by Ian Morson
The Papal Legate was dyspeptic and out of sorts, and it was going to affect his meeting with the King. He had summoned his new doctor and the man had prescribed a medicine he was even now preparing. Bishop Otho belched loudly, the taste of the previous day's fish returning to his tongue, sour and metallic. He went to the door and was about to call impatiently for the doctor, when he saw him in conversation through an open door at the opposite end of the passage. He called the man, his English name unfamiliar on his tongue.
‘Hanyball, hurry now. The King is waiting for me.’
The doctor, a new recruit to the Legate's retinue in England, scurried up the passage, a pewter cup in his hands. The Bishop snatched it from him, and was about to swallow the decoction in one draught when he saw the look of apprehension in the man's eyes. Otho slowly lowered the cup from his lips, and sniffed its contents. The apprehension in the doctor's eyes turned to stark fear, and he made to leave. But before Hanyball could escape, Otho wrapped his beefy arm around the man's throat and tipped his head back.
‘Drink it yourself.’
The doctor's eyes almost popped out of his head and sweat trickled down his cheeks. He grunted and shook his head wildly. Otho pressed his fat fingers around the man's mouth, forcing his teeth apart. The doctor's gurgling protest was drowned in the drug pouring over his lips and down his chest. He coughed and some of the liquid shot out from between his teeth. Otho persevered, ensuring that at least some was swallowed despite every effort by the other man. Defeated, the doctor went limp and the Bishop released him from his stranglehold. Hanyball fell to his knees on the cold flagstones, his whole frame shuddering. In vain he tried to force his fingers down his own throat to vomit up the decoction. Before he could raise his hand to his lips, he lost control over his movements, tumbling backwards and cracking his head on the ground. His legs thrashed for a few seconds and a great gasp escaped his lips, then he lay still.
Bishop Otho stood over the body and rearranged his robes. He could not keep the English King waiting any longer, despite the attempt on his life. He would need to speak with his bodyguard about this later. Who had instigated the act? Who had the doctor been speaking to through the doorway, before Otho had summoned him? Silently he cursed his impetuosity which had resulted in the man's death. So much better to have kept him alive and tortured the truth from him. But first to see what Henry wanted.
The banquet proved to be a tedious affair for the Bishop, and inconclusive in uncovering the mind of King Henry. It was relieved only by one amusing event towards the end. First he and the King had been led to silver bowls of water, where they had washed their hands. At this point there had been too many servants hovering around for Otho to make any overtures, and it would have been unseemly to turn to business so soon. They were led to the table, placed high on a dais overlooking the other participants in the feast, all of them no doubt sycophants at the court of the King.
As each course was brought, the King's steward touched the King's portion with what he claimed to be the horn of a unicorn. This was supposed to protect the King from poisoning. Otho preferred the ministrations of his master of cooks, Sinibaldo, who was his own personal protection from such attempts on his life. Sinibaldo had supervised the preparation of the meal, and now hovered close behind his chair. Otho recalled the incident before his audience with the King, and resolved that Sinibaldo taste his medicine too.
After the soup came endless English stews, which were no different to Otho's palate from the soup that had gone before. Indeed, every course tasted of the same herbs and spices. This monotony was relieved only by the cooked heron that the King himself insisted on ritually carving - to the murmured approbation of his retinue. After the meats came various subtleties, including something the King referred to as a flathon. It pleased Otho and he asked Sinibaldo to discover its making. He later learned it was a simple custard made with milk and yolk of eggs and that rarest of commodities, sugar. This was poured into a pastry shape the English called a coffin. Sinibaldo's tasting made sure there was no prophecy in the shape. The final course was a range of confections made in the shape of beasts, each with the King's coat of arms on it.
