Falconer and the Rain of Blood

by Ian Morson

  ‘Mistress Le Veske, you are well I hope?’

  The question would have been only a minor courtesy at any other time. Today, it was full of meaning. Saphira smiled reassuringly, and squeezed the old man’s arm.

  ‘I am very well, thank you, Peter. Both refreshed and cleansed.’

  She drew him aside, away from his involuntary guests, and lowered her voice.

  ‘Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the man resident at Dagville’s Inn.’

  ‘Ah, he is dead then? Well, it was to be expected. Is Thomas Dagville burning everything?’

  ‘I am not sure. I met Samson on the way back to his house. He has given the Dagvilles instructions, and the body is wrapped in a shroud. I said I would tell you, so that you could ensure it is disposed of properly.’

  Bullock puffed his cheeks out, his face a mask of indecision.

  ‘Should I have the body burned also?’

  Brother Aldwyn must have heard the conversation between Saphira and Peter, because at this stage he spoke up.

  ‘You cannot burn a Christian. His body must be interred like Christ’s body after the Crucifixion.’

  Bullock looked from Saphira to the old priest and back.

  ‘Can we safely bury him without catching the red plague ourselves?’

  Everyone looked uncertain, and it was left to Isaac Doukas to resolve the problem. He rose from beside the fire, where he had been perusing the book put down by Aldwyn.

  ‘I think I can help you out. I have had the small pox myself many years ago.’ He pointed to some small scars on his cheeks. ‘It was the mild form, and though I would guess what you have to contend with here is more virulent, I believe that I cannot catch the pox in any of its forms again.’

  His cold, dark eyes scrutinised Saphira again.

  ‘You are a Jew, and this Samson of whom you spoke also is a Jew?’

  Ready for some criticism of her people being involved in the care of Christians, Saphira clenched her teeth.

  ‘Yes.’

  Doukas nodded briefly.

  ‘That is good. Eastern physicians and Jews know more about the plague than here in the West.’

  He looked at Bullock.

  ‘I will move the body tonight, when there is less chance of being seen. Where will it be buried?’

  ‘Bring it here — he can rest in the chapel. Then we can bury him in the grounds.’

  Saphira had hoped she might find Falconer in the castle, so she had a question for Bullock.

  ‘Have you seen William? Is he all right?’

  *

  Falconer, in fact, was very far from all right. His unease had nothing to do with the red plague, however. He had left his students with an injunction not to the leave the confines of the hall, and was on his way to the Franciscan friary on the edge of the town. In fact, strictly speaking, the friary was outside the town walls, but only because of a peculiarity of its construction. The few Franciscans who had arrived in Oxford in 1224 had found adequate lodging at the house of Robert Mercer in the parish of St Ebbe. Twenty years later, their growing needs had been met when they had the King’s permission to demolish a section of the town wall between Little Gate in the east and the castle in the west. This gave them access to an island in the Thames where they built their friary. The gap in the wall had been filled with their church constructed on an east-west axis so that the very body of the church formed the new wall. The choir of the church was devoted to the friars for worship, and the nave was a preaching hall.

  It was this hall that Falconer now entered, and he crossed it to go into the friary. He was seeking out Friar Gualo, to whom he had spoken about the woman who had given birth fifty years earlier in Bartlemas hospital. But this time he didn’t want to investigate his own ancestry, but the vexed question of the book-thief and murderer possibly being a Franciscan. What he wanted to find out was the attitude to books of the Franciscans currently in the friary at Oxford.

