The Sacred stone

Act Four

Westminster, 1272

His Majesty King Henry of Winchester, the third monarch of England to bear that name, was dying. At his bedside in the Palace of Westminster sat a grizzled man shabbily dressed in a worn black robe that had seen better days. His unruly tangle of tight grey locks spilled out from under his round cap, a university master’s pileum. The room was silent, save for the ragged breathing of the King. The atmosphere was oppressive, weighed down with the heavy odours of one near to death. The King’s own wavering voice broke the silence.

‘But who killed him?’

‘Work it out for yourself.’

The master’s bedside manner was not of the best, and he spoke before recalling whom he was addressing. To soften his tones, he leaned forward to tidy the embroidered cushions that had slipped out from behind Henry’s back. He studiously ignored the sharp intake of breath that his abrupt response had drawn from the only other occupant of the room. Sir Thomas Dalyson, the King’s chamberlain and most obsequious courtier, would not have dared to speak to the King of England so. He had expressed his disapproval but remained standing, half hidden in the long shadows cast by the Burgundian drapes that hung across the window arch. The bright and sparkling sun was not to be allowed to spoil the funereal atmosphere of the death room.

The master leaned forward and whispered something in the aged King’s ear. It brought forth a rasping wheeze of laughter that angered Dalyson. What was this upstart tutor saying about him? This William Falconer — so-called detector of murderers, regent master at Oxford, and now the King’s favoured pet? Dalyson suddenly became aware that Falconer had turned his penetrating blue eyes on the chamberlain.

‘The King requests we speak alone.’

There was a moment when the two men’s gaze locked like two rutting stags then, pale with rage, Sir Thomas left the room. The master turned back to the feeble man on the bed, who was fighting for each breath in his reluctance to give up his temporal realm.

‘Now remember my guiding rule of deductive logic — the syllogism. Two lesser truths, when brought together, can reveal the greater truth being sought.’

Henry was still vexed as he struggled in vain to find a starting point. Falconer began to speak, but the King imperiously waved a skeletal hand to stay him.

‘If only I had the sky-stone. I felt clear-headed when I touched it.’

Falconer sighed, wishing he could please the King in his desire. After all, being King gave him the right to be waited on as he pleased. It was 1272, and he had been King of England for well nigh fifty-six years. Falconer knew that, while Henry had had the stone in his grasp, he had felt safe from the angel of death. Some animation had returned to his flaccid face, and a sparkle to his formerly dull, cloudy eyes. Now the King was despondent, and his right eyelid, which had hung down over the orb beneath it all his life, fluttered but briefly. Falconer was reminded that many said Henry at his peak was the one designated by the prophet Merlin. He spoke of a King likened to the lynx — penetrating everything with his eye. That was no longer so. The King’s eyes were dimmer, and his voice also weaker since the stone had been stolen.

‘I must try to think clearly.’ He turned to look sternly at Falconer. ‘What is that word you used?’

‘Syllogism, Majesty.’

The word reminded Falconer of when all this started.

He was despairing of this new batch of students who had started at the university a little while ago. It was late October, and the faculty of arts schoolroom he rented was an icy box. A bare room at the best of times, it now had the semblance of a monastic cold store. He scanned the three rows of low benches on which sat his class. He could barely discern more than their noses peeping out from between felt hats rammed on greasy heads, and woollen comforters wrapped around throats. And what he could see of their faces was pinched and reddened. Young Paul Mithian sniffled, and a dewdrop fell from the end of his nose. Falconer had taught his elder brother, Peter, and now it was the youngster’s turn to apply his mind to logic and rhetoric. Both were beggar students with no money, relying on the charitable chest of the university and working as slaves to the wealthier students. Somehow they survived — Falconer saw to that. But every subsequent class now seemed to Falconer to be dimmer than its predecessor. He wondered if he, not they, was the problem. Perhaps he had been teaching for too long.

He took a deep breath, pressing on regardless.

‘Syllogism. A discourse in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.’

These words were Aristotle’s own, even if a little obscure. He looked around the blank, uncomprehending faces and groaned audibly. He waved a weary hand.

‘Go. Your brains are clearly as frozen as are my fingers. Go, and thaw them out.’

Enlivened by this early and unexpected release from their toils, the reluctant students rose noisily from their benches, scraping them across the stained wooden floor of the schoolroom. Cheerful again, they made for the door out on to the narrow lane that wound northwards behind St Mary’s Church on the High Street. Falconer gave them a final task, however.

‘We will move on at the next lecture, though. Begin reading “On Sophistical Refutations”.’

The general groan of horror from his students gave him cause to smile broadly. He followed the ragged band out of the icy schoolroom, and as they dispersed to their respective halls he made his way back to his own. Aristotle’s Hall stood in Kibald Street — a long lane south of the great High Street. One end of the lane terminated at the town walls and the other at Grope Lane, which was lined with brothels. Falconer always felt he thereby held a satisfying middle position between the order of the civil authority and the chaos of the dark world of personal pleasures. A good place for scholarship to inhabit. He ducked through the low doorway in the hall’s narrow frontage and into the dimness of the communal hall behind. Once up the rickety staircase, he would be back in his private solar on the upper floor of the building. Safe among his prized possessions, he was in his own special world. The tenement building was only rented by him from the prior of Oseney Abbey, the great religious endowment that towered up beyond the western edge of Oxford, and he covered his costs by taking in students at whatever rent they could afford. Some years had been better than others, some worse, but he had always survived. Teaching also gave him time and opportunity to pursue his private interests, including understanding the world around him. And solving murder cases.

He had discovered this latter interest almost by chance, when one of his students had become embroiled in the curious death of a serving girl. He had quickly discovered that applying Aristotelean deductive logic to the material relating to the case — and not a little intuition — had led to identifying the murderer. He had repeated the process in several other cases since, assisting the town constable, Peter Bullock, in bringing killers to justice. Much to his embarrassment, Bullock had dubbed him the Great Deductive.

Pushing open the door to his solar, he was pleased to find Saphira standing behind his work table. The table was as usual cluttered with a myriad objects, including broken stones that revealed patterns in their interiors, animal and human bones, pots and vials containing liquids and pastes that emanated a mixture of vile and intoxicating odours, and old scrolls and texts in ancient languages. She put down the small and malodorous jar she had been sniffing and smiled.

‘There you are. I have a gift for you that will outdo all these marvels.’

She swept her right hand across the jumble on the table.

‘Indeed. And where is this marvel?’

She brought her left hand from behind her back and opened her fingers. In her palm nestled a dark stone. It was nondescript and quite small. Unconvinced of its uniqueness, he asked Saphira where she had come by it. She smiled sweetly at him.

‘It was hard come by, and expensive. Covele, the talisman seller, was reluctant to sell, but for us Jews business is business.’

She liked to tease him over the Christian contempt for her race, though she knew he was a good friend to the Jews of Oxford. Saphira Le Veske was a Jew herself and a widow, who had run her husband’s business since his death. Well, to be frank she had run it long before his death. He had become deeply immersed in the Kabbalah — much to her concern — and had ignored the family business, which was based in Bordeaux in France. She had taken over, and run it successfully, handling the lending and transfer of money as well as initiating the dealing in wine shipping as a sideline. When her husband had died, she had not missed him. But her son, Menahem, had run away at the same time. Her search for him had caused her to neglect the business and had brought her to England — first to Canterbury, and then to Oxford. A chance meeting with William Falconer had led to her finding her son. And to a close relationship with the regent master, despite his nominal celibacy. She explained what had brought about the ownership of the object.

‘Actually, he sold it for a song, as it was too heavy to hang around anyone’s neck like his usual amulets. His dupes prefer the little angel texts — kimiyeh — sealed in silver cases that they can wear to ward off evil humours and illnesses. He did say this stone had the same miraculous properties.’

Falconer looked at what Saphira still held in her hands. ‘Heavy? That little thing?’

Saphira smiled and held the dark stone out for him to take.

He lifted it from her open palm. ‘Oh! I see what you mean.’

The smooth stone was heavier than it should have been. He swept aside the clutter on his table, and set it down. Only as big as the palm of his hand, from one angle it resembled a ship with curving prows at both ends, a cabin amidships and a small keel below. But then, as he walked around the table, it changed and became in his eyes a gliding bird, its curved wings outstretched like a swallow’s. The keel became the bird’s head and the cabin its tail. But he thought he saw that because of his own burning obsession. Falconer was consumed with a desire to solve the mystery of flight and to soar like a bird himself. He had got as far as building kites that he tossed off the tallest tower in Oxford — at Oseney Abbey. But when they plunged to earth and smashed, he decided not to risk his own life to one of them just yet.

‘Has it been worked by hand? Or is its shape natural?’

Saphira’s question caused Falconer to look closer at the stone. He could see some markings on its surface. He got out his eye-lenses and put them on his nose. Falconer was short-sighted and had been astonished when, a few years ago, an artisan had offered him these ground-down glass lenses to see through. He had first held them up to his eyes on a simple V-shaped frame. But now he had made his own frame with side hooks that went over his ears. He peered through the lenses at the marks.

‘Could these be Hebrew letters?’

He pointed them out to Saphira. Though he could read Hebrew himself, he wanted her confirmation. She leaned over the stone, her head close to his with a stray lock of red hair suddenly spilling out of her modest widow’s snood. She paled a little at what she saw. When she spoke her voice betrayed an uncertain note.

‘They may be. It looks like HaShem, meaning The Name. But Covele often paints signs on the stones he sells as talismans.’

She stood up, tucking the stray lock back in her snood. Falconer frowned, knowing the Jewish proscription on saying the name of God out loud.

‘Yes, but this is not painted on. It looks as if it is ingrained in the stone. Where did Covele get this, anyway? Did he say?’

‘From an old woman with a scarred face in Norwich. He remembers it clearly because, when he was in the town earlier this year, a sudden flash of lightning struck the main tower of the Christian church towards the north so hard that it sent stones flying in every direction. There was much gossip about what evil it might portend. So Covele left as soon as he could for fear of an attack on the Jews of the town. I believe the month was June. The old woman who sold it was happy to be rid of the stone because it carried with it stories of strange events — some of them not particularly welcome, though some had said it cured all evils. She had kept it for nearly forty years and said that no good had ever come of owning it. The old woman was so glad to be rid of it in the end that she sold it to Covele for next to nothing. I only bought it as a curiosity because I thought you might like to see if it contained those strange patterns inside it that you like to find in stones.’

Falconer tapped the dark stone with the metal hilt of a knife that lay on the table. It almost rang like a bell. ‘I don’t think this will shatter like those other stones. It sounds as if it is made of iron.’

Saphira took the knife and tapped it too. ‘The story that came with it from Norwich was that it had fallen from the sky already shaped as it is. But isn’t that just myth? It is not possible, surely?’

‘Don’t be so fast to pour scorn on the idea of sky-stones. Almost a hundred years ago Gervase of Canterbury wrote an account of five eyewitnesses who saw something odd where the moon stood in the sky. They spoke of a flaming torch, and fire, hot coals and sparks. Others have seen falling stars in the sky and even claimed to have found stones such as this. I can understand why the ancients venerated them.’

He pointed at the object now lying between them on his table. Suddenly, it seemed to both of them to have taken on a mysterious aura, which it formerly did not possess. Saphira felt a deep sense of foreboding and almost regretted bringing it to William’s attention.

‘Where is it?’

Sir Thomas winced at the petulant sound of the King’s voice. He turned to face Henry, a fixed and obsequious smile on his face.

‘Your Majesty?’

He feigned lack of knowledge of the matter to which Henry referred, when in reality he knew exactly what he meant. The King hobbled over to his chamberlain, leaning heavily on the stick he now needed to get about. He was sixty-five, but the years had not been kind to him. No longer robust, he surrounded himself with doctors and other quacks, who gave pronouncements on his every bowel movement. Which was not saying a great deal, as Henry, King of England, was constipated. He screwed up his face, and Sir Thomas was not sure whether it was in anger at being crossed or from trapped wind.

‘The stone, damn you. The stone.’

‘Sire, if I can draw you back to the matter in hand. We must pass judgement on these townspeople. They must be punished.’

Henry shook his head in frustration. It was true. He had journeyed all the way to Norwich because the mob had broken into the town’s priory and burned the church to the ground. What the cause of the riot had been now seemed to be unclear in most people’s minds, but the result had been unequivocal. Property had been destroyed and precious gold items stolen. The townsfolk of Norwich had to pay the price, and Henry would make sure they did. But he had not been in the town long when he had heard tales of a strange stone. Though its reputation for attracting evil had been revived by the lightning strike on the church, he had been drawn to it by the assertion that it could cure all ills. The information fitted well with other hints he had received from abroad about a magic sky-stone. The problem was, he had been here two weeks already, and he couldn’t find the stone. He was tired of the whole business.

