[William Falconer 06] - Falconer and the Ritual of Death

by Ian Morson

  Ann Segrim had paused at the spicer’s stall on purpose to annoy Margery. Her husband had provided her with a new female servant when she had protested that Sekston was growing too old to keep up with her. To all intents and purposes, Sekston had been her jailer for the last ten years now, reporting back to her husband, Humphrey, all that she did outside of the confines of their manor at Botley. And sometimes her supposed deviant ways in the grounds of the manor too.

  Humphrey perceived that his wife, being much younger than he was, was likely to have lovers under every bush and rhubarb leaf that she cultivated in the walled garden that was her sanctuary. And though he could not forbid her from travelling the few miles to Oxford market, he had made sure that Sekston was hung round her neck like an ugly talisman at all times.

  Recently, the servant had become too infirm to travel far, and Ann had thought for one brief day that perhaps her time of being spied upon was over. However, the very morning after Sekston had been pensioned off to a less onerous duty in the kitchen, Margery had appeared, summoned from the fields by Humphrey Segrim. She had been dressed in an illfitting robe and pinafore that did little to hide the fact she was small and very hairy, with long arms that never found stillness, and set to Sekston’s old task.

  Ann thought uncharitably that she looked like one of those apes Crusaders had brought back from their sojourn in Outremer. She had seen one dressed as a man, and wondered if Margery had perhaps been the offspring of an unnatural union. It was unfair, and very cruel of her to weave such fantasies, she knew, but Margery was an even worse bargain than Sekston. At least her former jailer had been a man, and she could escape him occasionally pleading the privy needs of a woman. Margery clung to her like.., well.., like a trained monkey. But Ann soon discovered what irritated Margery most was dallying over stalls in Oxford market. The servant girl was all hustle and bustle. Not for her, the idleness Of picking up an object that served no purpose, and that she had no intention of buying. So Ann had become an even more languid shopper than before.

  Now, she sifted a handful of cloves and lifted them to her nose to absorb the scent. Behind her, Margery sighed explosively. Ann grinned, and trailed her fingers languidly over the sack of reddish cinnamon powder. She would buy some spices, and persuade the cook at Botley to include them in a rabbit stew. Turning to the girl, she requested the purse, that at Humphrey’s command, Margery carried for her mistress.

  As she turned, she saw him.

  Three

  The boy ran along the back lanes as fast as he could. He had overheard the men talking, and though he could not make full sense of it, he knew that what he had heard was important. He held his flapping jerkin closed as he ran, crushing the two tablet-shaped strips of yellow cloth that were sewn on to it. Jose was a Jew, and this symbol identified him to all as one of that despised race. He scuttled down Schitebam Lane, and out into St Edward Street. There he dodged in and out of the townsfolk who were passing about their business.

  Until he almost collided with one in particular who was making her way down to St Aldate’s Church. She was going there to observe the festival of the Beheading of St John the Baptist.

  Alice de Burgh’s brother was a Hospitaller Knight of St John of Jerusalem, and she fervently prayed for his safety on the same date every year in August. Her devotion meant that the little urchin who nearly trod on her toes earned a hard cuff on his ear. The wretch was a Jew, and she gave vent to her feelings.

  ‘Get off, you little pest. Christ-killer!’

  Jose was used to the creel jibes, and they slid off him like water off a fish’s back. Besides, he had more important business than to trade insults with the woman. He dived to his right down the narrow confines of Jewry Lane. Here, he slowed a little as he was back on home turf. The little enclave of Oxford Jews was tucked securely in an oblong island of stone houses at the heart of Oxford. It was actually pure coincidence that it had a Christian church set at each comer. But it seemed to some to be the purpose of St Martin’s, All Saints, St Aldate’s and St Frideswide’s to protect the rest of Oxford from the evils of this small community. In truth, they mostly lived on amicable terms with their neighbours, although a sense of apartness guaranteed caution in their behaviour. The

  Jews of England were effectively the King’s property, and existed for one reason. To be milked for money when Henry needed it. They, for their part, mainly carried out the only trade they were permitted - usury. Christians were forbidden by the Bible to loan for profit, and so the Jews came into their own as lenders of money. Particularly to the lords and barons, whose gross financial needs seemed mostly to outstrip their often slender resources. Within the restrictions of their trade, the close-knit community of Jews in Oxford was pretty much self-reliant. They lived according to their own laws, and appointed their own dominies. Jose was making for the Oxford Jews’ revered leader, whose home was also their Scola Jud~eorum - both school and temple. He was their rabbi, and his name was Jehozadok.

