The Raven's Head (2 page)

Charles
– distant cousin of Philippe

Albertus
– friend of Philippe who lives in Ricey

Langley Town, Norfolk

Gisa
– fifteen-year-old niece and ward of an apothecary

Uncle Thomas
– the apothecary, who owns a shop in Langley

Aunt Ebba
– the apothecary’s bed-ridden wife

Langley Abbey

Father Arthmael
– abbot and leader of the Premonstratensians (White Canons)

Father John
– brother in charge of the boys at the abbey

Felix
– eleven years old and eldest of the boys being educated at the abbey

Mighel and Peter
– youngest and smallest of the boys at the abbey

Father Madron
– young Premonstratensian

Langley Manor

Lord Sylvain
– baron and lord of the manor

Odo
– Sylvain’s manservant

Pipkin
– Sylvain’s cook

Isolda
– Sylvain’s daughter

Hamon
– Isolda’s lover

All of the quotations that head the chapters in the novel are taken from the writings of early Christian and Islamic alchemists.

There is a secret stone, hidden in a deep well, worthless and rejected, concealed in dung and filth.

Only the long-eared owl watches in the forest tonight. And only the owl hears the hoofs of the two horses as they draw ever closer. It swivels its head to stare at the white-robed riders. Its great eyes blink. Then it launches itself on silent wings and is gone.

An angry wind rattles the branches of the trees, muffling the creak of leather and the crunch of iron shoes as the horses pad through the dried leaves. The cottage hunkers down, invisible among the twisted trunks. But even these ancient trees cannot conceal the tiny croft from the horsemen who are threading their way towards it. For it is whispered that the white riders can see as clearly at night as ordinary men can see by day, and little wonder, for the riders are masters of the blackest of the black.

In the cottage, the rush lights have long been extinguished and the fire damped down for the night. Behind the warped shutters, the family lie curled up around each other, sleeping. Only the dog lying by the hearth hears the approach of the two riders. It scrambles to its feet, the fur between its shoulder-blades raised. It sniffs at the crack beneath the door, then throws back its head and howls in fear.

‘Quiet, Pouk,’ Hudde mutters gruffly, sinking almost at once back into sleep.

But Meggy elbows her husband in the ribs. ‘There’s something out there.’

‘Pigs come rootling for mast, is all,’ Hudde says, without opening his eyes. He turns over as best he can in the narrow bed, and pulls the rough blanket over his head, trying to shut out his wife and the whining hound.

Outside, the two white riders swing themselves from their saddles, tether their horses a little way from the cottage and glide towards it, wading through a puddle of cold moonlight, their sandalled feet making no more sound in the dead leaves than the paws of wolves hunting.

Inside the cottage the dog runs anxiously back and forth. Then, as if it senses the staff being raised on the other side of the door, it backs into the far corner and crouches there, shivering.

The thump of the staff against the wood brings Hudde tumbling from his bed. He’s on his feet before the echo dies away. Meggy, too, scrambles up, gathering her brood of children in her arms and hushing them. They cling to her and to each other in the dark room.

Their mother has often warned them that if they make a sound after they’ve been put to bed the lantern-man will come for them, reaching in through the window with his long arms to drag them out and carry them back to the marshes to drown them. They can only escape if they are quiet, for then he will not know there are children in the house and will pass on by. The children squeeze each other into silence, burying their faces in each other’s arms for fear that the lantern-man will hear them breathe. But the white riders are not to be fooled as easily as the lantern-man and once more a staff hammers on the door.

Hudde snatches up his own stout stave.

‘Who is it comes calling in the dead of night?’ He sounds defiant, challenging, but Meggy knows him well enough to hear the apprehension concealed beneath the brave words. No human creature, save poachers or outlaws, would venture into the forest at this hour.

‘Peace be upon this house,’ a voice answers soothingly. ‘Pray let us in, Master Hudde, it is a bitter night.’ The man’s tone is gentle, noble even.

Hudde relaxes slightly. He recognises the voice. The man has come here before. Perhaps he brings a message from Hudde’s master, though a message that cannot wait till morning must be grave news indeed. Hudde drags on a pair of breeches and, with a taper touched to the embers of the fire, he lights the lantern that hangs ready trimmed by the door. Meggy fusses anxiously about her children, scrubbing at sleep-drooled mouths with the corner of a blanket, as if God Himself has come calling and she is ashamed to show her children to him unwashed.

No sooner has Hudde lifted the brace from the door than the two white-hooded figures step into the room, pressing the door closed behind them. The hound leaps forward with a growl, but the older of the two men merely turns and fixes the yellow eyes of the dog with an unblinking stare, holding out his hand flat above its head. The dog whimpers and, as if the man is pressing a great weight down onto it, sinks to its belly and shuffles back into the corner.

Both men stand quite still, their hands folded into the white sleeves of their robes, the hoods of their cloaks drawn over their heads. The younger man is scarcely more than a youth, though he has already learned to keep his body composed, save for a twitch at the corner of his left eye that betrays a nervous excitement. The older man’s chin is frosted with white stubble beneath a purple-veined nose. His expression betrays nothing of his thoughts, but his eyes quarter every inch of the tiny cottage, as if he is determined to examine all and forget nothing.

Hudde shuffles anxiously, wondering why the men don’t announce their business at once. Perhaps they’re expecting some meat or drink to be offered.

‘We have only small ale, sirs, and some bread . . . we have bread and cheese . . .’ He glances uncertainly at his wife, hoping that there is still some left from supper.

The man bows his head, acknowledging the proffered hospitality. ‘My thanks to you, Master Hudde, but we require no refreshment. We have merely come for the boy. Make him ready to travel and we shall be on our way.’

