Veil of Lies

4

All the questions on Crispin’s tongue slipped away.

Adam laughed. “Don’t have a snappy reply for that, eh?”

Before he could stop himself, Crispin swung. His knuckles met the flesh of Adam’s cheek and the man buckled against the wall. He slid down halfway, but shook his head and unsteadily righted himself.

Adam rubbed his face and grumbled. Crispin couldn’t think of anything more to ask. His mind felt numb and he didn’t know why; didn’t want to know.

He said nothing more and quickly left, massaging his sore knuckles.

Jack chased after, his shorter legs moving twice as fast to keep pace. “That was a right good clout, Master! Set him in his place, I’ll warrant.” He did his best imitation of Crispin’s swing several times. “Master? Master? Did you find out what you needed to?”

Crispin scowled and said nothing. His memory echoed Adam’s words: Philippa Walcote was a chambermaid.

He wandered down the gray streets toward the Fleet to Gutter Lane without noticing his surroundings or that Jack walked beside him. Even when he pushed through the doors of the Boar’s Tusk and sat heavily in his customary corner, he never fully roused himself. He simply sat on the bench and stared at the knife-scarred wood and flinched when Eleanor slapped a bowl of wine in front of him.

“Crispin.” She glanced at Jack who smiled in hopeful anticipation of a bowl of wine, and ignored him as usual.

Eleanor set down the leather jug and sat across the table. A white kerchief, neatly draped on her head and expertly tucked about her face, revealed nothing but her hazel eyes, light brows, and stern nose and cheeks, both slightly red from the cold. “What vexes you? You were miles away.”

“Was I?” He drew up the bowl in his hands and drank nearly the whole thing.

Eleanor and her husband, Gilbert, were always ready to lend a kind ear. Yet what to say? Why did Adam’s news affect him? How could this Walcote woman, this woman he barely knew, mean anything at all to him? He knew little of her, which forfeited any serious consideration.

And yet.

Crispin ran his hand over his forehead and up his scalp, raking his thick hair between his fingers. He glanced once at Jack. “There is nothing to speak of,” said Crispin.

“Oh! I’ll wager it’s a woman!” cried Eleanor.

“Why do you always think it involves a woman?”

“Because nothing can bring out that melancholy look about you but a woman.”

Crispin slouched and cradled the bowl in the curve of his arm. “Think what you like.”

“Crispin,” she said in her best conciliatory tone. “When have I ever left you alone to brood? Come now, out with it. You know it will make you feel better.”

“It never makes me feel better. It only makes you feel better.”

She leaned forward and rested her arms on the table, buttressing her ample bosom. “We worry so over you, Crispin. Thank God for Jack Tucker here,” and she patted Jack’s hand. He smiled grimly and pulled it out from under her attention. “At least someone is looking after you, but I’d rather it were a wife.”

“Not this again. I tell you, woman, if you don’t let me alone on this matter I will find another tavern to patronize.”

“There’s none on Gutter Lane that would let you maintain an account month after month like we do, and you know it. Besides, Gilbert and I are your family now. That’s the only reason I bring up the subject of a wife time after time.”

“…after time,” he muttered into his bowl. He wiped his mouth with the side of his hand and poured more wine. The ruby liquid drizzled into his cup. It swirled around the bowl and settled in diminutive waves. “The thing of it is…” He shook his head, amazed that she managed to drag the words out of him. Again. “I don’t even know her. Not truly.” He let the thought of Philippa ripple in his mind. The thought stayed longer than anticipated. “She’s completely unsuitable. But she is intriguing.”

“Is she a client?”

“Of a sort…no…maybe.” He chuckled halfheartedly. “I don’t know.”

“I’m pleased that’s settled.”

“Truly, Nell, it does not bear discussing.”

“Then why do you look so sad?”

“I’m not sad!”

Jack pressed forward. “You would not wonder if you saw the lady,” he said, wincing under Crispin’s sharp glance. He opened his hands in apology. “It is true. She is something to behold.”

“When did you ever see her?” he asked.

“I’ve seen Madam Philippa Walcote before at market.” He whistled and winked at Eleanor. “Rich and beautiful.”

Crispin measured Jack before he sighed and slowly withdrew the portrait from his scrip and handed it to Eleanor.

“Oh, Crispin, she is fair. Is this a good likeness?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From her husband.”

Aghast, Eleanor slowly lowered the picture to the table. “Crispin Guest!”

“It’s not what you think—God’s teeth! I don’t know what you think! The husband is dead. He was murdered last night.”