  The rabbi sat in his upper chamber contemplating the changing world around him. Blind and frail, the rabbi nevertheless wielded great influence over his fellow Jews. He was even able to control the hot-headed gangs, which to his regret lured more and more young men to their ranks. Though he was not sure how much longer he could continue to do so.

  Young men seemed these days to have less and less respect for their elders. He feared his boys learned bad habits from the Christian students who now thronged the streets of the burgeoning university town. Suddenly, his peaceful reflection was disturbed by the thunderous sound of the inner door of his sanctuary being flung open. He smiled.

  ‘Jose, boy. Nothing can be so urgent that you would risk giving an old man a heart attack with your noisy entry.’ The young Jew was stopped in his tracks, marvelling at the blind old man’s ability to identify any visitor by their tread.

  ‘Forgive me, Rabbi Jehozadok, but the news I bring is urgent. It...’

  Jehozadok raised his claw of a hand, the back of which was spotted with age, and prevented the boy uttering another word.

  ‘Go and fetch me a mug of watered wine for my thirst. Then you may tell me what it is that you have so cleverly discovered.’ He stifled another incipient protest, and listened in satisfaction as the chastened Jose slunk out of the room on his errand. Muttering into his long white beard, he ruefully concluded his reflection on his waning powers.

  ‘At least you can still master the children, old man. Perhaps because in your dotage you feel at one with them.’ The boy soon returned with his beverage, and began, a little less breathlessly, to tell him an interesting tale.

  She had stepped inside the spicer’s shop on purpose to avoid an embarrassing encounter with William, and had ended up buying sixpenny worth of cinnamon. For some that was a week’s wage, and she felt stricken by her act, although she could well afford it. Ann Segrim had a view of the world that was not shared by her husband. Where she practised modesty in all affairs, Humphrey took pleasure in ostentation and excess. Theirs was a marriage of convenience, but that did not make Ann any the less a dutiful wife. Despite her beauty, and perhaps because of her ill-concealed sharp mind, she had long been unable to be married off by her parents. Until Sir Humphrey Segrim, twenty years her senior, had agreed to a marriage. He was a widower, whose first wife had died giving birth to a stillborn child. He had desired a new wife for the purpose of procreation, and Ann was still in her prime. The new marriage had been initially stormy. Humphrey had only read one book in his life, and that only in part. It was a theological treatise by Friar Nicolas Byard on domestic life.

  Humphrey’s favourite passage was advice on how a husband should treat his wife.

  ‘A man may chastise his wife and beat her for correction, for she is of the household and therefore the lord may chastise his own.’

  It had not taken Ann long to realize that showing herself to be cleverer than her husband gave him perfect cause for chastisement. She might have fought him over the matter, but had wits enou
gh to know that there were more ways than one to skin a cat. And though after fifteen years of marriage she was still vexed by having to feign obedience, still she complied, knowing she had found a way to make her life tolerable. No children had been born of the liaison, a situation that tore her heart two ways But their ongoing domestic war had at least settled into an amicable stalemate, even if peace had not been declared.

