Bram

Bram is sixty-eight and has been the Vale’s gravedigger for forty years, since 960. His father Tojo and his grandfather Corvo were gravediggers before him, and he lives in the hut at the top of the stone path that goes down to the bottom of the Vale. He never married and has no apprentice. He talks to the graves. The people of the moors think he is mad, “and he thought they were right, and he didn’t mind”.

He named the nameless boy from the moor Sparrow, “because you were small”. When the Echoes start to disappear, Bram counts and crosses out names every night, and sees the pattern. At the end of Book I he stands at the bottom of the Vale between the starless thing and his dead, shovel raised, a crystal sliver shining in his hand, certain that “someone will come”.