Falconer's Crusade

by Ian Morson

  ‘Father!’

  The call came too late. The inexorable arc of the sword swept down on the upturned face and cleft it almost in two. Great gouts of blood and brain spattered over the book, still clutched in the quivering hands of the hooded man.

  He came out of his trance with a cry, sweating yet cold. As with every time he relived his father’s death, he strove in vain to recall if he had seen his soul ascend to Heaven. There was now no consolation for him but revenge. Rising from the chair, he resolved to silence the only impediment to that revenge. He knew his dream occupied but moments in reality, and the servant girl would not have gone far. It had been foolish of her to reveal her knowledge so openly.

  At the door he peered into the night. The mist seemed to the man like myriad souls whirling around him. It would be easy to stalk the girl in it. After leaving his house, she would have turned to follow the main road. He slipped out the side door and down the narrow cut between the backs of houses on Shidyerd Street. Coming out opposite St Frideswide’s he reached the corner before her, and she almost ran straight into his arms. Seeing who it was, she was afraid but subdued, unsure of how he could have got ahead of her.

  He heard the whispering in his ears of the unencumbered souls, free of their fleshy tunics. They flitted silently, like owls on ghostly wings around his head.

  ‘Where is it? I want it back.’

  His question, hissed out, made the girl stagger back in shock. He knew if he turned around that he would see the armoured knight on horseback rising over him. She was afraid of it, but he was not. He had seen it too many times, heard the snort of the horse’s nostrils. Still the souls of the dead writhed around him, white and insubstantial.

  Through the mist there came the incongruous and distant sound of someone whistling nervously. The girl glanced over her shoulder at where the sound came from. Her eyes betrayed the hope of salvation, and a scream came to her lips. He thrust forward at her, the faceless knight at his shoulder urging him on. There was the whistle of a blade and the scream was cut off. He gasped with pleasure as the girl’s soul leapt from her mouth to join the other wraiths.

  Thomas had just managed to calm his nerves when the dead quiet of the night was pierced by a high-pitched squeal which died away into a bubbling silence. His heart thumped in his chest and his legs felt weak. To support himself he leaned against the wall of the building, his eyes closed tight. The rough mud plaster of the wall felt icy cold to his cheek. He realized he was sweating, sure this was the Last Judgement that the friars said was certain and not far off.

  When another minute passed and the silence suggested he had been a little hasty in his assumption, Thomas cautiously opened his eyes. Nothing had changed and the dead had obviously not all risen from their graves as promised. He tried to still his thumping heart and think where the sound had come from. It seemed to have come from further down the lane in the direction the figure had gone. Thomas clutched his bundle tighter, wishing he had the sturdy cudgel his father kept in the house for unwelcome visitors. Even so, he felt drawn towards where the scream had come from. Perhaps, after all, it had merely been the squeal of a pig – somehow he couldn’t convince himself of this.

  He willed his legs to move and made his way down the lane. Slow at first, his legs seemed to speed up of their own volition until he was almost running. The lane twisted to the left and as he turned the corner his feet caught on a bundle of clothes and he fell sprawling to the ground.

  His hands stung from the impact with the frozen ridges of churned mud, and raising them to his face he thought at first he had cut himself badly; they were covered in blood. Kneeling still, he wiped away the blood on to his jerkin and gazed stupidly at both his hands. There was no cut. Trembling, he looked by his knees at the pile of clothes. He cautiously lifted the corner of cloth and revealed the still, pallid face of a girl. The eyes stared blankly at him but no white mist of breath came from her lips.

  Thomas screamed and stumbled to his feet. Crossing himself, he stared down at the girl’s face. She was young and beautiful – how could she also be dead? Her brown eyes stared blankly through long lashes and her hair tumbled around the white flesh of her face. Her lips were still red and full. A few strands of hair lay across her face and Thomas felt a stupid desire to tidy them. He bent down and brushed his hand across her cheek; she was still warm. Flinching from the touch, his hand pulled back further the hood covering her neck. It revealed a livid cut from which blood still oozed, steaming in a bitter parody of living breath. Thomas was transfixed, realizing why the cry he had heard had been cut off. Suddenly he became aware of voices near by, distorted in the mist but getting closer.

