Falconer and the Great Beast

by Ian Morson

  ‘Bellasez. Are you there? It's me, Jehozadok.’

  There was no reply, and the house felt cold. So cold.

  Bullock drew his battered sword and strode after the rearguard of the student mob. The edge of the sword was no longer sharp and well-honed, as it had been in his soldierly days. Indeed, it was jagged and snaggle-toothed, with notches all along its length. But that didn't matter – Bullock normally brought only its broad, flat surface into use these days. Swung lustily across someone's arse, it was a salutary and stinging reminder of who was in charge in Oxford. Across someone's skull, it would quieten the more recalcitrant of offenders, who would next wake up in the constable's uncomfortable and smelly cell at the foot of St George's Tower with a powerfully sore head.

  He thrust the blade between the pretty mincing legs of some extravagantly dressed youth, whose lack of desire for the physical aspects of an affray had kept him well to the rear of the mob. The boy tripped and fell, bloodying his nose on the hard ground. Bullock grunted in satisfaction as the blood spurted all over the youth's bright green doublet with its fashionably slashed sleeves, ruining it. He stepped over the ashen-faced youth and went in pursuit of another knot of back-markers. Swinging his blade judiciously from left to right, he soon reduced the number of agitators by a dozen or so, as shamefaced and sore-arsed youths scuttled away. He was now amongst the core of the mob, and knew these would be harder to deflect from their purpose. He would have to seek out the ringleader, and deal with him. Then the rest would soon disperse before they encountered less considerate opposition in the form of the Tartar soldiers.

  At the head of the mob, illuminated by the torches held aloft by others, strode a tall, well-built youth with greasy, lank hair. As he turned to encourage those around him, Bullock saw he had an eruption of boils around his neck and chin that made his jaw look raw in the flickering light. But, more importantly, he was holding a bow in his left hand, an arrow already held in place with his crooked finger. Bullock growled, and tried to push his way through the jeering students. But the more he elbowed them aside, the more they jostled him, and he could see the raw-faced youth at their head pulling the bow-string back. The constable swung the flat of his sword left and right, careless of whether he broke skin or bone, but it was like ploughing through a tangled thicket. He saw the tremor of tension in the youth's elbow as he held the bowstring taut. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement at the entrance to the biggest of the two remaining Tartar tents – the one he and Falconer had just recently left. A stooping figure emerged from the tent. Bullock saw it was Guchuluk, and he cried out a warning. The youth let go of the bowstring, and the arrow flew on its way.

  Falconer was not sure what he might find in the House of Converts. The two mysterious deaths still had puzzling aspects to them, which seemed to point down blind alleys. If he could only find David and stop him from doing anything foolish, he felt he might begin to extricate himself from this maze. There were several pertinent questions he wanted to ask of a number of people, and then he might be in a position to substantiate his suspicions. For now, they were nothing more than that – suppositions based on an incomplete collection of truths, some of which conflicted with each other. For now, he would have to be content with protecting the life of one of his more unreliable witnesses.

  Hurrying across Carfax, he almost collided with a scrawny child who scuttled under his feet like the rats that infested La Boucherie, the end of the High Street where the butchers plied their trade. He grabbed the child's tattered shirt and pulled him round. Like the rats, the child had obviously been scavenging for the scraps of fat and bone that the butchers left behind them. He was carrying a sack whose dubious contents stank, but he clutched it to his bosom as though it were full of gold. He turned his weasely face towards Falconer, then spat at the startled scholar. Shocked, Falconer let the urchin go, and watched as he scurried off into the darkness like any other rodent.

  Falconer shook his head sadly, and, wiping his face clean, crossed Carfax to the top of Fish Street where the House of Converts stood. The door was wide open, and he stepped cautiously in, listening for the slightest sound. For a moment he could hear nothing, then an eerie keening pierced the silence. It came from the top of the stairs, and Falconer leaped up the rickety structure towards the sound, fearful of what he might find. What he had not expected was to encounter Jehozadok, but the kneeling figure at the top of the stairs was the rabbi, without a doubt. He was bent over a bundle in his arms, his head thrown back, and his features set in a mask of despair. As his keening wail cut Falconer to his heart, the regent master realized that Jehozadok was cradling Bellasez's head in his gnarled hands. And the bald, mottled pate was covered in blood.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They shall go through the country, and whenever one of them sees a human bone he shall put a marker beside it, until it has been buried in the Valley of Gog's Horde. So no more shall be heard of that great horde, and the land will be purified.