‘That bolt of lightning foretold the truth, then. Evil in the form of a riot has followed in its footsteps. Who do we have in gaol right now?’

Dalyson fumbled among the papers that lay piled on his desk and extracted the relevant list. He made a quick calculation.

‘Thirty-four men and one woman, sire. They came to plead their case and were held at your pleasure.’

‘Then hang them all, and burn some, too. They will be the example for the others. You can extract monies from the rest to pay for their crime.’

Dalyson nodded and picked up his quill pen to note down the King’s justice. But the King had not finished. Twisting the seal ring that adorned the finger of his right hand, he piped up petulantly.

‘And find me the stone.’

Covele was furious. He had recently returned to Norwich in his usual guise of a travelling German Jew, with a pileum cornutum — a spiked straw hat — on his head, only to find that everyone was looking for the sky-stone. He had sold it to that red-headed woman in Oxford, knowing her lover was fond of curiosities. And he had made a tidy profit on it, too, bearing in mind it had then seemed worthless. Now it was said the King himself desired it. His luck seemed to have been cursed ever since crossing paths with Saphira Le Veske and William Falconer. For it now looked as though he needed to turn right around and walk all the way back to Oxford again, to find a way of wheedling the sky-stone out of those two. But first he needed to rest, and he sent out his son, Hak, to perform two errands. One was to let it be known that he had the sky-stone — a little lie, but one he would rectify soon enough. The other was to fetch some food from the widow living down the lane from his lodgings.

Stowing his satchelful of kimiyeh and painted stones in one corner of the bare room that he and Hak shared, Covele slumped down on the creaky pallet that was the only furnishing. He tossed his spiked hat on top of the satchel and lay back exhausted. It was not long before his eyes closed, and he drifted off to sleep. His dream of untold wealth, however, was soon disturbed by a creaking sound from outside his room. He sat up, guessing that Hak had returned with some provisions. But the boy was usually boisterous, and he realized that the sound had not been followed by Hak’s normal clamour.

‘Hak? Is that you? Stop playing tricks on your father, boy. Bring me the food.’

Covele fancied he heard a low sigh, but nothing more. He started to feel a prickle of fear running down his spine. Barefoot, he pattered over to the door, putting his ear to it.

‘Hak?’

This time he did not call out, but only whispered his query. He didn’t really want anyone to answer. Better that the person behind the door was only in his imagination. He lifted the latch slowly.

Hak had delayed his return to his father because he had hoped to see the King. He first passed the message about the sky-stone on to the old man, Elias, who groaned at discovering that what he sought was now a hundred miles away. The boy had told him his father would get it back within days. But the old man knew Covele could not afford a horse and would have to walk, a journey that would take at least three weeks. He cursed the old woman, Magote, who he was sure was responsible for the stone being stolen from him in the first place. Just his luck that the King should turn up wanting the stone.

‘The King is here now and is seeking the stone in order to cure him of his ailments. If anyone gets to know that I had it and lost it, I will be in grave trouble. And I will make sure your father shares the punishment, too.’

He put his grey-haired head in his hands and moaned over his ill luck. Hak quietly retreated. Free of the old man’s interrogations, he scurried out into the street. He was excited. The King was in Norwich! So instead of immediately going to fetch the food his father wanted, he dawdled around the close where the cathedral stood. He knew that rich folk stayed there when they visited the town. Maybe, if he waited long enough, he would get to see King Henry himself. However, he managed to hang around only long enough for one of the black-garbed priests who wandered in and out of the big church to take note of him. Finally, the man hurried over and tried to strike him across the face.

‘Get away from here, Jew. Go back to your own kind.’

Hak expertly dodged the flailing hand and ran off towards the Jewish quarter. He had lingered as long as he dared anyway without incurring his father’s wrath. On the way back, he collected a dish of warm potage from the widow woman who cooked for other Jews, exchanging it for the few coins his father had given him. She covered the dish with a greyish, thin cloth and adjured the boy to hurry home before the broth got cold. Hak carefully negotiated the muddy lane back to the tenement where he and his father lived. At one point he slipped silently down a side alley when he saw some roistering Christian boys coming his way. He knew if he was not careful they would jostle him, and the broth would be all over the ground. Fortunately, they had not spotted his evasive action and ran past the end of the dark alley laughing and shouting. Safe from their attentions, but once again delayed, Hak hurried the final distance to the crumbling house where he and his father had a room. It was easy to negotiate the front door, even with a dish in both hands. The door had not closed properly in years, and it hung half off its hinges. Hak slipped through the gap and made for the back of the house. Closest to the midden in the backyard, the room Covele rented was the cheapest of all.

‘Father, I am back. I am sorry it took so long. I had to wait at the widow’s for-’

The excuse died on his lips when he saw that the door to their room was ajar. His father never left the door open under any circumstances. Covele preached safety and circumspection to his son. They were, after all, Jews in a Christian world, with precious items worth much money. Hak nudged the door further open with his foot. It gave that familiar creak, which almost reassured him that all was well. But then he saw his father sprawled out on the bed they shared at night, blood leaking from his mouth. He gasped, and dropped the dish of stew on the dirty rush-strewn floor. The pottery bowl shattered, and the contents bled through the cloth that clung to the mess and oozed across the beaten earth. Covele’s dull, staring eyes slowly focused on his son. Hak sighed.

‘Father. I thought you were dead.’

Covele seemed unable to comprehend for a while what Hak was saying. Then he saw the mess on the floor. ‘The food… You dropped the bowl.’

Hak wasn’t sure if he was more scared at thinking his father dead or at finding him alive but not the same father. Covele’s normally sharp tones were dulled, and he appeared uncertain of his surroundings. He helped his father sit up, wiping the blood from his lips. He saw now that a swelling was coming on his jaw. Someone had hit his father hard in the face.

‘Who did this, Father? Who hit you?’

Covele ignored his questions, glancing fearfully around him, as though his attacker could be hiding somewhere in the bare, small room. His fear was so palpable that Hak, too, found himself looking around the chamber. It was a foolish act. There was nowhere anyone could hide. The boy tried to cheer his father up by asking about Oxford.

‘When do we start out for Oxford again, Father? The sooner we get the sky-stone back, the better things will be for us.’

For the first time since Hak had entered the room and found his father sprawled on the bed, Covele’s voice had a touch of its usual harshness to it.

‘Forget the stone. I don’t want to hear you mention it again.’

Puzzled at the sudden about turn in his father’s attitude, Hak rose and knelt on the floor, trying to salvage what he could of the potage. He still didn’t know what had gone on in his absence, but it had clearly frightened his father. From behind him, as if reading the boy’s mind, Covele finally answered his questions about who had beaten him.

‘It was the Elagabal.’

Falconer was fascinated by the sky-stone. It was late into the night, but he still burned a precious candle down in order to examine its properties. It certainly wasn’t any ordinary stone, as he had already suspected. He was used to stones he could shatter with a mason’s hammer and chisel. Some he could cut into shards that showed marks inside them; others broke into pretty crystal shapes. He had tentatively tapped the sky-stone, only to get the ringing note he had first heard hitting it with his dagger. Then he had hit it with as heavy a blow as he could, and still it refused to break. Now he was sliding a magnetized piece of iron towards it.

He was following instructions from a document that lay at his elbow. It was in his own hand, and he had copied it from a manuscript received by his old friend Roger Bacon only months ago. The original document had been drafted by a military engineer in the service of Charles of Anjou, King of Cyprus. The man was called Peter de Maricourt, and he had some interesting ideas about magnetism. Bacon, a Franciscan monk and experimental scientist, was so taken by the work of Peter that he called him magister experimentorum — the master of experiments — which from such a man as Bacon, devoted to practical science as he was, was praise indeed. Peter, sometimes called Peregrinus — the pilgrim — had shown that a piece of magnetite, or magnetized iron, had very particular properties, always aligning north-south. And when a magnet was broken in two, both pieces preserved the north and south polarities that were in the original piece. He believed these properties came from the celestial poles, and a magnetic needle should be able to guide a traveller on his journey by land or sea. Falconer could see that the idea had possibilities, but for the time being he was concentrating on the basic properties of a magnet.

He had placed a magnetized piece of iron some distance away from the sky-stone on the table surface. And when nothing happened, he had moved it closer. And closer. Eventually, he found the point at which the small piece of magnetic iron slid of its own accord over the table surface and clung to the sky-stone. There were definitely large quantities of iron in the stone. It amused Falconer to watch the affinity of the two items, and he repeated the experiment over and over again.

‘Is that black magic, or what?’

‘Hello, Peter. No, it’s not magic, just the natural actions of the universe.’

Peter Bullock, the constable of Oxford, eased his old bones down on to one of the two chairs in Falconer’s solar. He was feeling his age of late, and his bent back was aching more than usual. He had broken his night patrol at his friend’s house, hoping for some distraction. He sighed over his friend’s comments.

‘I am too old to understand the universe, William. I leave that to God. And you, of course.’

Falconer laughed nervously. Only in each other’s company could they safely utter such profanities. But Falconer, on more than one occasion, had been brought before the chancellor of the university for expressing heretical ideas in the hearing of his students. It was only his celebrity in the academic world, and his wily disputational skills, that had saved him to date. But it was mere months since he had been on trial for his life, and he still felt somewhat that his luck had been sorely tested to its limit. He put a finger to his lips.

‘Perhaps we should not speak of God and myself in the same breath, Peter. And certainly not of black magic. Who knows what ears are pressed to the door?’

Bullock waved his hand dismissively. ‘You are becoming too cautious, old friend. When you get to my age, you care not what people think. Or of the censure of some meddling priest.’

He pointed to the black, strangely shaped stone on the table.

‘I still say that looks like magic to me.’ He licked his lips. ‘Do you think it could magic up some ale?’

Sir Thomas Dalyson was getting concerned. Not only had he failed to find the sky-stone that Henry so desired, but the King had now fallen gravely ill. Someone more mired in superstition might have linked the two and seen cause and effect in it. Dalyson was more phlegmatic. The court had left Norwich after Henry had pronounced his death sentences. He had also burdened the town with a fine of three thousand marks of silver to pay for the rebuilding of the church the citizenry had burned down. Dalyson suspected his intemperance had something to do with not finding the sky-stone he so desired. But they had only got as far as the abbey of St Edmund’s when the King complained of pains in his left arm and a weakness in his limbs. The doctors had been summoned, and the arguments had begun. Master Roger Megrim had at first prevailed, partly because he had been educated at Cambridge. Having observed the sweating fever that racked the monarch’s body, the conclusion Megrim reached was an excess of the sanguine temper. This induced a warm, wet nature, and could be remedied with bloodletting.

As the King lay on his bed, staring apprehensively at his little group of doctors, Megrim stepped forward with a small lancet in one hand and a bowl in the other. Henry mewled like a kitten. But he meekly allowed the physician to move his left arm and push up the sleeve of his nightgown, so that the inside of his elbow was revealed. Megrim plumped the flesh as if he were testing a fowl for succulence, then pressed the small blade into the royal skin. A bead of red blood appeared and began to trickle down Henry’s forearm. Megrim placed the bowl below the flow and could not help but pontificate on his skills.

‘Look how the blood flows. Food turns to blood in the liver, and flows along these vessels to the heart, where it percolates from left to right by means of heart spasms. I am using the phlebotomic method of revulsion — tapping the vessel at an extremity.’

Henry stared with evident revulsion at his life’s blood flowing out of his body, and fainted.

It had then been several days before Henry had improved enough for him to travel back to Westminster. By the time he got there however, he had to take to his bed again. Once more the arguments raged between his physicians as to the cause of his malady. Dalyson didn’t know what the uncertainty was. Henry was old, and he was dying. In the meantime, it fell on Sir Thomas to continue with the day-to-day business of managing the realm, a task he carried out with relish. Towards the end of October, he also had some news for Henry that he thought might rally the King.

As he entered the King’s bedchamber, he observed the same group of quacks hovering in one corner of the chilly room. Master Roger Megrim stood inches taller than his fellow physicians, a stature that emphasized his precedence, at least in his own eyes. Megrim’s height made it seem as though he had been stretched on the rack. His limbs were unusually long, his chest concave and his stomach protuberant. He hunched over to disguise his height, and his beak of a nose poked forward like a bird’s bill. He was once again pontificating on the causes of his patient’s illnesses.

