by Ian Morson
‘Open this gate, damn it, or you shall be a night-soil collector by tomorrow morning.’
Sekyll blushed, but ever fearful of Peter Bullock, stood his ground.
‘You must speak to the constable, master. I have my orders, and they are not to open the gate or to allow anyone in or out until I am told otherwise.’
This statement from the gate-keeper’s own lips caused a buzz of fevered conversation amongst those standing around South Gate. It was the first many of them had heard of the town being cut off from the outside world in this way, and the implications were worrying. Without even considering the reason behind it, some men, who had jobs to go to outside the walls, became annoyed. They now were wondering if the work they were going to would be there when the gate was finally opened. A pair of women put their heads together and exchanged opinions on whether there were enough food supplies in the town to last out more than a few days. After all, there were reckoned to be some two thousand souls in the town with all the students swelling its numbers as they did. John Peper and his troupe were merely left wondering how they would now avoid the inn-keeper they had swindled out of rent.
Saul Shoesmith could restrain himself no longer.
‘You’ve got to open the gate. There’s pox in the town, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to catch it.’
There was a collective gasp from the assembled crowd, and all eyes turned to the finely-dressed Alderman Sparrow. Someone shouted from the back of the restless mob.
‘Is this true, alderman?’
Sparrow’s face flushed red, and at first he was inclined to deny the pot-man’s statement. The entire town knew Shoesmith was a drunk, and that his word couldn’t be trusted. But he wanted to escape as much as the next man, and reckoned that, if he confirmed what he knew to be true, Sekyll would be forced to open the gate.
‘Yes it is. There is the red plague in Dagville’s Inn.’
He turned in his saddle to address the gatekeeper.
‘So you should open the gate, man, and save yourself as well as all these good citizens.’
Will Sekyll’s face paled, and reluctantly he pulled the large key, fixed on a ring, from the hook on his belt.
‘Stop right there, Will Sekyll.’
Peter Bullock’s authoritative voice rang out over the murmur of the frightened mob. The constable gave thanks for the monk’s mutterings that had awoken him early, and which had occasioned his early patrol through the town. He had decided to check on South Gate first, knowing that Sekyll was the weak link in the chain that held Oxford secure. He shouldered his way through to the front of the assembled townsfolk, seeing men and women who were his neighbours, and the fear that was in their eyes. He knew what he was asking of them, and hoped they would comply if reasoned with. He picked on a few whom he thought he could enlist on his side. He would need all the support he could get over the next few days.
‘Walter Felde, John Doket, Andrew Bodin. Good morning to you.’
The men he had addressed nodded, and muttered a greeting. In their returning his gaze, he knew he could trust them to back him up. He stared at them unblinkingly as he explained the situation.
‘What you have heard is true. The red plague, that some call the small pox, has visited the town. So far, there is only one case, though.’
A man’s voice called out from the back of the crowd.
‘It’s the Jews, isn’t it? They brought it here with their filthy ways. They mean to kill all us good Christians.’
Someone else took up the theme, eager to blame the traditional scapegoats.
‘Yes, we should burn them out of their houses while we can.’
Bullock stood firm, his voice harsh and firm.
‘Shut your mouth, Peter Glover. The man who is dying of the pox is a Christian knight returned from Outremer. It was he who brought it from over the seas himself. So let’s hear nothing more of Jews from you.’
He could have said that it was the knowledge of the Jews, and Samson in particular, that would save lives over the next few days. But like everyone, he knew of canon law that forbade Christians, amongst other things, from taking medicines compounded by a Jew. So though Samson was already deeply involved and he was grateful for it, it was another matter to refer to him publicly. Besides, Glover was quite capable of suggesting that, if someone died despite the attentions of Samson, the fault lay with the Jew. Instead, relying on threat rather than reason, he eased his trusty old sword in its scabbard, and told the crowd to disperse.
