House of Shadows

ACT TWO

30 September 1270

When they found him in the vicinity of the reredorter he was babbling.

‘God is over the three, the three over the seven, the seven over the twelve, and all are joined together. There are thirty-two paths of secret wisdom. The number thirty-two is the sum of ten and twenty-two, being fingers and letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The decade and its elements are figures. One is the spirit of the living God, and two the spirit from this spirit. Three and four are water and fire. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Brother Peter.’

Prior John de Chartres assured him of his full comprehension, though he could clearly see that the monk was raving. Brother Peter looked gaunt, his sandy hair lank and unwashed. The prior suspected him of fasting himself into this agitated state and felt humiliated at not having noticed it sooner. The youth smiled broadly and pressed on, the words cascading from his lips.

‘And five to ten are the six sides of a cube – that perfect form – each designating in its turn height and depth, and the four compass points of the world. Of course, this establishes nothing real but expounds the idea of possibility…’

‘Yes, yes, brother. Nothing is real.’

The prior soothed the young man, squeezing his shoulder in an avuncular fashion. But his words were just balm. Prior John’s heart felt as heavy as a stone. He had been sent from France to shore up the faltering establishment that was Bermondsey Priory. Sundry suits concerning the ownership of adjacent lands had drained the priory’s purse. And there had even been unseemly scuffles between tenant farmers and some monks, resulting in complaints of rough treatment. After four years of hard work, Prior John had thought he had at last got on top of all these problems. Then suddenly, in late September of the fifth year of his office – 1270 – matters had deteriorated. There had been a disappearance, and now it seemed that evil had been visited on the priory. For the only possibility he could imagine was that Brother Peter Swynford had gone stark, staring mad.

William Falconer, Regent Master of the University of Oxford, had been on a wild-goose chase, and he cursed his friend, Roger Bacon, for it. The Franciscan friar had become obsessed with alchemy since discovering certain secret books, books the contents of which he refused even to share with his old friend William. As a result, Bacon had locked himself away for weeks in his little watchtower on Folly Bridge at Oxford. At night the glow of furnaces and the stink of bubbling alembics assailed both the eyes and noses of those in the vicinity. Even those merely passing were occasioned to hurry by, fearing they might be contaminated by the deeds of the devil. He had finally emerged only to beg William to make a small journey on his behalf. Bacon’s monastic order forbade him free movement, preferring to keep their free-thinking brother under close observation. But it seemed that Friar Roger required further confirmation of his theories of ‘species’, or radiating forces that emanate from every substance, physical or spiritual, to affect other things. And for that he needed Master William Falconer, himself an inveterate fiddler in the field of the natural sciences, to go on a journey. Falconer was reluctant to comply at first. But Bacon knew an appeal to Falconer’s curiosity would hit the mark. And it had.

At first, Falconer had urged his friend to remember his own admonitions about experimental science. Proof of theories could be obtained only by personal experience through the senses. The Regent Master prided himself on his adherence to logic. Indeed, he had often made use of Aristotle’s rules in Prior Analytics to solve many a vexing murder case in Oxford.

‘We must seek only truths. For two general truths, not open to doubt, often lead us to a third truth not previously known.’

‘Exactly, William,’ responded Friar Bacon sweetly, reining in the irritation caused by Falconer’s school-masterly tones. ‘And that is why I am doing what I am doing. I need to understand pulverization and distillation, mortification and the proposition of lime. For whoever knows these things will have the perfect medicine, which the philosophers call the Elixir, which immerses itself in the liquefaction as it is consumed by the fire and does not flee or evaporate.’

To Falconer, it all sounded like dark magic, and he feared for his old friend. Perhaps Bacon’s long incarceration by his order had addled his brain. But he knew that in the end he would have to humour him. He sighed, stopped pacing and plonked his burly frame down next to Bacon on the bench outside his workshop. He ran his hands through his unruly, grizzled locks, aware not for the first time that they appeared to be thinning on the top of his head. He knew he could not refuse Bacon’s plea. Besides, he had his own reason for wanting to consult an alchemist, and preferably one far from Oxford, where everyone knew everyone else’s business. He gave in gracefully.

‘Tell me what it is you want.’

He hadn’t bargained on his acquiescence resulting in him travelling half across the country and back. To Canterbury, in fact. And with little to show for his efforts at the end of the day. Now, to make matters worse, on his return journey, the rounsey he had hired in London had gone lame in one hoof. Moreover, one of his headaches was beginning. He fumbled in the pouch at his waist for some of his medicament. Dusk was falling rapidly, and he was well short of the inn where he had obtained the nag several days before. With even London Bridge, built only twenty years earlier, beyond the capabilities of his mount, he knew he would have to seek somewhere to stay. But he was floundering in the marshy lands to the south of the River Thames. Exasperated, he was almost moved to call the lonely area godforsaken until he remembered. He had passed close by Bermondsey Priory on the outward leg of his trip to Canterbury’s Jewry. It could not be far away now, and his spirits lifted. Through rising mists, he followed his nose and the stench of the tanneries located in the priory’s vicinity and soon saw the heavy bulk of church buildings looming out of the darkness. The priory sat low to the earth, as though it were sinking under the weight of its own bulk into the surrounding marsh. But he was glad of its proximity. Falconer was now on foot, leading the poor, lame mare, and his own feet were pinched in the new boots he had treated himself to in Canterbury.

‘The lame leading the lame,’ muttered Falconer as he finally limped under the great stone arch of the priory gatehouse. A rumble of thunder from the heavy storm clouds that gathered over his head welcomed him in. Strangely, the gates were still ajar, but there was no one to meet him. The place was deserted. Before him the outer court was empty, with the church’s ornate façade rising up steeply. Row on row of saints precariously perched each in his own niche looked grimly down on him. Large spots of rain began to spatter one by one on the cobbles of the yard. The only light he could discern was that cast by flickering torches inside the church. Long shadows and guttering flames played across the great rose window high above, creating a sense of something hellish going on inside the church. This impression was strengthened when a piercing scream surged out of the half-open great doors in the church’s western façade. The scream was followed by another, and another, causing its own echo in the gasps that were rent from Falconer’s breast. His headache was worse, and the screams pierced his brain like a knife.

‘In God’s name, what is going on here?’

He dropped the horse’s reins and left the nag to fend for itself in the priory courtyard. Striding towards the source of the awful screams, he suddenly felt a deep sense of foreboding. All was not well in Bermondsey Priory.

He pushed through the heavy oaken doors and stepped into the cool and imposing interior. The church was lit by pitch-brands set in iron rings along the side aisles. But it was the central nave of the church that drew his gaze. His eyes were carried up the seven pairs of sturdy columns that marched down the nave and on to the high rib-vaulting of the ceiling. It spoke of open space and heavenly calm. But at the end of the soaring space, in the entrance to the choir and the holiest of sanctuaries beyond, a scene from hell was being enacted.

A dozen black-clad figures were in the process of beating what looked like a roped-together bundle of rags heaped on the floor at the foot of the steps up to the choir. Each in turn raised an arm and brought his birch rod down with fearful force on to the bundle. In solemn but remorseless motion, the beating rotated around the circle of men, their actions synchronized by one who stood at the top of the short flight of steps. This man’s face was grim and set with firm resolve. At any sign of weakness on the part of those thrashing the bundle, he issued a stern admonition.

‘Harder, Brother Paul. Brother Ralph, remember this is for his own good.’

At his next turn, the accused offender unflinchingly beat even harder. It was a while before Falconer realized that the bundle was not just a pile of rags but a person, bound by ropes. And the heart-rending cries were coming not from those wielding the rods but from their helpless victim – a monk, as his oppressors were. Falconer could not stifle his cry of horror.

‘For pity’s sake, stop this.’

The call echoed around the lofty nave, and one by one the rods ceased their awful downward plunge. Slowly, the monks turned to face the intruder, a mixture of shock and guilt etched on their faces. Only the older man who had guided their efforts was unmoved. His authoritative voice rang out down the central aisle.

‘Where have you come from? Who are you?’

His face set in a mask of determination, the man strode down the steps towards Falconer. His flock parted like the Red Sea before him, stepping back into the gloom of the side transepts. A lesser man might have fled at his forceful approach, but Falconer was too old and wise to be worked on by outward show. And he stood his ground. So it was the prior who hesitated momentarily, breaking his stride. Suddenly a change came over his countenance. In a swift moment, he was the man of God, shepherd of souls, welcoming a stranger into his church. He spread his arms and stood before Falconer with an apologetic cast to his looks.

‘Forgive me, good sir. You encounter us at an awkward time. I am John de Chartres, prior of Bermondsey. Please forgive me for your being witness to this unpleasant scene. It was not intended for others’ eyes.’

‘William Falconer, Regent Master of Oxford University. And I can imagine your not wanting others to see this. Do you often beat your monks into submission?’

The prior threw a glance back over his shoulder to where the other monks were stood frozen on the spot. Falconer’s words had been loud and clearly spoken. The monks could not have failed to hear them and were wide-eyed in astonishment that the stranger could be so bold in the face of their stern and overbearing prior. They had experienced four years of his dominance and were well cowed by now. Previous governance of the priory had been lax, but they had been brought back to strict discipline after the arrival of the new head of their house. John de Chartres had remedied former faults, righting the bad reputation of the priory, and now the monks feared him. Prior John coughed out a warning, scattering his gawping flock, and took Falconer by the arm. He led him into the side aisle, where their conversation would not be overheard by those more innocent ears.

‘You do not understand the situation, Master…Falconer, was it? You see, Brother Peter is ill.’

Falconer snorted in derision, at least glad to perceive that the pains in his head were receding. ‘And thrashing him to within an inch of his life will cure him?’

With difficulty, the prior retained his calm exterior. ‘Indeed, I hope it will. You see-’ he paused, clearly unwilling to divulge too much of the internal problems that beset him ‘-Brother Peter is vexed with demons.’

Falconer frowned, reluctant to brook such unscientific thought. Demons did not figure in Falconer’s pantheon of ailments. He offered an alternative guess as to what troubled the unfortunate monk. He knew that all too often the illness that caused a man to fall down in a fit and froth at the mouth was seen as demonic possession. Whereas the more skilled in medicine called it epilepsy, Falconer chose to use its old name. ‘He has the falling evil, then?’

Prior John de Chartres smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘I almost wish it were that disease. At least we then would know what to do and could take care of our brother. No. Unfortunately, we found him in frenesim – in a frenzy – and I do believe he has gone stark mad. It is fortunate we have a hospital here, where we formerly confined those with leprosy. Now that curse is receding, we use the old lazar house for the mad, the lame and the dumb.’

Falconer had heard of such hospitals. The inmates were not there to be treated but merely to be confined. He did not doubt that the bound and beaten figure of Brother Peter, now lying groaning in the centre of the church, would be chained up in such a place. If, as was likely, his so-called treatment was deemed to have failed. Falconer’s first impressions were vindicated. The priory did not seem to be a happy place to have stumbled on, and in other circumstances he would have moved on. But he had no other choices available to him. Outside the church, he could hear the rain beginning to fall heavily, and he needed a dry place in which to rest. With luck, it would be for only one night.

‘Hmm. Much as I doubt you can beat out the madness from his mind, I don’t know of any other way he can be cured. Perhaps a little kindness would help, though.’