  Ezekiel 39: 15–16

  The day dawned already hot and humid. An evil humour seemed to hang over Oxford, filling the air with a heaviness that sat oppressively on everyone's shoulders. A layer of haze enveloped the town like a blanket, holding the stench of nightsoil, rotting food and unwashed bodies in the narrow lanes and alleys. Not a breath of wind stirred the stinking brew, and the noxious airs filled the nostrils, and lodged stickily in the chest. Even the sewage channels that ran down Oxford's main streets seemed to be choked and turbid, the gutters hardly carrying out their function of conveying the town's wastes into the river and away. It was all conducive to bad temper and bitter argument, and though the sun was barely over the battlements Stephen Wytton, a goldsmith, had already beaten his wife senseless because she spilled ale on his new cap. And Gerard de Somerby, a sophister at the university after two years of study, had plunged a knife into the fleshy upper arm of a fellow student at Little Black Hall in Schools Street, because he had disputed the truth of de Somerby's assertion that a line is made up of a number of unextended points. Taking the view of Bishop Grosseteste that the opposite was true may have been old-fashioned, but it did not warrant such a murderous attack. Fortunately de Somerby's opponent in sophistry lived to share a drunken revel with him that same evening. Stephen Wytton's wife had to stay indoors and away from the prying eyes of neighbours until the bruises subsided.

  For William Falconer, the morning was to bring unusual clarity, though it had not seemed like that at the onset. He had been lying awake, tossing and turning in the oppressive heat, and thinking of all that had happened recently. Most of all he thought of Bellasez. If only he had not been held up by the student mob, he might have been in time. However, one matter had resolved itself as a result of de Ewelme's little diversion. It had come about when Bullock had come to him the previous evening after he had returned, disconsolate, to Aristotle's Hall, and insisted he accompany him back to the Tartar camp.

  He was not in the mood for mysteries, but the constable would not tell him why he had to leave the city in the dead of night for the uncertain pleasures of the northern meadows. When they got there, the perimeter of the camp was guarded by a stonyfaced Sigatay and his men. No more foolish students were going to disturb Guchuluk and his entourage, and it was only by dint of some vigorous hand gestures and hard stares that Bullock got them through to the main tent. Then Falconer understood. An arrow had been fired during the riot – by Miles Bikerdyke, whom Bullock now had in his cell – and it had lodged in the Tartar tent, missing Guchuluk by a fair margin.

  ‘Look,’ said Bullock, pointing at the arrow embedded in the hard, blackened felt of the tent. It hung limply where it had struck, the head having gone through the material, but with most of the shaft still visible. ‘There is no way that an arrow fired from the outside could have penetrated this material and still have had enough force to kill Chimbai. It must have been fired through the opening, and that means Sigatay must have been lying. He must have seen the archer … or been the
archer.’

  Bullock looked at Falconer in triumph at solving the mystery. But, by now, Falconer was deep in thought, and appeared to have ignored his friend's last comment. Not that he had by any means – he was merely trying to recall something he had been told about Chimbai's body. Something that didn't square with what Bullock was surmising. Something he had been told, which at the time he had thought inconsequential. Taken with the new information about the arrow's trajectory, it pointed to a greater truth. If only he could remember what it was.

  Now, back in his solar in the early morning, the puzzle buzzed around his head like an annoying house fly, constantly distracting him, and preventing him from ordering his thoughts logically. Suddenly it came to him: Guchuluk had unwittingly revealed the truth when he had told Falconer how Chimbai's body was found before it was brought out of the tent. This fact, and the impossibility of an arrow being able to penetrate the material of the tent, did away once and for all with the theory of a superhumanly accurate archer standing far off. But, this being so, the maddening question returned of how someone had got into and out of the tent without being seen. It demanded that he ask a whole lot more questions, or it would remain there, mocking everything he had assumed until now about Chimbai's death – and everything that had happened since. He lay back on the bed, his head cupped in his clasped hands, and stared at the cracked and dusty ceiling. The only conclusion he could come to with the facts he had available was impossible to conceive of, and it brought to mind Bacon mocking the falseness of his ‘all murderers are bloodied' syllogism.

  Fortunately, his disordered and feverish thinking was disturbed by a youthful messenger who told him that ‘his favourite student' awaited his tutelage. More than a little puzzled, and befuddled by the oppressive heat of the new day, he had asked where, and indeed who, this student might be. The youth's eyes twinkled, but he refused to be drawn on the identity of the person whose strange message he was carrying. He said that all he was allowed to say was that it concerned ‘the great beast'. Realization dawned for Falconer, and he quickly donned his robe and boots and trotted across the wakening city to where the elephant was stabled.

  The smell of the hot and windless city had been strong, but as soon as he came into the vicinity of the stables below St George's Tower, he was aware of a terrible odour that assailed the senses and churned the stomach. It was the scent of death, and, though it was enough to drive him away, Falconer took a deep breath, opened the stable door and stepped inside. Ann Segrim, apparently undeterred by the smell, knelt before the inert bulk of the great beast, stroking the long trunk that stretched out before her. The last time Falconer had seen the elephant it had been weak, its breathing stertorous. Now the flesh had shrunken on the massive frame, so that every ponderous bone was visible. Barely a whisper of breath disturbed the straw that lay around its mouth, but it was still alive. Ann turned round and there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘I am glad you still consider yourself my favourite student. I had thought your course of study had come to an end.’ Falconer stood over Ann, awkward and embarrassed. She smiled up at him weakly.

  ‘I think there is still much for me to learn.’

  Falconer responded gruffly. ‘And for me. I only wish you were free to … pursue your studies more frequently. But I know you have duties as Humphrey's wife, and you cannot be in two places at once.’

  Ann sighed. ‘Would that I could. Perhaps I can make time stand still.’

