Ian Morson - Falconer and the Death of Kings

The other monks who surrounded the one accused shied away in fear of this angry figure. The monk himself stopped in his tracks, struck dumb by the verbal onslaught. Then, as his companions scuttled away, he saw who it was had shouted at him, and he put on a truculent face.

‘If you want the boy, you are too late. He has gone of his own volition.’

Falconer stepped up close, thrusting his face into the other man’s.

‘I don’t believe you. He was afraid for his own soul, so why would he choose to leave the sanctuary of the abbey?’

The monk backed off, no longer sure of himself. He glanced around to see if anyone would come to his rescue. But the three men were alone. Everyone else had disappeared. He broke down.

‘Someone came for him. A friend, he said. And the boy was calmer this morning. It was as though the demon that possessed him had been driven out, thank the Lord.’

He made to sidle past Falconer, but William grabbed the long, pointed hood that hung down his back. Choking, the monk begged him to let go.

‘You can go when you have told me what this friend looked like.’

‘He was young. Well, young-looking, and of average height. Normal. And dressed in a dark cloak with a hood. He had the hood up, so I could not see his face properly. It was raining.’

Falconer let the hood go, and the monk hurried off into the darkness of the cloister aisle clutching his throat. Falconer looked at Thomas, concern brewing in his heart.

‘I have a bad feeling about this, Thomas. If I were more religious than I am, I would think the Devil was stalking Paris in the shape of a young man in a black cloak. First he pushes me off the bridge, then he comes to collect poor John Fusoris and carry him off to hell.’

Thomas frowned.

‘Do you believe the two incidents are connected in some way? And what about Paul Hebborn? Perhaps this same person pushed him off Notre-Dame.’

‘I am afraid you may be right. I think we had better try to find John before some harm comes to him. Though I don’t know where we can start.’

‘We can try his lodgings. He may have gone back there.’

‘Show me the way.’

In the end they found John Fusoris quite quickly. Leading Falconer directly towards the river bank, Thomas took the narrow lane to the right past the convent of the Bernardins. Emerging from the other end of the lane, they saw lanterns bobbing about further along the river bank. Getting closer, they could hear the sound of men’s voices calling out to each other. One rough accent carried the loudest.

‘Over here. He’s here.’

The lanterns converged on the outflow into the Seine of a stinking, turgid stream. Falconer got there ahead of Thomas, his long legs eating up the ground.

‘What have you found, friends?’

A ring of coarse-looking faces, half-lit by the yellow lamps the men were holding high, stared at him. The man with the rough accent spoke up.

‘Another drunk drowned in the river, master. It needn’t bother you. We can take care of him.’

The men’s faces betrayed nervousness, and the swinging lamps cast eerie shadows over them. Thomas guessed that they were scavengers, living off the misery of others. A dead body would be good pickings for them. For it was a body he could see at their feet. Whoever it was lay face down in the mud of the river bank, the clothes soaked from being immersed in the river. Thomas was fearful that his and Falconer’s lives were at risk in such company. But his companion seemed unconcerned. He leaned over the body, discerning that the clothes were too stained with mud to be sure if they were those of a labourer or a man of quality.

‘Shine your light over here, friend. Let me get a good look.’

The leader of the scavengers was so surprised at Falconer’s taking charge that he obeyed instinctively. He held the lantern closer to the body. Falconer hefted it by the shoulders and turned the body over. Thomas groaned. It was John Fusoris, and there could be no doubt that he was dead.

Much later, they were leaning on the parapet of the Petit Pont watching the reddish light of dawn creep along the river towards them. It had taken the rest of the night to arrange the proper disposition of John Fusoris. Falconer had guarded Fusoris’ remains, while Thomas had made arrangements for the Mathurin convent, which had housed the body of Paul Hebborn, to take the new corpse. Mud from the river bank stained the slab on which Fusoris was laid. But the same self-effacing monk who had spoken to Falconer about Hebborn had gently cleansed his features and straightened his hair. The dead youth still looked fearful, however. His eyelids were now closed, but before the monk had dealt with them he had had a wide-eyed look about him. His stare reminded Falconer of Hebborn’s look when he had come to see the first dead youth.

Now, breathing in the freshness of the new day as the river flowed below them, Falconer passed this information on to his young companion.

‘I remember Hebborn’s eyes were wide when I examined him. Just like Fusoris.’

Thomas frowned in concentration, squinting into the dawning light. The sun was beginning to flood the river’s surface with gold.

‘You mean his stare, or his pupils?’

‘His pupils, I suppose. I recall thinking Hebborn’s eyes were like deep dark pools. Does that signify something?’

Falconer knew Thomas’s knowledge of anatomy and the physical reactions of the body to poisons or drink already far outstretched his own. Thomas could not say for sure, though.

‘If you saw his eyes when he was alive, there could be some significance. Some drugs make the pupils dilate. But after death the pupils relax and open wide anyway.’

Falconer grunted in frustration. It seemed his observations on Paul Hebborn’s body were useless.

‘Then the fact that Fusoris’ pupils were wide open when I spoke to him only serves to confirm he was eating khat leaves. But then we knew that.’

Thomas paused, a little confused by Falconer’s statement.

‘When you spoke to him? When did you do that? You didn’t speak to him when he was incarcerated in the first place. I remember that because I was there.’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? Last night I couldn’t sleep. Kept tossing and turning on that infernal pallet they call a bed at the abbey. So I got up and walked around the cloister. There was a candle burning in one of the cells. When I looked through the grille, I saw that Fusoris was awake too and kneeling in prayer. I asked him how he felt.’

Thomas couldn’t believe that William had not already told him this.

‘And what did he say?’

Falconer shrugged his shoulders and squinted into the rising sun.

‘He was still a little incoherent. Still talking of the Devil and temptation. What he did say, though, was that Paul had been weak and had given in to temptation. He said that Hebborn had eaten of the forbidden fruit. He used those exact words — eating forbidden fruit — and said the Devil had tempted them all.’

‘Who do you think he meant?’

Falconer thought about Thomas’s question, picking through what Fusoris had said with more care. At the time, he had been tired and inclined to be dismissive of the boy’s garbled message. Now he wondered if there was not some truth in it. He cursed himself for ignoring what had been placed in front of him.

‘I think he was referring to all the other students. Do you think they have been up to something as a group, something that caused Hebborn and Fusoris to be killed?’

Thomas thought Falconer was on to something. He recalled the two students of medicine eating something and giggling together in the tavern the night he got drunk on coarse red wine. One of them he didn’t know the name of, but the other one had been de la Casteigne. He could get the truth out of him easily enough. Or from Jack Hellequin. He was suddenly hesitant in case he found out an unpleasant truth about Hellequin, whom he had grown to like.