Falconer and the Rain of Blood

by Ian Morson

  ‘We will move them to Bartlemas under cover of darkness.’ He looked inquiringly at Saphira. ‘Can both of them walk?’

  ‘Sal will be able to, she is not as far gone. But Peggy will need a cart or something similar. She is too ill to walk unaided.’

  Doukas laid his quill down.

  ‘I suggest you move them both in a cart, constable, and cover them up too. Though it will be well for the townsfolk to know you are isolating the problem, some may react badly to seeing those who have the pox. And you should supervise the move yourself in case there is a disturbance.’

  His dark eyes held Bullock’s until, wearily, the constable nodded in agreement. Saphira noted the subtle change in the room as Bullock, usually so decisive and reliable, gave in to the demands of the outsider. She had never seen Peter so overwhelmed, and it worried her. She spoke up.

  ‘I could at least accompany them as far as East Gate, Peter. They will feel less fearful, if I do, don’t you think?’

  Bullock took Saphira’s offer in the way it was intended to act — as a way of passing control back into his hands.

  ‘Yes. I will get a message to Bartlemas, so that you are met. I have one of my men who is lucky enough to live outside Eastgate on duty to act as a messenger with the outside world. Once the women are outside the gate, they can be isolated from causing any more contagion. The hospital is sufficiently out of the way in the countryside to be effective in ensuring that.’

  His old self apparently restored, the constable went off to organise the transfer. Saphira turned to those left in the room.

  ‘Do you know where William is?’

  *

  The cell in the friary did indeed house books, but only a half-dozen. The cell was clearly the domain not of Fulbert, but of Friar Gualo. The elderly friar was stretched out on a low pallet set against the far wall of the small room. With only a slit for a window, a burning candle, used to banish the darkness, was the only luxury in the cell. It afforded enough light for someone to read by. But it wasn’t Gualo who was reading. Surprisingly, considering his attitude to books, it was Fulbert who had a large tome in his hands, which he must have just picked up. At Falconer’s abrupt entrance both men had looked his way in shock. Fulbert was the first to speak, recovering his composure more quickly than the older man.

  ‘What on earth do you think you are doing, disturbing our peace so late in the day?’

  Falconer was not to be put off from his task, and peered at the book the young man held canted towards the candle-light. Disappointingly, it was not some heretical text, and did not figure amongst the list of books stolen by the book thief. It was in fact a well-worn copy of the Rules of St Benedict. Fulbert could tell what Falconer was thinking and smirked.

  ‘Did you think, after all I said in my sermon, that I would have some secret desire for that which I condemned?’

  He would have said more, but Gualo sat up and laid a hand on his companion’s arm.

  ‘Fulbert is doing me a kindness, Master Falconer. My eyes are failing me, and despite his contempt for books, Fulbert has undertaken to read to me each evening before we retire.’ He waved his hand to encompass the few items there were in the cell. ‘I am allowed this small comfort in my declining years.’

  Seeing Falconer’s eyes follow his gesture around the room, taking in the three or four books lying on the end of the pallet, Gualo elucidated.

  ‘Just some commentaries on the Bible, including quite a rare copy of a commentary on the Pentateuch by Bede.’

  Falconer could see the books were not the ones stolen by the thief. Fulbert was not about to leave the matter there, though.

  ‘Would you like to look under the bed too, in case Gualo is your book thief, and is hoarding your precious abominations?’

  He lifted the coarse blanket which was all that separated Gualo from the wooden slats he rested on. The space underneath was a void, like the rest of the austere room. Fulbert stared smugly at Falconer.

  ‘Now, if you will excuse us, compline approaches, and we must return to church.’

  He stamped his palm down on the flickering candle flame, extinguishing it and bringing the conversation abruptly to an end.

