Falconer and the Death of Kings (3 page)

Aspall, a small and scrawny youth who looked more like a child than his true age of seventeen, blushed. But he stood up and spoke out clearly, as Falconer had drummed into him.

‘Thomas Aquinas was vehemently opposed to non-procreative sexual activity, and this led him to view—’ here he took a deep breath before he continued ‘—masturbation and oral sex as being worse than incest and rape.’

With the words out of his mouth he sat down blushing, but to howls of laughter from his contemporaries. Falconer smiled innocently at Pecham, who to give him his due grinned back at the triumphant regent master and nodded in acceptance of his defeat.

‘You have obviously schooled your students well in the more solitary pursuits and their dangers. But I am not here for a lesson in procreation, nor in optics. May I speak to you… alone?’

Falconer’s curiosity was piqued. Though Pecham was a fellow scientist, his religious orthodoxy had not made him one of Falconer’s intimates. If he wished to speak to him without any other ears present, the matter was perhaps important. He nodded briefly.

‘We were about to conclude anyway.’

He turned to his students and dismissed them for the day. This cheered the frozen students up no end, and they made a dash for the door before their teacher changed his mind. Once the noise of their departure had subsided, he brought Pecham over to the fire to derive what small crumb of heat it offered.

‘We are alone. What is it you want to say?’

Pecham stared into the glowing coals for a moment, and when he spoke it was not without a little embarrassment.

‘I have a message for you.’

‘Then give it to me.’

Falconer held out his hand, puzzled by the secrecy that delivering this missive had entailed. Pecham stared long and hard at the outstretched hand before explaining.

‘It is a verbal message that I can only divulge if you can tell two things. First, who is the man who masters the secret of flight in the air?’

Falconer shook his head in bewilderment. What was this game of puzzles? Looking at the Franciscan, he saw nothing but earnestness in his large brown eyes.

‘That man is me. Come, tell me the message.’

‘Not until you answer the second question. Who is it has unravelled the secret of sailing under the sea?’

Falconer was beginning to see where this was leading.

‘He who is known as Doctor Mirabilis. Friar Roger Bacon. Is this message from him? He alone knows of my little… obsession with the secrets of flight, and I his concerning undersea ships.’

Pecham nodded, the glow from the fire turning his face a ruddy colour as he gazed into the greyish-red ash.

‘I am sorry to play these games, but my brother insisted I ask the questions of you before I delivered his message. He is somewhat… worried just now by the absurd notion he is persecuted by his own order.’

Falconer could see how painful this all was for John Pecham. He was a Franciscan, and deeply religious, and yet he was also a disciple of Roger Bacon’s obsession with experimental science. It was a calling that conflicted with the demands of the Church hierarchy, and of the religious order of which they were both members. Bacon had once had the support of Pope Clement and had written copiously concerning knowledge and the world. But Clement had died some years ago, and Roger had disappeared into the depths of the Franciscan order somewhere in France. Pecham, however, must have made contact with him recently. Indeed, as the Franciscan had just returned from the University of Paris, Falconer wondered if that was where Roger was now. He grasped Pecham’s arm excitedly.

‘You have seen him? Is he well?’

The Franciscan grimaced and extricated his arm from Falconer’s vice-like grasp.

‘I did not see him as such. He is… cloistered away in a cell. I had this message from one who had seen him, however. I am just the bearer of a second-hand missive.’

‘And what is this message that must be conveyed by word of mouth only?’

Pecham formed the words in his brain carefully, reciting them just as he had been told them.

‘That he who designs submarine ships would speak with he who flies in the air with the purpose of perpetuating knowledge.’ He grimaced. ‘There. I promised I would pass on the message just as it was delivered to me. But I have to say, it only serves to confirm my fears that Friar Roger has gone mad. He is set on writing an encyclopedia of all knowledge but fears that anything he writes will be destroyed unless he also passes it on to others. It seems you are to be one of those selected to be his memory.’

‘But how am I to get to Paris in the first place? There are my teaching duties, my students and the cost to consider.’

