The Tainted Relic (17 page)

That was not what the Templar wanted to hear. He had come all this way because of a story concerning the mason working on Oseney Abbey in England. Certain knowledge had been conveyed to the Templar Grand Master. Knowledge of a particular relic that the Order had been seeking for years. At one time they had traced it to Tewkesbury Abbey, but it was no longer there, and the trail had gone cold. Then a story about a mason working in Oxford had reached the Grand Master. It now appeared that story had been too long in surfacing. The old mason was dead. There perhaps remained a slight chance that the knowledge had been passed on, though.

‘But you work to plans laid down by the master mason who came before you?’

Eudo La Souch produced a snorting laugh that had his labourers working on the site looking in his direction. They were curious as to what had amused their normally sour taskmaster. But he waved his hand at them, and they hastily returned to what they were doing. La Souch examined the Templar, lounging in the shade of the lodge roof. Despite the man’s relaxed posture, he could see that his muscular legs held his body in perfect balance. His arms, crossed nonchalantly over his chest, were actually tensed and ready for an assault from any quarter. He wondered whether the man ever truly relaxed.

‘If you think there were any plans, then you do not understand how we work.’ By ‘we’, he meant the secretive guild of master masons. ‘We have no need for drawings. It’s all in here.’ He tapped his head. ‘The closest you would come to plans are those.’

He pointed at a large area of plaster on the ground in the centre of the cloister. It was criss-crossed with faint marks–lines scored in the surface of the plaster.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a pattern floor, where I can draw up full-size templates for the construction.’

‘Then you have no records of work carried out by your predecessor?’

La Souch shook his head. The Templar was dejected. His search for the relic had come to a dead end again.

‘And when you started you didn’t hear of any rumours of a relic that might have had a special place constructed for it?’

‘Relic? What sort of relic?’

‘A piece of the True Cross.’

La Souch tried to keep calm, and not to show this Templar he knew anything about such a relic. He was afraid to speak in case his voice quavered. He shook his head, and picked up his stoneworking tools again. He began chipping at the stone, though he knew he was ruining the block with shaking hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the Templar sigh, push himself away from the wooden post he had been leaning against, and walk away. La Souch made sure he was well out of sight before he downed his tools. He hurried over to the fabric rolls that held the accounts of the building work for the last twenty years. He would need to redouble the effort of his search now he knew for certain. Previously, the existence of the relic had only been a story hinted at by the workmen he had inherited from his predecessor. The Templar had now confirmed its reality.

‘Have you seen John Hanny? I told him to come back here, and wait for my return.’

The three students who sat companionably at the table in the communal hall of Aristotle’s shook their heads in unison. It was late afternoon, so they were about their supper, a pan of bean potage, which sat steaming in the centre of the plain trestle table. Edward Bygrave, a wealthy student dressed in fashionable parti-coloured tabard and scarlet hose, spoke up for them all.

‘Please, Master Falconer. He fetched the potage for us, and we invited him to eat also. But he said he could not. And truthfully, he did look ill. Sort of pale.’

Falconer didn’t like the boy’s truculent tones, nor the way Miles Bikerdike grinned at Bygrave’s report. He doubted they had so readily offered poor Hanny his share of the food. Despite the fact he had earned it by serving his wealthier fellows. Hanny would have fetched the potage from the bakery oven, where those who lacked the where-withal for cooking had hot meals prepared for them. It should have entitled him to his share. Even at the expense of his pride.

‘Very well. But no-one thought to ask him where he was going, I suppose?’

Again the little group shook their heads solemnly. Falconer sighed heavily, wondering whether he was still up to teaching his students. The Seven Liberal Arts were all very well. He could still pound those into their skulls. But it seemed that common decency was an increasingly difficult attribute to impart.

