Falconer and the Great Beast Read online

  ‘The envoy has specifically asked that you act as his secretary at the meetings with the ambassador.’

  Bernard was still puzzled. ‘Who could know me to ask specifically for my services?’

  ‘He's here. Ask him yourself.’

  Bernard looked down the aisle to where Adam's gesture pointed, and saw a ghost.

  Chapter Four

  … and you will come up, driving like a hurricane; you will cover the land like a cloud, and you and all your squadrons, a great concourse of peoples.

  Ezekiel 38:9

  The stone steps were worn and uneven under Falconer's feet, and he took care not to rely too heavily on the rope that spiralled up at his left hand. It was rotten and worn perilously thin in several places. He was ashamed that this was the best accommodation he could find for his friend, long separated from him. But it was cheap, and would have to suffice. He cast a glance behind him once again, as if to convince him that Roger was not an apparition. Though apparition he might be, looking at the pallor of his face and the whiteness of his hair – what was left of it – fringing his tonsure. At fifty-five, he was only a decade older than Falconer. But then Friar Roger Bacon had spent all of that decade incarcerated in a solitary cell by his order, the Franciscans, for free-thinking. Falconer hoped that his mind had not been as affected as his body. He could hear the friar's heavy breathing as he struggled up the staircase.

  Hefting Bacon's small travelling satchel into his left hand, Falconer lifted the latch on the second-floor room with his right. Peering into the gloom, his heart sank. The mean, and dirty quarters smelled of rotting flesh from the skinner's yard below, and a greasy layer of dust was spread thickly on the timbers of the floor. A broken chair and scarred table were all that furnished the room. Falconer looked at his friend as he leaned in the doorway, getting his breath, and an apology sprung to his lips. The friar smiled broadly.

  ‘Ahh. This is a considerable improvement on my cell in Paris, I can tell you.’ He crossed over to the narrow window, a strange three-sided structure that jutted out from the main part of the tower, and threw the shutters back. Light filtered into the room, not improving its dilapidated state. ‘Look, there's a view over the river.’ He peeped out of the adjacent slit like an excited child. ‘And from here I can see everyone who passes on their way to the South Gate. They're quarters fit for a king, and for this I must thank you, William. I had no view at all in Paris.’

  He shook the embarrassed regent master's hand, and took the satchel from him. Falconer watched as he delved in it, laying the contents out on the wobbly table. When he had recovered from the startling discovery that his long-lost friend, Bacon, had arrived with the mysterious Tartars after a ten-year absence, Falconer had been full of questions for the Franciscan. What marvels had his mind dreamed up in the intervening years? How had he fallen in with such strange travelling companions? Was he truly free of the restrictions of his order? Disappointingly, Bacon only wanted to be allowed to see Oxford again, and, having retrieved his worldly goods from the Tartar yurt, had hurried towards North Gate. Hesitating only momentarily at the sight of crowds of people, he had dived into the shambles of market stalls and shops that lined the narrow and bustling street that led to Carfax and the centre of the town. Stopping at stall after stall, he ran his fingers through the grain that the corn merchants purveyed, felt the softness of the tanners' leather, and even stopped to weigh up the relative merits of the fish laid out on the fishmongers' slabs. Just as Falconer was beginning to wonder if his great mind was turned to dust, Bacon stopped in the middle of the lane. He lifted a hand to his forehead, and frowned.

  ‘William, can you find me some quarters? Preferably away from here.’ They stood at Carfax, the junction of the roads north, south, east and west.

  ‘Quarters? But I thought you would be returning to your brother Franciscans in the friary just outside the walls.’

  Falconer saw something resembling terror flit across Bacon's troubled eyes, as though the thought of returning to his order and its rules frightened him deeply.

  ‘No, I … need to be on my own.’

  ‘But …’ Falconer was puzzled. Here stood a man who had been in solitary confinement for ten years, and now he was saying he wanted, of his own volition, to be on his own. Bacon's look was veiled, hiding a deeper fear, and Falconer wondered how his solitary state might have affected him. He would have to go carefully, and not press his friend too quickly. He was clearly still quite delicate in mind as well as body. ‘Of course – I will see what I can do.’

