The Raven's Head (29 page)

‘Dawn was not far off so, though you were deathly afraid, you cut up the body, placed it in a basket and dragged it to the river. You arrived just as the thin grey line marked where the sun would rise. Frantically you searched for rocks to weigh it down, knowing that if a single ray of sun touched the sky before she was beneath the water, her spirit would enter you and you would become the beast she had been.

‘With your last remaining strength you pushed the basket far out into the river. The water gurgled in and, as the first shaft of sunlight crept over the horizon, the basket vanished beneath the water.’

Robert de Drayton was grinning, like the demon cat herself, by the time I’d finished my tale, and he was still smiling as he dismissed me. But my smile was bigger than his, for my leather purse now felt satisfyingly weighty and in the morning I would be once more on the road, ready to seek out any who needed my unique services, provided, of course, they had the money to pay for them.

A king stands with naked sword while his soldiers slay the falling children and take from them their blood.

As soon as little Peter descends the last stone step into the flickering red glow of the dungeon he senses that something is different.
Whenever he has been led down here before, Father Arthmael has been occupied, swirling some dark liquid in a flask or peering at a scroll by the light of a candle. He seldom troubles to glance up as the boy descends, as if Father John is delivering nothing more than a sack of dried bones or a vial of quicksilver.

But tonight Father Arthmael is deep in conversation with another man, one whom Peter has not seen before. This man is not a White Canon. It is as if he is the shadow of a White Canon or the hole where one should be, for he is dressed in a long black robe, embroidered with a silver band that undulates about his throat. Both men turn and stare as Father John pushes Peter towards them.

The man in black steps forward, his head tilted. ‘Hardly a babe,’ he says. ‘The book specifies a male-child of two.’

‘King Herod’s slaying of the infants in Bethlehem,’ Father John murmurs.

The pupils of Father Arthmael’s eyes contract as he flicks his gaze towards Father John. ‘St Matthew did indeed study the royal art, of that we can be sure. There are many great mysteries hidden in his gospel, but you are no master of them, Father John. God in His mercy and wisdom has granted you other talents.’

Father John respectfully inclines his head towards his superior, but his fingers dig suddenly and painfully into the boy’s arm, making him squeal. Peter knows his teacher is angry, though he senses for once that he is not the cause.

A chill smile flickers across the face of the man in the black robes. ‘Father John may not have had the good fortune to study under the Great Master in France, as we did, but in his ignorance he has nevertheless stumbled upon a truth. I would have thought that you of all men, Arthmael, would have paid heed to the instructions of your holy gospel. After all, it is God you claim to serve in this work, unlike us honest sinners who do not need to conceal our ambitions behind clouds of incense.’

Peter holds his breath. The words make no sense to him, but the insolence in the man’s tone is unmistakable. In spite of his fear, the boy is almost gleeful. He stares up at Father Arthmael, expecting bolts of fire to dart from his eyes and reduce the black-robed man to ashes. But Father Arthmael does not even raise his voice.

‘Either you failed to learn what the Great Master taught or God has deliberately blinded you, knowing to what evil you intend to put this sacred art. Like Father John, you see the word but not what it hides. You think the object is of more substance than its shadow; the line is more significant than the space it encloses. The number two does not refer to the age of the child, it is the symbol of opposites. Sulphur and quicksilver are antagonistic, but they may finally be resolved and united in the one that is both male and female. The Great Master’s book and the gospel both speak alike of sun and moon, king and queen, who will together bathe in the blood of the children and rise as one in rebirth.’

The black-robed man laughs. The sound surprises Peter for Father Arthmael is not smiling. The man fingers the silver snake that coils around the high neckline of his robe. ‘Strange, is it not, that of all four of the Great Master’s chosen disciples the Master should leave his book to me? Not to mighty Count Philippe, or loyal Albertus, or you, holy Arthmael, but to me, the one whom you say does not know how to interpret its words. Was our Great Master mistaken? Did your omniscient God blind him, so that he placed the greatest secret of mankind in the hands of a fool? Which do you doubt, Arthmael – the wisdom of the Great Master or the wisdom of God?’

‘He intended it to be shared by all four of us,’ Father Arthmael snaps, his voice rising for the first time. High on its ledge, the magpie stirs and gives a cackle of alarm. ‘He intended that his four disciples should continue to study the book together and learn from each other. But you took it and smuggled it to England.’

‘If I hadn’t brought it to safety, Count Philippe would have stolen it from all of us. As we both know, he has an unfortunate habit of taking whatever he covets. Do you think Philippe would have shared the words of the book with you, as I have done?’

‘Page by grudging page.’ Father Arthmael glares at him. ‘And only when you need to obtain the precious substances from the boys placed in my care. You haggle over the sacred knowledge like some tanner’s wife in the marketplace, bargaining for a piece of offal.’

Father John coughs pointedly. ‘The boy . . .’

Both men look vaguely startled as if they have forgotten Peter is there. For a moment, the boy hopes, prays even, that he will be returned to his bed.

‘Well?’ Father Arthmael demands. ‘Do we use this boy or not?’

The man in black hesitates, then gives a curt nod. ‘Proceed. Time will prove which of us is correct.’

Father Arthmael nods. ‘Remove your clothes quickly, boy. It must be completed before the abbey bell rings for Lauds at daybreak.’

It is Father John who finally pulls the shirt over Peter’s head, as he cowers and pleads. Father Arthmael has turned his back and is preparing something on a table at the far end of the chamber, half hidden from view by one of the pillars. The man in the black robe is holding out a scrap of meat towards the magpie high on the ledge. The bird watches him curiously, head tilted, but does not fly down.

