Falconer and the Death of Kings (25 page)

‘You know, don’t you? I overheard you and Friar Bacon talking, and I knew the game was up.’ He paused and drew a deep breath. ‘He made me do it. I could not stop him. He knew, you see.’

Thomas was puzzled, not understanding anything that Morrish was saying.

‘Hebborn was responsible for the theft of the opium?’

‘Noooo. He took it reluctantly in order to be one of the group. That night at Notre-Dame, he didn’t know where he was. He should have fallen, but he didn’t. So I had to give him a little push.’

A hush fell over the room at Morrish’s confession. But he had more to say, pouring out his wretched soul.

‘John Fusoris was harder work. I had to hold him under the water until he stopped moving.’

He looked up at Falconer, pleading with him but knowing his fate was sealed.

‘He made me. He knew who I really was.’

Falconer finally made the connection.

‘It was one of the other students, wasn’t it?’ He stared coldly at Morrish. ‘Someone who knew you weren’t who you said you were, and played on it.’

Thomas broke in on Falconer’s questioning.

‘It was Malpoivre who passed out the opium. I found that out myself. He is the guilty one.’

Falconer frowned.

‘No. It could not have been Malpoivre; he hasn’t got the brains or the nous to plan such an evil act. Nor could it be de la Casteigne and the rest of the hangers-on. They are followers, not instigators. Nor can I see any of them actually causing Hebborn’s death, or that of Fusoris. Baiting him and being cruel maybe, but not murdering him. There is only one man who could take pleasure in leading others astray and stand by to watch the consequences. His name has made fools of us all along.’

Thomas gasped, recalling the meaning of the name of the person Falconer was talking about.

‘The demon who pursues the damned to hell.’

‘Yes. Jack Hellequin.’

The man of whom Falconer was speaking was at that moment strolling along one of the passages in the French king’s Royal Palace. On his way to the palace on the errand for Falconer, he had stopped off at the medical school by the Petit Pont. Inside the upper room, he had retrieved the key to the potions chest from the ledge up the chimney where Morrish habitually hid it. He had picked out some harmless pots of unguents and pills, and added arsenic and a paste made from laurel berries. These he put in a large pouch, which he hid under his cloak. Once at the palace, he put on the appearance of a distraught young man with an urgent task to perform. He begged the guard at the gate to convey a message to the English king from Master William Falconer. He even slipped a coin into the guard’s hand to ensure the message was passed on.

When the overdressed courtier came to the gate, he reiterated his story, emphasizing how urgent and important it was. It did not take much to convince the old man, who clearly was expecting such a tale. He ushered Hellequin inside the palace, asking him to wait in a side room. In the hubbub that ensued, it was not difficult for him to slip away and hide. He’d seen the courtier looking briefly for him, but then he had rushed away, obviously with more important tasks to attend to. Hellequin had been forgotten.

Now he had produced the pouch from under his cloak and tied it prominently around his waist. From within the pouch, he pulled out a pair of eye-lenses and perched them on his nose. The glasses were plain, but they gave him a look older than his years. With the dark cloak disguising his youthful and colourful surcoat, he was now every inch the physician he wanted to appear. No one gave him a second look as he walked freely around the palace. He had once in a former life been in the palace, but now he could not recall precisely where the guest quarters were located. He finally had to admit to himself that he was lost, and he stood at a crossing of two passages wondering what to do next. Hearing someone approaching, he put on his most severe mien and waited. When a maidservant came around the corner, he stopped her.

‘Child, tell me where Queen Eleanor is to be found. I am a physician called urgently to her bedside. The child will be in danger if I do not reach her in time.’

The girl looked a little puzzled. She had been outside the queen’s room when the boy had been born. The red-haired woman had been present and had said everything had gone well. She herself had been sent for clean sheets. She shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the meantime. The doctor seemed most anxious by the look on his face. She pointed back the way she had come.

‘The room is just at the end of this passage, master. You cannot miss it. I am to fetch clean linen for the queen’s bed.’

‘Then go about your business, child.’ He waved her away and called after her as she fled. ‘There is no rush for linen, though. Take your time, for I will need to examine the queen first.’