The prior smiled wanly in response to Falconer’s admonition. He might have wished the man was not present to witness the problems he had suddenly had to deal with. But the requirement to provide hospitality to the traveller was paramount. He strove to change the subject to something less painful to his soul. ‘I imagine you wish to break your journey with us, Master Falconer. Especially with the weather turning so evil.’

As if on cue, a flash of lightning illuminated the outer courtyard in an eerie bluish glow, and a crack of thunder followed close on its heels. The frightened whinny of Falconer’s hired rounsey reminded him of the reason for his broken journey, and he hurried out into the driving rain to quieten the animal. Prior John de Chartres did not follow him out into the deluge. From the cover of the church’s western archway, he called out above the noise of the rising storm.

‘Take the horse around the rear of the church. A lay brother there will stable the beast for you. The guest quarters are in the hall beyond the infirmary. But beware, there is someone…’

There was a momentary hesitation in the man’s instructions, as though he had suddenly thought of another impediment to his new guest’s sojourn. However, Falconer, who was short of sight anyway, did not see the worried frown on the prior’s visage at such a distance and through the sheet of falling rain. Merely that the prior cast a look over his shoulder before again waving his arms to the right to emphasize where Falconer should go.

‘Well, you will see for yourself. Go that way before you drown. You will find the hall easily enough.’

He then disappeared inside the church again to deal with the problem of the mad monk.

Falconer shrugged his shoulders at the mysterious utterance of the prior and, bowing his head against the driving rain, led the rounsey around the north side of the church. Avoiding a brook that already ran in flood across the marshy ground beyond, he followed the prior’s instructions. He turned to the right around the grey and looming structures south of the church. Most abbeys and priories were similarly laid out, and Falconer guessed that the first outbuilding he came to was the infirmary where Brother Peter would soon be confined. It looked a grim and depressing place, and by the evidence of his nose the main cesspit for the priory abutted it close by. The final building in the range should be the guest quarters. And indeed, hugging close to the walls to shelter from the worst of the rain, Falconer soon discerned a bedraggled figure lurking in an archway that led to another inner courtyard. This would be the lay brother who would stable his horse.

The man beckoned him over and took the reins of the lame rounsey with nothing more than a grunt to welcome the prior’s unexpected guest. It was only as the man turned his back that Falconer’s eye was taken by a light in one of the upper windows of the guesthouse. He thought he saw the pale features of a person in the light of a flickering candle. Delving in his pouch, he produced his eye-lenses and fixed them on. But by then the vision was gone, the window dark, and, besides, the rain was smearing his view through the lenses.

When first he had commissioned the device to rectify his poor eyesight, it had been nothing more than two pieces of glass fixed at either end of a V-shaped bar of metal. He had had to hold it to his face to see clearly.

Dissatisfied, he had eventually crafted folding side-arms that wedged above his ears. For the first time ever, he had been grateful for the jutting nature of those appendages. Still and all, the eye-lenses were heavy and cumbersome, and he didn’t wear them regularly. He was thought eccentric enough already in the town of Oxford, and to wear eye-glasses all the time would invite ridicule. Taking the glasses off, and folding them, he called over to the lay brother.

‘Who was that at the…?’ He paused, unsure what he was asking. The man glanced up to where Falconer was pointing. Seeing nothing, he frowned and shrugged his apparently already burdened shoulders. Falconer sighed and decided he had seen nothing more than a false image in the flicker of lightning in the sky. That or a ghost, and he didn’t believe in ghosts.

‘Brother, where do I go?’

The man, who might have belonged to a silent order for all the conversation he had at his disposal, pointed a stubby finger at the doorway at the other end of the range from where the ghostly image had appeared. Falconer trudged under the arch and out of the rain.

The prior sat at the long oak table in his private chamber twisting the seal ring that adorned the little finger of his left hand. Before him lay a precious piece of fresh parchment on which he was contemplating writing a letter. This sheet was no palimpsest, used and rubbed clean for reuse, but bore a pristine surface. It was to carry a significant message to the parent house of St Mary’s, La Charité-sur-Loire. John de Chartres had thought long and hard about the contents of the letter, and even if it should be sent at all. But he was a cautious and meticulous man and did not want to be held to individual blame for the scandal he feared could soon be exposed. He cursed the day he had been given the commission of setting the priory back on its feet. Then, he had scorned the old tales of horror that went back to soon after the founding of the priory.

Shortly after his own landing on the shores of England, he had been told by a seafarer, who happened to reside near Rotherhithe, that the place he was going to bore a poor reputation. He had brushed off the remarks as the malicious rumours of tenants who resented paying the priory its dues. But almost as soon as he arrived at Bermondsey, one of the older brothers, Ranulf, had taken him aside.

‘Prior, I have to warn you that all is not well here.’

John smiled to himself wryly. He knew that. After all, had he not been sent to sort out the financial mess the priory had slipped into?

‘I am aware of irregularities with the accounts, Brother Ranulf.’

He was quite shocked at the look of scorn the old monk had then given him. He was not used to such disrespect and began to remonstrate. But Ranulf gave him no time to get into his stride, sneering at the new prior.

‘No, no. That is nothing – a little laxity. No, I am talking about past deeds that still dog our heels.’

John stood in silence as the story flooded from Ranulf’s hoary and bewhiskered lips. It was a tale of the priory’s earliest time, almost two hundred years ago. Of chaplains who disappeared without trace, and ladies who were wards of the king, and who rewarded the ministrations of the monks by running off into the wide blue yonder. It had all apparently brought bad luck on the house. When the monk finished his diatribe, it was John de Chartres’ turn to cast a scornful look on his informant. He was a prudent and worldly man despite his deep faith, and yarns about errant lords and ladies and bad luck did not impress him. Besides, he had been vouchsafed a darker and more accurate account of the priory’s early history by his superiors. An account with which he wasn’t going to enlighten Ranulf.

He had smiled and patted the old monk on the shoulder in much the same way as he had done this very morning when Brother Peter had uttered his gibberish. He had at the time taken Ranulf’s tale to be similarly outlandish. They had not bothered him then, those old stories. Now, he was beginning to wonder. He pulled the candlestick closer to his parchment, the better to write of the events he wished to detail by the yellowish flame. Beyond the window of his comfortable upper chamber, dusk had fallen. And the edge of the pallid moon was beginning to be eaten away.

Falconer crossed the cramped room that was the small upper solar of his guest quarters, the old floorboards creaking under his weight. He sank down on the rude bed, which also protested at his size. He was a large man, but even now, after years spent in study at the university, his frame carried little excess fat. He had been a fighting man in his youth and kept up an active regime to avoid the degeneration of the body that he saw in his fellow Masters. But now it was not his body but his mind that troubled him. After fifteen years as Regent Master at Oxford University, Falconer was afraid he was losing his mind. Not in the sudden way that the young monk called Peter was deemed to have lost his by the prior of Bermondsey, but in a slow and insidious manner.

It had all started when he was lecturing a bunch of new students on Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. The subject was as familiar to him as his own palm, and he had intoned the tenets a thousand times. But suddenly he could not recall a simple set of premises.

‘First then take a universal negative with the terms A and B. If no B is A, neither can any A be B. For if some A – we will call them C – were B, it would not be true that…not true that…’

Suddenly the sequence that he had rattled off to hundreds of students refused to emerge from his brain. And a sudden shaft of a headache arrowed through his left eye. He had covered the moment by brusquely harassing one of the more recalcitrant of his students. ‘Finish the premise, Thomas Youlden.’

At least he had remembered the boy’s name, if not the principle he had been instilling into unwilling brains for years. The boy had trembled but had fumbled his way through that which had completely escaped his dominie. Later, his old friend and constable of the town of Oxford, Peter Bullock, had guffawed when Falconer had privately confessed his embarrassing failure. Though he still didn’t mention even to Bullock the accompanying megrims that troubled him periodically.

‘Why, William, I do believe old age is creeping up on you too.’

The thought had mortified Falconer, who was only just into his forty-fifth year and several years younger than Bullock. That was the moment when he decided he needed to seek a herbalist. The Doctors of Medicine at Oxford were less than useless to him. Their so-called medical knowledge was based on philosophical thought, not empirical action. Be that as it might, the problem was that he didn’t want anyone else in Oxford to know of his plight anyway. So that was why he had so easily complied with Roger Bacon’s request for him to travel to Canterbury to enquire of a certain Jew there about alchemical matters. Falconer had seen straight away that he could combine the trip with a medical consultation.

Now, as he lay back on the bed, pondering on the results of his trip, an errant sliver of pain began to niggle at his left eye again. He dipped into his pouch and extracted another dried leaf. It would have been better to infuse it in hot water, but the persistent rain and the thought of seeking help from the intransigent lay brother put him off. He stuffed the leaf in his mouth and sucked on it, waiting for the light euphoria it would bring. Through the arched window of the solar, he could see that one edge of the speckled surface of the moon was being eaten away by darkness. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but sleep did not come.

In the growing stillness, however, he was aware of a dim but persistent noise. He lay in the darkness trying to decipher the sound. The closest he could come to it was that it reminded him of the sound of a ship tossing on a worried sea. He rose and stepped across to the window, wondering if one of those cloud-ships he had heard tell of as a child had indeed sailed into view above the priory. He recalled his father swearing to the truth of coming out of Mass one morning to find a cloud-ship bobbing in the sky, its anchor caught on a tombstone in the churchyard. His father had looked up to see a strange-looking sailor cutting the rope to leave the anchor behind and so allowing the ship to sail away into the sky. However, his father had been unable to show the boy any evidence. No anchor lay in the churchyard. Falconer gazed up, but all he saw was a growing darkness as the moon was increasingly obscured. Then he heard the sound again and knew it for what it was. Someone was unceasingly pacing the floorboards of the adjoining room to his. The room at whose window he had thought he had seen a ghostly figure.

As the moon was slowly eaten away and the night darkened, John de Chartres picked up his quill and began his narration of the events of the past few days. He set down on the pristine parchment in lines of black ink the disconcerting disappearance of two brother monks and the madness of a third. It had all begun two nights ago at compline, when Brothers Martin and Eudo had failed to put in an appearance. A cursory search of the priory and grounds had established that they were nowhere to be found. Eudo La Zouche was a quiet, stable youth, whose absence surprised the prior, even though he had found him easily led.

Brother Martin was another matter altogether, and his past history made it all the more difficult for de Chartres to confess to his disappearance. But confess it he must, it seemed. Especially now that Brother Peter’s precipitate descent into madness had occurred. He was afraid there were darker deeds to confess. All three young men had come to Bermondsey Priory by different routes and from different backgrounds – particularly Martin – but had somehow struck up a mutual friendship. The prior had been glad at the time that they had studied and prayed together, clearly finding mutual strength in their comradeship. He now wondered if he had been misled into thinking their alliance was one of innocence. And he began to examine his recollection of their friendship to see if there had been one who had exerted a stronger influence over the others. It was his greatest fear that Martin had led the others astray in some way.

‘I now lay down my confession of sin…’

The prior stared at these opening words scratched on to the page for an eternity, before becoming bold enough to write down the final calamity.

‘And now we have his mother to contend with.’