  ‘Hello. Who’s there?’ said one voice.

  ‘Did you hear a scream?’ came another to the left.

  ‘Yes. It came from over here.’ The first was closer now.

  Some sense told Thomas that he should not stay here, standing over a body with blood on his hands. He willed his legs into motion and stumbled away from the voices, falling into a doorway and picking himself up again.

  ‘It’s there. Look, a body.’

  Thomas pressed on until his feet slipped from under him in the icy lane. He crashed to the ground, his breath coming out in a great gasp. The sound was enough.

  ‘And there goes the killer.’

  Thomas looked back and saw two men standing over the girl. Black shapes outlined in the mist. They were pointing at him. He rose and staggered past an alley to his right. A strong hand clasped over his mouth and an arm wrapped around his waist, dragging him into the alley. In blind panic he wriggled to get free until stars exploded in his skull and all went black.

  Chapter Two

  The clanging of the Morrow-Mass bells at St John’s and St Peter’s in the east roused William Falconer from his sleep. A mild curse hung in the cold air as he pulled his tunic closer around him, the dawn chill still in his bones. He swung his feet from the bench where they had been tucked into the fur of his academic hood. The frozen rushes crackled underfoot and he remembered he had gone to sleep failing to ensure the fire in the hearth would last the night. A stronger curse streamed from his lips.

  Falconer was a massive man whose clothes seemed to ill fit him. His wrists stuck out well clear of the frayed ends of his sleeves, ending in raw, bony hands more in keeping with a labourer than with a regent master of the Faculty of Arts. A student caught by the gaze from his pale blue eyes set in a coarse, ruddy face had the uncanny feeling that his every secret was being stripped from his soul. That look served him well on many an occasion.

  As he crossed the room to the hearth it was, however, clear that his massive frame was belied by the grace of his movement. Crouching by the fire he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a faint red glow in the ashes. Sweeping up some dry rushes from the floor he coaxed a few yellow flames from the ruin of yesterday’s fire. Crouching even lower, he blew on this unpromising start and reached out blindly for more kindling. His hands fell on the unmistakable form of a leather-bound book left on the floor the previous evening.

  Turning from the fire, he lifted the book close to his face to examine it. He had to squint because those eyes which caused dread in the hearts of guilt-ridden students could see little further than the end of his nose.

  ‘Ah. Al-Khowarizmi,’ he murmured under his breath.

  It was his much-treasured translation into Latin of the Persian mathematician’s treatise on algebra. A present from Falconer’s friend Grosseteste, given only days before the latter had died and all his books had been passed to the Franciscans.

  Last night he had read part of it again before taking the late walk that was his habit. Although the streets of Oxford were said to be unsafe after dark, he knew his very size was security in itself. Anyway the quiet of the night helped clarify his thoughts as he wondered what had happened to the boy who should have arrived that day.

  Last night, however, had not been quiet. First he had heard the piercing
scream that sounded like a pig in the slaughterhouse, and then as he ran towards where it came from he had heard the cries of people giving chase. It was then that someone almost ran full tilt into him. He instinctively grabbed the figure who struggled in his grasp and struck his head on a wall. William was about to call out when he looked down at the figure that hung limply in his arms. He was a boy, still peachy-cheeked and clearly incapable of much harm. He clutched the boy to him and pulled him back into the dark of the doorway on the corner of St John’s Street.

  His good sense told him that justice would not be served if the townsfolk pursuing this boy caught up with him. Too many times in the past the anger of the town had been vented on innocent students, an anger fuelled by the stranglehold the university already had over the town. His mind was racing as the sound of the boy’s pursuers came closer, their cries like the baying of hounds after deer. There was little good in hiding in the doorway as the hunt would split at the junction of the lanes, testing out both avenues of escape. Boldness was required.