Throughout the meal, Henry avoided any direct commitment to supporting Otho in his quest for the Papacy. Otho was becoming a little annoyed with the King, though he dare not show it. It therefore gave him pleasure when the King was discomfited by his jester. It happened this way. Throughout the meal various jongleurs had wandered in and out of the tables, but the King's own jester with his shaven head and parti-coloured jerkin had caused the most amusement. Flushed with his success, he approached the high table at the end of the banquet and spoke out loud.
‘Hear you, my masters. Our King is like unto our Lord Jesus Christ.’
The King, proud of his own piety, was flattered, and replied. ‘How so?’
‘Because our Lord was as wise at the moment of his birth as when he was thirty years old. Likewise our King is as wise now as he was when a little child.’
The jester cackled and shook his stick of bells at the King. He was the only one who laughed. Slowly a murmur of conversation filled the embarrassed void, and Otho smirked behind his beefy hand. Unfortunately, the King took it badly and rose from the table and left the hall, leaving behind a white-faced and trembling jester. The Bishop then realized he had lost the chance to pin the King down, and rued his own pleasure at Henry's discomfiture.
Humphrey Segrim knelt in the shadows cast by one of the great stone pillars supporting the arch of St Frideswide's Church. Outside, a rumble of thunder marked the gathering storm that threatened to break the oppressive heat of the day now ending. Inside, Segrim prayed that the storm clouds would keep any worshippers away. Oxford was a nest of idle gossip and he did not want to be seen speaking to the cleric he awaited. His head was bowed, his face cupped in his soft, white hands in the attitude of pious communion with his God. His thoughts, however, were elsewhere. As the cold stone flags struck through the cloth at his knees, he cursed the man's tardiness.
He raised his head up and gazed at the image over the altar. He uttered a silent prayer to the Almighty for the success of his enterprise. The future of his family fortunes rested in his hands. And that of his co-conspirator, who was late for his appointment. Then the slapping sound of leather on stone, echoing through the empty church, caused him to look round. Silhouetted against the weak and watery sun, shining through the open door to the nave, was the approaching figure of a cleric, his hood pulled over his head. Segrim squirmed to ease the ache in his knees and buried his face in his hands once again. He was aware the man had knelt by his side, and heard a murmured prayer. The voice, when it came, was strong and seemed to ring around the church.
‘I believe I can be of service.’
‘Yes, but keep your voice down.’
‘There is only the Lord to hear, and I have no secrets from Him.’
Segrim didn't doubt the cleric's sincerity. After all, that was why he was being used - in what he thought of as the Lord's work. He quickly explained the plan concerning Bishop Otho, who was due to arrive in Oxford in a day or two and would be sojourning in Oseney Abbey outside the walls of the city. The man listened intently as Segrim explained what it was necessary to do. Finally he produced what he saw as the crowning argument.
‘The King himself is concerned that this should come about. So I insist - the man must be killed and quickly.’
Chapter Two
It had taken William Falconer fully two days to reach Oxford. Much of the route was churned to mud, due to unseasonably wet weather. And towards the end of his journey, he had deferred to a faster moving retinue of horses and wagons belonging, he later learned, to the Papal Legate on his way to the same destination. After the passing of the vast household, the roadway was left rutted and muddy, slowing even more the funereal pace of his own hired nag.
He was at least safely home now, one month after leaving to look for Roger Bacon in Paris. He had resolved to find his old f
riend who had been spirited away from Oxford four years earlier by the Franciscan brotherhood to which he belonged. In that time a few scraps of second-hand information had come Falconer's way, brought by travellers and scholars from across the Channel. He was worried about what was being done to Bacon in the name of the Church. And the stories he was told lived up to his greatest fears. It was said that Bacon was denied any opportunity to carry on writing, indeed that he was forbidden access to any books and scientific instruments. Falconer feared this would all but kill his friend. He had warned him that the Church would not tolerate his views being so openly expressed, and that the Friar General would be forced to act. But Bacon was too engrossed in the search for knowledge to understand the workings of smaller minds - to his own misfortune.
