Falconer and the Great Beast 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

  Falconer

  and the

  Great Beast

  Ian Morson

  Ostara Publishing

  First published in Great Britain 1998

  Ostara Publishing Edition 2012

  Copyright © Ian Morson 1998

  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 9781906288662

  Ostara Publishing

  13 King Coel Road

  Colchester

  CO3 9AG

  www.ostarapublishing.co.uk

  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

  These were the words of the Lord to me: Man, look towards Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, in the land of Magog, and prophesy against him.

  Ezekiel 38: 1–2

  AD 1238

  About this time an ambassador from Hungary came to the French king telling him that a monstrous and sadistic race of men had erupted from the northern mountains. They had lain waste to the lands west of the kingdoms of France and Germany, murdering all that stand before them. They have sent letters proclaiming that their chieftain is the messenger of God, and that he has been sent to subdue all nations. They are like the demons let loose from Tartarus itself, therefore they are known as Tartars. It is said the men have the heads of dogs, with sharp pointed teeth and flattened noses. Their eyes are pools of blackness and their countenances grim. They ravish and kill all before them, and devour all flesh raw, including human flesh. They drink the blood of their own horses in preference to wine. The women are chiefly admired for their ferocity and not for the womanly attributes of sweetness and compliance. They are very numerous and have been sent to be a plague on mankind. Some call them Magogoli – the sons of Magog – for they erupted from the mountains where they had been incarcerated in history by Alexander the Great. Nothing can prevent them from devastating the countries of the West it seems.

  From the anonymous Chronica Osneiensis

  AD 1241

  It is with sadness I have to report a most bloody battle on the banks of the river Delpheos near the Danube. The Tartar chiefs, with the houndish cannibals their followers numbered in a thousand thousand, fell upon the combined forces of the Duke Henry, the king of Bohemia, and the duke of Carinthia, together with a detachment of Templars numbering nine brothers, three knights, two sergeants and five hundred turcopoles. They attacked on horseback, with clubs and swords, but chiefly with bows – their greatest skill in battle. The armour on their back is thin, so that they are not tempted to flee in battle. When vanquished, they never ask for mercy, nor do they give it. Against such odds, it was not long before the Frankish army was defeated, and the flowers of chivalry lay dead upon the battlefield. The Tartars fed upon the bodies in the field, leaving nothing but bones for the vultures to pick over. I earnestly plead with you sire to intercede with the kings of England and France, for singly we will all be crushed by these barbarous monsters.

  Letter from Ponce d'Aubon, Grand Master of the

  French Templars, to King Louis

  AD 1249

  Tis said the Tartars are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who abandoned the Laws of Moses and worshipped the Golden Calf. They are thus the people who Alexander Magnus shut up in the Caspian mountains.

  Letter from Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, to

  Henry III of England

  AD 1254

  As the Son of Heaven, I scorn your feeble rebukes and question how you can claim to speak for God in these matters. Why should you find it strange that I have conquered the lands of the Hungarians and other Christians, since they have refused to accept the dominion of an empire ordained by God. I am the messenger of God on high, and you should know that no one can rule all the empires from sunrise to sunset except through the will of God. If you and all the kings of Christendom do not accept God's will and come to Karakorum to pay homage, then I will know you as my enemies.

  Letter from the Great Khan to Pope Alexander IV

  AD 1260

  There rings in the ears of all a terrible trumpet of dire warning which, corroborated by the evidence of events, proclaims the wars of universal destruction wherewith the scourge of Heaven's wrath in the hands of the inhuman Tartars, erupting from the secret confines of Hell, oppresses and crushes the earth. Their law is lawlessness, their wrath is fury, and they are the rod of God's anger. If we cannot conjoin to defeat these fiends, the fate of nations will be that suffered already across the East, where old and ugly women are said to be eaten by the anthropophagi, and the beautiful ravished until they died of exhaustion, when their breasts are cut off to be dainties for their chiefs. I call to witness the faith in Christ, only by the power of which these Magogoli may be overwhelmed.

  Papal bull issued by Alexander IV

  AD 1263

  At the same time, there came the most gratifying reports that the most potent monarch of the Tartars had, through the diligent teachings of a monk of the Black Order, converted to Christianity. The said king also sent consolatory messages to the French king urging and persuading him vigorously to wage war against the Saracens, and so to purify the whole land of the East. These letters, translated from the heathen tongue into Arabic and thence into Latin and French, also promised speedy and effectual assistance to be rendered by the Tartar king, as a faithful Catholic and baptized son of Christ. The French king was delighted and sent a small portable chapel, along with other precious relics, in the hands of some Preachers and Minorites whose task was to speed the spread of Christianity to the Tartars.

