Falconer's Judgement Read online

  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

  Ian Morson

  Falconer’s

  Judgement

  Ostara Publishing

  First published in Great Britain 1995

  Copyright © Ian Morson 1995

  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 9781906288631

  Ostara Publishing

  13 King Coel Road

  Colchester

  CO3 9AG

  www.ostarapublishing.co.uk

  Preface

  Observant historians will know that the central event described in this story actually happened some years earlier than I place it. At that time Regent Master Falconer was not in Oxford. So I beg the indulgence of historians in making it possible for him to solve the mystery

  The Beginning

  In the beginning, God created the world without light or darkness. He created Heaven and the firmament, but we cannot see Heaven because of its height above the earth and the weakness of our eyes. For the first three days the world was in darkness. God then created the sun, moon and the stars, beasts and cattle, and before He rested on the seventh day He created Adam and Eve.

  God set the sun in the East, where the equator is, and on the same day He made the moon and placed it in the East along with the bright stars. The sun outshines the moon and stars because it is Christ the Healer. The first day of the world was March the eighteenth.

  From the Chronica Oseneiensis

  Contents

  Prologue

  The First Seal

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  The Second Seal

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  The Third Seal

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  The Fourth Seal

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  The Fifth Seal

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  The Sixth Seal

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Seventh Seal

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The heavy scent of incense hung over the bedchamber like a miasmal fog that had risen off the River Tiber. The figure on the bed was draped in rich robes and his hands were clasped in silent prayer on his chest. Marble-faced, he seemed already to have metamorphosed into the icy statue that would soon top his tomb, without requiring the intervention of the stone-mason. In the far corner of the room a huddle of figures whispered urgently to each other, their heads close together as if afraid the figure on the bed would hear. One man turned his hooded eyes towards the bed, thinking he discerned movement, and almost craving the final stillness.

  Seeing no evidence of the final act, the man turned back to those crowded around him. Although they were closely huddled together, the others seemed separated from him by an invisible barrier. His very presence demanded deference. When he spoke, all hung on his every word.

  ‘I must speak with the Grand Master today. Arrange it, will you.’

  The last words were spoken not as a request but a command. He pointed a beefy finger weighed down with rings at one of his hangers-on, who scurried out of the room to do his bidding.

  ‘We cannot allow any other factions to gain a lead over us.’

  All those around him knew that the ‘other factions’ came down to the Colonna family. No other groups were as powerful as the man's family, for he was an Orsini by birth.

  ‘The Grand Master has intelligence agents everywhere between here and England, and if action is called for he will issue instructions to suit our purpose. The old fool is falling over himself to regain the favour of the Pope. This one or the next.’

  The ring of richly garbed men around the speaker sniggered respectfully. But the man's attention was on the prostrate figure on the bed.

  The sheets covering the dying man seemed so heavy as to press the life out of the frail figure. As if in protest at the group ignoring his struggle with the Angel of Death, he took a deep breath. The air snorted in through his angular nose, and the group of conspirators abruptly ceased their impromptu conclave. They hurried towards the bed, their heavy robes raising a cloud of dust from the floor. A myriad motes were transformed into sparkling jewels in the single shaft of Mediterranean sunlight that cut through the closed shutters into the darkened sickroom.

  The leader of the group peered closely at the man's half- closed lids, but could discern no awareness in the eyes. He felt a soft breath on his face, and fancied he could smell the odour of cold earth on it. He looked back at the circle of faces around the bed, each with its own expression. Some were framed by fear, others by keen anticipation. Every one had good reason to wish to know the fate of the man on the bed.

  Cardinal Benedetto gave the barest of negative movements of his head, and all concealed their feelings behind downcast eyes.

  A slight figure stood alone at the foot of the bed as though barred from the circle of power around the dying man. He murmured a soft prayer of thanks for the life that continued to cling to the frail body on the bed. He had examined the man's urine that morning and there was no sign that he would die today, despite the apparent wishes of some of his colleagues. He set great store by the examination of urine as an indicator of the fate of the sick and felt a complicity with the man's hold on life. He resented the others in the group behaving as though the man was already gone, his power to be grasped and taken by another rather than dispensed by God. They even spoke of the campaign in England in the most venal terms, mocking the sycophantic English King's efforts to buy favours for his family.

  He lingered by the bed after the others had drifted back to their corner to continue their conspiracy. Thin and ascetic, he could not condone their greed, or the extraction of funds from remote parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The Church was too great to soil its hands with the coinage of bribery. He looked down at the figure on the bed, and saw more than a frail human body almost reduced to the skeleton it would soon be. He saw the long line of the man’s predecessors linking the present with the early days of the Church and dreamed of himself carrying that holy torch forward. Master James of Troyes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, pulled himself up short – such thoughts made him no better than the others in the room.

