A Psalm for Falconer

by Ian Morson

  After attending Oxford University, Ian Morson spent thirty years working as a librarian in the London area, dealing in other writers’ novels. He finally decided he had to prove he could do better, and William Falconer grew out of that decision. The medieval detective has appeared in eight novels to date, and several short stories in anthologies written by the Medieval Murderers, a group of historical crime writers. Ian also writes novels and short stories featuring Nick Zuliani, a Venetian at the court of Kubilai Khan, and Joe Malinferno and Doll Pocket, a pair living off their wits in Georgian England. Ian lives with his wife, Lynda, and divides his time between England and Cyprus.

  Master William Falconer Mysteries

  Falconer's Crusade

  Falconer's Judgement

  Falconer and the Face of God

  A Psalm for Falconer

  Falconer and the Great Beast

  Falconer and the Ritual of Death

  Falconer's Trial

  Falconer and the Death of Kings

  A Psalm for

  Falconer

  Ian Morson

  Ostara Publishing

  First published in Great Britain 1997

  Ostara Publishing Edition 2012

  Copyright © Ian Morson 1997

  The right of Ian Morson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Printed and Bound in the United Kingdom

  ISBN 9781906288655

  Ostara Publishing

  13 King Coel Road

  Colchester

  CO3 9AG

  www.ostarapublishing.co.uk

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks to the staff of Morecambe Library

  for supplying me with such interesting

  information about that part of Cumbria which

  was Lancashire. Thanks also to Brian Innes

  for some sound advice on the state of a body

  long dead. Any errors made in using that

  information are entirely my own.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The sun was dipping redly behind Humphrey Head, and John de Langetoft felt the chill of the stream called the Kent nipping at his bare legs. He settled the heavy bundle more comfortably on his back, shifting it with a shrug of his shoulders, and stepped out of the tug of the stream's flow on to the soft sandy bank. His sandals, slung round his neck by their leather thongs, bounced awkwardly on his chest. The screams of the seabirds lent an uncanny air to the broad vistas of the bay that he had never come to terms with. It was as though the souls of lost travellers darted and wheeled above his head in a perpetual limbo. This awful image was strengthened by the heavy, lowering clouds that boiled over his head, presaging the arrival of a storm. He shivered, and not just because of the physical cold of the desolate place.

  ‘Best not stand still too long, you may find you'll sink into the quicksand.’

  Heeding his travelling companion's warning, de Langetoft pulled his feet from the suck of the sand. Still he cast a sad glance over his shoulder at the darkling hump of the Head behind him, wondering when next he might see it, and the priory that lay out of sight beyond the moody promontory. The sun was nearly gone and out to sea a flash of lightning illuminated the bay. If they were to avoid the storm, they had to press on. Just ahead, the rocky shelves of Priest's Skear stuck out of the mud like the back of some beached sea-leviathan. This meant they only had the Keer to ford, and they would be on terra firma at Hest Bank.

  De Langetoft had set himself two tasks that day – tasks he must complete before he could assume his rightful place at the priory. The first was to purge his own weakness from his soul, and he had already carried that out – more easily than he had expected. He hoped that his purpose in Lancaster could be as swiftly concluded. That was his second task, and related to others' weakness. And the business he intended to transact there should allow his triumphant return to the priory. Indeed, he could imagine no other conclusion that he could live with; especially as he was so close to being elected prior. He hoped his fellow traveller did not know what he had planned in Lancaster, and, settling the bundle on his back once again, he strode out across the mudflats to the grassy shoreline. His pace soon took him ahead of the smaller figure with whom he was crossing Lancaster Bay. At the bank of the treacherous Keer, he hitched up the skirt of his habit and turned to ask if this was the correct spot to cross.

  His last vision was that of a water-demon that leapt straight out of the dying sun, its claws glittering in the strange half-light. The lightning flashed again, and it felt as though the jagged bolt cut through him to the heart. The pain as his soul escaped his chest was excruciating, and as he tumbled into the icy waters his final thought was for the safety of his travelling companion.

  MATINS

  Know that the Lord is God,

  He has made us and we are His own.

  Psalm 100

  Chapter One

  Regent Master William Falconer glumly surveyed the sad bundle of his worldly possessions. Besides what he stood up in, he had managed to accumulate a heavy black robe turning green with mould at the edges, a woollen cloak loaned him by Peter Bullock, a cracked pair of leather boots, a sugar-loaf hat in red given him by a widow in Mantua who had feared for his health, and a spare pair of underdrawers of indeterminate age. Peter Bullock laughed at the sorry sight.

  ‘At least you will not need the wagon train that the King drags round with him on your travels.’

