Blood Lance

3

The bridge dwellers chattered all at once and the coroner’s clerk scrambled from man to man collecting his notes. Jack shook his head, grimacing into the shadow of his hood.

Crispin could have left it alone. He could have made himself believe the man was a suicide and left it at that. Escaped to his own lodgings to warm himself and maybe get some much-needed sleep. But he well knew what he saw, and he feared there was murder afoot. Just as those two miserable sheriffs predicted he’d say.

Charneye was still glaring at him. Well, Crispin was not a man to hide from the truth. Everyone knew that. Unpleasant truths, especially. By Jack’s cringing and moaning, it was obvious that the boy agreed that it was rather inconvenient at times.

“Perhaps we should look at the body,” Crispin offered.

The coroner only grunted his reply, but he didn’t stop Crispin as he headed toward the shrouded figure lying on the ground with a wide circle of curious onlookers around it.

Kneeling, Crispin pulled back the sheet from the dead man’s head. Still, pale, and wet, the man had a dark beard and his closed eyes sat in smudged hollows. Someone was holding a torch and Crispin beckoned to him to come closer. The torch was lowered and Crispin probed the man’s head through his wet hair. A dent. A good-sized one in the skull. He supposed he could have hit his head on a pier. His nose, also, appeared to be broken and there were bruises around his neck. Crispin was certain there would be others on his person, but this was not the place to look. He rose and stared down at the still, waxy face, crossed himself, and tossed the sheet back over him.

“Well?” Charneye asked.

Crispin scanned the loitering crowd. If murder it was, then the guilty party might still be present.

Before he had a chance to speak, a figure in a cloak was pushing its way through the gathering and finally reached the coroner. He turned his vexing scrutiny away from Crispin and directed it toward the figure, talking earnestly. Crispin could not hear the exchange but the coroner looked just as pleased by that as he had by Crispin.

Perhaps this is my cue to leave. Tomorrow will be time enough to tell the coroner what I know. “Jack, let us go. I am weary and cold and need my bed.”

Jack lent Crispin an arm when the coroner and the cloaked figure both turned toward him.

Dammit.

They approached and the mysterious figure tossed back the hood, revealing a woman’s face.

Crispin eyed her lustrous dark hair and haunted eyes. She was nineteen, perhaps younger. A sister of the dead man?

Without preamble she said, “Master Grey committed suicide. But you insist he did not. Why? Do you know him?”

Crispin stood and bowed. She did not acknowledge it. He could tell by her garb that she was a merchant or craftsman. The cut of her gown was fine but not that fine, and the material a bit coarser than that of a rich merchant. The hands clutching her cloak at her chin were red and raw, meaning she did the work. His eyes kept tracing the thickness of her lips, chapped, but sensual in their plumpness.

“I saw him fall, damosel. He did not seem to me to have gone out the window under his own power. I would venture to say that he was dead before leaving the bridge. Upon my examination of the … of him, I would say definitively that he was murdered.”

“That is mere speculation,” said the coroner.

“It is based on years of experience on the battlefield, my lord,” Crispin countered. “I know a murdered man when I see one.”

Charneye smiled grimly. “And yet you jumped into the water to save him. If you knew he was dead before he hit the water, why then did you risk your own life?”

Jack snorted beside him in agreement.

“It … happened so quickly. I moved on instinct. It wasn’t until I saw his face and gave it some thought that I realized the truth of it. And the witness of my eyes.” He gestured toward the shrouded figure. “Though he may have gotten his bruises if he hit one of the piers, there were marks on his neck. He could not have gotten them from the river.”

The woman grabbed Crispin’s arm and pulled him back into the room with the hearth. “No! That cannot be. He was a … a man of sorrows. I know he took his own life.”

“One man claims that the dead man said he was leaving London, and that he meant in this way.”

She shook her head. The hearth flames gleamed darkly in her thick tresses. “He never said he was leaving London. That is a lie!”

The coroner had followed them inside. He rested his thumbs in his thick belt. “Who are you to Master Grey? A relative?”

She ducked her head, hiding her reddened cheeks in her hair. “No. We were … we were betrothed.”

Charneye expelled his breath and rolled his eyes. “It is for a jury to decide.” He waved to his clerk and the both of them ambled toward their horses.

She followed them only a few steps and stood stiffly in the doorway, staring after them with hands clenched white and taut at her sides. After a moment she swung back toward Crispin, eyes wide and angry. “And you! Do you dismiss me as readily?”

Crispin sighed and stared at his feet. He spared a glance at Jack, who was discreetly picking at his nails, eyes downcast.

“I see,” she said. She turned to depart when Crispin spoke.

