by Ian Morson
‘What I am about to say must go no further than these four walls.’
‘Of course, Mother Prioress.’
Ann had not been expecting what she was then told. In fact, Mother Gwladys’s revelations had been unnerving. Godstow nunnery was located in a peaceful spot, with the river on one side and the dark groves of Witham woods on the other. The place should have been a haven of tranquillity, perfect for contemplation and prayer. But it seemed that peace had recently been disturbed. At first Gwladys had been reluctant to reveal the uncomfortable secret to Ann. She had pressed upon her the need to keep silent about it.
‘The chaplain who visits from Oxford to advise and guide us is the only person outside these walls to know. But as you were so… useful… when last we had a similar problem, I would like to ask your opinion again.’
Ann was shocked. Was there a murderer loose in the nunnery again? What had happened? Gwladys explained, while still studiously avoiding any reference to murder.
‘I do not think that it is the same as before. After all, lightning does not strike the same place twice. However…’
Ann leaned forward and made to pat the arm of the older woman. Then she recalled the proscription on touching that Gwladys so strictly applied to her nuns and drew back.
‘Just tell me what has happened, Mother.’
‘It concerns one of our younger nuns, like Sister Margaret who you have just seen. She gave signs suggesting uncertainty about her vocation some while before she… some time ago. She appeared distressed and upset. I spoke to the chaplain and then to her about leaving the nunnery. That seemed to upset her even more than questioning her vows. I decided to leave the matter for a few days, hoping she would settle down. It seems I made the wrong decision.’
‘How was that so?’
‘Because the following morning, Marie was found dead in her cell.’
‘Dead? How so?’
‘That is what I want you to ascertain, Ann.’
Having slept on what Gwladys had said to her, Ann had risen to a clear and bright morning, ready to talk to the nuns at Godstow. Unfortunately, her morning preparations were suddenly broken into by the sound of heavy boots approaching her solar. She knew it could only be Alexander, her husband’s half-brother, who had been appointed by Humphrey to run the estate in his absence in Outremer. He was boorish and often intruded on her privacy in this way. He also blundered around the management of the estate in a similarly uncaring way. Ann had let him get on with matters for a while, but it had proved impossible to stand back and accept the mess he was making. She had ended up doing as she always had done when Humphrey was present, and had run the estate herself. Nevertheless, Alexander continued to meddle in matters he had no knowledge of. So, she had often been forced to step in to mollify angry servants and correct bad instructions. She knew for example that, if a recent command of Alexander’s had been followed, the fishponds would have been drained and the fish stocks ruined.
When he had realized she had countermanded him, Alexander had ranted and raved at Ann, demanding she obey him as a woman should. He did not realize that she had perfected the skill of running the estate while allowing Humphrey to think he did. She had honed over the many years of their loveless marriage an ability to do just as she pleased, while allowing Humphrey to keep his sense of manhood. Her husband was proud of having only ever read one book, which was a theological treatise by Friar Nicolas Byard. And he frequently quoted his favourite passage from it to his cronies over copious quantities of good wine:
‘A man may chastise his wife and beat her for her correction, for she is of his household and therefore the lord may chastise his own.’
In fact, it was many a year since he had dared lay a finger on her. It became obvious that Alexander had to learn the same lesson soon after he arrived at Botley. When he realized he could not dominate Ann, he had turned to drink, working his way steadily through Humphrey’s barrels of Rhenish wine.
Now, when he burst unceremoniously into Ann’s solar, she knew he had been at his cups for some time. Her brother-in-law’s face was flushed and his gait unsteady. He grinned lecherously.
‘Ah, there you are sweet Ann. I have been looking for you. Where were you yesterday evening?’
He stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame to keep himself from falling over. Ann forced a maidenly smile on to her face.
‘Why, I was at Godstow nunnery, Alexander, talking with the prioress. Would you like to know what we discussed?’
Alexander Eddington screwed up his eyes in fuddled concentration. He was not sure if he should take Ann’s words as the unvarnished truth, or if the bitch was in some way mocking him. He never knew what was going on in her mind. But he did recall stories about past goings-on at the nunnery which was situated between his brother’s estate and the town. His grin returned and he waved an unsteady finger at his sister-in-law.