She crossed herself and handed back the miniature as if it were the dead man himself. “Bless me! Crispin! Not you?”

His look of disdain mollified her, but only briefly.

“Well you cannot expect a woman who has recently lost a husband to look your way,” she said.

“That’s not—” He exhaled a long, bitter sigh. “What does it matter?” He clutched the portrait for a moment before he tossed it across the table. It clattered faceup. Philippa’s painted face gazed serenely toward the ceiling. “She is, after all, only a servant.”

“Only a servant? They do not paint portraits of servants.”

Jack made a grab for the jug, but Eleanor easily moved it from his reach. “She was a chambermaid in her master’s household,” Jack said in a loud whisper, looking back at Crispin. “And he married her! Now that’s a right smart lass.”

Eleanor nodded knowingly. “There’s many a lass who betters herself by marrying the master. It happens more often than you think.”

“Perhaps in the merchant class,” Crispin mumbled. “But knights do not marry their servants.”

Eleanor’s kind demeanor darkened. “Oh, it’s that again, is it?” She rose, her voice shrill. “It’s not that she won’t look twice at you; it’s that you scorn her class!”

Gilbert arrived at that moment, a barrel-shaped man with dark eyes and brown hair. Crispin glanced at him hopefully while Eleanor postured over him like a Fury, her mouth flapping and her finger wagging.

Flustered, Gilbert frowned at his wife. “What’s this? Wife, you’re too loud.”

“I am not loud enough!” she exclaimed, raising her voice. Some of the patrons turned, but those more used to this exchange slumped back over their cups and edged away.

Gilbert clutched her arm. “You will be still!” He looked at Crispin apologetically.

She shook him off. “I will not be still. This intolerable man, who has lived these eight years in this parish under our care and guidance, still cannot suffer the lower classes, even though he is now one of them.”

“Now Eleanor,” said Gilbert, lowering her to the bench beside him.

“He’ll drink our wine and beg our advice,” said Eleanor, “but when it comes to it, he’s a lord and we are peasants, and he will not demean himself with our lowly selves.”

Crispin set the cup aside. “Perhaps I should go.”

“Now Crispin,” said Gilbert, eyeing his wife. “There’s no need for that. It takes getting used to,” he said to her. “His state, I mean. Even after eight years. He’s been a nobleman for far longer than that. It’s in the blood.”

They talked about Crispin as if he weren’t sitting there. It didn’t matter. Crispin could not tell whether he flushed more from embarrassment or anger. “It is in the blood,” he said soberly.

Eleanor picked up the portrait and wagged it at Crispin. “If you have any love for this woman at all, nought should stand in your way. You’re not a grand knight any longer. Who could speak ill of you if you sought some happiness? Even amongst the lower classes.”

“I never said I loved her!” He stood, weaving slightly from the wine. He opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind and swatted the air in a futile gesture. Gilbert took the little portrait from his wife and eyed it with raised brows, but Jack snatched it from his hands when Crispin made no move toward it, stuffed it in his tunic, and scurried ahead to open the tavern door for him.

Crispin called himself a fool ten times over. He never thought of himself as a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. It’s the drinking, that’s what it was. It loosened his tongue, unmanned him. And in front of Eleanor! His face warmed with a blush. Never again! Philippa Walcote was only a client. A client! Nothing more. He didn’t need these unnecessary complications in his life. Women. A dog was more satisfying companionship. At least they didn’t talk.

He lumbered into the street and soon heard Jack’s nimble steps behind. Crispin inhaled the sour odors of London’s poorer streets, silently lamenting the lost days where he rode aloft a fine horse, far from the muddy gutters and ingrained poverty of the city’s lower class. He used to throw them a few disks of silver in charity, but he never walked among them. And now walk he did.

He scowled the more he thought about his state but owed his temper to the wine and Eleanor’s harangue more than a querulous disposition.

They walked silently for a time before Jack nudged him.

Crispin slowed and stopped. The boy held out the little portrait to him. Dammit! He thought he was rid of that.

Jack raised it higher, urging it on him.

Sullenly, Crispin snatched it. He slipped it between the buttons of his coat and felt it slip down his shirt and settle near his midsection where the belt stopped it.

“Where are we going, Master?”

Crispin didn’t know. Distracted, that’s what he was. And by a silly portrait? His neck flushed. “Tell me, Jack. Is it so wrong?”

