Ian Morson - Falconer and the Death of Kings

Saphira thanked the old stable-hand and took the reins of her rouncey from his hand. She and Falconer led their horses out into the rain and mounted, gathering their cloaks around them. It would be a miserable journey onwards to Oxford. As they plodded towards the castle’s inner drawbridge, Tom called out after them.

‘I think he was remorseful afterwards — Lord Richard. I reckon that is what brought on the attack that led to him suffering from the half-dead disease. And his eventual death.’

Falconer checked the progress of his horse, thinking of how to ask his question.

‘Did you expect Richard’s death, when it came? Was he too ill to survive?’

‘No, that’s the funny thing. Master hated the state he was in, but that had made him even more cantankerous. He wasn’t frail, or near death. So it came as a surprise when he died in his sleep like that.’

The rain beat down, and Falconer and Saphira bowed their heads and rode off westwards.

The Feast of St Edward the Confessor, the Fifth Day of January 1274

Falconer had been waiting months for some news from Paris. It was a reply to an enquiry he had sent for the attention of Grand Master Guillaume de Beaujeu. He had expected and hoped that it would come soon, for it would have concluded his long-drawn-out enquiry into the lethal activities of Amaury de Montfort. Once known to him as Jack Hellequin. Falconer wanted Guillaume to question Odo de Reppes once again about the night Richard of Cornwall died. He was still convinced that Odo had meant him to understand he was not responsible for Richard’s death. That Amaury had desired it, but that the Templar had been too late to carry out his task. Someone had beaten him to it. Falconer needed Odo to tell him all he knew about that night. But in lieu of travelling once again to the Paris Temple at the Marais, where Odo was incarcerated, he had to rely on Guillaume being his agent. Now months had passed without a reply to his letter, and he felt very frustrated. His only consolation was that King Edward was still tied up in Gascony and had not returned to England to be crowned.

Wandering the water meadows to the west of Oxford, he rehearsed in his head the events surrounding Prince John’s and Richard’s two deaths. There was no doubt that Uncle Richard had caused the death of the child, leaving the sickly young Henry as Edward’s only male heir. And the gossip was that he might not last out the year either. And the next male child — Alfonso — whom Saphira had helped bring into the world was barely a year old yet. Babies’ lives were so perilous. Edward could only hope that, with Amaury still at liberty, one of his boys would survive him. But the question for Falconer still remained. If Amaury, through the agency of Odo de Reppes, did not kill Richard, who did? And for what reason?

His wanderings around the water meadows, with the spiralling towers of Oseney Abbey rising out of the mist, gave him no answers. But when he returned to Aristotle’s Hall, one of his students was waiting for him with news. Peter Mithian had been glad to see Master Falconer’s return. Brother Pecham, who had been left in charge of maintaining Aristotle’s Hall and of teaching Falconer’s students in his absence, had been dull and of a strict nature. Falconer was an uncompromising taskmaster, but he was always entertaining and never predictable. Everyone was glad he was back.

‘Master, there are two visitors waiting for you in your solar.’

‘You allowed them up into my private quarters, Peter Mithian? How many times have I told you not to let strangers in there.’

Mithian feigned repentance, hiding a smirk behind a raised palm.

‘I am sorry, master, but they insisted.’

Grumbling under his breath, Falconer hurried up the rickety stairs to his solar set high in the eaves of the narrow tenement. He was sure some meddling envoy of the king had barged his way in and would be disturbing the perfect disorder of his room. He swung the door open and called out as he entered.

‘I hope you have not touched anything, or I shall be searching forever.’

The familiar voice he heard shocked him to his core.

‘You do not surprise me, William. This table looks as disordered as your mind.’

Squinting into the sunlight that hung low outside the narrow window arch, Falconer strove to make sense of what he saw. Before him stood the slight figure of a tonsured Franciscan monk who had not been allowed in Oxford for years.

‘Roger? Is that you?’

‘Put your eye-lenses on, William, and you will see that it is I. And I have brought you back your able scribe and assistant.’

Falconer looked to his right for the first time, recalling that Mithian had said he had two visitors. Standing to one side, in the shadows, his hands modestly folded in front of him, was Thomas Symon. He strode over to him and took one of his hands, shaking it vigorously.

‘Thomas. It is so good to see you again.’

Symon could not repress a huge grin, and he extricated his hand from Falconer’s only to rub the top of his head with it in embarrassment. Falconer then clutched Roger Bacon to him and gave him a hug, whispering in his ear.

‘They have set you free at last, then?’

Bacon freed himself from his friend’s clutches and smiled.

‘My order has seen fit to permit me to return to Oxford, where I may teach and write. So long as I show my completed writings to my Father Superior. My three volumes are still under lock and key in Paris, however.’

Falconer glanced at Thomas, who was still grinning from ear to ear.

‘And the task Thomas and yourself undertook in Paris?’

Thomas opened the flap on the satchel slung over his shoulder. Delving inside, he pulled out the corner of a substantial bundle of parchments. Bacon waved a hand.

‘Our little conspiracy continues, and Thomas works on recording my… lectures. How industrious of him. But we have something else for you. I nearly forgot in all the welcoming hugs. Thomas.’

Thomas nodded and slipped a single letter out of his tightly packed satchel, handing it over to Falconer. He took it, examining the hand that had scribed his name on the outside of the folded document. He didn’t recognize that, but then a clerk will have written it, because the wax seal on the edges of the parchment was clearly that of the Grand Master of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple. Guillaume de Beaujeu could write, but his hand was slow and awkward. He had dictated a letter to one of his clerks and sealed it not with his personal ring but with that of his office. Falconer had a sense of impending doom about this communication from his old friend. He broke the seal and moved to the window to read the letter.

William

I have to give you bad news. You have asked me to interrogate the prisoner Odo de Reppes concerning his complicity in the death of Richard Cornwall, King of the Germans. I am sorry to inform you that de Reppes is dead. Quite soon after you left Paris, one of the guards appointed to keep an eye on him entered the chamber where he was confined alone. The guard found de Reppes hanging from the wall loop that held his chains. Somehow, Odo had managed to wind a short length of the chains attached to his wrists around his own neck. He had then used the weight of his own body to choke himself to death. It was a sore ending to an unhappy life, but I cannot help but feel he is free from the oppression forced on him by my predecessor and his own iniquity. I have prayed for his soul.

I also pray for the success of Edward’s future reign as King of England.

Guillaume de Beaujeu

The signature was Guillaume’s own hand, but the sentiment rang untrue to Falconer’s ears. It was the letter of a Grand Master, and in the reading of it Falconer sadly realized he had lost a friend. He also had the uneasy feeling that Odo de Reppes had been dispatched by someone seeking to hide the truth. And not by his own hands.