  Pope Alexander might be dying but while he lived he was still God’s Vicar on Earth.

  The First Seal

  In the year 123
9 that terrible race of inhuman souls known as the Tartars came swarming from the remote fastnesses of the East. They were as one with their steeds, never leaving their backs. To many they were the embodiment of the ancient centaur. Murdering all who stood in their way with sword and with bow and arrow, they laid waste to Hungary and its neighbouring lands. Thus is the First Seal broken. For it is written in Revelation that then a horseman with a bow came forth and rode out conquering the land.

  From the Chronica Oseneiensis

  Chapter One

  The crowd filled the crossways at the bottom of the lane leading to Westminster Hall, the home of the King's Exchequer in London. Some knelt in the mud, their hands clasped in fearful entreaty to the Almighty. Others stood with their mouths agape, rooted to the earth as though in a trance. At the core of this silent knot of humanity, like a spider at the centre of his web, stood a Dominican friar, his hands raised to the heavens. His face was contorted with fervour, bulbous veins pulsating on the side of his head laid bare by the severe tonsure. He invoked the forgiveness of God for the palpable sins of those who stood around him, his voice piercing and lifting to the skies.

  The fear gripping the crowd had come upon them because of the friar's words leading up to the prayer. He had assured them the Apocalypse was nigh.

  ‘Did not your teachings warn you that the Sealed Book was fixed with seven seals? I have already told you of the consequences of the first five seals being broken. I am now here to tell you that at the breaking of the sixth seal, Revelation tells us that there would be earthquakes and the sun would turn black. All manner of storms would ravage the land.’

  He paused and scanned the crowd.

  ‘I need not remind you of the turmoil of the last years.’

  His gaze pierced each and every person who stood in the crowd, as though his eyes could read to the depths of everyone's soul. And truly each person there was reminded of their own tragedy. It was only three years since, in 1258, a famine had ravaged England and one man recalled eating the bark off the trees to survive. In the year before that, another man's house had been swept away by floods caused by endless heavy rain. An older man, with a longer memory, remembered the year of 1252 when an unusually hot summer had claimed the lives of his grandparents, who died unable to draw breath. That same year a terrifying thunderstorm had raged on the day after the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Every person in the crowd provided his own natural disaster to fulfil the prophecy of the friar preacher.

  His voice then broke into all their separate visions.

  ‘At the breaking of the seventh seal you will all be judged and few will be called to paradise. The world will be rent asunder and there will be a new heaven and a new earth. The new Jerusalem will descend and God will have his dwelling on earth.’

  He paused enough to give the crowd a crumb of hope, then dashed it from their hungry lips.

  ‘But the cowards, the faithless, and the fornicators will burn for ever in the sulphurous lake.’

  Now his prayerful invocation was stirring every soul to think of purifying his life before the impending Apocalypse. Every soul, that is, but the big, raw-boned man who stood at the periphery of the mob. William Falconer, Regent Master of the University of Oxford, was passing through London after his fruitless journey to Paris. Spying the crowd blocking the crossways, he had dismounted from the nag that was carrying him, albeit at a snail's pace, to Oxford and approached the throng with curiosity. He now regretted the waste of his time.

  He had heard news of these apocalyptic visionaries, but this was his first encounter with one. He was not impressed. He thought the friar resembled a demented magpie pecking over the carrion remains. Indeed the man strutted round the patch of bare earth enclosed by the crowd exactly like the bird he so closely resembled.

  Falconer snorted with laughter at the image he had conjured up in his mind. He turned to the man standing next to him at the back of the crowd, ready to pass on his amusement. All he saw in the man's eyes was a fixed stare of terror. It was as though the man had lost all volition of his own, and was given over entirely to the friar's message. Looking around him, Falconer realized most of the crowd was transfixed in a similar way. The only sounds were the echoes of the friar's prayer and the muted responses of the crowd.

  Thoughtfully, Falconer turned back to his horse that stood neck bowed at the end of the rein he held in his left hand. He sighed. The hire of this animal and others had already cost him two shillings for the journey from Dover to London, and the remaining miles to Oxford would no doubt take him two more days and as much more money.

  ‘Let us hope you can get me back to Oxford before the Apocalypse. I would like to be dressed in my best for the occasion.’

