Falconer's Judgement

by Ian Morson

  Once Coksale had broken his silence, his story came brimming over, like the froth from a poorly tapped beer barrel. He was anxious to tell what had occurred and Falconer was as anxious to hear.

  The youth confirmed the events leading up to the pitched battle as he had seen them. The banter with the Bishop's bodyguard had been reasonable, until a janitor with a bowl of something hot had got excited about the students. He had thrown the contents of his bowl over a beggar, who he must have thought was one of the students. So far the story tallied with what Falconer had heard from the other students. But at this point Coksale hesitated. Falconer suddenly understood why he was in such fear for his life.

  ‘You saw who fired the arrow.’

  Coksale nodded and looked at the ground, his fingers kneading the last scrap of bread to a grey ball.

  ‘You must tell me.’

  Coksale looked Falconer in the eye, and explained. Several of the students carried weapons - that was nothing unusual in itself - and more than one had a bow and some arrows slung over his back.

  ‘But no one thought to use them, until the Bishop appeared at the door.’

  ‘The Bishop? I was told he was entertaining guests.’ Falconer had dismissed the others' suggestions that they might have seen the Bishop at the main door. It simply did not fit. But here was Coksale telling him the same story.

  ‘How did you know it was the Bishop?’

  ‘Because several of us had seen him arrive in Oxford earlier in the day. He had ridden down the High Street in full view of everyone.’

  Falconer restrained his disbelief and motioned for Coksale to continue.

  ‘When the janitor threw the water over the beggar, the Bishop laughed and that was when I saw him. John Gryffin, the Welshman.’

  Coksale said the Welshman seemed agitated by the Bishop's reaction, and pulled his bow from over his shoulder. He notched an arrow and let it fly just as the Bishop turned to go back in the guest hall. No one had seen it hit, and when the Bishop was spotted leaving the rear of the hall, Coksale had assumed the arrow had missed. It was only later the students had heard that someone had been killed.

  ‘It was an accident. It was the Bishop who was the target.’

  ‘You're sure you saw Bishop Otho at the door?’

  The youth was a picture of earnest honesty.

  "Yes. Of course he didn't have his papal robe on. But several of those who were with me saw him too, and named him.’ Coksale grinned ruefully. ‘Not very politely, as a simonist and a usurer.’

  Falconer smiled encouragingly, so Coksale asked him what to do.

  ‘I would go back to your lodgings now.’

  ‘But what about the hue and cry?’ Coksale glanced nervously at the doorway of the church as if afraid to leave its sanctuary.

  ‘I think you'll find they've taken all the culprits they wish to take. Just keep your head down over the next few days. And don't go upsetting any more Papal Legates.’

  Coksale stumbled his thanks and hastily left the church. Falconer listened to the echoes of his feet on the stone floor as he pondered what he had now learned. It could not have been the Bishop at the door, yet Coksale and the others said it was. If the man they saw was the master of cooks, then his turning his back on the melee in the courtyard could account for the arrow in his back. But there were other facts Falconer could not fit in with this theory. There were more truths to be collected yet. And now he knew it was a Welshman who fired the arrow, he was anxious to talk to the incarcerated students again. He could not recall speaking with one who had a Welsh accent, but he did remember someone who had remained seated in the corner of the cell throughout his interrogations. Perhaps this was the elusive bowman.

  The hour was now too late to return to the Great Keep. Peter Bullock would not thank him for being roused at such a time. He would have to return in the morning after his lectures had been dutifully delivered. He rose and stole out of the church, soon to be lost in the dank, swirling mist that filled the lane.

  After a few minutes, Guillaume de Beaujeu stepped from behind the heavy stone pillar that helped support the nave and gently eased his frozen muscles back to life.

