Falconer and the Great Beast

by Ian Morson

  Falconer realized his sighting of Yeh-Lu in the vicinity of Bacon's tower the previous night had clearly not been the only time the man had been there. He wondered if it had been Yeh-Lu who had been in Bacon's room the time he had been snubbed by his friend. He also wondered what knowledge they had shared and what they might have been up to. But Yeh-Lu obviously wasn't going to enlighten him on that matter. However, he did say he had gone to Bacon's eyrie early this very morning, and had got no response to his knocks on the door.

  ‘I am worried that something may be amiss. He is, after all, not in the best of health.’

  Yeh-Lu was beginning to worry Falconer now. He didn't want to be reunited with his old friend only to have him snatched away by illness, even if Bacon had been behaving oddly with him of late. Both men hastened towards the door, Yeh-Lu pulling the fur-trimmed hood of his cape up over his shiny black hair. They hastened in silence through the narrow back streets towards South Gate. The area was populated largely by students, but as the morning sun had hardly begun its climb into the pale blue sky, few people had yet stirred. It was a different matter as they turned out of St Frideswide's Lane into Fish Street. There the traders were opening up their shop fronts, and the buzz of a normal day had already begun. Here and there the black-clad figures of Jews could be seen hurrying towards the synagogue, which was squeezed in among the narrow houses opposite St Aldate's Church that made up part of Oxford's Jewry.

  Yeh-Lu drew his cloak closer around him, which in truth drew him almost as many curious stares on this warm morning as if he had gone undisguised. Near the gateway, a beggar pulled at his cloak, entreating alms, and the hood slipped back to reveal his oriental face. But luck was with Yeh-Lu. The blind beggar stared with eyes as white as a seethed egg, and the moment of danger was gone. Falconer thrust a coin into the poor man's outstretched hand, and Yeh-Lu yanked the hood back over his features.

  They negotiated the ramshackle hovels outside South Gate without another mishap, and Falconer's long legs took him swiftly up the spiral staircase to Bacon's tower room. He hammered on the door, almost expecting to have to break it down, and was therefore taken aback when, moments later, the door was opened. The friar's wrinkled face appeared, his halo of sparse hair sticking out as though he had just risen.

  ‘William! What's so amiss that you have to hammer on my door so early? The sun is barely up over the trees. And, as you look out of breath, I assume you have run here in order to apprise me of whatever it is that could not wait.’

  The friar stood squarely in the crack of the door as before, not allowing his visitors to see the interior of his cell. Though, if what Yeh-Lu had told Falconer was true, the man from Cathay had on more than one occasion gained admittance to Bacon's inner sanctum himself. Bacon seemed nervous and anxious to return to whatever task it was that awaited him behind the firmly held door. Falconer had the fleeting image of him standing thus to bottle up a demon he had invoked into his presence. With some embarrassment, he realized he had just slipped into making the same suppositions that the folk of Oxford and Bacon's own order had made about his scientific endeavours ten years before. Bacon had been accused of being a necromancer, and a creator of unnatural life in mockery of the Lord.

  ‘Forgive us, dear friend.’ It was Yeh-Lu, standing on the lower step below Falconer, who apologized for their peremptory appearance. ‘I knocked earlier and got no reply. I was worried about you, and remembered you telling me of your friend Falconer, and where he lived. I took a chance, and went to find him. It seems I have woken two people unnecessarily. Once again I apologize.’

  Sigatay, commander of Chimbai's personal arban, was a worried man. He was under strict instructions from the noyan that he should not be disturbed by anyone. Sigatay took ‘anyone' to include himself, and he had never dared venture into Chimbai's sacred yurt. But the general usually spent no more time in there than it took for the sun to rise the height of a man. Today, he had been in there much longer, and the sun was now high in the sky. Sigatay could see a few curious faces staring down at the Tartar encampment from the supposed security of the city walls. He had a passing thought of other apparently impregnable walls that had fallen before him and his men in the past, and he gave out a high-pitched hiss of satisfaction. He wished he were even now embroiled in some life-or-death struggle with a visible enemy. Decision-making in such circumstances was simple. Now he had to decide between the wrath of his master at being interrupted, or the unimaginable error of ignoring his master's need for assistance. He glanced nervously at the two other men he commanded. Both stood impassively in stony silence, though Sigatay knew that inside their leather-clad breasts they were relieved that the impossible decision was not theirs to make.

