The Ravens’ Banquet Read online

  And when I returned, the wench had left the circle, dashing my intentions. Samuel swigged away at a jug, but I could see he was distrustful still, and his eyes moved from one figure to another as he struggled to read intent upon their faces. On top of that, he could speak no German. It was no surprise that he sat upon the log as if he were sitting bare-arsed on a thistle.

  It was then that I felt upon my shoulder a gentle hand. She had stolen up on me, which somehow pleased me greatly.

  As I turned to her, she placed her hand on my arm and said quietly, “Would you know what Fate has in store? I can tell you truly.”

  My belly ruffian stirred within my breeches, but her words also sent a chill down my spine for they were delivered with a voice most queer. And those orbs, lit as if by some magic torch within her head, looked into mine own such that I felt struck full upon the chest.

  Words tripped from my mouth, disordered.

  “I know... I would know... learn… what Fate spins for me. But I’m no fool to be cozened, woman.”

  “I know what it is you would know,” she replied in a whisper, “and I will tell if you can pay the price. But only if that is what you do truly want. For I look at you and I know that you sometimes see things you do not wish to see. Think hard upon it, sir!” That jolted my head out of the warm fog of the wine. I once knew a Cunning Woman who lived on the edge of Plympton and many gentlefolk would pay her a visit to affect cures or interpret omens. I did not dismiss such things. And I too had visited her little cottage that sat away from all the others up the lane. I was but fourteen. But Goody Pritchard had been unable to give me the cure to what afflicted me.

  “Do not tell a soul, boy! Do y’ hear me? Don’t tell anybody. Not yer maam or your da.”

  “I don’t want to see them anymore.”

  “Look on me, boy! Tell no one – ever. The dead can’t hurt you but the living can.”

  The apple-cheeked and wizened round face of Goody Pritchard faded back into my past.

  I looked into the shining eyes of the gipsy girl. “I can meet your price. Now tell me what I want to know.”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “Want? I will tell you what you need to know.”

  She led me to one of the wagons, now bathed in the light of tin lanterns. She clambered up and then I after, she bringing one of the lanterns inside with us. The wagon was filled with tapestries and rugs, copper and brass pots of all description and was scented heavy by the peculiar smells of spices unknown that hung in tied bundles from the roofstays of the tilt.

  Sitting so close I could feel her breath upon my face, she looked full at me again.

  “Give me your hand,” she commanded.

  I obeyed her.

  With her fingertips she traced lightly as a feather along my left palm. There was nothing but silence between us, the sound of our breathing growing in my ears. The noise of the camp seemed to fade away as if we two were alone in this wagon in some great wilderness.

  As she drew her fingertips up and down and across my hand, she began to mutter to herself. I swallowed hard and I am sure she could hear it. She looked up quick. Her brow creased as she whispered.

  “You see things others do not?”

  I nodded. “Sometimes.”

  She looked into my palm anew. “They are attracted to you as salt attracts the beast in the field… When last?”

  My voice was barely a croak. “ A few years afore. Not since.”

  The girl looked up at me again. “It is not a curse. But it is an unwelcome gift to you.”

  “Then what of my future? Tell me something worth paying for. Will I see battle?”

  Her head nodded slightly. “That you will. Much war will you see. Steel your heart, man, for there is much Trial ahead for thee.”

  I grew more the eager.

  “Fortune? Will I command a regiment of my own? Tell me, woman,” I demanded. “Fortune and Fate are one,” she replied.

  “Do not speak to me in riddles.”

  The gipsy shut her eyes and lowered her head, still grasping my hand tightly.

  “I see both the Good and the Ill...You will command many men. You will fall... and you will rise again.”

  “Wealth?” I prompted, wanting to drag the secrets from her. “Will I find my fortune?”

  But she was drifting to other things. “Many women will cross your path. Yet this will be not of the heart, not of love… There is darkness and light with them in equal measure. And also something else. Something of value that does glimmer and shine.”

  “Treasure? Gold?” I grasped her knee.