Brother Mark, a Dominican monk of medium height and nondescript features, had adopted his usual pose of dark disdain and half turned away from the voluble Megrim. The third member of the group, however, was hanging on to Megrim’s every word, or apparently so. Dalyson knew that John Rixe, short, fat and of a jolly aspect, fawned on whoever was in favour with Henry. He would as easily denigrate Megrim to the Dominican once out of the Cambridge master’s hearing. And vice versa, when the opportunity arose. As a mere guild apothecary, Rixe depended on the approval of the educated clerics for his very existence. But that did not mean he would defer to them in private, except in so far as they would approve his pills and potions. The fourth person in the bedchamber was seated close by the King’s bed. He was already something of a mystery to Sir Thomas.

Pierre de Montbrun, Bishop of Narbonne, had appeared at Westminster a few days before the ailing Henry had returned from his vengeful trip to Norwich. Wandering darkly around the palace until the King and his court returned, he had then refused to reveal his business to Dalyson, hinting that it was for the ears of the King only. It now seemed he had that ear exclusively. And Henry was engrossed in whatever it was that the foreign bishop was whispering. Dalyson sidled over towards the pair, hoping to hear what it might be that so interested the King. But as soon as his shadow was cast on the bed, the bishop stopped talking and turned to see who it was had disturbed him. Not for the first time, Dalyson almost reeled from the dark pools that were Narbonne’s eyes. They were the darkest of dark brown — almost black — and held no reflection in them. Dalyson was not sure if the lack of a spark of light was due to their depth or if they were like those of a fish on a slab. The eyes of something dead. And now they held the courtier in their cold gaze.

Henry wheezed and expressed his irritation at the intervention of his chamberlain. ‘What is it, Sir Thomas? Can you not see I am busy?’

Dalyson inclined his head in deference to the King’s righteous annoyance. But his tone of voice still betrayed his own irritation. ‘Forgive me, Majesty. I had thought you wished to know about the matter I have come to advise you of. But as I can see that your conversation with the bishop is concerning greater matters of state, I will wait until a more… propitious time to tell you of the sky-stone.’

Dalyson knew that his final word would attract the attention of the King, but he was surprised to hear a gasp from the lips of the bishop, too. And then to witness the exchange of looks between the two powerful men. Had they been talking about the very item he had at last tracked down? He had thought it a distraction — a bauble to amuse the King in his dotage. Did it have more significance than he had first imagined? He stored the thought away in his head for further consideration.

‘You have found it? Is it here?’

Dalyson shook his head. ‘Not yet, Majesty. It appears that some Jew took it from Norwich and sold it to a teacher at the university in Oxford. Envoys have been sent to bring it to you, and it should be no more than a week before you will have it.’

Henry’s piping, old-man’s voice rose in horror. ‘A week? I could be dead before then.’

Dalyson refrained from saying he hoped so, and shook his head in obsequious denial. ‘No, no, Majesty. You will live for ever, I am sure of it. Do you wish me to call your… doctors over?’

Henry’s face fell. ‘No need, Dalyson. Look behind you. They anticipate my demise sooner than you do.’

Indeed, all three quacks had hurried over to the King’s bedside at the first sound of pain and horror in their patient’s voice. Brother Mark made it to the bedside first and asked his patient to show his tongue. As the King meekly stuck the aforementioned appendage out, the Dominican hovered like an angel of death, sucking in his breath. He clearly did not like what he saw. Dalyson left Mark and his colleagues to it, and turned to speak to the Bishop of Narbonne. But the man was no longer present, having silently left the bedchamber already. Dalyson felt a shiver run down his spine. The man was unnatural in his ability to appear and disappear so quietly.

Pierre of Narbonne was angry, but he did not show it. His emissary to the Norwich Jews had failed by a whisker, and now he was reliant on an old and petulant monarch. He prided himself on never showing any feelings, and knew how still and impenetrable his eyes were. But back in the sumptuous rooms he had been allocated in Westminster Palace, he picked up a silver platter and gave in to the pure pleasure of throwing it across the room. It thudded into the tapestry that hung on the wall and fell to the stone floor with a clatter. A whey-faced servant appeared at the open doorway, and the bishop, his temper spent, waved for him to clear the dish, now bent on one rim. When the man had left, his task complete, Narbonne knelt at the improvised altar in his room, lifting his palms so the purple sleeves of his tunic fell away from them. He began to pray, playing with the ancient words of Pope Leo the Great.

‘ “But this Nativity which is to be adored in heaven and on earth is suggested to us by no day more than this when, with the early light still shedding its rays on nature, there is borne in upon our senses the brightness of this wondrous mystery.” ’

Only he knew to what mystery he was referring, and he intended to keep the secret in his heart. Until the day he could lay his hands on the sky-stone.

The sacred stone.

Unconcerned by the scandalous nature of their relationship, Falconer and Saphira Le Veske walked through the streets of Oxford, exchanging opinions on all sorts of matters. Neither could say who was the tyro and who the dominie, for they could vie with each other in different areas of knowledge. At the moment they turned into Kibald Street, where stood Aristotle’s Hall, Saphira had the upper hand. They were discussing medicines, and she had learned her trade from old Samson in Jewry.

‘Belladonna may be a poison in itself, but it can be used in small quantities as an antidote to poisoning by amanita mushrooms.’

Falconer nodded, then came back with a rejoinder that he hoped would silence her. ‘It is also written that cat’s brain is a poison. As is menstrual blood.’

Saphira’s laughter was like a peal of sweet-sounding bells. ‘Do you think to shock me into submission, William? It will take more than a reference to a woman’s curse to do that.’

She was about to continue when Falconer laid a hand on her bare arm. She looked at him, then followed his eyes down the lane. At the entrance to Aristotle’s Hall stood a little knot of students, evidently in some sort of quandary. Saphira recognized the Mithian brothers, and one or two others who were William’s students and lodgers in his hall.

‘What is going on, William?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think we are about to find out.’

He nodded his head in the direction of Peter Mithian, who, having spotted his master, was hurrying towards the couple. His eyes were wide with shock, and as he approached he waved his hand behind him. ‘Master, they have come for you.’

Falconer grasped the older Mithian brother by the arm and tried to calm him down. ‘Come for me? Who have come for me?’

The boy could hardly contain himself. ‘They have. Envoys from the King, they said. They wanted to know where you were. And when we said you were not home, they went upstairs nevertheless. They are in your solar.’

‘Are they indeed.’

Falconer’s face was grim, and he made to go towards the hall, and its intruders. Saphira held him back, though.

‘Think first, William. Why are they seeking you out? Would it not be better to retreat? You may be going into danger.’

It was not long since Falconer had been on trial for murder thanks to a trumped-up charge laid by the chancellor of the university. If this was more mischief of a similar type, she feared for Falconer’s safety. But he refused to consider the danger.

‘Chancellor Bek has been ousted from his post, and my reputation is unstained. Well, no more stained than it was before. No, I think I should find out what this is all about.’

‘Then I shall come with you.’

He smiled at Saphira. ‘With you to protect me, I cannot be in any danger. Come. Let us see what the King wants of me.’

Pushing through the group of students in the doorway, Falconer and Saphira crossed the communal hall and ascended the creaky wooden stairs up to the private room under the rafters. Falconer almost expected his solar to be in chaos, ravaged by a band of careless soldiers. What he found was an elegantly garbed young man seated at his oak table flanked by two armed soldiers. Falconer had been a mercenary in his youth, and he knew signs of good discipline when he saw them. The impassive look on the soldiers’ faces barely flickered when he entered. The elegant youth, however, rose and smiled pleasantly.

‘Please forgive this intrusion on your privacy, regent master, but I come on urgent business.’

‘The King’s business, I am led to believe.’

The courtier inclined his head slightly and almost blushed at the perceived compliment made to his importance.

‘I must admit I am honoured to serve our King. My name is John Zellot. But may I first ask… these texts-’ he indicated two scrolls that Falconer had pushed aside when he had placed the sky-stone on the table ‘-this is in Hebrew, and this in Arabic, yes?’

Falconer was surprised at Zellot’s knowledge, for the two texts were indeed in the languages he ascribed to them. They were translations of the same treatise originally written in Greek by the great physician Galen. Falconer had been comparing them to come to a clearer understanding of the subject.

‘Yes. They concern the medical practice of bloodletting.’

Zellot nodded, as if he was familiar with the topic. ‘Ah, yes. His Majesty is well acquainted with that practice.’ He could do little more than recognize the scripts but had deliberately used his limited knowledge of languages to seek a rapport with the master. Now he could move on. ‘But I have come on another matter. It concerns this stone.’

He pointed with his neatly gloved hand to the dark grey sky-stone that lay in the centre of the table. Falconer cast a sideways glance at Saphira and stepped up to the table, quickly picking the stone up. Suddenly, it seemed as if the two soldiers flanking the courtier swayed in a breeze. Their initial aggressive movement was a reaction to Falconer’s swift step forward. But almost immediately they were checked by a slight twitch of Zellot’s gloved hand. They returned to their former impassivity as if nothing had happened except the slightest of movements. Falconer smiled and hefted the stone in his palm.

‘The King is interested in this?’

‘Yes. Or more accurately its… medicinal properties. We are prepared to pay well for it.’

Falconer snapped his fist closed over the stone. ‘No.’

The courtier seemed a little perturbed by Falconer’s refusal to part with the stone, but he recovered himself well. He managed a smile without actually feeling any pleasure — a useful attribute in the corridors of Westminster Palace — and inclined his head in curiosity.

‘No?’

‘It is not for sale. But I will make it a gift to the King, on the condition that I can present it to him myself.’

This time the courtier smiled genuinely. Zellot thought he had seen right through this Oxford master to the heart of his venality. He wanted to speak to the King in hopes of some worldly reward far greater than mere coinage. Some valuable sinecure, perhaps. Well, he would give him his day at court, but he would find out soon enough how petulant the old King could be. He held out his hand. ‘Of course. It is a bargain.’

Falconer, who had seen a chance to observe for himself how the highest in the land behaved, and not thinking of any other reward but a satisfaction of his curiosity, added a condition. He cocked a thumb at Saphira Le Veske, who had stood silently in the corner marvelling at William’s boldness. ‘And I shall be accompanied by my companion, who is an expert on medicines. She may be of help to the King.’

He refrained from saying out loud that she was likely to be more help to him than a lump of stone that had fallen from the sky. Zellot nodded.

‘You may bring her. The King is always eager to consult another physician.’

The two men shook hands on the deal, and within a short while the oddly matched party had readied themselves, hired horses at Zellot’s expense and were on their way to London.

For the first time in days, Henry had struggled out of his bed and called for his wardroper, Ralph, to assist him in dressing. He always felt at a disadvantage when receiving the Bishop of Narbonne in his bedchamber. Truth to tell, the cleric scared him, what with his dark pools of eyes and his secretive talk of the sacred stone and its powers. Henry was determined the bishop was not going to lay his hands on the stone, however. It was for the sake of his own health that he had sought it out. Suddenly, he felt as if his arm was being torn out of its socket.

‘What are you doing, man? You are ripping me apart.’

Ralph grovelled before His Majesty, apologizing for his rough awkwardness in pulling Henry’s tunic over his arm. He was normally so adept in assisting the King to dress, but his son’s illness weighed heavily on his mind. The boy was wasting away before his parents’ eyes. And the healer woman he had paid out royally for had taken one look at little Robin and shook her head sadly. He could not accept, however, that there was nothing to be done. His sad thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a sharp prod. The King had dug a bony finger in his chest.

‘Pay attention, Ralph, or I shall have to replace you.’

‘Majesty, forgive me.’

Once again Ralph apologized abjectly. He had been wool-gathering, when his duty was to pay full attention to the King. He concentrated enough to help Henry don the rest of his clothes, and assisted him to the grand oak chair that stood at the other end of the chamber to the King’s bed. Having eased his tired body down, Henry dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Ralph was glad to escape with his job still intact, but first he had to tidy the rest of the King’s clothes that lay creased and rumpled in the chest at the foot of his bed. His presence was completely ignored as the King’s chamberlain, Sir Thomas Dalyson, entered, followed by the French bishop. He concentrated on his task, making himself as insignificant as possible to these great men. But his son’s fate still hung heavily on his mind.