“Marrying better, you mean?” he said, not understanding Crispin’s question. “A servant marries a master. Their children marry better than they, and onward. Haven’t you heard them minstrel songs?”

“But that obscures everything. The race is mongrelized. What point is there at all in being born noble?”

Jack scowled and rolled his shoulders uneasily. “‘Mongrelized’? I ain’t certain of your meaning.” But by the scowl on his face Crispin guessed he was more certain than he let on. “But I see it all around us,” Jack went on. “Look at the Lord Mayor. He is a grocer, after all. The one before him was a draper. Nobility don’t sprout out of the ground like cabbages, do it? Where’d your family come from, eh?”

Crispin arched a brow. “My family was noble as far back as Adam and Eve.”

“’Slud!” Jack lifted his nose mockingly and straightened his shoulders as if they wore ermine. “Course, that ain’t the situation no more.” He seemed to relish saying it, and Crispin resisted the urge to strike him. “But if you should marry well, say Walcote’s widow, then you’d move up again.”

Crispin’s black mood deepened. “Marry in a class beneath me,” he said, voice deadly, “in order to advance? You must be mad.” He twisted. His cloak spun out around him like a raven’s wing.

“The trouble with you—begging your pardon, Master—is that you can’t forget yourself; your old self. You can’t let yourself be who you are now.”

“The only thing different about me is my status,” he growled. “I am myself.”

“That’s your true image, right enough,” Jack grumbled.

Crispin halted and Jack ran into him. Swiveling his head, he eyed Jack. “What did you say?”

Jack swallowed and raised his hands to ward off a blow. “Now Master, I don’t mean nought. I was raised on these streets and I say what comes into me head. You live here now, and so I think of you as one of us, see. Course your manner and your skills say otherwise, don’t they?”

“No. I mean, what did you say? Just now.”

“Er…y-you said ‘I am myself’ and I said ‘that’s your true image, right enough.’ But I didn’t mean nought by it.”

“What made you say ‘true image’?”

Jack scratched his flat chin. “Dunno. It just popped out of me mouth.”

Crispin’s wine-dampened mind rolled the thoughts one over the other. True image. So many “true images” from so many false ones. “I’ve been distracted.” He chuckled, though it came from no place near good humor. “A pretty face will do that. I’ve been acting like a child.” He looked at Jack’s eager expression, sometimes as wily as Robin Goodfellow, sometimes as frightened as an infant. “There is a cloth I am supposed to find and it very well may have to do with murder. Let this ‘true self’ concentrate on that.”

Instead of entering through the Walcote front door, Crispin and Jack walked around to the servant’s entrance situated in a dingy alley smelling of moldy vegetables and rotting bones from past feasts. An old woman with matted hair under a stained kerchief was just opening the door and looked up at Crispin. Her etched features were accentuated by grime and bore a strong resemblance to a castle’s stony exterior.

“And who might you be?” She glared at Crispin but aimed an eye at Jack, hiding behind Crispin’s left flank. “This is the Walcote kitchens. It ain’t Westminster Palace where all come and go as they like.” Several of her front teeth were missing and those that remained were black or gray. She brandished a long cooking fork that Crispin didn’t like the look of.

“I am Crispin Guest, woman. I am here investigating the heinous crime of your master’s murder.”

She gave his clothes a quick scrutiny. “You?”

“Bless my soul! Friend Crispin!” John Hoode rushed forward. Surprised to see the man he met at the brazier, Crispin was nevertheless relieved. “Stupid woman! This is Crispin Guest. He’s a friend of mine.”

“I am glad to be so acquainted,” said Crispin. “Master Hoode, I see your fortunes have turned.”

“Aye. I’m in the kitchen now. Going to try to give the mistress a chance at hiring you, eh?”

“Well, in point of fact, I am working for her. I am trying to discover the culprit who killed Master Walcote.”

“No! Then I was right about you. You are an educated man.”

“Of a sort.”

“Oh!” said the woman. “You’re that man I seen in the hall with the mistress.”

Crispin flicked a nod at her. “Yes. I only wish to ask a few questions concerning your master.”

“Oh it’s a sad, sad thing, it is. Who would do a thing like that?”

“Indeed. That is what I wish to know.”

“He was a good and fair master, m’lord. Always a kind word to all.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“Since five years now.”

“Has anyone worked here longer than five years?”

“Well now.” She put a dirt-blackened finger to her temple and scratched. “Only Master Becton would have been here longer. He’s the one what hired me and the others.”

Crispin offered a smile bereft of mirth. “I see. May I look in the hall? Is the way locked?”

