Veil of Lies

20

Dark-haired and dark-skinned, the men wore livery. Crispin thought he recognized them.

But more notably, they both carried crossbows, and the weapons were cocked and aimed at him.

“Gentlemen,” said Crispin. “If I knew you were coming I would have prepared better hospitality.”

“You are to please come with us,” said the one across the room. His accent was thick with the sunshine and olive oil of the southern part of the continent.

Crispin slowly shook his head. “I do not think I would profit from that.”

“It is not a matter of what you think. It is a matter of who is better armed, no?”

Both foreign men smiled and raised their weapons higher. Crispin smiled, too, and nodded, all the while wondering where the hell Philippa and Jack could be. He decided he wouldn’t fancy ending up at the bottom of the Thames with two quarrels in him. That would help no one.

The closest man made a move toward him. With blood pumping madly through his every fiber, Crispin tensed and before the man could grab him, Crispin darted his hand forward and closed it around the wrist with the crossbow. With all his strength, he slammed it hard against the wall—once, twice. The man protested in Italian and was wrenched off balance by Crispin’s unrelenting blows. He nearly fell into Crispin, still holding tight to the weapon.

With an inarticulate shout, the man across the room lifted his crossbow and aimed.

Crispin spied him over the struggling man’s shoulder. With widened eyes, he yanked his attacker in front of him.

A whoosh and a thud told Crispin the bolt struck true—and hit square in the back of the man he pinned. The man cried out, twisting, clawing at the bolt in his back. But his thrashing grew weaker. Blood darkened the back of his coat.

The face of the other man parched white in horror and he lowered his weapon for only a moment before he snapped to and struggled to reload.

With a groan, Crispin’s attacker slumped to his knees, but without missing a beat, Crispin snatched the weapon from the man’s limp hand, aimed the crossbow, and pulled the trigger.

Both bodies hit the floor at the same time.

The room suddenly fell to silence. One of the men was whimpering. Crispin could not tell which one.

Panting, Crispin stepped back and stared at the bodies now littering his floor. Blood was seeping over the floorboards. And urine. He could smell it. At least one of them was already dead and the other soon would be.

He hefted the crossbow in his hand and studied the compact weapon with a sense of giddiness at having escaped the sharp scythe of Death once more. The gears and windlass of the crossbow interested him for only a moment. A fool’s weapon. Give him a dagger or a hunting bow any day.

He dropped the crossbow on top of the closest man.

The hard stillness was broken by the sound of slow, deliberate clapping, one hand striking the other. Crispin jerked toward the doorway, his hand on his dagger.

Abid Assad Mahmoud leaned in the jamb as if he had been there a long time. Perhaps he had. He stopped clapping when Crispin glared at him.

“My compliments,” said the man. “Well played.”

“Your crossbowmen, I presume?”

“Yes, but”—he looked them over and tutted—“mine no more.”

“Have you come to finish the task?” Crispin’s hand had not left his dagger.

“No. Only to tell you how disappointed I am. The girl was a special bonus. And now, well, there is nothing left with which to extort her.”

“No, your game is done.”

“Not quite. There is still the matter of the cloth.”

“And so. You admit it at last.”

“Yet you knew all along.” The Saracen walked into the room and looked about with a sneer on his bruised face. “So what do we have left to bargain with?”

“I do not wish to bargain with your like.”

“You do not know my like. I am a very valuable man in my country. But you are an infidel. All you see is the color of my skin. I must be pasty-white like the rest of you English in order to be trusted. What a small people you are.”

“I was in the Holy Land, Mahmoud. I saw followers of Muhammad treat us ‘pasty’ English and French with inhumanity.”

“As did your crusaders to our people. The sword cuts both ways.”

Crispin closed his hands into fists. He hoped he could use them. “What do you want, Mahmoud? I tire of this. Others want this cloth. What is your claim on it? Does it belong to you?”

“The Mandyllon? In a sense.”

“In what sense?”