  From the anonymous Chronica Osneiensis

  AD 1268

  Know that Chimbai is allied with Mangku-Temur of the Golden Horde in support of Kaidu. If they should strengthen their position in the East, then Kublay could be in danger. Abaka has empowered us to do all that we can to stifle this alliance. While the Mamluk, Baybars, occupies me in Syria, I must leave it in your hands to resolve t
he matter. I have hopes for this proposed alliance with the Frankish kings, so make sure that Chimbai does not return alive from England. I repeat in case the order is not clear enough for you – Chimbai must die.

  Translation of an intercepted letter from the court of

  Abaka, Khan of Persia

  Chapter One

  This is the word of the Lord God: At that time a thought will enter your head and you will plan evil. You will say, ‘I will attack a land of open villages, I will fall upon a people living quiet and undisturbed …’

  Ezekiel 38: 10–11

  It filled the crossroads in the centre of Oxford with its bulk, and soon drew a milling crowd to wonder at its size. The skin was grey, thick and as creased as an old man who had spent his life toiling in the fields through scores of summers. A solemn man with the king's arms emblazoned on the front of his tabard stood at its head, holding a chain that looped around its enormous neck. Peasants in the crowd stood with their mouths agape, pointing calloused fingers at the monster. The black-clad masters of the university were equally agog, but outwardly behaved sagely, being more discreet in their examination, sharing whispered comments and knowing looks. A small child, bold in his ignorance, scuttled from under the protection of his mother's skirts, and slapped one of the tree-trunk legs that the beast had firmly planted on the ground. The woman shrieked, and made a grab for her errant child, pulling him away from the monster before it could breathe fire over her offspring, or rend him apart with needlesharp teeth. But she need not have feared. The child's slap was nothing more than a pin-prick to the hide of the great beast, and the boy was retrieved without him being burned, eaten or crushed under the beast's great weight. The enormous ears, like vast wings, flapped back and forth, and the beast's head swayed rhythmically from side to side as though it was listening to some piper's tune in its head and unheard by anyone else.

  Emboldened by the child's actions and seeing him come to no harm, the crowd pressed ever closer, pointing and gesturing at this great beast that had just arrived in the town. The people in the front of the press seemed oblivious even to the long curved horns that protruded from the beast's jaw, and the long proboscis that dangled down between those yellowy protuberances. Then suddenly the knot of students who stood at the head of the beast became too bold. One student, the worse for drink, it has to be said, made a grab at one curved horn. Another drew a short dagger, and began to prod the end of the questing proboscis. The earsplitting squeal that resulted seemed to throw the whole crowd back with its force. Later, some in the crowd likened it to the final trumpet of Judgement Day, and for that one foolish, daggerwielding student it very nearly was.

  The beast tossed its head, and the man who had held it under control with the long chain looped around its neck lost his grip. To the crowd's astonishment, the formerly placid, earth-bound beast reared up and swung its head in pain. The youth who had stabbed at its tender trunk was struck by one of the graceful horns, the tip of which ripped through his leather jerkin, and tore the woollen shirt and pale flesh that lay beneath. The youth was thrown backwards into the retreating crowd, and landed in the dust, still and pale. The king's man, who until then had had control of the beast, recovered himself and scurried fearlessly between its legs, snatching at the swinging chain. Once he had a grip of the chain, he pulled on it, and cried out in a guttural tone that the beast seemed to understand. As quick to be calmed as it had been roused, the beast once more stood still, but now its massive eyes betrayed a fearful look that it cast wildly on its erstwhile tormentors.

  Two students grabbed their fallen comrade, and lifted him up between them. He groaned, and the crowd gave a communal sigh of relief at this sign of life. He was conveyed away between the two youths, groaning and dripping blood in the dust. With the victim out of sight, a semblance of good humour returned to the crowd. But they now treated the great beast with more respect, eyeing it from a safe distance, while showing no sign of dispersing. Presently a bent-backed but muscular old man elbowed his way through the crowd, and spoke briefly with the beast's keeper. The king's man nodded curtly, and the sturdy old man pushed back through the crowd, shouting and waving his arms for the people to get out of his way. The king's man yanked the beast's chain, gave another guttural command, and the beast and its keeper followed the lurching gait of Peter Bullock, Constable to the City of Oxford, through the parting mob.

