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greater clue as to what was afoot behind it. More than a little
upset that someone he considered his closest friend and mentor
should abandon him only days after returning from a ten-year
absence, he nevertheless still kept an eye on Roger. Each evening
he made a point of walking along Grandpont as part of his regular
perambulation. And each evening he saw flickering candlelight
emanating from the narrow slits that served as windows at the
top of the look-out tower occupied by Roger. During the day, he
saw neither hide nor hair of the friar. Then one evening, towards
the end of the week that marked the arrival of the Tartars, he
saw something very unusual.
He had walked the length of the High Street, deep in thought,
and found himself close under St George s Tower on the perimeter
of the castle keep. The castle stood at the western end of the
city, and was the home of his friend the constable. It also
temporarily housed the king s great beast  the elephant  which
was still on public show. The evening was still light, with a cooling
breeze blowing off the marshes south of the city. Falconer decided,
on a whim, to look at the elephant again. As he approached the
barn where he had last seen it with Ann Segrim, he heard a great
commotion. Spilling out of the small gateway set in the barn
door came a group of students, all the worse for drink. They raced
across the yard, whooping and yelling, only pulling up short when
they recognized the stern features of the regent master. They
walked past him with the wooden dignity of the drunk, wishing
him a good night, only spoiling their performance when they had
passed him by breaking out in a fit of giggling. A wry smile crossed
Falconer s lips as he recalled his own youth, which had been far
wilder than these youngsters , did they but know it.
As he stepped over the threshold into the barn, the gloomy
interior robbed him of vision for a moment. The keeper of the
elephant, more usually at the entrance and keen to impress each
visitor to his monster, seemed not to be in evidence. Then
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Falconer s eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and the smell
inside the barn assailed his nostrils. The beast was not on its
feet but huddled in a great mound in the dirty straw that
surrounded it. It somehow seemed shrunken from its previous
impressive size, its wrinkled skin slack on the massive bones
that lay under its surface. Falconer heard a snuffling sound, and
at first assumed it was the beast who was making it. Then he
saw the elephant s keeper. He was draped across the elephant s
head, clutching at both great ears, and he was weeping. Falconer
waded through the stinking straw, and the man wailed at his
approach.
 Leave him alone. You  you monsters.
Falconer assured him the students had gone, and clutched the
man s arm, gently drawing him away from the elephant. There
was a long gash on the beast s head just below its huge, mournful
eye. Falconer was entranced for a moment by how the long lashes
around its eye made it look vulnerable and ladylike. The gash
was oozing blood.
 What happened here?
The keeper shrugged.  Those youths decided they wanted to
know if the beast was unnatural or not. Whether it was a monster.
So one of them took out his knife and &  He gestured at the
vicious wound, then attempted to wipe his tears away.  Well,
now they know he bleeds like any other of God s creatures.
The straw at the beast s feet rustled as it shook its great frame,
and Falconer watched in wonder as a great shudder ran through
it. How soon had the marvel that was this beast become just an
idle curiosity, exactly like the Tartars. It was said the elephant
lived three hundred years, and conceived by eating the mandragora
root in Paradise. Falconer did not believe any of this, but nor did
he know anything truthful about this wonderful beast s life. What
value was scientific observation now, in this stinking barn, so
far from the creature s natural home? As if remembering its place
of birth, the beast gave forth a sigh as massive as its frame, and
settled further into the straw that was its bed. Falconer left the
distraught keeper to comfort his charge, at a loss as to what to
do to help.
Turning down Fish Street, Falconer hurried towards South
Gate, anxious to keep up his surveillance of the troubled Roger
Bacon before the curfew closed the gates against him. The
distraction with the elephant had delayed him, and so he was
late reaching the stretch of Grandpont bridge that ran over the
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river and marshy land outside the gate. If he had arrived at his
normal time, he might not have seen whom he did leaving the
friar s tower. The figure was shadowy, slipping from the gloomy
doorway at the bottom of the tower to the back of the row of
hovels that lined the road, but the coat made the man s identity
unmistakable. As Yeh-Lu s dragon-clad form skirted the city walls
on its way back to the Tartar camp north of the city, Falconer [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]