  Sigatay frowned in unaccustomed concentration. Then, deciding that no one could have got near the noyan to do him any harm, he grunted in satisfaction and remained at his post. He was unaware, of course, that Chimbai's heart had long ago been stilled by an arrow. And that his life's blood was already congealing into the intricate designs of the fine and elaborate rugs that decorated the yurt's floor, adding another, more random swirl of colour to their patterns.

  The Dominican friary rose on an island set in the marshy land just beyond the hovels huddled on the southern edge of Oxford. Outside the friary walls, the low-lying ground was rumoured to be inhabited by ghosts and demons (though those of a scientific bent would maintain the apparitions were merely the effulgence of marsh gases). Inside the friary, set between Trill Mill Stream and the river, everything was well ordered, and devoted to the worship of the Lord. Though the Black Friars abhorred the remote contemplation of the older monastic orders, they still observed the routines of worship that separated the day into matins, terce, sext, nones and vespers. It caused some alarm to his fellows, therefore, that Brother Bernard de Genova was conspicuously absent from the chapel throughout the morning.

  About the middle of the day, just before sext, Adam Grasse was informed of this absence. He agreed that the grave error on Bernard's part required investigation – the man, after all, might be ill. Availing himself of his seniority, but not without trepidation, he agreed to enter Bernard's cell. He knew that if there proved to be no good reason for him having done so, he would have made an enemy for life. Bernard de Genova valued his privacy – in so far as a friar of the Dominican order could. None the less, the circumstances were so unusual that Grasse felt justified in invading what little privacy any Dominican was allowed. Filled with a sense of foreboding, he waddled along the cloister to where Bernard's cell was located, breathing heavily through his open mouth at the unaccustomed exertion. Behind him, like a gaggle of goslings following their overweight mother, scurried those Black Friars who had got wind of the possible scandal. Brother Bernard was a stand-offish man, who had found few friends and allies in his ten years at the friary, and rumours of past indiscretions had followed him from his last post in the north. If he was now to be embarrassed, or even disgraced, there were several of his so-called brethren who wanted to be present. Their hopes were to be dashed.

  Adam Grasse tentatively called Bernard's name at the closed door of the cell, knocking softly with his fat fingers. When there was no reply, he lifted the latch and stepped inside, closing the door firmly against the prying eyes of his fellow Black Friars. The room had only one unglazed slit of an opening, high on the wall to the left of the door, and, facing north, it gave precious little light. Bernard had personally selected the cold and uncomfortable room, even though his seniority in the order spared him the dormitory and might have allowed him less spartan surroundings. Whatever reason it was that had caused him to choose this room was known only to Bernard himself and Grasse's predecessor, Ralph de Sotell. Grasse was unaware of whether it was some sort of self-inflicted punishment, and if it was, what perceived sin had occasioned it. Though Grasse was confessor to his brethren, Bernard had not availed himself of this service since the fat Breton's appointment. Bernard appeared only to voice his fears and worries directly t
o God.

  As Grasse's eyes adjusted to the gloom of the cell, he became more aware of his surroundings. And at first sight there was nothing to distinguish it from any other friar's cell. A large crucifix hung on the lime-washed walls directly over the head of the narrow bed, with its thin mattress. The only other furniture was a simple lectern that stood in one corner. It was set below the window slit, so that whoever used it might read by the thin beam of light that filtered into the cell, thus economizing on candles. Adam Grasse was disappointed – there was nothing in the room to suggest anything unusual had happened to Bernard de Genova. He scanned the room and its furniture again, though certain that he could not have missed anything in such a bare cell. When his eyes lit upon the bed, he suddenly realized he had. Everything else in the cell spoke of a fastidiously neat man, living an ordered life. And at first sight the bed confirmed that. But on closer examination the threadbare blanket that lay atop the mattress was crumpled, as if pulled hurriedly into place. Holding his breath, Grasse leaned over the bed, and lifted the blanket. Underneath, the surface of the mattress was freshly stained with a copious amount of blood.

