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.