  Chapter Six

  Regent Master Falconer's lectures were always well ttended. The early morning was set aside for so-called ordinary lectures, given by Masters. These required the students to listen like children being taught the Catechism. Cursory lectures, given by Masters and more junior members of the University, took place in the afternoon, and were much less formal and more disputatious. Whatever the hour, Master Falconer's lectures were anything but ordinary, by any meaning of the expression. Seduced by the philosophy of Aristotle, Falconer gave lectures on logic which revolved around the latest theories being discovered as the Greek's original texts were translated into Latin. For the students the extra pleasure was that the Church did not fully approve of Aristotle.

  This morning was no different from any other at one of the Master's lectures. The sun had barely crawled over the ramparts of the city, but his lecture room in the little back street behind the crumbling facade of St Mary's Church was crowded. Falconer was already in full flow. He spurned the raised dais on which the Regent Master was expected to sit, robed in fur-trimmed splendour and wearing the tufted biretta on his head. He preferred to squat on the narrow benches with his students, or pace up and down the aisles between, shooting questions at all and sundry. He was on his favourite topic.

  ‘The study of the natural sciences, zoology, botany, and alchemy, shows us that only by exact observation can we come to the attainment of truth. In the words of Abelard, a doctrine should not be believed simply because God has said it, but because we are convinced by reason it is so.’

  There was a buzz of excitement at this apparently heretical statement. Falconer smiled and softened it a little.

  ‘Of course if you wish to dispute this, go to doubting Thomas. I refer, of course, to Thomas Aquinas whose view is that philosophy - examining the natural order - and theology - examining the supernatural - are two different truths. And therefore need not contradict each other. Convenient, perhaps. Especially for such a conformist as Thomas. Now that is all you are getting today.’

  There was a general groan of disappointment from the students. As some began to voice their protest, Falconer shouted them down.

  ‘I have some exact observations to make of my own. So go away and think for yourselves.’

  As Hugh Pett shuffled past him in the queue of students leaving the room, Falconer tapped him on the shoulder and thrust the key to the room into his hand.

  ‘Lock up for me, Hugh. I'm in a hurry.’

  Hugh nodded his acquiescence, and Falconer pressed through the crowd of students, who stood back respectfully for the Master. Outside the Schools, he crossed the street and hurried west down the narrow lane opposite. His burly figure almost filled the space between the crudely built houses, which over his head seemed to lean across the lane and depend on their neighbour opposite for support. There were a few, poorer students' halls here - Hawk's and White's - but the area needed pulling down. Falconer wondered why people didn't build more in stone as they did in the Jewish quarter, although it was said the Jews built in stone only to prevent their houses being burned to the ground in times of trouble. Falconer didn't blame them, if that was the case. He crossed Northgate Street, the debris of yesterday's market still swirling in the light morning breeze, and plunged down another alley opposite.

  Finally, he emerged close under the high walls of the Great Keep. He hoped that Peter Bullock was up and about. He could be like a bear with a sore head when disturbed. But Falconer was impatient to interrogate the Welshman in Bullock's custody, and would brave a raging bear to satisfy his curiosity. Fortunately, he spotted the constable in the dingy courtyard as he approached. At least the man was not in bed and needing to be woken. But as he was about to hail his friend, Falconer noticed that the heavy oaken door to the cell was open wide. And no students were visible.
/>   ‘What's happened? Where are your prisoners?’

  ‘You're too late.’ Bullock's leathery face wore a grim smile. ‘They've been taken to Wallingford. And no doubt thence to London.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  Bullock took Falconer's arm and led him inside. Once seated in Bullock's sparsely furnished room, and taking up the offer of a fresh flagon of ale, Falconer was told the events of the early hours of the morning. Bullock had been disturbed soon after midnight, as far as he could estimate it, by an insistent knocking on his street door. Cautiously opening it with his trusty club in his hand, he had been confronted with a small troop of soldiers. A haughty man, who claimed himself to be the Earl de Warenne, and who had been the one trying to knock his door down, abruptly demanded the students be handed over to his custody. Over Bullock's protests, he had produced a document with the seal of the King on the bottom. Reluctantly, Bullock had roused the sleepy students and they had been unceremoniously loaded on to a cart drawn up beneath the tower.