  Falconer determinedly set aside the shabby robe, sure it would not be necessary on such a short journey. He would only be away for a month or so, and the one he stood up in would suffice. Then he stuffed his clothes, still damp from their sojourn in the chest that lay at the foot of his bed, into the capacious leather saddlebags the constable of Oxford had brought round for him. There was room for as much clothing again in the bags, but Falconer was satisfied to fill the empty space with his favourite books. He tucked his copy of Ars Rhetorica down next to Peter de Maharncuria's Treatise on the Magnet, then balanced their weight with Bishop Grosseteste's own translation into Latin of the Epistles of Ignatius.

  It was Grosseteste who was the cause of these preparations – he and Falconer's great friend Friar Roger Bacon. Though it was odd that they should have such an influence on the regent master's current actions: the bishop had been dead for over fifteen years, and the friar incarcerated by his Franciscan Order since 1257. At that time Bacon had been whisked away from Oxford because of his dangerous ideas, and banished to a cell in Paris. Falconer had not heard from him for ten years thereafter. That silence had but recently been broken.

  Watching his friend distractedly stuff yet more texts into the saddlebags, Bullock scratched his head and began to review his opinion that Falconer wouldn't require a wagon train. The old soldier had long ago learned the merits of travelling with as small a load as possible. An army might rely on the baggage train to carry its needs across enemy lands. But each foot soldier knew that in battle he could be separated from his comrades, and have
to forage for himself. A light load and a sharp eye were essential. And, for Bullock, Falconer's journey to the wildest part of Cumberland was no less daunting than a war expedition to Burgundy.

  ‘What do you need all those books for? Aren't there enough where you're heading?’

  Bullock knew that Falconer's goal was Conishead Priory on the shores of Leven Water, and that he was going in search of a particular book. Though why any book should take someone to the edge of the world was beyond the ancient soldier.

  ‘These books are my travelling companions. And more valued because they don't answer back,’ retorted Falconer tartly.

  He instantly regretted chiding his friend, and realized how the prospect of the long journey had served to agitate him. That and the letter from Friar Bacon. After that silence of ten years, to send a summons to immediate action, coded for safety's sake, had been typical of the mercurial friar. The cryptic message had taken some time to decipher and, in the meantime, the man whom Falconer was asked to seek had become embroiled in a murder. The consequence of delivering the message to its recipient had resulted in this further quest.

  That the thought of such a journey now seemed daunting to the regent master was an indication of how the Oxford life had seeped into his bones. Half his years had been spent traversing the known world, and it had only been with reluctance that he had settled to the academic life, truly believing at the time it would merely be an interlude between wanderings. Now he fretted about travelling a few miles across England.

  Shamefaced, he hefted the saddlebags to his shoulder and felt the weight of them. He grunted in concession to Bullock's good sense.

  ‘You are right – the nag I have hired will probably expire under me before it reaches Woodstock with this weight to carry.’ He opened the saddlebags again. ‘I shall be a little more discerning about whom I travel with.’

  Reviewing his collection of books, he discarded some lesser mortals, and redistributed the remaining tomes between the two panniers. Now there was space in plenty, and Bullock passed him his second robe to pack. Wordlessly he added it to the burden. He was ready, but still he hesitated. He cast his eyes around the room – this little universe so familiar to him. The jars that held decoctions of the quintessence, local herbs and dried preparations from the East, the stack of books, and the jumble of cloth and poles in the corner that represented his as yet unsuccessful attempts to understand the means of flight. Presiding over all, his eyes baleful and staring, sat the ghostly white form of Balthazar, the barn owl who shared this universe in a room with the regent master. A constant and silent companion, he lived his life as independently as Falconer aspired to do. There was no fear that he would starve while Falconer was away – he fended for himself anyway, quartering the open fields beyond Oxford's city walls at night. Falconer often unravelled the furry balls Balthazar coughed up like little presents for his friend, and marvelled at the assemblage of tiny bones he found therein.

  Even so, Falconer asked the constable to visit Balthazar regularly, for even the most reclusive creature desired company now and then. Bullock promised to pay daily court to the bird, and hustled the master out of the room before he could become maudlin about leaving his cellmate. Downstairs in the lane, a young lad stood at the head of a sturdy rouncy, whose well-filled flanks gave the lie to Falconer's deprecating remarks about his hired mount's stamina. Having settled the precious saddlebags on the horse, Falconer swung up into the saddle and took the reins from the stable lad. He leaned down to the stocky figure of the constable.

  ‘It is now, what, early January? Tell Thomas Symon that I shall have returned before the end of February, and in the meantime I trust him to teach well in my stead.’

  Bullock knew well enough that Falconer had spent several evenings already with the unfortunate Thomas, one of his pupils now become a master himself. He had gone over what Thomas was to teach in the minutest of detail – the truth being he trusted no one, even his most respectful and able of students, to follow his precepts fully. It was a failing and he knew it. Nevertheless Bullock patiently promised to pass his message on. Reluctantly Falconer turned the head of the rouncy, and headed towards North Gate. But not without casting a glance over his shoulder at the bent-backed constable, who waved him off with impatient and dismissive gestures. At last, Falconer was gone and Bullock turned towards his own quarters in the west of the city. Hardly had he gone ten paces, though, when he heard a high-pitched voice calling his name.