  Then this fragile equilibrium had been unbalanced by William Falconer. She had been at first intrigued by his enquiring mind, then drawn by his physical presence. Of course, Ann Segrim was the dutiful wife, and their liaison was more a meeting of minds than bodies. Though she and William met and conversed on many occasions over the years, little untoward had occurred. Which made it all the more ridiculous when recently they had bickered like an old married couple." Ann had rebuffed him in a way she could not her husband, and that had been that. Or so she thought, until she had seen him today. She was avoiding him, but part of her wished he would seek her out. Lingering in the spice shop had been the compromise she had negotiated with her finer feelings. But Falconer had not come in search of her, and now Margery was becoming impatient, sighing and swinging her arms like a windmill round her body. She was in imminent danger of tipping over precious supplies on the spice stall. So Ann Segrim gave up, and exited the shop. In the street, Falconer was nowhere to be seen.

  In Little Jewry Lane, the demolition work was reaching a conclusion for the day. Three frontages had been pulled down, and the fourth, with upper floors of just a timber and wattle construction, would offer little resistance. When the building work began in earnest, as it would soon, there would be much to do. Therefore, Richard Thorpe had just decided to take on the two journeymen who had appeared by chance on site that very day. One of them he knew very well. John Trewoon was a giant of a man, who would never make a mason. His brain was too addled to take on board the mysteries and rituals of the craft. But he was a hard worker whom Thorpe had come across on and off since he himself was an apprentice. And Trewoon had seemed very anxious to work for him again, though it was Thorpe who had finally spotted him lurking opposite the building site as though reluctant to put himself forward. But he had called the man over, and the other one who stood beside him, and added them to the rolls. The second worker was a wiry little man called Pawlyn with whom Trewoon seemed to have struck up a friendship. Thorpe hoped he too was as good a worker. So with both men set on immediately, Thorpe emerged from his lodge to supervise progress. Firstly, he checked that no one was hanging around the lane. His foreman, Wilfrid, saw the anxious look.

  ‘It’s safe to proceed, Master Thorpe. The kids are gone, and there’s no one to get buried under the falling rubble.’ Thorpe grimaced as if not welcoming the prospect.

  ‘Maybe we should leave it until tomorrow, Wilfrid.’ The foreman was surprised by Thorpe’s hesitation. Normally the master mason squeezed the last drop of effort out of his workers. With the roof already off, they could strip the house down to the stone ground floor with ease. After that, the rest of the demolition could wait until the morrow. So he made his point.

  ‘We’ll just take it down to the ground-floor stone walls, master.’

  Without waiting for agreement from Thorpe, he gave the nod to start. Two of his workmen brought their hammers to the task with a will, and soon the upper walls were falling.

  The remaining framework disappeared for a while under a cloud of powdery dust. From the midst of it came an unearthly wail. Wilfrid sprang forward into the chaos to find out what had gone wrong. If one of their men had been hurt, or worse still killed, it would hold work up interminably. Thorpe stood back, desirous of avoiding the settling dust. As the cloud dispersed, Wilfrid and the two workmen were revealed standing atop the stone wall that formed the lower level of the house.

  Thorpe breathed a sigh of relief that no one was injured. Then he shivered as he saw the three men crossing themselves hastily, and invoking the salvation of Heaven. Wilfrid called out to him.

  ‘God preserve us. It’s a body.’

  Four

  Falconer might be a master of logic, but he was incapable of working out how to deal with Ann Segrim. When he had seen her near the spicer’s shop, his instinct had been to flee. And he had cravenly followed his instinct. He knew there was a spark between them that glowed hot whenever they met. They had often gone further than the propriety of their respective positions - one a celibate regent master, the other a married woman - would dictate. But their relationship had never been truly consummated. More because of Ann’s sense of rightness than Falconer’s, who was often prepared to risk damnation in his disregard for convention. Witness his collusion with Master Bonham over the dissection of the servant girl. Both men were risking excommunication, and possibly worse, if the truth of their activities came out into the open.

  But he also had to admit that his desire for Ann Segrim could not be compared with his passion for scientific curiosity. One only concerned his own risk of perdition, the other that of another soul. And though he fretted over her devotion to a loveless marriage, he respected her feelings. He had resolved to end their fruitless dalliance for good, now that on her side Ann had broken from him.