The girl slowed her pace, glad not to have to rush after all, and disappeared around the corner. Hellequin grinned and walked off the way she had first come, sure the servant would not hurry back now. It would give him some extra time for what he had in mind. He paused momentarily outside the chamber door, adjusted his glasses and walked abruptly in. Before him in the bed Eleanor, Edward’s queen, sat propped up by cushions. She looked tired but well, and the new child lay snuggled against her bosom. Eleanor looked up at him, a smile of satisfaction on her face.

‘Ah, doctor. You are too late, I fear. The baby is delivered, and I am quite well. Saphira has gone to…’

Hellequin was not interested in the maidservant’s whereabouts. He knew she had gone on her errand for linen and would take longer than the queen imagined. He quickly interrupted.

‘Majesty, let me be the judge of your well-being. It is what I have trained all these years for.’

Eleanor was amused by the physician’s severity. He looked so young, but she assumed, if Philip or Edward had sent him, he must be competent. There would be no harm in him making sure she was well.

‘Please. Carry on, master.’

The doctor fussed around, peering close into her eyes through his eye-lenses and enquiring after her bodily functions. He then lifted the child up, noting it was a small but healthy boy. For a moment, while he had the boy in his hands, he wondered about dispatching it there and then. He could just dash its brains out on the floor. But he knew he would then be unlikely to escape from the palace without being caught. Self-preservation demanded a subtler approach. He gave the child back to Eleanor, who settled him down on her stomach again. Laying his glasses on the bed, he rubbed the bridge of his nose where they had pinched.

‘I would like to examine a sample of your urine as soon as possible, Majesty. In the meantime, I want you to take these pills regularly, as they will give you strength.’ He lay the pot with the arsenic pills on the bed at Eleanor’s elbow. ‘And this paste you can put on the end of your finger and let the baby suck. He is a little thin, and this will help his growth.’

The pot of laurel berry paste was placed beside the arsenic. Hellequin rose from where he had perched on the edge of the bed and stared solicitously at the baby.

‘In fact, you could try him with a little now. I can see he is desirous of suckling.’

Eleanor dipped her finger in the paste and held it up before her face. She thought the concoction looked most unpleasant. But the doctor smiled encouragingly. Saphira, who had been discreetly clearing the mess caused by the birth, came back just as Eleanor was easing the baby into a position where it could suck her finger. She paused and looked up at her new friend.

‘Saphira. This is the doctor sent by Philip to see if I was well. Have you located Edward yet?’

Saphira nodded an acknowledgement to the young physician and stepped towards the bed.

‘Not yet, Eleanor. It would seem he has been called away on an urgent matter.’ She went to sit on the bed and moved the eye-lenses that lay there. Then she spotted the two pots. ‘What are these?’

The physician smiled indulgently.

‘Mistress, it is nothing to bother your head about. I have suggested some potions for the mother and child.’

Saphira, who had learned much about herbs and medicinal preparations from a fellow Jew, was not to be put off by the man’s supercilious nature. Besides, she was suspicious of him for another reason. The eye-lenses were fakes. William Falconer had need of lenses for his poor eyesight, and the curved glass distorted things when she looked through them. These lenses were clear glass. She picked up the pot of paste and held it to her nose.

‘This is laurel berry.’ She looked at Eleanor. ‘You have not taken this, have you? It’s poisonous.’

Eleanor paled and drew her finger sharply from the child’s lips. Fortunately, little Alfonso had not sucked it yet, and she wiped her finger clean on the edge of the bedlinen. Hellequin snarled and took a step towards the bed, but Saphira stood in his way, preventing him from reaching Eleanor and her newborn. She slid the little knife that she kept hidden up her sleeve from its sheath and brandished it in the doctor’s face. When Hellequin saw it, he backed off towards the door. Opening it, he spun around and fled the room, leaving Eleanor trembling and clutching Alfonso so tightly to her that he began to bawl.