His hand gripping the boy’s arm, Father John leads him towards a large copper laver with a short metal tube running from it, which is in turn connected to an empty glass flask. Peter remembers the suffocating steam box, remembers the basin in which they scraped the sweat from his skin with sharp stones. He won’t go back inside that box. He won’t!

Wresting himself from Father John’s grasp he dodges round him and races towards the spiral steps, but the man in the black robe grabs his hair and holds him fast till Father John can seize his arm again. Peter wriggles and shrieks, bites and punches. The magpie flies madly round the vaulted ceiling, uttering wild cackling cries of alarm. Peter fights valiantly with all his strength, but he is no match for two grown men. They lift him by his wrists and ankles, still thrashing, and dump him in the copper laver.

Father Arthmael paces slowly towards him. Glinting in his hand is a thin sharp blade embedded in a bone-white handle. They are going to skin him. This time, they really will. Peter screams, arching backwards away from the blade, but the grip on his arms only tightens.

‘Stand still!’ Father John hisses. ‘Otherwise you’ll hurt yourself. Do as you are told and soon you will sleep again.’

Father Arthmael runs his cold fingers down the back of the boy’s soft thigh. Peter shudders and whimpers in fear. The fingers pause. Peter squeals at a sudden sharp jag into his bare flesh. The pain is gone in an instant, but he feels something hot running down the back of his knee, hears it splash into the copper bowl. He stares down at the trickle of scarlet that is meandering across his toes. But before he can fully grasp what the red liquid is, he feels a little stab in his calf, minutes later, another in his arm.

The light in the chamber is growing very bright, as if someone has lit a hundred candles. The little boy is vaguely aware of the blade jabbing into his flesh again, but it no longer feels like pain. He no longer tries to resist. His head flops, too heavy to hold up. His legs buckle. He is a tiny fragment of bread floating in a warm bowl of soup. The room suddenly becomes dark. The voices of the three men are muffled, as if his head is buried deep beneath a thick blanket. He is back in his bed. He is falling asleep. He drops into nothing.

They dump the limp body on the floor of the dungeon, slippery and scarlet as a babe torn from the womb. Father Arthmael and Father John kneel either side of it. Making the sign of the cross over the little boy, they recite the prayers for the dead hastily, but reverently, careful to omit not a single word, so that his spirit cannot rise and condemn them for their neglect.

Heaving himself painfully to his feet, Father Arthmael drains the last drop of blood from the copper laver into the clear glass vessel. The man in the black robes holds it up to the candlelight, tilting the glowing ruby liquid carefully, as a wine-merchant might inspect the first drawing from a newly broached keg. Father Arthmael takes the flask from him and just as carefully divides the contents between two smaller flasks, holding them up side by side, to ensure the measures are equal. They are stoppered and laid in separate baskets, each lined with straw. The man in black picks up one and walks towards the stairs. Father Arthmael follows.

Father John hesitates, looking down at the crumpled little body on the cold flags. ‘What is to be done with the remains?’

Father Arthmael turns his head slightly. ‘Father Madron will come later to clean the laboratorium. He has his instructions. Come, Father John. Lauds is nearly upon us and it would not set a good example if we were to be late for the Divine Offices.’

Chapter 33

The decomposition of a basilisk generates scorpions. In the dead body of a calf are generated bees, wasps in the carcass of an ass, beetles in the flesh of a horse, and locusts in that of a mule.

As it transpired it was not hard to find men and women in dire need of a story to save their skins. I travelled east, searching out inns and taverns, town stews and the pilgrims’ halls in monasteries, and in every place I sat quietly and listened. I soon discovered that monks and lay brothers gossip worse than any fishmonger’s daughter. They’ve nothing else to occupy their minds or their tongues, save their prayers, and since they never vary, the monks can recite them as piously as old St Hubert himself, while letting their thoughts amuse themselves with any salacious tattle that blows through their draughty cloisters.

Lugh and I learned of wealthy knights in whose fathers’ veins ran not one drop of noble blood, of women miraculously pregnant when their husbands were away at the wars, of abbesses caught with lovers, of thieves and fraudsters who had cheated their poor brothers out of their inheritances and their sweet sisters out of their dowries. Any titbit I purloined I squirrelled away. Then I made a few discreet enquiries. Was the person wealthy? What did they stand to lose? I carefully calculated how desperately they needed a way to silence the gossips or defend themselves against their accusers. Then I’d invent a story. It wasn’t easy. I had to work for my money. There were days when I squeezed my brain until my thoughts ran dry, but could think of no tale, however fanciful, that would exonerate the guilty. Then I’d lie down to sleep with Lugh close by, and in my dreams I’d hear the harsh croak of the raven and the tale would begin to form itself as I slept.

I’d see the characters wandering towards me as if the raven had thrown a rope of silk about them and was drawing them closer. I’d watch them cavort like jesters for their lord, while his bright black eyes looked on, compelling, commanding them to reveal their tale. And when I woke, the story lay nestled in my head, like an egg waiting to be broken open, its gold spilled out.

I became more daring. Why wait for gossip? Why put myself to the trouble of spending hours and hours hanging around on the off-chance I might hear something? If I could invent the stories, Lugh whispered in my ear, I could invent the rumours too. It was easy to discover the men of wealth and influence in any town – they’re not exactly known for their reticence: they proclaim it, shout it, flaunt it from the gilded carvings on their houses to the cordovan leather on the fine steeds they ride.

A croak from Lugh, a wink of his black-onyx eye, and we had identified our next little milch cow. Then all it took was a word in a tavern here, a whisper in the market there, and before you knew it, an ugly rumour had taken hold and grown great wings all of its own. I sent my whispers out as tiny nestlings and they came flapping back to me as strapping eagles. How these birds of mischief do grow!