  The search for suitable accommodation had proved difficult, especially thanks to the impecunious nature of both Bacon and his friend, the regent master. Finally, in desperation, Falconer had been referred to a skinner who plied his trade close to Grandpont. The quarters where he carried out his bloody work were at the end of the row of ramshackle houses that had sprouted up on either side of the highway running from the causeway bridge to South Gate. The building was a sort of watchtower, and the room on offer was on the topmost floor, approached by a spiral staircase. It seemed to satisfy Bacon's need for solitude while still allowing him proximity to the market, should he need it. Still, Falconer was disappointed by the poor state of the room, bearing in mind the five pence he had been required to press into the skinner's bloody hand to secure the tenure for a month.

  He watched as the man who had been his mentor fussed over the few items he carried in the leather satchel that had travelled with him from Paris. After the few books that came out first, he extracted a bundle of papers, bound with cord. Falconer could see that every inch of the top parchment was covered in scribbles in Bacon's familiar hand. No doubt the rest of the documents in the fat bundle were the same. Falconer itched to ask the friar about their contents, but Bacon threw them aside as if what was written on them was insignificant. Finally, he delved into the bottom of the satchel and produced a jumble of metal wheels and lumps of lead. His face fell at the sight.

  ‘I was afraid it would not have survived the journey.’

  Falconer could make nothing of the broken pieces of metal, which included two thin wheels with regular teeth around their edges. Bacon dropped them in a heap on the table, where a long cylinder, bound with cord, rolled off the edge and landed on the dusty floor with a dull thud. The greasy motes of dust rose lazily in the morning sunshine. The friar sighed.

  ‘I shall just have to begin again. In the mean time I have some cleaning out to do. The Augean stables have nothing on this place.’ He rolled the sleeves of his woollen habit up to the elbows, and looked around for implements to carry out the cleaning. ‘You might ask my landlord if he can lend me a broom and a bucket of water.’

  Falconer realized he was being dismissed, and stepped towards the door, happy at least that Bacon had a task to occupy his mind. At the top of the flight of steps, he turned to say to Bacon he was truly glad to see him, but the rickety door had been firmly closed behind him

  *

  Bernard de Genova soon learned that it was no ghost he had seen in the chapel of the Dominican friary at Trill Mill. The tall, well-built man who stepped out from the shadows at the rear of the chapel was in the prime of his years. With a thick mane of blond hair framing a tanned and self-assured face, he could not have been the one who Bernard thought he was at first sight. That man would now be almost as old as Bernard. Had he lived.

  Before him stood a handsome man with a long tunic of the finest linen, embroidered at the neck with gold thread. A dark blue cloak was slung casually over his broad shoulders, the hood tossed back, and a knowing smile played on his full lips. If he is not the man himself, thought Bernard, he is the very reincarnation of him. By way of explanation, the nobleman introduced himself. ‘I can tell you see the family resemblance. I am Hugh Leyghton – Geoffrey was my elder brother.’ He held out his hand, and Bernard grasped it. It was firm and cool.

  ‘Then you know each other?’ Adam Grasse was delighted. The other two men laughed, but it was Hugh who s
poke:

  ‘No, we have never met. But Bernard knew my brother many years ago, and Geoffrey often spoke of him to me.’

  Bernard blushed at the realization that this young man clearly viewed him as a contemporary of his older brother – some sort of long-lost uncle. For a moment he had been seduced into thinking he could revive his relationship with Geoffrey through the younger man. How foolish of him – he was just an elderly Franciscan friar to this handsome youth. An old family friend, whom it was polite to look up. He donned once again that cold, formal shell he had adopted over the last twenty-odd years in his dealings with people.

  ‘I am pleased to meet you, my lord.’ The acknowledgement of Leyghton's position and status was correct but distant, and took the knight a little by surprise. This was not the man that Geoffrey had spoken of so warmly, when Hugh had been a mere stripling. Still, the events of twenty-seven years earlier, and the intervening years, could change a man. He adopted the same formal tones.