  It was now nearly the middle of the day, and Yeh-Lu still clung to the companionship of William Falconer. It seemed that, having made his acquaintance, the Oriental was somehow reluctant to give it up. He had heard of the ailing elephant and had persuaded the regent master to smuggle him back in through the South Gate and show him where the beast was stabled. At least the daytime bustle of Oxford made their return through the gate less dangerous than their early-morning passage had been. Used to the eccentricities of travellers in this crossroads of a town, no one questioned the stranger who was wrapped in cloak and hood as though the warm and sticky day were in fact a crisp winter's morning. As they passed the market stalls in Fish Street, the traders called the attention of the two men to the quality of their wares, and were ignored. But they were used to that, and rapidly switched their sales pitch to the next passer-by. When they entered the castle grounds, Falconer glanced nervously up at St George's Tower. If Peter Bullock were in residence, he would have apoplexy at Falconer's insinuation of a Tartar into the central defence of the town. He took Yeh-Lu's arm, and hurriedly propelled him to the barn where the elephant was located.

  It seemed in a worse state than when Falconer had last seen it, its breath almost like a death rattle. The keeper was nowhere to be seen, and the beast's eyes spoke mournfully of abandonment. Disappointingly, Yeh-Lu was uninterested in the beast's condition, merely satisfying himself with having seen it.

  ‘It is a poor example of its kind,’ he murmured. ‘I have seen people from the Indies and Kesimir fight from towers on elephants' backs as though they were in castles. They come from the lands where the Bakhshi live – those adept in necromancy and the diabolic arts.’

  Falconer remembered that the Nestorian priest, David, had used the Latin word baxitae to describe those from whom Yeh-Lu had learned his magic tricks. These Bakhshi that Yeh-Lu mentioned were obviously one and the same. If they were necromancers, maybe they could have helped the elephant. It certainly seemed beyond human help now. Yeh-Lu wrinkled his nose at the stench in the barn and stared at the ray of sunlight as it cut across the foetid, straw-strewn floor. Suddenly he shook off his lethargy, and pulled the cloak tightly about him.

  ‘I must return, or there will be questions asked about my absence.’

  They left the sorry beast in peace, and Falconer showed Yeh- Lu the way back to Carfax, where he might take North Gate Street to the town entrance opposite the Tartar encampment. Though he offered to accompany the man to the safety of the gate, Yeh- Lu insisted he could now make his own way, and didn't require Falconer at his side. Falconer put this down to a confidence bred of successful avoidance of discovery to date, and watched Yeh- Lu thread his inconspicuous way through the bustle of the food and corn markets that filled the colourful street. Soon he was lost in the crowd, and Falconer breathed a sigh of relief. But, just to be certain of his safety, he decided to observe the man's return to the Tartar camp.

  He turned down Cheyney Lane, and emerged close by the steps that led up to the walkway atop the city walls. There he was not surprised to find Peter Bullock pacing the stone battlements. The constable had become obsessed by the brooding presence of the Tartars on his doorstep, and spent most of his time observing their actions. Or, as was more accurate, their lack of action. Today the camp was unusually quiet – not even the cocky figure of the commander was to be seen strutting around the large black tents that grew like pustules out of the green field. Bullock just grunted an acknowledgement at Falconer as he came up the steps, and returned his implacable gaze to the camp. Falconer went to stand next to him, leaning companionably on the warm yellow stones that topped the walls. He fumbled for his eye-lenses, looking left towards North Gate in order to spot Yeh-Lu's emergence from the city, and so he didn't see the start of the commotion down in the encampment.

  ‘What's this?’ muttered Bullock.

  ‘What?’ retorted Falconer, curious as to what Bullock might have seen, though he kept his lens-improved gaze on the stir of activity that was the entrance to Oxford. He spotted a heavily cloaked figure emerge, crossing the field in the general direction of the encampment, and was relieved. Yeh-Lu had not been spotted, and was making his inconspicuous way back to the camp.

  Bullock grabbed his arm, almost causing him to drop his precious eye-lenses over the wall into the ditch below. ‘Over in the Tartar camp. Something is very wrong down there.’

