Falconer's Trial

by Ian Morson

  When Peter had arrived at Godstow, he was first ushered into Cornish’s presence by Saphira Le Veske. She had taken control of the situation well, even forbidding the prioress from doing anything to Margaret’s body before the arrival of the constable. How she had managed that, Bullock did not know, but Gwladys’s face was thunderous. She had also made Cornish return to his office to await the constable. The man was quite subdued, and Bullock could see he had not coped well with what had happened around him. After blaming himself for not seeing Marie’s distress before her death, this second incident had obviously hit him hard. He had hardly been able to look Bullock in the eyes.

  ‘She more or less admitted to me that she was responsible in some way for Marie’s death. Though I could not get her to say exactly why. Either she killed her, or she gave her the potion that helped end her life. But she did say quite clearly that she killed Ann Segrim with arsenic, as she was scared that she would be accused by Mistress Segrim of Marie’s murder. She was a very disturbed child.’

  ‘If she told you she was the killer, why did you do nothing about it?’

  Ralph sat up and looked Bullock in the eyes for the first time in their conversation.

  ‘I did. I did what was necessary. I told her to return to her cell and pray for forgiveness. Then I examined my own conscience, trying to decide if I should tell anyone about her confession.’

  Bullock was outraged.

  ‘Tell anyone? Knowing that William Falconer had been found guilty of the murder – a verdict, you had been instrumental in affecting – how could you even think twice about not telling me.’

  ‘Because I am her confessor.’

  Bullock crashed his fist on the table that stood between the two men, and Cornish flinched. He held his hands up in supplication.

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand. And I feel ashamed that I was somehow misled into thinking Falconer guilty. But the man is his own worst enemy. And he is still a fornicator.’

  Bullock wished his world was as simple as the one inhabited by Cornish. At one time it had been. As a soldier, he had seen only in black and white. Friend and foe. He wished life was like that now for him, but Falconer had opened his eyes to shades of grey, and he could not avoid the shadows that loomed around the edges of death. He pointed a horny finger at the priest.

  ‘Stay here.’

  He went off to view the body in situ.

  Now, after dealing with the dead nun, and leaving her in Gwladys’s care, he returned to Ralph Cornish. With Thomas hovering indecisively in the background, he let the man go.

  ‘You can return to Oxford. In fact, you can do something for me.’

  ‘What is that? Pray for your salvation?’

  ‘No. You can tell your Chancellor Thomas Bek that I am releasing William Falconer, and will be advising the king’s justices when they arrive that the case is solved. Sister Margaret killed Ann Segrim for fear of her involvement in the other nun’s death being discovered. You can also tell Bek that I wouldn’t be surprised if his days as chancellor are numbered when they find out what he has done. And how badly he has done it.’

  Ralph rose and hurried from the room, glad to be released. Thomas Symon patted the constable on the back.

  ‘That was a fearfully strong speech, Constable Bullock. It was worthy of Master Falconer himself.’

  Bullock grinned broadly.

  ‘It was, wasn’t it? I was quite proud of myself. It is not often I get a chance to chastise a master of the university.’ He looked over Thomas’s shoulder. ‘Where is Saphira?’

  It was Symon’s turn to smile.

  ‘I think she wanted to be the first to tell Falconer the news.’

  When Bullock and Symon got back to St George’s Tower, the pair were waiting in his chamber. Falconer rose and took his hand.

  ‘Congratulations, Peter. You have solved another case. And without my interference this time.’

  Bullock almost blushed but took the plaudits well.

  ‘Mistress Le Veske and Thomas, here, did their bit too, I will admit. I have sent a message to Bek, and I don’t think he will bother you any more. The authority of the Black Congregation in murder was always dubious, anyway. As far as I am concerned, you are free to go.’

  Saphira stood up and took Falconer’s hand.

  ‘Come. Rebekkah will have left some food for me, and she always prepares too much. You can share it with me and forget all about Agnes’s little pleasures.’

