by Ian Morson
‘Eclipsis solis - Kal. Aprilis in fine quarti mensis Arabum feria vi. hora diei iii. ’
Bullock interrupted his evident pleasure.
‘I spoke to de Sotell and he said he would send the friar to you tomorrow morning early. Couldn't see why you would want to set eyes on him again, mind you. And neither do I.’
Falconer smiled mysteriously.
‘You will find out. You see, I am convinced I know who killed Sinibaldo, and John Gryffin. I just need Humphrey Segrim to confirm it for me.’
‘Segrim knows?’
‘Yes. It was his plotting that resulted in their deaths.’
‘But I thought you said the other day that you had been convinced Segrim was not involved.’
Falconer sat up and clutched at his friend's sleeve.
‘Yes, but that was when I thought the aim was to kill Bishop Otho. When I thought, foolishly, that Sinibaldo's death had been a tragic accident. And Segrim had no reason to kill the Bishop - the very opposite in fact. But the death wasn't an accident. Sinibaldo was the intended victim all along.’
Falconer's eyes sparkled at this revelation, but Bullock was now completely lost.
‘How do you work that out?’
‘From what our friendly Templar and his message told. And a few other clues I observed for myself.’
The constable was about to ask Falconer to explain what clues, but the Regent Master pressed on oblivious of Bullock's confusion.
‘Until then I had been blind, or at least looking at the facts as if in some fine lady's pretty mirror. They were there all right, in front of my eyes, but they were all back to front. Left was right, and right was left. All I had to do was turn round ...’
Holding his arm in a vice-like grip, Falconer spun the unsuspecting constable completely round so that he faced out of the cubicle.
‘And there behind me was reality, not the mirror's reflection.’
Both men continued to talk in conspiratorial tones as Falconer laid his plans for the next morning. Neither heard the soft stirring of a sandalled foot, as a monkish figure slunk away from the other side of the thin panelling and disappeared into the gathering gloom of the evening.
Chapter Fifteen
With dawn barely broken, all was bedlam in the courtyard of Botley Manor. Several servants ran hither and thither, hastily preparing the best horse in the stables for their master. Hardly had the groom led the skittish horse out, when Humphrey Segrim ran down the steps from the main hall and mounted in a panic. A conversation with his wife the previous evening had shattered his complacency, and now he did not know what to do for the best. He lashed out with his boot at the groom who held his bucking horse, and the man let go of the reins in terror. Segrim yanked hard on the freed reins and spurred the mount towards Oseney Abbey, the words of his wife ringing in his head.
Humphrey had barely completed his meal yesterday, revelling in the taste of the boiled venison well seasoned with sage, pepper, cloves and mace, when she had spoiled it all. He was taking a deep draught of Rhenish wine, when she announced she had news of Master Falconer in Oxford.
‘He has been very ill with an ague, but is now recovering.’
‘Pity,’ mumbled Segrim into the depths of his pewter goblet. Ann gave him a hard look, so he responded more generously.
‘I am glad to hear it. But why should this little clerk's health be of concern to me?’
‘He is no mere clerk, but a very clever man. It is said he knows who killed Bishop Otho's brother. That it is someone of considerable power. Someone who may even be linked with the King.’
Segrim paled and the luscious Rhenish turned to ashes in his throat. He sought to correct the prattlings of his wife.
‘No, no. You must have misheard the tale. The King could not be involved. It was some scurvy clerk, who hanged himself in prison at Wallingford Castle.’
Ann lowered her eyes, as if dutifully reluctant to contradict her husband. But contradict him she did.
‘Apparently the clerk, God rest him, was also the victim of the same murderer. I heard it from my servant, Sekston, who has it from the constable no less. Master Falconer plans to reveal all to the proper authorities at terce tomorrow.’
She paused and stared with large, artless eyes at her husband.
‘I wonder who the someone in high authority can be?’
Humphrey slumped back in his chair, the half-digested meat sitting in his stomach like a stone.