Dalyson was surprised to see the King sitting up in his chair. The last time he had spoken to the physicians who attended Henry, they had assured him the King was near death. His face was indeed gaunt, resembling parchment stretched over a skull, but his eyes were unusually bright for once. The bishop strode over to the King of England and graciously bowed his head in deference. He even refrained from expressing any annoyance when Henry suggested he draw up a nearby stool, a seat that left the bishop perched at a lower level than the monarch. But for Narbonne what was at stake was more important than mere pride. The bishop’s eyes fixed eagerly on the older man.

‘Tell me, Majesty, have you found it?’

Henry looked at his chamberlain, who was hovering at the back of the room, close to the King’s dishevelled bed. ‘Tell him, Dalyson.’

Sir Thomas took a step or two closer. ‘Indeed we have, my lord. The stone was said to have been in the possession of old Elias of Norwich. He denied it when… questioned, saying it had been stolen from him long ago. He did tell us that somehow it ended up in the hands of an itinerant Jew, who sold it to another of his kind in Oxford. However, as the Jews are no more than the property of the King, it should be no great problem to retrieve the stone. We have dispatched an eager young man called Zellot, who will be back with it by the end of the week. If he values his future.’

The bishop nodded and turned back to the King. ‘Good. May we then talk in private, Majesty?’

Dalyson blushed at the rude dismissal but backed graciously out of the room, leaving the two great men to their business. Henry was a little surprised at his chamberlain’s rapid acceding to Narbonne’s request — he was normally prickly about his position at court — but put it out of his mind as the bishop began to tell him the story of the sky-stone. Engrossed, he went to touch the seal ring on his right hand, as he often did from habit, but realized the finger was bare. He reasoned that, as his fingers had grown thin of late, the ring must have slipped off. He would have to alert Dalyson to its loss as soon as possible, but the tale the bishop was telling was for the moment too intriguing to ignore. The power of the stone to heal and cure fascinated Henry. Neither man noticed the insignificant figure of the King’s wardroper slipping quietly out of the bedchamber.

By pushing the horses to their limit, John Zellot ensured that his small party reached London in the middle of the third day after leaving Oxford. They were tired and covered in dust, but he had achieved his goal of returning within the week. The King would be well pleased, and Zellot hoped for a good reward. He settled the Oxford master and his red-haired strumpet in the guest rooms at Westminster and hurried off, still sweat-stained, to report to Sir Thomas Dalyson. Walking through the corridors of the court, he was suddenly a little fearful that he had not exactly done as he was told but had needed to bring two people with him. And they were people who still laid claim to the possession of the stone. He slowed his pace as his mind raced, trying to find the best way to explain the situation. Perhaps the King would excuse him, if he could present the two people as wise physicians. It was well known the King liked to surround himself with quacks and their opinions. He decided that was a plausible excuse, and once again strode more purposefully along the palace’s gloomy corridors.

Meanwhile, Saphira Le Veske, unaware that she was perceived as William’s whore, was pacing the rooms they had been put in. She began castigating Falconer for getting them into this mad situation. ‘Do you not realize that we Jews are seen as the King’s property? He has already mortgaged us once to his brother, Richard, who then taxed us to recoup his outlay. If he chose, Henry could merely demand I give him the sky-stone, and there is nothing I could do.’

Unperturbed, Falconer lounged comfortably on the cushions that adorned the outer room. He was unused to such luxury, but he thought he could come to like this life. He felt like a perfumed Saracen in his harem and waved a dismissive hand at Saphira. ‘But there is no problem there. You gave the stone to me as a gift. So it is mine to dispose of as I wish. Not yours.’

Saphira stooped over him, poking his chest with an elegant finger. ‘So you value my gift so slightly that you would give it away without a second thought?’

Falconer grabbed her outstretched arm and pulled her to him, laughing. ‘I could always offer you as my gift to the King.’

Saphira pushed him away in horror. ‘Don’t even jest, William.’

Their situation did not seem to worry William, but she was frightened that there might be spies in every dark corner in this palace, listening to their every word. Falconer, realizing he had overstepped the mark, sat up. ‘No, you are right. The situation is serious. It does occur to me, though, that you might use some of your expert knowledge of medicines. Mix him a potion. You might even make the King grateful to at least one Jew for prolonging his life.’

Saphira paled at the idea. ‘And if he should die after taking my potion?’

Falconer’s face creased in a frown. ‘You are right again, and I am a fool. I should not have subjected you to this ordeal. I was being selfish in not wishing to be away from your company for any length of time.’

She hugged him and gave a throaty laugh, which promised much for later. But their private moment was disturbed, however, by a quiet cough. Standing in the doorway was a tall man with a regal bearing and long, well-coiffed locks. Falconer and Saphira stood up, a little embarrassed at being discovered embracing. The distinguished-looking man introduced himself.

‘I am Sir Thomas Dalyson, chamberlain to the King. John Zellot has told me something of the situation, and who you are. Do you have the stone with you?’

Falconer spoke up. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then give it to me, and you can be on your way.’

Dalyson clearly hoped that his deliberately peremptory manner would cow this Oxford master, but he was wrong. He saw the grizzle-haired man bristle at the crude dismissal, his face turning stony. ‘No. I told your envoy, Zellot, that I would present it to the King myself. If he did not pass on this stipulation, then you should punish him for his dereliction of duty. But I will see the King myself.’

Dalyson realized how much he had misjudged the master and swiftly changed course. ‘I am sorry. I was misled by Zellot. Of course you may see the King. And Mistress-’ he racked his brain for the woman’s name, told him by Zellot ‘-Le Veske also. Come.’

Saphira cast a fearful glance at William, but he grasped her hand firmly and picked up the stone from where it lay beside him on the bed. Together, they followed Dalyson out of the room.

The King was struggling to breathe, and his doctors were clustered around him anxiously. The fear of wrongly prescribing a cure in such extreme circumstances made the three men nervous of suggesting anything radical. The herbalist, John Rixe, broke the impasse of their worried discussions with a bold suggestion.

‘I recommend a tincture of lungwort with thyme and liquorice root.’

Master Roger Megrim hooted in derision. ‘Lungwort? That will have the effect of a fleabite in an ox’s back.’ He poked a long, bony finger at their patient. ‘Can’t you see His Majesty is far beyond lungwort?’

The King’s face turned an ashen grey, and he began gasping for air as if he were on the verge of drowning. Brother Mark frowned deeply. He crossed himself and put on his most solemn face. ‘His Majesty is beset by demons. He must embark on a pilgrimage to Saint Madron’s Well, for he is a saint who cures all pain.’

It was John Rixe’s turn to question the proposition from the Dominican monk. ‘And where is Saint Madron’s Well, pray?’

‘Cornwall.’

The herbalist and the erudite Cambridge master both burst out laughing. It was left to Megrim, once he could contain himself, to once again point out the error of the proposal. ‘His Majesty is near to dying, and you propose to drag him hundreds of miles down roads no better than farm tracks, and across the wastes of Bodmin Moor? You will kill him for sure.’

By now none of the three physicians was taking note of the state of their patient, intent as they were on sniping at each other. Henry’s breathing was becoming ever more wheezy, and his heart was pounding like a hammer in one of those newfangled iron workings. His vision became blurred, and the faces of his physicians swam before him in a red mist.

Unaware of the plight of the King, Megrim finally threw his cap into the ring. With sonorous tones, he laid out the scientific approach to cure as he saw it. ‘The very latest writings of Albertus Magnus extol the virtues of magnetic stones, and lodestones are a cure for melancholy. This is what the King is suffering from — an excess of phlegm and melancholy. Powdered lodestone and milk will alleviate the symptoms of melancholy. Or he will surely die.’

Just as he reached this conclusion, and before his colleagues and rivals could comment, the bedchamber door opened. Sir Thomas Dalyson stepped into the room and, seeing the parlous state of King Henry, rushed to his master’s side. For the first time, the three doctors noted that Henry was sinking fast. Indecision froze them in place, and they watched in consternation as the red-haired female who had followed Dalyson into the room, along with a tall, grey-haired man, took some action. She called out to the attendant she had passed in the corridor to bring some beer.

‘A large tankard. Now, if you please.’

Then she turned her attentions to the King, abruptly grasping his thin and chilly hand. She patted it reassuringly while everyone else looked on in horror at her temerity. This unknown woman had touched the King. Something none of his physicians had ever done. She spoke in soft and comforting tones.

‘Majesty, you are just panicked by these men. Drinking deep will slow your breathing and you will feel better. I assure you. Here.’

Ralph Wardroper entered and passed a large pewter tankard of ale to her. She helped Henry to sit up and held it to his lips. He took a sip then, encouraged by Saphira, he drank deeply in great gulps. She laughed.

‘Steady, Majesty.’

He looked her in the eyes, his heart already slowing. He felt he had escaped death and grinned mischievously. ‘I should have long ago had a nursemaid as pretty as you. Instead, I have these three gargoyles.’

Hiding a brief look of outrage, Megrim, Rixe and Brother Mark forced courteous smiles on their faces and bowed low at the King’s comment. Saphira, who could not help but note the animosity hidden by their smiles, suddenly realized that she sat on the King of England’s bed. And that she was holding his hand. Her face turned pale, and Falconer, seizing the moment, stepped forward. He helped the stricken woman rise to her feet.

‘Majesty, I have something you have been looking for.’

He brought his left hand from behind his back and produced a dark stone in the shape of a ship. Henry’s eyes glittered. ‘Is this it? The sky-stone?’

‘Yes, sire.’

Falconer proffered the stone and placed it in Henry’s outstretched fingers, making sure the King didn’t drop the unusually heavy object as he took it. Henry sighed deeply.

‘The sacred stone.’

Falconer turned around at the sound of the resonant voice that had spoken the words. It had not been the voice of the King. In the doorway stood a stocky, powerful man in the garb of a senior cleric of the Church. Pierre de Montbrun, Bishop of Narbonne, strode into the room. Falconer could not help but see the glitter in the dark pools that were the Frenchman’s eyes as he gazed at the sky-stone. Both Saphira and Falconer looked with renewed curiosity at the stone that now lay in King Henry’s frail hands. They had heard of its claimed healing properties, but not that the established Church should see it as sacred. Falconer’s interest was piqued, and he looked around the room. Everyone was staring at the stone, from the King down to his most lowly servant, who had brought the jug of ale. All perhaps saw something different in it, and it was something as a man of science he could not see. Hope. A cure. Deliverance.

He nudged Saphira and tipped his head towards the others in the room. She took the hint, and with her newfound authority spoke to the King.

‘Majesty, I suggest you need your rest. If the others present would clear the room, I can stay to nurse you while Regent Master Falconer explains more about the stone.’

Henry waved aside the sharp intake of breath from the doctors, the bishop and Sir Thomas, and peered at Falconer.

‘Falconer. I have heard of you. You stood up to that fool Thomas Bek, who was chancellor of Oxford University until recently.’

Falconer grinned broadly and bowed his head in acknowledgement. He had indeed been at loggerheads with Bek for some time. And trying Falconer for a murder he did not commit had been an audacious step. The chancellor of Oxford University had legal authority over students and masters except solely in the case of murder. That was the King’s prerogative. Bek had attempted to extend his power and at the same time get rid of a thorn in his side — Regent Master William Falconer. He had failed miserably and paid the price. He was no longer chancellor of the university. And it seemed that Falconer’s renown had come to the ears of the King.

‘With a little help-’ here he bowed to Saphira, who had aided him in finding the true perpetrator of the murder Falconer had stood accused of ‘-I solved the murder Bek had hung around my neck.’

‘And you have done so in several other cases, I hear.’

Falconer was shocked the King knew so much about him. ‘I am flattered that my name has come to your attention, Majesty.’

Henry sat up and waved a dismissive hand to the others in his bedchamber. ‘Go. I would speak with Master Falconer alone.’

Reluctantly, those in attendance on the King turned to go, including Saphira. But the King grasped her arm with a surprisingly firm hand for one who a moment ago had been all but dying.

‘You can stay, too, my pretty nursemaid.’

Saphira Le Veske blushed and averted her gaze from the envious eyes of the three physicians. She knew she could ill afford to make enemies, but she wished to remain nevertheless. Dalyson ushered the bishop out ahead of him, muttering apologies for the abruptness of Henry. The doctors followed, with Megrim taking precedence, and Ralph slipped out last, almost unnoticed.

Falconer looked at the sky-stone, held in Henry’s clawlike grip, with renewed interest. ‘The bishop called it a sacred stone. Why so, Majesty?’

A secretive grin broke out on the monarch’s face, and his celebrated droopy right eyelid fell even further. Falconer realized he was winking conspiratorially. ‘The Bishop of Narbonne hides a secret in his black robes and gilded cross. He thinks I do not understand how his desires are formed. But I haven’t kept my position all these years through wars and conspiracies without sniffing out the truth a little.’ He held a bony finger to the side of his nose and tapped it. Then he eased himself around uncomfortably, his bones creaking. ‘You, my pretty nursemaid, you will have heard of a Beth-el stone.’

Saphira gasped, realizing that Henry knew her for a Jew in his reference to the pillar of Jacob. Henry chuckled at his little triumph and turned back to the regent master.

‘And you scholars call it a baitylos, I believe. What can you tell me about it?’

Falconer wondered if Henry knew as much as he pretended to. To remain King for fifty-six years, he had probably perfected the art of allowing those around him to imagine he knew more than he really did. Especially about their own personal lives and dark, secret corners. It must have given him great power over them. He tacitly played along with Henry’s game.

‘As Your Majesty knows well, there was an ancient cult in the Levant that venerated stones. And it persisted in Roman times as the cult of Sol Invictus. The god was a sun god, and the historian Herodian wrote of it. He mentioned a huge black stone with a pointed end and round base in the shape of a cone. The Phoenicians solemnly maintain that this stone came down from Zeus. But the cult has long since died out. Christianity has seen to that.’

Henry waved his hand impatiently as if he knew better. ‘And the name of this god?’

Falconer frowned, looking across at Saphira in puzzlement. ‘The name, Majesty? It was Elagabal.’

In his private chamber, the Bishop of Narbonne knelt in prayer. He often intoned this very psalm when he was frustrated. As he was today, being so close to his goal yet so far away from it. ‘To you I call, O Lord my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For, if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit. Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands towards your Most Holy Place. Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbours but harbour malice in their hearts. Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back upon them what they deserve.’

This time, the words gave him no comfort. God was truly a rock for Pierre de Montbrun, and he had learned his holy secrets from his father in the town of which he was now the bishop. The old Roman town of Narbo still clung tenaciously to its glorious past and its rituals. Now he had at last seen the sacred stone, of which he had heard tell by passing Crusaders over the years. He had shared part of the secret with the English King, telling him in letters only of its potency as a curative. He knew that Henry was ailing and that he would seek out anything that might prolong his life. Narbonne led him to seek out the stone and arranged it so that he, the bishop, was present at Henry’s court when it was uncovered. He had not expected the old King to be so possessive, though. And the presence of the Oxford master and his Jewess complicated matters. It was obvious the King had taken a fancy to the woman, and, through her, the man and his strange interests. He would have to find a way of turning the King back to favouring him, so he could lay his hands on the stone. Perhaps the unctuous chamberlain, Dalyson, was the avenue he could use.

Narbonne rose to his feet, brushed the dust off his robes and went in search of Sir Thomas.

At the time, Dalyson was otherwise engaged. It was late, but the King had refused to let Falconer and Saphira go. He was too engrossed in William’s tales of the murder cases the regent master had solved in Oxford.

‘Tell me more of this little man who cut up bodies for you.’

Falconer wondered how much he dare tell of Master Richard Bonham’s predilection for understanding the inner workings of the human body. Dissecting the human body was forbidden by the Church, except in the cases of convicted murderers, who had forfeited their humanity. But Bonham had carved open any body he could find, and sometimes these had been the sorry victims of murders Falconer had been investigating. But then, Bonham was now dead and could not be punished for his misdeeds. Falconer began to tell the King of an unfortunate serving girl who had been revealed as being with child when she had been killed. Suddenly, his monologue was disturbed by angry voices outside the King’s bedchamber. One of the voices was that of Sir Thomas Dalyson. Falconer was surprised at hearing him shouting, as the man had always seemed in complete control of any situation.

The King waved a hand at Saphira. ‘Go and find out what is going on, woman.’

Saphira rose, but, before she could reach the bedchamber door, a red-faced Dalyson stepped in the room. He bowed deeply towards the King, straightening his normally well-combed hair.

‘Majesty, forgive me. There was an intruder. Some persistent petitioner desiring to speak to you. I told him it was impossible, but he would not take my word for it.’

Annoyance clouded Henry’s pale, watery eyes. ‘Who was it?’

Dalyson ducked his head and whispered in the King’s ear to prevent Falconer or Saphira hearing. The King would have nothing of it, and told his chamberlain to speak out loud. Glancing at Falconer, Dalyson complied with the command.

‘Majesty, it is of no importance. He has no proper reason to see you, and I have dealt with it. Your bodyguard has removed him.’

The King screwed up his eyes with suspicion. ‘I asked you who it was, Dalyson.’

The chamberlain paled but stood his ground, a knowing look on his face. ‘A cousin of the de Montforts, Majesty, seeking his lands back.’

The name he spoke had the desired effect on Henry. Not only had Simon de Montfort rebelled against the King less than ten years earlier, but more recently a couple of his offspring had slaughtered Henry’s nephew at prayer in Viterbo. Henry’s disinheriting of rebel families after the barons’ war had been criticized at the time, but the King had stood firm. He would not waver now.

‘Then you did well, Sir Thomas. Do not ever show the cur into my presence.’

Dalyson smiled in satisfaction and once more bowed deeply, then swept out of the room. The King sighed and fell back on his soft pillows.

‘You will have to tell me some other time about the pregnant serving girl, Master Falconer. I am tired.’

Falconer and Saphira rose and bowed. As they left the chamber, Saphira thought how like a child the King looked, clutching the dark stone to his bosom like a comforting toy.

It was deep in the night, but Saphira could not sleep. She had woken hours earlier, imagining she heard someone passing their bedchamber, and subdued voices whispering outside the door. She feared, as most Jews did, that the King’s hospitality could change to betrayal at any moment. To be within the walls of the King’s palace placed her in double jeopardy. Beside her, Falconer snored gently, clearly unperturbed by their situation. He was loving every minute of his observations on the workings of government. Irritated beyond measure by his serenity, she nudged him only to find that he rolled over on his side and continued snoring. She poked him vigorously with her finger. He was suddenly alert, his distant past life as a mercenary asserting itself once again.

‘What is it?’

She lay back on the too-soft pillow, her red hair spilling all over it. ‘Tell me about Elagabal.’

Falconer groaned and propped himself up on his elbow, staring at her glorious profile. ‘You have woken me up for a lesson in history?’

She sternly refused to respond, so he continued. ‘Let me think. In ancient times the sun god Elagabal was worshipped as a black stone that was protected by an eagle. Herodian said it came down from Zeus, hence the connection with it being a meteorite. Such stones have been known by the name bethel, or baitylos. The Irish even have a word for them. Both-al.’

‘The Irish? Was that where our stone came from? Covele, the talisman seller, reckoned it came from far beyond Ireland. But then he might have been inflating the story to get more money from me.’

Falconer shrugged. ‘Who knows where it came from? But the truth is I don’t imagine it was the actual stone the cult in Rome worshipped. Though some may think so. And it was a pretty nasty cult, by all accounts.’

Saphira sat up, holding the slipping blanket over her bare breasts, much to William’s regret. ‘Do tell.’

‘The Roman emperor Heliogabalus was its high priest, and there were tales of castration and human sacrifice levelled against him by more conservative historians.’

Saphira frowned. ‘Just the sort of accusations thrown at us Jews now, then.’

Falconer nodded. ‘And probably for the same reasons. To denigrate and destroy the religion. It is said that the cult of Sol Invictus did not survive the death of Emperor Heliogabalus. Others say it was driven under ground. So who knows if it survives to this day?’

Saphira was about to respond when a great cry was heard far off in another part of the palace. Running feet could soon be heard pounding along the corridor outside their door. Saphira tensed and held the blanket close to her with clenched fists. Falconer stroked her bare shoulder to assuage her fears.

‘It’s all right. They are going elsewhere in the palace. Wait here. I will get dressed and see what is happening.’

He swung his legs out of the bed, half forgetting how high it was off the ground compared with the familiar pallet in his solar back in Oxford. Saphira grabbed his arm as he steadied himself.

‘Take care.’

Falconer nodded his reassurance and quickly donned his old black robe and boots. Cramming his pileum on his head, he opened the door a crack and slipped through. After he had gone, Saphira could still hear cries of anger and alarm echoing down the corridors of Westminster. She sat on the bed for as long as she could bear, then she, too, got up and stepped into her gown. Curiosity overcoming her fears, she followed the sound of loud voices in the same direction Falconer had gone.

Falconer found that the babble of sound was leading him towards the King’s chamber. He wondered if Henry had at last died, and the noise was the confusion associated with his passing. Henry had been King for so long that few people alive could recall anyone else ever being on the throne of England. And Henry’s son and heir, Prince Edward, was in the Holy Lands on crusade. Such a situation could lead to total chaos. However, as Falconer turned the corner of the corridor that led to Henry’s private bedchamber, he heard the piping voice of the King. He was still alive, and very perturbed, it seemed.

‘Where is it? Where is it?’

Falconer could hear a note of panic in the tones as he approached the door. A bodyguard, who had clearly donned his coat of mail too hastily and was still struggling with it, made to prevent his entry. Then suddenly the King’s cries turned into a hacking cough that went on and on without cease. Dalyson appeared at the door, dressed in a white and voluminous nightgown, damp at the edges. His hair for once was dishevelled. He stopped abruptly in front of Falconer.

‘Get in there and try to calm him, for God’s sake. I must call his physicians.’

The bodyguard reluctantly stepped back and allowed Falconer to pass. But before he entered the room, the regent master asked Dalyson a question. ‘What is it the King has lost that perturbs him so?’

Dalyson grimaced. ‘Not lost. Stolen, he says. It is that damned stone you brought him.’

As Dalyson retreated down the corridor in search of the three physicians, Falconer took a deep breath and went into the presence of the King.

Saphira had to admit her sense of direction was not as unerring as William’s, and after the initial turmoil had died down there was nothing to guide her. She wished she had paid more attention when Sir Thomas Dalyson had led herself and Falconer to the King’s chamber earlier. But she had been so wrapped up in her own fears that she had ignored which way they had turned. So when she came to the end of a narrow corridor and found a locked door before her, she paused. Turning back, she began to retrace her steps. At an unfamiliar junction, she realized she was lost and, thinking she heard the soft sound of bare feet, called out. ‘Hello? Can you help me? I am lost.’

There was a moment’s silence, then once again what sounded like bare feet hurrying away. She walked slowly in the direction the sounds had come from, suddenly cautious and alert to danger. She had called out loudly, so whoever it was had made the noises must have heard her. So why had they run away? Peering around a corner, she saw that she was entering an unlit room filled with large barrels. She must have found her way to the kitchens, or some storage room. The nearest barrel was almost chest high; whatever the contents were, some of it had splashed out very recently. Pools of liquid darkened the flagstones on the floor around the barrel. She crouched down and dipped her fingers in the puddle. Touching her fingers to her lips, she realized the liquid was merely water. Other equipment she could now discern in the gloom told her this was a brewhouse. She guessed that a palace the size of Westminster required prodigious quantities of ale. No one would drink plain water out of the river, so weak ale was required for everyday consumption. She hoped she had not caught anything by sucking on her wet fingers. She reasoned that it probably was not the case from such small quantities, even though there were many rats swimming in the Thames and its tributaries. Idly, she peered in the open top of the barrel. The dead eyes of Ralph Wardroper stared back up at her from under the water. She gasped and ran back down the dark corridor to call for help.

The man dressed in chain mail whom she ran into in the maze of corridors leading from the brewhouse took her for a dangerous intruder. Dressed as she was in a simple green gown, barefoot, with her thick red hair, uncovered and sticking out in tangles from her head, he assumed she was no lady. In fact, her wild claims of dead men in barrels made him think she was a madwoman. He called for assistance, and he and his two companions overpowered the lunatic, dragging her to the brewhouse to confront her delusion. The sight of the drowned man in the water barrel changed their minds. They now decided she was not only a madwoman but a murderer, too. Saphira soon sat shivering in a cold cell deep below the King’s rooms. It was what seemed like an eternity before rescue came.

Sir Thomas Dalyson soon heard the reports of a madwoman loose in the palace and thanked God that she had been apprehended. When he heard that she had red hair, he knew who she was, and he knew he would have to look into the matter further. He didn’t care about what William Falconer might say. But the regent master’s whore had found a place in the heart of the King, and the King would probably want to know where she was. Especially when Megrim, Rixe and Brother Mark failed to calm him down over the loss of the stone. He then pondered the possibility of killing two birds with one stone, and ensuring that the woman was found guilty of the murder she stood accused of. He thought he could arrange that before even the King and Falconer heard of the matter. But before he was able to set the matter in train, he was summoned to the King’s bedside. Entering the dark and stale-smelling room, he saw the familiar trio of physicians, heads together, arguing, as always. Close by the bed of the King sat the tall, calm figure of the regent master from Oxford. Shockingly, Falconer seemed to be laughing at one of Henry’s tantrums. Did the man not know who he was mocking?

