by Ian Morson
Today, a morass of papers covered the table top, half-burying the disconsolate regent master• Falconer had begun two years earlier on a task that had gradually proved to be an insurmountable mountain. In his early days in Oxford, twenty years before, study had been dominated by the outpouring of scientific works by Robert Grosseteste. The Bishop of Lincoln had been prevented from calling himself the chancellor of the university, and had modestly called himself magister scolarum Oxonie. But for years before Falconer’s arrival his knowledge had been regarded as compendious. Later, Falconer’s old friend Roger Bacon had rivalled him in the spewing out of new ideas.
So much so that he was called an alchemist, and a necromancer, endangering his very existence. William preferred to append the tag to Bacon that one of his admirers had concocted.
Doctor Mirabilis - the Marvellous Doctor.
For Falconer, the problem was to resolve the often conflicting views of his two mentors. Sometimes he felt as if one pillar of the edifice of his understanding was being smashed or undermined by the other. His house would totter until he could square the circle of the conflict. He had set out to summarize his understanding of a myriad issues from optics to astronomy and from philosophy to chemistry. The mountain of papers had built up on his table since then, and he had done little but produce bewilderment. Often his brain ached with the accumulated information, much of the new influx incompatible with what he had previously gathered.
Now he sat surrounded by the evidence of his impossible mission, and could only brood on the image of Ann Segrim’s cornfield of blonde hair sparkling in the afternoon sunlight.
Idly he shifted papers from one pile to the other, uncertain how to proceed, until matters were suddenly taken out of his hands by the hesitant appearance of one of his students at the door to his solar. He always left the door ajar, and emphasized to all his new recruits that he could be disturbed at any time. But in truth, all the students whose welfare he cared for were reluctant to disturb the regent master when they realized he had sat down at his table behind the awesome pile of papers piled thereon. From experience, indeed, they soon saw that it was well-nigh impossible to rouse him from the trance-like state the papers induced. Today, however, Peter Mithian, in his second year of study and a little more confident than most other youths lodging in Aristotle’s Hall, knew he had to try.
And was soon relieved to see that the regent master appeared Unequal to the task before him. For once, Master Falconer looked as though he would welcome a distraction.
‘Master, there is a boy downstairs who says he has an urgent message for you. I would not disturb you at your work normally….’ Falconer beckoned Peter into the room, and he sidled into the only remaining floor space available. ‘However, what he has to say sounds very curious. And knowing that you have an interest...’
‘Spit it out, boy. I am tired, and may well expire before you come to the point otherwise. ‘
Peter Mithian squirmed, and began to profusely apologize for his prolixity. Until he realized he was making matters worse with his jabbering. He came abruptly to the point.
‘Master. A body has been found in Little Jewry Lane.’ Falconer smiled broadly. It was the best news he had had all day.
Five
Even before Falconer arrived at the building site, the constable of Oxford, Peter Bullock, was already in control of the situation. The two men were old friends and drinking companions, who had shared many an investigation into mysterious deaths in and around the town. Bullock was frequently bemused by the regent master’s application of tortuous logic to what to him often seemed like a simple case.
But he kept his peace, because Falconer would regularly prove to be correct in what he called his ‘deductions’. Bullock, as an old soldier, preferred rough and swift justice. But in Oxford, a town divided in jurisdiction, where those who were part of the university stood outside the law as administered by the constable, it was always politic to involve a member of the university, albeit informally. Besides, Bullock found the regent master a good sounding board, and a rumbustious companion when it came to celebrating the successful conclusion of another investigation. A logician who could let his hair down was a rare commodity in Peter Bullock’s book.
Having elbowed his way through the gathering crowd of onlookers, Falconer saw Peter Bullock atop the ruins of one of the houses that were being pulled down in Little Jewry Lane. The constable was perched awkwardly on the remains of the stone wall. He was a squat man with a bent back that gave him a curious gait, though no one dared laugh at him when he crabbed through the streets of Oxford on his nightly patrols. They would soon feel the flat of his ancient, rusty SWord across their backs if they did. What was left of his hair Was white and spiky, surmounting a face that seemed to wear a permanent scowl. Today, Falconer could see the scowl was deepened by whatever it was that Bullock was peering at in the gap between the inner and outer stone walls. Crouching down beside him was a large man with a thick thatch of black
hair and a full beard. He was carefully sifting the rubble in the wall and producing items that he handed up to the constable one by one. Falconer wondered if this was the body, and if so~ in what sort of condition it was. It looked very much like it was a skeleton.
Falconer’s further progress had been halted by one of BullOck’s watchmen, several of whom had been recruited to keep the gawpers at bay. But when Bullock saw the regent master, he called down for him to be allowed through the cordon.
‘Come up, William. You will find this interesting.’ Bullock pointed at a makeshift ladder set against the stone wall. Never very happy with heights, Falconer hesitated for a moment, wondering whether the crudely cut and nailed crossbars would bear his weight. He was a man of heavy build, and his sedentary life had not helped in keeping him in trim. But he knew he would have to conquer his fears. He took a deep breath before hitching up his dowdy black robe and stepping on the first rung. If this were a body, it would be necessary to see it in situ before it was completely disturbed by the unknown man who was digging it out piecemeal.