  Falconer wedged the limp form of the boy into the doorway, gathered Thomas’s bundle from the ground where it had fallen and tipped the few clothes loosely over the body. It did not bear close examination but it would have to do. He then strode purposefully towards the sound of the pursuers. He was just in time – he blocked the end of the lane just as four rough and red-faced men reached the junction. He took the initiative.

  ‘I heard all the noise. What has happened?’

  ‘A murder, that’s what,’ growled the largest of the men, his pockmarked face contorted with anger. Falconer murmured a prayer and the men shifted uneasily, clearly anxious to continue the pursuit but not daring to interrupt the prayer.

  ‘Who is killed?’

  ‘A woman. Down there by the corner. We saw the killer come this way.’

  ‘This way?’

  The older man of the group spoke up, his watery eyes gazing suspiciously at Falconer.

  ‘Who might you be, anyway?’

  Falconer ignored him. ‘I saw no one come this way. He must have gone up to the High.’

  His bulk planted firmly in the passage, he stared coldly at the group of men. The old man held his stare, but the others fidgeted, unsure of challenging this massive man who, Lord knows, could probably have them clapped in gaol if they accused him falsely. Looking over Falconer’s shoulder, the old man could only see an empty lane, and a pile of clothes in a doorway. Still he was not sure. Pockmark broke the stalemate.

  ‘Come, John. We’re wasting time. He must have gone towards the High as the Master said.’

  Reluctantly, old John turned and followed his comrades as they disappeared into the murk. Falconer remained where he was. He could only see poorly as the figures retreated from him. He could, however, see enough to know that the old man turned and looked suspiciously over his shoulder before the mist closed around him. He sighed in relief and wiped the sweat from his brow, which had formed despite the cold of the night.

  ‘Lord, never let me say again that you don’t respond to my prayers. Now let’s attend to this child.’

  The boy was still unconscious when Falconer returned to him. Quickly he stuffed the poor, homespun clothes back into the sack the boy was using to carry his worldly goods with him. A scrap of parchment fell from the folds of a tunic that he picked up, and peering closer Falconer saw his own name on the outer part of it. He would need to revise his first thought that this was some young vagabond. Indeed it was probably the young scholar he had been expecting. He had been recommended by Henry Ely, an old friend of Falconer’s, whom it pleased to support poor scholars occasionally.

  He looked at the still features of the shape in the doorway, then returned his attention to the letter. The hand was indeed Ely’s and on unfolding the well-used piece of parchment, still bearing the trace of some previous scratchings of Ely’s, Falconer read his friend’s recommendation of Thomas Symon of Broughton.

  Now the regent master picked up the piece of parchment from his table where he had dropped it the previous night putting the boy to bed. It was five years since he had seen Henry Ely, but he still thought of him as a close friend. He recalled the times spent disputing Aquinas and Aristotle, both men knowing they would never reach agreement but enjoying the argument all the more for that. Henry’s round face would grow redder as Falconer refuted his every point until he thought Ely would burst. And he usually did, but only in the laughter of defeat. Now Falconer was a regent master at the University of Oxford and Ely a country prelate. But the latter had a knack of finding promising lads learning their grammar and passed them on to Falconer to attempt the disciplines of the trivium and quadrivium. The seven liberal arts of ancient time were still the foundation of knowledge. The first three, grammar, rhetoric and logic, formed the basis for studying the great Four Arts of music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Seven years of study were required before someone could hope to become a Master. And the supreme science of divinity called for at least another seven.

  ‘And here is the latest offering,’ muttered Falconer, looking at the sleeping figure on his bed. Thomas turned over and spilled the coarse blanket on to the rush-strewn floor. Looking back at the fireplace, Falconer groaned as he realized his attempt at reviving the fire had been wasted. The fire was now entirely dead and he bent down to pick up the blanket from the floor. There was a violent knocking at his door.