Falconer leaned towards the King as the figure of the chamberlain strode over. He whispered in Henry’s ear. ‘Here comes your trained monkey, Majesty. Too late, as always.’

The King momentarily forgot the gravity of the situation and sniggered. Then he put on his most serious face. ‘Sir Thomas, what have you done to get my stone back? This is a most serious affair.’

He could not help a whine growing in his voice. He was scared that without the sacred stone his health might deteriorate once more. Someone who wanted him dead must have taken it. He even suspected that one of his physicians might have secreted it away out of jealousy.

Dalyson bowed low. ‘The matter is being looked into, Majesty. But many strange things are happening at the moment.’

The King looked at him with suspicion written on his face. ‘Strange things? What strange things?’

Dalyson took a quick decision to change his angle of attack concerning the woman. ‘There has been a murder.’

Falconer’s eyes lit up, and he looked closely at the chamberlain. ‘A murder? Who has been killed, and where?’

Dalyson chose to ignore the meddling master, and addressed the King. ‘Majesty, I regret to inform you that your wardroper, Ralph, has been drowned.’

The King stirred weakly in his bed. ‘Ralph? Damn the man for a fool; he knows I prefer him dressing me. He doesn’t pull me about like the others.’

Henry made it seem as though Ralph had committed a treasonable act by allowing himself to be murdered, and thereby depriving his King of one of his little comforts in life.

Falconer ignored the man’s petulance and pressed Dalyson for more information. ‘Is there no hue and cry? I hear nothing.’

Dalyson smirked. ‘There was no need. The killer was found immediately and is imprisoned already.’

‘Who was it?’

Once again, Dalyson turned his back on Falconer’s question, speaking only to Henry. ‘Majesty, I regret to inform you that the woman, Le Veske, is the killer.’

To Dalyson’s astonishment, the King suddenly screwed up his face, which was already turning bright red, and spat a command at his chamberlain. ‘Do not be stupid, man. It could not be her. Go this instant and release her. And when you have apologized to her, bring her to me.’

Humiliated, Sir Thomas Dalyson scurried out of the room to do the King’s bidding.

Meanwhile, Henry, calm once more, turned to Falconer and winked. ‘Now, regent master, how are we to solve this little murder case of mine?’

Once Saphira had been restored to the bedside of the King, Falconer relaxed a little and coached the King in how he might pursue the case. He began with asking about the hours around the time Ralph was last seen alive.

‘I remember Ralph was in the room when I gave you the stone. Right up to the point when the bishop called it a sacred stone. Was that the last time you saw him, Majesty?’

‘No, no. Of course not. Who do you think undressed me last night? He left around compline, as I couldn’t sleep.’ The King seemed to drift off for a moment, then sat up. ‘I still had the stone then.’

‘Oh, yes, the stone. So that disappeared after Ralph had left your chamber?’

The King nodded. ‘Do you think its theft has something to do with Ralph’s death?’

Saphira answered the King’s question. ‘William does not believe in coincidences, Majesty. One event is more often than not connected with the other.’

Falconer was quick to throw in a word of caution. ‘Even so, we should not rush to simple conclusions. Remember the syllogism. Many small truths, when seen all together, can add up to a larger truth not previously imagined.’

The King slapped the surface of the bed beside him in impatience. ‘But what are these truths that we must gather? How can we tell what is significant and what is not?’

‘That is the problem, Majesty. You never know an important fact from an insignificant one until you have accumulated them.’

Falconer could see that the King didn’t appreciate the meticulous nature of deduction. He posed Henry a question. ‘Did anything else unusual happen yesterday?’

‘Well, you were here when some supplicant tried to wheedle his way into my presence. Does that count?’

‘It depends. What do you recall of the occurrence?’

Henry tried to marshal his thoughts.

He was agitated and frustrated. He had now been confined to his bed for weeks, and none of the doctors would look him in the eye when he asked what ailed him. But they were all fools, because he knew anyway — the infirmities of age were catching up on him. More fool him for paying good money to doctors for not telling him this obvious truth. What frustrated him most were the gaps in his recollection of events. Only the other day he had lost his seal ring, and without it he could not endorse any of his edicts.

And had he not summoned the archbishop before sext, and was it not now nearly nones? He could have died unshriven in the time it took for that fat oaf to get to his bedside. He shuddered at the prospect of not reaching the kingdom of heaven, after all the money he had poured into the abbey and St Edward’s tomb. The only crumb of comfort was the arrival of this Oxford master with the sky-stone. It now lay comforting and heavy on his stomach, reminding him of its presence. For the first time in ages he was taking an interest in his surroundings. He wanted to know more about William Falconer. And his pretty whore, the Jewess. Suddenly, he was aware of everyone in the chamber staring at the stone, including Ralph, his wardroper, still fussing with his linen as though reluctant to leave. That was when he ordered everyone out of his chamber save the master and his woman.

The commotion had begun just after he was beginning to enjoy their company. One voice was unfamiliar, but the other was clearly Sir Thomas Dalyson’s. Both voices were muffled by the trusty oak door that protected the King’s person, but for a moment the man’s voice rang out loud and clear. He remembered what was said.

‘The King is being duped.’

Then the stranger’s voice was suddenly stifled. Dalyson had entered his bedchamber, and whoever it was had been seen off.

‘Duped?’ asked the curious master.

The King eased his bony frame against the cushions whose softness seemed to have turned to stone. ‘I’m always having hangers-on questioning my decisions.’

Saphira then asked the question that had been on Falconer’s lips. Both had been recalling the scene they had witnessed yesterday. ‘Sir Thomas whispered something to you when he first came in.’

The King looked a little furtive briefly, then passed off the whispered exchange as unimportant. ‘It was nothing more than what he then said out loud in your presence. The intruder was someone whose lands I had transferred to another, and he had come to petition me. The man must have committed some serious crime to warrant the loss of his lands. Though be damned if I can remember what it was.’

He sighed, and his eyes glazed over as once again he drifted off towards the other world that beckoned him. Anxiously, the regent master leaned forward to ensure that Henry was doing no more than merely dozing. It would not do to have the King of England expire in the presence of a renegade Oxford master and a Jew. Henry’s breathing was shallow but regular, and Falconer silently beckoned Saphira to follow him out of the room.

Once outside, he whispered to her. ‘Show me where you found the body. And then I would like to take a look at Ralph for myself.’

The Bishop of Narbonne waited until the wife of the dead man had left the little side chapel where Ralph’s body lay. Events had overtaken his seeking out Dalyson and had led him to the corpse. Now he did not want anyone to know what he intended to do. The newly widowed woman spent what seemed like an interminable time with the skinny little corpse, weeping and touching him. She straightened his wet hair and tidied his robe, which was still clinging wetly to his frame. She appeared oblivious to the water that dripped off the edge of the slab on which Ralph lay. It pooled at her feet, and the hem of her dress got wetter and wetter as the woollen material soaked the water up. Finally, she gave up her vigil and, pulling her wet skirts around her ankles, hurried off.

Pierre de Montbrun took his chance and slipped out of the shadows. He wanted to finish what he had begun earlier in the night. But he could see instantly that the stone was not on the body. Ralph’s clothes clung so tightly to him that there was no possibility the stone was hidden in them, and he had no purse about him. Maybe the wife had removed it. Instinctively, he turned and dashed away in the same direction as the stout lady with the wet hem. On the way, he almost bumped into the Oxford master and his delectable companion.

Once he had mumbled an apology and departed, Saphira offered an opinion. ‘I would not have expected the great bishop to have been mourning at the bier of a lowly servant.’

Falconer tended to agree with Saphira’s assessment. ‘Perhaps he was here for another reason.’

He looked closely at the body on the slab but could see no sign of interference with it, other than his hair being tidied. Narbonne had not searched Ralph, or done anything to disturb the body. Neither could Falconer see anything that offered him a clue to the murder. Ralph had been drowned in a butt of water, presumably by a man bigger and stronger than he. Falconer had been shown the brewhouse by Saphira and noted that the upper edge of the barrel was chest high. Whoever tipped Ralph into it must have overpowered him sufficiently to lift him high in the air. But the former wardroper was a skinny individual and looked even more so in death, with his thin robe clinging to his frame. It would not have taken much for a well-made man to force him over the lip of the barrel and hold his head under the water. There had been considerable displacement of water, and many splash marks stretching out from the barrel. Enough to suggest that Ralph had struggled, but that it had all been in vain. He now lay as dead as a fish out of water in a dark side chapel at Westminster Palace, lit by a single flickering candle.

‘Come, let us return to bed. There are still some hours before the sun will be up, and I need to rest.’

Saphira poked him in the ribs. ‘Is it really sleep that you are thinking of, William?’

Falconer grinned like a sheepish boy caught peeping into a lady’s chamber. ‘It was, but if you have a better idea…’

Saphira took his arm and led him towards their rooms. ‘Yes. I want you to tell me more about that Roman emperor, the cult of Elagabal and castration.’

Falconer winced and reminded himself never to take Saphira Le Veske for granted.

Henry, for whom the earliness of the hour meant nothing, levered his aching frame out of the bed. He had feigned tiredness and sleep when Master Falconer had begun asking him probing questions. It was a ploy he often used when bored or facing awkward situations. No one dared keep the King from his bed, after all. He shuffled his now scrawny shanks to the side of the bed, regretting the disappearance of all the muscle and fat that used to shield his bones. Now it was purgatory sitting on a throne without a thick cushion under his buttocks. As he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, he felt something sharp dig into his left hip. Lifting his leg, he slid his fingers under him, and felt around in the folds of the sweat-stained linen sheet. Pulling the offending article out, he lifted it to his rheumy eyes, recognizing it immediately. It was his seal ring that had gone missing a few days earlier. He had been afraid to tell his chamberlain about the loss. And when, on the night of the intruder, Dalyson had whispered in his ear that he might need a royal edict sealed in order to banish the man, Henry had become worried. Now it didn’t matter. The ring must have slipped off his ever-scrawnier fingers to come to rest in the folds of his bed. Relieved, he slid it back on his finger and called for his wardroper.

Once dressed, he was going to show Falconer how to solve the murder without resorting to all that syllogism nonsense. But as he stood up he felt dizzy and slumped back down on the bed. He cursed the loss of the sky-stone, sure that he had felt healthier when he had held it in his hands. It occurred to him that whoever had stolen the stone might have done it to speed along his death. If Ralph had seen the thief take the stone, it would be a good motive for murdering his wardroper. Stealing the stone was tantamount to killing the King. High treason, no less. He clutched at his chest as he felt his heart race. When the new wardroper poked his head around the King’s door, he went pale at the sight of his monarch leaning heavily on the edge of his bed, a cold sweat covering his brow. He called for the King’s physicians.

Saphira tucked her unruly red hair under a modest snood and finished her dressing. ‘So the Sol Invictus cult was a Syrian religion brought to Rome by soldiers.’

Falconer, whose entire morning wardrobe consisted of splashing water in his face and throwing on his undershirt and sturdy black robe, sat on the edge of the bed they had shared, watching in fascination at Saphira’s preparations. ‘Er, yes. And some members of the imperial family. Heliogabalus was part Syrian. And he it was who placed Elagabal above even Jupiter, building a temple to his god.’

Saphira’s toilet was complete, and she turned to face William. This was a new experience for them both. In Oxford, they were a little more discreet, and Falconer always returned to Aristotle’s Hall and the care of his students before daybreak. She liked their present intimacy, and wondered if she could somehow persuade him to take time away from Oxford more often. Probably not — the university and the boys were his life. She sighed, and Falconer’s face creased up into a worried frown.

‘Why are you looking at me like that? What’s wrong?’ he asked.

She waved aside his concerns. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking how far the cult spread, and if it survived the death of Heliogabalus. I mean, it has been a thousand years, but the bishop comes from a town that was once Roman Narbo.’

Falconer waved an admonitory finger. ‘Now don’t you go jumping to conclusions without any evidence. I have enough trouble trying to convince the King he must stick to collecting truths, without you going out on a limb.’

‘You are right. Let’s go and see if we can help His Majesty solve his murder case.’ She paused. ‘It would go some way to explain the bishop’s odd behaviour, though, wouldn’t it?’

Falconer growled and strode out of the room.

When they once again sat with the King in his bedchamber, he was dressed. Though he looked a little pale, and his physicians were in attendance, he was eager to continue their conversation from the middle of the night. ‘I have something important to tell you.’

But before he could continue, Master Roger Megrim stepped forward. ‘Majesty, I must protest at this unnecessary strain. You have sustained another relapse, and you should be bled again. You have a worrying excess of melancholy.’

Henry’s pale face quivered, and he spat his words out through clenched teeth. ‘You will not take any more blood from me. I would be surprised if you found any, after all you have taken. I would prefer any treatment you wish rather than bloodletting.’

Megrim smirked, as though he had always intended working his patient into a corner.

‘Then I recommend the use of the properties of magnetic stones. Pulverized magnetite and milk is a remedy against breathlessness I learned from Albertus Magnus himself. I have it already prepared.’

He produced a small glass vial and pewter mug from his capacious pouch and unstoppered the vial. Having poured the contents into the little mug, he proffered it to the King. Grimacing, Henry tipped the mug up and swallowed the vile concoction. Satisfied, Megrim backed away from the King, then ushered his colleagues out of the room ahead of him. Henry wiped his whiskery face with the back of his hand, then spoke.

‘Now at last I can tell you who I think killed Ralph. You see, I spoke to my new wardroper this morning.’

The King had felt peevish that his usual wardroper was not present to attend to him. This new one, a callow youth, had dug him in the ribs as he changed out of his sleeping gown. Now he was all thumbs as he attempted to tie the shirt ribbons across the King’s sunken chest.

‘Where’s Ralph?’ whined Henry, thinking to sack the lazy man who had failed to come at his call. Then it all came back to him. He remembered that the man was dead, and why he had wanted to speak to his replacement.

‘Tell me, boy, what is the opinion among Ralph’s fellows? Who do they think murdered him?’

The substitute wardroper, a natural gossip, could not resist the invitation. He was inexperienced in protecting the royal personage from unpleasant facts, and he blurted out the truth as he saw it.

‘It is said that Ralph was dallying with Marjorie, the usher’s wife. Sir Thomas is ready to clap Godric in chains, apparently. Of course, since Ralph’s son took ill, his wife has had precious little time for him. She devoted all her efforts to caring for the boy. And though Ralph was worried, too, about his son, he resented coming second. Hence the tales of his straying away from her. They say the boy will not live, and that cannot be good for a marriage. But still, despite his son’s state, no one really liked Ralph, my lord. He gave himself airs and claimed to know many a secret of the bedchamber. So it could have been any one of many who did for him…’

Suddenly, the youth remembered to whom he was speaking and paled in horror. What if the King now asked him what secrets Ralph had passed on about the King? Fortunately, Henry was too preoccupied with all this new information and dismissed his new wardroper from his mind.

‘So, you see, it was Godric killed Ralph, because he was playing him for a cuckold.’

Falconer grimaced. ‘And do you have any proof for this allegation, Majesty? Have you ascertained where Godric was the night Ralph was murdered?’

Henry’s face darkened. He was not used to being contradicted or questioned in this way. But he contained his temper. ‘If you do not like that idea, then how about the servant who envied Ralph’s position, or the potboy who owed him money? I can bring you several possible murderers, and a little torture would be guaranteed to loosen their tongues.’

‘And no doubt that will result in several confessions as the pain becomes unbearable. Which one will you choose then?’

The King flapped his bony hand disdainfully in the air, as if that were not a problem. ‘Then I would execute them all, and that way be sure of retribution falling on the true killer.’

Falconer and Saphira exchanged worried looks. If this was the King’s way of dealing out justice, then heaven help the innocent. Falconer tried another tack. ‘Majesty, you have cleverly winkled out several possible truths here. Perhaps you could leave it to myself and Madam Le Veske to verify them, while you continue to examine the larger scheme of things.’

Henry smiled broadly, glad to have his own superior cunning acknowledged in the presence of this Oxford master. But still he wasn’t sure how to proceed as Falconer had suggested. What other possibilities were there? He had to plunder the master’s brain without revealing his ignorance. ‘If you were me, what other people would you suspect?’

‘Anyone present in the palace at the time must be a suspect. Sir Thomas, Roger Megrim, John Rixe, Brother Mark…’

Before he could stop her, Saphira eagerly added to Falconer’s list. ‘And Pierre, Bishop of Narbonne.’

Henry snorted in amusement. ‘And Master William Falconer and Madam Saphira Le Veske, too.’

Falconer nodded gravely, agreeing with the King’s assessment. ‘As Your Majesty wishes. But we can vouch for each other’s innocence, if you take my meaning.’

For a moment Saphira felt that Henry’s eyes, boring into her soul, had taken on his legendary lynx-like stare. She blushed and looked down at her feet. When she looked up again, the look had once again faded into a clouded blue. But the King’s quiet smile showed he knew exactly what Falconer had meant by his profession of their lack of involvement in the murder. He turned his gaze slowly on to Falconer.

‘I shall speak to all those you have mentioned.’

Hastily, Falconer interposed with a bit of advice. ‘May I suggest you do it as part of your normal daily proceedings? Truths often emerge when suspects are lulled into believing they are above suspicion.’

Henry chortled, wiping away the saliva that had dribbled from the corner of his lips and down his jutting and whiskery chin. ‘You mean to say that I should not subject any of them to torture. I wonder what would happen to our relationship with Philip of France if it emerged I had put one of his bishops on the rack. Of course, I have often thought of applying torture to my three physicians in return for all they put me through. Especially as I have often heard it said that doctors should have three qualities: to be able to lie cleverly, to seem to be honest and to be able to kill without caring.’

Falconer refrained from saying the same qualities could be said to be the prime attributes of being a monarch. He still needed Henry’s cooperation to solve Ralph’s murder. And besides, the King had rallied in health somewhat at the thought of playing at being a deductive. A game that had taken his mind off the loss of the sky-stone, for a while at least.

Having taken their leave of the King, Falconer’s thoughts returned to the stone. Did its theft have a part to play in the murder? Had Ralph seen someone take it, and lost his life for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? If so, who had reason to steal it? The physicians all had cause to envy the place of the sky-stone in their patient’s belief in a cure for his ills. Falconer tested the idea on Saphira. ‘Do you think one of the doctors stole the stone because they thought it replaced the trust the King may have had in their own power to cure him? Or did one of them steal it to be able to use it himself on those who believed in its powers?’

Saphira squeezed his arm. ‘Either possibility may be the truth. But why come up with a theory about the doctors, when we have someone who is proven to have had a desire to possess the stone?’

‘You’re back to the bishop again, aren’t you?’

‘Well, you haven’t yet been able to convince me he is not involved. And if he did steal it, and Ralph happened to see him…’

Falconer reluctantly nodded his agreement. ‘Then Narbonne would have had cause to kill him. That is just what I was thinking. But what about the doctors? They have reason, too. It seems we cannot agree who to pursue first, so let us try to eliminate the servants. Let’s see if those whom the King has cast doubt on can explain where they were when Ralph was killed. And let us do it without resorting to torture.’

As the day progressed, Henry was getting more and more frustrated. He had followed Falconer’s advice and resolved to question his physicians without them knowing they were being interrogated as a murder suspect. First he wrapped a shawl around his shoulders, then he burrowed fully dressed under his bedclothes. He proposed to feign illness. Which was no great problem, because he soon began to feel hot and feverish, encumbered in clothing as he was. He called his physicians into his bedchamber one by one, rather than having them beside him bickering all together. Of course, he gave precedence to John Rixe the apothecary, knowing this would perturb both Brother Mark and Master Roger Megrim. When he came to speak to them, they would be worried about their position in the pecking order. Henry reckoned he could teach Master Falconer a thing or two about putting suspects on the wrong foot.

Rixe, when he entered, looked particularly solemn. He hurried over to the King’s bedside. ‘Majesty, you look very hot and fevered today.’

Henry put on a croaking voice, playing his part. ‘Yes, and I think I have a toothache, too.’

John Rixe’s chubby face broke into a wide smile. He looked over his shoulder, making sure he was free of the ridicule Megrim might pour on his ancient remedies. Then he leaned close to the King, and whispered his advice. ‘You must say the words argidam, margidam, sturgidam, and then spit in the mouth of a frog and ask it to make off with your toothache. My grandam swore by this.’

‘ Ardigam…?’

‘ Argidam, margidam, sturgidam. Do you wish me to obtain a frog for you? There will be many in the margins of the river.’

Henry looked into the innocent round eyes of John Rixe. ‘I think not, Master Rixe. I only…’

But before he could continue, the apothecary was making use of this rare time alone with the King to expound on his knowledge. ‘Words are very powerful remedies. For a fever, I only have to say agodes, platino, placete into your right ear, and your recovery is guaranteed. Shall I do that, Majesty?’

Henry held up a firm hand to stop Rixe’s eager stooping towards his ear. He was so close, Henry could see the beads of sweat on the fat man’s brow. ‘No. Stop, man.’

Rixe reared up, startled by his patient’s peremptory, and loud, tones. Just now, the King had been weakened, and his voice had been hoarse. Now he seemed more robust. Perhaps his incantations had had the desired effect after all. He beamed cheerfully at his patient. ‘Is there anything else Your Majesty wishes to ask me?’

Henry frowned. ‘There is, actually. This sky-stone that has gone missing. Do you think it can have any curative powers?’

‘Undoubtedly, Majesty. I am a firm believer in the powers of stones, herbs and animals.’

Henry poked a finger at the fat man. ‘So you might have stolen it yourself to use on others.’

John Rixe paled, and the room swam around him dizzyingly. He could hardly get his words out. ‘Ma… majesty?’

The interviews with the two other physicians went just as badly. Brother Mark, whom Henry called in next, insisted on intoning a prayer over the hot and sweating King. He fidgeted in his bed as Mark went on and on.

‘I adjure you, ye fevers, by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, by Emmanuel, Sabaoth, Adonai and the Mediator, by prophet and priest, by the Trinity and the Unity, by Almighty God, King of all, by Jesus Christ and in virtue of his blood, by the purity of the angels and archangels-’

Henry became impatient. ‘Will this take long, Brother Mark?’

The Dominican’s voice rose and continued inexorably.

‘-by patriarchs, prophets, apostles, matrons, confessors and virgins, and because you have no power to hurt. For Christ was made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’

Henry sighed with relief. Now he could begin his real task. ‘Brother Mark, as a man of God, do you believe in the powers of the sky-stone?’

The monk’s brow furrowed, and he began to expostulate on the Church’s attitude to graven images.

Henry cut in. ‘So could you have stolen it to remove me from its bad influence?’

As Henry proceeded to interrogate his physicians badly, William and Saphira had embarked on a far more gentle process of sifting through the servants. Falconer had asked Sir Thomas Dalyson to assemble those the King had mentioned, and he had agreed. In fact, he was so agreeable about the matter that Saphira wondered if he already had an inclination to believe one of them was at fault and merely wanted Falconer’s corroboration. If that was the case, he was soon to be disappointed.

The first servant to be brought before William and Saphira was the putative cuckold Godric. A short, round man with food stains down his tunic, the usher was inclined to bluster his way out of trouble. When it was suggested to him why he had cause to have killed Ralph, he bubbled over in self-righteous indignation. ‘It is a foul slur on my wife’s honour to suggest she had anything to do with Ralph in that way. She expressed a neighbourly concern for his boy, who is dying and no one can save him. I can vouch for Marjorie’s behaviour.’

‘And yours, Godric, who can vouch for yours?’

This abrupt question was from Dalyson, who had remained in the room allocated to Falconer for his enquiries.

Falconer gave him a piercing look and waved the question aside. ‘That is of no consequence to me. But what is of importance-’ here, Falconer did put on a serious look, using the fear that Dalyson had already instilled in the usher ‘-what I must know is where you were the night that Ralph was killed.’

Godric went pale but then rallied a little as his bluster returned. ‘I was in bed with my wife, of course. Where else would I have been?’

The procession of other servants that Dalyson paraded before Falconer and Saphira proved as fruitless as the first. Two men who were said to be envious of Ralph’s position were also proven to be safely tucked up with their respective wives on the night in question. The final one to be brought by Dalyson was Tod the potboy. In conformity to his name, his nose was long and prominent, turning his features foxy, a trait emphasized by his freckled skin and ginger hair. When asked about his debts, he admitted he did owe Ralph some money.

