The Dead Hamlets: Book Two of the Book of Cross by Peter Roman Read Free Book Online Page B

he’s the only one who truly speaks their language.
    There was another stool waiting for me, and a small table covered with scraps of food. More bacon, and some pieces of charred toast, some hard-boiled eggs, a couple of strawberries. All of it bore the marks of birds’ beaks, which told me how the meal had got up here. There were no plates or utensils. The Raven Master ate like his flock. He even looked a little like the birds. He was lean, almost skeletal, and had a hooked nose that could have passed for a beak. And he had a way of studying you that was definitely more avian than human. As if he were thinking about plucking out one of your eyes and swallowing it down. His eyes were riddled with cataracts, just like the raven that had woken me.
    “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon,” he said, his voice as raspy as a raven’s. “Not with this lot in charge.”
    He meant the Royal Family, and that was the other thing that made the Tower such a good hiding spot for me. The Raven Master was its unofficial warden, and he swore no allegiance to anything but the Tower itself. The Royal Family meant no more to him than any of the other royals that had preceded them. His flock was the only thing he cared about besides the Tower. We got along because I’d kept ravens well fed on battlefields around the world for many centuries. I guess they’d spread the good word about me.
    “I’m in a bit of a situation,” I said. I sat on the stool and grabbed a handful of the bacon and one of the eggs and dug in.
    “You wouldn’t be here otherwise,” he said. He reached down to his side and picked up a thermos and handed it to me. “Tea,” he said. “The real thing. Not that swill you drink in your Americas.”
    “They’re not my Americas,” I said. I poured myself a cup and drank it down.
    A jet passed through the sky outside on its way to Heathrow. The ravens and the Raven Master all cocked their heads to watch it through the windows.
    “So, what mischief are you up to?” he asked.
    “I have an errand to run in the city,” I said, “and then I have to stop a play from killing people.”
    “People don’t have enough reasons to kill each other?” he asked, looking down into the courtyard below, where so many executions had taken place over the years. “Now they’re using plays as an excuse?”
    I shook my head and forced down some of the burnt toast. “They’re not doing it,” I said. “It’s the play itself. One of those
Macbeth
curses run amok.” I didn’t see any reason to hide things. Any help I could get would also be help for Amelia.
    He just cocked his head in a different direction, as if considering that.
    I leaned back against the wall, sated if not full, and sipped some more tea. The raven who’d woken me sat in a window nearby. He looked as ancient as the Raven Master. I looked at him and he looked back at me with those white eyes of his.
    “Can he even see anything with all those cataracts?” I asked.
    “He sees all the things and places we can’t with those eyes,” the Raven Master said. “He brings back the most interesting baubles from wheres and whens that have never been and cannot be.”
    I decided not to help myself to any more of the bacon. Who knew where it had come from? I looked out over the city instead. The traffic was starting to back up now, and the sidewalks were filling with people. The workday was starting. It was a good time to lose myself in the crowd.
    “I should be leaving,” I said. “Thanks for the breakfast.”
    The Raven Master nodded. “You have fed us enough times over the years that you are always welcome to feed with us,” he said.
    I looked around at all the birds, who were still watching me. “It’s a loyal flock you have here,” I said.
    “Ravens never forget an enemy,” the Raven Master said, “and they never forget a friend.”
    “I hope I stay on their good side then,” I said. I went back down the stairway and out into the city of