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

by Ian Morson

  ‘You said he had a double burden. If collecting the ransom money was one, what was the other?’

  The Templar hesitated, and he sat back in his chair. For a moment his features faded into the darkness. A stony silence hung between the three men in the darkening room. Then he leaned forward again, his decision made.

  ‘What I am about to tell you is a secret that has been guarded by the Order for more than a century. If you tell anyone else, I shall deny every word of it. Pray God it may help you uncover who killed Brother Michael. It concerns the small chest he brought back from the Holy Land.’

  Twenty-Three

  The Jewish cemetery was a cold and gloomy place to spend the night. But the gates of Oxford were closed, and Saphira had no other option. Covele’s small tent, perched on the grave slab to protect it from the rising waters of the river, was too small to accommodate more than two or three.

  And the man and his son had retreated under its cover as soon as Saphira had been set straight about the forbidden ritual on the night of the riot. She was ashamed she had suspected Covele of doing anything other than carrying out a ceremony that had been precious to all Jews before the destruction of the Temple. She now felt like William must have done when he had tentatively broached the suspicion of child-murder with her. She had laughed at the idea, only to throw it in Covele’s face herself. Her only excuse was that the renegade was a strange and driven man, capable of deeds that other Jews abhorred. Now she sat uneasily on the edge of the slab, tracing her fingers along the worn Hebrew letters on its surface. She was still barefoot, and dangled her toes in the muddy water surrounding her. Deudone sat cross-legged at her side, nervously biting the ragged nail of his right forefinger.

  ‘Covele is right. I am not going to be made the scapegoat, Mistress Le Veske.’

  ‘Why should you be? And please call me Saphira. You’re older than my son, and none of his friends call me mistress.’ Deudone blushed, looking down at the slab on which they sat.

  ‘Yes, Saphira. But if I return, the constable will accuse me of killing that priest all those years ago. I threw a stone, and hit him on the head. I saw him fall into the arms of the man he was talking to. He looked dead to me.’

  ‘He was probably just stunned, and you were a child. Did no one speak to this man afterwards? He would have told you that the priest was just hurt, I am certain.’

  Deudone bit his nail some more, making the quick bleed.

  ‘No, there was no chance to speak later. He was a casual worker. Like those men who are working in Little Jewry Lane now.’

  ‘He was a mason? A journeyman?’

  Deudone shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. But whoever he was, they all left soon after.

  When Lumbard sold the land, the work continued for a while, then stopped. The men left who were working there before, and a new lot of workmen came a few weeks later, I think. I was only a child then, and it didn’t interest me beyond being somewhere to hide, what with all those stones and scaffoldings.’

  Saphira was suddenly alert, and she stood up, brushing off the back of her dress where she had sat on the granite slab.

  An idea was forming.

  ‘But the man who was present when you threw the stone, who caught the priest, definitely worked on the site?’ Deudone nodded. ‘Did you see what he looked like, this mason?’

  ‘Not really, he was dressed like they all were, in rough clothes covered in dust. He had a felt hat on his head so I didn’t see his hair very well. Just that it was dark and curly.’

  ‘How big was he? Compared to the priest, say?’ Falconer had told Saphira that the Templar priest was a tall man, and she could use him as a yardstick. If only Deudone could recall an incident that happened to him as a child, twenty years ago. He screwed his eyes as if he was trying to conjure up the picture.

  ‘He was as tall as the priest, and strong, I think. He didn’t waver when he caught the priest, anyway.’

  Saphira had one more thought buzzing in her head.

  ‘And this conversation they were having, was it simply a pleasant exchange, do you think? Or was it an argument?’ Deudone spoke eagerly now, as he recalled a scene that had been engraved on his guilty conscience for years.