“The mistress no longer locks all the inner doors. Just go through that passage. Mind your head. It’s a low ceiling.”

“I will see you again, Crispin,” said Hoode, and he glanced at Jack a little suspiciously. Jack glared back.

Crispin entered the kitchens. There were two hearths flickering with light, each tended by a young boy. Other kitchen servants stopped their chopping or dough kneading to watch Crispin and Jack as they passed through, but no one spoke to them. Jack strained his neck looking back curiously when they arrived at a low passageway that led across a courtyard to the rear of the great hall.

“What are we looking for?” asked Jack, once the kitchens were far behind.

“I’m not certain.”

“Why did you ask that old woman how long she worked here?”

“Because apparently there is no one in this household who has been here longer than five years.”

“Is that unusual?”

“In most houses, Jack, generations serve their masters.”

“Aye, but maybe Walcote has not been rich for generations.”

“True. I shall have to make inquiries.”

They reached the far edge of the hall and passed under its arch only to encounter Philippa Walcote. She and Crispin stood apart in mutual assessment before her face passed from surprise to anger. “Why are you here?” she said.

Crispin smiled a lopsided grin. “Why does everyone ask me that in that same uncivil tone?”

“Maybe it’s because you don’t know when you ain’t welcome.”

“Seldom am I welcome.” He raised his arm and leaned on the archway. His eyes roved insolently over her. “And so, Mistress Walcote.” He relaxed against the carved stone. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About that cloth. You never finished telling me.”

She eyed his casual posture with a frown. “I recall you did not want to have anything to do with it. You refused my coins.”

“Perhaps I was rash.”

Her frown deepened. She slapped his arm leaning against the arch. He stumbled before straightening. “That’s better. When you speak to me in this house, you will conduct yourself with more respect.”

“In this house? The house you used to clean, you mean?”

If it were possible for a human to expel flames, Philippa would have done so. Though she did not speak, her lips seemed to form the word “Adam!”

After a pause she said tightly, “I do not care for your manners, Master Crispin.”

“I’m not particularly impressed by yours.” He straightened his coat and slipped his thumbs into his belt.

She darted a glance at Jack who remained mute and wide-eyed.

“So,” she said, “you know who I am. Or rather, who I was.”

“It is difficult to disguise that inflection. But you perform it well. You are like a mummer playing a part.”

She turned her wedding ring on her finger. “Aye. It is a useful skill.”

“So we need play no more games, Philippa.”

She raised her chin. “So now you think you may call me by my Christian name?”

Her accent thickened the more he jibed her. “It’s not so much the chambermaid, but the adulteress.”

She stepped back to gaze at him, or perhaps to get a better swing. Her hand struck his cheek with such force that he teetered. He raised his hand to the welt and smiled. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

Her small lips curved. “Now we understand each other.”

Crispin continued to rub his cheek. “You have a strong hand, Madam.”

“I’m no weakling. I worked hard in this house. I carried water. I did the heavy cleaning. I did more than my share. It was natural that I should catch the master’s eye, though I never dreamed it would go so far.”

For the first time he noticed a servant in the far corner of the hall pretending to sweep a small square of the floor with a gorse broom. Crispin lowered his voice. “Shall we retire to the parlor?”

She folded her arms over her breasts. “Why? I have no wish to talk with you. You made it clear you would have nought to do with me.”

“This is a murder inquiry. If you’d rather speak to the sheriff…”

The sparkle in her eye dimmed. Glancing at the servant, Philippa nodded and led Crispin and Jack down a gallery to a warm chamber. She sat in the one large, ornate chair and gestured for Crispin to sit in the smaller one beside it.

Jack stood behind Crispin’s chair and wrung the hem of his tunic.

“Can your servant serve the wine?”

Crispin swiveled his gaze toward Jack. Amusement had not left his features since Philippa doled out her slap. “Can you serve wine, Jack?”

“Course I can!” Jack’s lower lip jutted forward and he narrowed his eyes at Philippa. He searched the room for the wine jug, and when he spied it, he stomped to the sideboard and sloppily poured two bowls. He eyed the silver before he offered a bowl to Crispin first. Crispin shook his head and nodded to the lady. Grumbling, Jack gave her the first bowl and Crispin the second. He retreated to the jug, no doubt wondering how he’d get himself a drink or slip the silver flagon under his cloak.

Philippa drank and studied Crispin over the rim of her bowl.

“So, you caught the master’s eye,” said Crispin.

