Falconer's Crusade

by Ian Morson

  Thomas had been worried about finding Hannah again, but in fact she found him. They now sat together in a chamber of her father’s house as she explained that no one moved around Jewry without it being known. Care was the watchword, especially in these troubled times when it was known Earl Simon hated the Jews more than the King. At least the Jews were of use to the monarch. Thomas had not been aware that Joshua had dogged his footsteps ever since he crossed the invisible line that marked the beginning of the Jews’ domain in Oxford. He had merely blundered around, trying to find the door through which he had fallen the previous day – but then he was being chased and had paid no heed to where he was.

  Turning a corner in the maze of alleys, he was therefore surprised to be confronted by Hannah herself standing next to a young Jew. The man’s cold eyes had a maturity belying the fuzz of beard growth on his chin and they shone with resentment of Thomas’s presence. Hannah told Joshua that it was all right, that she was safe, and he reluctantly disappeared into the shadows. Thomas was not certain, however, whether he was following as Hannah led him to her father’s house. Leading him in, he was certain that he would not have recognized the door.

  ‘I’m glad you found me.’

  ‘So am I.’

  She touched him lightly on his hand, and Thomas blushed. He blurted out the purpose of his visit to avoid any further embarrassment. Hannah’s brown eyes widened as the boy explained his Master’s interest in the death of Margaret Gebetz. When he asked her about knowing Margaret, she explained that the girl had often come to her father for remedies for Master John Fyssh. While she waited for the preparations she would talk to Hannah, although her English was imperfect.

  ‘She often talked of her family’s home village of Mirepoix, and seemed happy enough until a few weeks ago.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know what had happened to her, but she looked pale and scared. I asked her what was wrong, but she refused to talk. This went on for several visits. She just refused to talk, until last week.’

  ‘Was she back to normal?’

  ‘No, she looked even more afraid, but was anxious to confide in me.’

  Hannah explained that Margaret had said she had a book and wanted Hannah to keep it safe for her. She said by way of explanation that it was proof, and there was someone in Oxford who was trying to take it from her. She had been reluctant to say who it was, and was clearly terrified of him. At that point Hannah’s father had returned.

  ‘Proof of what?’

  ‘I don’t know. She mumbled something to me as she left, but I cannot be sure what it was and I never saw her again, for she was killed only days later.’

  A tear formed in the corner of Hannah’s eye, and she leaned against Thomas for comfort. He felt the warmth of her body against his and tentatively put his hand on her leg, not daring to put his arm around her. For a few seconds he felt the joy of physical contact with this attractive girl. Then she recovered herself and sat up again. Thomas reluctantly withdrew his hand and wondered what use this information would be to Falconer.

  ‘I’ve still got it, of course.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The book Margaret gave me. I’ll fetch it.’

  She swept out of the room with Thomas trying to imagine the body beneath the heavy folds of her dress. He realized that he had more than one motive in seeking her out in the first place. However, if he did not concentrate on the matter in hand, he knew he would not only appear foolish to Hannah but would not have helped his Master.

  Hannah returned with a battered little book bound in red leather. She offered it to Thomas, who took it and flicked through the stained pages. He could tell some of it appeared to be scripture, but another part was a book of days. Why had it been so important to Margaret Gebetz, and more so to her persecutor, who was presumably also her murderer? He turned to inside the front cover hoping to find a title, but there was nothing but some spidery indecipherable handwriting. There was, however, something very familiar to a farmboy used to the butchery of animals. Across the first page and spreading down the edge of the book was the dark brown stain of blood.

  Chapter Seven

  After two days of pressure from regent masters like Robert de Stepyng, the chancellor decided to convene the powerful group of Masters of the arts known as the Black Congregation. A decision was needed concerning a suitable punishment for the town after their excesses during the riot. St Mildred’s church was cold and depressing in the early morning, but it did not seem to quench the ardour of some Masters. Falconer sat on one of the benches to the back of the church, as Master after Master, like black crows at a corpse, rose and flapped their arms to emphasize their case. Justice must be brutal to be remembered. It mattered not a jot that several houses belonging to townspeople had been put to the flame. After all, three innocent students had been killed.