“I do not believe as the others do, damosel. That Master Grey killed himself. I think that he was murdered, and if you have further information on that, then I should like to hear it.”

“He took his own life, I tell you!” She grabbed her cloak and bunched it tight over her breast. “Why would you meddle in this?”

“Here now,” said Jack, stepping forward. He gestured back at Crispin. “You don’t know who you are talking to. This is the Tracker. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Unless you’ve been living under a rock.”

Her eyes perused Crispin, from his soggy boots to his black hair hanging in wet locks to his shoulders; to his, no doubt, reddened nose. He sneezed again, his whole body wracked.

“You’re Crispin Guest. Yes, I’ve heard of you. What business is this of yours?”

“You might have noticed the state of my clothes. I jumped into the Thames to save him.”

“Oh.” She nodded and moved back into the room. “I thank you for that. It was a kindness and most brave.”

“I was not looking for compliments. What do you know about the man? What could make him so melancholy?”

She raised her chin. “Roger was a quiet man. Who can tell what lies deep in a man’s heart?”

“What was his vocation?”

“He was an armorer. He made fine armor for many knights of the court.”

“Any idea who’d want to kill him? Did he lack for funds? Was he over his head in debts?”

“No. He was well situated with no debts, praise God. Yet he took his own life.” Teeth tugging at her lower lip, she shook her head. Those plump lips pressed together, and her dark eyes studied him silently.

His betrothed, was she? She seemed not so much distraught but distracted. What else was here?

A shiver wracked his body and he pulled the blanket tighter. “I’m no good to anyone in this state,” he grumbled, snuffling. “I’ll be back in the morning after a change of clothes and a good night’s sleep. At least what’s left of it.” He rose and Jack walked with him to the door. The dead man was at last loaded into a cart and slowly wheeled toward the bridge’s gate. The crowd still lingered and Crispin gave it one more sweep when he saw a familiar face.

He strode toward the man. Wide-eyed and frightened, he ducked back into the crowd. Crispin dove after him.

“Master?” cried Jack.

“It’s Lenny. You go that way. I’ll head him off at the gate.”

Crispin ran, satisfied that Jack would cut off Lenny’s escape toward the Southwark side. Wherever that man appeared, no good ever came of it. And to be so near a murdered man? Well, he couldn’t quite believe it of the old thief, but one never knew. The man was getting bolder since Crispin had made a solemn promise not to turn him in for his sins. He was regretting that offer daily.

His soaking clothes did not help the pursuit. The cold, the heaviness of it, seemed to drag him down, but he pushed his way through the crowd and searched the shadows for signs of the misshapen thief.

The moon, though not as high as before, slipped past the protection of clouds for only a moment, revealing the lean path along the bridge, only some twelve feet wide. It was framed on either side by encroaching shopfronts and houses. There! A shadow streaked across the face of a darkened tavern and disappeared again when the moon hid beneath its sheath of cloud.

Crispin could see nothing but he followed his instincts and felt the heavy footfalls ahead. Lenny was guilty of something, else he would have remained to take whatever bribe he could get from Crispin. Even as he ran heavy-limbed in pursuit, Crispin was loath to discover what the thief had done this time.

The pursuit led inevitably to the gate, shut up tight at night and only opened to collect tolls in the daytime. But because the sheriffs and the coroner had passed through, it had remained opened. A single guard at the portcullis watched from the shadowing arch as the cart with the dead man creaked through. Crispin saw the guard get shoved by a dark figure before righting himself and brandishing his spear. The guard took a few steps past the gate but stopped, head swiveling from side to side.

Too late. Damn the man!

Crispin reached the gate and gulped in a breath before addressing the wary guard. “Did you see which way he went?” gasped Crispin.

The guard, a stumpy-nosed fellow, stared at Crispin with mouth agape. “Who?”

“The man who pushed you aside.”

“Him? A demon must have taken him, for he flew like the wind. That way, toward Thames Street.”

Crispin rushed forward only to stand still at the end of the bridge, listening. He could hear no steps over the rattling of the dead man’s cart. Damn Lenny! “I’ll catch up with you yet, you scoundrel.”

He shivered again and looked back over his shoulder toward the bridge and the lighted square windows of its shops. He’d make everything right in the morning. The coroner would see eventually. Jack would make his way home, Crispin had no doubt of that. And if he didn’t get home himself in short order he might freeze to death on the street. He remembered his encounter with the Watch and what might come of it and he did not relish dealing with that. But home called and he trotted along the lane, trying to keep warm. It was still a long way back to the Shambles and to a dry bed.