  ‘Brother Adam has agreed to release you to act as my secretary for the duties I must perform on behalf of the king. We must meet and negotiate with the Tartar ambassador camped on Oxford's doorstep. I am sure you and I will find the task most … stimulating.’

  ‘To meet with the beast from Tartarus?’ Bernard muttered under his breath. He could not be sure if this was the message from God that he had so craved in his prayers. Maybe it was, delivered, as it was, by such a comely and appropriate messenger. He saw in his mind's eye the image of Geoffrey Leyghton that had haunted him for more than twenty years. It was not the image he would have liked to have kept – of Geoffrey in full vigour – but of Geoffrey in death, hard on the defeat by the Tartars at Leignitz.

  Whether Sir Hugh Leyghton, or Brother Adam, heard his bitter comment was not clear, for the knight merely continued, ‘And our first duty is to be present at a banquet tomorrow night.’

  The great beast stirred in the shed where it had been confined. The straw scattered on the floor of the barn was already stinking, and it had precious little room to manoeuvre its vast bulk. Even if it had had space, the chains around its feet would have prevented it from stretching its stiff and aching limbs. The elephant snaked its trunk across the floor, picking fastidiously with the delicate end of its proboscis at the rotting cabbages that had been thrown in the barn for its sustenance. Though it was near mad with rage and hunger, it had learned not to push its tusks against the confining walls that restricted it so. Making a noise in such a way always resulted in its keeper beating its hide with a heavy stick with knotted cords on the end. It contented itself with rocking to and fro, rubbing its hindquarters on the rough wooden panels of its prison. Soon the spot would be a sore and open wound.

  After a while the elephant heard voices outside the barn, one of them the harsh tones of its keeper. Suddenly the little door set in the bigger one opened, letting a soft evening light play on the elephant's flank, emphasizing the deep folds and wrinkles.

  ‘Did I not tell you, master, that the beast is truly a monster?’

  The swarthy keeper ushered a man and a woman into the interior of the barn, and they were both overcome by the stench of urine. The woman coughed, and held her hand over her mouth and nose. Staring into the single, mournful eye that she could discern in one side of the beast's great head, she disagreed with the animal's keeper.

  ‘No, not a monster.’ All she saw was a noble beast brought down, and was overcome with pity for the captive creature.

  Still eager to please his customers, the keeper turned to the man, who was shabbily dressed in black robes, but still had the means to pay for the privilege of seeing the king's beast, gifted to him by King Louis of the Franks. ‘No larger animal can be found in the world than the elephant. Persians would climb into towers on their backs and fight each other with javelins as though they were in castles. They are possessed of vast intelligence and a long memory, living for three hundred years.’ Pausing but for a moment in his monologue, he cast a sly glance at the woman, and went on, ‘And they copulate back-to-back.’

  The woman suppressed a snigger, and the man shot her an amused but admonitory look. ‘Ann!’

  He turned to the keeper, and guided him towards the door. ‘The agreement was that we could look at the beast alone.’ Despite the man's protests, the black-robed man bundled him out of the wicket door, and closed it firmly in his face. Falconer turned a magisterial gaze on Ann Segrim, coughed tentatively, and strode over to the elephant. He peered at it closely in apparent scientific interest, nodding sagely at some inward thought of his own. Ann lifted the skirts of her gown out of the way of the stinking straw, and approached the elephant herself. Less in a mood of scientific curiosity, and more by way of sympathy, she tenderly stroked the flank of the great beast.

  ‘William Falconer, you bring me to the most romantic spots. Peter Bullock's prison cell … a sweaty students' hall … Godstow Nunnery. And now the smelly byre of a monster.’

  ‘You malign me,’ countered Falconer. ‘It was Bullock who was responsible for getting you into Godstow Nunnery. And you delighted in solving the nun's murder.’