He blinked slowly. His wide mouth spread in a crocodile’s smile. There was still swelling and bruising about his cheek and eye. It pleased Crispin to see it. “We commissioned it,” said Mahmoud.

“What do you mean you commissioned it? How is that possible?”

“Not the original one, of course.” He touched the back of Crispin’s chair. “Will you invite me to sit?”

“No.”

Mahmoud sat anyway. He eased back in the chair with an air of indifference, but all his muscles appeared taut and ready for any move from Crispin. “The man you know as Nicholas Walcote was paid to make a copy of the Mandyllon,” he said. “He was a clever thief, though. He made his copy, and when it was time for us to collect the true one, he made a substitution. It seems he left with the real cloth and we were left with the copy. This made our masters very unhappy. And when they are unhappy, people die.”

“You never met the real Walcote?”

“Alas, no.”

Crispin mulled the information, staring blindly at the nearest dead man. Blood stained the shirt around the arrow. Masters? “Then the missing cloth is the real one?”

“Missing?” Mahmoud laughed. “Crispin, you play such coy games.”

“Why did you need a copy?”

“My master did not wish for the keepers of the cloth to know it was appropriated.”

“Stolen, you mean.”

Mahmoud waved his hand and smiled.

Crispin glanced at the dead crossbowmen. “Don’t tell me you killed Walcote, or whatever his true name is?”

Mahmoud frowned, but his face wore amusement. “We wanted him dead, but we would not be so stupid as to kill him before we got the cloth back.”

Crispin wished for half a heartbeat that he was still holding the cloth and that it could tell him a lie from the truth. But he was also a good judge of men and a good judge of lies.

“Strangely,” he said, “I believe you.”

“I am gratified,” Mahmoud said.

“Yet this cloth that you so fiercely desire does not seem to belong to you?”

“Not strictly speaking, no.”

“Then we have nothing to discuss.”

“I think we do. My employers wish to make you an offer that you will find difficult to decline.”

“Oh? And what is that?”

Mahmoud rose and sauntered toward the door. His hand never left the pommel of a curved dagger in its intricately patterned sheath. “Give us the Mandyllon or the girl dies.”

A wave of panic seized Crispin, but his face only showed practiced indifference. “What if I were to negotiate directly with your masters?”

Mahmoud’s mouth flattened. “That would be ill-advised. My masters do not bargain amongst the lower classes.” He said the last with relish. Crispin fought the urge to frown.

“Would it surprise you to learn that your master is already negotiating with me?” The look on Mahmoud’s face more than made up for his last comment. “It seems he effectively cut you out of the entire process. Unless…he isn’t the master you speak of. I believe you said ‘masters.’”

Mahmoud shut his lips and strolled across the room. He stared down at one of the dead men. “That is all of little consequence,” he replied quietly.

“Truly? Will this not displease your masters, whoever they are? That at least one of them was forced to negotiate with me? That you failed?”

The Saracen looked up. “The end is still the same.”

“The end.” Crispin chuckled and leaned against the doorpost. “Indeed. The end.”

Mahmoud rushed him. He snarled, his hand on his dagger. “What have you told them?”

Crispin blinked slowly, enjoying it. “Only what I needed to.”

“They don’t know about the girl,” he growled. “I do. I suggest you surrender the Mandyllon to me before I get to her.”

“You don’t know where she is.”

Mahmoud cast his glance purposefully about the room. “Don’t I?” He saluted Crispin and rolled out of the doorway.

Crispin cast a glance at the dead men again before he dashed for the door. He got two paces on the landing before he stopped sharply.

No one was there.

“What the devil—?”

Just that moment Jack and Philippa passed the eclipse of light and shadow at the bottom of the stairway. They trotted upwards when Philippa looked up and raised a startled hand to her chest. “Crispin!”

“Didn’t you see him?”

She ascended to the landing where Crispin stood, peering past her. “Who?”

“Mahmoud. You must have just passed him.”

Philippa turned to Jack who had come up beside her. “We saw no one.”

