‘Creatures like yourself but bigger. They smelt of oil and frightened me.’
‘What else did you discover?’
‘No more, Master. What is there to learn from such a waste of stone, and creatures that do not talk?’
Raphael was bitterly disappointed at this lack of news, and again called for volunteers. This time a crow cawed louder than the others: ‘Let me go, Master. I can fly over the city, and who would suspect a black thief of a crow? Now a proud eagle or a hawk might be killed by our enemy. And,’ he concluded, slyly looking at Empyrean, ‘what is more cunning than a crow?’
So it was decided that he should go.
When the crow returned, he said that he had flown a great way, but that he had little to report. ‘I saw,’ he said, ‘a great city below me with streets many miles in length, and on each side of them huge buildings that took up many acres of ground. In one place only I saw trees and green growing things. By the river there is a tower surrounded by a walled garden.’
‘Do you think Cassandra might be there?’ asked Raphael, excited.
‘Perhaps,’ agreed the crow.
‘There is nothing so cunning as a crow,’ said Empyrean sarcastically, stretching the talons of his foot.
‘I wonder if we could reach the tower by the river,’ Raphael mused aloud.