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

by Ian Morson

  ‘Oh no, I heard him more than once boasting of the relic in the precincts of this very church. Anyone in the town attending the services could have overheard him, from the aldermen to the lowliest artisan.’

  Twenty-Four

  Saphira had been told a curious tale by the boy Jose. Hannah had taken her to speak with the old man, Jehozadok, who had been mortified that the story, told to him by the boy on the very day the Templar priest’s body had been found, had slipped his mind. Saphira, however, understood perfectly. So much had been happening at the time, the boy’s tale was thought unimportant, and forgotten. But still, some part of the story had stuck in the back of Jehozadok’s mind, becoming ranker with the passage of time. Until the stink of the rottenness had caused him to remember.

  The boy had already been asked to come to speak to Jehozadok again, and when Saphira entered he was full of restless energy. He sat on a chair too large for him, kicking his feet, which didn’t quite touch the floor.

  ‘Ah, Saphira, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, rabbi, it is I. Now what has this young man to tell us?’ Jehozadok somehow sensed that Jose was about to burst forth with his story, and held up a bony but firm hand. He quelled the boy’s natural eagerness with his gesture. Jose returned to kicking his heels.

  ‘First, you must understand that this is only what the boy has heard. At the time, he thought it related to us. Was somehow important.’

  Saphira knew that by ‘us’, Jehozadok meant the Jews of Oxford.

  ‘And so did I at the time. But now I believe it has more to do with the old death and the recent murder of the mason. You see, it was he who Jose heard talking.’

  Saphira recalled that the murder of the mason had taken place while she and Falconer had made love. She felt a little hot, as though Jehozadok could see beyond his blindness to her very heart. She didn’t want to feel that she had done something wrong, so she avoided looking directly at the old man, and spoke to the young boy instead.

  ‘You heard the man called Wilfrid talking?’ The boy nodded, and looked at Jehozadok for permission to speak. Saphira didn’t know how the blind old man would know of the look. But somehow he perceived the unspoken request, and waved his liver-spotted hand in encouragement.

  ‘That man - Wilfrid - was talking to one of the other workmen.’

  ‘And where were you, Jose, that you could hear what they were saying?’

  Saphira’s question embarrassed the boy, and he looked down at his feet, mumbling something that she couldn’t quite hear.

  Jehozadok reprimanded him sharply.

  ‘Speak up, Jose. And tell Madam Le Veske the truth, now.’ Jose looked up, his eyes like saucers, and took a deep breath.

  ‘I had been playing where I shouldn’t, near where the houses were being pulled down. The man - Wilfrid - had already told me off for being there. He said it was dangerous, and no place for games. But I came back later, and when I heard him coming I hid behind some timbers they use for getting up high. I would have gone as soon as he passed me, but he stopped, and started speaking to someone else. He was asking this other man about when he was last in the town, and what he had seen.’

  ‘Seen?’

  ‘He said he knew this other man had been here at the same time. And something happened that his brother got involved in. And it had to do with the one who built Solomon’s Temple, because his brother said so before he died. And that another apprentice had died soon after as well. Now he wanted to know why his brother and this other one had died, because he would kill the one who was responsible. And find out about the Temple man.’

  Jose’s story had tumbled out in a way that made it sound garbled and confusing to Saphira. She had hoped for more clarity. This rambling tale only served to obscure the way forward. She looked pleadingly at the rabbi.

  ‘Jehozadok?’

  ‘I know. You are confused, and so was I, initially. I thought at first this was all a fantasy of Jose’s.’

  The boy blurted out a protest, which Jehozadok waved away peremptorily.

  ‘But then I thought with all the references to the Temple of Solomon, perhaps there was some threat to us, and that I should take Jose’s story seriously. I prayed for guidance, but then the rioting engulfed us, and I forgot about it. I should have been reminded, when I was told that the man who was killed during the riot was the very man Jose had heard making threats. But I wasn’t.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I am afraid my mind is not up to the task of leading this community any more.’ Jehozadok slumped in his chair at the thought. It was as though all his strength had fled suddenly. Saphira stood behind him and stroked his bowed shoulders.