  “That which is not yet treasure,” she replied, suddenly looking up at me, eyes wide.

  “And what should I do? What does this Telling benefit me?”

  “You do not want to know more, man, that I can tell thee true,” she said.

  Her eyes would not leave me be. I pulled back my hand, feeling I had been teased and then cheated.

  “What brings you so far to these lands?” she asked in a whisper. “You’re no pauper, that is clear. What is it that has driven you so far?”

  “I am now supposed to tell you?” I laughed. “Thus far you’ve done little to earn your coin.”

  “I have met many men like you – young and strong bulls set to trample the World. They all speak the same, of Fortune to be found. They depart and I never look upon them again. Why do you think that you’ll fare any better?”

  Those beautiful eyes, weirdly blue against her olive skin, bored into me. And I felt pulled, compelled into confiding to her. I told her of my family, of my brother William, his constant taunting, and how he would probably inherit all. I told of my desire to find Fame or else the grave. She smiled, her eyes locked on mine, but somehow very far away.

  “I will break my bollocks before I creep back home to suffer the laughter of those I left.”

  She reached out for my hand and pulled it towards her again. She turned my palm up and pointed her forefinger into its centre. “Already you have enemies circling around you. This I have seen too. You are proud and you are hungry to succeed. For that, perhaps, you may confound those who would do you ill. But yours is a long path, I do think.” “Is that my Fate, then? That’s it?”

  “Fate is often what you will it to be,” she said. Then she pulled her back up straight, still gazing upon me, but now looking at me and not into me. “What else do you wish?” she asked.

  My hand moved to her dark bosom.

  She grabbed my wrist and held it firmly with a strength that took me by surprise.

  “If you can pay the price,” she said, with nary a twinge.

  I nodded and she began unlacing herself. I pulled her to me and began to mouth with her. My hand traced along her neck and over her bony shoulder and I pulled down her chemise, so revealing her full breasts and rising cherilits.

  She, wasting not a moment, was at the points of my breeches, untrussing me with the practiced art of long acquaintance. We mouthed gently for a bit and then the scent of her spurring me on, I moved further below, kissing her smooth skin. I leaned into her, my blood pounding, and we sank together to the floor of the wagon. Her hands reached over my back, gliding up my shoulders to bury themselves in my hair. Then she pulled me down that our mouths would meet again. Yet we were a little too wild in our play, and rolled crashing into a pile of pots, upsetting them and shaking even more bits of copper down from the roof.

  And then we rolled out of the cookpans, laughing so hard I was in fear I would do myself a hurt. And for an instant, I saw upon her brown face such a look of sweet innocence as the mask of the conjurer fell away, that I gathered her up to my breast again and kissed her full well. We lay together awhile, saying nothing, the light of the lantern sputtering, near to its end. I looked at her again and saw what was a kindly gaze, but thinking back on it, it was more a look of pity.

  But the spell melted quickly. Her eyes fell away and she clasped my hand for a moment. I began to lace up my points and then buttoned my doubl
et. I gave her a full Reichsthaler from my purse – more coin that she had likely seen in many a day. She did not ask for more. I left her in the wagon and jumped down to the ground and walked away. My head now smouldered, for this wench had dredged up all the things I had fought hard to keep shut away in my heart. That great beast Doubt began to stalk me anew.

  I looked over to the fire and could hear one of the soldiers singing a ballad of love lost as the others listened. I saw too Samuel standing a little bit away from the fire, arms folded in front of him. He looked up and saw me where I stood, but his expression remained unchanged.

  Behind me there was a sound and I turned. There stood the gipsy wench. She came forward and stood close by me, her face in shadow.

  “Take this,” she said. And she pressed in my hand what appeared to be a small cloth pouch.

  “What is this, then?”

  “Hearken well to me. This is a charm that I have made. Keep it upon your person always and it will preserve you from harm.”

  “A talisman? What is it?” I asked, straining to look at the little object.