Nor had he felt any better this morning, after a night spent tossing and turning over the best way to deal with Falconer. He had even been unaware of his wife at her bedroom window as he berated the groom for his clumsy preparation of his horse. There was a smile of satisfaction on her face. As he raced through the chilly dawn, he thought perhaps murder was the only avenue open to him now. God, how one killing piled on another when a thread of conspiracy was being woven. At least he did not have to sully his own hands. He turned his lathered horse into the courtyard of Oseney Abbey just as the bells rang for prime.
William Falconer was getting nervous. Everything that he planned depended on accurate timing. Segrim and his accomplice must be enticed to St John's before terce for his plan to work, for nothing could delay the inevitable movement of the spheres on which he was relying. He hoped that Ann Segrim had spun a sufficiently attractive tale to ensure her husband's arrival. Whether the other one would come depended on Segrim's own persuasion. And his conviction that Falconer already knew everything. As the time approached, Falconer became more and more uncertain that he did.
The first rays of the sun were probing weakly through the window and tracking slowly down the darkly panelled wall of the cubicle where Falconer still lay. Anxious for everything to work, he stretched across to the thin wall dividing him from the next cubicle where the unfortunate with the half- dead disease had lain. It had been late in the night that his luck had improved, and he had expired. Better to rest in God than halfway between heaven and earth. Two novices had quietly removed his mortal remains for Christian burial, while the rest of the hospital slept. The cubicle was now occupied by two very live human beings. Falconer rapped on the wall and the muffled voice of Peter Bullock responded, confirming his presence. The other voice was more reluctant to respond but, after some urging from the constable, it rang out loud and clear.
Falconer was as satisfied as he could be, though the passage of time marked by the progress of the shaft of light down the panelling gave him cause for concern. Would Segrim and his accomplice be here soon enough? The sad chorus of quiet moans and coughs from the other inhabitants of the hospital punctuated the air, depressing Falconer's usual optimism even more. Could he detect a change in the quality of the light already? If they did not come soon his plan would not work. As if in reassurance, the beam of light brightened as a cloud cleared the sun. But still it crept inexorably down the wall to the point of no return. Falconer lay back on his pillow and sighed.
‘You do not look well, Master Falconer.’
The voice roused him from his doze. How long had he slept? A few moments, or too long? He looked at the mote of light - it was still high on the wall, so all was well. Humphrey Segrim's portly figure filled the archway of the cubicle, his arm holding the heavy curtain to one side. Falconer sighed a sort of agreement with his observation, and raised his hand weakly as if to beckon the man in. Was he on his own after all? Falconer thought he saw a drably clad figure behind him, but the curtain dropped across the arch and cut off his view. He would have to proceed with just Segrim, then - and hope the other was present.
The man took the few steps forward that brought him to Falconer's bedside and lowered his bulk on the edge of the truckle bed. It creaked under the weight and Segrim half- rose in alarm. Falconer took his arm in reassurance and drew Segrim towards him.
‘Please, you will have to come close, my hearing is not good.’
His voice seemed feeble to Segrim, and he wondered if he needed to make an end of the man or if Nature would ca
rry out the deed soon anyway. Come what may, it was good that Falconer was in such a state. For even if Nature had to be assisted, no one would question his demise. But whatever happened, his death should come soon. If Ann was to be believed, Falconer intended to tell what he knew this very morning. Segrim wished only to satisfy his curiosity about how much Falconer knew, and how he came to know it. Then he would arrange to stifle the knowledge for ever. He was also anxious to know why the secret ‘audience’ with the King had not put him off the track. It had seemed to do so at the time.
Falconer appeared to be reading his mind, and spoke in a low, hoarse tone.
‘You must repent of what you did, before it is too late.’
Segrim looked anxiously into the sick man's piercing blue eyes. They appeared full of warning and their own terror.
‘What do you mean? Too late?’
Falconer clutched his arm in a grip of iron, far too strong for the grip of a sick man. Something awful seemed to be driving him.
‘Before the Final Judgement.’
The words Falconer spoke hung in the air between the two men. Suddenly Segrim was aware of a terrifying voice echoing in the rafters above his head. It spoke of the breaking of the Seven Seals of the Book of Judgement. Disaster piled on disaster as the terrible voice predicted the end of the world.