As his head breasted the broken wall, Falconer saw what the stranger was picking at: a full skeleton emerging from the rubble, with shreds of material still clinging to the brownishstained bones. As the man scooped the sand away, Falconer could see there were sinews still attached, and a fatty layer in some areas. He had last seen that some years before when he encountered a skeleton that had long been lying under the sands of Morecambe Bay. Until the tide had scoured it out once more. He had learned then about flesh turning to grease.
He shuddered at the horrible sight, his gorge rising momentarily. Then the sensation passed, and he took charge of the situation.
‘Peter. Who is this man who is destroying all the evidence?’ Bullock squeezed his ugly face into the semblance of a grin. He knew that Falconer, who had appeared to be out of sorts for a number of weeks, was back on form with the unexpected discovery of a body. Even an old death, which is what this appeared to be, would excite him. Bullock didn’t know how long it took for a body to get to this state - he was more used to messy bodies on the battlefield in his other life - but
he was sure William Falconer would know precisely. He pointed at the kneeling figure beside him, who was now examining Falconer with interest.
‘This is Master Mason Richard Thorpe. He is building a new hall here.’
Thorpe, who was still crouching, had his head nearly at the same height as the regent master on the ladder. He smiled, and murmured a correction of Bullock’s statement.
‘A collegium, actually.’
Falconer had heard that the demolition of the row of tenements was in order to build some magnificent hall devoted to the accommodation and teaching of students all on one site. But this was the first time he had heard the word collegium used to describe it. It suggested a fellowship of scholars devoted to study, and that was all to the good. But it also spoke of elitism, and he felt he still preferred the glorious chaos that was the great and tumultuo
us University of Oxford. He wondered whether, if scholars no longer commingled in the streets of the town and gathered willy-nilly in the various schools located in the lanes around St Mary’s Church, the marvellous exchange of ideas would become stifled. He tossed his doubts aside for the moment, reasoning that he must be getting old and reactionary.
Besides, he had a suspicious death to ponder on, and the location of the body suggested foul murder. He stared into Thorpe’s bright and intelligent eyes.
‘You may have been enrolled into the mysteries of the masons, Master Thorpe, but you have no idea how to deal with the discovery and analysis of a dead body. Please do not disturb it until it has been properly examined.’
A wry grin creased Thorpe’s sun-browned face, and he raised both hands in a gesture of acquiescence. He stood up and stepped back from the body in a manner that momentarily had Falconer worried for his safety. The top of the exposed wall was crumbly and narrow. But Thorpe’s sure-footedness suggested that he was used to working at precarious and dangerous heights. Falconer continued to clutch the top rung of the ladder, and he examined the skeletal remains from there.
It was Bullock’s turn to squat down.
‘He only removed the bones of the hand, William. And at my request too.’ He opened his palm, and revealed the bony digits. One of them still had a gold ring encircling it. ‘I thought we might be able to identify the man from this ring.’ Falconer grunted, and found he had the courage to remove one hand from the ladder to take the be-ringed bone. It was truly a distinctive object with some sort of flat stone set in the face of it. He rubbed at the dirt with his thumb.
‘By he way...’ Bullock could no longer restrain himself.
He wanted to show Thorpe that his friend was a remarkable man when it came to bodies. He would ask him the question that had been burning in his brain since he saw Falconer arrive.
‘How long do you think the body has been interred in the wall? From the state of the bones.’
Falconer stared for a long time at the section of the skeleton that stuck out above the rubble infill.
‘It is impossible to tell from their condition.’ Bullock felt deflated, and half-turned to the mason with an apology for his presumption all ready. Then Falconer spoke again, his face a picture of solemnity.
‘But I would say you should go back twenty years - to the year of the so-called End Times to be precise - to seek a man who was lost and never found.’
Bullock almost fell off the edge of the wall, but was held safe by the firm and calloused hand of the master mason.
‘Twelve hundred and fifty? But... but.., how can you be so precise?’
Falconer’s face split into a wide grin. He almost felt like preserving a sense of alchemy about his deduction. But it had been a simple exercise in dating, and he put Bullock out of his misery.
‘Because I had just returned to Oxford in the year of our Lord 1250, and I remember these houses being built.’ Bullock groaned at the simplicity of the sort of deduction he might have made himself, and dumped the finger bones into a bucket, which Thorpe lowered to the ground and his foreman.
Wilfrid took the bucket to the master mason’s lodge and put it on the floor under the table. He could see that there was no more work to be done this day. Standing in the shadow of the lodge, he watched as the mason crouched down once more. He saw him speak animatedly to the tall, heavy-set figure perching rather tentatively atop the ladder. The man, who the constable had called William, was large but had seemed light on his feet like a fighting man when he had been down on terra firma. He had only become unsure as he climbed the ladder, and that happened to many men unused to the dizzy heights that building work took you. Still, this William now exuded an air of authority as he pointed out what he wanted the master mason to do for him. Wilfrid had only seen his master take orders so readily on one other occasion, and that man had been a person of some gravity and authority. As the three men on the top of the half-demolished wall leaned closer together, Wilfrid turned away, and beckoned the other workers over to him.
