventually I was within a few paces of the track and, so far, luck was with me: Charles and his hounds had not found me and they were, so I hoped, still lying in wait far back along the path.

The track here was broad and far better used than the higher stretches: besides the town, it led to several outlying farms and hamlets. It was evidently market day for a steady procession of people was ambling along the road. Some carried live chickens that swung, heads down, from cords over their shoulders, while others hefted panniers of fruit on their backs or balanced faggots of kindling on their heads. Ox-wagons and donkey-carts rumbled past, bearing barrels, planks, bales of fodder or a few late vegetables to sell in the town. The women, for it was mostly they who passed along the road, were chattering to each other, and wouldn’t have noticed if the king and all his court had been standing among the trees.

I’d no wish to alarm anyone by lurching out at them from behind the bushes so I waited until an ox-cart, led by a woman and a young lad, had passed and the track behind was empty. Then, as quietly as I could, I crept out and began walking a few yards behind the cart, not so close as to make them think I was trying to rob them, but close enough that if I was attacked I could cry out.

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 her, 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.’