  ‘Two,’ muttered Falconer, but only his nearest neighbour heard him in the hubbub. It was Master Bonham, and he gave Falconer a curious look before rising to his feet and leaving while the other crows still argued. A smug smile played across his lips.

  Retribution and an appeal to the King may have been taxing the minds of the great and good in the university, but for many, scholarship was of greater importance. While the chancellor considered how to restore the town to its proper subservient position, dependent on the university for its livelihood, lectures to the student body were starting up again. For Thomas this was the beginning of a new experience and he drank in everything about it.

  Master Falconer had deemed Thomas’s skill in grammar sufficient that he could proceed to lectures in the other two parts of the trivium, which made up the first part of a student’s course. These were rhetoric and logic and would be expounded in Latin. Thomas was glad of Henry Ely’s help in his studies before coming to Oxford.

  Hugh Pett had guided him to the crowded little schools behind St Mary’s church, a little angry that Thomas had once again escaped his attentions the other day. But not ungrateful that he had returned safely before their Master found out. Hugh left him at the door of the rhetoric school. He had already progressed to the quadrivium and was not keen to be seen with the lower mortals.

  Thomas pushed open the door of the lecture room to be confronted by bedlam. It may have only been the sixth hour of the morning, but the room was crowded with young students wide awake and full of the activities of the last few days. The cacophony of raised voices echoed around the bare stone walls. The unglazed windows and plain floors should have given the room a cold and grim appearance. But the riot of movement on the simple benches, arranged to face a desk set high on a wooden stand, gave the lie to the grimness. Everyone knew the Black Congregation was meeting, and hoped their lectures might be cancelled or at least delayed. In the meantime everyone could relax. The talk itself was not all of death and retribution. Young minds did not focus on revenge for long, and many faces were split with grins as humorous exchanges were bandied between friendly rivals. A little relieved, Thomas felt he could perhaps enjoy this after all.

  He smiled, then burst into laughter as one bench tipped over casting a dozen students to the ground in a heap. As the tangle of bodies sorted themselves out, the laughter around Thomas died and he realized the desk at the head of the room was now occupied. A small grey man had appeared at the desk as if from nowhere, and was silencing the crowded room with his disapproving gaze. Thomas joined the students who had recently tumbled from their bench in a more sober mood. Master Richard Bonham began, his voice thin and quiet, but somehow carrying around the room.

  ‘Today I shall concern myself with judicial rhetoric. I shall summarize each text before proceeding to it in substance. I shall then give you a clear and explicit statement of each law. Then I shall read each text with a view to correcting it. Fourthly I shall repeat the contents of each law and fifthly solve any apparent contradictions, adding any general principles of law developed therefrom.’

  For Thomas th
e hard work had begun.

  Falconer was also working hard. The Jewish girl had said she had known the murdered Margaret Gebetz, and perhaps there was something to cull from her memory. He had sent word to Samson, asking that his daughter come to his rooms with a yarrow remedy to cure a toothache. He indeed did have an aching tooth, but the greater reason for asking for the remedy was to speak to Hannah without her father present to distract her. He felt she would speak more freely that way. While he awaited her arrival, he puzzled once again over the jigsaw of bones before him. The larger ones were clearly human and eclipsed the others, which a country boy such as Thomas would have recognized as a large bird’s. Bones from both groups had been carefully cut in half and Falconer was examining their interior.

  It was several years now since he had spoken to Friar Bacon about the flight of birds and his conviction that man could emulate them. He looked at Balthazar, the owl, perched quietly in the corner of his room. He had spent hours outside the city walls watching him skim across the fields and over the Thames. His effortless flight, with barely a flap of his wings, filled him with envy. He now knew why man could not hope to flap wings and fly in exactly the same way as birds. His self-appointed task lay in another approach – a machine for flight. As if in mockery, Balthazar lazily stretched his wings to their fullest extent and fixed Falconer with his unblinking stare. The man’s consideration of the bird was interrupted by a light knock at his door.