‘It seems we will be doing no more work today, lads. Take yourselves off to your lodgings, and rest. We will have to make up the time tomorrow.’
The little knot of workers, tanned by years in the sun and wind, grinned at their lucky windfall, not yet thinking of working harder the next day. This day had finished early for them, and that was enough. They gathered their tools, and started to wend their way back towards North Gate and the stews of Beaumont. There, the cheap lodgings that had been procured for them had the added benefit of even cheaper alehouses and brothels around every comer.
John Trewoon slung his sacking bag over his shoulder, and looked for his friend Peter Pawlyn. The wiry little Pawlyn was from the West Country, as was John Trewoon, but where Pawlyn was thin, Trewoon was large. Where the one was short, the other was tall and heavily built. They made an incongruous pair. Especially as Pawlyn was clearly not a man to suffer fools gladly, and John Trewoon was so obviously slowwitted. He was a man unlikely to ever proceed beyond his apprenticeship, never able to fathom the esoteric rules of masonry. But for some reason, Pawlyn had struck up a friendship with this ox of a man. Wilfrid put it down to their common origins.
Trewoon slung a bear-like, hairy arm over the smaller man’s shoulders, almost enveloping him. They started back towards the High Street together, Trewoon now carrying both his own tools and Pawlyn’s. But as they skirted round the edge of Jewry, Pawlyn paused, as though he had seen something down a side alley. He unwound the friendly ann of his companion from his shoulder.
‘John, wait here for me. I won’t be long. I just have an errand to carry out for a friend.’
‘Am I not your friend, Peter Pawlyn?’
.Pawlyn put a hand on both arms of the big man.
‘Yes, John. But a man may have more than one friend. Besides; this is more in the way of... business. There’s money in it for me. And you, perhaps, if things go well. We can spend it on a good whore in town rather than the drabs of Beaumont.’
John Trewoon was puzzled, but let his new friend go, and watched him as he slipped down the little alley that led deep into Jewry. After a while, he laid the two sacks of tools on the ground, and squatted on his haunches to await his friend’s return.
Under Falconer’s guidance, the excavation of the skeleton became much more systematic. As well as being able to observe each layer as it was revealed by the careful application of the master mason’s trowel, he could extricate items of clothing that might in some way explain the man’s identity.
The body had been shoved in the gap in the wall on its side, and had been covered with the infill. Over time, the rubble that had been poured over it had settled, exposing the left arm, and part of the torso, though still leaving it hidden within the stone wall. As Thorpe dug lower, more of the body came into view until the upper spine emerged from the debris. All three men peered closely at what lay before them.
‘It’s definitely murder, then,’ muttered Peter Bullock.
They could see that the head had been completely severed from the neck, and was nowhere to be found.
Six
The old rabbi had listened to young Jose’s tale with interest, and it took his thoughts back over twenty years to another time, when King Henry was squeezing his Jews for a tallage of five thousand marks each. King Louis of France, at the head of yet another abortive Christian crusade, had been captured in Outremer, and a ransom had to be paid. The Jews had been taxed in order to help raise England’s share of the ransom. It had been an unsettling time for Christianity, and consequently for the Jews, who lived by the tolerance of the Christian monarchs. Now it seemed those times were back.
Only last year, Louis had once again raised a crusade to win back all that had been lost in the ensuing twenty years. But news had come that he had died in North Africa before even reaching the Holy Land, and before Henry’s son, Edward, had joined him.
The Christians still felt they had lost much to
the Muslims.
Jehozadok knew the Jews had lost even more, including their very Temple, the destruction of which had been an incalculable disaster. Ever since then, they had been condemned to wander the earth.
It was difficult to work out whether the news the boy had told him was good or bad. But Jehozadok decided it warranted a prayer - a berakhah - that was recited on hearing both good and bad news. He got Jose to help him out of the chair, and support him as he bent his stricken knees and bowed. He began intoning the prayer.
‘Barukh atah Ha-shem Elokaynu...’
The gentle old man was ritually observant, and would have been horrified to know what was going on only a few doors away from his Scola at the very time of these prayers. It was early evening, and as the shadows lengthened in the yard of
St Aldate’s Church, a fitful yellow light spluttered in the rear window of the house that backed on to the Christian sanctuary. It was the property of the Jew, Lumbard of Cricklade, though he did not frequent the house much. It was rented out to various itinerants, who came and went with such regularity that no one, Jew or Christian, could really swear to who ‘li’;,ed there at any moment. Tonight, there was a small band of men assembled in the ground-floor back room. They were all nervous, as if only too well aware of the awful nature of what was to pass. For the men’s purpose was sacrifice. In the grubby yard at the back of the narrow tenement building a child played in the straw of the animal pen.
The youngest of the six men was fresh-faced and looked barely more than a youth, though he was in his thirtieth year.
He was uneasy about what was intended, and spoke up.
‘I still think we should not do this. I was taught that a qorban - a sacrifice - could only be performed in the Temple.
And as the Temple is destroyed...’
His whingeing was cut off by the stranger in their midst.