Then, just three months ago, Falconer had been passed a scrap of paper by an itinerant jongleur. It bore the unmistakable script of his friend Roger Bacon. He read it eagerly but the cryptic note, obviously penned in haste, merely directed him to Brucius de Valle, a scholar at the University of Paris. Thus his last month had been spent in a hopeful trip to France, only to find that de Valle had no knowledge of the whereabouts of Roger Bacon. He explained he had merely been passed some papers by another scholar, who himself had known Bacon during his residency at the university.
These papers now lay in a scattered heap in front of Falconer. He was strangely hesitant to unfold them, as though they were some sacred text. Indeed he had spent the whole sorry trip back from France reluctant to examine the untidy bundle of papers, some with Bacon's own hand visible on their surface. Now the time had come to act, but still he first sat back from the table and scanned the chamber in which he sat, lit by the flickering flame of a tallow candle. His room in Aristotle's Hall was of sufficient size to contain his experiments, but afforded little space for his own comforts. To the left of the chimney breast was a toppling stack of his most cherished books and papers, where standard church works such as the Historia Scholastica were lost and buried under more used and well-thumbed texts of the Arab mathematician Al-Khowarizmi, medical works, and studies of geography such as De Sphaera Mundi. To the right of the fireplace were several jars of various sizes, some of which exuded strange aromas. Although Falconer no longer noticed this, they were the first thing most of his visitors commented on - much to his surprise. In one corner stood his bed, with a small chest at the foot of it - the repository of his worldly possessions. The centre of the room was occupied by a massive oaken table on which was piled a jumble of items, each of some significance in Falconer's scientific searchings. There were animal bones, human skulls, small jars of spices, carved wooden figures, bundles of dried herbs, stones that glittered, and lumps of rock sheared off to reveal strange shapes inside their depths. But now the table seemed dominated by the pile of papers formerly belonging to Friar Roger Bacon, known as ‘Doctor Admirabilis’.
Falconer had waited until the night had come, so that he would not be disturbed by the clerk-students in his care at Aristotle's Hall. Anyway it seemed strangely appropriate to open the bundle in the dead of night. Friar Bacon had pored over his own experiments mostly at night, by the light of an uncertain candle. He also did it to avoid disturbance, but had merely earned himself the reputation of a necromancer. Now Falconer was faced with the magician's treasure. With trembling hands, he unfastened the dirty ribbon that bound the pile of papers together and began to sift the documents. Many were pieces of paper torn from larger documents, with writing squeezed over every inch of the surface - mute testimony to Bacon's deprivation.
The first scrap that attracted his attention was covered with astronomical calculations. It predicted phases of the moon and movements of the sun, with specific times, days and hours for eclipses of those heavenly bodies. Falconer carefully set that to one side, noting that one eclipse prediction was for a few weeks hence. The next item that came to hand was a brief treatise on the power of words, in which Bacon asserted that there existed a means to compel others to act against their will in a kind of waking trance. He declared he had seen this used with certain esoteric passes of the hand and soothing words. Falconer was sceptical of this, but out of respect for his old friend he reserved his judgement. How he wished Bacon were still here so that he could discourse on such matters with the friar.
As he worked through the other papers he sorted them into mathematical treatises, alchemical works and notes on metaphysics. He hoped that one day Bacon would be allowed to expand on his theories and record them fully for other scholars. The thought that he held all that would be left of the man's compendious mind for future generations filled him with horror, not least because he knew he would not fully understand all that was written on the papers in front of him.
He lifted up one sheet of paper that was covered with writing. He had been fascinated at first sight by what was contained in it, but delayed giving it his close attention until he had sorted all the rest. Now he scanned what was written on it again in more detail.