  ‘On the contrary, your mind is as clear as ever, or you would not have realized the importance of what you have just told me. It is my mind that is in a fog, and I need to sweep it away. Jose says he heard Wilfrid telling this other man that his - Wilfrid’s - brother had become involved in something that had later resulted in the brother’s death. Is that right.’

  ‘Yes, and the death of a fellow apprentice. And that this other man had been working here at the time. It must have been because of the building of Lumbard’s row of houses, for Jose told me it was a long time ago.’

  The boy offered the undeniable truth of this.

  ‘Yes, sir, he said it had been twenty years ago. That is a long time, isn’t it?’

  Jehozadok smiled.

  ‘Yes, boy. It is a very long time ago.’

  Saphira pressed on with her analysis.

  ‘So it was the very time that le Saux was killed. Do you think Wilfrid’s brother was responsible?’

  ‘Or this other man. The one who Jose says Wilfrid was questioning just before he died.’

  Saphira turned to stare at the boy, who grinned nervously.

  ‘Jose. Did you see this other man? Did you peep out from where you were hiding.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He was a very big man with curly hair.’

  As Falconer and Bullock walked along Fish Street, they passed where Saphira Le Veske was lodging. For a moment, Falconer was tempted to speak to her. He knew he had offended her with his uncertainty about what Covele had or had not done on the night of the riot, and he didn’t want it to spoil what had happened between them on that very night. But now he was being told about a relic that might be the very skull of the builder of Solomon’s Temple. Which might have been the reason for le Saux’s murder. There was still a chance that its importance could have caused one of the Jews who lived in Oxford to kill in order to lay hands on it. He couldn’t face her with that possibility hanging between them. So he walked on.

  Bullock, who had been quiet since leaving the prior’s quarters, had a question for Falconer. He had been wondering how to phrase it since they had left the Templar, and his friend had asked him about the rumours surrounding the relic.

  Falconer always made him feel foolish. No, not foolish, ignorant was the word he sought. He knew the regent master had accumulated far more academic knowledge than he. But equally he knew that he, Peter Bullock, was more of a practical man. The trouble was sometimes common sense did not give you an insight into the more complex issues surrounding the sort of murders that seemed to occur in Oxford. It was as though the very academical atmosphere seeped into even the most crude and violent of crimes. Despite himself, he was annoyed at his own failings. So it was a little angrily that Bullock asked the inevitable question.

  ‘What’s so damned important about this Hiram fellow anyway, William?’

  Falconer, somewhat surprised about the abruptness of Bullock’s query, paused for a moment.

  ‘I am as in the dark as you, Peter. It says in the Bible that King Hiram of Tyre sent to Solomon a man called Huram or Hiram, a master craftsman, to help build the Temple of the Jews. I have heard fanciful stories about this man, but none that make sense. They are just like the folk tales you probably heard your grandmother tell you.’

  Bullock laughed uneasily. ‘Yes, but I believed in all those tales.’

  Fa
lconer gave him a hard look and walked on. Bullock didn’t know where he was going, and reckoned that neither did Falconer. The regent master often walked in this determined but random fashion when his brain was working on a problem. Bullock hurried after him, matching each of Falconer’s long strides with two of his own. He would not let the matter of Hiram drop, however. He grabbed Falconer’s arm and made him stand still for a moment.

  ‘So why not this one? If I believed in monsters, and sirens, why not a master craftsman of the Temple of Solomon? And if you believe in something strongly enough, then you could go to extremes in the name of that belief.’

  It was morning, and they stood in the centre of Carfax, the main crossroads of the town, oblivious to the bustle of people and carts weaving past them. Falconer grimaced, but felt that Bullock had a point. The Bible said such a man existed, and that he was only a man, not some demon. The skull didn’t even have to actually be that of Hiram. After all, there were said to be enough relic fingers of Saint Peter in the world to provide the apostle with hundreds of hands.

