Falconer and the Death of Kings

SEVENTEEN

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.

‘Shall I speak to them? Find out what has been happening?’

‘Not yet. We don’t know who is the one who has caused all this. Who the person is whom Fusoris saw as the Devil tempting him and others. To show your hand too soon may endanger your life. Fusoris talked to you, and he died. Perhaps Hebborn was killed for the same reason. Damn it all, we don’t know enough about him to come to any sensible conclusion. And his body will have been buried by now. We have nothing.’

Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and delved into the scrip tied to his waist. Thomas was puzzled, until Falconer pulled something from his purse. It was Paul Hebborn’s scrip that Falconer had stuffed into his own purse and forgotten about. He pulled open the drawstrings and carefully tipped the contents on to the level stone parapet of the bridge. The horn spoon, three small coins, a broken comb and the book still did not say much of the dead boy’s life. Thomas pushed them around with his finger.

‘Is there nothing else?’

Falconer shook his head but felt the purse to make sure. Running his fingers along one of the stitched seams, he felt a hard lump. Excitedly, he turned the scrip inside out, and a small object fell out on to the parapet’s surface. He was disappointed.

‘It’s just a stone.’

But Thomas eagerly picked up the object and began to examine it. It was the size and shape of a pebble, and sandy in colour. He sniffed it and then cautiously held it to his mouth and licked it. Falconer was intrigued by the look of triumph in Thomas’s eyes.

‘What is it, Thomas?’

‘It is a resin produced from a plant. In the East men rub the plant buds until the resin accumulates on their hands. Then they scrape it off. Eating it causes euphoria, which is why it is taken. But it can also cause fear and anxiety. If Hebborn ate some of this, he could have feared for his life and imagined any sort of phantasmagoria — demons, Devils pursuing him or the fires of hell.’

Falconer shuddered. He recalled his involuntary experience with khat, which was bad enough. This sounded infinitely worse. If the students had been fed this, no wonder they behaved strangely. Then Thomas said something that struck a chord with him.

‘There is a rumour that the Eastern sect of Assassins is associated with eating it, and that is why they are so crazy. But it is just a rumour — a slur on their beliefs, perhaps.’

‘You are talking about opium, aren’t you? That in the East they call hashish.’

Thomas nodded, and Falconer thought of King Edward’s account of Anzazim’s attack. The mad appearance of the Assassin’s eyes. He looked at the pale stone Thomas held in his fingers, marvelling at what it could cause to happen.

‘Throw it in the river.’

‘What?’ Falconer’s reaction surprised Thomas. ‘Is it not evidence of wrongdoing? Why get rid of it?’

‘Because it is too dangerous to leave lying around. Throw it in the water.’

Thomas did so, and the small stone plopped into the river to settle among the mud and other stones on the river bed. Falconer squared his shoulders, gathered up Hebborn’s sad possessions and patted his companion on the back.

‘Come. Let us break our fast and work out what we are to do next.’

‘You go ahead. There is something I want to do before I return to the abbey.’

Falconer watched as Thomas hurried off then walked along the streets of Paris towards the abbey. His sombre mood was not lightened by the brightness of the rising sun.

Guillaume de Beaujeu was glad of the day’s grace he had given himself to consider Falconer’s request to see Odo de Reppes. As his friend had no doubt divined from his ill-considered delaying tactic, Guillaume knew exactly where the disgraced Templar knight was to be found. He should have told Falconer that it might take weeks to find out the truth. To tell him it would take only a day or two gave away the fact that he already knew. He was normally more canny than that. Perhaps seeing Falconer again after so long had lulled him into the slip. He had even considered recovering the situation by saying he could not trace the man. But that would have implied he was incompetent as Grand Master.

And then that very morning he had received an unusual request. In any other circumstances it would have been a summons, for it was to attend the King of England in King Philip’s palace. But Guillaume was now a man in a powerful position himself and had met Edward before in Outremer. The invitation had been presented by a curious popinjay of a man. He had doffed his sugarloaf hat and bowed low.

‘Grand Master, Edward, King of England and Gascony, begs the pleasure of your presence in the French king’s Royal Palace at your earliest convenience.’

