The Raven's Head Read Online Free PDF

going to happen! Even if I single-handedly rescued Amée from the jaws of a slavering lion or slew a fire-breathing dragon to save her, she’d still end up married to some wealthy nobleman, and I’d be lucky to be tossed a gold ducat for my pains, but if there was any justice in this world . . .
    ‘This document is very important to Monsieur le Comte,’ I began, hoping she’d assume I knew all about it and innocently tell me what Gaspard would not.
    But back then I knew nothing about how to draw a man or woman into revealing their secrets. I didn’t know how to form the questions that would make them tell me more or how to read the subtle signs that would reveal a lie – a downward glance, a twitching hand, a rubbing of an ear. I hadn’t learned to utter the ambiguous phrases that would lead them to confide all, believing I knew all. Those skills I had yet to learn, for though I didn’t know it then, my whole future was to be constructed from those velvet lies and pretty deceptions.
    As it was, Amée merely smiled sadly. ‘That document is important to all of us. Our whole future rests upon its discovery.’ She turned. ‘If you see Meli, tell her she is to attend my mother at once. And the moment Gaspard is certain he has found what my father needs, you must bring us word immediately.’
    I opened my mouth, trying desperately to think of something to detain her, but the space where she had been standing was empty and only the cold dawn light filled the doorway.
     
    Up in the turret, Gaspard was waiting for me with the impatience of a ravenous baby demanding the breast. God’s arse, what a revolting thought! Had some poor woman once been forced to give suck to a creature like Gaspard? Although, looking at the dried-up old crab apple, I should think his mother’s breast must have been the last one he ever got to lay his hands on.
    But it was plain the old man was agitated. His eyes were red from dust and lack of sleep, but there was a wild excitement in them that was almost frightening. Though I often joked about him being mad, for the first time I began to fear he really had become crazed or even possessed. He tore the leather bag from my hand and limped across to the table, clutching it fiercely like a miser protecting a bag of gold.
    He started to pour out the seeds, then seemed to remember I was still standing there.
    ‘What are you doing hanging around in here,
petit bâtard
?’ He gazed wildly around the room, then snatched up the blankets in which he wrapped himself at night. ‘They’re filthy, stinking. Why haven’t you washed them?’
    He threw them at my head. A cloud of dust flew out, making me cough.
    ‘There, see? Is it any wonder my chest wheezes, sleeping in such filth? Take them to the wash house and see you get every mote of dust out of them, and yours too.’
    ‘I’ll get one of the maids—’
    ‘No, you won’t, you lazy brat. I’ll not have the master think we make work for others while you stand idle. Besides, it will do you good to get out in the fresh air. A lad of your age hanging around dusty old books all the time, it’s not natural. I thought you’d be only too eager to spend the morning bantering with the linen maids. Don’t think I haven’t seen you making sheep’s eyes at them from the turret.’
    I gaped at him. In all the time I’d worked for him, he’d never once been concerned that I needed fresh air. If he’d had his way, I’d have been chained to the desk with leg-irons. First the goat-leaf seeds, now a sudden desire for clean blankets, the old crow was definitely up to something. I reckoned he’d found the document or thought he was close to it and was inventing reasons to get me out of the way. But for the moment there was nothing I could do except lumber down the stairs under the heap of smelly blankets.
    I lugged them across the courtyard to the big washing pool near the drying green, where three maids were already pounding linens. Two of the girls were