A Psalm for Falconer Read online

  ‘I was fond of de Cantilupe – he was a worthy adversary. I wonder if de Ewelme can replace him?’

  Ann's patience gave way at last. Subsiding under a deluge of tender blows from her fists, Falconer wondered what he had done wrong. Did not ladies prefer a diet of tittle-tattle? Rather than losing her temper anew, Ann decided to play up to William's view of women, and in a pretty, simpering tone pandered to his vanity. ‘I have a little puzzle that you should find simple to solve.’

  He raised a quizzical eyebrow. Was there any doubt that he could solve it easily, and he the Regent Master in Aristotelian Logic? So she told him of the murder in the locked nunnery of Godstow. How she had at first been led to believe it was the abbess in a fit of religious fervour who had killed Sister Eleanor. But then she had learned the gatekeeper was up to his old tricks of letting people into the nunnery for money. And that one of those visitors had been a sister Eleanor did not have. That had put a different complexion on things. Before she could finish, Falconer cut in.

  ‘Ah, I see. The “sister” that visited her was really Eleanor's former lover, this Thomas …’

  ‘Thubbs.’

  ‘Thubbs. And he killed her because she had rejected him.’

  Ann clapped her hands with glee. She had defeated the great William Falconer after all.

  ‘No, no. Why should Thomas kill her? He had found her again, and had visited her several times in the guise of her sister. He was a slim and peach-faced boy, so it was easy for him to dissemble. Especially as the gatekeeper is as purblind as a regent master of my acquaintance.’ Falconer winced. ‘I know he had visited her often, because the same gatekeeper admitted so. Though he still thought it was a girl he was admitting, and no harm done.

  ‘No, Eleanor did not reject him. It was Gilda who was rejected. The poor misguided child interpreted Eleanor's friendliness as more than what it was. When she caught Eleanor with Thomas, she was devastated, waited until he had gone, and accosted Eleanor in the cloister. I am told Eleanor could be quite haughty, and no doubt her response to Gilda's professions of affection drove Gilda to the same extreme action as Ellen Shokburn. She drowned her in a few inches of water.’

  Falconer sadly shook his head. ‘And what is to become of her?’ ‘I don't know. When I told the abbess what I believed had happened, she closed up as tight as the gates of the nunnery. I left as fast as I could or I might be there still, and Peter cannot now gain entry. The Church will resolve its own affairs in its own way, no doubt.’

  There was a long silence as both pondered on the fate of the unhappy Sister Gilda. Ann was the first to break it.

  ‘By the way. You never explained how the attacks on you fitted with Ellen's being the murderer. You said she could not have attacked you the night the hermit came to your rescue, because she was at the ironworks despatching the camerarius. But could she have loosened the stopper on the furnace?’

  ‘She could have, but it must have been the same person both times – I don't have all that many enemies.’

  He grinned at his feeble joke. But suddenly Ann thought of her husband's long absence, his sense of failure, and his refusal to talk of where he had been, and her face paled.

  COMPLINE

  Strike dumb the lying lips,

  Which speak with contempt against the righteous,

  In pride and arrogance.

  Psalm 31

  EPILOGUE

  Henry Ussher, his ambition spent, resigned his post of prior of Conishead and eked out his last days in a solitary cell in Northumberland, far from the place he had so poorly run. John Whitehed also revoked his position as sacrist, and did penance for his misdeed by labouring beside the lay brothers in the fields. Ralph Westerdale was unanimously elected prior, and under his governance the priory prospered. There were no more visitors to the rather depleted library.

  Thady Lamport garnered a reputation as a seer due to his wild pronouncements. His sustenance was provided by grateful, if perhaps gullible, pilgrims to his cave. One day, someone visited his cave to find him gone. Locally, it is said that a cloud-ship took him up into the sky.

  John Shokburn continued his work as guide across Lancaster Bay – a tradition that continues to this day.

  In Oxford, nothing is recorded of Ann Segrim's life. She no doubt lived many years in happy obscurity. Godstow Nunnery was again the subject of a severe revision of its conduct by Bishop Gary in 1434, and did not survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

  Peter Bullock died a warrior's death as he might have wished. His soldier's instinct deserted him for once, and he stepped in the way of a rusty sword wielded by a student in the midst of a pitched battle between northern and Welsh clerks. But not before he was involved in many more mysteries unravelled by his friend Regent Master William Falconer.

  William Falconer was to have many further adventures, occasioned by his insatiable curiosity. He is said to have returned to travelling later in life, reaching as far as Cathay. He did finally make contact again with his lifelong friend and mentor, Friar Roger Bacon. He always regretted never recovering Bishop Grosseteste's texts, especially De infinitate lucis, of which there was no other mention in the records.

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