  The arrival of the king's elephant in Oxford should have been wonder enough for that summer's day in the fifty-second year of the felicitous reign of King Henry III, but there was still more to marvel at that year in the university city. Peter Bullock had already been advised of another arrival expected in Oxford that day or soon after. And as dusk fell, and his watchmen locked the city gates, he paced the top of the new city walls, peering over the battlements. The meadow below the walls was dotted with bright flowers – the white constellations of daisies, red clusters of clover, and the yellow spikes of agrimony close to the wood's edge, where the trampling of students' feet had left the flowers undisturbed. But the sweetness of their presence left Bullock unmoved – his nose was more attuned to the stink of the ramshackle houses that lined St Giles outside North Gate, and Grandpont in the south. Oxford was bursting at its seams, and the poor and the whores now lived mainly outside the protection of its walls. They would have no protection from Gog and Magog.

  The day had been long and hot, but now he could feel the chill of evening creeping into his bones. Or perhaps it was just the thought of what was approaching out there in the darkness. An old soldier never lost that sense of foreboding, which often came like a premonition of doom before a battle. He felt it now, and the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled. If they were out there, what's to say they wouldn't attack in the dark, as they had been reported to have done time and again all across the kingdoms of the West? That they were supposed to be here for a peaceful purpose could only be trickery in Bullock's eyes. His gnarled hand clenched tight over the pommel of his battered sword, and he strained to see into the growing darkness. There was nothing.

  But with his senses heightened, he thought he heard the faintest sound behind him. The whisper of cloth against stone, perhaps. And before he could turn, a pair of strong hands held him in a vice-like grip. He struggled briefly, but it was no use – he could not draw his sword. He hoped his end would be a quick one.

  ‘You're not as swift as you used to be.’

  He heard laughter in the voice, and recognized it straight away. Recovering his equilibrium, he gruffly riposted, ‘And you are not as silent as you were – I heard your robe brush against the parapet.’

  The other man released him, and Bullock turned to confront the smiling face of William Falconer, Regent Master of the University of Oxford. The big man's hair was grizzled but abundant, unlike the constable's thinning white locks, his visage was lined but the flesh was firm and the jaw square. His most striking features were his piercing blue eyes that seemed to bore into the constable's very soul. And the memory of his strong and unbreakable grip reminded him of Falconer's strength. He wished his old friend hadn't crept up on him so, for it only served to remind him of his advancing years and failing powers. To cover his shame, he leaned over the parapet and looked out into the gloom. He heard the regent master move to his side, but didn't look at him.

  ‘What's out there, that so draws your attention, Peter?’

  Bullock strove to shock his friend. ‘Gog and Magog.’

  Falconer merely snorted in amusement. ‘Gog and Magog! You know that, strictly speaking, Magog is a place, and Gog its prince. It's in Ezekiel – “Gog, the prince of Rosh, Mesheck, and Tubal, in the land of Magog”. They are not two people.’

  ‘I did not think I would ever hear you quoting the Bible at me,’ Bullock mocked, but stubbornly pursued his tale. ‘All right, they are not two people – but they are a horde.’

  Falconer sighed in comprehension. ‘Ahh. You mean the Tartars from the East. Surely they have not yet invaded England, let al
one the vicinity of Oxford. So, look as you might into the darkness, you are unlikely to see this particular Gog.’

  Bullock smirked in satisfaction. ‘For once you are wrong, Regent Master. I have been advised by the sheriff that we are to expect a Tartar ambassador and his entourage. The message was brought by fast horse, and the party is close behind, so they will be here in the next day or two. They have been sent to Oxford to waylay the king, who is at present waging war on Llewellyn at Shrewsbury. Myself, I think the king is wise to avoid the ambassador at all costs.’

  Falconer marvelled at this firm statement of the constable's viewpoint on regal affairs. He normally had little time for the politics of church or state. ‘Why's that, old friend?’

  ‘Because they're evil – Alexander Magnus was wise to seal them up behind the iron gates. Look what they've done to Christendom since escaping.’

  ‘And to the Muhammadans,’ Falconer reminded him, thinking it would at least make sense for the king to use the Tartars to overcome the Saracen threat to the Holy Land.

  Bullock was not to be convinced. Squinting into the inky blackness that now enveloped the plain on the north side of the city, he was sure he could detect some movement. Peer as he might, however, he could detect nothing for sure. Anyway, if they arrived this late, the Tartars might hammer on the doors of North Gate till the Final Judgement, but he would not let them in. Even so, there pressed on his heart a feeling of doom as heavy and dark as the countryside beyond the walls on which he and his friend stood. Something terrible was going to happen soon.

  Chapter Two

  On that day, when at length Gog comes … the fish in the sea and the birds in the air, the wild animals and all reptiles that move on the ground, all mankind on the face of the earth, all shall be shaken before me. Mountains shall be torn up, the terraced hills collapse, and every wall crash to the ground.