She nodded. “A body only hears about such in songs. But I caught his fancy, and before I knew it, I was mistress of this household.”

“Did you love him?”

The wine bowl paused at her lips. “A strange question. What does it matter?”

Crispin shrugged. “It doesn’t. I merely wondered.”

“And I wonder why you wonder.”

“You forget.” He lowered his chin and ran his finger absently along the rim of the silver bowl. “I saw you at the Thistle.”

She angled her head to stare into the fire. A wisp of hair escaped from her meticulous coif and posed along her neck in a sinuous wave. “There is so much you’ll never understand.”

“Try me.”

“We must talk about the cloth.”

“Did Adam Becton hire you?”

She added a drowsy smile to her features and settled her head against the chair’s high back. “Very well. Aye, Adam did hire me. What of it?”

“He does not seem to approve of your current status.”

“Neither do you.”

“We weren’t talking about me.”

“Weren’t we?” Her smile brightened enough to cause a frown on Crispin’s lips. “No matter. No, he never approved of Nicholas and me. The fool’s in love with me.”

“That much I reckoned for myself. What I am uncertain of is how much he loves you.”

She laughed this time. “You think Adam killed Nicholas?”

“It is not beyond the realm of possibility.”

“You don’t know Adam.”

“And you, apparently, do not know what a man is capable of doing for love.”

She drank her wine and set the bowl aside. “Can’t we discuss the cloth?”

“Life as mistress of this house must have been difficult after being raised from a chambermaid.”

Her lids stayed in their languid pose while regarding him. “It was difficult. No one ever gave me a moment’s peace.”

“The servants?”

“The servants, the vendors, everyone. Until one day I told them all. I am mistress here, and if they didn’t like it they could shift for themselves. Nicholas did not care if I bought beef from another butcher or corn from a different merchant. He laughed at it. I think he enjoyed raising me to his place. He was not afraid to be unconventional.”

“And you rose to the occasion?”

“Oh, aye. I learned to enjoy it, too. Any servant who sneered at me got cuffed right well or dismissed. That’s the way in this house.”

“And even though your lord and master is dead?”

Her sensuous lips firmed to a tight line. “Aye, it will remain the same. After three years of wedded life, I have learned this business well.”

“Do you read, then?”

“Only a little. I do sums, too. Nicholas taught me. But I will learn more.”

He smiled into his wine bowl and sipped. He was beginning to like this Philippa Walcote in spite of her morals.

“Enough,” she snorted. “The cloth. We must speak of that.”

“Yes, and of fees.”

She smiled. “So you will take my money now?”

“I am a sensible man.”

She rose and reached into the delicate pouch at her embroidered belt. “Sixpence, did you say?”

“A day.”

“Aye. Here, take a week’s worth, then.”

She held out a small pouch too far away for Crispin to reach while sitting. He rose and looked her in the eye. Amusement played on her face, but money never amused him. He finally raised his hand to receive it, and without taking his eyes from hers, he lowered the pouch into his own purse and sat.

“Tell me about this damned cloth.”

“The Mandyllon.” She said the word and sobered. Sitting rigidly, she curled her free hand into a fist. “It is a veronica—”

“Yes, you said all that. What is this ‘curse’ you’re so afraid of?”

She drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “When in its presence, a person is absolutely incapable of telling a lie. It forces the truth out of you.”

Crispin laughed. He set down his bowl before he spilled it. “And that is your curse? Yes, for women it must be so.”

“You think it amusing?” she said flatly. “Think of this: What if you were bartering with a wealthy client and must speak the truth? What if you were with your enemy? Your spouse? Or a woman you found appealing?”

Crispin’s laughter died.

“Still amusing, is it?”

“You mean to say, you must tell the absolute truth? What you’re thinking? What you are…feeling?”

“Aye.”

They gazed solemnly at one another.

“I concede your point,” he said soberly. “Where did your husband acquire such a thing?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in the Holy Land, I think. I am uncertain.”

“What does it look like?”

“I only saw it once. So big,” she said, gesturing with her arms out. “Square. A simple cloth. But…with the face.”

“And where did you last see it? Was it in this house? Some other place?”

“In the house. In the solar.”

“And where did your husband keep it?”

She snapped to her feet. “If I knew I could find it for myself and destroy it!” Her skirts rippled wildly after her, desperate to keep step as she paced before the fire.

“Destroy such a valuable relic? The face of Christ? Blasphemy.”

“God forgive me.” She shook her head and crossed herself. “But I believe there is such a thing as too much honesty!”

Crispin rose and joined her by the fire. “Then why all the locks? Were they to keep thieves out, or something in?”

“I don’t know. Nicholas was”—she shrugged—“different from other men. Secretive. And wealthy.”

“You must have searched the manor yourself, in chests and behind sideboards.”

“Of course I have!”

“What of the others? Do they know what it is?”

“The servants? No. Why should they?” She put her hands to her cheeks. Her fingers were long and chapped red, and her nails were bitten short.

He shook his head. “Well, Madam, short of a miracle, I do not know how you expect me to find it.”

“That’s your job. I’ve heard many people talk of your deeds, how you found lost objects with so few clues.”

“Yes,” Crispin said. “I suppose if I had free access to the house, that would make it easier.”

“I grant it. Perhaps I will have a key made for you. Adam will not like it,” she said with an unladylike smirk. Her accent thickened the angrier she got. “But I am long past worrying over what he likes and what he don’t.”

“I would also like to examine the solar again.”

She hugged herself. Her face shrank into a grimace. “Why must you go there?”

He stood over her not answering, vaguely aware of Jack hovering somewhere in a corner.

“It is just that he is there.”

“You mean Walcote?”

“Aye. I could not think of any place more suitable.”

“I see. Then may I?”

“Aye. And take your servant with you.”

The firelight flickered on her rounded cheeks, ambering the pale skin. He wanted to say more, but remembered Jack.

He bowed to her before he could stop himself. Old habits. He led Jack out of the parlor before he fully embarrassed himself.

“She’s got her nerve,” Jack growled and followed Crispin. “‘Can your servant serve wine?’ ‘Take your servant with you.’ Acting like the great lady, and her a chambermaid.”

“Strictly speaking, she is the lady of this manor and may act accordingly, whether you approve or not.”

“You don’t approve.”

“What I think is not your affair. Which reminds me. You are becoming far too familiar with me of late.”

“I beg your pardon, Master. But this business has got me befuddled. She was a servant and is now a great lady, and you were a knight but are now little better than a servant. It’s getting so I don’t know who to bow to no more.”

“Do you need to be cuffed to be reminded?” Jack fell silent as Crispin led the way to the solar. The door remained broken but the bits of sharp debris had been removed. Nicholas Walcote lay stretched out on a table covered up to his chest with a linen cloth. He had been cleaned and his hair combed out over his pillow.

Crispin was grateful the merchant had not yet begun to smell.

Jack hovered in the doorway and stared at the candles lit around the body. “I don’t much like dead bodies,” he whispered.

“You need not come in,” said Crispin in the same quiet tone.

“Thank you, Master.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest and ducked back into the gallery.

No fire. The room was cold. It kept the body better, he reasoned, and he pulled his cloak over his chest for warmth. The daylight fell gray through the locked window, and it was only this and the meager candlelight that illuminated the now stark room.

He did not know what he was looking for, but he summoned his imagination to feel what the room must have been like that night. He closed his eyes. He remembered how the room smelled of toasted oak and alder from a steady fire in the hearth.

What had Walcote been doing at the time? Did he entertain his murderer? Was he working at the table and taken by surprise? Surely he let the killer in and locked the door behind him. But how did the culprit get out?

Perhaps Walcote worked at the desk. Crispin relaxed and pictured it. Walcote worked and then rose to get a cup of wine. He held it in his hand, and the next thing he knew a knife stabbed his back. He dropped the cup, which spattered wine on the sideboard, and he turned to face his killer, and then—

Crispin’s eyes snapped open. “Jack! Secure the door. Alert me if someone comes.”

Only Jack’s nose appeared at the edge of the jamb. “Aye, Master,” he whispered, and the nose disappeared again.

Crispin approached the bier and threw back the sheet. Walcote was wearing a simple linen shift. His skin wore that waxy sheen bereft of color seen only on the dead. Crispin did not hesitate in untying the man’s collar. Dead men no longer aroused his discomfort. He opened the shift and pulled the shroud down over his shoulders.

Because the body was clean, he could plainly see the mark of the blade on the upper left shoulder. The blade had pierced the flesh in a smooth tear, but it was a halfhearted stroke. Why such a weak thrust?

Crispin lifted the man’s shoulders and turned him on his side to view the wounds on his back. These were more vicious blows, one on top of the other. There were six in all. Jagged tears in the flesh of the back forming a mad herringbone pattern of violence.