Filled with curiosity, Guillaume agreed to attend as soon as he and his escort could saddle up. Sir John Appleby bowed most obsequiously yet again and left to take the Grand Master’s reply to his master. It was not long before Guillaume and four knights of the order were clattering over the Pont aux Changeurs towards the Royal Palace set on the Ile de la Cité. Once he had dismounted inside the palace grounds, Guillaume was confronted again by the gaudily dressed Appleby, who took him with no further ado to Edward’s chambers. There, the tall, well-built king greeted Guillaume like an old friend, shaking him firmly by the hand.

‘Welcome, Grand Master. Welcome, Guillaume. It is good to see you again. We must have last met on that unfortunate sortie to Krak des Moabites.’

Edward was referring to an expedition into OutreJourdain to besiege a Crusader castle in the land of the Moabites, which had been lost many years earlier to Saladin. In fact, the castle had been longer in Muslim hands than it had been in those of the original builders. Guillaume was flattered that Edward should assume a friendship with him on the basis of such an acquaintance. He had been a career Templar on his way up, but still just one of the commanders under Prince Edward’s control. He smiled politely and murmured his acknowledgement of the reminder. Edward continued to press on.

‘Of course, it was a waste of time. Reinforcing Acre was my primary task, which I am glad to say I achieved before having to return to take up greater responsibilities. But I am sure, like me, you would prefer to be back there fighting, despite the heat and dust. It was such a… pure existence.’

Guillaume saw the longing in Edward’s eyes and could almost believe the man would rather be on a battlefield than burdened with the cares of state. He had to remind himself that Edward had shown a rare ability for political expediency during the Barons’ War in England. He had switched allegiances to suit himself, often enraging his own father in the process. To present himself as a simple soldier was a subterfuge. He wondered what trick the new king was up to now. He did not have long to wait to find out.

Falconer, meanwhile, had a day to wait before his chance came to speak to Odo de Reppes. If such a chance truly existed. He was convinced that Guillaume de Beaujeu knew exactly where the disgraced Templar was to be found. But if that was in England still, then his task would be hampered, and at the very best become a long-drawn-out one. It may be that he would have to return to England before completing his investigations anyway. What had troubled the king most in the series of attacks on his family had been the death of his little son and heir, John. Falconer knew he would have to probe that affair soon. And review what he knew from Sir Humphrey Segrim about the events at Berkhamsted Castle two years earlier.

Unable to sit still in the gloomy and sparsely furnished room in the Abbey of St Victor, he took himself on a walk around the city of Paris. His meandering steps led him through the portal close by the abbey and past the convent of the Bernardins. Almost inevitably, he walked near to where Fusoris’ body had been found on the banks of the river, past Adam Morrish’s school and over the bridges connecting the Ile to the Left and Right Banks. With a determined tread, he studiously avoided the plank bridge and made for the sturdier stone bridge hard by the Royal Palace. It was the Pont aux Changeurs, and it teemed with hawkers, dealers and money-changers. Many of the last group of people were Jews. Usury — to make money from money — was forbidden to Christians by the Church, which placed it on a par with prostitution. Some Christians bore the burden of disapproval and carried out the trade. But many more Jews resorted to moneylending as it was one of the few businesses allowed them.

Approaching the island end of the bridge, Falconer’s thoughts of the Jews reminded him of Saphira Le Veske. He was still desirous of finding her in Honfleur and resolving their differences. He was also thinking of the others in Oxford that he had left behind. Peter Bullock, the town constable, would no doubt be patrolling the university town, keeping a keen eye out for wrongdoing. Then Sir Humphrey Segrim entered his thoughts again as he recalled his promise to the old man. In order to assuage the knight’s sense of guilt that he had brought down the wrath of Odo de Reppes on his wife, Falconer needed to hear the truth of the Templar’s deeds in England. Segrim had seen him in Berkhamsted when Edward’s uncle, Richard, King of Germany, had died. Killed by Odo, Segrim had insisted. It was curious how fate had now drawn Falconer into investigating that very death, along with that of young Prince John while in Richard’s care. He could not have imagined that occurring when he had met Segrim months ago in Oxford.

Pushing through the crowds that thronged the buildings perched precariously over the river on either flank of the bridge, he was surprised to catch a glimpse of someone. It was only a fleeting sight, but it was one of a handsome figure in a green dress. The woman’s hair was covered by a modest snood, but a couple of errant locks of red hair had escaped the headdress. He uttered her name.

‘Saphira?’