  “I do not give you this or say these words to you lightly. This charm will preserve you. What it is made of does not matter. Do not take it off. I pray that it will take you home someday.”

  “What is your name?” I asked her.

  “I am called Anya.”

  She did not ask me mine, but rather, turned quickly and walked away.

  WE WERE NOT, as it chanced, murdered in our sleep. I awoke to the sound and sight of Samuel standing over me crunching a pork rind in his mouth.

  “Did my lord rest well?” he asked, pushing a stray end back into his maw with a finger.

  I threw back my blanket and stood up, my head thundering away. “Fetch me some water. Better yet some beer, if there is any to be had.”

  Samuel wiped his hands on his breeches and wandered off. I had slept late and the camp was fast breaking up. I ran my hand through my hair, my ringlets more the rat’s nest than usual, and watched the two wagons being loaded by the gipsies, the children rushing around its wheels and shouting.

  Making my way to where our animals stood tied, I began to rummage under the oilcloth, trying mightily to lay my hand on a shirt without having to untie the whole bundle. The ass snorted and stepped on my toe; I shouted out in pain and cuffed it on the flank.

  I cursed myself for oversleeping and I grew angry, for my sleep had not been a good one. My dreams had been filled with shadows and apprehensions, foggy visions of Anya’s foretelling, twisted into phantasms of my own design and embellished by an overindulgence of wine. How could she have known of what dreadful sights I had glimpsed as a boy? At the thought of her and that strange night, my hand settled on the charm that now hung at my chest. I had not seen it well in the firelight and so I took it off and prised open the little cloth sack, which was no larger than a powder cartridge. It was closed up with a drawstring of red thread, and a stout lace of leather around that, for slinging round the neck.

  I peered inside the gipsy’s talisman. All I could spy was crushed leaves and tiny flowers – lavender or what else I could not guess. With the tip of my little finger I pushed the mixture around, but it revealed little more. I sniffed cautiously at the pouch yet only the faintest scent arose from it. There was nothing more or nothing less to this charm than crushed herbs, it seemed.

  I twiddled it about my fingers for a time and was near on tossing it away when something stayed my hand. What held me back I do not know. I cared not a whit for such foolishness. What God-fearing Christian need cling to unholy charms? Yet somehow, I could not bring myself to part with it and, more the matter, found myself slipping it about my neck once again.

  By the time Samuel and I had made ready to depart, I had succeeded in pushing all these unsettling thoughts away. I drank some beer and managed to find some bread as well. I had to buy some salted beef from one of the gipsies for I could not bring myself to pick at the stinking remains of the pig in the fire. I left that feast to the beggared soldiers. The work at hand was to reach the Danish camp, and we stood a fair chance of getting there that very day, though we had wasted near half of it. As I tightened my horse’s cinch strap, I had a sudden feeling that eyes were upon me. And I turned.

  At first, I saw nothing, but then my gaze fell upon a woman climbing up into one of the wagons. Anya stood one hand at the canvas cover of the wagon’s tilt, a red scarf about her head. She looked straight at me and even at a distance I could feel her eyes settle upon me and hold me fast. She lingered there but a moment, giving neither sign nor call, then pulled down the canvas and disappeared from view.

  The talisman at my chest felt heavy and I was seized with the urge to go to her. But why? To demand more of her Knowing? To kiss her lips? I muttered an oath and threw myself up into the saddle. She had been right. I didn’t want to know any more that she could tell. Without waiting for Samuel to mount, I kicked in my spurs and started off out of the copse. My only thought was to put a league between me and her and pray to God that the distance grew no closer.

  After a short time I heard hooves coming up fast behind: Samuel with the complaining ass in tow. As he came alongside I heard him muttering to himself.

  I called over to him. “God willing, we will make Verden this day. I feel it in my bones.”

