The Raven's Head by Karen Maitland Read Free Book Online Page B

Vitalis, priest of this parish of St Luke’s, anno Domini, 1141
.
    I quickly scrolled back to some of the earlier records, flipping back and forth between this signature and other entries by Father Vitalis. They were all written in the same hand using the same type of ink, the black having a slightly greenish tinge as is common when old inks fade over time.
    So that was it. I had searched through the book from cover to cover and there wasn’t a single word that had been freshly added to these ancient texts. No pages seemed to have been torn out. This simply could not have been the book my master had been writing in.
    I closed the covers and was about to examine some of the others on the desk when the old crow gave a great trumping snort and rolled over to face me. Thankfully his eyes were still closed, but I wasn’t about to take any more risks that night. Besides, staring at those old dusty pages had made me as sleepy as a bear in winter. I tiptoed back to my pallet but, though I was aching with tiredness, I could not sleep. I was sure the ancient one had been writing something of great importance, but what on earth was it? Had he found the document Philippe wanted after all and was copying it for him? I should get up and search again, but in the morning . . . the morning would be time enough.

Chapter 6
     
    A weakling babe, a greybeard old,
    Surnamed the dragon: me they hold,
    In darkest dungeon languishing
    That I may be reborn a king.
     
    Regulus stumbles down the last step of the spiral staircase and through a door at the bottom, which is as stout as the door of his own parish church. It closes behind him with a thud that echoes from the stone walls. The white rider’s hand still grasps his shoulder, but if it is to prevent the child darting forward, the restraint is not needed, for the boy’s only thought is to retreat. But even in his fear he knows that is impossible. His gaze ranges frantically around the great chamber, like a trapped fly.
    The long cellar is divided into three by the arches that support the vaulted ceiling. There are no windows. How could there be, so far beneath the earth? But torches gutter on the soot-blackened walls and here and there on the many tables fat candles burn, adding their acrid fumes to the room. Beneath the middle arch is a furnace shaped like a giant egg. Bellows and long pincers lie beside it on stacks of wood. The ruby glow of the fire spreads out into the room, staining the stone flags on the floor as if they are wet with fresh blood. In the far corner, a great vat rests on six short pillars. But even the firelight cannot penetrate the black hole beneath it.
    There are pestles and mortars, boxes and jars, charts and books. There are round tubs, big enough for a woman to bathe in up to her neck, and wicker cages on four legs, large enough to contain a boy. Regulus’s gaze darts over all these things, but he has no names for these objects and doesn’t understand what they are for, so they simply blur into a tangle of shapes in his mind.
    His attention is captured by the great glass flasks with bellies round and swollen as his mother’s when she is heavy with child. Some are suspended over candles or tiny brass braziers. The vessels are full of rising steam that turns to beads of liquid at the top of the flasks, dripping back down onto whatever blackened mess lies within. Other flasks sit in nests of stinking horse shit, belching into each other through long glass tubes, which, to Regulus, look like birds pecking each other’s chests with long sharp beaks.
    Something flies across the room. The boy ducks and cringes as the long feathers of its tail brush his head. A black-and-white magpie gives a harsh croak and perches on a shelf on the far side, glaring down, its head cocked.
One for sorrow,
the rhyme pops into the child’s head and he finds himself anxiously searching for a second bird –
two for mirth –
but he cannot see one.
    ‘I have brought you the boy, Father