  *

  It had been a long day capped by the trip to Eastgate with two poxridden people, and Peter Bullock felt weary to the bone. But he had been thinking a lot lately. More than was his normal habit. He was a man of action still despite his years. He was almost as old as the century, and had spent most of his life fighting battles of one sort or another. He had fought in Ireland and Wales, and once in France under the leadership of Henry. That had been a humiliating excursion resulting in the French occupying Poitou, Auvergne, and Saintonge. It had been to expiate memories of that defeat that he had signed up to fight in the Crusades. It had been a harsh and brutal experience not at all alleviated by any vision of Christian piety. All he remembered about it was episode after episode of bloody massacre and looting. He had returned to England disillusioned, and found himself idle and footloose. It had been a mercy to get the post of constable of Oxford which he had held now for some twenty years. But still the lust for action stirred occasionally in his bones. The doleful transfer of the two unfortunate women from Grope Lane to Bartlemas hospital was not what he had imagined himself doing when he started out as constable.

  Ignominiously stowed on a hand cart pushed by Thomas Burewald, and accompanied by Saphira Le Veske, the pox victims had been wheeled through the back lanes of Oxford. Mistress le Veske looked dishevelled, but there was a gleam in her eye, and Bullock wondered if his old friend William was responsible. Their intimacy was the worst-kept secret in Oxford, though he was sure de Bosco, the chancellor, was unaware and fortunately so. He was not so sure that Doukas hadn’t picked up the signs, however, which may not be such good news for Falconer. For now, he couldn’t worry about it. Reaching the East Gate without being seen, Bullock had roused Tom Inge from his slumbers, and got him to open the small wicket gate in the main door. Two hooded figures waited outside the gate, their faces masked with linen cloths. As Sal and Peggy stumbled weakly though the small gate, Bullock could not but think they were being passed over the threshold of Hell. A shiver had run down his spine, and sleep refused to come.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Feast of St Adamnan, 23rd September

  Her errand of mercy with Sal Dockerel and Peggy Jardine last night still much on her mind, Saphira returned to the brothel in Grope Lane. She wanted to be sure that the other girls were not showing signs of the plague. They were a sullen bunch without their mistress to control them, and it was some time before Saphira could get them all to gather in the hall. One by one she got them to open their mouths so she could examine them. The bolder ones stuck their tongues out in a lascivious manner, expecting to shock her. One even ran her tongue around her lips that had been rouged to emphasise their allure. Saphira was impervious to it all, and her business-like manner soon cooled their playfulness. They were probably relieved that she only asked to see the inside of their mouths and any exposed flesh on their arms and shoulders, rather than examining them beneath their skirts for another sort of pox. Still, the whole business took a long time, what with all the exaggerated play-acting at the beginning, and it was only when Saphira had finished and declared they were all free of red plague, that one of the younger girls piped up.

  ‘Hey, what about the old boy next door? Who’s going to collect the rent while Mistress Dockerel is away?’

  An older girl idly scratched herself between the legs, and snorted.

  ‘Not me. Peggy did it once or twice, and said he tried to touch her up.’

  ‘Then who’s going to do it now?’

  The bunch of girls glared at each other and began to argue who would carry out this onerous task in the future. While they argued, Saphira felt a cold chill down her spine. If Peggy Jardine or Sal Dockerel had called on this lodger recently, then perhaps he had been given the pox too. She interrupted the squabble with a sharp enqui
ry.

  ‘Hasn’t anyone gone to see if he is well?’

  The older woman pouted.

  ‘None of our business, mistress. He has no money for our services, so there’s nothing in it for us.’

  ‘Except a small kindness.’

  Saphira’s comment seemed to strike home, and the young girl spoke up.

  ‘I’ll go round and see if he wants anything.’

  Before Saphira could stop her, the girl darted out of the front door. She followed her as quickly as she could, worried that the old man might be a victim of the plague and liable to pass it on. When she got to the ramshackle house next to the brothel, she heard an ear-splitting scream. Across the dusty hall she saw a rear door standing open, with the young whore standing in it silhouetted by the light shining in the back room. She crossed the hall and gently moved the girl aside, expecting to see a man covered in red spots. What she saw was even more horrendous. The old man’s body lay on the floor covered in flies, and his severed head lay a yard from it, a darkened mass of blood joining the two.