  He strode to it expecting Hannah. She was indeed there, but the old-young face of Joshua gazed coldly from over her shoulder. Falconer’s questioning look elicited an answer from Hannah.

  ‘My father thought it would still be dangerous for me to walk alone in the town.’

  Well, you are safe now.’

  Falconer let the girl pass beneath his arm holding the door open, and abruptly slammed it in the face of her shadow before he could object. He turned back to the startled Hannah.

  ‘Forgive me. My toothache makes me irritable.’

  Hannah handed him a small pot.

  ‘In the circumstances this may be doubly useful.’

  He looked at her in puzzlement and she smiled.

  ‘Yarrow is also said to be effective in curing the bite of a mad dog. When you open the door again, you may need it.’

  As he made his way back to his lodging, Thomas had more to puzzle over than the subject of the lecture that he had struggled to follow as the pedantic Master Bonham worked his way through judicial rhetoric. Thomas had found his flat, monotonous tones more conducive to sleep than concentration. He had then been startled by the sudden noise at the end of the lecture as the other students rose from their benches. His neighbour pushed him, urging him to leave and Thomas apologized and stepped to one side. He wanted to remain in the hall and ask something of Master Bonham, if he dare pluck up the courage. The Master sat at his raised desk staring coldly at the students as they shuffled out of the room. It appeared no one dare make a noise until they exited the chamber. But Thomas could hear a relieved hubbub of conversation from beyond the door, and did not doubt that everyone was picking up their tales of rioting and death started prior to the lecture.

  He had not heard the silent approach of Bonham, and was startled by the sharp voice at his shoulder.

  ‘The lecture is over and I have to lock the chamber, boy.’

  Thomas decided not to be put off by the cold tones. He had spent two days trying to decipher the contents of the book given to Hannah by the dead girl. If he could discover what the book was or why it was important, he hoped to restore himself in Falconer’s favour. Master Bonham was the only other source of knowledge he could tap at present. He followed on the Master’s heels and stood patiently as he locked the door.

  ‘Sir, I need some help with a book.’

  ‘Whose student are you? Go to the Master of your hall if you are too dull to construe a simple text.’

  Thomas gulped, but pressed on. He drew the strange book from the folds of his tunic and thrust it at Bonham. As he did so, he fumbled and the book fell open on the ground. The teacher was about to turn away, when his eyes fell on the page. A strange look came over his normally blank face and he snatched the battered volume from the ground. He quickly leafed through it, then snapped it shut.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  Somehow Thomas felt he should not reveal the truth of its origin, and stammered something about finding the book in the street after the riots.

  ‘Then it is not your book to keep. I shall keep it myself until its rightful owner is found.’

  Thomas had stood dumbfounded as the one tangible clue to the murder of Margaret Gebetz was whisked away by the little grey Master, his bald head bobbing down the street in his hurried departure.

  Now, as Thomas turned into Aristotle’s hall, he began to wonder if there was something to Bonham’s desire to possess the book. He had appeared disinterested until his eyes had latched on to the book itself. What was so important about the book? Thomas thought he had better go straight to Falconer with the puzzle.

  Meanwhile, Falconer had had no difficulty steering the conversation round to the topic of the murdered servant girl. His reputation for deductive reasoning, and interest in curious deaths encouraged Hannah herself to enquire if he had come to any conclusions. Falconer stated his belief that she had been killed by someone known to her, without detailing the gruesome evidence of the girl’s slit throat. But he was more interested in what Hannah could tell him about the girl. He took care not to press her as she sat reflectively staring into the low glow of the fire. Her ivory skin took on the reddish glow and Falconer merely prompted her as she spoke.

