‘Yes, master. I am ready.’
He had buried his head in the work of a scribe and tried not to think of the meaning of the words.
‘Master Symon. Thomas.’
He realized someone was calling him from across the big open space that was the Place Maubert. Looking back, he saw Jack Hellequin beckoning him from the doorway of a down-at-heel building on the corner. It looked as though it had been squeezed unceremoniously between the two sturdier structures either side of it. Both of which probably wished they could elbow it out of the way. A withered branch with drooping leaves hung over the door. It was a tavern, and a poor one by the look of it. Thomas wasn’t sure what to do, but Hellequin gesticulated urgently again, and he walked over to him.
‘What is it, Jack? I am tired and I must speak to my fellow master before he retires.’
‘No, you must drink with us. Geoffrey is buying.’
Thomas hesitated, but he wasn’t sure if Falconer would even be at the Abbey of St Victor to listen to his tales of Bacon’s madness. William had been preoccupied by the task the king had set him and would surely no longer be interested in Thomas. He made a quick decision. After all, he needed to learn more, if he could, about Paul Hebborn. Then perhaps Falconer would listen to him. He smiled, and let Jack take him by the arm and guide him into the noisy tavern.
Inside was a scene of debauchery to Thomas’s eyes. He was used to drunken behaviour from his time as a student in Oxford. Though he rarely got involved with them himself, as he felt too strongly his duty to the village priest who had funded his tuition. He sometimes wished he could have bent a little, but his conscience always pricked him. So he had been a somewhat sober observer of the excesses of his fellows. In this low, mean tavern on the south bank of the river, sobriety had not dared enter. The predominance of young men, some in garish garb, suggested it was a place frequented by students of the university. But there were solid knots of simply clad artisans drinking hard amid the swirl and eddies of the more agitated student imbibers. Thomas swallowed hard and followed Hellequin to a group of young men, some of whom he recognized as Adam Morrish’s students. A goblet was thrust in his hand, and someone filled it from a jug of red wine, splashing the contents over his neat black robe in the process. He made an ineffectual effort to wipe the stain away.
‘Is there no ale?’
Thomas would have preferred weak beer to this French wine that always went to his head. But Jack chastised him for his caution.
‘Drink up. You are in Paris now. None of your English ways here.’
Thomas took a deep breath and gulped the wine down. As he spluttered and coughed, his goblet was filled again. And the group of young men cheered. Jack clapped him on the back, encouraging him to take another draught. He did so, and prayed he would stay sober enough to remember anything he was told about Hebborn. He looked around.
‘Where is John Fusoris? Is he still not recovered yet?’
Geoffrey Malpoivre, who had been the man filling Thomas’s goblet, snorted in derision.
‘John is weak-willed, and a namby-pamby. He could not stand the thought of Hebborn squashed on the pavement at the foot of Notre-Dame’s tower. When I described the mess to him, he threw up. He will never make a doctor, if he can’t stand the sight of a dead body. What about you, Master Thomas? Do you have a strong stomach?’
By now, Thomas’s stomach felt quite queasy, but not from any thoughts of a broken body. The wine was having its effect. He swallowed hard and spoke with unaccustomed bravado.
‘I have seen the insides of plenty of broken bodies, Geoffrey. Some of them murderers whose internal organs I could legally dissect. But I have carved up others too. Perhaps I could explain to you the texture and feel of a man’s bowels when they are still hot and steaming. They are quite slippery, in fact, and when they spill out of the body cavity they are very hard to restrain.’
Malpoivre went a nasty shade of green and thrust the half-empty jug of wine at Thomas before rushing towards the door of the tavern. When the sound of his heaving penetrated the din, the bunch of roughly dressed labourers by the door cheered and slapped each other on the back. Thomas looked at the wide eyes of the students around him and smiled. He lifted up the jug.
‘Anyone else for wine?’
Hellequin held out his goblet.
‘I will take what’s left. I applaud your taking Geoffrey down a peg or two. But I wish you had done it some other time. He was the only one of us with money for drink, and now he won’t dare show his face in here again for a while.’
The other students groaned at the loss of their purse-holder, and a couple began to drift away from the group. Hellequin drank the wine carefully that Thomas had poured, not wishing to swallow the lees at the bottom of the jug. He cast a quizzical look at his new companion.
‘Have you really cut open human bodies, Thomas?’
Despite the wine clouding his brain, Thomas still had his wits about him. The Church condemned anatomy, even of hanged murderers. He was aware also that the remaining students were agog to hear his every word. He decided to tell a partial lie and crossed his fingers.
‘To tell the truth, I am a farmer’s son. What I know of anatomy and the feel of entrails is based on killing beasts of the field. Slippery stuff — cows’ innards.’
The other youths looked disappointed by his confession, but Jack Hellequin squinted at Thomas, evidently disbelieving him. He sat back in his seat and toyed with his empty goblet, twirling it in his fingers. Thomas, a little dizzy with the wine and the noise of the tavern, looked around him. He ought to leave now, but he wanted to find out about John Fusoris and his mysterious illness. Had the boy simply been upset by Malpoivre’s boasting? Or had he either seen Hebborn’s body after the fall from Notre-Dame, or caused it to fall in the first place? Thomas did not know that, or if he was allowing himself to be misled by his own fancy. The only way to find out was to talk to Fusoris, and for that to happen he needed someone to tell him where he lodged. He decided to ask Hellequin.
As he turned to do so, he saw across the gloomy room the two students who had sloped off sitting on their own in a corner. One was Peter de la Casteigne, the other one a sandy-haired and freckled youth he did not know. They were chewing on something, though how they had afforded food he did not know. They looked even more soporific than before, when they had been drinking wine. Peter lifted a lazy gaze to Thomas and sniggered sleepily. But before he could think any more of the incident, Hellequin rose up, cutting off his view of the youths, and offered to help him home. Arm in arm they made their way to the door. The cold air of evening hit Thomas, but he stood still and took a deep breath of it.
‘I can find my own way back, Jack. Thank you all the same. But what you can help me with is to guide me to John Fusoris’ lodgings.’
‘Why would you want to go there?’
‘I am concerned for him, even if none of you are.’
‘You have never met him.’
‘That’s as may be. Think of me as the good Samaritan, then. I will cross this road for a stranger.’
He waved his hand at the broad, triangular-shaped space before them, a little embarrassed at his effusive speech. But if Hellequin was only half as drunk as he felt, then he wouldn’t have noticed. The Frenchman shrugged and took Thomas’s arm again.
‘Whatever you wish. It’s this way.’
It was not far to a ramshackle row of tall tenements that, like the medical school, backed on to the River Seine. Even in the dark, Thomas was aware that the bulk of Notre-Dame loomed menacingly over this quarter of the city. Were none of the students free of the shadow of Hebborn’s death? Hellequin pointed at a narrow house, which had a flicker of light evident in one of the upper windows.