  Ann Segrim dropped a curtsey by way of ironic apology, and a stray lock of her fine golden hair fell over her pale brow. She pushed it back under the net that normally held her braids in place. ‘Then I thank you for all the other memorable experiences.’ Falconer pouted. ‘It was you said you regretted not seeing the elephant when it arrived. As your tutor, I simply arranged to fulfil your wish. As you heard from its keeper, we have but apocryphal stories about it. We know as little about it as … as …’

  Ann supplied Falconer with an apposite simile: ‘As the Tartars.’

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Then you brought me here merely to expand my education?’

  That she and Falconer met as student and master had greatly improved Ann's learning, and for that she was grateful. To have her eyes opened by the great masters like Aristotle and Averroës, not to mention Galen and Bishop Grosseteste, was a relevation to her. But William seemed to think the matter between them mostly rested there. She knew there was much more to be read in the looks he gave her, but thinking was what Falconer was best at – doing came a poor second. The fact that their relationship was chaste, even when she desired it to be more, made it all the more galling that her husband assumed her desires were being fulfilled.

  ‘What else?’

  A sigh escaped her full red lips. ‘Then I had better depart before we are seen together, and your reputation is besmirched.’

  Falconer reddened. ‘My reputation! I thought you might want to avoid the gossips' tongues. And your husband's ire.’ He stopped when he realized he had fallen into Ann's little trap.

  In the ensuing silence, Ann continued to stroke the elephant's flank, careful not to touch the raw spot where he had been rubbing against the wooden stall. The beast seemed to quieten, and ceased its interminable rocking from one foot to the other. She wished she could soothe her husband so. Falconer spoke first:

  ‘I have to go now.’

  Hovering by the door, he awaited a response from Ann, but when there was none, he stepped over the threshold. As he left, he thought he heard her mutter, ‘Poor beast,’ but whether the words referred to him or the elephant, he was not certain.

  Chapter Five

  You shall cram yourself with fat and drink yourself drunk on blood at the sacrifice which I am preparing for you. At my table you shall eat your fill of horses and riders, of warriors and all manner of fighting men. This is the very word of the Lord God.

  Ezekiel 39: 19–20

  Falconer's mind was not really on the lecture he was giving that morning. And in truth neither were the thoughts of his students. Even though it was the first hour of the day, the sun was striking shafts of light through the high arched windows, drawing everyone's thoughts to what lay outside the stuffy room. The proximity of the Tartar encampment was like a magnet for the imagination of the youths sitting on the uncomfortable benches tha
t were set facing the dais on which the regent master stood. And their teacher himself found his mind drifting away to conjecturings of creatures half-men, half-horse. Falconer tried to concentrate.

  ‘In de Partibus Aristotle argues that sensation is located in the heart and not the brain. The brain, made up of colder elements, is merely the counterpoise to the heart, where heat resides, which is the essential condition of all life. In support of this, he observes, cor primum vivens, ultimum moriens – the heart is the first member to be formed in the unborn.’

  By the third hour, the shuffling of woollen-clad bottoms, and the turning of inattentive heads almost put him off, but he pressed on.

  ‘And in de Generatione he makes a most clear statement about scientific method.’ He lifted a copy of Aristotle's text up to his weak eyes. ‘For those of you who find Latin somewhat difficult, I will translate. “If the facts are to be sufficiently grasped, then credit must be given rather to observation than to theories. And to theories only if what they affirm agrees with the observed facts.”’

  He paused, for it was usually at this spot that some bright mind would attempt to deflect him on to his pet obsession – the detection of murderers using deductive logic. This time there was no interruption, and he wondered if any of the shiny faces before him had even heard his words. He was about to recommence when the door at the rear of the room was thrown open. The intrusion was so abrupt that those nearest the door cried out, assuming perhaps that the Tartars had invaded. But the intruder was someone far more familiar. His tall, skinny frame was accentuated by the ill-fitting robe that hung from it, and his pasty, freckled face was framed by a halo of spiky, ginger hair. His bony fingers wove a pattern in the air as he strove to find the right words to excuse his abrupt entry. Falconer wondered, as he always did at the sight of Nicholas de Ewelme, how such an unprepossessing man could have been appointed chancellor of the university. But such he was.