Ian Morson - Falconer and the Death of Kings

‘You have aged, William. I hope your brain has not suffered as much as your face over the years.’

He laughed, and shook Falconer’s hand vigorously. Then he saw Thomas hovering in the doorway.

‘Who is this? Do you have an acolyte now? He is too young to be anything other than a fresh student.’

Falconer laughed.

‘This is Thomas Symon, and he is old enough to be a master of Oxford University. Do not let his boyish looks deceive you. He is well versed in the Quadrivium and Trivium. And he is now broadening his knowledge of medicine here in Paris.’

Thomas blushed as the famous Roger Bacon — Doctor Mirabilis to those who admired his works — examined him closely.

‘So William has you dissecting bodies, does he?’

Thomas gasped. His pursuit of understanding how the body worked by means of cutting it open had to be a well-kept secret. Dissecting corpses was strictly forbidden by the Church, except in very specific circumstances.

‘How did you…?’

Falconer waved a dismissive hand.

‘Roger is prone to wild guesses and speculation in his hunt for knowledge. Tell him nothing, and he will only construct a life history about you from looking deep into your soul.’

Bacon grinned at Thomas.

‘If what William says is true, then you might as well tell me the truth in the first place.’

Falconer patted the friar on his shoulder, helping Symon out of his dilemma.

‘Thomas is here to help me carry out the task you set me through Pecham. So, to answer your earlier questions, yes, I have been here two months and was despairing of carrying out what you wanted of me. I have been bored stiff having circular debates with scholars too scared to listen to the truth, and Thomas has whiled away his time in one medical school or another. They stopped me seeing you until today, and now they act as if there was no impediment in the first place. What is going on, Roger?’

Bacon grimaced.

‘This has been going on since my old comrade, Guy de Foulques, died. When they made him Pope Clement, he took an interest in my work. Eight years ago he asked to see my writings. This was the result.’

He pointed at a cupboard with openwork doors. Inside, Falconer could just make out stacks of parchments that had been roughly stitched together to form three books.

‘The first is the Opus Maius , covering causes of error, Christian philosophy, languages, mathematics, perspective, experimental science and moral philosophy.’

Bacon pulled a face and indicated the thickness of this first tome.

‘It became rather a large work, and I then thought that Clement would not have the time or the patience to read it. So I wrote the Opus Minus . A sort of summary.’

Thomas stared at the second tome, which seemed to him almost as thick as the first. Falconer simply laughed out loud.

‘You haven’t changed, Roger. You could never sift out the essential from the merely interesting.’ He then pointed to the last weighty tome. ‘And the third book?’

‘The Opus Tertium .’

‘Let me guess. There was so much you omitted from the first and second books, you just had to write it all down in this third volume.’

Bacon looked rueful.

‘You are exactly right, as ever, William. I sent them all to the Papal Curia through the agency of one of my students. But hardly had John got there, when Guy went and died. So here they lie, gathering dust.’

He rattled the cupboard doors, showing they were locked.

‘I was allowed to keep them, but they are safely locked away beyond my reach. And I was hidden away to gather dust too.’ He shuddered. ‘William, they forced me with unspeakable violence to obey their will.’

Falconer was alarmed by the change in Roger’s voice. Now it was unusually uncertain, his tone wavering. He grasped his friend by both shoulders, as an embarrassed Thomas Symon looked away.

‘But now you are free to do as you please again. See — we are here.’

Bacon shrugged.

‘But I’m still spied on and suspected of heresy.’ He turned back to the table and sat down on the stool again. ‘Now, when I set down my thoughts, I am reduced to using cipher.’

Both Falconer and Symon looked over his shoulder at the parchment he indicated. It was the one he had been scribbling on when they arrived. Neither could immediately fathom the orthography, which was made up of simple strokes and curls. The text was dense, and as Bacon had been writing it like a normal language, and not ciphering every letter as he went along, Falconer assumed it was a language of his own creation. But before either visitor could look too closely, the friar nervously covered the text with a blank sheet of parchment. Then he stared at the two men with a serious look on his face.

‘But that is not why I asked Pecham to get a message to you, William. I am minded to compile a new compendium of knowledge. And I need a safe way of getting it from inside these walls.’

Falconer frowned at the problem Roger had presented to him. But it was Thomas who immediately saw the means of securing safe passage for Bacon’s compendium. And in a way that would give him a task that would please him greatly. He spoke up boldly.

‘Have you permission to leave the friary from time to time, Brother Roger?’

Bacon frowned, wondering what the young man intended by the question.

‘Yes, of course I may. As long as it is only for a few hours each day.’

Falconer immediately saw what Thomas Symon was proposing. He punched the young man’s shoulder with joy.

‘Thomas, I think, is suggesting that your own head is the very vessel which can carry your ideas unseen past the portals of this friary.’

Symon nodded eagerly.

‘Yes. I have visited a number of the medical schools already, and I could arrange for you to teach at one. Every day, you could come to the school ostensibly to teach, and could dictate what is in your head to me. I have a good, clear hand, and can take down what you say at a reasonable speed.’

Bacon laughed out loud.

‘I will be smuggling my encyclopedia out piecemeal.’ He shook the young Thomas by the hand, but had a warning for him. ‘It will take up much of your time for many months.’

‘I have not much else to do. And I will be learning as I write.’

Bacon turned to his old friend Falconer.

‘And you, William, what do you propose to do all this time?’

Falconer smiled easily.

‘I have tired of my official task — that of understanding Bishop Tempier’s Condemnations. I will look into the death of this student who fell from the Notre-Dame tower. After that, I am sure something will come along to keep me busy.’

He was not to know that Sir John Appleby already had orders from King Edward to track down this Oxford master who was adept at solving cases of mysterious death. And so was blissfully unaware that he would soon be embroiled in a labyrinth of mysteries that would tax him to the limits of his brain.

The streets on the south bank of Paris were almost empty of people. A heavy downpour had driven everyone indoors, and the wet pavements gleamed like pewter, reflecting the dark grey clouds that scudded over the city. Falconer kept under the overhanging eaves for shelter from the rain as he retraced his steps towards St-Cosmé church. He was going in search of the body of Paul Hebborn, the student who had fallen from the top of Notre-Dame Cathedral. He would have preferred to have Thomas with him as he didn’t like looking too closely at corpses. But Symon’s skills as a scribe were sorely needed by Roger Bacon, so he had left the young man planning his task with the friar. Falconer was short-sighted, and to see anything of significance on the body he would have to don his eye-lenses. He had had these fashioned a number of years ago now, refining the armature that held them on his nose and ears himself. But they were still a cumbersome appurtenance, and he was embarrassed about wearing the device in the presence of strangers. He hoped that the signs on the body would be so obvious that he would have no need of lenses.