‘Go home, and stay indoors. You will all be safe, if you avoid contact with anyone who already has the plague. The crusader was only in the town for one day before he succumbed. With luck not another soul will have been infected by him, but only time will tell.’
Walter Felde frowned, thinking about how long he could survive without work.
‘How long is that, constable?’
Bullock hesitated, not wanting to tell everyone what Samson had told him. If they all knew they had to wait out the disease’s passage for two weeks, he could lose control of the situation right at the start.
‘A few days will be enough to know the worst.’
Thankfully, no-one asked what happened if the worst did come about, and others fell ill. Muttering amongst themselves, the people began to disperse. Even Sparrow and his wife turned their mounts and plodded back to their home. The only people left at the gate were the small band of players, who huddled round their cart. Bullock breathed a sigh of relief, and patted Will Sekyll on the back.
‘You did well, Will. Just stick to it and you will be fine.’
Sekyll had the good grace to lower his gaze to his scuffed boots, knowing he had almost broken. But the constable’s praise left him with the resolve to do better next time. Bullock carried on his patrol, bearing the bad news to each of his gatekeepers and the town as a whole.
*
Robert Burnell, unaware as yet of his timely escape from the confines of Oxford, had returned to Woodstock and the king’s presence. He would have informed Edward of what he had discovered in the university town, but the king was in a bad mood once again and not inclined to listen to tales of his chancellor’s machinations.
‘That bastard prince of Wales has been playing me for a fool again.’
Edward’s normally serene and manly features were contorted with fury, his face red, and his actions agitated. Burnell pursed his lips and enquired what Llewellyn had been up to now.
‘And how may I serve my Lord in this matter?’
‘It seems that he thinks he can revive the Barons’ War by marrying that de Montfort girl, after all.’
‘Ah yes.’
On his return to Woodstock, Burnell had been swiftly apprised of the series of events concerning Eleanor de Montfort, daughter of the late Earl Simon, the man who had stood against Edward and his father ten years earlier. His daughter had set out in secret from France, where she had been living in exile, on board a ship stuffed with the arms and banner of the de Montfort family. The exercise had been so inept, however, that the king’s agents had easily learned of it, and had stopped the ship on the high seas. Eleanor was now a prisoner, and Burnell reassured Edward that all was well.
‘I have arranged for her to be safely locked away in Windsor, where she can stay as long as you wish, my Lord. Forever if need be. Though I do think that at some point, when you have suitably subdued Llewellyn, you can show your magnanimity and permit the two to be married.’
Edward frowned at his chancellor.
‘Allow Llewellyn to marry a de Montfort, when that family’s treason still smoulders in the hearts of some people in my kingdom?’
Burnell was unconcerned by Edward’s apparent intransigence, and began to insinuate his ideas into the king’s head.
‘Once you have conquered Wales, both Llewellyn and his supposed bride will be spent forces. Your giving permission for them to marry will only grind your heel into the prince’s face. A worthless bride for a worthless prince.’
Edward could see the benefit of such an act, and began to pace up and down the room.
‘I have been thinking about the military campaign. It will be hard for our forces to defeat the Welsh on their own territory. They are so well known for sweeping out of the hills, hitting hard and disappearing again. My father suffered from such tactics, and dreamed of cutting off their supplies by taking Anglesey, that they call Môn, but drew back from doing so because he lacked the resources.’
Burnell smiled coldly, knowing that Edward had been led along the right path.
‘The island is the bread-basket of Wales, as you so rightly identify. But you are also wise to see that we do have the men and the ships that your father did not. Now we are in a position to take it.’
Edward grinned rapaciously, convinced that he had known all along what Burnell had suggested. He knew now that his course of action was set. Wales, in the shape of Llewellyn, would soon be kneeling at his feet. For Burnell, any thoughts of Oxford, and the course of action he had set Roger Plumpton on, were driven from his mind.