Knowing that the effects of the chewed leaf would not allow him to sleep, William Falconer decided to slake his curiosity. He crept across his room, barely making a noise, and descended the stairs. The two guest-rooms, while being next to each other, were not connected in any way. They were approached by two separate staircases from the inner courtyard. So if Falconer was going to discover who his restless companion was, he would have to descend his own stairs to access those of the other guest. It did not occur to him until he stood in the archway at the bottom of his own stairs staring at the continuing downpour that he had no reason to be intruding on the other man.

‘Damn it all, William. You are an infernally nosy character – you must be able to think of some cause to disturb his rest.’

He sidled along the wall of the guesthouse trying his best to keep out of the rain that still poured down. Despite his best efforts, several large drops of water fell from the roof overhang and subtly found their way down his neck and inside his robe. He shivered as the freezing water trickled down his back, soaking into his underclothes. Reaching the arch of the other staircase, he pushed against the door to escape the deluge. It resisted his thrust, and after rattling the latch several times he finally realized the door was locked.

‘Who is it feels so damned insecure that he locks himself up inside the walls of a priory?’

Defying the rain that was already soaking him a second time, he stepped out into the yard. Putting his eye-glasses on, he stared up at the window where he had first seen signs of occupation. At that moment, like a providential stroke, a flash of lightning lit up the yard followed hard by a clap of thunder. Almost on the thunder’s heels and in the returning darkness, a yellowish light once more appeared at the window. Falconer swiped his fingers across the lenses before his eyes to clear the blurred image and perceived the pale, anxious visage of a woman. She was staring up at the maelstrom that was the storm. And the moon that was half-disappeared from the sky.

‘A woman. And locked away too.’

‘She is a Jewess seeking her son. What else could I do, short of casting her out? And that I could not do.’

Falconer hadn’t known he had spoken his own observations out loud, and turned to look over his shoulder at who had replied. There stood a black-clad figure who had appeared out of nowhere, his footsteps masked by the sounds of the thunderstorm. Though his hood was pulled over his features to protect him from the rain, Falconer could see it was John de Chartres. The prior was looking at him quizzically, and Falconer realized he still wore the heavy glasses that helped his vision. Embarrassed, he pulled them off, folding them up and returning them to his pouch.

‘She…What is a Jewess doing looking for her son in a priory?’

De Chartres grimaced. ‘That is simple. He is here…or he was. Until the day before yesterday, to be exact.’ He took Falconer by his arm and guided him towards the archway of his guest-room. ‘Let me explain somewhere more salubrious.’

Saphira Le Veske gazed down on the two men as they scurried back into the shelter of the doorway at the other end of the building where she had been incarcerated. Once they were out of her sight, she looked up at the sky again, to where the moon was experiencing a rare eclipse. As the curved shadow of the earth crossed the moon’s sunlit surface, it appeared as though a greater and greater arc was being eroded from the orb. Superstitious folk might imagine that the moon was being eaten away. Saphira, an educated woman who had run her dead husband’s businesses for more years than she cared to recall, knew better. But she still sighed at the phenomenon. It was so much more alluring to imagine the moon being consumed by a great invisible monster than to conceive of orbs in the vastness of the sky. She looked back down at the empty courtyard, now nearly pitch black as the moonlight was eroded. The big, raw-boned man with the strange eye-lenses had piqued her curiosity. Before he had put on his glasses, she had looked into his piercing-blue eyes and seen intensity and a wild intelligence. Maybe he was the man she needed to restart her stalled affairs at Bermondsey Priory.

She crossed her upper chamber and pressed her ear to the wall that separated her room from his. If she concentrated, she thought she could just hear the murmur of two voices.

‘Though I have no obligation to do so, I wish to explain the circumstances to you.’

The prior was beginning his conversation with William Falconer rather too sternly, and he knew it. Still, he could not help himself, as he preferred to surround himself with an aura of infallibility. He was moreover a man who relied on his dignity to carry him through difficult situations and was unused to confiding in others. But somehow he felt the present circumstances would be served by sharing them with this erudite stranger. Especially as Master Falconer was someone whom the prior was unlikely to see ever again after the night was over. Falconer was seated on the edge of his pallet, legs spread wide, his hands planted firmly on each knee. He angled his head at the prior’s comment, as if indicating his understanding of the monk’s difficult position. The man seemed to have something to hide. But William knew the value of silence in eliciting further information from a reluctant witness and kept quiet. Prior John de Chartres paced the creaky floor, pulling on his lower lip with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He paused for a moment, looking out at the darkling sky outside the narrow window. Then he swung around to face Falconer again.

‘The blight of Brother Peter’s madness is not the only problem to strike this priory recently. In the last few days two of his fellow brothers, both his sort of age, have disappeared without trace.’

‘I am used to the errant ways of young men, who give in to the lure of the fleshpots for a few days. But they nearly always come back repentant.’ Falconer paused to look up at the prior, who clearly didn’t take too kindly to his suggestion that the Cluniac order resembled in any way the rowdy hordes of Oxford clerks. He quickly softened his observation. ‘On the other hand, there are those uncertain souls who often take flight back home to their families, having decided that learning is not for them.’

The prior shook his head. ‘Neither case can appertain here, Master Falconer. Brother Eudo is an orphan, and Brother Martin…’ His face crumpled, and he cast a glance sideways at the blank wall that separated Falconer’s solar from the other guest-chamber. William wondered if he thought the mysterious woman was listening in to their conversation for some reason. ‘Perhaps you will understand if I tell you that Brother Martin is called Le Convers.’

‘He is a Jew.’

‘Was a Jew, Master. Now a convert from La Réole near Bordeaux, and I am paid eight pence a week to instruct him in the Catholic faith. But now I am not so sure I should have taken such a viper into my nest of innocents.’

Falconer sensed there was some deeper matter here, and that it involved the woman locked away next door. He could feel the prickle of a megrim beginning, but he thrust it aside. ‘Tell me all the circumstances.’

The Jewess knew she could save her son if only she could escape the durance that had been imposed on her. It had been her misfortune to trust the prior of Bermondsey Abbey when she approached him openly the previous day and said she sought out the youth known as Martin the Convert. John de Chartres had obfuscated, from the outset appearing embarrassed by the Jewess’s request.

‘Why do you seek out this person?’

‘Because he is my son, Menahem. And his conversion was an ill-considered and rash act hard on the death of his father. If he is here, as I believe he is, please let me speak to him. I have travelled long and far to find him, neglecting the businesses that my husband built up in his lifetime. And which Menahem – Martin – will in time inherit.’

‘Not if he is a Christian, I dare say.’

‘True. After all, it is the business of lending at an interest, which is forbidden those of the Christian faith. But it is equally only that which we-’ she swept open her arms to encompass all of her own faith ‘-which is all we Jews are allowed to pursue.’

‘Be that as it may, madam…’ The prior pursed his lips in distaste at the tenor of the conversation. ‘What makes you think Mena…your son is here?’

‘Because I have followed his tracks across France and into this realm. I thought to have lost any trace of him then. But, having lodged in Jewry at Canterbury in the small parish of St Mary Bredman, I learned of a French convert lodged close by St Thomas Hospital there. I was too late to catch him there, though. He was said to have been moved here to Bermondsey Priory. Can you deny he is here?’

‘I can in truth say that no one called Martin Le Convers is presently in this priory, woman. So your journey is in vain, and you must return empty-handed. However, as the hour is late, and the weather worsening, please accept my Christian hospitality for the night.’

Saphira Le Veske thought his words accurate only in their strictest sense. Perhaps her son was not presently in the priory, but she was sure he resided here normally. She sensed something uneasy in the manner of the prior, something she could not put down to his being confronted by a Christ-killer, and a mere woman. What had her son done that made the man so unwilling to admit to his existence? She was determined to find out, and after taking up her lodgings in the priory guest quarters she resolved to wait until darkness fell and then scour the priory in secret. It had come as some shock to her to find she had been locked in. She had been standing at the window puzzling over her predicament when the tall stranger with the peculiar eye-glasses had turned up.

Saphira Le Veske was a good-looking woman with a thick head of red hair and green eyes that were unusual in her race. And she had turned many a man’s head with her looks, which even though she was now forty-one she flattered herself to imagine were still alluring. The stranger was somehow going to be her saviour, whether he was aware of it or not. But before she could properly attract his attention, the creepy old prior had materialized from the stubborn darkness cast by the eclipsed moon. Now she was back relying on her own resources and would have to think again how she could escape her chamber. She wished she had paid more attention to the esoteric faith that had so seduced her husband and son prior to the older man’s death. The Kabbalah might have given her some mystical release from her prison, but in the absence of magic she would have to rely on something more mundane. She poked her head out of the solar window.

‘Can I speak to Brother Peter?’

Falconer had a notion that, if only he could understand the boy, he would be able to decipher what had happened in this accursed priory over the last few days. John de Chartres had spun him a yarn about three young monks who had forged a bond in the months since the young former Jew’s arrival at the priory, a bond that with hindsight the prior now deemed unholy and unhealthy. De Chartres now saw Martin Le Convers as the fount of all the evil that had occurred. Falconer was not so sure but would keep an open mind until he got to the truth. His experience of the Jews of Oxford told him that people of that race avoided conflict where they could. Naturally, there were just as many hotheads among the young Jewish men as there were in the Christian community. But they were by and large more circumspect, and more than aware of their equivocal position in England. Still, this youth was a convert and might not be in the same mould. Falconer had only Peter to tell him what had really been going on.

The prior pointed out the problem of questioning Brother Peter. ‘But he is mad. All he utters is gibberish.’

Falconer smiled. ‘And many would say I utter gibberish every day of my teaching life. Especially my new students. But soon they learn there is a logic in my catechism. Sometimes it just takes a pedantic and logical mind to make sense of the apparent madness in the world. After all, once you have discarded the impossible, then even the improbable that remains must somehow be the truth.’

John de Chartres grunted, clearly not prepared to accept the veracity of Falconer’s rather unusual statement. But he saw no other way out of his dilemma than to allow the Regent Master access to Brother Peter.

‘Come, he is in the hospital close by.’

As the rain still beat down steadily, William took a cloak from his travel baggage and wrapped it around his still-damp robe. He followed the prior down the staircase and out into the yard. The men paused briefly at the archway, hesitant about diving back into the storm. Falconer instinctively looked right and left before stepping into the darkness. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of something pale halfway down the junction of the wall to the guest quarters and that of the monastic dormitory, something pale, topped by a flapping bundle of material. He smiled to himself and, taking the prior’s arm, steered John de Chartres across the streaming courtyard – away from the shapely vision of a slim woman’s bare leg topped by her rumpled, dark gown, which had apparently snagged on the leaden downpipe that she was attempting to shin down.

‘This way to the infirmary, you said?’

Behind them, Saphira untangled her gown and slid down the pipe to the ground. She crouched in the shadows, the rain turning her fiery red hair a deep brown, until the two men turned the corner of the building opposite. Then she hurried to follow them, sure that the errand they were on would throw some light on the whereabouts of her son. The tall visitor to the priory – the one who had clearly seen her stuck halfway down the drainpipe – had mentioned an infirmary. Maybe her son was the one they were about to visit there. From one point of view, she hoped not – often such hospitals were used as lazar houses. She did not want to imagine her son as struck down with leprosy, though this might explain the prior’s reluctance to acknowledge his existence. Barefoot, she crossed the courtyard and cautiously peered around the corner of the adjacent building to see the men duck under an archway to her right. Silently, she followed them.

Falconer cast a quick glance behind him as he and the prior approached the hospital. He was able to spot a shadowy figure sidling around the corner of the building. Despite his poor vision and the growing darkness as the moon was cast further into shadow, he was satisfied that the figure’s slight stature was that of the mystery woman who had been locked away. His instincts told him she would help him unlock the puzzle surrounding the two missing monks and Brother Peter’s madness. To have her on hand and free of the constraints of John de Chartres suited him perfectly. He ushered the prior ahead of him and deliberately left the hospital entrance door open behind him.

Saphira Le Veske padded barefoot behind the two men, oblivious to the freezing rain that steepled down from the heavens. She was getting closer to finding her son, and all her concentration was on the task ahead. After they had passed under the arched entrance to the building on the opposite side of the courtyard, she hovered for a while in the deep shadow of one of the buttresses to its outer wall. Then, certain that the men must by now have proceeded further into the building, she slipped across the cobbled yard and stood under the same arch. The door was slightly ajar, and she was able to slip through the gap without moving it any further on its hinges.

Inside, she could discern by the light of flickering candles a long, rib-vaulted room partially divided by wooden partitions. She could hear the sound of restless bodies tossing and turning on straw-filled pallets, a sound punctuated by occasional moans. It was the sound of suffering, both physical and mental. Still, she could not rid herself of the idea of this being a lazar house, and she shuddered. At the end of the room, a curtain had been pulled back from one of the partitioned spaces, and candles burned brightly in the space so revealed. Saphira could make out the prior and the stranger leaning over a bed, staring intently at the figure that lay on it. She tiptoed closer.

‘Can you not take these chains off him? He looks soill.’

Falconer was appalled at the way the poor, mad monk was being treated. He was gaunt, and his skin was papery and taut across his skull. Yet he had been manacled to his bed with chains sturdy enough to hold down a bull. Brother Peter was bearing the indignity with equanimity, sleeping placidly on the coarse blanket that formed his bedding. And his robes were clean and tidy. The prior looked at the sombre monk who had been sitting at Peter’s bedside when they had arrived. The thin, grey-faced minder pursed his lips and shook his head briefly.

‘I fear not, Master Falconer,’ replied the prior. ‘Brother Thomas here is our herbalist, and I trust his judgement in cases like this.’ He suddenly realized what he had said and qualified it immediately. ‘Not that he is familiar with cases of madness, you understand. It is quite beyond both our comprehensions.’ The monk nodded solemnly in confirmation. ‘As for his…wasted appearance, he and his friends were simply fasting and practising the ascetic life. A little excessive maybe, but I didn’t see anything wrong in it. And, see, we have put him in clean robes and dressed his wounds. But as for the chains, Brother Thomas and I are in agreement. It is better for…Peter…that he remains under restraint.’

Better for the priory was Falconer’s interpretation, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He leaned over the slumbering body to examine the boy’s face. Suddenly, Peter’s eyes started open, and he stared back straight into Falconer’s own face. The Regent Master wondered if he had been feigning sleep and how much of the earlier conversation Peter had been following. The boy was the first to speak.

‘Hello, Adam.’ He raised his right hand as far as he was able, and with a clank of chains traced three marks around Falconer’s head. ‘One, two, three. The Crown, Wisdom and Intelligence. I see it.’

‘I am flattered, Peter. But my name is William, not Adam.’

Brother Peter faltered a little, frowning at the correction.

‘Not Adam, then? Well, never mind.’ Quickly, another thought flashed in his eyes. He smiled. ‘Have you found Eudo yet?’

‘No, Peter. Do you know where he is?’

A sly look crossed his features, and he turned away from the prior. ‘I might.’

‘And Martin, where is he?’

Falconer’s question seemed to bother the young monk, and he moaned, shaking his chains as though he wished to be free of them.

‘Martin? He is the Sephirah of Darkness. No, no, don’t talk of him. I have journeyed to Jezirah and seen the ten classes of angels. I know.’

Falconer frowned, not understanding any of this gibberish.

‘What do you know, Brother Peter? Where are they both, your friends?’

‘Oh! He is dead. He is dead.’

The young monk’s pale face then screwed up in horror, and he clutched at the sleeve of Brother Thomas’s robe. Uneasy, the herbalist grasped his wrist and worked the cloth out of Peter’s grasp. Behind them, Saphira Le Veske was shaken by the words emanating from the monk’s quivering mouth. Did he mean Martin was dead, or was he referring to Eudo? Guiltily, she prayed for the latter to be the case. Besides, unlike the patient stranger, she knew what the boy’s ramblings meant. Or thought she did.

‘What have you done, Menahem?’ she muttered, and slid back into the darkness of the gloomy infirmary.

Falconer, meanwhile, contemplated his next move. If one of the boys was dead, where was the body? The prior said they had scoured the whole priory when the young monks had gone missing. At that time they had not been found. But if what Peter said was true, one of them was dead and his body lay undiscovered somewhere, leaving the other alive and perhaps guilty of the murder. It had all happened so recently that Falconer could not believe that whoever it was who was still alive – Martin or Eudo – could have gone far. Indeed, it was more likely he was hiding until the awful weather passed and it was possible to travel abroad. Looking out of the window of the hospital, he saw that the rain was still steepling down, and once again the Stygian gloom caused by the disappearance of the moon in the sky was briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning. A thunderclap like the crack of doom followed hard on its heels, showing the storm was now almost directly overhead. The terrible sound roused Brother Peter, and he cowered at the end of the bed, dragging his chains taut. He began to gibber, using strange words.

‘He is released, the Sephirah of Darkness – Samuel and all his Keliphoth…’

The prior and the herbalist stepped back in horror and crossed themselves. Falconer rose, too, and rubbed his forehead in the region where his megrim was advancing. Unseen, he slid another leaf into his mouth and chewed. He looked down at the prostrate form of the chained monk, seeing the fear in his eyes. He knew he would get nowhere in the presence of the prior and his minion.

‘Prior John, if there is truly a body in the priory, I urge you to locate it as soon as possible. Before the other monks arise for prime. If the two of you go now and conduct a thorough search, I will stay with Peter.’

At first, Thomas balked at the idea, but the prior saw the sense of it.

‘Come, Brother Thomas, what Master Falconer says is sensible. We must locate the body before anyone else rises and discovers it by accident. Besides, Brother Peter is chained and cannot escape even if he wished to.’

The herbalist picked up one of the candles burning beside Peter’s bed and led the prior away on their search. Falconer turned to follow their departure, surreptitiously glancing around in the dark for the mystery woman. He had been aware of her presence as he questioned the monk, but now she was nowhere to be seen. He wondered where she might have gone. And what she was doing.

In fact, Saphira was doing nothing. She had no idea where to begin the search for her son, knowing only that he was not in the infirmary. She had quietly peeped in each cubicle as she had passed it on the way towards Brother Peter’s bed. There were only old and sickly men inside the partitions that were occupied, men on their final journey to the heaven they prayed to every single day of their monastic life. None of the bodies on the beds was that of a young man. She had breathed a sigh of relief. But then when Peter had proclaimed that one of his companions was dead, Saphira had been stricken to her core. She could only hope he was referring to the other young monk, Eudo. Though she wished no one ill, his death was preferable to the demise of her only son. But what troubled her more were the words that Peter had used before his outcry. To the prior and the stranger – someone called William Falconer, apparently – they had clearly been nonsense, the ravings of a lunatic, but Saphira knew exactly what they signified. And it worried her deeply. She sank down on the thin mattress in the cubicle she had chosen to hide in, waiting until the prior and the other monk had walked past. Suddenly she felt cold and tired, and she was aware how her wet clothes clung to her. It caused her to shiver uncontrollably.

‘Peter, Peter, they have gone. You can talk to me alone now.’

Falconer gently urged the somnolent monk to open his eyes and acknowledge his surroundings. After a moment, when Falconer thought his urging was going unheeded, the young monk’s left eye abruptly opened, as he tested the truth of the Regent Master’s words.

‘Look, Peter, the prior has gone, and so has Brother Thomas. Tell me, who is dead? What has happened to your friends Martin and Eudo? What were you doing that has frightened you so?’

Peter opened his other eye and looked slyly into Falconer’s face. ‘Who says we were doing anything?’

He sounded like a little boy caught in the act of self-abuse, and it occurred to Falconer that all this might be nothing more than a tale of mutual self-indulgence. God knows, he was used to that at the university. Though it rarely ended in death, perhaps one of these monks had been mortified enough to have killed himself. But the fear in Peter’s eyes suggested that the secret held between these three young men was deeper and more horrific. Once again Peter began to babble.

‘Look for geometric perfection, where the entrance numbers six, between eight and nine is the flaw. There is the three, and the name of God is creation.’

He grabbed Falconer’s wrist and pulled himself up to the limit of his chains. ‘Repeat it to me.’

Falconer balked, but at Peter’s insistence he recited the nonsense twice, fearful that his memory lapses might let him down. His memorizing of the puzzle seemed to calm Peter down, and he fell back on the bed, his eyes closed once again. Falconer waited until the boy’s breath became even and deep, then he rose. He walked down the gloomy passage between the beds towards the door of the hospital. Suddenly he stopped, distracted by something unusual but not sure what it was. He sniffed the air and walked back a few paces. Peering into the darkness of one of the cubicles, he saw a person sitting on the coarse palliasse, knees drawn up to the chest and head down. Long chestnut hair tumbled over the person’s knees. It was the scent of wet hair mixed with a delicate perfume that had told him it was no tonsured monk he had detected on walking past. He slipped into the cubicle and stood beside the bed.

‘Madam,’ he murmured.

The woman started from her reverie and stared up at Falconer. Her face was pale and her features drawn, but it was a face of great beauty, with a chiselled nose and high cheekbones. The eyes were green and almost almond in shape, suggesting some eastern origin. Falconer saw immediately it was indeed the pale figure he had seen at the window above the courtyard – the ghostly apparition occupying the room next to his. He spoke again, calmly and comfortingly.

‘Madam. My name is William Falconer. I believe we have the same goals. You are searching for your son. I, too, would like to find Martin, and his friend Eudo.’

‘Menahem. His name is Menahem, not Martin. Menahem Le Veske.’ She spoke firmly, almost stubbornly. William could see it would be best not to cross such a determined woman, who apparently had travelled far to trace her son. Besides, he was now more certain than ever that she would prove an excellent ally in his search. Saphira, for her part, knew that this William Falconer could be the key to tracking down Menahem. If only they shared their knowledge.

‘My name is Saphira Le Veske, and I think I can explain some of what that poor young boy was saying.’

Captivated, Falconer sat down on the edge of the bed, and in the encroaching darkness the Jewess began to illuminate him.

