[William Falconer 06] - Falconer and the Ritual of Death by Ian Morson

chapels. ‘Go on, boy.’
    ‘The black priests were all standing in one of the rooms off the southern side of the church. The... boy must have been there, because they sounded all excited. Then some other people came in. There was Master Bodin and Master Inges, but I didn’t know the others. They were all going to blame us for the death.’ Deudone paused, not wishing to tell Jehozadok that at that point he had felt afraid for his life, and wanted to run off. He had begun to sidle back down the far side of the church. ‘Then this man came in. A traveller, he was, all covered in dust. He uncovered the body, just like that.’ There, he had said the word at last and felt very grownup about it. The body. He didn’t say that he had been too scared to look, in case the dead boy laid a curse on him. He shivered involuntarily.
    Jehozadok put a friendly arm around the child. He knew that despite his bravado, Deudone was frightened by what he had seen.
    ‘And what did this traveller say that so changed all their minds?’
    ‘That the marks weren’t Hebrew because he could read the language. That they were marks of punishment.’
    ‘He was a scholar, then, this traveller. You have done well, Deudone, to warn me of this change in affairs. But you were wrong to go into the church when you had been specifically told to stay indoors. I will decide on your punishment on Saturday.’
    Deudone was about to protest, but for once in his short life realized it made more sense to keep his mouth shut. He bowed his head, and hurried home.

    30 August, 1271

    ‘And the traveller was you, of course, William. Though I did not know it at the time. Not many of your fellow masters know Hebrew even now.’
    ‘More’s the pity. If they did, they would be able to understand the works of Maimonides in the original. I am still entertained by his Guide for the Perplexed, especially as I often find myself in that position.’
    Jehozadok chuckled.
    ‘I think less so than most in this world, William. But we digress. You wanted to know if I could recall any mysterious disappearances around the time of your arrival in Oxford.’
    ‘I know it is foolish of me to even ask. Twenty years is a long time, and it may have not even been anything noteworthy then. The man who has now turned up interred in those buildings then owned by Lumbard may have disappeared without anyone noting it.’
    ‘Maybe that is not so. It is a quirk of extreme old age that events of long ago are more vivid than those of yesterday. I even remember that it was in that year a rather undesirable individual was preying on our community.’
    ‘Someone was persecuting you?’
    Jehozadok sighed, and his body seemed to settle lower in his chair, as if his very frame was shrinking.
    ‘No. One of our own kind, but a renegade. Who carried out certain.., rituals, despite them being proscribed. I remember him because it was when we were accused of the ritual murder that never was. And it was then that we were being bothered about paying a tallage to rescue the French king from the hands of the Muslims.’ He slapped his bony skull in frustration. ‘In fact, that was what I was bringing to mind before the incident with young Deudone pushed it away. My meeting all those years ago with Hayim and Aaron, Cresselin’s son.
    They were angry that they had been asked to find their share of the sixty thousand marks that Henry wanted us to contribute.’ Jehozadok chuckled again at the recollection. ‘I told them my favourite story of the teeth-pulling that convinced one of my co-religionists to comply with a similar demand way back in 1210. That soon shut them up. I was but a lad then, and it convinced me that there was no standing up against the inevitable. Though some youngsters today, who have not suffered what I have, would think otherwise.’
    He sighed and seemed to sink into himself again. Falconer was painfully aware that his old friend’s days were running short. When he was gone, he would