‘At the breaking of the seventh seal, seven angels prepared to blow seven trumpets calling horrors unimaginable down on the earth. At the first trump hail and fire mingled with red blood scythed down on the earth and a third of all growing things were burned. At the second trump a burning mountain plunged into the sea and a third of the waters turned to blood, killing a third of all creatures living in it. The third angel blew and a great star named Wormwood fell from the sky, poisoning the rivers and streams.’
There was a pause, and even Falconer, who knew what was about to happen, felt a shiver of fear course up his spine. Segrim was transfixed. The disembodied voice continued.
‘When the fourth angel blew his trumpet, a third part of the sky was struck. A third part of the moon and the stars, and the sun. So the sky went dark, and the light of the sun failed.’
Segrim read the look in Falconer's eyes and followed his gaze up to the light falling through the high arch of the window above them. To Segrim's dismay the light seemed to be failing, and he jerked up from the bed to see the orb of the sun filtered through the red-stained glass. There was a great bite out of one side, as though something was consuming it. He wanted to cry in horror, but a strangled whimper was all he could force out of his throat. The maniacal voice of warning continued inexorably.
‘Woe, woe, woe to the dwellers on the earth ...’
Ignoring the litany, Falconer dragged Segrim back down until their faces were inches apart.
‘Confess now before it is too late. You killed Sinibaldo, didn't you? And John Gryffin.’
Segrim wailed and sought to free himself from this demon that confronted him. But Falconer's grip was too firm. He could not escape the piercing gaze which was but a reflection of the scrutiny he would face at the end of the world. He could dissimulate no more, and the truth forced itself out of his constricted throat.
‘No, no. Please, it was not I who killed them. Yes, I arranged their deaths, may God forgive me. But I did not actually kill them.’
‘Then, who did?’
Segrim cast a nervous glance back at the curtain of the cubicle. He hesitated, but still the disembodied voice predicting the end assailed his ears.
‘The falling star opened up the abyss, and from it a plume of smoke, like that from a fiery furnace, filled the sky obscuring the sun.’
Segrim's gaze switched to the window where the sun was indeed half-obscured, as though by a thick pall of smoke. Falconer pulled the jowly face down close to his own. The man was quivering in terror, his eyes rolling in his head as he weighed God's retribution against a human one. Falconer spat the question at him.
‘Who killed them?’
In the gloom of the cubicle, robbed of the sun's natural rays by the solar eclipse predicted accurately by Roger Bacon several years earlier, Falconer sensed another presence. A hooded figure resembling Death hovered at Segrim's shoulder, and cast something over his head. Suddenly Segrim's bulk bore down on him, pinning him to the bed. The man's eyes bulged as though they would start out of his head. His voice was reduced to a throaty gargle and his mouth dropped open, dribbling saliva over Falconer. His fat fingers clutched at his throat, trying to release what seemed to be a string of beads embedded in the fleshy folds of his neck.
In his weakened state Falconer could not thrust aside Segrim's squirming body. Whoever was strangling him was bearing his own weight down on Segrim's back, pinning Falconer beneath them both. His arms became entangled in the ruck of bedcovers, and he stared helplessly at the bloated face of the dying man pushed obscenely down against his own. He watched as the spark of Segrim's life began to fade in his eyes, only then coming to his senses enough to cry out a warning to Peter Bullock in the next cubicle, his voice no more than a feeble squeak.
With a roar, Bullock pushed Friar Fordam to one side, cutting off his apocalyptic monologue, and lurched through the archway of the cubicle they occupied next to Falconer's. He emerged just as a hooded figure departed from where Falconer lay. Fearing the worst for his friend, he hesitated about whether he should attend to his needs or stop the fugitive. In that moment, the man charged into him and, knocking Bullock off balance, fled past and out into the penumbral gloom.
Bullock picked himself up and anxiously lifted the curtain of Falconer's cubicle. For a moment he thought he was too late, for the large frame of a man lay face down across the bed. Then he realized the body was garbed in the sort of rich clothes that Falconer never wore - and he heard the Regent Master's curse.