  Not half a mile from where Falconer stood, the King of England, Henry III, was pondering seriously on his attire. Unusually, he was resident in London rather than away on one of his interminable journeys around his kingdom. The purpose of remaining in the capital was to speak to Bishop Otho, the Papal Legate, about preferment for members of the royal family. He had already gained the Kingdom of Sicily for his son Edmund - although there were two minor matters preventing him actually taking possession. The dying Pope had issued a bull withdrawing the gift and Manfred, the son of Frederick II, controlled the island and effectively stood in his way. However, the first was solved by Pope Alexander being on his deathbed. It only remained to wage a war in Sicily - and the nation would just have to pay for it. Henry shook his head in anger.

  The servant who was draping his best surcoat over the stooping shoulders of the King backed away in horror at the tossed head. Had he somehow caused offence? Henry was a man of moderate stature, and of moderate habits, but he was still King of England. Seemingly oblivious to his servant's reaction the King strode off, shrugging the surcoat comfortably on to his narrow shoulders. His servant breathed a sigh of relief at being thus ignored.

  Henry, concentrating on the coming audience with the Legate and eager to confirm matters with him before the Legate moved on to Oxford, almost missed the anxious voice that called after him down the corridor leading to the King's Chamber. However, he recognized the obsequious tones as those of one of his French kinsmen. He stopped and turned so abruptly the overweight figure of his half-brother, Aethelmar, almost collided with him. He was clad in the full regalia of his office as Archbishop of Winchester - another royal appointment that had filled the English clergy with ire.

  “Your Majesty, I understand you are to speak with Bishop Otho.’

  His red face betrayed his embarrassment and Henry realized he was on some errand for his powerful supporters in the realm. Why was he surrounded by vested interests and cliques, when all he sought was what was best for England? He had found lucrative appointments for his Lusignan relatives. To please the Queen he had given preferment to her family, although his barons had curtailed that recently and several hangers-on had been sent packing. And to please the Pope he constantly gave ecclesiastical benefices to Romans and other foreigners. When could he please himself? Now the Lord Archbishop danced from clumsy foot to clumsy foot in obvious anxiety over some further matter which would no doubt prevail upon his generosity.

  The King stared coolly and expectantly at Aethelmar, the drooping lid of his left eye seeming to wink in complicity in whatever was afoot. The Archbishop laid open the plot that had been hatched by him and others that morning.

  To the Frenchman, London was a welcome sight. Since seeing the ageing Grand Master of his order in Rome but a few weeks ago, he had been on the road ceaselessly. Crossing the snowy Alps had been exhilarating, especially the traverse of the Great St Bernard Pass when his fingers had been stiff with frost and his breath hung from his lips like icicles. After that the endless plains of central France had simply been boring. But the crossing into England had tried his stoicism to the limit. The weather had seemed fair when he boarded the vessel at Wissant. But scarcely had they got out of sight of land, when a gale started blowing up the Channel. He ponde
red on the tales of crossings to England that had fatal results, and wished there was no body of water between England and France, so that he could have made the journey on horseback.

  For days the vessel beat back and forth, making no headway at all. The grey churning sea had merged with the grey sky, filled with roiling clouds. At times he could not tell whether he was soaked by rain driving from the sky, or by waves breaking over the boat. Not that it mattered - both soaked and froze him to the bone. He tried to take his mind off the motion by cleaning his weapons of the salt that threatened to ruin them, but to no avail. The fragile little boat he travelled in had leapt and lurched from peak of wave to trough, like a dying stag seeking to shake out an arrow that had fatally pierced its side. Just when he had given up hope of ever seeing land again, the wind died and cracks of blue appeared in the blanket of cloud.

  The crew of the vessel were encouraged to raise more sail, and looked visibly more relaxed. It was an English ship, and the sailors who had been too busy to engage him in conversation during the storm now cheerily asked him what his business was in England. But he was suspicious of who was an innocent and who a spy, and did not offer any response. Long and bitter experience had taught him not to trust anyone. Soon his cold and silent nature put the sailors off, and they ignored him for the rest of the trip. On reaching their harbour, they had rejoiced openly in his discomfort when, sick as a dog, he vomited his last meal over the side of the boat. It was ironic that he had not felt ill during the whole storm, and in a flat calm had succumbed. But Guillaume de Beaujeu acknowledged he was no sailor - his talents lay elsewhere.

  He had hoped for a short rest once he was on shore at Dover. But he had been met by a sergeant of his order, and they had chased the scudding clouds of the disappearing storm out of the port. A string of horses had carried them without a stop through Canterbury and Rochester to the outskirts of London. Now at least he could present his credentials to the local master of the commanderie in London, and explain the wishes of the master of them both. He bore orders given direct to him by the hand of the Grand Master of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon.