Matthias hurried on. The lane outside smelt sweet after the dank fetidness of the hall. The sun was strong, the air clear and crisp. Dung-collectors had taken the refuse from the day before and the streets and alleyways were still empty. Only the occasional, heavy-eyed apprentice, laying up the stalls or taking down the fronts of the shops, was to be seen as Matthias and Santerre hurried across Broad Street and into a side door of the Silver Wyvern. The taverner came out, Santerre whispered to him, the man nodded and handed over a key.
‘The third chamber on the first gallery,’ he declared. ‘I’ll send food up immediately.’
Santerre took Matthias up. The chamber was clean — lime-washed walls, fresh rushes on the floor. The tables and stools looked as if they had been scrubbed with hot water and the lattice window was open, allowing in the clear, flower-scented air from the garden below. A tapster brought up cups of watered wine and two trenchers with strips of roast beef in garlic pepper sauce, small bread loaves and pots of honey and butter.
‘Why this?’ Matthias asked.
‘Why not?’ Santerre replied, sitting Matthias at the other side of the table. ‘I arranged it last night. You and I need to have words.’
Matthias took his horn spoon from his wallet and polished it absent-mindedly on his sleeve.
‘About what?’
The Frenchman’s eyes held his. ‘You know full well, Matthias! Master Ambrose Rokesby, lecturer in Philosophy and self-styled authority in Theology. He has been making complaints about you.’
Matthias groaned. ‘Rokesby is a lecher and a lecturer,’ he mocked back. ‘I have challenged him in the schools.’
‘Yes, I know, about his theory on Lucifer and the fallen angels.’
Santerre grinned. Matthias noticed how white and even his teeth were. He liked the Frenchman’s cleanliness. Matthias could never understand why so many scholars believed dirt and foul odours were the leading characteristics of learning. Rokesby was one of these, with his fat, unshaven face, slobbery mouth and eyes, which always betrayed a heavy night’s drinking. Rokesby had clawed his greasy hair in rage when Matthias had dared to draw him into disputation over his commentary on Aquinas’ dissertation on the fall of Lucifer.
‘You shouldn’t have said it!’ Santerre reminded him.
‘All I said,’ Matthias replied, biting into a piece of meat, ‘was that Hell was not a place but a state of mind and that Lucifer probably thought he was in Heaven even when he was in Hell.’
‘Rokesby says that’s heresy,’ Santerre teased back. His face became grave. ‘More importantly, that fat little turd-ball has been making deliberate enquiries with the archivist in Duke Humphrey’s library. In the Blue Boar yesterday evening, Rokesby was maliciously speculating on your unnatural interest in the Devil and all his works.’
‘I am a scholar,’ Matthias retorted.
‘Even when it comes to reading books which are on the University Index? Men like the Bohemian, John Hus?’
‘Hus was a great scholar.’
‘The Church says Hus was a heretic. Here, in England, they say Wycliffe, and his followers the Lollards, are no different. Rokesby hints that you are a Lollard.’
Matthias closed his eyes and groaned. Santerre was correct: the Lollards had been persecuted for their emphasis of Scripture, their rejection of the power of the priests as well as a greater part of the Church’s teaching on Hell and Purgatory. If Rokesby persisted in his allegations, Matthias might have to appear before the Chancellor’s Court.
‘We should leave.’
Matthias looked up in surprise. Santerre had a piece of bread in his hand, looking at it carefully, his face tense, eyes watchful.
‘We should leave,’ the Frenchman repeated. He put the bread down. ‘Matthias, how many years have you known me?’
‘Over three, ever since I came to Oxford.’
‘That’s right. I am Henri de Santerre. My family owns chateaux and fertile vineyards in the Loire Valley. I have studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and now here in Oxford.’
Matthias nodded. The Frenchman often talked about his family estates, the sunshine, the vines, the brown- skinned girls.
‘A new life,’ Santerre said. ‘Come to France with me, Matthias. I have wealth enough for both of us.’
‘Was that why you were looking for me last night?’ Matthias asked.
‘Why, of course. Also because Rokesby has threatened you.’
Matthias pulled a face. He pushed away the trencher. He no longer felt hungry.
‘Rokesby is a lecher born and bred. He sits in the Blue Boar and watches Amasia like a cat does a mouse and, when he can, it’s a hand up her dress or clutching her breast like someone would grasp an apple.’ Matthias got to his feet, walked to the window and stared down at the garden. ‘Agatha’s dead,’ he said, not turning his head. ‘You know her, the little, blonde-haired girl who could dance like a firefly. She was murdered out in Christ Church Meadows.’
‘Yes, so I have heard.’ Behind him, Santerre refilled the goblets. ‘Rokesby was talking about it last night-’
‘He can talk away,’ Matthias interrupted testily. ‘But it brings back memories.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘What do you know about me, Frenchman?’
Santerre pulled a face.
‘I mean, really know about me?’ Matthias insisted. ‘You’ve hired a chamber here because Rokesby is about to start a persecution. You want me to flee with you to France.’
‘Not flee,’ the Frenchman contradicted. ‘Last autumn I gained my bachelor’s. Where I study, or what I do is a matter of my own concern. I intend to leave in the summer anyway.’
Matthias’ heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t known that and, to be honest, the Frenchman was the only real friend he had. He went back to staring at the herb garden below him.
‘I was born in the village of Sutton Courteny in Gloucestershire, ’ Matthias told him. ‘My parents died when I was young. Baron Sanguis, the local lord, became my guardian. He sent me to the abbey schools of Tewkesbury and Gloucester.’
‘And then you came to Oxford?’
‘Yes, I came to Oxford. I am fluent in Latin and Norman French. I even know some Greek. I can converse with a clerk or a courtier. I am considered a good scholar. I can sing with the best of them, whether it be the ‘
‘Then who are you?’
Matthias returned to the table and sat down. He drank deeply from the cup, then began to tell Santerre everything that had happened at Sutton Courteny. The Frenchman sat still as a statue, ignoring both the food and the wine. Matthias, however, kept slurping at his cup: sometimes he’d stop, his voice choked with emotion, tears rolling down his cheeks. He spoke in short, harsh sentences about the hermit, the battle of Tewkesbury, the Preacher and the arrival of Rahere the clerk. At the end, when he came to describe the events of All-Hallows Eve 1471, Matthias closed his eyes, trying to curb the panic in his stomach. He was aware that his face had become damp with sweat whilst his hands felt cold and clammy. He paused in mid-sentence.
‘And what happened then?’
Matthias opened his eyes. He steadied himself against the table. Santerre had moved away. He was standing with his back to him, staring down at the garden. The Frenchman looked round and smiled.
‘Finish the story, Matthias.’
‘I don’t really know. God be my witness, Santerre. I don’t really know. Rahere gave me something to drink, a heavy opiate. When I awoke I was in Baron Sanguis’ manor house. The old lord and his son came to see me. I could tell from their faces, as well as those of the servants, that something horrifying had happened. I wanted to go back but Baron Sanguis refused. He said the village was deserted, his tenants would not return there. They had petitioned and he had agreed fresh plans for a new village.’
Matthias filled his wine cup. He was drinking so fast, he was glad the wine was heavily watered. He pushed some meat into his mouth but found it difficult to chew or swallow.