Brother Thomas, meanwhile, was given the unenviable task of searching the outer court of the priory. This involved the prior staying warm and dry under the cover of the porch leading to the cloister, while the herbalist trudged across the open marshy wastes towards the working buildings on the south of the site. He was soaked by the time he entered the yard that was enclosed on two sides by the granary and brew-house. His feet were frozen and covered in filth, and he left muddy footprints as he poked around the brew-house and its neighbouring bake-house. He knew that the task was hopeless. Everyone had looked here before, and there had been no signs of Brothers Martin and Eudo then. He reckoned they had run away, tiring of the discipline instilled by Prior John. After all, if the old stories were true, it wouldn’t be the first time a monk and those in their care had fled. His search revealed that neither youth was here now, nor were they in the kiln-house or granary. But as the latter was warm and dry, Thomas lingered over his search until he thought the prior would begin to wonder where he was. Reluctantly, he forced himself out again into the heavy rain, getting soaked once again. It was therefore doubly annoying that the prior had not even had the courtesy to wait for Thomas to report the results of his search. John de Chartres was nowhere to be seen.

Falconer was deeply disturbed after listening to Saphira. It seemed the gibberish that had emanated from Brother Peter’s mouth was more than it appeared.

‘The Kabbalah? Though I know many Jews in Oxford, and call them my friends, I have not heard of this.’

‘If they are traditional Jews, then you are unlikely to have done. Its roots are deep in our faith, but not everyone approves of it, nor its recent new flowering. But my late husband was seduced by it, and by the philosophy of Rabbi Azariel. He was obsessed with the idea that, given the knowledge of the right sequence of letters naming God, man could emulate His role as creator. To make a living man, which we call a golem. There are stories that someone succeeded. I suppose it only natural that my son, Menahem, also picked up some of the doctrines.’

‘Unfortunately, it seems it is a case of a little knowledge being dangerous.’

Saphira Le Veske grimaced and nodded her head. Her unrestrained tresses were drying and recovering their startling copper colour. And their natural waviness. She swept the thick hair back through the fingers of her left hand. Then she returned to clasping her knees with both arms like some young girl hugging herself for security in a dark world. The pose was in contrast to her mature command of the situation, however, and her understanding of its dangers.

‘Menahem, Martin – call him what you will – was always a boy who sought others’ approval. If he thought these other boys would cleave to him because of him imparting secrets to them, he would revel in the adulation. I think that is why, when his father died, he was drawn into the seductive promises of the local Christian priest. And I was too engrossed in my own grief to see it until it was too late.’

‘Tell me. Peter talked of the Crown, Wisdom and Intelligence, and called me Adam. What does that signify?’

‘They are the first three of the ten Sephiroth – the mediums between God and the real world. They are the head of Adam Kadmon, the archetypal man.’ She sighed. ‘Forgive me if I cannot explain this properly. I never subscribed to my husband’s mystical beliefs, which some say grew out of a spiritual reaction against the rational world we are surrounded by. The world I am perhaps a little too attached to.’

A smile formed on Falconer’s face. ‘I myself am seduced by the logical. Too much so, some people say. And yet it seems we both have to let a little of the mystical into our hearts, if we are to solve this riddle and find your son.’

‘But not the darkness. We should not let that in.’ Saphira shuddered and looked out of the narrow slit of a window in the cubicle. As if in mockery of her words, it was pitch black outside. The moon had all but disappeared, and with it any light. ‘Our faith warns of the dangers of esoteric doctrines, which no one ought to delve into, unless he is a scholar who has his own store of knowledge to protect him.’

Falconer leaned forward and touched her lightly on the bare arm. She did not recoil, and he felt a spark of common feeling pass between them.

‘I can say that I am not exactly ignorant of the philosophies of life. Nor are you yourself, I think.’

As he drew his arm back, she grasped it firmly, preventing him from moving away. Her hand was warm and her look encouraging.

‘I trust you, which is more than I can say for the prior. He gives me the creeps. But do take care. There is an old story that warns of the risks of meddling in dangerous knowledge.’

‘Tell me. It may help us avoid disaster.’

Saphira took a deep breath and began. ‘Four sages enter an orchard – which stands for dangerous knowledge – and have a mystical experience. The first gazed on it and died, the second gazed on it and was stricken mad, the third gazed on it and destroyed their creation, turning heretic.’

‘Eudo and Peter are the first two. Martin perhaps the third. And the fourth?’

Saphira turned her startling green eyes on Falconer, a questioning look in them.

‘You said there were four sages. What happened to the fourth?’

‘He escaped with his mind intact, because he was wise and anchored to the here and now.’

‘Then let me hope the last is I.’ Falconer uttered the words confidently enough, but he felt a twinge of fear due to his errant memory. Was wisdom draining from his mind? If he pursued this quest, would he fail also, through not being wise enough? But it was only a momentary lapse, and a flush of euphoria abruptly filled his mind with confidence. He laughed.

‘Is there something troubling you?’ Saphira asked.

He looked at the Jewess sitting beside him on the bed. She had a look of concern in her beautiful eyes.

‘Nothing. What makes you think there is?’

‘You looked so…distant for a while. As though you were no longer present.’

A tendril of worry crept up Falconer’s spine. Was he lapsing into blank reverie as well as being forgetful? He laughed again, trying to make light of his fears, but this time it sounded forced. ‘It’s nothing, really. I have just been a little…ah…forgetful lately.’

Saphira looked hard at him but decided to make no more of the moment. They had more urgent matters to attend to now. Falconer pulled off his old greyish cloak and draped it over Saphira’s shoulders. She began to protest – after all, he would get as wet as her in the teeming rain – but he insisted.

‘It’s more sensible this way. If I pull the hood up-’ he did so as he spoke, enveloping her head of luxuriant red hair and obscuring her finely chiselled features ‘-then no one will tell who you are. Look. You could pass for a monk in that garb. A small, very shapely monk, but…’

She giggled, despite the situation, and pulled the cloak close around her. It was true – dressed like this she and the Regent Master could search the priory for her son without arousing too much suspicion. He gently took her arm.

‘But we will have to hurry or the priory will be rising for prime, and then it will be impossible to move freely around.’

Falconer picked up a stub of candle and cradled it in his hand. They would be in the dark outside where a strong wind was blowing, but maybe he would be able to relight it inside the priory buildings. As they left the hospital, he glanced back at the tableau of a recumbent Brother Peter, chained to his bed and lit by the glow of two candles on either side of him. He resembled some saintly icon glowing in the surrounding darkness. The woman pulled at his sleeve, and they went out into the stormy blackness of the priory grounds. The sky was invisible, the moon completely obscured. It gave Falconer the feeling of an oppressive weight bearing down on him, and he hurried along the eastern wall of the dorter and towards one of the doors.

‘Wait! Look!’

Saphira Le Veske’s call was shrill and peremptory, her clutching at Falconer’s sleeve urgent and demanding. He turned around and saw the woman staring into the Stygian gloom.

‘What is it?’

‘There. By the stream that runs below the building. There’s someone there.’

‘The latrine block? Hold on…’

There were times when Falconer regretted his poor eyesight, and this was one of those moments. He fumbled in his pouch and withdrew his eye-glasses. Fitting them to his head, he peered in the direction Saphira was pointing in.

‘There. Can you see him? It’s Menahem, I’m sure it is.’

Falconer, cursing the rain, tried to make out what she was indicating. Then he saw a movement, but it was no more than a grey shape in a blacker world, until the figure turned to look towards them, alarmed perhaps by the woman’s cry. Falconer discerned pale features beneath a monastic cowl, and he was about to ask how Saphira knew it was her son on such little evidence when she broke away from him. The cloak he had lent her flapped in the strong wind as she chased after the disappearing shape. Falconer pulled off his eye-glasses and sprinted after her. When they got to where the figure had been, there was nothing. There was no door he could have entered, no window he could even have clambered through. His escape was blocked to the south by the churning, muddy stream that ran in spate below the latrine block of the reredorter. And he could not have passed them to the north, as there were blank walls to either side. He had simply vanished.

‘Are you sure it was your son?’

‘A mother knows her son, Master Falconer. It was Menahem, or Martin as they call him here. But where could he have gone?’

She looked distraught at having been so close to the goal of her hunt and yet having missed him. Falconer wondered if her overriding desire to find her son had seduced her into superimposing his image on the fleeting apparition. He grasped her shoulder and turned her back the way they had come.

‘Come. Let us stick to our task of scouring the priory. If it was him-’ she looked hard at him, angry at his lack of confidence in her opinion on the ghostly figure. ‘-then we will find him. We at least now know he is here somewhere.’

The trouble was that their search was as fruitless as the earlier one. They combed all the buildings they could gain access to but found no crumb of evidence that either Martin or his companion Eudo were anywhere on the premises. Nor was there any sign of a body. Finally, bodily soaked, with their spirits drowned too, they took shelter under the porch that led into the cellarer’s building. The long, low, rib-vaulted chamber was illuminated by a couple of sputtering candles and punctuated by gloomy corners where lurked dusty barrels and anonymous heaps. Used for storage, it was a convenient and dry means of reaching the covered way of the cloister. Neither Falconer nor Saphira wished to remain in the rain any longer. As they crossed the cellarium, Saphira grabbed Falconer’s arm and hissed a warning.

‘There’s someone down at the far end.’

Falconer screwed up his eyes, making out a tall, angular figure that did not resemble the boy that Saphira had claimed to have seen earlier. He was rummaging around in a pile of crates, one of which toppled over on to his sandalled foot. A brief curse was followed by an expostulation to God for forgiveness. The monk turned towards them, and Falconer could tell it was Brother Thomas. Saphira slipped discreetly behind one of the columns as Falconer approached the monk.

‘Have you found something, Thomas?’

The monk looked startled. ‘What? Oh, it’s you, Master Faulkner.’

Falconer silently excused the monk his mangling of his name and enquired if he had discovered something of significance.

‘No, I doubt it. I was just wondering about the old cellar below here. It’s somewhere in this corner behind all these boxes. No one’s used it for years, but Brother Eustace was saying a few days ago that he had heard noises in the night coming from this region.’

‘Noises?’

‘It’s probably nothing, really. Eustace is getting on in years, and his hearing isn’t what it used to be, but…’

‘But what?’

‘Others claim to have heard strange noises too. But that was only after Brother Eustace mentioned it, and you know how hysterical people can get about ghosts and such. Personally, I don’t believe a word of it.’

Falconer was now getting confused and asked the monk what he was talking about. The skinny fellow waved his arms in embarrassment.

‘Oh, just old tales of the founding of the priory, and missing chaplains and disappearing ladies of noble birth. Old wives’ tales, if you ask me.’ He hesitated and gave Falconer a shifty look that suggested he was not as dismissive of the tales as he claimed. He leaned close to the Master and whispered in his ear. ‘Some say there are ghosts down in the lower cellar there.’

Suddenly a peremptory voice rang out down the vaulted chamber.

‘What are you doing there, Brother Thomas?’

The herbalist, looking abashed, scurried over to John de Chartres as he strode out of the darkness.

‘Just searching, as you commanded, prior. When I came back to the porch, you were no longer there, and I suddenly thought of the old cellar room. Then I couldn’t find the door, and-’

The prior cut off his minion’s meandering story abruptly. ‘It is not necessary to look in there. And I was not where you expected me because I had other business to attend to. Important business.’

Falconer stepped between the two monks. ‘Not necessary to look in this room? Why?’

The prior seemed calm, though Falconer thought he detected a fleeting look of alarm crossing his features. He took the Regent Master’s arm, as though trying to guide him away from the room in question.

‘It is a…storeroom that is rarely used and mostly kept locked.’

‘And in your search for the two missing monks, you didn’t look there?’

John de Chartres now looked more than a little uncomfortable.

‘As I said, it’s normally kept locked by the cellarer. There is nothing much stored in it, as it’s below ground level and it’s rather…’ He hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘It’s rather cold and damp. Uninviting, shall we say?’

‘Then let’s find the key to it and see if there’s a body down there.’

John de Chartres looked taken aback by Falconer’s suggestion, as if unwilling to divulge the secrets that this chilling chamber might house. But then he shrugged his shoulders and turned away. ‘Follow me, then. It is not convenient, however. We shall have to rouse the cellarer from his sleep.’

Falconer grimaced. ‘Murder is a very inconvenient matter, prior. And it needs a full investigation.’

The cellarer, an impossibly obese monk whose robe strained at the task of covering his stomach, had not taken too kindly at being aroused from his bed in the dormitory, though Falconer imagined the other monks sharing the communal sleeping area might have been glad of his awakening. His snores had been audible from the bottom of the night stairs leading up to the first floor of the dorter. They had first been met by the elderly monk called Ranulf, who slept by the entrance. It appeared he was a light sleeper and had been stationed close to the door by the prior to ensure that none of his fellows roamed in the night. He had led them to the cellarer’s bed. It had taken them much longer to waken Brother Michael than it had done Ranulf. Now, as the cellarer donned his heavy black robe, Falconer’s gaze drifted over the long room. The darkness of the sleeping quarters was profound, deepened by the total eclipse of the moon outside the window arches. Then he saw the faint light of a taper moving between the beds, and he followed the grey shape of someone slipping out through the furthest doorway. Knowing the layout of such places and that the latrine block lay in the reredorter to the south, he guessed that someone who had been disturbed by them had taken the opportunity to rise and take a piss.

That was another symptom of advancing years that Falconer himself had become only too aware of. It also reminded him of his unsuccessful attempt to find a specific for his memory problem and nudged his niggling megrim to the level of sharp pain. He popped another leaf into his mouth and chewed, waiting for the euphoria it would soon bring. By the time the little procession was wending its way down the staircase towards the storerooms of the priory, he felt a lift in his spirits. He thought of the Jewess, Saphira, and hoped she was still undiscovered in the cellarium building.

Waddling ahead, the cellarer led them inside his storage area and thence to the corner where Brother Thomas still stood. He moved a few boxes and revealed a heavy studded door that showed all the signs of little use. Cobwebs were draped across the top of the stone arch, and the metal of the lock was badly rusted. The cellarer complained as he fumbled for the right key among the bunch he held in his chubby fingers.

‘I don’t know why you should want this place unlocked. I have not used it in my time as cellarer, which amounts to some dozen years. I was told by my predecessor that the cellar – which is below ground – is useless for storage purposes. It’s cold and damp due to the level of the river and prone to flooding.’

The prior turned to Falconer and explained. ‘In the early days of this priory, the monks diverted the River Neckinger to serve the water mill. But the stream will find its own way still. Given that, and the fact that occasionally the Thames itself sometimes breaks through its embankment if the locals do not maintain it properly, we are prone to flooding here. This room is kept locked, as you can see, and there is no possibility that anyone can enter it without Brother Michael here knowing. We are wasting our time.’

It was then that they all heard a strange, muffled keening sound coming from the other side of the door. Brother Thomas and the cellarer gasped, and the colour drained from their faces. John de Chartres merely looked grim, then, dropping his gaze away from Falconer’s, he sighed.

‘Open the door,’ he ordered peremptorily.

The cellarer pushed the key into the lock, where it stuck until he forced it round. Together, he and Thomas pushed against the rusted hinges until the door opened. A wet, musty sort of darkness flowed out of the entrance. Falconer was the first to step forward.

‘Let me go first.’

No one objected, and Falconer took the lantern that the cellarer had been carrying from his trembling hand. Thrusting it forward, William could see a steep flight of steps running down between narrow walls. The keening sound had ceased, and all he could hear was the sound of water dripping somewhere in the chamber. He eased his way down the steps, which were only slightly worn in the centre, suggesting they had indeed been rarely used even though the chamber was quite old. At the bottom of the steps he felt rather than saw a floor of packed earth that muffled his footsteps as he walked on to it. Raising the lantern, he looked around him.

The cellar was rectangular, but at some point a wall had been erected partway down, creating two rooms. The space he could observe by the light of his lantern seemed more like a crypt than a cellar. Hollows were cut into the walls, each roughly the size of a human body, though none of them was occupied by anything other than spiders and their webs. He sensed the sepulchral gloominess closing in on him and, feeling dizzy momentarily, leaned his free hand against the wall. Under his palm, the stones were cold and clammy. In fact, the very air he was breathing was chill, yet at the same time it tasted of wet, heavy mud. For a while he felt as though he was suffocating, as if being buried alive. He sucked in one more breath of the thick, fetid air and held it down, steadying his thumping heart.

Calmed, he returned to surveying his environment. This first, oblong area had green mould growing in the dampness, though he could tell that the walls themselves were finely wrought. There were few remains of what had once been stored here. As he looked cautiously around at the shattered ribs of old barrels, Falconer became aware of a rustling sound beyond the archway leading to the second section. He cautiously paced across the earth floor, wary of rats.

Reaching the archway, he poked the lantern into the second chamber and saw two forms huddled in the furthest corner. As the flickering light played on them, one moaned and held up a hand over his eyes. The other person lay quite still under his companion. They were both dressed in the black habit of the Cluniac monks, though both robes were spattered with the reddish mud common to the surrounding marshy land. The monk who had responded to the light of Falconer’s lantern turned a pasty face towards him and reached out a hand in supplication. It was a hand bathed in the blackish colour of congealed blood.

‘Help me.’

It was just a whisper, but no less heart-wrenching to Falconer for that. The blood-covered monk was not much more than a boy, with a thin, drawn face. Falconer looked beyond him at his companion. This one was past any earthly help, his tonsured skull a mess of blood, shards of bone and grey matter. Falconer hesitated a moment, thinking of Saphira Le Veske and her search for her son. Then he framed the inevitable question.

‘Martin…Menahem…is that you?’

The boy frowned and stared fearfully into Falconer’s eyes. It was then that William noticed splashes of blood on the boy’s face too.

‘How do you know my name? My real name?’

William breathed a sigh of relief on behalf of Saphira. Her son was alive, and the body had to be that of the other missing monk, Eudo. The problem was that Martin had been found in a locked room, crouched over the body with no one else present. And Falconer saw, lying close by Martin’s feet, the stave from an old barrel spattered with Eudo’s blood and brains. Martin had to be the killer.

Falconer looked down once again at the body of Brother Eudo. The splashes of blood and brain that spread in nauseous pools on the earthen floor radiated from where his head lay. There could be no question of him having been killed elsewhere and brought here to be hidden. The deed had been committed here, and Martin had been found behind a locked door. How could he be innocent? How could another man have been the murderer, only to spirit himself away through the solid and subterranean walls?

‘Menahem. We must be quick. Tell me, did you do this?’

A strangled moan escaped the boy’s throat.

‘No. Yes. It is all my fault. They wanted to know about the golem and the mystery of God’s creation. I led them to this.’

The golem. That was the name Saphira had used when telling Falconer of her husband’s dabbling in emulating God as creator. But he worried that Martin’s reply had been confused. He tried again to pin him down to the truth.

‘But did you kill Eudo?’

A sharp intake of breath from behind him made Falconer turn. Standing in the archway was the grim figure of John de Chartres. The prior was surveying the scene illuminated by the lantern and drawing the obvious conclusions from what he was observing. There was a strange look of satisfaction in his eyes, as if what he saw solved a problem for him. Falconer would have thought it made life even more difficult for the prior, but apparently not. While Falconer’s brain still raced, de Chartres commanded Brothers Thomas and Michael, who hovered behind him, to remove Eudo’s body. They shuffled reluctantly into the confined space and lifted the body at each end, flinching at the sight of the blood and brains. They might have expected Martin to try to flee, but he merely slumped to the earthen floor, stained with his friend’s blood.

‘This is what comes of introducing a viper into our midst.’

The prior’s comment was bitter and yet also truculent, full of hatred for Jews and their supposed evil ways. Falconer pursed his lips, refraining for the moment from forming a sharp reply. If there was anything to be done for Martin, he would need the acquiescence of the prior. To make of him an enemy would not be productive at this juncture. Besides, if by some miracle the murderer was someone other than the young Jew, it would have to be someone in the priory. John de Chartres himself could not be ruled out.

The prior touched Falconer’s arm, starting him from his reverie.

‘I shall go ahead and arrange for the body of Eudo to be laid in the side chapel. Will you stay on guard outside after Brother Thomas has locked the door? The boy can stay in here until we decide what is to be done.’

Falconer nodded, not intending to stay the other side of the door for long. If he could have the key, he could question Martin more successfully. And it would give him more time to examine the cellar more carefully for some clue to the conundrum facing him. He wondered where Saphira was now, and whether she knew her son was accused as a murderer. He left Martin in the inner room and walked out to the outer room with the prior. Following the body, they both climbed the steps. Once outside the cellar, Falconer offered to lock the door.

‘Let me take the key, Brother Michael. You appear to have your hands full.’

The cellarer grimaced at the thought of handing over any of his keys. But as he still had hold of Eudo’s legs it was an easy matter for Falconer to hook the large ring holding the keys from his belt. The cellarer grunted, struggling to maintain his hold on the body.

‘It’s the-’

‘Large rusty one. Yes, I noticed.’

While the two monks hefted the body on to one of a pile of hurdles stacked in the corner, Falconer locked the door and then detached the key from the ring. By the time Brother Michael had trotted back to retrieve his precious keys, one key was tucked safely in Falconer’s pouch. Having followed the monks across the floor of the storage area, Falconer stood quietly under the south-western end of the covered cloister. He watched as the sombre procession of prior and pallbearers, carrying their comrade’s body on the makeshift bier, wended its slow way around the colonnaded cloister walk and into the priory church by way of the side door. When the candlelit procession had disappeared, he glanced up at the sky. A thin sliver of the moon was beginning to reappear in the cloudy sky. The heavy rain had stopped, but an intermittent drizzle still swept across the marshes, and in the distance shards of lightning continued to illuminate the land. Far away, thunder rumbled across the broad expanse of the seething River Thames.

‘Saphira.’ He called out the woman’s name quietly, hoping she might simply be in the shadows. There was no response, and he tried again, a little louder this time. ‘Saphira.’

Maybe she had thought the body on the bier was that of her son and had followed the procession towards the church. Whatever the case, Falconer had no more time to waste. He quickly made his way back to the cellar door. Using the purloined key, he let himself into the lower cellar, locking the door behind him. Descending the steps, he called out so as not to startle the boy.

‘Martin.’

There was silence. He called out again as he got to the bottom of the steps.

‘Menahem. I am a friend. I know your mother, Saphira.’