TWENTY-SEVEN

T
he sight of heavily armed men lumbering through the narrow streets of Paris caused the few who were out and about to scatter. It had been a strange day, with gates closed to all but women and the old, and now soldiers were barging their way towards the Ile de la Cité. Some wondered if an English invasion was in the offing, but consoled themselves with the thought that the English king was safely tucked up in King Philip’s palace. Those who saw the soldiers would have been shocked to know that one of their number was that very king. Edward was deathly afraid for the safety of his wife and newborn, whom he had not yet even seen. Having left Morrish in the custody of one of his men-at-arms, he and the two other soldiers ran as fast as their chain mail allowed them to. Edward’s battle-hardened legs almost kept pace with the unencumbered Falconer and his assistant Symon. In the end, though, he had to give best to the Oxford masters, who, accompanied by Sir John Appleby, ran on ahead.

Falconer reached the Royal Palace first and had to wait while Appleby caught up with him. The guards on the gate would only allow them access once the well-known face of the courtier had arrived. Appleby was exhausted and waved Falconer and Thomas on once they were through the gate.

‘The guest quarters are on your right.’

‘Yes, I remember where they are.’

Falconer and Thomas rushed onwards, driven on by the fear that Saphira might also be in danger from whatever Hellequin intended for Edward’s family. They need not have been afraid. The passageways of the guest quarters were now teeming with servants and soldiers, all in the garb of King Edward. In fact, they found themselves barred from penetrating very far into the warren of rooms, and coming under suspicion themselves of being would-be killers. It was only when one of the guards recognized Falconer as someone who had been in the presence of the king earlier that they were allowed under escort to proceed. The bedlam of noise and feverish activity spoke more of servants being seen to be doing something than actually being effective. But they finally passed through the chaos into a quieter enclave at its centre. It was like being in the eye of the hurricane. The door they knocked on was opened cautiously, and Saphira stood before them. Falconer was relieved.

‘Thank goodness you are safe.’

As he and Thomas were allowed in to the room, he noticed the flash of a blade disappearing up Saphira’s sleeve. He said nothing, happy in the knowledge that she was well able to take care of herself. He grinned at her and squeezed her arm, feeling the blade in its secret sheath. She smiled back, understanding his acknowledgement of her self-assurance.

‘He was here – whoever he was – but I persuaded him to leave. The king should know that Eleanor and his child are safe.’

Falconer realized for the first time that there were others in the room. On a large and comfortable bed, propped up on cushions, reposed the Queen of England. And close to her bosom, in a bundle of fresh linen, lay the new prince, Alfonso. Falconer bowed.

‘Majesty, the king is on his way. It is only his armour that has made him a little slower than me or Thomas Symon.’

Thomas blushed at being introduced to the queen and bowed low, unsure of how to behave. Eleanor smiled sweetly.

‘I thank you for your attentions. And I am relieved to know that Edward is coming soon. Do you know who this madman was? And what his intentions were?’

Saphira broke in, holding the two pots left by the intruder in order to show Falconer.

‘He purported to be a physician sent by the French king. He tried to persuade Eleanor to take these pills.’ She held out the first pot. ‘They are a preparation of arsenic, and very poisonous. They would have killed Eleanor slowly but surely, and before she died she would have transmitted the arsenic in her milk to the child. That was evil enough, but to be sure of his purpose he gave Eleanor this pot for the boy to suck off her finger.’ She produced the second pot. ‘It is a paste of laurel berries. Equally poisonous. William, who would do such an awful thing to a child?’

‘He calls himself Jacques or Jack Hellequin.’

Saphira, French by birth and aware of the legend, frowned.

‘Hellequin? Jack the Demon?’

‘Yes. I took it as a coincidence at first. An unwelcome family name that he made a joke of. But now I am convinced it was a joke on us.’

Outside the room there was a clatter, then Edward burst into his wife’s chamber, tossing his helm away as he crossed the room. He discarded his chain mail gloves and tenderly stroked his wife’s head, gazing fondly for the first time on his newborn son.

‘Thank God you are both safe. So this is little Alfonso, eh?’

Saphira touched Falconer’s sleeve, and all three of them slipped out of the queen’s chamber together, leaving the regal family to console each other. Outside in the passageway, they spoke in hushed tones, Saphira asking the first question.