  ‘Master, are you awake? I need to talk to you.’

  The voice was that of Hugh Pett, a student of four years’ standing at Oxford and now close to the rigours of testing by disputation. He was William’s star pupil, though he would never admit that to anyone, least of all Hugh himself.

  ‘Hugh. Come in.’

  ‘Master, there’s talk of a murder …’

  As he spoke his eyes fell on Thomas’s form, tossing on the narrow bed against the wall. He turned back to the massive form of the regent master, a strange query in his eyes. William returned the stare.

  ‘Fear not. His virginity is safe with me.’

  Hugh blushed, and dropped his eyes to the floor.

  ‘As for the murder, I know of it. Tell the rest of the hall it would be wise to go carefully today. The town will not take too kindly to cheerful clerks when one of their own is dead. Now let us rouse young master Thomas.’

  He strode over to the bed, grasped the head and tipped it sideways. With a cry Thomas fell to the floor, a tangle of arms and legs and blanket.

  ‘That is the last morning you sleep beyond the sixth hour,’ warned Falconer.

  Thomas stumbled over his apology, and scrambled up from the floor dusting the rushes from his tunic. His eyes took in the room which had been too dark to see properly the night before. Then he had come round to see a huge menacing figure looming over him, and had cringed away, fearing his last moment had arrived – that he was to be taken for the murderer. However, the man had calmed him with a gentle touch at variance with the rough appearance of his hands, which looked to Thomas more like the workaday hands of his father. It was then he learned he was in the safety of the very hall he had sought and that this strange man was William Falconer.

  Strange man indeed. On one wall of the room was a shelf of books, more than Thomas had ever seen in the possession of one man. Yet more were strewn on the wooden table which dominated the centre of the room. The morning light filtered through an unglazed window to the right of the fireplace. The beam shone through dancing dust motes on to the end of the table where a jumble of bones lay together with the dusty grey remains of some long-dried herbs. In the farthest corner from the bed Thomas’s stare was returned by the unblinking gaze of an owl, calmly perched on a rough-hewn stick wedged in the angle of the walls. Beneath it, a row of earthenware pitchers were arrayed along the floor. Thomas thought instantly about his mother’s warning of alchemists and their desire for fresh bodies to work upon. He shivered.

  ‘When you have performed your inventory of my room,
I wish to introduce you to Hugh Pett.’

  Falconer’s rumbling voice brought him back to reality, and he looked for the first time at the young man who stood in the doorway. Pett’s clothes betrayed a family who could afford to support him at Oxford. His plain black tunic reached almost to his ankles, but it was covered by a rich scarlet toga with slits in the sleeves through which his arms and slender hands protruded. His pale face was framed by long and carefully cut ginger hair, and divided by a thin aristocratic nose. Only when a grin split the solemnity of that face, as it did now, did Thomas feel comfortable. Even so, he clutched nervously at his short homespun tunic and turned away his already weather-beaten face, examining the floor.

  ‘Don’t be daunted by his pretty, mincing looks. He is quite tolerable in spite of them. Hugh, see if you can find some leftovers for Thomas – he did not have chance to eat yesterday. And keep him off the streets, I sense a riot if the town is provoked.’

  As the oak door closed behind the two boys, Falconer eased his bulk into the rickety chair at the table and picked up an array of bones linked with thread. It was a bird’s wing and carcass, and he began to puzzle again over its relationship to human anatomy. He drew an inkpot towards him and took up a quill, but his mind would not concentrate on the task of simulating flight. Pensively he tapped the bony carcass on his lips. Last night after the boy had come round and recovered from his shock, he had questioned him gently on the incident in Shidyerd Street. It was probable that the apparition he had seen was the murderer. But was he a mere nightwalker intent on robbery, or were more sinister forces at play? Thomas thought the figure could not have seen the girl. The mist was too thick. Therefore Falconer had to deduce the figure knew the girl was abroad and where to cut across her path. It all suggested some intent. But what?