Even the mention of his mother’s name failed to rouse the boy, and Falconer began to get worried. Had he been gone long enough for Martin to harm himself? He prayed not, and walked over to the inner room. It was empty. Bewildered, Falconer’s initial thought was that Martin had secreted himself in the outer room, hoping to outflank the Regent Master. Maybe Martin thought he would leave the cellar door unlocked, and he could make his escape. William quickly turned back on himself and held the light up in the outer room. There were the same few rotten barrels he remembered from his first cursory examination, but nowhere for a person to hide. To make doubly sure, Falconer poked the lantern into each of the large niches recessed into the walls. Nothing. Martin had simply disappeared.

Falconer stood in the centre of the cellar, irrationally imagining that Martin was always just behind him, moving every time Falconer turned. It was all he could do to stop himself spinning around continually. He remembered his proud boast to the prior, that once you had eliminated the impossible, then the improbable stood as the truth. But if the impossible was that Martin had somehow walked through solid walls, what was the improbable truth that remained?

He began to scan the cellar more carefully, lifting the lantern into all the corners. It was as he had originally observed – a space with a low, vaulted roof that had at some point been divided part way by a sturdy partition wall. This first chamber was rectangular, and the finely wrought walls were studded with niches that would do equally for bodies or provisions. The damp state of the cellar had probably called for such shelves, or whatever had been stored on the floor would have been rotten in a short time. As indeed had all the barrels that still remained, rotting and caved in, their contents long dispersed. Falconer could see that the only way out was up the flight of steps.

He paced back through the archway to the second chamber, noticing for the first time that there was a door hung in the opening. It had been pushed wide open, scribing an arc on the packed earth floor. The lantern was still in his hand, and he pulled the door closed behind him. He once again looked around, sensing that something was wrong. All he could see that was unusual was a scuffed-up mound of earth in the centre of the room. But even that was too shallow to be anything like a grave. He decided to ignore it as insignificant. He was aware of a swishing, gurgling sound, like running water, deep in the bowels of the priory. For a moment his head swam, and he felt a little sick. Maybe he had taken too many of the khat leaves that served to ease his megrim. He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it. When he opened his eyes again, he was disappointed not to see anything different. Then he realized what it was that was niggling at his brain. The room was perfectly square. But the partition wall behind him had looked to have been constructed halfway down the original cellar space. He looked around again.

The side walls were exactly the same as those in the outer chamber – smooth and well finished, if a little stained with green mould. Even the partition wall had been carefully constructed. But the fourth wall, now facing him, was different. It had been hastily constructed of a different material and even bulged slightly. The mortar was old and crumbly, and some of the stones were loose. For the room to be square, this wall must have cut off a section of the old cellar, and he wondered what might be behind it. He began to scrape at the mortar with his fingernails.

Suddenly he heard a deep, unearthly, indrawn breath behind him. And a massive force slammed into his back, crushing him against the crumbling wall. The lantern clattered to his feet, and the room was plunged into darkness. He spun sideways but was pitched forward by the weight of his attacker, and he ended up face down on the floor. Whatever it was attacking him was cold and clammy and smelled of wet clay. It pushed him down into the earth of the cellar floor, half-suffocating him. It sat on his back, a heavy, dead weight that prevented him from turning over and defending himself. He recoiled from the fetid breath that exhaled over his shoulder, assailing his nostrils. He had a fleeting glimpse of clay-covered features, horribly distorted as if squeezed imperfectly out of mud from the surrounding marshes. His panicking mind formed the image of a monster. A golem.

He fought back, managing to grasp one of the creature’s legs that straddled his back. But his grip was lost on the slippery mud, and he could no longer breathe as the golem’s hands closed on his throat. Abruptly he heard a thundering noise from somewhere above him. He felt his face pushed hard into the ground, and then the impossible weight was lifted from his back. For a while he lay gasping for breath, and then he managed to sit up. Once again he was alone. The thunderous noise returned, and he recognized it as someone hammering on the door of the cellar. Of course, he had the key and whoever it was could not get in. But someone – or something – had done so, almost killing him. Ignoring the hammering on the door, he picked himself up and addressed the conundrum one more time. And it came to him like one of the flashes of lightning that had riven the sky that night. Feeling strangely light-headed, he laughed at his own stupidity, and the riddle that Peter had drummed into his skull came back to him.

‘Now, what was it again?’ A tendril of fear drifted across his mind as he worried about his errant memory failing him. But he need not have been concerned, as the riddle stood out as clear as day. ‘“Look for geometric perfection, where the entrance numbers six, between eight and nine is the flaw. There is the three, and the name of God is creation.” Well, I know that geometric perfection can be exemplified by the cube. So…’

He stood in the centre of the room and slowly turned. A perfect cube – if you ignored the ribbing of the ceiling.

‘Now, let me remember some of the number symbolism Saphira recited to me from what she remembered of the Kabbalah. Three is water, six is…six is…’ It wouldn’t come. ‘Never mind for the moment. Eight is west, and nine is north. So the flaw is in the north-west corner.’

He held the lantern up to that corner of the room, but he could see no flaw other than the imperfect jointing of the crude wall that cut off the end of the room. Then he remembered.

‘Six is below, or depth.’

He crouched down and shed some light on the dark corner at his feet.

‘Aaaaah.’

There, close to the bottom of the side wall, was another niche. But this one was deeper than the others. Much deeper and stone-lined. Moreover, Falconer could hear the rush of water emanating from deep within it. Three is water. There was another way in and out of the cellar after all. He poked the lantern ahead of him and with a bit of effort squeezed his broad shoulders into the gap. He wished he was once again the slim young man who had sallied out as a mercenary soldier many years ago. But with a bit of wriggling he finally found himself head down in the entrance to a chilly tunnel that ran south. A thin strand of water lay along the bottom of the leat. It smelled stagnant and dank. Just beyond the edge of the light cast by his flickering lantern, he thought he detected movement. A sort of scuttling, and rustling accompanied it. Either rats or the golem, he was not sure which. Still, to prove what he was beginning to think about the comings and goings of the ill-fated trio of young novice monks, he knew what he had to do. He wormed his way back out of the tunnel entrance and sat on the floor of the room in which he was now sure the monks had met in secret. If he was to get down into the tunnel, it would have to be feet first, however. So he hoisted up the bottom of his dingy black robe and tucked it into the belt around his waist. Surveying his new boots, he contemplated the consequences of removing them and exposing his bare toes to the attentions of the rats in the tunnel. There was nothing for it but to take them off. He couldn’t ruin them, as he would not be able to afford another pair for years. His pale legs and feet thus exposed, he took a deep breath and slid down into the void. The water at the bottom was cold and turbid. The mud squeezed up between his toes, giving him the sensation of being sucked down. Fearful of attack in this vulnerable position, he made a quick, anxious twist of his torso and was inside the tunnel.

He had to crouch almost double, but he could stand, and would not have to crawl along its length. That was a relief at least. Holding the lantern before him, he made his way down a slight slope, his shoulders brushing the roof of the tunnel. Whatever hid in the dark ahead receded before his progress. Soon his back was aching, and he yearned to stand upright. But at least he had not encountered the golem again. The thought of struggling in such a confined space did not bear thinking about. He pressed on, aware of the water level rising around his ankles. Finally he could detect a greyish shape ahead of him. Nothing too distinct; simply a segment of darkness that was not as Stygian as the rest. It was the end of the tunnel, and he was glad. The water was lapping close to his thighs and running a little swifter here. Finally he was able to poke his head out and stand upright. Even the persistent drizzle washing over his face did not destroy his elation. He looked around and saw that he was in the open leat that ran under the reredorter. The dark bulk of the building rose to his left, and the water flowed swiftly down the leat towards the kitchen block and water mill to his right.

He sat on the grassy bank to collect his thoughts, damp soaking him from beneath and above. He shivered and wished he was back in Oxford, in his own solar and surrounded by his books and experiments. Roger Bacon had sent him halfway across the country on what had turned out to be a wild-goose chase. He had not even found a cure for his own forgetfulness. True, a Jewish herbalist had provided him with an extract of a nut that was supposed to strengthen memory. He had drunk it. But the only change it had wrought on him was to turn his teeth black. He later discovered that the dark, resinous juice was from the marking nut, so called because scribes used it as an ink.

He rubbed his temples, determined not to consume any more khat leaves. They assuredly relieved his megrims, but they also altered his perceptions of the world. He could not be sure what it was that had attacked him in the cellar. Had it been a golem, a ghost, or something much more real? He pushed himself up off the bank and waded along the leat towards the reredorter building by the pale light of the nascent moon.

Falconer’s emergence up through the long slot that formed the toilet seating in the reredorter had startled two bare-arsed monks who had risen early in anticipation of the prime bell. Their shouts of surprise had roused most of the dormitory, causing Brother Ranulf to scuttle off and find the prior before his charges ended up scattering like hens harried by a fox in their house. If Falconer’s mission had not been so serious, he would have found all this amusing. And when John de Chartres arrived, Falconer was at the foot of the night stairs, at the top of which was a press of curious faces. The prior soon scattered them with a severe look, and Ranulf began to ring the bell announcing prime – an unnecessary act, as everyone was now awake, but one Ranulf thought would settle the monks back into a proper routine. The prior, meanwhile, was persuaded by Falconer to accompany him to the hospital.

‘Why do you want to go there, Master? We should be deciding what to do with the boy Martin Le Convers down in the cellar. By the way, have you got the key to the door? Brother Michael thinks you might have…’ The prior struggled for the appropriate word that might not offend his guest, even though he had the deepest suspicions about the Regent Master.

‘Purloined it?’

John de Chartres blushed.

‘I did, actually. And made good use of it in your absence.’

‘I hope you did not release the boy. He is a murderer, and I need not tell you the consequences for yourself of such an act.’

‘Oh, I did not release Martin, but neither is he any longer in the cellar.’

The prior stopped in his tracks.

‘Please do not speak in riddles, Master Falconer. Either he is in the cellar or you released him. There can be no other answer.’

‘Believe me, Prior John, there is. And as I, too, was attacked down there, behind the same locked door, you will see there has to be another answer. But let us step into the hospital, and I will provide a solution for you.’

They had stopped in the entrance to the infirmary building, and the prior gave Falconer a cautious look but stepped inside. He clearly thought Falconer capable of some kind of evil magic. Making boys disappear, and claiming ghostly attacks on himself. He hoped the darker secret of the cellar that he had been vouchsafed did not enter into any of this current problem. He followed Falconer into the hospital. Inside, the space was much as it had been before. A few cubicles were occupied by elderly monks eking out the last of their days in a less harsh environment than was demanded in the priory as a whole. And at the end, Brother Thomas once again sat next to the prone figure of Brother Peter, whose chains still bound him to the bed.

The prior and Falconer walked down the central aisle with the solemn chanting of the first service of praise of the day washing over them from the priory church. They stopped at the foot of Peter’s bed, and the boy’s eyes opened. He looked blankly around him, as though in a daze. The prior and Brother Thomas turned their gaze on Falconer, both expressing curiosity at what was to come next. What Falconer saw in the cubicle finally convinced him of his already shaping view on the murder of Eudo La Zouche. He just needed one more person to be present and hoped that his guess as to his whereabouts was correct. For the time being he didn’t need Martin to reveal himself, however.

‘Prior, earlier tonight you feared that three of your monks had gone missing, only to find one of them – Brother Peter here – in a state of derangement. Your worry was that something evil had happened in the priory, and you were quick to blame Brother Martin.’