Like smoke. Mahmoud’s threat still hung in the air. Crispin’s voice remained calm but his heart hammered against his ribs. “Where have you been?”

“Jack went with me to get some food.”

“Where did you get the money? Jack, haven’t I told you a thousand times—”

“It wasn’t him,” she said, putting a hand on Jack’s drooping shoulders.

“You said you didn’t have any money.” He looked at her hand resting on Jack. “You pawned your wedding ring.”

She covered the empty ring finger with the other hand. “What any self-respecting servant would do.”

Jack chuckled. “I like her,” he said.

“Now that you’re back we must go.”

“Go?” she cried. “Go where? What did Mahmoud want?”

Jack groaned. “She was going to cook, Master Crispin. No offense, but I am tired of your cooking, and mine.”

“She hasn’t the time.” He took her elbow and steered her down the stairs.

Dejected, Jack stood holding the poultry and sausages. “What should I be doing?” he asked.

Crispin stopped. “Oh. Jack, call for the sheriff. If he has any questions…well, it is certain he will, and I will answer to him anon. But…not at this moment.”

“Call the sheriff for what?”

“Those men in our room. I’m afraid they are dead.”

“What?”

Without looking back, he ushered Philippa away, but she dragged her heels in the mud and brought him to a halt. “Crispin! I will not take one more step until you tell me where we are going! And what did that terrible man want?”

“You are going to a safer location and stay with some friends of mine.”

“But Crispin.” She melted naturally into his arms. Her touch brought an instant response. “I thought you wanted me all to yourself.”

He wanted to kiss her, but the reality of their public surroundings sunk in. He gently pushed her back. “I want you alive.” He glanced up and saw a few turned heads. It took all his strength to step back. “You have enough scandal to contend with without talk of your living with a man.”

She set her jaw and planted a fist at her hip. “What’s the matter? What tidings have you heard?”

“Mahmoud threatened you.”

She laughed, a hearty, throaty sound, one that made him tingle with desire. He had felt that laugh tremble against his chest only last night. It almost made him lose his resolve. “He can’t have me anymore,” she said triumphantly. “That game is done!”

“He wants the cloth.”

“You didn’t give it to him!”

“No, nor will I. It is a tangled tale, to be sure. There is more than one syndicate at work here. Yet there is one thing I am certain of. Neither killed your husband.”

“But they must have. Who else could it be?”

“I’m afraid it puts the murder back on you.”

“Crispin! I did not kill Nicholas!”

“Others will not see it that way. Who else knew about Nicholas Walcote’s true nature?” He gently steered her up the road toward the Boar’s Tusk. They picked their way over the rutted, muddy lane. Shopkeepers’ apprentices called out their wares. A boy—a servant—was holding up a coney by its back feet and waving the limp creature to the passersby. The long ears flopped from side to side.

“Adam did,” she said reluctantly. “He found out accidentally. He overheard us talking.”

He pulled Philippa out of the way of a cart moving quickly up the street toward Newgate Market. “What did Adam do?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. He is very loyal.”

“To you.”

She glanced sideways at him. “Jealous?”

Crispin ignored the comment. “He could have made trouble for Nicholas. It could have come to a head.”

They reached Foster Lane and the smells of the fish market swelled like a tide of the Thames. Some boys, hefting a basket of eels between them, stopped at the nearest seller and began to bargain. A woman nearby, having just left the steps of a well, lifted a dripping water-bouget to a man astride a draft horse. He fitted it behind him on his makeshift saddle.

“No, Adam is no such man,” she said, watching the handsome man on the horse lean down to kiss the water girl farewell. “And I doubt he knew about the secret passage.”

Crispin brooded. Adam Becton could easily have discovered such a passage. He was the household steward, after all. It was his business to know the doings of the house. That would also give him access to the ledgers.

“Why do you believe that murderer Mahmoud?” asked Philippa. “He did try to have you killed.”

“That was business. I don’t take it personally.”

She looked askance. “Is that the sort of business you are in?”