  ‘The last I saw of them, they were disappearing in the direction of South Gate.’

  Falconer cursed and unrolled the King's scroll that Bullock had offered as proof of his story. The seal did indeed bear the King's arms, but many people in his service could have used it. But then, why should he doubt that this was a simple move by the King to punish the University? Why should he suspect some underhand means of preventing him finding the truth? He laughed wryly at his foolish sense of self- importance. No, this was ill-timed for him, but still a straightforward movement of prisoners. Or so he thought, until Bullock added some disturbing information.

  ‘Of course, it was only then that I saw riding with the soldiers there was a civilian. And he seemed to be more in charge than the so-called Earl. Unfortunately he was too well wrapped in his cloak for me to see him clearly.’

  It was Brother Peter Talam's duty that morning to work in St John's Hospital. This was a long, low-roofed building with a prominent tower situated outside East Gate. The main part of the hospital was quite new, dwarfing the crude little structure that had been simply a place for the poor and needy to die. It had started with Ralph Harbottle's predecessor as abbot. He had discovered a treasure-house of medical books at Oseney, and had encouraged the study of medicine by his brethren. Soon, leeching the monks had become a regular practice to encourage a healthy regime at the abbey. On becoming abbot, Ralph himself had wished to continue the regime, but was desirous of benefiting the greater community as well as the monastic one. First he enlarged the hospital, and then employed an elderly medicus with compendious knowledge of herbal cures to work at St John's. Now the hospital was rededicated to people requiring ‘to recover their health and necessity’. The care of lepers was largely left to St Bartholomew's, which boasted a saintly relic - a piece of Saint Bartholomew's skin - as remedy. Strictly speaking, monastic vows and the fiat of Pope Alexander III forbade the practice of medicine by monks outside the abbey. But most brothers were expected to render assistance at the hospital. Today Talam had ensured it was his turn, as he had a reason of his own to visit the hospital. Hurrying down the High Street, he pondered on his next move with the Papal Legate. His plans to prevaricate over the exact sums due from the abbey had paid off unexpectedly due to the murder. Should he expect the man to return and demand his dues? Or could he now expect him to have been permanently scared off? Whatever course of action Bishop Otho took, he must prepare himself for the worst.

  Once through East Gate, Talam had only a short distance to go. The hospital was sited a safe and sanitary distance from the gates of the city. Its only near neighbour was the Jewish cemetery, and no one there was going to worry about the diseased inmates of St John's. Entering through the main door, Talam hurried through the lofty hall, divided into small wooden cubicles behind whose doors the moans of the infirm and dying were contained. He rushed past the stench of the latrine block and knelt at the altar of the end chapel, offering up a mumbled prayer. To the left of the chapel was the small structure that had been the old hospital before its considerable enlargement. He had argued with Ralph Harbottle about the expense of such a project. But the Abbot was amassing his store of good works for the day he entered heaven, and insisted on the new building.

  Peter Talam closed the door behind him, and breathed a sigh of relief. He could not bear the interminable noises the suffering made, and preferred to carry out his duties in this small room. Along one wall were serried ranks of jars and boxes that held the herbs and other remedies used by the medicus of the hospital. Talam was a little suspicious of the treatments used by the old man in some cases. The medicus seemed still to believe in fairies, and such symptoms as livid fingernails and watery eyes he persisted in diagnosing as something he was fond of calling water-elf. The remedy involved incantations. However, the old man did resort to many herbal cures whose efficacy Talam was witness to, and he had learned valuable skills over the years. He had also learned to handle the herbs with care, as many of them had powerful effects - some more deadly than curative. He read along the shelves - henbane, calvewort, horehound, verbena, clover, celandine, mandrake, woodruff, dill, gorse. He could not find what he sought and poked amongst the boxes on a lower shelf. The well-worn labels proclaimed more ancient remedies - badger's teeth, hare's gall, wolf hair. These were no good to him, and he returned to the shelves of herbs. There he found it, hidden behind jars of yarrow and rue. The label read 'foxglove’. He just managed to hide the jar in his purse before the elderly medicus shuffled into the room to prepare his potions. Talam pottered around for a while, then made his excuses and left. He had much to do that day.

