Falconer and the Death of Kings (31 page)

Saphira nibbled Falconer’s ear, whispering in it.

‘And tonight?’

Falconer turned to look at her beautiful face, framed by her tumbling red hair.

‘Tonight I will lecture you on anatomy.’

EPILOGUE

T
owards the end of 1275, Amaury and his sister – another Eleanor – set sail for Wales, where she was to marry Llewelyn. They travelled by sea to avoid England and Edward, but passing Bristol the expedition was caught by four ships led by a knight called Thomas the Archdeacon. Amaury and Eleanor were captured and handed over to the king. Edward treated Eleanor kindly, allowing her to marry her Welsh prince once he had settled a peace with England. He bore no such sympathy for Amaury.

The last de Montfort brother was imprisoned in the grim fortress of Corfe Castle until 1282. Banished from England then, he never regained his family lands, though styling himself Earl of Leicester still. He made a sad figure, wandering through France and Italy, laying claim to lost titles and privileges. Sinking into obscurity, by 1300 he was dead.

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE

The perceptive among my readers will identify the secret diary that Friar Roger Bacon was writing in cipher. It has re-emerged in modern times as the Voynich Manuscript. Rumours abound that in the sixteenth century it was sold to Rudolph II, King of Bohemia, by Dr John Dee, astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, as a text written by Bacon. But it is said that Dee or his companion, Edward Kelley, concocted it as a way of making money. What is certain is that an obscure alchemist in Prague owned it in the early seventeenth century, and it found its way into the library of the Collegio Romano. Then, around 1912, it was sold with other manuscripts to Wilfrid Voynich. It has not yet been fully deciphered, defying amateur cryptographers and code-breakers from the Second World War.