  Falconer knew all about the Franciscan ambivalence to learning. The Ordo Fratrum Minorum had come into being to act as a counterbalance to the cloistered orders of monks. The new order of mendicant friars preached in the rural communities and growing towns of England. They had a simple creed in consequence, and when in the universities, translations of Aristotle into Latin were challenging Christian scholarship, they took up the opposing cause in the name of the Christian church. But for Falconer there was a more personal reason to be wary of the mendicants. His long-time friend, Roger Bacon, was a Franciscan friar, but of a very different stripe. Bacon was a scientist who worked on the principles of optics, and he made burning glasses and magic mirrors. He searched the stars and their influence on the lives of men. He delved into alchemy, averring that it taught the generation of things from their elements. Ten years ago, with the then pope on his side, he had compiled in three volumes an encyclopaedic collection of knowledge. Unfortunately, Pope Clement had died, and Bacon’s works had been locked away. Now, Roger Bacon was also hidden away in a Franciscan friary somewhere unknown to Falconer. Scientific enquiry was forbidden by the order, and deemed heretical. Falconer hoped that Friar Gualo, as a man who took an interest in medicine, would be more open-minded, and put a name or two to the more severe Franciscans in Oxford. Though he hardly dared tell Gualo that he was also trying to get him to put a name to a murderer.

  The preaching hall was quite empty, and Falconer could hear the ending of the midday prayers — sext — being sung in the choir. He waited patiently until the prayers finished, then watched as the grey-clad friars dispersed. Seeing the bent figure of Gualo limping towards the door that led into the friary proper, he called out.

  ‘Friar Gualo, may I speak with you?’

  The old man looked over his shoulder, and squinted in Falconer’s direction. His frown told Falconer that the friar’s eyesight was worse than his own. Falconer had a fine pair of eye-glasses ground for him by an expert on lenses. He rarely used them, though, as their heavy metal frame gave him the appearance of a half-blind owl. He strode over to Gualo, until he was close enough to be discerned clearly.

  ‘It is I, William Falconer. We talked about the past recently, and of Bartlemas hospital.’

  The old friar smiled in recognition.

  ‘Ah, yes. The unfortunate matter of the serving girl … I am afraid I still can’t recall whether she lived or died, though.’

  Despite his wishes to know the fate of the girl, who could have been his mother, Falconer had to put this hunt aside.

  ‘It is not that business that I come about, Friar Gualo.’

  He saw that the friar was shuffling back and forth, and realised the old man had difficulty standing for any length of time. Sext would have tired him out. He indicated one of the benches in the nave of the preaching hall.

  ‘Let us sit down here. I could do with a rest.’

  After they had settled down side by side, Falconer gazed towards the choir aisle and the altar. He formed his first question carefully.

  ‘I wanted to ask about my friend, Friar Bacon. I have not heard from him for some time.’

  Apparently, Gualo was not perturbed by being asked about such a controversial figure.

  ‘Yes, Friar Roger. I believe he is devoting his time now to the study of Christian doctrine in Paris. He is a wild thinker, our Roger, and needs some … discipline applied to his waywardness.’

  The old man patted Falconer’s leg reassuringly.

  ‘Have no fear, though. He is well and hearty, I am certain of that.’

  Falconer didn’t think so. If Roger had been deprived of access to scientific experimentation, he would be a very distressed and frustrated man. However, he wanted to put Gualo at his ease, and he laughed softly.

  ‘Yes, Roger was always very … wayward in his thinking. I suppose he might have annoyed some of his brothers here in Oxford because of that.’

  Gualo shook his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘Indeed, there were those who opposed him when he was teaching
here.’

  Falconer felt he was beginning to tease out of Gualo something that might be useful to his search for the murderer. But he still felt he had to skirt around the subject, or the Franciscan might balk at revealing names of fellow members of his order.

  ‘It is the same in the university. Recently we have had a book-thief stealing contentious works. I fear he has even threatened the life of those he steals from.’

  Gualo shook his ancient head sadly.

  ‘There is no accounting for the perversity of man. But those who opposed Friar Bacon were all honourable men. They would merely invoke the words of St Francis, who warned a novice that “when you have got a psalter, then you will want a breviary; and when you have got a breviary, you will sit in your chair as great as a lord, and gape after knowledge.”’

  A sharp voice echoed down the aisle, cutting into the conversation.

  ‘Wise words, brother. Books and learning have no place in Francis’s scheme.’

  Gualo groaned quietly, glancing sideways at Falconer. He whispered a warning under his breath.

  ‘Fulbert is one of those who would do more than merely incarcerate Roger Bacon.’

  Falconer watched as the same severe young man who had interrupted his conversation with Gualo last time, hurried towards them. His sandals slapped ferociously on the cold stone floor. Falconer wondered how long he had been standing close by, and if he had heard his words about the book-thief. Friar Fulbert was obviously Gualo’s keeper, and had a face like thunder having found his charge talking with the regent master again. Standing stiff-backed before them, he rounded off his homily.

  ‘Our founder’s sole aim was the practical imitation of Jesus. He told his first followers that a day would come when men would throw their books out of the window as useless.’

  His sudden, cold words filled Falconer with dread and foreboding.

  Chapter Twelve

  That night, Isaac Doukas slipped out of the castle, and silently made his way to Dagville’s Inn to recover the crusader’s body. Falconer, meanwhile, was telling Bullock what he had found out about the Franciscans.

  ‘The young friar fills me with dread, Peter. If Fulbert can yearn for a time when books are thrown out of the window, he can be the one who is stealing them in the first place.’

  ‘And murdering the owners of the books also.’

  Falconer signalled his agreement with a nod of the head. He and the constable were closeted in the upper room of the tower that Bullock was using to escape his unwelcome visitors. Through the narrow window slit of the room, he could see across the marsh lands transected by streams that sparkled in the moonlight to Oseney Abbey in the distance. Since locking the gates, he thought the outside world seemed almost unreal. An impression rendered even starker by the ghostliness of the full moon. He turned back to Falconer, and slumped down into his chair.

  ‘Two days since I closed the gates, and we have at least ten more to wait to see if we are free of the pox. Now we have a murderer running around killing scholars. Chancellor de Bosco must be tearing his hair out.’

  Falconer smiled wearily, thinking of William de Bosco’s bald head, and the impossibility of what Peter had suggested.

  ‘Actually, he is remarkably calm and well-organised. He has decreed that no lessons take place until the problem is over in order to avoid contagion. I think he is relieved that our self-inflicted incarceration gives him respite from having to answer to Robert Burnell and the king about the thefts.’

  ‘Then you will have to come up with a solution before I reopen the town, or our guest, Doukas, will be reporting failure to his master as soon as he can.’

  Falconer pulled a face at the thought of the Greek. When he had come to the castle that evening, Isaac Doukas had wanted to know all that he had been doing. The swarthy man had insisted that Falconer sit down and tell him, while he noted down what he heard in his crabbed hand. If nothing else Doukas was meticulous, but made no comment as Falconer told him of Friar Fulbert’s words, and his own suspicions.

  ‘Where did he go, by the way? Doukas, I mean. He made his notes and then said he had business to attend to.’

  Bullock waved a hand indicating the night outside the tower.

  ‘He is making himself useful collecting the crusader knight’s body. He says he has had a form of the small pox when he was a youth, and will not be able to catch it again.’

  ‘Can that be true?’

  Bullock gave Falconer a steely look.

  ‘Frankly, I don’t care. Let him die, if it’s not true. Though I would be grateful if he didn’t bring it inside the castle. I have that motley band of troubadours to consider as well as my own well-being.’

  ‘Yes, I saw them in the courtyard as I arrived.’

  Falconer had spoken to Margaret Peper as he crossed the yard, asking about Will Plome, who he had recalled seeing in the town earlier. Curiously, Margaret had told him that no-one in the troupe had seen Will for days. She had explained.

  ‘Since learning his letters, he has been obsessed with reading anything and everything he could find. Now, he has disappeared entirely.’

