Falconer's Trial Read Online Free PDF Page A

recalled his mentor’s informal approach to teaching, which he had copied on a number of occasions when he had given lectures to younger students as part of his training. More confidently, he stood up and stepped to one side of the desk as he had often seen William do. Like his mentor, he would not have a barrier between him and his students.
    He scanned the eager and happy faces, noting that the room was packed tight as even more soberly-clad clerks and masters squeezed into the room. He could not see Ralph Cornish, but William Falconer stood head and shoulders above most of the people in the room. He saw the encouraging look on his mentor’s face and began his uncontroversial lecture on the interpretation of Aristotle’s teaching by his own namesake, Thomas of Aquino.
    In a day and a half, Segrim had only managed to travel as far as the small market town of Berkhamsted before heavy rains cut his journey short. The speed of his journey had been impaired by the necessity of keeping an eye on Osbert. Humphrey now found that he couldn’t shake the Londoner off, even if he had wanted to. The skinny man from Wapping had first convinced Humphrey to entrust the conveying of his oak chest to him. The chest held weapons, heavy chain mail and a metal helm, along with extra clothes and a few trinkets from the Holy Lands. So the trust did not go further than Segrim’s eyesight. He had watched carefully as the chest had been roped to the back of a packhorse, which Osbert then insisted he lead by its halter. But it was then Osbert’s contention that for him to walk, while the knight rode, would delay Segrim unconscionably. His master would have to hire a horse for his servant and Osbert knew just where to get a bargain. So now, Osbert sat himself upon a nag almost as scrawny as he was. But he sat on it proudly. Of course, it was Segrim who had been persuaded to pay for it all.
    Still, the nag could not keep up with Humphrey’s more powerful destrier and they had arrived late in Berkhamsted, on the afternoon of the second day on the road. Here, the increasingly impoverished knight was lucky to find himself a room in the only inn in the town, as the place was crowded with people who were there for market day. Osbert had to settle for a bed of straw in the stables along with the horses. But Segrim knew he would still find his purse even emptier because of such accommodation.
    His fear of the Templar drove him upstairs at the inn, where he spent a long hour staring out the unglazed window at the Norman castle opposite. Perched on the ancient mound across the river, the dark slits in the gloomy stones glowered at him menacingly. But finally he could stand it no more and he decided that he had evaded the man who had dogged him across Europe. He could safely show himself in the inn’s main room downstairs, if only for the sake of the fire that glowed there. His room, high under the thatched eaves of the inn, was icily cold and damp. He descended the rickety stairs and surveyed the long narrow room below. The rain had driven many farmers and cattle dealers into it, and the air was thick with damp clothes and animal smells. Segrim eased his way into a corner seat with a high back designed to keep out draughts. He waved an imperious arm at the innkeeper who scuttled over with a jug of sweet ale and some cold meats. Soon he was settled comfortably into the privacy of his secluded corner, and dozed off. But his sleep was disturbed by dreams of the Templar.
    To Segrim’s fevered mind, the Templar took on proportions bigger than the man in real life. And even then he was tall and imposing. Now he loomed nightmarishly large over Sir Humphrey, who cowered in fear. In his seat in the Berkhamsted inn his sleeping self whined fearfully. Segrim dreamed he was in the Church of St Silvester in Viterbo once again, its nave stretching long and dreamlike away from him for leagues. At the end of this tunnel stood the altar, seemingly high and towering