‘More news about the affairs of the nuns, no doubt.’
He fancied he stressed the word ‘affairs’ in such a way that would cause Ann Segrim to blush. But she merely held that annoying smile on her face and replied as if he had asked keenly about the religious observances of the place.
‘Indeed. The way of life and devotion of the nuns at Godstow are an inspiration to us all. The celibate life I have observed since your brother, my husband, went away could have been modelled on theirs.’
It was Alexander who ended up blushing. He had attempted a seduction of his sister-in-law soon after he had arrived. He had fancied she would find his virility irresistible after years of being married to Humphrey, a man many years his senior and probably incapable of satisfying a woman. He had failed miserably in his attempt. Not only had Ann spurned his offer, she had succeeded in humiliating him in the process. Fortunately, the attempt had been in private without the servants there to observe. He had not tried again. Until this morning, when drink had emboldened him. But once again she had seemed to turn the tables on him.
Uncertain how to retreat without humiliation, he hovered in the doorway. He watched as her hand went to a book that lay at her elbow on the table. Ignoring him completely, she opened it and studied with a pious air. That it was not a religious text, but a commentary by the Arab Averroes on Plato, and expressed a view that women were equal in all ways to men, would be unknown to Alexander. Like many of his sort, he was illiterate. He hesitated only for a moment before sighing with exasperation and retreated back the way he had come. He had been defeated again but would not let it rest there. Before his half-brother returned, he was determined to have his revenge for all the times he had been bested by Ann Segrim.
As the evening of that day drew on, and the streets of Oxford began to empty of tradesmen and farmers, a curious sight was witnessed by old Peter Pady. He was one of the constable’s watchmen and, like Bullock himself, was advanced in years. In a town thronging with students, in a time when few toilers in the fields lived beyond their fortieth year, Peter – at sixty-one – was deemed a venerable old man. Aged he might be, but he was a sound man to stand at the East Gate and enforce the curfew. Peter Bullock chose his men carefully, with an eye to their experience and steadiness. Pady was a sober man, who took his job seriously. So he knew it was not excess of ale that caused the strange apparition lurching down the dusty road from the Cowley direction.
It could have been a tent except it was in motion. It was adorned with trinkets and scraps of parchment that hung from it, and jangled and fluttered as the apparition swung along. Atop the decorated brown tent affair was a yellow conical capping piece running up to a spike with a knob at the end. It was only when the apparition got closer to the astonished Peter Pady that the cone shape tilted backwards, and a face emerged. It was a dark and dusty face with long locks and a black beard hiding most of it, but a face nevertheless. The brown tent that was a man stopped in front of the watchman and, as if by magic, a smaller figure emerged from behind the first. It too was similarly burdened. The larger of the two travellers spoke in pass
able English.
‘Is the town closed, sir, or may I enter?’
Peter Pady was of a circumspect nature and, not being sure what or who this vision was, he erred on the safe side.
‘Closed,’ was his gruff reply. Just at that moment, the sound of a galloping horse came from the same direction the tent had come. The thunder of hooves increased with the same alacrity as the cloud of dust that accompanied the urgent rider. Peter pushed the foot traveller aside and stood nervously in the track. As the rider came closer, he saw that whoever it was did not mean to stop. His cloak billowed behind him and large saddle bags flapped maniacally on the horse’s flanks. Pady had meant to halt the horseman in the same way he had stopped the traveller, but discretion and self-preservation took over. He stepped sharply aside, pushing back the traveller and his little familiar at the same time.
‘Look out!’
The horseman bore down on the group, and with a flapping of robes and clatter of weapons galloped past. Sweat from the overridden destrier splattered over them and dust flew up in a cloud, but Pady recognized the rider. It was Sir Humphrey Segrim of Botley, apparently back from the Holy Lands. And was, by the pale and petrified look on his face, being chased by a demon from Hell. Pady only recovered himself just in time to stop the swarthy foot-travellers from sneaking into Oxford in Segrim’s wake. He did so by swinging the gate in their faces. The taller one with the conical hat reeled back and cried out.
