The Secret Of The Raven

Chapter Two - Haunted Birds

I walked down the corridor, licking my lips hungrily, for I had still not eaten. Geoffrey hurried along beside me, carrying a pile of clean linens, while I carried a sponge and a bucket of warm water. While Lady Margaret was away riding, we had called it upon ourselves to clean her room. It never was actually untidy enough to require such attention, but that was our job description, since nobles couldn't clean out the cobwebs in their bedchambers by themselves for whatever petty reason.

"Hurry now, Geoffrey!" I muttered, and we turned around the corner to the corridor where her chamber was. "I'm sure there are plenty of cobwebs to brush away, and maybe we can relocate Sarah before Lady Margaret finds her."

Geoffrey mumbled. "Sarah is the one who lives in Prince Henry's chamber. The one in Lady Margaret's chamber is Maynild, and the two males are Everard and Faramond."

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure Sarah was living with Lady Margaret when you mentioned it three days ago."

The young boy shook his head. "No, Emmy. You might be confused in that Everard and Sarah are from the same litter, and Everard lives with Lady Margaret."

I nodded in understanding. Sarah, Maynild, Faramond, and Everard are four of the many rats that Geoffrey had the courtesy to both spare the lives of, and name.

The list of names was endless, and we always had to keep track of which rats were living in what rooms, and could only kill them discreetly when the boy was not around, and discard of the body as soon as possible, and avoid the topic of the poor rodent for the rest of eternity. Though he hated to admit it, the truth was the child couldn't bear the thought of killing the rats, though he knew he would be beaten if he was caught not killing them.

We'd managed to persuade him to stop leaving food out for them, as that would get him in even more trouble than letting them go, but that didn't stop him from naming them, counting them, petting them whenever they got close enough, and chasing away that cats.

We arrived in her chamber, and I got to work on scrubbing the floor, while Geoffrey replaced the bed sheets with clean ones. A squeaking noise attracted my attention, and turned around to see a little brown rat standing on the chair, twitching its nose inquisitively.

"Maynild!" whispered Geoffrey, and he ran up to her. Offering his hand, she jumped up, and crawled along his arm to sit on his shoulder. "She's... fatter than usual, Emmy. Do you think she's mated with Faramond?"

I bit my lip to keep myself from retching. It would have been rude to confess it to the boy, but I did not like rats or mice, and to think that they were having baby vermin was disgusting.

"Possibly," I mumbled, trying to sound like I didn't have any aversion to the topic.

"But that means she'll be hungry," the boy said to me, while he caressed the creature's head with his index finger. "Please let me feed her! Just this one time?"

I looked up, and looked at him sympathetically. "Geoffrey, you know what Joan said. We won't kill the rats, but we can't feed them. I'm sure she'll find some crumbs lying around later on. She'll be fine, I'm sure."

The boy sulked for a brief moment, but then smiled. "Alright, Emmy. But we still need to think of names! If she has a girl, we'll call it Helen-"

"I thought there already was a Helen, living in Lady Mary's chamber?" I said innocently, feeling my colour rise as I remembered that I had killed the damned thing.

Geoffrey shrugged. "True. There was, but I haven't seen her for about three months. She won't mind sharing a name. In fact, we'll honour her! We'll name it Helen after Helen!" I forced a smile, and nodded disinterestedly, but he just kept talking.