  ‘They were arguing! I remember the priest waving his arms. He was almost pushing the other man away from him, like it was beneath his dignity to even speak to him.’ Saphira was convinced she had uncovered something significant, but until she was sure of her facts, she would not reveal them to William. She needed someone who knew the building trade, and how she might trace a man who worked in Oxford twenty years ago. She knew who she could ask, but it would have to wait until the next day now. Or was it the same day? She suddenly realized that a grey dawn was breaking beyond the turbid river that bounded two sides of the cemetery. The hem of her dress was soaked and muddy, but she was elated at her discovery. These deaths were nothing to do with the Jews at all. She turned to Deudone, who looked more hopeful. She took his arm and pulled him up off the gravestone.

  ‘Go home to your mother - she is worried about you.’ She pushed him ahead of her towards the entrance, leaving Covele and his son to their damp and drab tent.

  ‘And talk to Hannah. She is concerned for you too.’ Deudone looked at her, and smiled for the first time in days.

  ‘And so this chest contained a relic sacred to the Templars?’ Laurence Berèire had told Falconer the story of the small chest that Michael le Saux had brought back from Outremer.

  The chest that Peter Bullock had seen, and had assumed was nothing more than the container for a knight’s helmet. The story began to explain why it should have been so closely guarded by le Saux, and why the priest had been sent hurrying back to England. The Templar nodded in agreement.

  ‘Can you tell me what it was? And why it figures in le Saux’s death?’

  De Bernère licked his lips, casting his eyes to the ground.

  ‘It is enough to say it was a skull, and it figures in my Brother’s death because it was stolen the night he died.’

  Falconer sighed in satisfaction. So this whole business was never about money, but something far more significant. He had heard tales of a mysterious relic that the Templars were said to revere. This was the first evidence he had come across that confirmed the story. He was unsure, however, where this was leading until the Templar provided a thunderbolt. Rising from his chair, he crossed to a comer of the room where stood a large oaken chest. He lifted the lid, and produced something from inside. It was a small iron-bound pine chest with a heavy clasp on the front.

  ‘This is the chest le Saux brought back. Perhaps Sergeant Bullock can recognize it.’

  Bullock gasped, and stretched out a hand to touch the old and battered chest in de Bernère’s hands.

  ‘It’s true. I remember it clearly.’

  ‘Open it.’

  The command came from the Templar, and Bullock obeyed, lifting the lid. When he saw what was inside he gasped again.

  ‘Is it... ?’

  ‘No. It is not the original relic. As I said, that was stolen.

  This...’ He lifted out a skull from the box, and tossed it casually over to Falconer, who caught it deftly. ‘This is the skull of Michael le Saux.’

  Falconer turned it over in his hands, noting the damage.

  ‘How do you know it is his?’

  ‘Because when I first examined the chest after Brother Michael disappeared, his severed head was inside, flesh and bone and hair intact. I rendered it down to bone later, and kept it in the chest so no one else was aware that the original contents had gone.’

  Bullock intervened. ‘Why did you do that? Might not his killer have been found then, if you had raised a hue and cry? You had no body, but you had his head. It was clear he was dead. You let everyone else imagine that he had fled with the money he had collected.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Brother Michael’s reputation was less important than keeping quiet the fact that the relic had been stolen. And you
can forget the money as a motive for his death. I found that too, and decided to keep quiet about it to put doubts in people’s minds. To this day no one in the Order knows the relic has gone except me. Now you can see why I hesitated to tell you, and why it must remain secret.’

  Falconer realized he was holding the skull of the murdered man in his hands, and that it could tell him a lot about the murder. For the first time since Bonham’s death, he regretted not being able to talk to him about it. Instead he offered the skull to the constable.

  ‘What do you think, Peter?’

  They both looked closer at the damage spread across the dome of the skull. There was one definite fissure, which had sharp edges, and cleaved neatly through the bone.

  ‘One blow rendered with an edged weapon,’ opined Bullock.

  ‘But look here.’ He pointed at another area of the skull, where the bone was more fractured, and two hollows had been formed..

  ‘Blows with a blunt weapon.’ This was Falconer’s offering.