  *

  Later in the day, after Falconer had been found and had attended at the scene of Master Gerard Anwell’s murder, he sought out Saphira. She had returned to her home to try and sleep. She didn’t think she would be able to, but did in fact doze off in the kitchen, hunched over the long, oak table. She awoke to the sound of someone hammering on the street door. It turned out to be William and she let him in, despite feeling itchy, grubby and not at all appealing. She had slept in her clothes and they were as creased and dishevelled as she felt. Falconer appeared unconcerned by her appearance, but then he never cared much about his own appearance, wearing the same black robe day after day. But even he looked careworn to Saphira today.

  She gave a short, sharp grunt of a laugh at their mutual dishevelment, and pushed a flagon of sweet water from the underground spring below her house towards him.

  ‘We both look as though we need refreshing.’

  Falconer poured the water into a goblet and drank deep, knowing the water was safe.

  ‘I have just come from Grope Lane.’

  ‘Was it the same killer?’

  ‘It is likely, don’t you think? I cannot say if any of Anwell’s books have been taken, but the one that was left on the floor beside his body is testament to his interest. It was covered in blood that must have sprayed from his neck when his head was cut off …’

  Saphira winced at the brutal imagery, but Falconer ploughed on regardless.

  ‘It was a text by Maimonides. Our hater of anything outside the canon of the Church would deem it demonic, I am sure. It certainly was a splendid example of illustration — beautifully gilded.’ He grinned sardonically. ‘It made me think of Aldwyn’s last prophecy.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘“There will be gilding in the temples, but the sword’s cutting edge will not cease its work.”’

  They looked at each other in silence for a while, neither quite sure what to believe in connection with the monk’s pronouncements. Saphira thought about William’s latest encounter with the Franciscans. She stared at William across the other side of the kitchen table.

  ‘Do you still suspect Fulbert?’

  Falconer shrugged wearily.

  ‘I cannot be sure. I don’t know what I had hoped to find in the friary. A hoard of proscribed books perhaps, or a blood-encrusted blade.’ He laughed harshly at his own foolishness. ‘Fulbert may have known all along that I was dogging his footsteps. He certainly tried to make it clear to me with the tender scene of his caring for Gualo, that he spends every hour with the old man. When he is not praying at the divine offices. But if compline ends his day, then he has plenty of time to slip out of the friary after dark to steal books. And kill masters of the university. But then Richard Yaxley, the feretarius at St Frideswide’s also expressed the same sentiments to me the other day.’

  ‘But your only reason for suspecting either of them is their antipathy to the gathering of scientific knowledge?’

  ‘Which they see as pulling down the edifice of the church and challenging God, and not as I do, the seeking out of the meaning of God’s wonders.’

  Saphira sat up in surprise at William’s words. It was not like him to acknowledge even the existence of God, let alone refer to God’s wonders. She assumed he must have been confused by this bewildering case, and she resolved to set him back on track.

  ‘Remember what you told me the first time we met?’

  Falconer looked at Saphira, bringing to mind that first meeting. It had been in Bermondsey Abbey, where she had been hunting for her errant son, Menachem, who had been hiding away as an apparent Christian convert after fleeing the sad death of his father. Falconer had turned up at the abbey seeking shelter from a rainstorm. His first sight of Saphira had been most unusual, and he could picture the scene even now.

  The prior of the abbey had asked him for some assistance, and he had followed him down a staircase, and out into the yard. The men had paused briefly at the archway, hesitant about diving back into the rainstorm. Falconer instinctively looked around before stepping into the darkness. Out the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something pale halfway down the junction of the wall to the guest quarters and that of the monastic dormitory. Something pale, topped by a flapping bundle of material. Realising what it was, he smiled to himself. Taking the prior’s arm, he steered John de Chartres across the streaming courtyard, and away from the shapely vision of a slim woman’s bare leg topped by her rumpled, dark gown which had apparently snagged on the leaden down-pipe that she was attempting to shin down. He had successfully diverted the prior’s attention away from the vision.