Almost half an hour passed before Crispin reached the steps to his now dark lodgings above a tinker’s shop. He climbed the outer stairs, each step becoming harder than the last. He fumbled for his key, hands frozen into claws, and managed to open his door. It wasn’t much warmer than the street, but the coals were banked nicely under the ashes in the hearth. He took a poker and jammed it in, throwing on another square of peat to urge the fire into meager warmth. He dropped the borrowed blanket to his feet and unbuttoned his icy cotehardie with stiff fingers. Peeling it away from his shoulders he dumped it, too, on the floor with a splat. The shirt was next, then boots, braies, and stockings. Standing naked before the fire, he wrung out his soggy garments into a pail of wash water before arranging them as best he could before the smoky hearth. He scrubbed his skin with the discarded blanket until his pale arms and legs pinked and then he wrapped himself in it again, rubbing his damp hair as well.

He turned at the sound of the door opening, and Jack entered, shaking out his cloak before he hung it on a peg by the door. “Did you catch him?” the boy asked.

“No. But I will. He ran, Jack. That can’t mean anything good.”

The lad stood beside him, stretching his reddened hands toward the weak flames. Crispin turned his head and Jack did, too. Eye to eye they looked at each other, and Crispin had a chance to peruse the boy’s clothing. He was lanky, all elbows and knees like a newborn colt. The young plumpness of boyhood had left his face, replaced with defined cheekbones and a sturdy chin with only a few spots competing with the freckles. “God’s blood, Tucker. You’ve grown out of another coat. Just look at those arms.”

Jack glanced down to his wrists, jutting a good handspan from the cuffs of his sleeves. “I can’t help it, sir. The good Lord wants me to be tall, I reckon.”

“And so you are. You will be taller than me in a fortnight, I’ll wager. Fourteen are you now, Jack?”

“Aye, sir.” He seemed to be wearing Crispin’s crooked smile. “I’m a man, right enough.”

“Not yet,” said Crispin softly. “Take some coins from my purse-wherever it is you’ve hidden it-and get yourself some new clothes. Not too dear, mind.”

Jack’s freckled face blushed and his eyes drifted toward the flames. “I can get by with what I have, Master.”

“Nonsense.” He glanced pointedly at the hem of the boy’s coat creeping up his stocking-clad thighs. “You are about to embarrass yourself.”

Jack tugged down the hem that barely covered his braies but to no avail. “Well…”

“Just take the coin, Jack. I owe you back wages as it is. Take that, too.”

Unbuttoning his coat, Jack pulled the money pouch free and opened it up. He whistled at it. “You did make a goodly sum.”

“Yes, and we both know it won’t last, so take your share now.”

Jack hesitated before he upended the pouch into his hand. He squinted at the sums and counted carefully and slowly before returning six coins back into the pouch and handing it to Crispin. Crispin tossed it carelessly on the table and turned around, rubbing his backside before the fire.

Jack moved away from the hearth to fetch the wine jug from the back windowsill, poured some into a pan, and placed it over the trivet in the fire, crouching beside it. He grinned up at Crispin, chuckling. “You jumped into the Thames.”

Crispin rolled his eyes. “Yes, if a foolish thing has been done, no doubt it was me doing it.”

“I knew it was you. I would have laid down coin on it.”

“Perhaps you should wager next time.”

“Perhaps I will.” He rolled the wine in the pan, watching the steam feathering upward. Rising, he grabbed two bowls from the pantry shelf and poured the warmed wine into them; the larger steaming bowl he handed to Crispin.

“To your good health, sir,” said Jack, eyes crinkled in mirth as he raised his bowl.

“The devil take you,” he murmured good-naturedly before pressing his lips to the bowl’s rim. It warmed all the way down his throat to his belly. He sighed, sniffed, and pulled up a chair, tucking the blanket under him before he sat.

Jack sat cross-legged at his feet. “Do you truly think that man was murdered?”

Crispin rested the bowl on his thigh. “True, if a man was determined to kill himself, he might be lackluster in his leap, but he flailed not at all. And he might have struck his head on a pier, but his nose, too? His neck bore bruises. I have a mind the man was in a fight. Jack, I believe he was dead or dying before he ever reached the Thames.”

“But the Lord Coroner does not mean to investigate. At least unless a jury charges him so. He said as much.”

Crispin gave his own lopsided grin. “You know what that means.”

Jack sighed deeply. “But Master Crispin, there’s no money in it. Unless the sheriffs will pay.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“Then why, sir? We can’t govern the whole city on our own, for no wages.”

“Being the Tracker comes with its own weight of responsibility, Jack. As a knight I was raised with a set of rules. I believe in them to the letter. And I will not allow a lack of funds to dissuade me. I thought you knew me better.”

“Aye, sir, I do. I’m just trying to manage our funds as best I can. I didn’t mean naught by it.”