  Enough pieces of the True Cross for a forest. It only needed someone fanatical enough to cause the skull to be the reason for murder.

  ‘Perhaps there is some truth in what you say, Peter. If only I knew who it was for whom the skull had meaning.’ He once again thought of Saphira, who he already realized was a fount of much esoteric knowledge that was closed off to him. Her late husband had been a devotee of Kabbalah, a mystical branch of the Jewish faith that was beyond his understanding. She had saved her son from following its darker aspects, and had learned about it herself in the process. Perhaps she might know about the legendary builder of the Jewish Temple. Despite his misgivings, and fears that she would not welcome him to her house after their misunderstanding, he decided that she must be his next port of call. He turned abruptly round, and made for Abraham’s house, pushing through the flock of sheep that a local shepherd was vainly trying to control on his way to market. Bullock stood as if transfixed in the centre of the crossroads as they eddied around him. Falconer waved his arm urgently at his friend.

  ‘Come on, Peter. Let’s not waste any more time.’ When they got to Saphira’s door, Falconer hesitated only a moment before knocking. He would face up to whatever reception Saphira meted out to him for the sake of the dead whose murderer he was hunting. The door opened wide, and Saphira’s face appeared round its edge. He thought he discerned a warm smile at first, but it was replaced quickly by a reproving look. Still and all, he was heartened.

  ‘Madam Le Veske.’

  ‘Master Falconer... and Constable Bullock.’ There was an embarrassed pause, while all parties stared at each other, wondering what move to make. Finally, Saphira turned her back and padded away, flinging a casual invitation over her shoulder.

  ‘You had better come in.’

  As Falconer followed her, he noticed that the hem of her dress was caked in mud, and that her feet, which were bare, were also muddied. He wondered what she had been doing.

  Dancing barefoot by the light of the moon hardly seemed appropriate. But he could also see that her hair was not encased in a modest, matronly snood, but hung free. The thick auburn tresses bounced over her shoulders and back. She led the two men into the kitchen, where a fire burned merrily in the big open hearth. Unabashed, she carried on with drying her hair on a greying piece of linen. Bullock nudged William with his elbow and winked slyly. His friend’s familiarity caused his face to glow hot. He could not take his eyes off her bare toes as they poked out from under her dishevelled gown. They seemed to wiggle involuntarily as she scrubbed her tresses dry. Not used to observing women at their ablutions, Falconer was dumbstruck, and it was Saphira who, with an inward sense of amusement, broke the silence.

  ‘Is there something you wanted? Only I am very busy at the moment.’

  Falconer at last managed to move his jaw.

  ‘Then I will not detain you long. I come seeking your opinion on a matter related to the discovery of the skeleton in Little Jewry Lane.’

  ‘Not a question about ritual slaughter of children, I suppose?’

  Falconer’s face got hotter, and his usual self-control was shattered,

  ‘No, no. You mistook me earlier, I assure you. I...’ Saphira sat down and lifting up one of her grubby feet began wiping it clean with the damp cloth she had used on her hair. Her air of natural grace once more stopped Falconer’s flow and Bullock came to his dumbfounded friend’s assistance.

  ‘Hmm, Madam, what we want to know is, do you know of the legend of Hiram?’

  Saphira, apparently unconcerned by the men’s embarrassment, switched to her other foot. Her dress rode up to show a tantalizing expanse of pale leg.

  ‘The master mason who it is said built the Temple of Solomon? Yes indeed I know of his story. Though it is mostly apocryphal.’

  Falconer found his tongue at last, and recalled what Bullock had said earlier about belief in old wives’ tales.

  ‘I have heard plenty of wild stories lately, so another one will not make any difference. Tell me this apocryphal story.’