Pecham smiled conspiratorially.

‘The chancellor awaits your petition to be allowed to study the effect of Bishop Tempier’s Condemnations on the teaching of Aristotle at the University of Paris.’

The Franciscan was referring to the results of a meeting of conservative clergy under the guidance of the Bishop of Paris in December of 1270. The tract that emanated from the good bishop’s office sought to ban certain Aristotelian teachings in Paris. Thirteen propositions had been listed as false and heretical, but that had had little influence on William Falconer in Oxford. Pecham patted him on the shoulder.

‘Who is more suitable to gauge the reaction now than Oxford’s most splendid proponent of Aristotle’s thought Regent Master William Falconer?’

Falconer’s face creased into a wry smile.

‘It seems that my path has been laid out for me.’

The truth was that he did not mind at all being manipulated in this way. Hadn’t he only just been thinking that his life of teaching had become routine and dull? Here was a chance to travel to Paris and to seek out a meeting with his old friend Roger Bacon. It was dawning on him how much he missed the incisive and argumentative mind of the man. He nodded his agreement.

‘In which case, I have no choice but to go.’

His interview with the chancellor was as swift and painless as that with Pecham. William de Bosco was a new appointment to the post, which controlled the administration of the university. He was a safe and secure appointment, made to redress the balance of the previous incumbent, Thomas Bek, who had been deposed due to his overweening ambition. True to the meaning of his name, de Bosco was a short, stocky man who seemed to be firmly planted in the good earth. His demeanour was similarly stolid, indeed almost wooden. He ushered Falconer into his presence and bade him take a seat. In similar circumstances, Bek would have kept his visitor standing. Especially William Falconer, whom he had detested as a disruptive element in the good running of the university. De Bosco looked almost pleased to see the troublesome regent master, and he got straight to the point.

‘William, Brother Pecham has recommended you as our envoy to Paris. You understand what you are to do there?’

Falconer smiled and nodded.

‘Yes, Chancellor.’

Indeed he did know, but it was not to be the errand that de Bosco was sending him on. The chancellor seemed reassured, however, and not a little relieved that he did not have to enter into a taxing discussion of heretical teachings.

‘Good, good. And you are not to worry about your teaching duties, nor the good running of Aristotle’s Hall. That can all be managed in your absence.’

‘But that is my only source of income. If I am not earning it, how am I to fund my journey and sojourn at the university, sir?’

De Bosco waved a dismissive hand and leaned forward with the air of a conspirator. He gleefully whispered in Falconer’s ear, obviously loving his new-found powers.

‘I have plundered the university chest to pay for you and another master to carry out your task.’

Falconer frowned. Another master? Pecham had not told him that he was to have a companion. Was he then to be spied on?

‘Why do I have to have someone travelling with me?’

De Bosco waved his hand again in a gesture that he obviously found quite satisfying.

‘It’s nothing. I just need someone to… erm… ensure that no errors are made in the collection of facts concerning the Condemnations. Someone who can act as your scribe.’

And your spy, thought Falconer. Maybe de Bosco was not as dull as he appeared.

‘And who is this secretary to be?’

De Bosco grinned broadly.

‘I have already spoken to a young man, newly qualified as master of the university, who would benefit from such a post. He has no living at the moment, so he is more than eager to assist you. He is fresh, and with a sound if rather conventional brain that will suit the purpose perfectly.’

Falconer was beginning to get worried about who this companion might be. It sounded as though he would be saddled with a conservative drudge who would dog his every step and prevent him seeking out Roger Bacon.

‘Who is this paragon of virtue, may I ask?’

‘Pecham recommended him. He is one of your former students, Master Thomas Symon.’

THREE

F
alconer had a spring in his step despite the icy conditions as he returned to Aristotle’s Hall after his interview with the chancellor. Pecham had manipulated the entire project. He had ensured that Falconer would have no impediment to his meeting with Roger Bacon by suggesting Thomas Symon to de Bosco. The chancellor, new to Oxford, was completely unaware that the young man was more than a student of Falconer’s. He was learning to assist Falconer with the more medical aspects of the murder cases that came the regent master’s way. His cool brain could handle the dissection of bodies to try to understand what caused the person’s death, where Falconer shied away from this gruesome task of cutting up flesh.