  In trying to recall his first words to her, he could only bring to mind that inspiring first sight of Saphira’s bare legs. Later he had met her face to face in more normal circumstances. Her face had been pale and the features drawn by her anxiety over her son, but it was a face of great beauty with a chiselled nose, and high cheekbones. The eyes were green and almost almond in shape, suggesting some eastern origin to her. She still looked as good to him now.

  ‘I forget. What did I say to you when we first met?’

  Teasingly she chided him.

  ‘Don’t you recall? You said, “I myself am seduced by the logical. Too much, some people say, for my own good.”’

  ‘And what is your point?’

  ‘That you should put all prejudices out of your head in this case, and start using logic again.’

  Falconer was about to protest that his suspicions concerning Fulbert and Yaxley were not to do with prejudice. But in his heart he knew they were. Yaxley was an irascible pillar of the church establishment, fixed in beliefs that Falconer had found shifting from under him. And the young Franciscan reminded him too much of the way the order had treated his old friend Roger Bacon, whose whereabouts he was still ignorant of. Bacon had compiled a great encyclopaedia of knowledge, and it had been taken from him and hidden away.

  He smiled at Saphira, conceding the point.

  ‘I consider myself corrected. What do you suggest I do?’

  ‘I have been thinking about the targets of the book thief. Whoever the person is who is doing this, he knew which master had books that he disapproved of. Do you agree?’

  Falconer nodded, beginning to see where Saphira might be going.

  ‘You think the thefts, and later, the murders were not random.’

  ‘Indeed. And if so, then could the killer be someone from the university, rather than a monk or friar? A student, perhaps, who knew every master who was attacked?’

  Falconer knew that, in his heart, the same idea had been brewing. But he had been too fearful of giving it room. That is why he had chased chimeras in the form of God-loving monks and friars, and semi-literate troubadours. If he was to return to logic in his pursuit of the thief and murderer, he knew where to begin.

  ‘I need to examine the university records to see if there is a common thread that links the masters t
ogether. And I need to do it urgently as I have already wasted too much time.’

  He went to rise out of his seat, but Saphira stopped him.

  ‘William, it is too late to rouse the chancellor and his minions now. Only last night I despatched two unfortunate souls to their fate. And today I have examined the mouths of numerous prostitutes, and seen a man with his head struck from his body. Life calls me now.’

  Falconer saw the lustful light in her eyes, and nodded agreement.

  ‘True. We should do something about it.’ He paused. ‘Oh, and I remember what else I said to you at that first meeting.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘That, if we were solve the riddle and find your son, we needed to let a little of the mystical into our hearts.’

  *

  Peter Bullock was dog-tired, but he could not keep himself from wandering Oxford’s streets. There was a palpable sense of fear emanating from the houses he walked past. The halls, where lived the students of the university and their masters, were shut up tight against the demon who stalked the streets in search of masters who had transgressed against God. The townsfolk had not much to fear from him, but another horror was outside their window shutters waiting to sneak in and kill. The plague was not as choosy as the book thief killer, and perhaps that made it all the more horrific. Red plague did not discriminate against the ungodly alone.

  At least the twin scourges meant the streets at night were safe for the constable. Unless the book thief changed his tactics. Bullock shivered, but it was not through fear this time, but cold. He had been thinking a lot about the murderous book thief, and was not paying too much attention to where he was. So he was surprised to find himself standing in front of Falconer’s home, Aristotle’s Hall. He was sure it was because in his heart he feared for his friend’s safety. For no reason other than a feeling of fatalism, he slipped into the doorway of Nun Inn opposite and hid in the shadows. There, his mind began to roam.