  Twenty-Five

  Saphira watched through the slats of the shuttered window as the two men hurried off along Fish Street. The crowds of people thronging the thoroughfare were so dense, despite the drizzle, that once Falconer and the constable had crossed the street to the other side they were lost from her view. She smiled quietly to herself, wondering if she had done the right thing in not divulging the knowledge she had gained from the boy, Jose. In fact, she had done more than keep information from Falconer. She had even deliberately misled him somewhat with her tale of Hiram, even though it had pleased her more than a little that he had come to her for information.

  She had told them what she knew at first.

  ‘You will know that what little evidence there is in your Bible is contradictory. In the Books of Chronicles, Solomon sends messengers to Hiram, King of Tyre, saying he is contemplating building a temple. He wishes to be supplied with gifted craftsmen, more specifically a man cunning to work in gold, silver, brass and iron. The King of Tyre sends him the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, whose father was a man of Tyre. But in the First Book of Kings, Hiram is said to be a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali. This book says he worked only in brass, and made the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz. But Chronicles reports that he superintended all the work of the Temple. That he was its architect.’

  ‘And of his death?’

  Falconer’s question made her pause in her ablutions. She laid the damp and dirty cloth on the floor, and put her bare feet on it. She was suddenly more cautious about divulging any further information. If she was to solve this mystery by herself, she could not give William the chance to work it all out. She knew how quick his brain was, even though he had this irrational fear that his mind was somehow failing him.

  When they had first met in Bermondsey Abbey, he had confessed a memory loss that had caused him to seek remedy.

  She had jokingly referred him to the restorative powers of the herb sage. She could recall his attempt at making light of his fears.

  He had said, ‘I will remember that.., if I can remember it without taking some sage first.’

  But she knew his flippancy masked a deep fear of losing his mind. Perhaps he was over that fear now, though. She looked at him, and could only see in his eyes the brightness of a mind weaving random threads into a tapestry of bright truths. She resolved to say nothing about Jose’s description of a large and powerful apprentice mason who was seen by the boy arguing with the Templar priest just before his disappearance. That was a nugget of truth she intended to mine for herself. Meanwhile she would distract William, and his friend the constable.

  ‘The Bible says no more about him. But there are many later tales of him being murdered. And there must be those who would covet some relic of him.’

  Falconer’s blue eyes gleamed. ‘Would there indeed? And if, say, his skull were to be found in England, who do you think woul
d seek to own it?’

  Saphira covered her feet with the grubby hem of her gown, and chose to give him a lead she knew would go nowhere.

  ‘Wild men such as Covele. You can ask him yourself. He is camped in the Jewish cemetery.’

  Now, as she watched Falconer disappear in the bustling crowd in Fish Street, she was aghast at her own duplicity. She cared not for any trouble she might bring Covele. He was well able to stand up for himself. But she had just lied to a man she had come all the way from Canterbury to seek out, and to whom she ‘had given herself. And the deceit was just to achieve a childish sense of triumph over him. She almost rushed out to find William and tell him the truth, but she realized she still had on her muddied gown, and her feet were bare. Besides, he deserved a little mortification for his foolishness over the ritual-slaughter slur. He would soon see his error, and come chasing back to her. In the meantime she would have solved not one but two murders. She went over to her chest, and pulled out a fresh gown.

  * * *

  Large, pregnant raindrops began to plop menacingly on the streets of Oxford, and everywhere people suddenly scurried for cover. Falconer peered up. Heavy, dark grey clouds crowded together, jostling for space and packing the sky until they absorbed all the daylight, and a gloomy dullness prevailed.

  The slow, heavy drops of rain multiplied, and became a curtain of water. Peter Bullock had his cloak to wrap around him, but Falconer had no such protection. He hurried down the High Street, the rain plastering his grizzled hair to his head, until he reached the relative comfort of East Gate. There he sheltered until the constable had caught him up. Together, they looked anxiously eastwards towards the bridge over the Cherwell. Already the river was muddy and swollen, swirling round the arches. It was creeping over the sodden banks and across the road like a secretive and insidious assailant. Falconer wondered how long it would be before Oxford itself would be inundated. As he and Bullock hurried towards the Jews’ cemetery, he could already see that it was half under water.