his hand. Choosing a goblet from those on the table before him, he emptied it and waited for the servant to appear with a jar. When the cups were filled once more, the king and his chief advisor drank and discussed how to make best use of the pope and his predicament.
CHAPTER 4
Brother Odo is dozing over his quill again. Much as I like to see him jump, I won’t wake him just yet. It gives me time. The longer I stretch this tale, the more time I have before the tale stretches me, so to speak. Besides, I need a little space to think.
What I think on now is the day I first set eyes on King Raven. A pleasant day it was, too, in all its parts. Crisp, bright autumn was descending over the March. I had been months a-wandering, poking here and there as fancy took me, moving ever and always in the direction of the setting sun. I had no plan other than to learn more of this King Raven, and find him if I could. A fellow of the forest, such as myself, might make himself useful to a man like that. If I did, I reckoned, he might be persuaded to take me under his wing.
I kept my ears sharp for any word of King Raven, and asked after him whenever I happened on a settlement or holding. I worked for food and a bed of straw in barn or byre, and talked to those who were bold enough to speak about the abuses of the crown and events in the land. Many of those I spoke to had heard the name—as well they might, for Baron de Braose, Lord of Bramber, had set aside a right handsome reward for his capture. Some of the folk had a tale or two of how this Raven fella had outwitted the baron or abbot, or some such; but none knew more than I did of this elusive blackbird or his whereabouts.
The further west I wended, however, the pickings got better in one respect, but worse in another. More had heard of King Raven, to be sure, and some were happy enough to talk. But those who knew of him held that this Raven was not a real man at all. Rather, they had it that he was a phantom sent up from the lowest infernal realm to bedevil the Normans. They said the creature took the form of a giant, high-crested bird, with wings to span a ten-foot pike, and a wicked long beak. Deadly as plague to the Normans, they said, and black as Satan’s pit whence he sprung, he was a creature bred and born of deviltry—although one alewife told me that he had given some kinfolk of hers aid in food and good money when they were that desperate for it, so he couldn’t be all that bad.
As green spring gave way to summer, I settled for a spell with a swineherd and his gap-toothed wife on their small farm hard by Hereford, where Baron Neufmarché keeps his great stone heap of a castle. Although Wales is only a few days’ saunter up the road, I was in no hurry just then. I wanted to learn more, if more was to be learned, and so I lay low, biding my time and listening to the locals when they had cause to speak of matters that interested me.
When the day’s work was finished, I’d hie up to town to spend a fair summer evening at the Cross Keys, an inn of questionable repute. The innkeeper was a rascal, no mistake—it’s him they should be hanging, not Will—but he served a worthy jar and thick chops so tender and juicy your teeth could have a rest. I came to know many of the local folk who called at the Keys, and they came to trust me with their more private thoughts.
Always, I tried to steer the talk towards happenings in the March, hoping for a word or two of King Raven. Thus, it fell out one night that I met a freeman farmer who traded at Hereford on market days. He had come up to sell a bit of bacon and summer sausage and, seeing me cooling my heels, came to sit down beside me on the low wall that fronted the inn. “Well,” said I, raising my jar, “here’s hail to the king.”