*
The flapping of wings woke Falconer from a deep and exhausted sleep. He looked up into the roof timbers over his head, and saw Balthazar settling on his perch like a pale ghost. This was the fourth or fifth reincarnation of the first barn owl that Falconer had tamed. He couldn’t recall precisely, as all were named the same and behaved in quite the same way. Come the evening, Balthazar drifted out of the solar’s window on silent wings to hunt across the marshes south and west of Oxford. With the arrival of the dawn, today as on every day, he returned. The only sign of his success or failure was the regurgitated pellet of small bones and fur that the owl later coughed up. He and his predecessors provided Falconer with a silent companionship, and a worldly-wise stare in response to the regent master’s idle ponderings. Falconer now gazed up at the white apparition.
‘Tell me, Balthazar, will I outlive you, as I have done several of your ancestors? Or will the red plague gather me in?’
The owl’s round eyes stared down at Falconer, and his only response was a slow winking of his eyelids.
‘Not telling, eh? I should have eaten you while you were still an egg. Well, as ever I am in God’s hands.’
He rolled to the edge of his bed, and persuaded his aching knees to take his weight. At the door to his little private room in the eaves of the great hall that was Aristotle’s stood the pitcher of water that one of his students drew for him every morning from the well in the rear courtyard. He splashed the cold water over his head, and donned the plain black robe that was his everyday wear. Sitting back down on the bed, he eased on his worn and comfortable leather boots, thinking that he must at least make a start on de Bosco’s problem. The book thief’s deeds paled in significance next to the threat of the red plague. But if the normal commerce of the university was to be interrupted by the disease and its consequences, then he would have time on his hands. And the chances were that the perpetrator was now locked inside the town along with his hunter.
Hearing movement down in the great hall, he made for the door. He would have to give his students the news about the pox, and ensure they did not leave Aristotle’s while it stalked the streets of Oxford. He sighed at the thought of ensuring their enforced imprisonment, and of keeping them occupied. Even he would have to take care to avoid close human contact for a while, which may in turn hamper his investigation. Suddenly there was the thunderclap of a door being flung open, and the noise from downstairs got a whole lot louder. He heard his name being called.
‘Master Falconer, a body’s been found.’
Chapter Ten
The body lay just inside the threshold of Corner Hall, and when Falconer arrived, the young students were huddled round the fire almost as far from their former master as they could get. The boy who had fetched Falconer, stood at his shoulder staring at the congealed black blood that ran from Bukwode’s head in straight lines along the cracks between the slabs of stone at the entrance. The youth had explained as he led Falconer along St John’s Street that he had come to Aristotle’s because he didn’t know what else to do. And everyone knew Master Falconer’s interest in dead bodies. The boy knew that a hue and cry should be initiated, and that as first finder, it was his duty to start the process. However, all the clerks who studied at Oxford University, knew of the tensions between the town and the university authorities. Lines were jealously drawn between the spheres of influence of the town and the gown, hence the students’ uncertainty. The boy gazed anxiously at the body.
‘Did I do the right thing, Master Falconer? I sent Jack to bring the constable too.’
Falconer patted his arm.
‘I know he will be busy at the moment, so you did well to fetch me.’
He knelt down, careful to avoid the blood in its grid-like pattern across the floor slabs. Someone else had not been so careful. The blood was smeared in two places, suggesting a person had stepped in the blood and slid in their haste. A head wound always bled out terribly, and was often worse than it looked. However, in this instance it was clear Bukwode was dead, and had been so for some time. His skin was stone cold, and flies were beginning to settle on the blood and on the man’s unseeing eyes. Falconer waved them away, and turned the head to examine the site of the wound that had caused so much mess. There was a jagged tear to the skin of his scalp on the left side, and beneath it the bone of the skull was cracked. Gritting his teeth, he poked at the wound, and behind him he heard one of the students gag, and rush outside to retch in the street. He could feel the pieces of broken bone giving way under the pressure of his finger. Bukwode’s skull must have been quite thin at that point to have given way so easily. He wondered what the weapon could have been that had had such a devastating effect.