‘Let’s hope that your skills will not be needed in Paris, though, Thomas,’ muttered Falconer to himself as he skipped over the steaming open channel in the middle of the High Street that was the sewer for the town. A mangy cur foraged at the debris that ran down the channel, and even Falconer’s passing by did not deter it from its task. ‘On the other hand, you had better hone your writing skills, if you are to record what Roger tells me.’

Having hurried down Grope Lane, and past the brothels that lined the narrow passage, he turned left into St John Street and was soon outside the narrow frontage of Aristotle’s Hall. Next to it stood the dingier and more ramshackle Colcill Hall. Here, Thomas Symon lodged with a handful of other impecunious masters still seeking a place in the university and a living of their own. Before returning home, Falconer decided to call in at Thomas’s abode and speak to his newly appointed travelling companion. He found him seated at a table in the shabby hall, soaking stale bread in ale to make it more toothsome.

‘You will have no more need of such plain fare, Master Symon. We shall soon be living off the fat of the land. French land.’

The young man beamed happily at Falconer, already knowing of his appointment. But still he exercised a note of caution.

‘Will there be a stipend from the chancellor?’

‘A small one. Perhaps enough to allow a little goose dripping to be spread on your stale bread.’

Symon asked Falconer when they might begin their journey, and whether the bad weather might hamper them. Falconer, looking around the gloomy hall and noting the absence of a fire to take the chill off the air, suggested they had best start soon.

‘Before you freeze to death trying to break the ice on the top of your ale. I had forgotten how an impecunious master begins his tenure at the university.’

Symon nodded gravely.

‘I will not have much in my saddlebags besides a few texts, and pen and parchment. All the clothes I have you see on my back.’ He paused, and with an innocent look asked another question of Falconer. ‘Shall I also pack my knives?’

Falconer thought of the cruelly sharp instruments that the young man used to dissect bodies. He had inherited them from Richard Bonham when the quiet little master had died of typhus after being careless with one of his dissections. He had also inherited the man’s obsession with studying how the human body worked. Falconer nodded briefly.

‘There is, after all, a medical school in Paris. You may learn a lot while we are there.’

Symon did not say that he had suggested he take the knives because murder and the need to examine bodies seemed to follow William Falconer around. He saw no reason why the University of Paris should be any different. Falconer continued developing their plans.

‘We will spend a day or two settling our affairs here, and then begin. Monday will be a good day.’

Symon ruefully thought that his affairs would take less than a day or two to arrange. His absence would be hardly noted. But he agreed to Monday as a start for their journey to Paris. It would give him time to hone his knives.

The Feast Day of St Adrian of Canterbury, the Ninth Day of January 1273

It was the day to begin their journey, and Falconer had arranged for the horses to be readied by the innkeeper Halegod at the Golden Ball Inn. He was relieved to see that the dirty, close-packed snow in the streets of Oxford was beginning to melt. Their journey would be long and arduous enough without having to plough through snowdrifts. But as he hurried back towards Aristotle’s to collect his saddlebags, the skies turned grey, and a new sprinkling of snow began to fall. He made haste to avoid being caught in another blizzard.

Pushing through the door, he was surprised to find a heavily built figure hunched over the fire in the communal hall. Falconer might have been worrying about travelling through snow, but the large man, whose back was now turned to Falconer, had clearly made his way through it easily enough. A scattering of flakes was thawing off the thick fur collar of his cloak, and his boots were caked with melting snow. Peter Mithian and Tom Youlden, two of his clerks who would now be under the tutelage of John Pecham, stood on the other side of the fire, clearly overawed by the visitor. The bulky figure, enveloped in his cloak and fur hat, which also had its share of the latest snowfall stuck to it, turned to face Falconer. From the furry depths a drawn and ageing face peered out. Falconer was surprised.