the boy’s muddy leg.
The urchins took to their heels and ran to their parents, yelling that they had just seen a hideous mermaid who’d tried to drag them into the water and drown them, for hadn’t their mothers told them often enough that it was just what these evil river monsters do. But none of the adults came to look, for only last week the same boys had sworn they’d seen a serpent as big as a tree trunk slithering through the marshes.
And later, when the boys crept back, like brave knights, to slaughter the monstrous mermaid with their sticks and borrowed axes, they found that, like the giant serpent, the creature had vanished; which, though they’d never admit it, was a great relief to them all, for none of them would really have been brave enough to strike the first blow.
Historical note
The incidents in this story concerning the sacred stone are, of course, fictional, but the hanging of Benedict’s father and the exile of Judith’s parents are based on a recorded incident. In 1234 thirteen Norwich Jews were accused of having unlawfully circumcised a five-year-old Christian child, Odard, in 1231. The first trial before the religious authorities in Norwich found all guilty except one, and twelve were sent to stand trial before the King and Archbishop. The Jews paid a gold mark to the King to have the boy publicly examined to prove he had not been circumcised, which suggests that they had not been involved. However, the child was found to be circumcised.
In around 1237 the accused paid two hundred pounds for a trial and a further fifty marks for bail. But they were not brought to trial until 1240, when they paid another twenty pounds to be brought before a mixed jury of Jews and Christians. Having taken the money, the King then instructed the justices that Jews could not sit on the jury, since a mixed jury would fail to agree. At least three of the Jews were hanged and one died in prison awaiting trial. Another
eleven were listed as fugitives from justice, having fled before the trial. Clearly, more Jews were convicted than had originally been charged in 1234.
It has been suggested that Odard was the son of a Jewish convert to Christianity, and one possible explanation for this bizarre incident might be that his parents may have been crypto-Jews who had converted under duress or to improve their circumstances but were still practising their Jewish faith in secret. It was common for ‘hidden Jews’ to circumcise their children. However, if a Gentile had noticed that the child was circumcised and threatened to report the matter to the Church, the father might well have claimed that the boy had been abducted and circumcised without his consent in order to save his own life and that of his family.
Gunpowder had been used for many years in China, both in fireworks for entertainment and as a deadly weapon in battle. Although gunpowder was not employed in European warfare until the fourteenth century, it was in use by the twelfth century in the West as a medicine and as a purifier in alchemy. In the first half of the thirteenth century a number of books came into circulation in Europe giving recipes for creating different kinds of fire and small explosions using ‘black powder’. In the early days black powder was not a reliable explosive. Saltpetre, which has to be dissolved in water then crystallized out, was often contaminated with impurities. Other factors such as the powder being packed too tightly or loosely or getting damp often resulted in the powder producing only a small bang like a firework, which would cause great injury to anyone standing immediately next to it but was not sufficient to damage buildings or anyone standing a few feet away.
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.’