  Falconer peered at the huddle of tents, and as the indistinct shapes sharpened into focus, he also heard some anguished cries carrying across to where he and Peter stood. One of the Tartar soldiers emerged from the smaller tent that stood somewhat aside from the two larger ones. Even at this distance, Falconer could tell that his sallow features were ashen. He called out something, and two more Tartars rushed into the tent. The tall, black figure of the Nestorian priest hovered nervously at some distance from the tent flap, as though afraid to enter. After a few moments the soldiers re-emerged, carrying a heavy bundle between them. When they laid it at the feet of the priest, Falconer could see it was a body. And as they lowered it to the ground, the head fell back, revealing a shock of spiky grey hair. It was the body of Noyan Chimbai.

  Chapter Nine

  There they shall bury Gog and all his horde, and all Abarim will be blocked; and they shall call it the Valley of Gog's Horde.

  Ezekiel 39:11

  For Guchuluk it had been a sleepless and busy night, so he had allowed himself the luxury of resting until the sun was high in the sky. As no one in the camp was eager to disturb him, he had not been apprised of Chimbai's unusual behaviour. The noyan had been left to do whatever he was doing in the little tent. But when, at last, Sigatay had been persuaded by David to investigate the mysterious and extended seclusion of Noyan Chimbai that fateful morning, the cries were enough to alert Guchuluk to the tragedy. He rushed out of his tent, pulling his light quilted jacket on as he ran. It was immediately obvious what the cause of the commotion was.

  David's long, black form knelt at the side of the body, his hands clasped in prayer. The three soldiers – Sigatay, Khadakh and Achikh – stood sentinel over the scene. Achikh was too stupid to understand the trouble he was in, and just stared in bewilderment at the lifeless body. Khadakh, named after a legendary Tartar character whose sobriquet was ‘The Valiant', did not at all resemble his namesake. The hand that held his bow was trembling, the knuckles white with tension. He knew he had failed in his duty – his only hope was that the worst of the punishment would fall on his superior. Sigatay, whose responsibility it was to secure the safety of the noyan, looked ashen, and was swaying slightly, as though he might collapse at any minute. At the sight of Chimbai's startled, but lifeless features, Guchuluk found it hard to suppress a smirk of satisfaction. He masked the uncontrollable grin by rubbing his stubbly chin, as if pondering what to do next.

  ‘This will need some investi
gating, don't you think, Peter?’

  Guchuluk looked up, startled by the sound of an unfamiliar tongue that he did not understand. Two men stood at a cautious and respectful distance from the group of Tartars. One was a bent, old man with heavy, muscular arms and a barrel of a chest. His clothes were old and patched, and a sword hung at his side. The old man's right hand hovered close to the sword's pommel, and Guchuluk recognized the stance of a soldier. The other man was tall, with a cropped thatch of grizzled hair. His black robe, too, had seen better years, and it did not hide the bear-like strength of the man. The aged man he didn't know, but he looked old enough to know Dua the One-eyed of ancient legend. Guchuluk recognized the other for one of the scholars who had been at the banquet earlier in the week. His name was something outlandish like Falknakh. Guchuluk snarled a command at the Nestorian priest:

  ‘Tell them to go away.’

  Nervously, David spoke to the two men in their own tongue, while Guchuluk stared at them through slitted eyes. The old man spoke first, and David looked relieved. He was about to translate what had been said for Guchuluk, when Falknakh interrupted, and the priest's face fell. He turned to protest, but Falknakh spoke again, more firmly this time. The old man at his side looked disconcerted, but was obviously used to deferring to the scholar's superiority.

  ‘What is he saying?’ asked Guchuluk suspiciously.

  David cast his eyes to the ground, afraid to look straight at Guchuluk as he spoke. ‘The old man is the representative of law in the town, and was going to leave the death in our hands. But the other – you remember his name is Falconer—’ David pronounced it without the gutturals with which Guchuluk had invested it. Guchuluk, a quick learner, muttered the correct pronunciation under his breath, and told the priest to get on.

  ‘Falconer says he represents the King of England in such serious matters, and insists that he be allowed to examine the body.’