“What did you expect? A nice little shop with a shingle above my door? The business of murder is ugly, populated with equally ugly people.” She said nothing to this. A cloud shadow moved over them, dimming the street and bathing it darker than its usual gauzy gray.

“Where are you taking me? Is it truly for my protection? Or yours?”

He looked back at her and stopped. There was something different to her demeanor, something cautious; a tilt to her shoulders that protected her, a dull sheen to her eye.

“I told you. You won’t be safe at my lodgings. I’m taking you elsewhere.”

“A moment ago when I was in your arms, you seemed almost embarrassed.”

Crispin set his jaw and stared somewhere near her feet. “I am unused to such public displays of affection.”

She shook her head. Her hair was coifed in its two looping braids again, but a loose strand fell over her forehead and lifted in a timid wave with a passing breeze. He watched it rise and fall. It was easier than looking in her eyes.

“You mean it ain’t proper.”

He shrugged stiffly. “As you like.”

“Suddenly I wish I had that Mandyllon right now,” she said. “Then you’d speak the truth whether you wanted to or not.”

He wanted to speak, to say something that would put that spark back in those eyes. His lips twisted on words that might have brought a smile and another kiss from her mouth. But there was too much to say, and he was ill-equipped to utter any of it. Perhaps Jack could have done. But not him. He could never say the words she wanted. He was glad the Mandyllon was gone. He had no more desire to peer into his true image than at the one etched on that bit of muslin.

“I can’t change who I am,” he rasped. It wasn’t quite what he wanted to say, but it was all he had.

Once animated, her face now became stony. Her lids drew down as they were used to doing, but not in a seductive manner.

“No,” she said soberly. “I don’t suppose you can.” She hugged herself, whether from the cold or the coldness of his words he could not tell. The stray thread of hair lifted again and fell across her eyes, forcing her to blink and look away. A mercy. It prevented him from having to say more.

The Boar’s Tusk loomed before them, white daub speckled with mud and timbers dark from dampness. The great door—wide and arched, its size and splendor fit more for a church—welcomed all comers. The Boar’s Tusk had seen better days. Now it was the kind of place where men sought solace in bowls of wine and beakers of ale, not in one another.

Out of the corner of his eye, Crispin watched Philippa straighten her clothes and brush the dirt from her skirt before they entered.

Crispin scanned the room and spotted the tavern keeper, Gilbert. “Come along,” he said huskily. This was exposure he’d rather not have. His feelings had been his own for so long, he didn’t like waving them about like a banner.

Gilbert spied Crispin and hailed him. He approached with a lumbering gait and looked pointedly at Philippa.

Crispin made the introductions. “Gilbert, this is Philippa. Can you give her work and lodgings?”

Gilbert stared at Philippa before turning a questioning glare at Crispin, an expression that seemed to say “you must be mad!”

Philippa took on an entirely different demeanor for Gilbert. She was not the haughty lady nor the sultry lover, but now the self-effacing servant.

Chameleon, Crispin mused.

Gilbert’s gaze brushed down her clothes. “That dress will not do. Have you other clothes?”

She glanced at Crispin before looking away. “No, this is all I have. And even this is not mine to keep.”

“I see,” Gilbert mumbled. “Well, my wife will surely have a gown for you. Ever done kitchen work?”

“Aye, sir. I was a scullion for ten years.”

“Well then. Go on in and ask for the mistress. I’m certain she’ll show you what needs doing. Tell her”—he glanced at Crispin—“tell her Crispin sent you.”

She smiled. “Bless you, Master. I am grateful for your kindness.”

“Nothing to it,” he said, wiping his hands down his apron for the hundredth time.

Philippa disappeared through the kitchen curtain. Both men watched her go. Crispin cleared his throat. “I, too, thank you, Gilbert. I feel she will be safe here.”

“Crispin.” Gilbert took him aside and spoke into his shoulder. “That’s Philippa Walcote!”

“Very good, Gilbert. I thought I’d have to explain.”