‘And it is clear now that I was correct in my opinion that Martin Le Convers was at the centre of all this evil. This Jew…’

Falconer held up his hand, fancying he could hear a rustling from somewhere else in the infirmary. He needed to stop the prior’s invective before things got out of hand.

‘We will have no more about that, prior. Let us first ask Brother Peter what he and his two friends were doing in the cellar where Eudo La Zouche was found murdered.’

The prior sucked in his breath.

‘The cellar? How could they be doing things in the cellar? It has been locked for years, and Brother Michael has the only key. You saw how difficult it was to open that door. No one has been down there for a long time. I have expressly forbidden its use.’

‘And yet both Martin and Eudo were clearly in the cellar when we found them.’

The prior’s face went pale when he thought of the implications. And Falconer wondered once again what it was that was down there that the prior wanted no one to know about. Something important enough to kill for? He filed that away in his mind and continued his present train of thought.

‘Tell us, Peter, what you and Martin and Eudo were doing in the cellar.’

Falconer could see Peter’s eyes clouding over as he strove to think of a judicious lie that he could tell. In the end he feigned incomprehension.

‘I wasn’t there. Never.’

Falconer smiled coldly.

‘But there is someone else who can tell us the truth, isn’t there, Peter? Martin was there. He knows what you were doing. Digging into ancient mystical philosophy and invoking the name of God to call up life from a heap of clay.’

The two other monks gasped and quickly crossed themselves as protection from such abomination. Peter just lay back, a blank look on his youthful features. His chains clanked as his arms dropped on either side of the bed. Falconer pressed on.

‘Martin can tell us if you were there. Can’t you, Martin?’

He called this out loud, startling those present. The prior was forming a question on his lips, when a woman’s voice called out from the gloom.

‘He is coming, William. And he is ashamed.’

From one of the nearby cubicles emerged Saphira Le Veske, still wrapped in Falconer’s long grey cloak. She was pushing a reluctant Martin in front of her. His monk’s garb was smeared with mud and soaked from the hem almost up to the boy’s waist.

‘Brother Thomas, take the boy and lock him away. Somewhere safe this time.’

The prior’s command was peremptory, but Falconer held back the herbalist before he was able to comply.

‘There is no need for all that, is there, Martin? You will not try to escape, will you?’

Martin Le Convers shook his head and looked shamefacedly down at the ground.

‘How can you believe his promises?’ The prior was inexorable in his denigration of the young monk. ‘He has escaped once from his cell…And you still have not explained that, Master Falconer.’

‘He used the same route all three of them used whenever they wished to meet for their secret gatherings. There is a tunnel that links the cellar with the leat below the reredorter. All they had to do during the night was to sneak to the toilet, drop into the leat and walk along the tunnel to the room. How they found it the first time, perhaps they can tell us.’

It was Martin who supplied the answer.

‘Eudo found it. He saw the tunnel entrance one day when he was sent to clean out the leat as a punishment for laziness. He only meant to hide in it so no one would see he was not completing his task. But then he became curious and explored the whole length, coming out in the room. Later, when we sought somewhere to…practise our skills, he remembered it. It was perfect – in every way – a hidden room, and perfect in proportions.’ His face crumpled. ‘And then it all went wrong.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know exactly, but there was something about the room. One night, when we were…when we were…exploring the names of God, the candle that Eudo had brought went out, snuffed out just like that. And yet there were no draughts in the room. Eudo accused me of messing around, trying to scare him. But it wasn’t me. We argued and left the room, crawling back down the tunnel in the dark. I felt there was something behind me. But Peter and Eudo had gone ahead, so what could it have been? It was a week before we were brave enough to go back again. That was two nights ago.’

Falconer gradually became aware of a droning noise that had begun as Martin spoke. Slowly it rose in volume, but it seemed to be made of indistinct sounds. It was coming from the mouth of Peter Swynford.

‘Kether, Chochma, Bina, Chesed…’

The incantation rose in volume until it seemed to fill the room.

‘Shut up. Shut up.’

Martin crammed his fists in his ears and pleaded with Peter to stop. The prior bent over the prostrate figure on the bed and slapped his face hard. The noise was abruptly cut off, to be replaced by a sobbing from the lips of Martin. Saphira drew the youth to her bosom and comforted him like a mother would a little child. But Falconer had to press on nevertheless. Dawn had come and gone, and he was short of time. Saphira was unlikely to be able to leave with her son, if he was truly the murderer.

‘Martin, did you kill Eudo on that night? Or did Peter?’

Martin turned a tear-stained face on his accuser.

‘You don’t understand. It was neither of us. We both left, Peter and I, before it got light. Eudo said he was staying a little longer. We told him it would soon be light and that we would be discovered, but he was adamant. Peter went first, then me. When I dropped through the opening into the tunnel, I turned and looked back through the hole. Eudo was scraping up the earth of the floor…’

Falconer recalled the mound of earth he had thought unimportant.

‘What was he doing, Martin?’

‘He was making the shape of a man on the floor. A golem.’

Martin spoke the last word with awe and horror. And even Falconer’s rational mind lurched to think of the creature that had attacked him. It was said that all you had to do was attach the name of God to base earth or clay, and you could create life just as God had. Was Martin suggesting that Eudo had died at the hands of a monster of his own creation?

‘Enough of this blasphemous nonsense.’ John de Chartres’ abrupt tones sliced into the shocked silence. ‘You are merely trying to shift the blame from yourself to some…some chimera. You have consorted with the devil and dragged two unfortunates with you. It is time we rid the priory of your evil influence.’

Falconer could see the fires beginning to burn in Saphira’s eyes. Before she exploded and made matters worse, he stepped between the prior and Martin.

‘It seems to me, prior, that there are more possible murderers here than merely Martin. Eudo may have been killed two days ago, in which case either Martin or Peter could have been guilty. Or it could have been another who found out what they were doing and hadn’t wanted them poking around in the cellar room. Tell me, what is the secret you are so keen to preserve down there?’

The blood drained from the prior’s face. ‘Surely you are not accusing me of the murder? I didn’t even know of the tunnel. Or why would I have been so ready to imprison Martin in there?’

‘You knew where the key was, and, no doubt, if I asked Brother Michael if you ever borrowed his keys, he would not be able to deny it. You do keep a tight rein on the accounts and the supplies, do you not?’

The prior could not deny the truth of it, but he still stood firm. ‘I have no reason to have murdered Brother Eudo. The whole idea is absurd. Whereas Martin has spoken already of quarrels and fallings-out. Dabble with magic and reap the rewards of your evil, I say.’

Falconer sighed, divulging another more problematic fact.

‘I do have to say that the murder probably took place two nights ago. You see, when I saw the body last night I could tell that the blood was congealed and dry. Yet I believe the murderer was also the person who tried to kill me last night. And by then you were all engaged in caring for the body. It looks very bad for you, Martin.’

Even Saphira seemed to lose heart at this stage, and her shoulders slumped. Especially when Falconer waved a hand at the recumbent Brother Peter.

‘For by that time, Peter was in chains. Isn’t that so, Peter?’

Peter sat up as far as his chains would allow him and nodded. Falconer then went for the jugular.

‘But then how did you know Eudo was dead, Peter? You did know that, didn’t you? You told us yourself right here. And Eudo was murdered in the cellar without a doubt.’

Peter eyed him slyly, twisting his tongue in his mouth. He began to gibber as though the madness had returned. The prior pointed at the poor afflicted youth.

‘You can see he is mad. It was the prophecy of insanity that simply happened to be true. You can see he is chained down. There is no way he could have been in the cellar in the night.’

Falconer pointed down at the youth.

‘Then how did his robe get so muddy? Look, the hem is wet and stained and there are smears higher up. You put a fresh robe on him when you brought him here. His feet are muddy too. Yet he has never left this bed. Open your mouth, Peter.’

At Falconer’s command, Peter’s gibbering faltered, and he cocked his head to one side as if puzzled.

‘Open your mouth.’

Slowly, Peter slid out his wet, pink tongue. It looked like a large, obscene slug. And lying on it was a key. The key to his chains that he had stolen from the herbalist earlier, when he had grasped the monk’s sleeve. While the others recoiled in shock, he sprang from his bed, the chains slipping off his wrists, and he pushed past his tormentors with ease. Saphira Le Veske was the one to recover her wits first, and stuck out a pretty ankle. Peter sprawled on the floor, driving the air from his lungs. Falconer quickly straddled his back, surprised at the powerful resistance driven by the skinny boy’s madness. A similar power had almost defeated him in the cellar. It had, of course, been human flesh – Peter’s – covered in mud from the tunnel that Falconer had fought, not a golem raised up by Eudo La Zouche. Now Peter’s raging voice echoed down the hospital with a sort of confession that carried no sense of repentance.

‘How stupid you are, Martin. Eudo wasn’t shaping the golem; he was trying to destroy it. The creation was all my doing, and Eudo would have ruined it. Just because he was scared. Just as you were too scared to go ahead, or even return to the dormitory that night. But I wasn’t. I would have created him. I nearly did, too, after I had doubled back behind you in the tunnel. I tried to persuade Eudo to proceed, but he argued and argued. I had to stop him in the end. But it left me no more time before prime. I would have gone back to the cellar, but you caused the alarm to be raised by your absence. You made me so mad. I could have done it. I could have done it.’

Above their heads the church bell dolefully tolled the time for Mass.

At the junction of the road leading between Canterbury and London, William Falconer sat astride his rounsey, now rested and cured of its lameness. He surveyed the open marshland that surrounded Bermondsey Priory and reached as far as the glassy expanse of the Thames. This morning, as the watery sun rose higher above the scrubby line of trees to the east, a yellowish shimmer filled his view. The river had freed itself from its confines and had stretched itself out luxuriantly across the low-lying fields. The priory now appeared to be floating in the middle of a glistening lake. Pewter clouds still loomed to the west, painting the vista a uniform grey. It was probably raining on Oxford town and its university.

Falconer eased himself in the saddle, the leather creaking beneath him.

‘We go our separate ways, then.’

Saphira Le Veske, perched comfortably on a palfrey lent her by the prior, nodded her head. ‘It would seem so. I have a business to run in La Réole that I have too long ignored. Oh, by the way, an infusion of sage is said to be good for the memory.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

Saphira laughed, and Falconer suddenly realized what he had said.

‘…if I can remember it without taking some sage first.’

Still, he was reluctant to make their parting too soon.

‘And now you have a capable partner to assist you.’ He waved a hand at the boy who stood at his mother’s stirrups. ‘Martin…er, Menahem…will make a far better man of business than he did a Cluniac monk, I feel.’

The boy hung his head, but Falconer could detect a smile on his face. He had found his family and his path in life again.

‘By the way, Menahem Le Veske, I never thanked you for guiding me towards thinking of a tunnel. Without your mother seeing you in the dark last night down by the reredorter, I would never have guessed it was there.’

Menahem’s pinched face folded into a frown.

‘The reredorter? I was never there last night. I was hiding under the water mill until it was dark enough to get back to the room. I could not leave Eudo on his own, you see. He was too frightened of the dark. And of something in the room itself.’

Falconer recalled the grey, ghostly shape he and Saphira had seen in the brief brightness of the lightning fork, a shape that had disappeared into stone walls like a phantom.

A cold shiver ran up his spine.