His gaze sweeps over the huddled children and settles, heavy as a millstone, upon a small boy, whose shaggy locks blaze flame-red against the duller amber and rust-browns of his siblings.

Meggy’s arm shoots out to pull the child to her side, grasping him so tightly that he squeals. She glances at her husband, silently urging him to say something, but he’s just standing there dumbly, like one of his trees, so it’s left to Meggy to protest.

‘You’ve not come for him yet, surely.’ She tenderly brushes a tangle of hair out of the boy’s eyes.

‘The child was promised to us,’ the older man says. ‘Your husband came to us on St Stephen’s Day begging for more time to pay what he owed us for the grain we sold to him. The boy was offered in settlement. And, as agreed, you will receive food and coin every quarter day for the next seven years – that is,’ he adds carefully, ‘unless the boy dies.’

Hudde winces. The shame of that day still burns in him. It had cost him every scrap of pride he had left to admit that he couldn’t pay what he owed. But he’d lost two months’ wages after that poacher had put an arrow through his shoulder. The wound had turned foul and his body had burned with a fever, which had left him weak as a nestling. He’d tried to explain his misfortune to this man, but he’d only stared at Hudde with cold, dead eyes as if he was no better than an averer, faking sickness to steal alms.

Hudde had been certain his plea would be refused, but then a miracle had happened. The man’s gaze had alighted on little Wilky clinging to his father’s breeches. Ignoring Wilky’s brothers, he’d reached out an arm and drawn the child close, his fingers probing the boy’s head, limbs and body, as if he was inspecting a puppy for the potential to become a good hunting hound. With a deep sigh, he’d released Wilky, but he could barely tear his eyes from the boy.

‘In settlement of your debt, we will take the boy and educate him,’ the man announced curtly. ‘In addition, you will receive a modest sum until the boy is twelve, for you doubtless have other debts to pay.’

Hudde was so bemused he thought at first they were asking him for money. The father pays the master to teach his son – that is always the way of it. It wasn’t until the coins were thrust into his hand and his fist was guided to make a clumsy X on the parchment that he realised they were paying him!

He’d returned home giddy with relief and gratitude that they had cancelled the debt. But for days after he had brooded over the matter. He could not fathom why any man should give him money for the privilege of teaching his son. Eventually, unable to make any sense of it, Hudde had stopped trying to reason it out, just as a man abandons a tangle of cord that is so badly knotted it can never be undone.

But now Hudde is finally goaded into speech. ‘Aye, I did promise him right enough. But . . . see, our Wilky’s nowt but five summers old. I thought he’d be with us another two years at least, maybe more.’

‘And what would be the point of that?’ the man says. ‘Can you afford to keep seven children through another hard winter? Suppose another accident should befall you. Safe in our care, the boy will be fed and clothed, and will be taught his letters. The sooner he begins, the faster he will learn.’

‘But he’s so young, so small,’ Meggy protests. ‘He needs me. Just another year, I beg you. Give me time to get him used to the idea. We’ll bring him to you ourselves, when he’s ready.’

‘The parting will not get any easier, however long you delay it,’ the white rider said impassively. ‘And all the signs tell us it will be a bitter winter. There will be much starvation and sickness. By spring the boy may be dead. Which would you rather, woman, that
we
take the child or death does?’

Wilky starts to sob. He understands little of what they are saying. No one has told him of this bargain, but he understands the word
death
. He’s gone to sleep next to a living child and woken to find him cold as a frog. In his short life, he’s been forced to watch two of his little brothers wrapped tightly in winding sheets and laid in the frozen earth. Now at night he dreams of them tying a bandage around his own jaw so he cannot cry out, of the hard clods of dirt falling on him, pinning him down, of no one coming to help.

The white rider stares curiously at the child, then shrugs and turns towards the door, as if to make it plain he intends to waste no more time on this. ‘If you are regretting your decision, Master Hudde, you can always return the money you were given and settle your debt, and we will trouble you no more.’

Hudde and Meggy gaze helplessly at one another. Both know they can no more return the money than they can send the rain back up into the clouds. The money is gone, spent, finished. Meggy sees the expression on Hudde’s face and knows he is going to give them her son.

She wants to seize the stave and drive the men from her house. She wants to scream that they will never have her children, not a single one of them, that she would rather they all starved together than be parted from each other. But she says none of these things. She knows the pain of burying her children. She knows the bitter finality of that parting. Better to think of the boy living, warm, well fed and happy than think of him lying out there alone in the dark forest and hearing the sobs of his ghost on the howling wind.

Hudde lifts his son onto the horse and seats him in front of the younger of the two riders. The man wraps his heavy woollen cloak around them both, holding the boy firmly in the crook of his arm. The man’s clothes have an unfamiliar, bitter perfume, like a mixture of woodsmoke and crushed cow parsley, but it is neither of those. The boy begins to struggle again, but the arm around his waist tightens painfully.

‘Sit still, you little fool, else you’ll fall and break your neck.’

Wilky has never sat on a horse before and it is a dizzyingly long way to the ground. The tears that wet his cheeks burn in the wind. As the horse is kicked into a trot he clutches at the man’s arm, and twists his head to look back at his parents, brothers and sisters all crowded in the doorway. It is too dark to see their faces, but he hears the crack in his mother’s voice as she calls out, ‘Be a good boy, Wilky, and do whatever you’re told. We’ll come to see you soon . . . very soon . . . if you’re good.’

The boy clings desperately to that promise as the riders canter away into the darkness.

But Meggy should have trusted a mother’s instincts, for there are evils in this world far worse than death. If she had known, if she could have even imagined, she would have cut her own son’s throat before their very eyes, sooner than let the white riders take him.

Chapter 1