  There was a hint of a sparkle in Saphira’s eyes as she spoke those final words. It was an invitation that Falconer could not resist. After a week in the Bocardo, he was a free man. He and Saphira left Peter and Thomas broaching open a new barrel of ale, and walked down Fish Street towards Jewry. A few curious folk eyed them, some no doubt recognizing Falconer as an accused murderer. He did not care what they thought. The gossip would soon catch up with reality. However, standing on the threshold of Saphira’s house, he still hesitated. Her reputation mattered to him. She laughed at his uncertainty and dragged him inside.

  ‘Come. No more skulking round back doors for you. Both our reputations have been torn asunder in the Black Congregation, and I am now a woman of ill-repute.’

  ‘And I a fornicator in Holy Orders, and a seducer.’

  ‘Hmmm, yes. You are Peter Abelard to my innocent Heloise.’

  Falconer winced.

  ‘I hope not. Wasn’t Abelard castrated for his wickedness?’

  They walked through to the rear room of the house, where a fire burned in the hearth. A stew bubbled over the flames, left there by Rebekkah. Falconer stepped up close to Saphira, who suddenly wrinkled her nose. She pushed him away.

  ‘You have a week’s stench of prison on you.’

  Falconer looked down at his crumpled and dirty black robe.

  ‘I should go back to Aristotle’s and change.’

  Saphira took his arm, staying him.

  ‘I have a better idea. Take that robe off, together with whatever disgusting garments you have under it, and I will cleanse your body. I will perfume you like the Queen of the May.’

  Falconer was embarrassed, but Saphira seemed unconcerned, and pulled her snood off her head to release her wild auburn hair. She busied herself collecting clean linen and setting a cauldron of water on the fire to warm, so he started to undress. She produced a couple of pots from a box.

  ‘Here is some jasmine and wild camomile.’

  By the time she had stirred them in the warming water, Falconer stood naked before her. She smiled and began to wipe his body down with the scented linen cloth. She made no objection when he began to untie her dress, stepping daintily out of it when it fell to the floor. He marvelled once again at her lithe, shapely figure, pulling her to him.

  Afterwards, Falconer lay on her bed with his arms folded behind his head. He looked at her sleek body, glowing with a sheen of sweat.

  ‘I still don’t see where Robert Bodin fits into this.’

  Saphira groaned, burying her head in his shoulder.

  ‘Leave it alone, William. The matter is resolved, so be satisfied.’

  ‘No, but Margaret could not have got the arsenic from Bodin herself. She was locked away in the nunnery. Nor, by the same token, could she have killed him.’

  Saphira’s mumbled response was inaudible, coming from somewhere below his armpit.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe his death had nothing to do with Ann’s. Perhaps it was a burglar killed him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Saphira could hear the doubt in William’s voice, and began to draw her nails down his chest, distracting him. But he still picked at the loose ends.

  ‘I suppose it could have been coincidence. Odo de Reppes’s involvement turned out to be a pure fantasy, existing only in Humphrey’s head. The fact he was Marie’s brother was a coincidence. But I don’t like…’

  ‘Coincidences. Where did you get this scar?’

  Saphira was delineating a rough mark that ran from William
’s left side to near his belly-button. Falconer looked down.

  ‘At Wiener Neustadt, I think. If my memory serves me right, it was from the sword of a ferocious Tartar from the east.’

  Saphira slapped him lightly on the flank.

  ‘That was over thirty years ago. You are teasing me.’

  ‘It’s true. I was but a boy, yet I was there. And now you are teasing me, with your hand being where it is.’

  ‘Yes I am, aren’t I?’

  When Falconer next woke it was early morning, and Saphira was not in the bed with him. He sat up, hearing a sound from the kitchen below. He smiled and pulled on the long white linen shift he had borrowed from Saphira’s clothes chest the night before. He stretched and yawned. The thoughts he had had about Bodin’s murder and the sequence of events that led to Ann’s death, still bothered him. And there was something else too. Something that Ann had said to him at their last conversation before Alexander Eddington had interrupted. He knew it was significant, but he could not bring it to the front of his mind. He walked down the stairs, meaning to talk to Saphira about what was niggling at him. Perhaps between them they could tease out the strands. He strode into the kitchen towards the figure bent over the fire.