  It was then Falconer suddenly had the answer to his impossible question, and he marvelled at why he had not seen it before. He knew then who had killed Chimbai, and it only remained to draw a confession out of the man's lips. He thought of the strategies that were open to him, swiftly discarding the one Bullock might have favoured of a good beating. A scholar required a more subtle approach, and he recalled mention of the Tartar mangudai – the suicide troops who lured Christendom's knights to their doom. Then he knew what he had to do.

  Ann Segrim recognized the faraway look in Falconer's eyes, and knew better than to disturb him. Falconer hated his train of deduction being broken, and with their friendship only newly mended, she dared not try its strength. In the end it was the dying beast that, in its innocence, broke the spell. A great sigh escaped the lips of the elephant, and William and Ann both looked down at it.

  ‘There really was no hope for it, you know,’ he murmured. ‘Out of its proper place in nature, it was nothing more than a freak.’ ‘I hope you are referring to the elephant, and not us as master and student.’

  Falconer cast a startled look at Ann, and guffawed when he saw a twinkle in her eye. She joined in his laughter, then moved towards the door, stepping gracefully through the filth.

  ‘Now I must go, before Humphrey's steward wonders why it is taking even me so long to choose a new silver ring.’

  ‘And I must speak to Roger Bacon about what he has hidden in that tower of his.’

  Ann Segrim frowned. ‘Talking science? I thought you were intent on unearthing the killer that is loose in Oxford.’

  Falconer smiled secretively. ‘I am.’

  A cooling breeze blew along the river Thames and in through the window arch of Roger Bacon's tower room. So, though the same breeze brought with it the sickly sweet smell of the raw sewage that ran into the river from the town, the room was a comfortable retreat from the heat of the day for Falconer. He sat back on Bacon's narrow cot, wiping the sweat from his brow. Bacon, as usual, was up to his elbows in papers that lay scattered around him on his rickety table. Each time he leaned forward to search for another document, the table creaked ominously and threatened to tip Bacon and his precious papers unceremoniously on to the floor. Each time, he leaned back and no disaster occurred. The whole room seemed a chaos of confusion to Falconer, but Bacon appeared to be able to lay his hands on precisely what he wanted.

  ‘Listen to this.’ He produced a single sheet of parchment from under a pile at his left hand. ‘I copied it from notes handed me by Robert the Englishman:

  The method of making such a clock would be this, that a man make a disc of uniform weight in every part so far as possibly could be done. Then a lead weight should be hung from the axis of that wheel, so that it would complete one revolution from sunrise to sunrise, minus as much time as about one degree rises according to an approximately correct estimate.’

  Bacon snorted. ‘Approximately! The man is evidently no mathematician or he would not use such an abhorrent term as approximately.’

  ‘But this horologium device – this clock. Can it truly be made?’ asked Falconer.

  ‘Can it? Of course. I have made it. Didn't I tell you? It does not work now, because the crucial part – the wheel – is missing. You were here when I told you I had lost it and could not get a replacement.’

  He gestured towards the structure that stood in the gloomiest corner of his room, relegated to obscurity now it no longer functioned. It was a curious tangle of toothed wheels, etched dials and cords, suspended on a crude metal frame. Bacon preferred to call it his ‘astrarium', claiming it could predict the course of the sun and moon, or the fixed stars, and foretell the rise and fall of the tides.

  ‘If only I could get another wheel made, I could show you how I can also make it ring a bell as regularly as vespers in a monastery.’

  Falconer smiled in quiet satisfaction. ‘That is what I hoped you would say. And it leads me to suggest another experiment to you.’

  Bacon listened with mounting curiosity as Falconer expounded his theory, and how Bacon could help him prove it. When Falconer finished speaking, Bacon paused for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘I will do it.’

  ‘Good. Now you must excuse me – I have to speak with someone else, and urgently.’

  The room in Torold's Lane carried the unsavoury aromas of previous occupants, some of whom, it seemed, could not control their bladders. As Guillaume de Beaujeu's asceticism had its limits, and he no longer needed to hide away, he decided to clear his head in the
open air. His aimless wanderings took him along the top of the city walls towards East Gate as he tried to catch the transitory breeze that wafted across from the River Cherwell on Oxford's eastern boundary. What he had been asked to do was curious in the extreme, and he could not fathom the reasoning behind it. This was most irksome to him, as he was used to controlling and shaping events himself, not being the pawn in someone else's chess game, whose strategy he could not understand.

  He sighed and leaned on the rough stone of the battlements, feeling the warmth embedded there by the day's hot sun on his bare arms. He still wasn't sure if he was betraying the Grand Master and the risk he had been entrusted with. Once again he pulled the two documents from his pouch. The old one crackled under his fingers and he reread the text, though he could almost recite it without looking, so many times had he unfolded it:

  By the power and virtue of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings, know I am the greatest monarch under the Heavens. Seventy-two kings are under my rule, and my empire extends to the three Indias, including Farther India, where lies the body of Saint Thomas. In my dominions are the unclean nations whom Alexander Magnus walled up amongst the mountains of the North, and who will come forth in latter days …