  So it was that he justified his ignominious flight from her presence on the High Street that day. When Ann entered the shop, he strode quickly past, turning down into the dubious charms of Grope Lane, and hurried thence back to his sanctum in Aristotle’s Hall.

  Master Mason Richard Thorpe scrambled up the pile of plaster and lath, and mounted the broken street wall of the half-demolished building. He looked Wilfrid in the eye, questioning his revelation.

  ‘Where?’

  The foreman pointed down at his feet, his hand trembling.

  His mouth flapped but no words came out. Thorpe looked at where he was indicating. In the rubble infill between the inner and outer stone courses, a skeletal arm clad in a remnant of cloth poked upward. It was as though the body was calling to the Heavens for assistance. Or perhaps more accurately, now the body was stripped down to a skeleton, crying out for Justice. Wilfrid squatted down and slowly sifted the coarse sand and dust away from the bone. He was still hoping that they were mistaken. Maybe it was an animal bone that had been tossed into the infill. As he stroked the sand away, though, he felt a hard surface under his fingers. Slowly, the curves of a ribcage began to emerge. He looked back towards where his lodge sat on the edge of the building site, wondering what to do next. He had a mind to tell his workmen to pull the body out and dispose of it quietly along with all the other rubbish of the demolition. That way his schedule would stay on course, and his payments too. He would have to buy the three men’s silence, of course. But if they truly wanted to be fully-fledged masons themselves, they would have to learn how to keep secrets. It was then he saw the outline of a tall figure standing in the shadow of the buildings opposite. Though the man was a mere few yards away, he could not see his face, but he knew instantly there was another witness to the discovery. The man’s eyes seemed to pierce the gloom in which he stood, and transfix Thorpe. He sighed deeply, and spoke to his foreman.

  ‘Wilfrid, you had better send a message to the constable.

  This man is long dead, but he will want to know we have found a body.’

  When he looked across the street again, the shadow had disappeared as if it had never been there. And Thorpe wondered if he could have got away with it after all.

  Falconer occupied the largest upper room in Aristotle’s Hall, which was a domus scholarum accommodating a dozen or so students who paid him a few pennies a week for their lodgings. However, though large, the room seemed to shrink the further Falconer delved into the natural sciences that obsessed him, and accumulated oddities. A visitor to his solar would first have to squeeze past a precarious stack of books and papers wedged in the recess to the left of the fireplace. Standard Church works such as the Historia Scholastica were buried deep and uncared for under the more used and well-thumbed texts that Falconer preferred. F
requent use ensured that works by the Arab mathematician A1-Khowarizmi, medical works and studies of geography such as De Sphaera Mundi topped the stacks. To the right of the fireplace under the unglazed window stood an array of jars of various sizes, all of them exuding exotic and sometimes malodorous scents. Proximity to the window did little to alleviate the stench, to which, however, Falconer appeared to be oblivious. Most of his visitors were not so blessed. In the farthest corner stood a narrow cot that was his bed, at the bottom of which was a small chest housing his meagre supply of clothes and personal goods.

  The centre of the room was dominated by a great oak table on which was usually piled a bewildering array of objects that gave some indication of the eclectic nature of regent master William Falconer’s mind. There were animal bones, human skulls, small jars of spices, carved wooden figures, bundles of dried herbs, stones that glittered and lumps of rock sheared off to reveal strange shapes inside their depths. All was presided over by the basilisk stare of Balthazar, a white ghost of a barn owl. Some visitors to Falconer’s solar were inclined to think the bird was dead and stuffed. Until they were startled by a stately turn of Balthazar’s head, as his cold eyes followed their progress round the cluttered room. In actual fact, anyone who knew Falconer had good reason to imagine the bird stuffed and somehow animated, for barn owls rarely live longer than eight years. Balthazar had lived with the regent master for twice that length of time, and was a marvel to many. The answer to the miracle was simple. This bird was the third of that name, and like his predecessors, Falconer had hand-reared him from a chick. The conceit of permitting people to think he was the same bird amused him enormously.