  ‘My dear, I need that sharp brain of yours.’

  The figure turned round in shock, almost dropping the pan she held in her hand. When she saw the tall form of William Falconer, however, garbed in a white robe a few sizes too small for him, she burst into a fit of giggles. Falconer scratched his head, glad he had not grasped the girl lovingly in mistake for Saphira.

  ‘You must be Rebekkah. Where is your mistress?’

  Suppressing her amusement at Falconer’s incongruous appearance, and thinking of the scandalous gossip she could share with her friends, Rebekkah replied.

  ‘She has gone away, sir.’

  ‘Gone away?’

  Falconer was distracted. Ann’s conversation was beginning to return to him. They had been talking of the awkwardness between them and how she regretted walking away from Saphira. Rebekkah’s words reminded him of it. Ann had said she even confessed her petulance to Mother Gwladys.

  ‘Where has she gone?’

  Rebekkah stifled another giggle.

  ‘She said if you asked, I was to tell you she has gone to a nunnery.’

  Suddenly the truth dawned on Falconer. And he realized that Saphira was in grave danger.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Saphira had suddenly awoken knowing what the little worm was that had been gnawing at her brain. Despite diverting William from his niggling doubts about Margaret’s guilt, she too had wondered how the arsenic had come into her possession. The only possibility was that someone had obtained it for her. And that limited the options for a nun enclosed in a nunnery for eternity. It also meant some sort of planning and complicity on someone’s part. She could not imagine that Odo had anything to do with the plan. If he was not capable of slowly killing Ann with poison himself, then he was equally unlikely to have assisted Margaret in the same slow murder. That left only two men.

  Sitting up in bed, she thought of waking William. But when she looked down at his head on the pillow next to her, she saw how serene his face was. He was fast asleep for the first time in a week, in all probability. Sliding out of the bed, and pulling on her clothes, she resolved to sort out the problem by herself. Soon after North Gate was opened for the first time, she was striding across a cool and pleasant Port Meadow towards the nunnery. Her first port of call was Hal Coke’s lodge beside the gatehouse. The old man had only just risen, and sat on his stool bleary-eyed and half-asleep. He responded irritably to Saphira’s question.

  ‘No. There is only one entrance to the nunnery, and only the prioress and I have the key.’

  ‘Do you run errands for the nuns like in the old days. Before Mother Gwladys tightened things up?’

  Coke looked wearily at her, as if this question had dogged him for years and he was tired of it.

  ‘No, I don’t. I only wish I could, because they paid me well for it. And to turn a blind eye to the men some of them entertained. That Templar wanted access, saying he had seen his sister in her cell last time. But that was some years ago, and it is impossible now. I told him as such. Now, if you please, you are unwelcome here, and I have things to do.’

  He pushed past her and crossed the yard towards the stables, disappearing from sight. Saphira followed him as far as the centre of the courtyard, scanning the covered way that ran the length of one side of the yard. Beyond the thick wall lay the nunnery cloister apparently only accessible through the central gate. There was one other door in the corner of the courtyard though. She approached it and tried the handle. The door was locked.

  ‘It is the entrance to St Thomas’s Chapel.’

  She turned round to see Ralph Cornish had quietly walked up behind her. He explained the significance of the chapel.

  ‘It once housed the tomb of Rosamund, the old King Henry’s whore and mistress. It was a place of pilgrimage until the bishop insisted that the abomination should be moved elsewhere. Would you like to see inside? The nuns do not use it for their day-to-day devotions, preferring the domestic chapel.’

  ‘You have a key?’

  ‘Oh, yes. As chaplain I have a key to the chapel.’

  He slid past her and inserted one of two keys on a ring into the lock, turning it easily. The door swung open silently and Saphira stepped into the cool, gloomy space. Cornish followed her, closing the door behind him. Plunged into darkness, Saphira’s heart started beating fast. She felt Cornish slip past her in the dark, obviously sure of his footing.

