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and the angle of the lights that cast it. What was obvious were
the impressive horns that contorted out of the creature s head.
For a moment the figure seemed to fill the stage, then it staggered
forward. Falconer was sure he saw another more human shape
separate itself from the devilish form and retreat into the solid
shadow at the side of the stage. It was a curious sequence of
events that he could not fathom as part of a mystery cycle.
Suddenly his puzzlement was broken into by screams and other
shouts of alarm from beyond the canvas. Shadows fluttered hither
and thither, but the figure of the Devil lay motionless on the
floor with an elongated bar sticking up vertically from its back.
55
Chapter Six
LUCIFER: Here will I sit now in his stead,
To exalt myself, not bend the knee;
Behold my body, my hands and head,
The might of God is marked in me.
The Fall of Lucifer
he reality that confronted Falconer as he came around
Tthe side of the backdrop that had screened him from the stage
seemed tawdry in comparison to the shadow play. The figures on
the stage were all smaller and the painted scenery was flat and
lifeless. The two soldiers stood over the body with their wooden
swords drooping in their hands. A woman with a bulky hairnet
and linen cap bent over the prostrate form in the middle of the
stage. As she moved to touch the instrument that jutted out of
the dead man s back, Falconer called out,  Don t touch it.
When the woman looked up to see who had cried out, Falconer
was startled by the face of a man peering out from under the
head-dress. It was just another unreal image on top of all the
other incongruities.
 But it s Stefano  he s been killed.
The man dressed as a woman rocked back on his heels as
Falconer knelt beside the figure of the Devil and gently eased
the body on to its side. Unlacing the cords that held the all-
enveloping mask in place, he pulled it off the dead actor s head.
There was a gasp from both Herod and the kneeling actor as a
monk s tonsure was revealed. Clearly they had been expecting
the visage and flowing locks of Stefano de Askeles. This man s
face was the soft, indoor face of a monk.
 What the hell s going on? I leave you all for a few minutes and
everyone stops work.
56
The sonorous tones of the man just presumed dead echoed
across the courtyard. Falconer looked out to see a large and
imposing figure emerging into the circle of light cast by the torches
around the edge of the stage. He was dressed in similar long and
flowing robes to the dead man, but under his arm he carried a
gilded mask unlike the Devil s visage that Falconer had just
removed from the body. His long blond hair was a reflection of
the mask s golden image. He crossed the yard in three or four
strides and stood at the edge of the stage, his face level with the
crouching Falconer. He laid the gilded mask on the stage, where
it sparkled in the torchlight. Its blank eyeholes surrounded by
carved sun s rays seemed to look into everyone s soul  truly the
face of God. The man s own eyes locked on to the regent master.
 And who are you, may I ask?
Falconer ignored the question and bent over the body he still
cradled in his arms to examine the murder weapon. Its shadow on
the other side of the canvas had been distorted so that it had
appeared to be nothing short of a spear. In reality it had a short
wooden handle no longer than the span of a man s fist. The blade
was embedded in the monk s back, but he could just make out the
beginning of the metal part and it was curiously thick, unlike any
knife he had ever seen. Before he satisfied his curiosity and pulled
the weapon out, he noted the angle that it subtended with the
dead monk s back. Definitely a blow struck upwards, not down
from above.
By this time the leader of the troupe had realized what he was
looking at was reality not artifice, and had vaulted on to the
stage. He stood over Falconer and the lifeless form of the Devil,
whose other head, horns and all, lay to one side of the tableau,
the white pools of its eyes staring to the skies.
 God in heaven. Who did this?
Falconer took hold of the well-worn handle of the weapon, and
pulled. It came out of the body with a sucking sound, and a trickle
of bright red blood followed it.
 I don t know, but he killed using a carpenter s chisel.
*
The King was punishing de Cantilupe for being associated with
the guild-merchants and burghers whom Henry suspected of
complicity with the robbers despoiling the countryside. The former
Chancellor had returned to the King s hall in Beaumont as dusk
57
fell. It was enough humiliation that he was obliged to run the
gauntlet of cheap whores plying their trade virtually at the King s
door. But when he reached the gateway into the main courtyard
of the King s residence he had been abruptly halted by the janitor
on the gate.
In the days of his former glory, he would have stridden straight
through the gate, with the keeper grovelling on his knees. Now
the man, a sturdy fellow with a red weather-beaten face, had the
nerve to manhandle the ex-Chancellor. He placed his calloused
hand on de Cantilupe s chest and forced him to stand outside the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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