‘Get him off me.’
Bullock lifted the dead weight of Humphrey Segrim off his friend, who sucked some air into his lungs. Falconer swung his legs off the bed and stood up, still appalled at his own incapacity. The room swam and he clutched at the wall for support. Then he saw the grotesque doll-like figure clutched in Bullock's hefty arms.
‘Lay him down on the bed.’
Bullock, still clutching the inert form, thought his friend mad. And who wouldn't be, who had lived through the last few moments? It was all insane - from the ravings of the Dominican to the disappearance of the sun. Falconer grasped him by the shoulder.
‘He may still live.’
Shaking his head Bullock rolled Segrim's body on to the truckle bed that had been Falconer's refuge for three days, and stood back as his friend approached the corpse. He looked on in alarm as Falconer bunched his fists together above his head and brought them down with unmerciful force on Segrim's chest.
‘If he wasn't dead before, that will ensure he is now.’
Falconer merely grunted, and repeated his assault on the dead man. At this attack, there was a sharp intake of breath from the apparent corpse. For Bullock it was another miracle in a day of miracles. Like Lazarus, Segrim began to breathe again though his chest rose fitfully and feebly. Falconer eased the man's head back and drew something from the folds of his beefy neck. He held it up for Bullock to see, who identified it immediately.
‘It's a rosary.’
‘Yes, and the very instrument that killed John Gryffin.’
He rolled the individual beads through his fingers.
‘Remember those circular bruises around his neck?’
‘And I let him go,’ cursed Bullock, smashing one meaty fist into the other palm.
‘Oh, don't worry. I know who it was.’
The constable knew it would be too easy for Falconer merely to give him a name. The man was infuriating.
‘And I think I know where he'll be.’
He looked up thoughtfully to the spill of light through the glazed window, as the sun returned to its normal state.
The monks in Oseney Abbey were still perturbed by the eclipse of the sun. Ralp
h Harbottle had chivvied the older brothers of the order back to their everyday tasks. But some of the younger ones still exchanged excited opinions in hushed tones as their errands caused their paths to cross. Therefore the arrival of a gaunt and tired Regent Master was little noticed. William Falconer had walked the length of a busy Oxford, and left through the postern gate he had taken on the fateful day of the master cook's murder. A journey on foot that was nothing to him a few days ago now taxed his weakened limbs to the limit. He had insisted that Peter Bullock stay behind, that he could tackle this last step in his investigation by himself. But now he wondered whether he was being foolish. In this state he could not defend himself if his adversary became violent. But shrugging aside his doubts, he pushed himself away from the smooth yellow stone of the archway where he leaned and crossed the courtyard. He knew where the monk would be. Did he not visit his lair every time he came to pay his rent?
‘The year 1261. The quarrel continues between King Henry and the barons because he refuses to observe the Provisions of Oxford. On Ash Wednesday terrible lightning and thunder was heard at Westminster. Pope Alexander IV died on 20 March. A dispute broke out at Oseney between the Papal Legate and some students. The Legate's brother has been killed and the students imprisoned at Wallingford. One of the incarcerated hanged himself, and accepted the guilt for Sinibaldo's death. Sanchia, Queen of Germany has died. There was an eclipse of the sun on Friday, 1st April at the end of the fourth month of the Hegira, at the third hour of the day.’
When the doors of the Scriptorium crashed open, revealing a tired but determined Regent Master of the University,
Brother John Darby raised his eyes from the elaborately illuminated page of the abbey chronicle. Completing it today was a source of satisfaction to him. Now it mattered not that his pursuer was standing before him. He had not been at all surprised to see him there - the man was so stubborn and persistent that a close encounter with death would not deter him. A soft smile played over his lips. Falconer had survived his own death, only to come face to face with someone else's. He would have liked to stare into the eyes of Segrim himself when he despatched him. But the opportunity offered him at St John's Hospital had been too tempting. Besides, he had no feelings for Humphrey Segrim - the man had been foolish and vain, and deserved to die.