Though he wanted to talk to Bullock to see whether the man had any further news on the monk’s death, he knew he would have to ensure that John Hanny was found first. That would be his penance for ignoring the boy’s plight until now. In fact, some deep concern was beginning to gnaw at his stomach. He had unquestioningly accepted Hanny’s version of why he had been outside the walls that night. What if he had not been eeling, but was somehow embroiled in the death of the monk, after all? Falconer shuddered at the thought that he might have completely misread the boy. He turned back towards the front door of Aristotle’s and the darkening streets. The three students were already beginning to reach for the ale jug, and joking with each other. Hanny’s plight was already forgotten as far as they were concerned. Angry that they did not share his worries, Falconer decided to leave them with a severe command.

‘You are to speak Latin, and only Latin, to each other. These are the rules of the university, after all.’

Their groans cheered him up somewhat.

Outside, the narrow lanes were dark and silent. Almost everyone would be at supper, but still the quiet was unusual. Oppressive even. Suddenly he was on the alert, his senses sharpened as if on the eve of battle. He had been a soldier in his youth, and his awareness of danger had never left him. If something was afoot, then it was doubly important to find John Hanny, and keep him safe. He decided to avoid the open thoroughfare of the High Street, choosing instead to go down Kibald Street, and into Grope Lane. He didn’t think Hanny would be in one of the bawdy houses there. Though the girls cost only a few pennies, that was more than the boy possessed. But there were also some low taverns in the street, feeding Grope Lane’s customers’ other appetite. He poked his head in a few doors, but here too there were few people. And those there were had fallen into a drunken stupor. At the bottom of the lane, he turned into St John’s Street, then up Shidyerd Street into Little Jewry Lane. He was now approaching the back of Jewry, and could hear a dull rumbling sound. At first it puzzled him, as he could not make out what was causing such a noise. Then he distinguished the sound of splintering wood, followed by a surge in the noise. He could now hear individual voices calling out in triumph. It was the sound of a mob.

As if on cue, a bell began to toll wildly. It was the unmistakable note of St Martin’s Church. The bell that called the town to arms. Falconer had heard it tolling before, often to be matched by the resonant sound of St Mary’s. That was the warning bell for the university. He wondered whether something–the death of the monk perhaps–had sparked off a riot between town and gown. But the bell of St Mary’s Church remained silent, and the sound of the mob appeared to be restricted to Fish Street, along which were ranged the homes of the Jews of Oxford. Falconer hoped that his old friend, Jehozadok, was safely indoors. The old rabbi was too frail to stand up to the mob, and he knew it. But some of the younger Jewish men would probably not be so circumspect.

Only the other day, Falconer had seen one youth who he knew as Deudone accosting the pilgrims making for St Frideswide’s. He was pretending to limp, then uttering an oath and suddenly walking freely. Then he had thrust out his hand, saying the pilgrims should give him alms as his miracles were just as genuine as the saint’s. Fortunately the pilgrims had turned away in disgust. On another day, his contemptuous behaviour could have got him into trouble. A riot such as was boiling up now would be an admirable opportunity for Deudone to think of showing his mettle. The boy was an ardent suitor of Hannah, daughter to the apothecary Samson. Her raven-haired beauty had turned his head, and he would do anything to earn her admiration. It was too much to hope that he would hide away from the mob. Moreover, he was the ringleader of a larger group of hotheads.

All thoughts of John Hanny temporarily shelved, Falconer hurried down Jewry Lane, hoping to reach the home of Deudone’s mother, Belaset, before the mob did. Belaset was a widow who had taken over her late husband’s business very successfully. Her financial acumen was the equal of, if not greater than, her husband’s. Sadly, the skill seemed not to have passed on to the son. Deudone was impetuous, with little aptitude for hard work. If Falconer knew Hannah’s mind as he thought he did, she would not be impressed by any of the boy’s wild behaviour. But he still needed to be prevented from confronting a mob of angry people intent on causing mischief.

As he emerged from the end of Jewry Lane on to Fish Street, Falconer could see that the mob was busy at the top end of the street, where it joined La Boucherie. The houses of some of the more prominent members of Jewry were located there. But then they could withstand the efforts of the mob. They were built of stone, and had sturdy oak front doors. With one eye on the milling crowd, lit by flaming torches and resembling a scene from Hell, Falconer eased along the shop frontages at the lower end of Fish Street. Jehozadok, Hannah and Samson lived in neighbouring houses close by. And Belaset lived below them next to the cloisters of St Frideswide’s Church, just beyond the synagogue. Sometimes the songs of the Talmudic scholars would mingle strangely with the sounds of a religious procession on its way to the shrine of the saint. Tonight, the only sound was the unpleasant and dissonant roar of angry people intent on causing damage. And the racket was getting nearer.

