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.
‘Actually, he sold it for a song, as it was too heavy to hang around anyone’s neck like his usual amulets. His dupes prefer the little angel texts — kimiyeh — sealed in silver cases that they can wear to ward off evil humours and illnesses. He did say this stone had the same miraculous properties.’
Falconer looked at what Saphira still held in her hands. ‘Heavy? That little thing?’
Saphira smiled and held the dark stone out for him to take.
He lifted it from her open palm. ‘Oh! I see what you mean.’
The smooth stone was heavier than it should have been. He swept aside the clutter on his table, and set it down. Only as big as the palm of his hand, from one angle it resembled a ship with curving prows at both ends, a cabin amidships and a small keel below. But then, as he walked around the table, it changed and became in his eyes a gliding bird, its curved wings outstretched like a swallow’s. The keel became the bird’s head and the cabin its tail. But he thought he saw that because of his own burning obsession. Falconer was consumed with a desire to solve the mystery of flight and to soar like a bird himself. He had got as far as building kites that he tossed off the tallest tower in Oxford — at Oseney Abbey. But when they plunged to earth and smashed, he decided not to risk his own life to one of them just yet.
‘Has it been worked by hand? Or is its shape natural?’
Saphira’s question caused Falconer to look closer at the stone. He could see some markings on its surface. He got out his eye-lenses and put them on his nose. Falconer was short-sighted and had been astonished when, a few years ago, an artisan had offered him these ground-down glass lenses to see through. He had first held them up to his eyes on a simple V-shaped frame. But now he had made his own frame with side hooks that went over his ears. He peered through the lenses at the marks.
‘Could these be Hebrew letters?’
He pointed them out to Saphira. Though he could read Hebrew himself, he wanted her confirmation. She leaned over the stone, her head close to his with a stray lock of red hair suddenly spilling out of her modest widow’s snood. She paled a little at what she saw. When she spoke her voice betrayed an uncertain note.
‘They may be. It looks like HaShem, meaning The Name. But Covele often paints signs on the stones he sells as talismans.’
She stood up, tucking the stray lock back in her snood. Falconer frowned, knowing the Jewish proscription on saying the name of God out loud.
‘Yes, but this is not painted on. It looks as if it is ingrained in the stone. Where did Covele get this, anyway? Did he say?’
‘From an old woman with a scarred face in Norwich. He remembers it clearly because, when he was in the town earlier this year, a sudden flash of lightning struck the main tower of the Christian church towards the north so hard that it sent stones flying in every direction. There was much gossip about what evil it might portend. So Covele left as soon as he could for fear of an attack on the Jews of the town. I believe the month was June. The old woman who sold it was happy to be rid of the stone because it carried with it stories of strange events — some of them not particularly welcome, though some had said it cured all evils. She had kept it for nearly forty years and said that no good had ever come of owning it. The old woman was so glad to be rid of it in the end that she sold it to Covele for next to nothing. I only bought it as a curiosity because I thought you might like to see if it contained those strange patterns inside it that you like to find in stones.’
Falconer tapped the dark stone with the metal hilt of a knife that lay on the table. It almost rang like a bell. ‘I don’t think this will shatter like those other stones. It sounds as if it is made of iron.’
Saphira took the knife and tapped it too. ‘The story that came with it from Norwich was that it had fallen from the sky already shaped as it is. But isn’t that just myth? It is not possible, surely?’
‘Don’t be so fast to pour scorn on the idea of sky-stones. Almost a hundred years ago Gervase of Canterbury wrote an account of five eyewitnesses who saw something odd where the moon stood in the sky. They spoke of a flaming torch, and fire, hot coals and sparks. Others have seen falling stars in the sky and even claimed to have found stones such as this. I can understand why the ancients venerated them.’
He pointed at the object now lying between them on his table. Suddenly, it seemed to both of them to have taken on a mysterious aura, which it formerly did not possess. Saphira felt a deep sense of foreboding and almost regretted bringing it to William’s attention.
‘Where is it?’
Sir Thomas winced at the petulant sound of the King’s voice. He turned to face Henry, a fixed and obsequious smile on his face.