  ‘So he was attacked by at least two men acting together.’

  ‘Two or three. Perhaps the two heavy blows were from two different weapons.’

  Falconer frowned. ‘That makes it seem well planned, Peter. Someone must have reckoned it worth their while to steal the relic.’

  He turned to de Bernère for clarification. ‘Whose was the original skull?’

  The Templar’s face went deathly pale, and he grabbed the skull back from Falconer’s hands.

  ‘I cannot tell you. I have already told you more than I should. It is now for you to find out who killed Brother Michael.’

  ‘And if he still has the original relic, or if it is lost for ever.’ The Templar looked positively ill, and could only mumble an agreement with the sentiment.

  ‘Yes. It would be desirable to locate it again.’ Falconer turned to Bullock, determination in his eyes.

  ‘Come, Peter. We have work to do.’

  They exited the room and clattered down the stairs. The nub of the candle sputtered out, leaving the Templar in darkness.

  Feast of St Gregory, September, 1271

  Oxford was preparing for another day. As Saphira walked along the High Street, the muddy edge of her dress dragging on the ground, yawning traders were emerging from their shops. They pulled down the hinged shutters of the frontages so that they formed counters to display their wares. Soon the wide street would be full of people shopping for foodstuffs, eyeing gold and silverware enviously, and taking in the scent of exotic spices. As she passed one spice shop, the mingling of aromas reminded Saphira of her former home near Bordeaux. The ships easing their way up the Gironde brought spices from abroad, and overland came the herbs of the far south of France. She felt a momentary tug of homesickness, and lingered as the spice merchant began to bring out his bags of herbs. It was the same man who only a few days earlier had sold Ann Segrim a sixpennyworth of cinnamon.

  Though Saphira was unaware of this connection to William Falconer, she was reminded somehow of her decision about her life in England, and her commitment to solving the riddle of the death before William puzzled it out for himself. She was still determined to show she was his equal, and to punish him for his lingering doubts about the slander of ritual murder hung around the neck of the Jews. She hurried away from the spice stall, and made for her temporary residence, where she would change into a clean gown before speaking to the master mason Richard Thorpe. But as she was walking down Fish Street, she noticed Hannah in the distance. The girl, having seen her, waved urgently, and rushed over.

  ‘Saphira, I have been looking for you, but you were not home.’

  Saphira smiled. ‘No, I have had a busy time.’ She laughed throatily. ‘Do you know, the watchman at East Gate enquired of the price of my favours? It was most flattering to an old widow. And so early in the morning too.’

  She refrained from saying she had been up all night, talking to Deudone.

  ‘Oh, and I think you will find there is someone looking for you too.’

  Hannah blushed at the implication in Saphira’s voice that it was her intended husband, Deudone, who was seeking her out. She did not ask why Saphira knew this, but a glance at the muddied state of the older woman’s gown told her that something mysterious had occurred last night. She grasped Saphira’s arm.

  ‘That can wait for now. Jehozadok wants to speak to you. There is a matter he had forgotten for too long, and he wants you to hear, and see if it will help Master Falconer in his enquiries about the Templar priest.’

  Saphira, though tired from lack of sleep, was suddenly all ears.

  ‘Where are we going, William?’

  On leaving the house of the Templar, Falconer strode briskly across Fish Street, stepping smartly out of the way of a fishmonger rolling a barrel out on to the lane.

  ‘Why, to see Prior Thomas Brassyngton, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ muttered Peter Bullock under his breath, as he hastened to keep up with Falconer’s long strides. His rusty sword banged awkwardly against his side as he matched his loping gait to that of his friend. Things were back to the way they had been before their falling-out. Where Falconer led, the uncomprehending constable followed. ‘Obviously.’ Falconer suddenly stopped, and turned to face the scurrying Bullock, who nearly crashed into him.

  ‘Don’t you see? If le Saux was killed because of the relic, we need to find out who knew about it in the town. It was supposed to be a dark secret held by... well, by your Order, Peter.’