  ‘Let me light a candle.’

  From a glowing pot of embers by the door, he lit a taper, and went across towards the altar. Having genuflected before the Cross, he lit two candles either side of the altar steps. The yellow glow allowed Saphira to see well enough to spot another door at the far end of the nave. She pointed it out.

  ‘Does that lead directly into the nunnery?’

  Cornish smiled, the flickering candles distorting his features with the shadows they cast.

  ‘Yes, it does. And before you ask, yes, I have the key to that also.’

  Falconer ran across Port Meadow as the sun began to rise up in the sky. A low mist still hung over the water-meadow and it made the world seem unreal. Between taking great gasps of air, he cursed Saphira for a headstrong woman, little recognizing her nature was just like his own. He also wondered what spark of new information had caused her to rise so early and make her way to the nunnery without rousing him. He knew how he had put the final threads of the tapestry together to weave a clear picture. It all came down to the words Ann had used in her private solar that last time. Her voice spoke loud and clear to him now.

  ‘I regretted being unkind to Mistress Le Veske and I confessed so to Mother Gwladys. I was still hurting and called her your mistress in front of Gwladys and Hildegard. Even the little nun who served me with figs probably heard me. Gwladys soon put me right though.’

  Later, Falconer had wondered how Ralph Cornish had known of his relationship with Saphira, exposed so crudely in front of the whole Black Congregation. He had thought he had been so discreet. The link must have been one of the nuns by way of the confessional. Ann had told the nuns about Saphira, and one of those nuns, probably Margaret herself, had told the chaplain. In the form of Ralph Cornish. And why had she told him this titbit? Because she was his puppet. Falconer surmised that Cornish had some hold over her in connection with Marie’s death and used that to gather gossip. He might even have forced her to kill Ann for the very reason Falconer had assumed had driven Margaret. To obscure the real cause of the death of Marie. With Godstow almost in reach, Falconer set aside the myriad possibilities for the time being. All that mattered was securing the safety of Saphira.

  The chapel was cold but Saphira resisted the urge to shiver. She did not want Ralph Cornish thinking she was afraid. Even if she was.

  ‘I might not have g
uessed it was you, if I had not recalled where I had seen you before. It was the day before Robert Bodin the spicer was killed. I was watching his shop because he had been nervous about something or someone for a little time. He had sold arsenic to more than one person, and clearly was worried about its use in the murder of Ann Segrim. On that day, he was visited by two old women – who I will discount – a beggar boy – who I know now was innocent. And you. I recognized you from the bruise on your cheek.’

  Cornish raised his free hand and felt the tender spot where Falconer had delivered his blow.

  ‘Yes, your gallant knight did that. But I almost made him pay. For that, and a previous humiliation.’

  ‘What I don’t understand is how you got Sister Margaret to poison Ann Segrim. It must have been you made her do it, if you were the one to provide the arsenic. She would not have done it on her own, as I first thought.’

  Ralph Cornish swung the keys back and forth as he spoke. He sounded almost pleased with himself.

  ‘Of course I was the instigator. The girl was too weak to have arranged it herself. I wanted Ann Segrim silenced, but unfortunately I miscalculated the dose. It took too long. But the irony was that she didn’t uncover the truth about Sister Marie’s death anyway. She put it down to self-murder, a conclusion that was so appalling to Gwladys that she covered the whole matter up. Ann Segrim need not have died. But then I turned it to my advantage when Falconer was accidentally present at her death. It was almost divine providence.’

  ‘And Margaret’s death? That wasn’t suicide either, was it?’

  ‘No. I told you – she was a weak vessel. She would have told all eventually. So I visited her cell in the night by using this way into the nunnery. And strangled her. It was easy to make it look like self-murder.’

  Saphira was almost mesmerized by the swinging keys in Cornish’s hand, and didn’t see his move. He took three rapid strides towards her, grabbing her arm in his tight grip.