He was suddenly aware of a dark shape filling the doorway and obscuring the morning light. He called a warning.
‘Be careful where you tread, Peter. His blood is everywhere.’
An unfamiliar guttural voice responded.
‘It is Isaac Doukas, Master Falconer. The constable is busy just now.’
Falconer looked up and saw the stocky Greek, who was Robert Burnell’s private secretary.
‘I am surprised to see you here, Master Doukas. What has brought you from the comforts of the castle to observe a dead body?’
Isaac Doukas chuckled throatily.
‘I could have said the same about you, sir, except your reputation for being present at the scene of murders extends beyond this small town.’
He peered more closely at the body, being careful to avoid the blood.
‘It is a murder, I take it?’
Falconer pointed at the wound on the skull.
‘There is no doubt about that, I fear.’
‘And there’s the mark of someone’s foot in the blood. Was that you?’
Falconer looked into the man’s dark brown eyes.
‘Of course not. Nor could it have been the murderer who made it. Unless he chose to wait until his victim had first fallen and bled profusely, and then fled.’
Doukas squatted on his haunches, making the hard muscles of his legs even more prominent. Falconer guessed he hadn’t always been some lily-livered clerk in Burnell’s service. He watched carefully as Doukas stroked his black, bristly chin.
‘Of course, if he was intent on stealing books and was disturbed by the regent master, he might have killed him and still carried out his task of taking what he wanted, walking in the blood as he left.’
His statement intrigued Falconer. How did this man know of de Bosco’s little problem with the book thief? Was that his real reason for being here? Of course, his proposition could be true, and the thief could be the most cold-blooded of individuals with nerves of steel. Then as he re-examined the body, he saw close to Bukwode’s feet, and half hidden by the folds of his robe, that a book lay on the floor. He pointed it out to Doukas.
‘What you say would be possible, if it were not for that. I would estimate that the thief
was already on his way out, when he encountered Master Bukwode.’
Gently he lifted the book up, and saw that there was hair stuck in the brass furniture on the corner. From a cursory glance, he thought it matched Bukwode’s hair. Moreover, there were traces of blood on the brass and the tooled leather cover. He had found the weapon, and probably the reason for Regent Master Bukwode’s murder. The book thief had been caught in the act, and had finally turned to killing. Idly he flipped the cover open, and saw it was a copy of Merlin’s Prophecies, quite like the one in the possession of Brother Aldwyn that he had been looking at yesterday.
*
‘Are you crazy? The castle?’
This was Robert Kemp’s judgement on Peper’s suggestion as to where the players might stay during their enforced sojourn in Oxford. They had debated where they might go after being turned back at South Gate, knowing that an irate inn-keeper would be seeking them out for skipping without paying their bill. So obviously, they could not go back to the Golden Ball Inn. Equally, if they stayed at another inn, the word would have got round eventually, and they would be traced. The inn-keepers might all be in competition, but they always pulled together when it came to welshers. Godrich had suggested seeking sanctuary in one of the numerous churches in the town, or even St Frideswide’s Priory. But John Peper was reluctant to rely on the church, where priests would badger them about their errant lives. Goliards and jongleurs did not have the best of reputations with the clergy. So he had suggested falling back on the assistance of the secular authorities.
‘We should go to the constable, and ask him for a place to stay. It’s his fault we are in this fix, anyway.’
That had been when Robert Kemp had made his outburst. Peper was ready to argue, but Agnes Cheke stepped in quickly. She was the oldest member of their troupe, and acted like a mother to them all.
‘I think it’s a good idea. Sometimes, when you need to hide, it’s best to do so in the least likely place they will look for you. We will go to the castle. There’s an old chapel in the courtyard that is no longer used. Do you remember when we put on the miracle plays, when de Askeles got killed, we stored some of the play scenery there.’