  ‘It’s not my Order any more. I left its ranks more than twenty years ago.’

  Falconer refrained from pointing out that leaving the Templars a long time ago had not prevented the constable from carrying out Bernère’s wishes over the last few days.

  He explained why he wanted to see the Prior of St Frideswide’s.

  ‘We must assume that no one within the Order killed le Saux, or I believe the truth would have come out sooner. No, it has to be someone in the town who saw the value of the relic, and killed for it. Le Saux was the claviger of Temple Cowley, wasn’t he? So he would have held the keys to all the safe storage areas. Including wherever this relic was kept.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Falconer cast his piercing gaze over his friend.

  ‘Have you any idea what the skull was? Whose it was? There must have been some rumours circulating, even amongst the lowly sergeants’ ranks.’

  Bullock chewed his lower lip, clearly unsure even now if he could confide in Falconer.

  ‘Well, there were some tales. They were all speculation, mind.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I will not bother you with the wildest claim that it was the head of Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is rank blasphemy. But some said it was the head of the builder of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and was uncovered when the founders of the Order were lodged at the Dome of the Rock. A man called Hiram, he was.’

  ‘The builder of the Jewish Temple?’

  ‘Yes. But it was only a rumour, and the Grand Master scotched it. He said our enemies would be accusing us of worshipping graven idols next, if all this were heard in the wrong quarter.’

  ‘Still, it is an interesting theory. Let’s see what Prior Thomas has to say about le Saux divulging this dangerous secret, then.’

  The sweet chants of the morning Mass had hardly finished echoing through St Frideswide’s before Prior Thomas was to be found breaking his fast alone in his chambers. Brother Anselm was reluctant to show Falconer and Bullock into Brassyngton’s presence so early in the morning, but a show of force by the constable, and an angry fist on the hilt of his rusty sword, soon convinced him. The prior sat at a large table draped with three layers of white linen, which was already stained with splashes of his repast. Falconer noticed that, unlike his brethren, who were probably eating frugally of bread and ale, Prior Thomas was feeding his already generous girth with cuts of cold meat as well as the normal provender. Brassyngton, obviously a little put out at this unexpected interru
ption, did not offer his guests any of the food before him.

  ‘What is this all about, Master Bullock? So early in the day.’ Falconer had agreed that, as the official representative of the town, Peter should address the prior.

  ‘God give you a good morning, Prior. But it is an errand of some urgency that brings me here.’

  Brassyngton supped at a tankard of ale, and wiped his mouth with a piece of linen.

  ‘Then I am at your service.’

  ‘The Templar priest, Michael le Saux, you knew he was the claviger of Temple Cowley?’

  Brassyngton frowned.

  ‘Yes, I did. We had spoken a couple of times since his arrival in the town. He was courteous enough to advise me of his plans for the Jews here. The collection of the ransom, I mean. But what can be so urgent now about a twenty-year old death?’

  Bullock ignored the pertinent question, and ploughed on, following his instructions given by Falconer earlier.

  ‘Did he often speak of what treasures might reside at the Templar commandery? Under his control as key-holder?’ The prior’s eyes narrowed, suspicious of where this might be leading. He looked at Falconer, who stood behind Bullock, guessing at who was behind this enquiry. He was quickly attempting to work out if this had anything to do with the death of the boys. The one in the past when Falconer had thwarted the martyrdom of little Jed Stokys, or the recent story told him by Simon. He could not see a connection, and told the constable what he knew.

  ‘Brother Michael was a little prone to boastfulness, shall we say. I understood he claimed to have brought back a skull from the Holy Land. Though he never said whose skull it might be, he often vowed it was of great importance to the Templars.’

  ‘And did he tell this story only in your hearing?’ Brassyngton quickly saw that Bullock’s interest in the relic suggested there was a possibility it had been stolen. And he was only too eager to relieve himself of any suspicion of complicity in the possible theft.