  We came to the town from the north, the low wooded hillocks giving way to flat green pastures fed by the great Aller River: a wide lazy ribbon of brown. As we drew closer to the town, which lay half shadowed by the sun on the horizon, the road ran more closely to the riverside, offering us a breeze to soothe our sweaty brows. Then too, less than comforting, a stink wafted its way to us from the south and the town itself. It was both pungent and sweet – a mixture of rotting food, excrement, and unwashed flesh, sometimes strong, sometimes weak. And less noticeable, but there too, the smell of cooking fires and roasting meat. It was the stink of an army in camp.

  Before us stood a sea of white tents – at least some five score – covering the trammelled grass and breaking upon the walls of the town. Here and there one could spy racks of pikes and standards raised upon high poles and everywhere the shouts of men and the echoing ring of axe upon wood. And nearer still we drew. More tents rose up like the white crests of an ocean swell, accompanied by the cries of half-naked soldiers. Others came from out of the woods half a league from the walls stumbling and laughing, their backs bent under towering bundles of firewood.

  On the bank of the river a hundred women laboured at clothes washing; the sharp sound of their linen slapping upon the stones reverberated from Verden’s walls and across the fields. Surely this was great Exodus itself, the camp of the Israelites making ready to enter the kingdom of Canaan!

  Samuel cursed as he drew alongside me. “My nose may take some time in becoming accustomed to this stink.”

  “You won’t notice it after another day,” I replied.

  “Even so, it cannot be good for the health of any man to live with such vapours.”

  “By my reckoning, this is the camp for the Foot. The Horse must be billeted elsewhere in the town.”

  “Just as well,” sniffed Samuel, “I can suffer the smell of horseshit in my nostrils far better than this.”

  Verden was a filthy place; any street not cobbled was awash with mud and even these so very narrow that one could spit across to the house on the other side. The inhabitants seemed a sullen lot, which was not unreasonable given the number of soldiers infesting their town: incomprehensible Danish musketeers, oafish troopers from the Principalities of Hesse-Kassel and Brandenburg, swaggering artillery men from the Low Countries in their cups at midday. It was Verden’s misfortune that it lay peacefully in the embrace of those two great rivers Weser and Aller. For in time of war it became a town that had to be taken and held fast so to seize the road south and thus the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. And now, Verden was a garrison seething with the implements of War.

  At last we passed underneath the south gate and
out to a collection of houses under the town walls. And from one of these a great blue standard waved in the breeze from out of an upstairs window. All around me troopers milled, some carrying arms and armour, others food and drink to the little houses in the row. I decided that this was just as like the regimental headquarters, and I told Samuel to stay outside and look to the baggage while I ventured into the house.

  The place looked to be an inn, but one requisitioned by the Danes for billeting as there were no townsmen present. I stepped into the main room, a hearth at one end and a few mean pieces of furniture. A large table barred my way any further, at which sat a man scribbling away. Standing over him another soldier grasped a handful of papers. I reached into my doublet and felt for the letter secreted there for so long. Pulling it out, I strode forward, shoulders back, and up to the table.

  “What’s your business?” asked the scribe.

  “I have a letter here for Colonel Nells,” I replied.

  “Are you a messenger? Give it here and I’ll see that he gets it.”

  I held the letter back. “My name is Richard Treadwell and I am an English volunteer. This letter is my recommendation to your Colonel.”

  The two men looked at each other. The one standing, a finely dressed officer in a grey suit with a bright blue sash across his breast, scratched his beard and grinned. The scribe, who looked much older, put down his pen and pushed back his chair. His mouth opened to address me, but at the same instant booted feet came pounding down the staircase accompanied by the jangle of spurs and booming Danish voices.

  The first cavalier into my view was a huge man with black hair and a full beard, dressed in a green doublet that was showered in golden trimmings. His band was decorated in fine lace, indeed I had seen few collars so bedecked, and down his breeches golden buttons from waist to knee. As he came down the narrow stairs, his scabbard scored the wall loudly and I saw his left hand brush the hilt back, flicking the sword behind him in one well-accustomed flourish. Behind him came two others, not nearly so well accoutred but laughing and jabbering away with the ease of equals in station.