He patted Jack’s shoulder. “And I am not chastising you. Merely pointing out that calling oneself a Tracker means more than earning coin. It … it speaks of honor and integrity. I expect when you take the reins someday that it will come to mean the same to you.”

Jack’s eyes were wide and honest. “It does, sir! I swear by the Holy Virgin it does. I’ll not disappoint you, Master.”

Crispin smiled. “I know you won’t. And so because we are our brother’s keeper, I cannot let this lie. I saw the man for myself, after all. I’d see it through to the last, till he receives justice under the eyes of God. And besides,” he said, watching Jack sip his wine, “the man’s betrothed might be willing to pay, if she can be convinced.”

A wet cough kept Crispin awake most of the night. He dragged himself from his bed when the false dawn seeped through the shutters. His nose was still red and stuffed like a winter goose.

Dressed and dry, he and Jack made their way back toward London Bridge by first light. The bells of the local parish churches were ringing Prime by the time they arrived to the gate. They paid their fee to enter and walked up the avenue. Industrious shopkeepers scrubbed down the plaster walls of their houses while some in upper stories hung garlands of dried flowers and greenery. A festive place, thought Crispin absently. The sounds of hammering, too, plagued the air. Something was always being built or fixed in London. He supposed its bridge was no different, though he was damned if he could envision anything more being constructed on the already overcrowded and overhanging bridge. Would they raise their houses up four stories?

After inquiring of a shopkeeper just opening his doors which shop it was, they arrived at last to the dead armorer’s. It was wedged between a haberdasher’s shop and a tailor’s and extended up one more story.

The door lay ajar. Reaching for his dagger and pushing Jack aside out of habit, Crispin cautiously peered in.

The woman from the night before was there, standing in the middle of what looked like the detritus of a terrible fight.

Crispin pulled the door open, and the woman looked up. “Master Guest! You returned.”

“As I said I would, damosel. Er … I apologize, but I was out of sorts and did not get your name last night.”

“Anabel Coterel.” She curtseyed.

Jack popped in behind him and swore. “Blind me! What a mess is here.”

“Yes,” she said warily. “I found it this way this morning.”

Crispin walked in and glanced around. He cursed himself for not looking last night.

Tools of the trade hung on pegs above worktables. But the numerous armor pieces-greaves, breastplates, poleyns, cuisses-were strewn about. Such careful armorer’s art, now dented and scratched. A chunk of unfinished mail hung from a splintered table edge, and even the ashes from the forge were spilled out and made a gray matting over the floor. The window overlooking the Thames still had its shutters wide open and Crispin examined the floor up to it. In the widely scattered ash, two long streaks showed the floor beneath. The streaks climbed the wall toward the window and then widened to an uneven gray swipe across the sill.

He looked to the side and the ash was a hatching of swirls in all directions, suggesting a struggle. Darker spots mixed with it here and there. More blood. In other spots, gray footprints scattered and dispersed. He crouched and examined and swore that there were two sets of footprints, possibly more. Some were smaller than the others. A woman’s? Rising, Crispin rounded a table and found the ash had collected in neat ninety-degree angles, leaving a clean spot in the midst of it.

Striding to the window, he looked out. The Thames, just catching the morning sun through the clouds and casting it in shades of gold and green, churned onward below. Jack came up beside him and looked over the sill.

“That’s a long way down,” he said.

“Indeed,” said Crispin.

“Did all this happen this morning?” asked Jack, gesturing all around him. He tilted his head toward the woman.

She shook her head. “I do not know. My father and I were out most of the evening. We hadn’t yet returned when the night bell was rung. Roger often worked late, and he frequently clattered and made loud noises in his work. But last night I lay next door without a wink of sleep. I would know if there had been a sound this morning.”

“Are you convinced now, damosel?”

She looked around. “It proves nothing. He was an untidy man. Only God can know what transpired here.”

“Master,” said Jack, turning to Crispin. “She’s right. How can we know?”

Crispin fit his thumbs in his belt. “What do you observe in the room, Jack?”

His apprentice swiveled his head again and took in the scene. His eyes followed the same view, the same swirl of ash, the two long streaks across the floor and up to the window.

He pointed to the floor before the forge. “Looks like a fight here.”

“Yes. And blood.”

“Oh aye. I see it now, mixed with the ash. It’s darker in color. Not too much, though.”

“No. Not there, at any rate. Perhaps a bloodied nose. What else?”

“The struggling stopped, for these are the marks of two feet or heels dragged to the window.” He looked up at Crispin for confirmation.

“Very good, Jack. And the sill. See how the ash was stirred up enough to leave traces of something large going over.”

“Aye, I do. That’s horrible, sir.”

“What does this tell you, then?”

“It tells me that whatever happened here, a man did not go willingly out that window.”