It was lull of remarkable predictions, including one that Falconer attributed to wishful thinking, bearing in mind the friar's predicament. For he described an instrument ‘of the height and breadth of three fingers’ which could raise and lower weights immeasurably greater than itself. Thus, he explained, a man might free himself from prison by raising and lowering himself from a tower. Falconer was more taken by the description of conveyances. Bacon asserted that wagons might be made to move at incalculable speeds without the motive power of animals. That ships of unimaginable size might be made to move without sail or oar at the control of one man alone. And, more exciting for Falconer than all these, that a flying instrument might be made whereby a man, sitting in the middle of the machine, might beat with wings and fly like a bird. The friar believed all these things had been done of old, although he was unsure of the flying machine. This one notion had fired Falconer to endless experiment since Bacon had first carelessly mentioned it in conversation. To fly like a bird: Falconer could scarcely restrain the conjecture that sprung up in his imagination.
At that moment, there was a flurry of sound at the window arch, and through the opening as if in mockery of Falconer's thoughts hopped a barn owl, white and ghostly in the guttering candle flame.
‘Ah, Balthazar. Good hunting?’ questioned the Regent Master of his companion. The owl merely hopped on to his perch in the corner of the room and returned Falconer's stare with his disconcertingly human eyes. He was the best of companions for the Regent Master, all-knowing and unerringly terse in his responses to questioning. Falconer crossed tiredly to the open window arch and stared up at the blood-red moon. Perhaps Roger Bacon at this moment was staring at it too.
* * *
Someone much closer to William Falconer than Roger Bacon was gazing at the same moon. Bishop Otho, the Papal Legate to England, was pacing the bedchamber of his rooms in Oseney Abbey. The abbey stood in the middle of the water- meadows a half-mile to the west of Oxford, its yellowed stone walls like a reflection of those of the town. Narrow channels of water crisscrossed the meadows, and bone-chilling mists rose from their turgid surfaces. What ill-luck to be in this cold, wet land, remote from the Mediterranean warmth of Rome, at such a time. Remote too from the vultures hovering over His Holiness's bed. He should be in Rome promoting his cause as the successor to Alexander IV. In his absence he did not doubt that his rivals were already canvassing the cardinals. Guy de Foulques would be seeking support with large bribes and liberal promises of preferment. He almost howled at the moon in frustration, his bulbous nose pointed to the sky like the muzzle of a Roman wolf.
A soft knock at the door of his bedchamber revealed he had disturbed his secretary in the next room. The man never seemed to sleep and annoyed the Bishop with his fawning concern for the needs of his master. Otho sighed.
‘Yes, Boniface.’
The Savoyard poked his thin, pinched face around the door, an obsequious look on his face.
‘Forgive me, Holiness. I thought I heard a noise.�
�� He sniggered. ‘I could swear it was the howl of a wolf. Are there such creatures in these parts?’
Bishop Otho realized he must have indeed given voice to his frustrations, and forced himself to appear unconcerned. Relaxing for almost the first time since the attempt upon his life in London, he sank into the cushioned chair next to the fireplace. Despite the obnoxious nature of his secretary, he found him useful as a sounding board and explained his worries. Boniface nodded eagerly.
‘And yet, it may serve us well, being in England. King Henry is so anxious to please the Pope, whoever he may be, that I am sure he will support your candidature for the Papal Throne. He appears to be more than willing to bleed his people dry of money for anything that promotes the position of his family in the world. Or satisfies his finer religious feelings.’
He turned his weasel face to the Bishop, who sat slumped in the chair by the pale ashes of his bedchamber fire. The Bishop was clearly already imagining the papal crown on his brow. His eyes were staring into the far distance to a future he yearned to hold firm in his grasp. He recalled the copy of Henry's general letter to all abbots and priors in the counties of England that he had personally delivered to the Abbot of Oseney. He had been present when Henry had dictated it and recalled the phrases that rolled off the King's lips. Henry reminded the religious fraternity that they should ‘do honour to their prince, under whose protective wing they breathed freely’. Reminding them of his need to ‘incur considerable expense in the cause of the Crusades’, he humbly requested their help in meeting such expenses. Such a request could not be ignored, and much-needed coinage would flow into the channels of bribery that were required to make a pope.