Since he did not defend himself, Crispin surmised he was stabbed in the back first. What was Walcote working on at his table? He returned the body like he found it, retying the shift and pulling up the sheet.

He strode to the table, pulled out the high-backed chair, and sat on the soft cushion. He only allowed a momentary feeling of satisfaction with the chair before he settled to his work. Accounting books and journals bound in dark leather sat stacked before him. He picked up the first and thumbed through it, glancing at row upon row of tabulations and names of fabrics. He found the last entry easily. A quill marked the unfinished page. The last tabulation was incomplete. Not unusual. No blood appeared on the page, which reminded him again of the spilled bowl on the floor. Walcote had been surprised while drinking his wine. The second cup remained untouched. Propriety would suggest that that meant there were no visitors.

Crispin thought a bit and turned the accounting book back to the first page and read the date: 1379. Five years ago. He picked up the journal and confirmed his thoughts by checking the first page. Also 1379. Was nothing in this house older than five years?

He picked up another, heavier volume. This did not appear to be a personal accounting, but the expenses of the guild, mostly export taxes. He glanced at it quickly. Eleven hundred fifty-two sacks of raw wool leaving Sandwich. Two hundred bolts of worsted from East Anglia to Calais. The dry pages of commerce. He snorted and snapped the book shut, then stacked all the books together. “Jack!”

The head poked in again.

“Come. Take these books. I don’t think Mistress Walcote will mind our borrowing them.”

Jack’s face squinted. “What do you want them books for?”

“Motive. It wouldn’t be the first time a man was killed because of dubious bookkeeping.”

Jack looked unconvinced, but he edged through the archway and stared at the covered body before he turned a pale face to Crispin.

Crispin tapped his finger on the topmost book. “Hurry you now. I haven’t all day. Walcote won’t mind, I assure you.”

Jack swallowed hard. “I ain’t so sure of that,” he whispered. He edged along the cloth-draped wall to the desk. He snatched the books and ran with them back to the door, skidding out into the gallery.

Crispin chuckled. He sat a moment more and stared at the room and the open doorway, his back to the window. He turned and looked, but the window was barred as it had been the first time he entered the room. He looked at the snuffed candle, the blackened curl of a wick, the flat and now frozen pool of wax in its melted hollow.

With a sudden thought, he shot to his feet.

He left the room and stood outside it, looking down the gallery. Below lay the foyer leading south to the dining hall. Trestle tables were stacked against the walls, leaving the expansive floor empty. A few cressets lit a path, but no servants wandered the painted floorboards. Crispin moved to the west of the solar and found an open alcove with a window. Sunlight warmed the white plaster to gold though the alcove was still cold. Tucked in the corner was a small cot with a straw-stuffed mattress. No doubt a maid servant made this her bed. He moved past the alcove and found a door. He knocked first, but without waiting for a reply, tried to open it. Locked. He glanced back at Jack, wondering if he should send him to get a key when he decided not to waste the time. He unbuttoned his coat and he crouched and used his dagger and the sharp aiglet of his shirt’s lace to pick the lock. It snapped open, and Jack, straining to watch from his post by the solar, smiled.

Crispin pulled the door open and peered inside. Empty. Perhaps a storeroom.

He shut the door and looked back at Jack. He looked at the door. With wide strides he counted the paces past the storeroom, past the window alcove, and back to the solar. He stared through the open doorway past Walcote’s body to the window and paced the steps again back to the storeroom.

He stopped and smiled, rebuttoning his coat.

“Jack,” he said, returning to the solar.

“Aye, Master.”

“Let’s go home. We’ve done all we can here whilst this body awaits burial.”

“Thank you, Master.” Jack made a sling with his cloak and slipped the bulky books in under his arm.

Crispin smiled, pleased with himself. They followed the lonely gallery from shadow to light. Crispin decided to skirt Adam and exit by the kitchen outbuildings.

When they entered the kitchens, he cast about until he found the tall figure he sought. “Master Hoode.”

John Hoode looked up and smiled on seeing Crispin. He hurried to his side. “Crispin. How did it go?”

“Not badly. I will be here often as I continue my investigations.” He wasn’t certain if Hoode was up to the challenge, but he needed someone to do a little spying for him when he wasn’t about. “Can you favor me with an errand?” He pulled Hoode aside, and glanced about for any others. “You are new to this household. So it may not necessarily be strange for you to be found in the corridor. You were lost, after all. Yes?”

Hoode studied Crispin’s eyes. It took him a few moments but he caught up. “Oh, aye! I get you. Keep me eyes open.”