  It was clear that Margaret Gebetz had been a country girl from the Pyrenees, but Hannah did not know why she had left her village to be employed as a servant in Paris. It had been there at the university that Master John Fyssh had first employed her. She had been retained by him when he returned to the university at Oxford half a year ago. Hannah had little further information as Margaret was quiet and reserved and spoke little English. She seemed, anyway, to live in fear of her master.

  ‘This cannot help now she is dead.’ The girl’s soft brown eyes turned to the man sitting in the shadow of the chimney breast, his face partially obscured.

  ‘On the contrary, all facts, when properly understood, will inevitably reveal the crucial fact of the murderer’s identity. Go on.’

  Hannah shuddered as the wind howled down the chimney and blew a cloud of smoke into the room. She drew her cloak tighter around her and continued telling Falconer much of what she had already confided to Thomas; that she had got to know Margaret because Fyssh imagined he suffered from a variety of ailments and her father’s skills were regularly called upon. Much of it was imagined. Fyssh often complained of sleeplessness and asked for a particular mixture made from poppy flowers. Margaret also ran many errands for Fyssh in his discourses with other Masters.

  It had been only a short while before her death that Margaret had rushed in one day as though the Devil had been following her. She said she’d left Mirepoix to escape ‘his kind’, but when pressed would say no more. She had mumbled some words over and over again under her breath. And it had been only a day or so later that she had entrusted the book to Hannah. Falconer’s face came sharply out of the shadow, his eyes screwed up as he squinted at the girl. Excitement at a crucial clue often caused him to forget to cover up his poor sight.

  ‘Book? You mentioned no book to me. What book?’

  Standing outside the door of Falconer’s chamber, Thomas heard this exchange and groaned. He would have to explain how he had lost the book now. As he went to knock at the door, he heard Falconer continue.

  ‘And the words she mumbled. Could you understand them?’

  Hannah grimaced. ‘I’m not sure, but I think she spoke of a good man. I can recall that because it seemed odd that she should speak of a good man when she was so frightened.’

  ‘A good man?
Are you sure it was those very words?’

  Hannah looked into Falconer’s searching gaze.

  ‘Yes, I’m certain. Of course, she said it in her own language – bon homme.’

  Thomas’s clenched fist poised short of the door. Hearing what Hannah said were the girl’s last words, he was suddenly sure he knew it was not a good man that Margaret was referring to, but someone by name. Regent Master Bonham’s interest in Margaret’s book was suddenly clear. He turned away and quietly slipped out of Aristotle’s hall, concentrating so much on the idea of solving the murder before Falconer that he was unaware of the slim shadowy figure of Joshua following him.

  Falconer now felt he was on his way to a solution of the girl’s murder. Now he needed to provide the link with the student’s death. Something about Moulcom was eluding him, and he was on his way to talk to Peter Bullock, having accompanied Hannah back to Jewry. Both had been a little curious at Joshua’s disappearance, especially as Hannah said he was her self-appointed watchman, following her everywhere. Aware of her beauty, Falconer was not surprised. Still, her information about the murdered girl was interesting and he was sure that when he saw the book facts would fall into place. He merely had to wait until Thomas returned from his lectures, for the girl had told him his new student now possessed the book. Annoying that probably so vital a piece of information had been under his roof all the time. In the meantime, he wanted to verify something about the death of the Northerner. Was his death in fact linked to the girl’s? For Falconer was sure he had not died as a result of the riots. And he himself had seen Moulcom leaving Beke’s Inn just before the riots began.

  Bullock lived at the end of Great Bailey in the shadow of the keep at the west of the city. His house was shadowy too, as though he wished to hide his bent back from public sight. Bullock opened the door to Falconer’s insistent knocking. Falconer did not expect to be allowed into the other man’s house – he jealously guarded his private domain. Or perhaps he did not trust anyone from the university. Even Falconer. The regent master came straight to the point.