“What goes on with her? What about the murder? All of London is saying she did it.”

“She didn’t. I know her.”

“Begging your pardon, Crispin, but you have been wrong before. Especially about women.”

Crispin’s jaw tightened. “Are you implying something, Gilbert?”

“No, only that your judgment may be clouded. She’s a beautiful woman. Sometimes that’s the only weapon they need.”

“If you don’t want her here then say so.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Heads turned at the raised voices and Gilbert took Crispin’s arm to steer him to a darker corner. Quietly he said, “I’m saying ‘be careful.’ I don’t fancy the idea of your getting hurt over this.”

Crispin rested his hand on his dagger. “I take every precaution.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean here,” and he put his hand on Crispin’s heart.

Crispin sighed from his depths. “I am defenseless in that quarter.”

“Aye,” Gilbert sighed in return. “As are we all. But I don’t think it a good idea. She’s trouble.”

Crispin’s smile curved his lips. “When have I ever run from trouble?”

They both looked back toward the kitchen doorway as if Philippa would emerge from mere mention of her. “She is a fair lass,” Gilbert admitted.

“Yes,” said Crispin with a sigh. He began to feel that stupid feeling again and he turned briskly away. “I have much to do now. Send for Jack if you need me.”

He was out the door before Gilbert could stop him.

Crispin stood in the muddy street, glazed momentarily by his many thoughts. A horseman rambling past startled him awake, and he jumped out of the way, but not before kicked-up mud spotted his cloak. He looked down at the spatters and thought of blood. Blood on the floor in the secret passage. Someone lying in wait for the man everyone knew as Nicholas Walcote. Someone who viciously stabbed him in the back. If the death was an assassination, as the Italians wanted, a slit throat would suit better. No chance of noise, and with the victim’s back to the killer, it kept the culprit’s clothes clean.

But this was a stabbing, a crime of passion. And who was passionate enough in the Walcote house to do such a deed?

“Adam Becton is in love with Philippa,” he muttered.

He stared at the road before him. Gutter Lane. The Walcote manor was at least a quarter of an hour distant but worlds away from the inhabitants of Gutter Lane and the Shambles. Was there such a thing as justice for the likes of Philippa or even Crispin? He had dedicated the last four years of his life to that very ideal. Justice for all. His knightly code professed as much. But never before had it seemed to encompass those on the mean streets of the London he thought he had known those many years ago, this seamy side of the city he was only beginning to truly know.

“Justice it is,” he said. If not for himself, at least for the dead merchant.

He stepped into the street and headed south at a trot. He could save some time by taking the shortest cuts through alleys. He knew them all. He had learned the ins and outs of the city well. And a man on foot could easily find ways to elude anyone following him. More so than a man on a horse. He had learned that much in the eight years he was barred from court.

Crispin turned down the first alley he came to, barely the width of two men walking abreast. He ducked under a line of wash hanging low across his path and hurried through, taking another quick turn down a dark close seldom used by anyone except cutthroats clever enough to trick their victims down the secluded corridor.

Crispin lurched to a dead stop.

Three menacing figures blocked his path. They stood as black silhouettes against the sunlight of the street beyond.

His pulse raced. Their broad shoulders and wary stance did not signal to him that they were merely passing through. He looked behind, wondering if it wasn’t too late to retreat, when one of them spoke.

“Master Crispin?”

Crispin glanced swiftly around the narrow alley for weapons. Nothing looked in the least useful.

“Yes,” he said, his hand making its stealthy way toward his dagger. “You found me. What of it?”

“We want a word with you.” The man’s tongue twisted over the unfamiliar English. Crispin got the impression Italian was easier.

“Very well, then. Come see me at my lodgings—”

“We will see you now. You will come with us.”

“My apologies, but I’m on my way elsewhere. Later, perhaps.”

The unmistakable sound of a sword sliding out of its scabbard echoed within the tight passage. “Now, I think.”

Crispin felt the shadows closing in. With reluctance, he shrugged. “I think you are right.”