“That’s right.”

Hoode giggled. “That’s all a bit of fun, ain’t it? Me spying on the likes of the Walcotes. What a grand jest that is.”

Crispin kept his smile in place, though Hoode’s fey manner caused a ripple of discomfort sporting up his spine. “Just don’t be obvious.”

“Oh, no! Course not! Bless my soul. I’ll be like a mouse.”

“Indeed. I bid you farewell.”

He felt Hoode’s gaze on him while he tromped through the kitchen courtyard and out the back gate. Crossing the lane, he looked back at the house and its many chimneys and outbuildings. The manor seemed cold to him. Was it merely because of the death within, or was there something inherent in the stones? A house reflected those within its walls. And the Walcote house was not a happy one.

He and Jack wound down arched alleyways and through narrow lanes. They traveled north up Old Cheap, skirting a cluster of noble women riding by on their white and dappled palfreys. He bowed to them as they passed but did not raise his eyes lest he recognize any of them. Or worse, that they recognize him.

Once the horses passed, a goose girl trotted beside Crispin and Jack, moving swiftly ahead of them. She gave them a cursory glance from under her tattered cloak and used a stick to move her charges along. Their gray necks stretched heavenward and they honked the whole way down the road. No doubt they were not happy with their appointment at the poulterer’s.

Crispin scarce remembered that Jack was beside him until he spoke suddenly, startling Crispin from his reverie.

“I don’t understand.”

They turned east at the corner of the Shambles where East Cheap, Paternoster Row, and St. Martin’s crossed and had to wait until a cart laden with stacked barrels pulled through the narrow lane. The Shambles, in all its bustle, came into view under a froth of mist rumbling up from the distant Thames.

Crispin glanced down at Jack. “What don’t you understand?”

The cart lumbered slowly past them, the wooden wheels straining under the weight of the barrels. The ox pulling the cart lowed and shifted its head in their direction. The long lashes on those dark, liquid eyes blinked at them.

“You’re supposed to be this Tracker,” said Jack, watching the beast amble away. The cart’s wheels splayed the mud beneath it, leaving two long ruts trailing behind. “But all you track are bodies.”

Crispin sniffed the desolate air. A chill fell with the twilight. Braziers came to life down the street; vague glowing points amid a rising mist that smelled of seaweed and salt. Shadowy figures huddled near the shopkeeper’s glowing fires like lethargic moths. London’s underclass. Homeless men. Men and boys much like Jack had been before he insinuated himself into Crispin’s life. “If you’ve no stomach for it you are free to go. I have no hold over you.”

“Well—” Jack swiveled his head to take in the cold street with its damp cobblestones, the murky channel down the center of the crooked lane meandering upstream, and lonely men grasping for warmth about the few braziers. “Where would I go?” he answered softly.

“I see. You stay with me out of necessity. Well, I cannot dispute your reasoning.”

“It ain’t like that.” His face grayed from the dimming light. “I like serving you, Master Crispin. I never been treated this good before. You talk to me and ask me things. It’s like I was your squire!”

A sigh huffed up from Crispin’s chest and settled his mouth into a scowl. Why did the boy have to use that word? “Jack.” It came out more of a growl than a name.

“You’re right good to me,” he pressed on, oblivious to Crispin’s darkening mood. “That’s miraculous!”

“My humiliation is your good fortune. I’m happy for you.”

Jack’s mouth dropped open. “No, no! Why is everything I say vexing to you?”

“Maybe you talk too much!” He fumbled, removing the key from his scrip, and noticed Jack wore the look of a punished child, chin down, mouth taut. Crispin felt a twinge in his heart that nudged the sourness aside. “I apologize for that,” he said soberly. “The truth of it is, I am pleased to have you here. But because I am not a knight, you cannot be a squire. Though were I a knight again—”

Jack’s face broke into a broad smile. “Ah now. That’s a fine thing you said. Even if you don’t mean half of it.”

The lane curved and they spied the tinker shop, now washed in closing shadows. Smoke curled from his landlord’s chimney and candlelight shone from the seams of their shutters.

But there was a man stamping the ground before the tinker’s door. No. Not before the door. Before Crispin’s stair. Instinctively, Crispin pushed Jack behind him and rested his hand on his dagger.

The man looked up at their approach, but by then Crispin was close enough to recognize his livery. Crispin’s weary shoulders sagged.

“I know, I know,” said Crispin. “The sheriff wishes to see me.”