  Falconer could understand Margaret’s concern. Will Plome was a simpleton, who needed someone to look after his interests and ensure he didn’t get into trouble. He had reassured her that he had seen the fat young man in Oxford two days before, and that he must now still be in the town.

  ‘Nobody can escape Oxford for the time being.’

  Margaret had nodded, but clearly was still worried, and Falconer had carried on his way to speak to Bullock.

  ‘Why have they set up camp in the castle courtyard, Peter?’

  Bullock smiled wearily.

  ‘I think they are avoiding a bill for accommodation at the Golden Ball Inn. This morning, Gil Sexton accosted me in the street accusing some wandering players of skipping without paying. I told him I would look into it, but that they may have gone before the gates were closed. What with all the other business, I haven’t yet taxed them on their misdeed.’

  Falconer recalled the threadbare nature of the jongleurs’ clothes, and the fact that their once commodious wagon had been reduced to a handcart.

  ‘I doubt whether they have enough to pay for a night at Dagville’s, let alone the Golden Ball. Even with a pox-ridden body lurking in the next room. Talking of which, I wonder if Doukas is back yet.’

  Falconer pushed himself up and out of his chair, and crossed to the window that overlooked the courtyard. By the silvery light of the full moon, he could tell that the jongleurs had all retired to wherever they had found to lay their heads. The yard was empty save for their handcart, on the top of which lay a hideous Devil’s mask with long curly horns. The moonlight shone on the jagged white teeth in the mask’s mouth giving the impression that the castle yard was the gateway to Hell. But if it was, and the dead crusader was bound thence, there was no sign yet of Doukas and his grisly burden.

  *

  When Will Plome woke up, he was astonished to hear no movement above him. Even in the evening, the church was normally bustling with pilgrims who came to obtain a remission of sins committed or a miraculous cure. The bones of St Frideswide were still a popular draw for pilgrims, even though more recent relics such as the blood of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury attracted many more sinners seeking pardons. But as he wriggled out of where he was hiding, he saw that the church was empty. Even the feretarius or guardian of the shrine, Richard Yaxley — a man well known to Will — was not in evidence.

  Before daring to set foot in the town, Will prostrated himself on the cold slabs of the church as he had seen pilgrims do, and prayed to God for guidance. Since learning to read, he had found himself lost in the realm of words that enveloped him. Each book he read puzzled him more, and he feared he could not discern the truth from lies — God’s words from those of the Devil. In the peculiar stillness of the church, God was silent, not responding to his muttered prayers. And he pushed himself up to his feet, and went out into the town.r />
  There, he was even more astonished to find the streets deserted. Scuttling from street corner to doorway, always keeping out of sight — though of whose sight he knew not — he soon found that not a soul existed in the town. Suddenly, he was fearful that the Day of Judgement had come while he slept. He recalled the words from the play about it that the troupe he once belonged to had performed often. He could read the words now, but they were emblazoned on his memory anyway.

  ‘On earth I see sin everywhere,

  And therefore angels I shall send,

  To blow their horns, that all may hear.

  The time has come: I’ll make an end.

  Angels, blow your horns and strive,

  That every creature you may call:

  Learned and lewd, husbands and wives,

  Receive their doom, this day they shall.

  Every soul that ever had life:

  Let none be forgotten, great or small.’

  He wondered if he could find more books while they were unguarded by their normal keepers. Perhaps the black-clad scholars who jealously hoarded them had been consigned to Hell. Behind the looming mass of St Frideswide’s, he surveyed the short row of four narrow-fronted houses at the end of Shidyerd Street. Each door he knew led into a place where masters lived with their students, some poor and dressed in grey drab like himself, some rich in fine robes. He had seen their comings and goings from the shadows often. He scuttled across to the first door, and tried the latch. It clicked up and he pushed the door open. He was uncertain about entering, but then he heard the clatter of a horse’s hooves on the cobbled surface of the street behind him. To avoid being seen, he pushed on the door, and slid in through the opening.