  Peter Bullock wished he had not been persuaded by Master Falconer to accompany him to Wallingford. The journey was barely ten miles, but Bullock was no horseman. They had not long left East Gate, turning south to skirt Cowley Marsh, and his arse was already sore. And the dry weather had soon turned the muddy tracks into dusty cratered obstacle courses. He was glad at least that Falconer had selected a docile nag for him. If the Master kept his interrogations short, they would be back to Oxford before dark. Surely the matter would not take long - it was madness to contemplate travelling the countryside after the sun had set.

  He hacked along a few yards behind Falconer, who seemed much more at home on horseback. Bullock was not surprised by any of the man's accomplishments. Since they had met over a row between a snotty student and a penny- pinching baker, Bullock had learned little about the past of the man. But he did know that Falconer's practical knowledge seemed endless, and that he could turn his hand skilfully to things other Masters of the University disdained.

  His wandering thoughts were brought back to earth as he almost rode his nag into the rear of Falconer's horse. They had reached the village of Nuneham, and Bullock assumed Falconer was uncertain of his way.

  ‘The route to Wallingford is straight on.’

  Falconer smiled.

  ‘I know. But while we are so near Abingdon, I think I will crave an audience with My Lord Bishop.’

  Bullock groaned, and saw their chances of returning to Oxford the same day receding into the mists. Falconer spurred his horse into action and turned down the track that led to Abingdon. Bullock was mystified how the Regent Master was going to gain access to the Bishop, but was quite prepared to assume he could.

  In fact it turned out to be simple. Once they had entered the main courtyard of the old abbey where the King kept his royal chambers, Falconer whispered in the ear of the surly steward who approached the dusty travellers. The man commanded them to stay where they were, but soon returned with a different look on his face. He obsequiously beckoned Falconer up the steps to the main entrance door, thrusting his horse's reins at Bullock. He clearly took the older man for Falconer's servant, and expected him to wait outside. Falconer shrugged an apology to Bullock and followed the steward. Bullock decided he might as well benefit from his temporary demotion and went in search of the kitchens.

  Falconer, meanwhile
, was led down a long corridor opulently hung with richly coloured tapestries. His footsteps echoed on the tiled floor, and he half expected the King himself to emerge from one of the many doors that opened on to the corridor. He began to wonder if he were out of his depth here. Suddenly he was being ushered through a door at the end of the corridor, and found himself confronted by a thin, scruffily dressed man with the face of a trader who has just found a counterfeit coin in his takings. This could not be the Papal Legate. Perhaps he was not going to be allowed to see the Bishop after all.

  Just as the acid-faced man started a whining interrogation of Falconer's credentials, a large figure emerged from the inner door of the chamber and cut him off.

  ‘Please, Boniface, I do not have time for all this.’

  The large man clasped Falconer's arm and led him into the inner room. There he drew him over to two seats arranged in the window. Falconer looked round but the secretary had already discreetly withdrawn.

  ‘You say you are an emissary from the Chancellor of the University with news of the killing.’

  The Bishop had a distinctly Roman accent, but a good command of the language. To Falconer he appeared genuinely anxious to hear some news. This proved awkward, as he had none to give. His feigned position was created on the spur of the moment to gain him entry. As he attempted to say much and at the same time very little to the Bishop, he studied the man. His florid face and bulbous nose reminded him of someone he had seen recently. It was only when he came to the end of his fairytale of a report that he was stunned into realizing he had last seen the Bishop's features face down in a sea of blood and spoilt food. Otho bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead master of cooks.

  ‘You bring me some comfort that my brother's death will be avenged. Of course I would not expect less of your King.’