‘What’s this? The town was open for that rider, why not us?’
Pady bristled.
‘Because he is a knight and a landowner here. And you are… well, I don’t know what you are.’
‘I am a saviour of souls and a bringer of cures. That’s what I am.’
The man’s bold stance made Pady even more suspicious and he closed the gate firmly, drawing the bolt across. Only the wicket-gate stood open and he leaned through it to give his response.
‘And a Jew, if I’m not mistaken. So you can wait outside the gate till tomorrow. Then we will see.’
The seller of cures cursed under his breath and turned to his little familiar.
‘Come, boy, we will camp out in the cemetery. We’ve done it before, and it is most comfortable and dry to have a tomb for a bed.’
Pady watched as the two of them walked across the road to where the Jews’ cemetery was located close by East Gate. He crossed himself.
‘I knew they wasn’t of this world. They’ll find company with their own kind, I reckon.’
He wasn’t quite sure himself if he meant by that merely with other Jews, even if they were dead, or with similar unholy souls that he knew roamed the graveyard after dark. To be on the safe side, he closed the wicket-gate and barred that too.
Despite being only a few miles from home, and at the end of a long, exhausting journey from the Holy Lands, Sir Humphrey Segrim secreted himself in the Golden Ball Inn in the centre of Oxford. The innkeeper, Peter Halegod, had been puzzled by Segrim’s desire for a room, and by his fearful demeanour. The ageing knight had appeared in his doorway, his clothes travel-stained and the hair on his balding, bare head in disarray.
‘Halegod! A room and don’t tell anyone I am here. Understand?’
‘Certainly, sir. I have plenty of room with times as hard as they are at present.’ He looked at Segrim, who stood before him with only a saddlebag slung over one shoulder. Out in the yard, he could see Segrim’s horse being handled by his ostler, but no evidence of further baggage. Hadn’t the man just returned from Outremer? ‘Where is your baggage, sir? Have you travelled light?’
Segrim, who had ridden hard, spurring his destrier ever onwards, had outstripped his new servant Osbert Smith for once. He wondered if he would ever see his armour again, but the need for urgency had been compelling. The sight of the Templar in Berkhamsted had terrified him. It was as if the man was more a demon than a human being, who knew exactly where Segrim was by some sort of necromancy. And death and mayhem followed wherever the Templar went. Lord Richard’s death was further proof of that. He squinted suspiciously at Halegod.
‘Never you mind about that, man. Just show me to my room, and keep your mouth shut.’
Halegod had a mind to turn the discourteous knight away, such was his rudeness, but business was business and it had truly been poor of late. Muttering about the wheel of fate’s downward turn and having to put up with ungrateful wretches, Peter Halegod led Segrim to his best room. He would have his revenge by making him pay through the nose for his night’s stay.
SIX
On the Sunday of that week, the bells of Oxford’s many churches called the good citizens to prayer as normal. The Franciscans and the Dominicans both had their own friaries in the town, and the friars had been long up and about their devotions when Falconer rose bleary-eyed from his bed. For those in holy orders proper, the day began at midnight with Matins and Lauds, though the monks and friars were then allowed back to bed until daybreak. That was the first Mass of the day for them, followed by breakfast. Falconer’s day was altogether more congenial, even though Regent Masters and students of the university were also nominally in holy orders themselves. Falconer yawned and splashed some cold water in his face from the bowl one of his students had left outside his door. His black robe, when he pulled it on, felt damp and his boots chilly, and he hurried down the creaky stairs to the communal hall where he hoped someone had managed to stir the fire into a semblance of life.