‘But it weren’t a lot. Only pennies. Not enough to kill over. I was in bed, I swear.’

Although he protested greatly, Falconer could see the sweat prickling on his brow. But then, was his interrogation any easier on the boy than the threat of torture Falconer himself disdained? Both were equally scaring in the circumstances. Saphira saw his fear too, and intervened.

‘Tod. It will go well if you are honest with us. The truth is your best friend, and no one-’ at this point Saphira stared hard at Sir Thomas, who still hovered in the doorway ‘-will punish you, unless you truly killed Ralph.’

Tod’s freckles stood out even more as his face turned green. ‘No. No. I wasn’t in the brewhouse.’

‘Then where were you on the night of Ralph’s murder?’

Saphira’s tone of voice was low and coaxing.

Tod hung his head. ‘I was playing at dice with some other lads. I done it before. That’s why I needed Ralph to fund me, ’cause I was losing.’ He looked up, his eyes wide and tearful. ‘I won’t tell you who the others was.’

Saphira patted his arm. ‘That is not necessary, Tod. Now you can go. But stop gambling — it will only get you into trouble.’

The boy nodded and shambled out of the room, avoiding looking into Dalyson’s eyes as he passed. Falconer and Saphira exchanged glances. They both tacitly agreed that the murderer still may have come from among the servants, but it now looked unlikely. Saphira leaned over towards Falconer in order to speak without Dalyson hearing.

‘It’s the bishop.’

Falconer grinned. ‘Care to bet on it?’

‘What did I just say to Tod about gambling?’

Later that evening, Sir Thomas Dalyson told them that the King wished to see them urgently. He also said that they were not to look shocked when they saw Henry. He was sinking fast, and only the quest for the murderer seemed to be keeping him alive. So William and Saphira were in a sombre mood when they entered the King’s chamber. Henry was already in his nightclothes and in bed, his ashen face almost the colour of the yellowish linen pillow he lay back on. But his eyes glittered. When he saw the pair, he roused himself, struggling to sit up. Saphira hurried over to his side and helped him up. She instinctively grasped his hand, as she would any invalid. Under her fingers she felt a large ring that had not been there the last time she had comforted him. He noted her reaction and smiled weakly.

‘That is the great seal ring of the monarch. All my documents have its impression in wax at the bottom to confirm their authenticity. Now tell me what you have found out about my servants. Who is the one I am to have executed for theft and murder?’

Falconer grimaced and sat next to Saphira on the bedside. ‘I am afraid all of your servants who had reason to have killed Ralph claimed to have been elsewhere. Either in bed with their wives or with other servants.’

He refrained from exposing Tod’s little gambling ring. Henry’s wan face grew a little flushed, and he shook his head impatiently. ‘But they may have been lying.’ It was not a question but a bald statement that still spoke of a desire to seek the truth with torture.

Falconer pressed forward, trying to persuade the King to follow logic and the assembly of truths rather than those older methods of testing guilt.

‘Your physicians — did you find out anything about them?’

‘Any one of them could have stolen my stone. They have the freedom of the palace at all hours and have cause to resent the efficacy of the sky-stone.’

He settled back on his pillow and began to tell Falconer and Saphira what he had learned from Rixe and Brother Mark. And finally from Roger Megrim, who he felt was his chief suspect.

Henry was frustrated by the way his interviews with the apothecary and the Dominican had gone. He was determined to do better with Master Roger Megrim of Cambridge University. The man was his chief physician, and the one who would be most embarrassed by the way the sky-stone had caused him to rally. Henry resolved to try his hardest to avoid the sort of direct questions that had thrown the other two quacks into confusion. Megrim was a clever man and would be hard to bamboozle. He finally called the Cambridge master to his chamber, and, when Megrim entered, it was obvious he was perturbed by the other two having been asked to attend on the King before he did. Henry tried to set him at his ease.

‘I am feeling unwell still, master, and your colleagues have failed to apply a cure for what afflicts me.’

Megrim nodded wisely, a feeling of relief and pleasure crossing his stern features. ‘Well, naturally, Majesty, they do not have the learning that seven years at Cambridge have instilled in me.’

Henry refrained from commenting that most of that study would have been of theory, when Megrim’s head would have been stuck inside books and ancient texts. Precious little time was devoted to practical work such as a surgeon might get on the field of battle. Instead, the King smiled and asked the master his opinion on the current state of his health and what might have an effect on it.

‘Could the sky-stone have had any effect in truth?’

Megrim prevaricated, not wishing to contradict the King.

‘That is difficult to say, Majesty. Now, if you were speaking of magnetic stones, I could state categorically that beneficial effects are proven. Aristotle himself has recorded the therapeutic benefits of natural magnets, and Galen used magnets to relieve pain. He also recommended their external use to draw out evil humours, and noted that lodestones had aphrodisiacal powers as well as being a cure for melancholy.’ He sighed. ‘But then the sky-stone is not magnetic, is it?’

Henry looked at Falconer triumphantly. ‘You see? How could Megrim know that the sky-stone is not a magnet unless he had stolen it and tested it?’

Falconer was not sure if the King had found out an important fact. Had he said anything about the properties of the stone in the presence of the physicians? He would have to think about that. But in the meantime he assumed the King had a point. Megrim could have been the perpetrator of the crime. Though another idea had already begun to niggle at the back of his mind, revolving around something Saphira had observed about the King. It was an idea that turned the connection of the theft of the sky-stone and the murder on its head.

Saphira, meanwhile, was pursuing her own theories. ‘Where is the bishop? I have not seen him recently.’

Henry chuckled, though it came out a wheezy struggle for air. ‘You still think that Narbonne is our killer? He certainly coveted the stone, and there is something of the heretic in him. He hinted to me of the connection between the Feast of the Nativity and the worship of the rising sun.’

‘Sol Invictus,’ murmured Falconer, looking towards Saphira. But her look of triumph was shattered by what Henry said next.

‘But it could not have been him who killed Ralph. He was here at my bedside when all the clamour started. And you haven’t seen him because he has gone back to France.’

Falconer stood up and took a surprised Saphira firmly by the arm. ‘Majesty, we have two more people to see, and then we can present you with all the truths. You will then be able to work out for yourself who the murderer was.’

The King waved a weary hand and let his eyes close. ‘Very well. Go and collect your truths. But I want this settled by the end of the day.’

‘Two more people? If the bishop has disappeared, who else is there to see?’

Saphira was buzzing with curiosity. She knew William, and he rarely made such statements unless they were completely accurate. Falconer smiled enigmatically.

‘The bishop may no longer be in London, but there is someone who can tell us something about his actions before he left. When we went to see Ralph’s body, who did we see hurrying away?’

‘The bishop, of course.’

‘And where was he bound?’

Saphira had to admit she had no idea, so William enlightened her.

‘He wasn’t going back to his quarters. He was hurrying off in the opposite direction, towards the-’

‘Towards the servants’ quarters. And who would have been at Ralph’s side just before the bishop, but the grieving widow.’

Falconer nodded eagerly. ‘We didn’t see her, but it was certain she had been there. And her presence may have given the bishop an idea. If he didn’t steal the stone himself, he was so eager to possess it that he would have been pursuing the one who he thought had stolen it.’

Ralph’s widow, Megan, was packing a small bundle with her possessions. With her husband dead, she had no further purpose in being in the palace of the King. Her reddened, round face was framed by a white cloth head veil that was wound under her chin. She seemed stoical, cheered only by the little boy who played happily around her feet. In reply to Falconer’s questions, she confirmed that the bishop had been to speak to her.

‘The French priest? Yes, he came here the morning Ralph was… was… died. But he seemed interested only in the stone.’

‘The stone?’

‘Yes. Ralph had this stone he said he had found in the outer courtyard. He insisted on little Robin playing with it, though the child showed little interest. The boy has been ill, you see. But look at him now. He is so happy. It is a shame his father could not have witnessed the change in him. So I gave the priest this stone, and he gave me some coins for it, though it was worthless. I shall need them to see me through, until I can find work. And little Robin is so hungry now.’

William and Saphira left the widow to her packing, and the happy boy to his play. He had learned all he needed to know, hinting to Saphira that it was her action of holding the King’s hand that had clarified everything. She was puzzled, but he said it only remained for them to make his second enquiry of the court scribes before they reported back to the King. By the time they had done that, it was late, and Henry looked wan and tired. But he insisted on sitting up in his bed, and hearing Falconer out. When he had finished telling the King everything, William was sure he had enough evidence to unmask the murderer. But this was the King’s case, and he was merely the assistant.

Uncertain, Henry fixed him with a wary eye. ‘Do I need more truths?’

Falconer shook his head. ‘You have all you need to know. So now it may be useful to get Sir Thomas to round up your servants and physicians and bring them here.’

‘So do you think it was one of the servants? Or a quack?’

Henry was trying to delve into Falconer’s mind in an effort to uncover his conclusions. But the master kept a stony face and merely smiled non-committally at his monarch. Peevishly, Henry called out for Sir Thomas Dalyson, who clearly had been hovering close to the bedchamber door all this time. He hurried off about his task, and soon the bedchamber filled with some ten servants without whom the King’s existence was clearly intolerable. Falconer marvelled how he had managed to look after himself so long, if it took this number to minister to just one man, be he King of England or not.

The faces, whether young or old, long or broad, slim or rounded, had one feature in common. They all exuded the sweat of fear — a helpful tongue-loosener the King was going to use to his benefit. He began with a bold statement.

‘In this room stands the killer of my wardroper.’

Before anyone could protest, the King pointed a bony finger at his usher, Godric. ‘You are accused of being cuckolded by the dead man. Reason aplenty to kill him. And you…’ his finger moved on to one of his stewards ‘-envied his position, lusting after it. You-’ again the accusing finger moved and landed on poor Tod ‘-owed him money, more than you could afford to repay.’

One by one, he pointed out the reason why each servant present might have wished the wardroper dead, until everyone marvelled at the King’s insight into the dark secrets of those who surrounded him. But then who was the murderer? Were they all? The King came to his conclusions.

‘But all these reasons have long existed. Why would any of you kill Ralph now? And so precipitately? My three physicians had more urgent reason to murder Ralph, for he may have witnessed one of them taking the stone for his own purposes.’

All three physicians blanched as all the eyes in the room turned on them. A flood of protest fell from their lips, which the King stilled with a peremptory lifting of his hand.

‘However, laying the murder at the feet of my quacks…’ Henry used the word with great pleasure, and enjoyed the pinched look of horror on Megrim’s face at being so named. He pressed on. ‘Laying the murder at the feet of my… physicians would depend on one of them having been the thief of the stone. And I know none of them was, because Ralph himself was the thief.’

A gasp escaped the lips of all those in the room. This was a complete turnaround from what had been supposed. But the King was the King, and he knew best. Henry lay back on his heap of pillows and smiled at Falconer, revealing the jagged points of his worn teeth. Falconer nodded his encouragement, knowing the King had seen the trail of evidence he had carefully laid before him. Ralph had been killed not because he witnessed the theft of the stone, but because he had seen something much more serious happen in the King’s bedchamber. And he had been in the bedchamber in order to steal the stone to cure his ailing son.

Henry’s eyes glittered, and his breath came in great gasps.

‘I have a syllogism. My seal ring was missing between the twelfth and fourteenth days of this month. There is on record a document dated the thirteenth, and sealed with my ring, whereby Sir Anthony Ledsham was deprived of his lands by my authority. I did not have the ring then; therefore this action was a fraud.’

There was a confused muttering in the bedchamber, and those present glanced nervously at each other. If the King was correct, and not confused, such a misuse of the seal was treasonable.

‘I have another syllogism.’ The King’s voice was firmer and more penetrating than it had been for some months. ‘He who possessed my ring on that day is a thief and fraudster, who sought to gain Ledsham’s land illegally. Second, anyone who saw that ring in the thief’s possession on that day needed to be silenced. Ralph, in the process of… borrowing the sky-stone, saw the secretive returning of my ring while I slept. Therefore, I deduce the person who had the ring and placed it in my bedclothes so that I might think it had fallen off my finger is both a thief and a murderer. Is that not so, Sir Thomas?’

Sir Thomas Dalyson blanched and leaped towards the door. William Falconer swiftly blocked his path, the smile of satisfaction on his face matching that of his monarch.

Historical Note

King Henry III of England peacefully gave up his soul to the Lord on the sixteenth day of November 1272 after a reign of fifty-six years and twenty-nine days. But not before he had seen Sir Thomas Dalyson dance on the gibbet for his treasonable misdeeds.