  ‘Master Bullock. Master Bullock.’

  It was a nun who pursued him, her long grey robes spattered with mud at the hem and her wimple askew. There was a look of sheer terror in her eyes. He stopped, and the dishevelled sister nearly ran into him. He held her gently at arm's length as she tried to gasp out a message between heaving gulps for air.

  ‘There … Godstow … the abbess …’

  ‘Calm down. What on earth is the matter?’

  If the nun was from Godstow, it was strange for her to be in Oxford. The new abbess deemed it a den of iniquity: a sentiment with which the constable had to agree. It was some moments before the nun could recover her breath. Then the words tumbled out.

  ‘At the nunnery … there's been a murder at the nunnery.’

  Chapter Two

  After a journey of twelve backside-aching days in the saddle, William Falconer was glad to be on foot again. He had stabled his rouncy in Lancaster, where he would pick it up on his return, and had made for the foreshore of Lancaster Bay to seek out a guide to take him across the treacherous sands. If the tides were right and the weather improved, he could cut three days from his journey by resorting to this ancient route instead of going round the coastline. The previous evening he had found the nearest inn and sheltered while a great thunderstorm raged over his head. There were several travellers trapped like him by the weather, and even one or two faces he had encountered before on his journey from Oxford. Of course it was common to find you were sharing your route with others. But on this occasion, Falconer had had the uncanny sense he was being observed – all the way from Oxford, through Lichfield and Stone, and up to Wigan and Preston. At every stop he was sure that a pair of eyes bored into the back of his head. But whenever he had turned to look, there had been none but innocent travellers. In the market at Lichfield, a heavy oak barrel had crashed at his feet, sparing him by a hair's breadth. The apologetic cooper had not been able to understand how it could have tipped over. They agreed it must have been an accident, but Falconer had been more alert since that day.

  With no further incidents to trouble him, he had tried to shrug off his foolishness at Lancaster. And over some ale, he had fallen into the company of two lay brothers from the great abbey at Furness, which lay across the bay. The brothers fished for salmon nearby and, though it was out of season, they still travelled regularly to and fro between the fishery and the abbey. Consequently they knew the tides along this coast at all times of the year. It was the brothers' advice that had got Falconer out of bed before dawn the following day. Luckily the storm had cleared and he was optimistic of getting across Lancaster Bay and achieving his goal that very night.

  Leaving the town, he looked back, and was relieved to see no one following him. He fell into a speedy, loping stride, and soon he was topping the rise above Hest Bank, where an unreal scene opened up before him. He had once seen a map drawn up by a monk at St Albans that showed the world laid out on the surface of a disc. England was at the furthest point from the centre of the world, which was naturally Jerusalem, and this part of England stood on the very edge of the disc. The traveller in Falconer did not accept this picture of the world, but surveying the view before him now he could almost have convinced himself otherwise.

  A wide expanse of water extended to the farthest horizon, where a lowering bank of cloud obscured the edge of the world. Falconer fumbled in the pouch at his waist, and extracted the eye-lenses that corrected his short sight. As he held the two circles of cleverly ground glass to his eyes, the cl
ouds resolved themselves into a low range of black hills. Beyond them, as though floating in the sky, towered a ragged pile of snow-flecked mountains. The pinkness of the reflected dawn shone behind them, as though supporting the belief that the end of the world lay beyond, immersed in a fiery glow. Even as Falconer watched, the distant mountains took on more solid form with the rising of the sun. He could almost imagine them reforming themselves from some primeval mass every dawn.

  The sheet of pale blue water between himself and the farthest shore slipped away to the west, shimmering as it retreated. It left behind brown banks of sand that were quickly populated by wheeling flocks of little sea-edge birds that scudded back and forth in their search for food. As he revelled in the glory of God's creation Falconer was not sure when he had first become aware of the dark shape that moved in the middle of the bay. At first indistinct, it gradually resolved itself into a person crossing the sands. The figure must have started from the farthest shore, but in the magic of that dawn Falconer was quite prepared to believe it was a water-demon that had sprung from the retreating sea. He was almost disappointed when it became clear through his eye-lenses that the figure was a youth of fairly plain appearance. This was probably his guide across the bay.

  Peter Bullock wished that Falconer were still in Oxford. He had come to rely on the man to solve the mysterious deaths that inevitably occurred in this turbulent community, and he was lost now without him. At first he had relished the idea of uncovering the murderer of Godstow Nunnery by himself, but patience had never been one of the constable's traits. And it seemed that patience was needed here. At first glance, nothing should have been simpler to resolve than the slaying of a young nun in a building closed to the outside world. However, simple it had not been – almost two weeks had gone by and he was no nearer the truth than he had been when he stood outside the gates of the nunnery that first morning.