Unfortunately, all he found was a pile of cold ashes. He ventured to the back of the hall, where a ramshackle arrangement of wood and cheap cloth divided off the sleeping areas. In there were small cubicles with bedsteads provided by the abbey landlord. The rest of the bedding was the students’ responsibility to provide. Falconer poked his head in Peter Mithian’s cell. It was he whose duty it was that week to arise first. He must have done so as the regent master’s water had been outside his door. But clearly tiredness had overtaken the clerk again as soon as he had performed that early duty. He lay on a bare plank bed innocent of any mattress. On the floor around him were scattered two books, a candlestick bearing the nub of a candle, a gimlet, a hornpipe and a wooden spoon. Amongst all these, his worldly possessions, Mithian was fast asleep. Falconer stirred him with his boot.
‘Get up and pay your way, boy,’ he grumbled. The few shillings Falconer earned annually in fees for teaching were supplemented by the commons paid for ten or a dozen students lodging in Aristotle’s Hall. But even after he had paid his landlord, Oseney Abbey, its rent, the money didn’t stretch very far. Especially as Falconer took a few poor students on who had a begging licence from the university. Their passage through the university was made possible by working for the richer students and living off their scraps. Peter Mithian was one of those beggar clerks, and though Falconer hated it, he needed to keep the boy up to the mark. He would find no other way out of his poverty and needed his qualifications.
Peter Mithian yawned, stretched, then realized who had roused him and why. Blushing deeply across his chubby, boyish features, he scrambled off his bed.
‘I am sorry, master. I was conning my texts until the early hours with a candle Tom gave me.’
Tom Youlden was one of the rich students in Falconer’s hall. His generosity, however, seemed not to run to providing a mattress for Peter. Falconer was mortified that he had not noticed before that one of his charges was sleeping on bare boards.
‘Where is your mattress, Peter? Did you not have one when you came?’
Mithian cast his eyes to the ground and mumbled some words Falconer did not understand.
‘What, boy? Speak up.’
‘I sold it to buy these books.’ He snatched the two precious books up from the floor where they had fallen when he had finally lost his battle with staying awake the night before. Falconer gently took them from his grasp and examined them. One was the Topics of Boethius and the other Priscian’s De constructione – both basic texts for the clerks at university. He carefully gave them back to Peter.
‘You should have come to me. I can lend you any books you may want. And as for the mattress, I believe there is an old one in the shed in the yard. It will need mending and airing by the fire, mind. And talking of the fire, you had better get last night’s embers going before we all freeze to death.’
Peter Mithian responded to Falconer’s final peremptory tones and scuttled from his cubicle to attend to his duties. Meanwhile, the regent master foraged for himself and found some dry bread that he moistened with ale from the barrel in the hall. With the fire downstairs not yet providing any heat, he retreated to his own solar, wrapping himself in the still-warm blanket from his bed until such time as the sun struck through the window and warmed the room. Behind him, high on his perch, his owl, Balthazar, ruffled its feathers and stared impassively down. Night-time was its time for activity, and the day was for sleeping.
‘You are lucky, bird. You can sleep the day away wrapped in your own down blanket while others have to toil for a living.’
Falconer’s grumble was interrupted by a tentative knock at his door. He called out for whoever it was to come in. Peter Mithian poked his head round the door, a scared look in his eyes. He didn’t like inflicting his presence on the regent master, preferring to remain unnoticed. By doing so, he was less likely to be picked on when it came to awkward questions about logic and grammar. But this morning had put him in the full light of day, so he had decided to take advantage of Falconer’s offer.
‘Master, I need also to read the new logic of Aristotle…’
Falconer sighed, seeing he was to get no peace today.
‘Come in, boy. You need to read Sophistici elenchi. Look, it is over there beside the chimney breast.’
He pointed out a toppling stack of his most cherished books and papers. At the bottom of the heap, less used because they were the approved texts, were to be found books such as the rather dull Historia Scholastica. Falconer’s more esoteric and well-thumbed works lay on the top, amongst them works by the Arab mathematician Al-Khowarizmi, medical works of Galen and a geography text called De Sphaera Mundi. The boy tiptoed across the cluttered room, marvelling at the strange collection of objects on the large central table that dominated the space. Animal bones jostled with dried plants and stones which had weird shapes inscribed on their surfaces. Two scrolls lay open, their edges held down with pebbles and a rusty dagger. He could not decipher the writing on them.