He had placed a magnetized piece of iron some distance away from the sky-stone on the table surface. And when nothing happened, he had moved it closer. And closer. Eventually, he found the point at which the small piece of magnetic iron slid of its own accord over the table surface and clung to the sky-stone. There were definitely large quantities of iron in the stone. It amused Falconer to watch the affinity of the two items, and he repeated the experiment over and over again.
‘Is that black magic, or what?’
‘Hello, Peter. No, it’s not magic, just the natural actions of the universe.’
Peter Bullock, the constable of Oxford, eased his old bones down on to one of the two chairs in Falconer’s solar. He was feeling his age of late, and his bent back was aching more than usual. He had broken his night patrol at his friend’s house, hoping for some distraction. He sighed over his friend’s comments.
‘I am too old to understand the universe, William. I leave that to God. And you, of course.’
Falconer laughed nervously. Only in each other’s company could they safely utter such profanities. But Falconer, on more than one occasion, had been brought before the chancellor of the university for expressing heretical ideas in the hearing of his students. It was only his celebrity in the academic world, and his wily disputational skills, that had saved him to date. But it was mere months since he had been on trial for his life, and he still felt somewhat that his luck had been sorely tested to its limit. He put a finger to his lips.
‘Perhaps we should not speak of God and myself in the same breath, Peter. And certainly not of black magic. Who knows what ears are pressed to the door?’
Bullock waved his hand dismissively. ‘You are becoming too cautious, old friend. When you get to my age, you care not what people think. Or of the censure of some meddling priest.’
He pointed to the black, strangely shaped stone on the table.
‘I still say that looks like magic to me.’ He licked his lips. ‘Do you think it could magic up some ale?’
Sir Thomas Dalyson was getting concerned. Not only had he failed to find the sky-stone that Henry so desired, but the King had now fallen gravely ill. Someone more mired in superstition might have linked the two and seen cause and effect in it. Dalyson was more phlegmatic. The court had left Norwich after Henry had pronounced his death sentences. He had also burdened the town with a fine of three thousand marks of silver to pay for the rebuilding of the church the citizenry had burned down. Dalyson suspected his intemperance had something to do with not finding the sky-stone he so desired. But they had only got as far as the abbey of St Edmund’s when the King complained of pains in his left arm and a weakness in his limbs. The doctors had been summoned, and the arguments had begun. Master Roger Megrim had at first prevailed, partly because he had been educated at Cambridge. Having observed the sweating fever that racked the monarch’s body, the conclusion Megrim reached was an excess of the sanguine temper. This induced a warm, wet nature, and could be remedied with bloodletting.
As the King lay on his bed, staring apprehensively at his little group of doctors, Megrim stepped forward with a small lancet in one hand and a bowl in the other. Henry mewled like a kitten. But he meekly allowed the physician to move his left arm and push up the sleeve of his nightgown, so that the inside of his elbow was revealed. Megrim plumped the flesh as if he were testing a fowl for succulence, then pressed the small blade into the royal skin. A bead of red blood appeared and began to trickle down Henry’s forearm. Megrim placed the bowl below the flow and could not help but pontificate on his skills.
‘Look how the blood flows. Food turns to blood in the liver, and flows along these vessels to the heart, where it percolates from left to right by means of heart spasms. I am using the phlebotomic method of revulsion — tapping the vessel at an extremity.’
Henry stared with evident revulsion at his life’s blood flowing out of his body, and fainted.
It had then been several days before Henry had improved enough for him to travel back to Westminster. By the time he got there however, he had to take to his bed again. Once more the arguments raged between his physicians as to the cause of his malady. Dalyson didn’t know what the uncertainty was. Henry was old, and he was dying. In the meantime, it fell on Sir Thomas to continue with the day-to-day business of managing the realm, a task he carried out with relish. Towards the end of October, he also had some news for Henry that he thought might rally the King.
As he entered the King’s bedchamber, he observed the same group of quacks hovering in one corner of the chilly room. Master Roger Megrim stood inches taller than his fellow physicians, a stature that emphasized his precedence, at least in his own eyes. Megrim’s height made it seem as though he had been stretched on the rack. His limbs were unusually long, his chest concave and his stomach protuberant. He hunched over to disguise his height, and his beak of a nose poked forward like a bird’s bill. He was once again pontificating on the causes of his patient’s illnesses.
Brother Mark, a Dominican monk of medium height and nondescript features, had adopted his usual pose of dark disdain and half turned away from the voluble Megrim. The third member of the group, however, was hanging on to Megrim’s every word, or apparently so. Dalyson knew that John Rixe, short, fat and of a jolly aspect, fawned on whoever was in favour with Henry. He would as easily denigrate Megrim to the Dominican once out of the Cambridge master’s hearing. And vice versa, when the opportunity arose. As a mere guild apothecary, Rixe depended on the approval of the educated clerics for his very existence. But that did not mean he would defer to them in private, except in so far as they would approve his pills and potions. The fourth person in the bedchamber was seated close by the King’s bed. He was already something of a mystery to Sir Thomas.
Pierre de Montbrun, Bishop of Narbonne, had appeared at Westminster a few days before the ailing Henry had returned from his vengeful trip to Norwich. Wandering darkly around the palace until the King and his court returned, he had then refused to reveal his business to Dalyson, hinting that it was for the ears of the King only. It now seemed he had that ear exclusively. And Henry was engrossed in whatever it was that the foreign bishop was whispering. Dalyson sidled over towards the pair, hoping to hear what it might be that so interested the King. But as soon as his shadow was cast on the bed, the bishop stopped talking and turned to see who it was had disturbed him. Not for the first time, Dalyson almost reeled from the dark pools that were Narbonne’s eyes. They were the darkest of dark brown — almost black — and held no reflection in them. Dalyson was not sure if the lack of a spark of light was due to their depth or if they were like those of a fish on a slab. The eyes of something dead. And now they held the courtier in their cold gaze.
Henry wheezed and expressed his irritation at the intervention of his chamberlain. ‘What is it, Sir Thomas? Can you not see I am busy?’