He knocked quietly on Belaset’s door, hoping the woman would realize it was not the mob outside yet. A panel slid back, and Falconer could see a pair of brown eyes behind the grille set in the opening.

‘Belaset. It’s me, William Falconer. You need not let me in. I only wish to know that everyone is safe. Have you seen Jehozadok?’

The woman’s deep, dark eyes stared out through the grille calmly.

‘You need have no fear for him, Master Falconer. He is here with me. And so is my son. I have told Deudone that he is to stay inside and protect us.’

Falconer saw the flash of amusement in her eyes. They both knew it was she protecting her son, not the other way round. He saw the outer edges of her eyes crease up, and imagined the smile on her lips.

‘It helps that Samson and Hannah brought the rabbi here, and have stayed with us too. Thank you for your concern, but you should look after yourself now.’

‘Have you any idea why these people are on the rampage?’

Falconer could hear the heavy sigh despite the thickness of the door.

‘Do they need a reason, when the greatest in the country treat us so badly? But Hannah said she did hear from the cutler who rents his shop from them that there was some talk of a ritual murder near Broken Hays. Whoever found the body has accused us, of course.’

‘A ritual murder…?’ Falconer was appalled. Since the ridiculous story of a child murder in Lincoln some fifteen years previously, horrific tales of Jewish rituals abounded. It needed only some incautious remark to set off a vicious attack on local Jews. Could it have been John Hanny who had unleashed this current riot? And had he done it unwittingly, or with malice in his heart? Either way, the boy needed to be found.

In the dying light of the candles in the nave, Robert Anselm stood at the centre of the labyrinth, far from the turmoil of Jewry. Around him on the floor of the nave were ranged six hemispheres. They resembled rose petals, with the end of the labyrinth walk as the stem of the flower. Each hemisphere was a symbolic representation of the attributes of the world. He turned round slowly on the spot, meditating on each portal individually. The first was Mineral, the next Plant. Then came Animal followed by Human. The last two were Angelic and the Unnameable. The seventh point was the central slab at his feet. Here was Illumination.

He recalled a time more than thirty years earlier, when he had desperately needed illumination, to resolve the great tribulation that had confronted him with the arrival of the relic. The relic was supposed to have been the answer to Oseney Abbey’s prayers–its saviour. The rumours of its arrival had begun three days before, and had caused a great stir among the brethren. Even the young Anselm had welcomed the news at first. The abbey took a great deal of money to maintain, and resources had dwindled of late. A new focus for pilgrimage could make all the difference. Robert Anselm could see that.

Brothers Petroc and Peter had been overcome by the majesty of the relic. They had twittered on after nones, finishing each other’s sentences as they had a habit of doing.

‘Is it not a wonder to behold, young Robert. A piece…’

‘…of the True Cross, here in…’

‘Oxford. At our abbey.’

It was not long, however, before the abbot was cautioning everyone to remain silent on the matter. And Robert Anselm no longer felt elated. No, he had felt only oppressed. By then he had learned a deadly secret, so that, rising from his knees after prayers one evening, he had had to fight for breath. Petroc and Peter had helped him out of the chapel into the fresh air, where he took in great lungfuls of the sweet-scented air. It nevertheless tasted bitter on his tongue. He had retched. He had then hidden his true emotions, by dipping his head between his legs, and moaning. A non-committal sound that the two brothers took as disappointment that the relic was not to be. They had left him to regain his composure. The following morning, though, Anselm had numbly risen from his cot before the third hour of the morning. No great task, because he had not slept all night, and his duties called him to the kitchens. But it had been with a heavy heart that he had begun his daily tasks.

Daily tasks that had absorbed him ever since. This night, thirty years on, he began to tread the route towards the exit of the labyrinth. This journey out represented Union, and action in the world.