Blood Lance

19

“Master?”

“Be still, Tucker.”

“Master. We best go inside.”

He tugged on Crispin’s sleeve. Exasperated, Crispin turned his head and Jack gave him a meaningful look.

“Do you mean to say that it is rumored that Mistress Coterel was not betrothed?” he said to the woman.

“It is no rumor, sir.”

“Forgive me. But there was also a rumor that Roger Grey killed himself. That was found to be false.”

“I did hear that rumor but I never believed it. But you can ask any man on the bridge about Anabel Coterel. Even at a young age, barely out of swaddling it seemed, she was sniffing after men. Gets her way, too. Knows how to twist them round her finger. If anything, Grey was jealous of her meandering. She’d deny it, as any woman would. And just as soon as he was twisted good and tight around her wrist again, off she’d go to the next man. A vixen, is Mistress Coterel. She’ll never lack, that is a certainty. Never go hungry and never be out in the cold. But mark me, someday she’ll coil around the wrong man. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear that she is found with a knife in her throat. Lord bless her.”

Try as he might, Crispin could not utter a sound. He was ready to burst with rage but he swallowed it down.

Stiffly, Crispin bowed. “If you will excuse us, madam.” He could do this. He could walk away. Except he still needed to know. Not for himself, but for the investigation, or so he told himself, over and over. “Madam, may I ask? What man did Mistress Coterel lead inside?”

“The knight. The one with the silver and green surcote.” Saunfayl. No doubt to retrieve his armor. He felt better about that until she added, “And that other.”

“What other?”

“Don’t know.”

“Can you describe him? Was he a knight?”

“No, not a knight. Just a merchant or some such. Did it after nightfall.”

“Was he a stranger, then? No one you have seen before on the bridge?”

“Oh no,” she said, with a self-satisfied smile. “I’ve seen him before right enough.”

“Does he dwell here?”

“I don’t know. But I have seen him in her company. Many a time. Young, auburn hair. Has a confident way about him.”

The first person to come to mind was Lancaster’s son Henry, but Crispin dismissed it just as quickly. It was only because the man was in his thoughts of late. What would Henry have to do with this?

“I trust you will allow us to proceed inside?” asked Crispin.

She curtseyed and gave a nervous smile. “Of course, sir.”

He slapped his boot on the sill and pulled himself in. Tucker soon followed and closed the shutter behind him.

“I know what you’re going to say,” said Jack.

“Do you?” he snapped. “Perhaps you don’t need me at all in this investigation. Perhaps you should do it all yourself.”

“Now Master Crispin, don’t be like that. I just saved you from throttling her, is all.”

“I would have been very pleased to do it. Except that she gave us some very valuable information.”

“Aye. Mistress Coterel was lying.”

“Indeed,” he said tightly. “She could hardly have told the coroner that she was the man’s lover. She received little enough respect when she declared she was his betrothed.”

“Verily, I can see the reason for the lie in this instance.”

But it didn’t sit well with Crispin. If she were Grey’s lover, then her strange distant attitude to his death seemed even worse. And then last night …

“A lover who was not very devoted to her lover. One does not take a lover except for an emotional bond. What could that mean, Jack?”

He shrugged.

“Perhaps not an emotional bond. And if not that, then…” That didn’t sit well either. He turned toward Jack. “As that woman said … for gain?”

“He paid her?”

“Not so much that. But she seemed to think he would lend her money for rent. Perhaps he was more devoted than she.”

Jack looked around the dusty room. The shutters were all closed but light did filter in through the seams. “What are we looking for, Master?”

“Something, anything to give us a clue as to where the Spear might be.”

“But we already looked.”

“Without the knowledge of what we were looking for.”

“So it’s the point of a spear?”

“No. Remember what the abbot said?” Mention of the abbot caused a spike of discomfort for the fate of the man he cherished. “He said that the tip is in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It’s the rest of it that seems to be the missing piece.”

They both looked at the decorative spear shaft leaning against the wall. Crispin reached it first and hefted it in his hands. “I suppose if the spearhead were attached to this, one might construct a point for it, but I am no swordsmith.”

Jack took it in his hands and turned the shaft, examining the bas relief designs. “This is fine work, Master. Then he must truly have had the Spear, otherwise he would not have gone to the trouble and expense. Why did he wait to affix it to this shaft then?”

“It could be he had to construct a way to give it a point without harming it and was interrupted in his task.”

“Blind me. We’ve already got Suffolk who wanted it and Master Chaucer and Sir Thomas. Who else wanted it? And how many people knew about it?”

“It’s becoming quite a list, isn’t it? I wonder from whom it actually came. Was it gotten illegally as Anabel-that is, Mistress Coterel-implied? And perhaps the seller wanted it back.”

“And got it, without these others knowing?”

“Yes. And if that is the case, we will never find it now.”

They stood silently, staring at the dim interior. Jack gently laid the spear shaft aside.

“Jack,” he said quietly. “If you were still a thief, where might you hide your letters?”

“Letters, sir?”

“Master Grey had a correspondence with Sir Thomas, but he might also have had one with whomever he obtained the Spear from. He had a hidden place in the wall, behind that buckler.” Crispin pointed to the round shield on the wall. “But there was nothing there. Either someone had gotten to it beforehand or he had some other secret place.”

“It would be in his bedchamber,” offered Jack.

Crispin nodded and headed for the stair. Jack followed. When they reached the top the shadowed room seemed to be asleep in its gloom and stillness. There was a bed, a coffer, a sideboard, and two chairs positioned before the cold, dark fireplace. Crispin watched from the doorway as Jack made his way stealthily about the room. He went first to the fireplace and ran his hands over the opening, even to reaching up into the firebox. He dusted his hands together to rid them of soot when he stood again, and made his way around the walls, knocking occasionally at a timbered beam running up to the rafters. With an ear cocked, he listened, paused, then moved on. When he reached the sideboard, he stopped again and opened the doors. Peering inside, he leaned in, trailing his finger along each seam and pressing firmly on the boards, both of the interior walls and the doors themselves.

The boy is thorough, he mused, and then began to wonder at the former career of his apprentice. He knew the boy was an accomplished cutpurse, but by the looks of it, he had learned his trade of thievery a little too well.

After examining the turned legs, Jack continued on until he came to the bed. It had a sturdy frame of dark wood and an overhanging canopy of heavy drapery. Crispin thought the lad would turn over the mattress or perhaps the bedhead, but instead, he ran his careful hands over the frame, his eyes glittering in concentration, until Crispin heard a soft click.

Jack made a sound of pleasure and opened a door on the heavy frame, which swung away from the mattress.

He reached in and pulled out a stack of folded parchment, wrapped with a leather strap. Holding it up, the boy beamed.

Crispin took the bundle and Jack scrambled to find the tinderbox and light a candle. Crispin untied the strap and laid the first document on the table under the candle. The first was a receipt, as was the second. But the third was a letter from a Moor in a place near the Spanish border. The writing was small and tight and the English was poor. Much of the seal was torn away, but when Crispin held the parchment in the light, he could make out some of it.

“Jack,” Crispin breathed. “Listen. The object you seek is rare. Rarer still is the man who can obtain it. He will be of high price but worth it. What shall I tell my brokers? The gold you have sent is insufficient. Twenty marks more is his price.” His gaze met Jack’s over the candle flame. “It is dated earlier in the year.” He scanned the next letter, discarded it, scanned the next. He angled it toward the light. “Aha. See here. Master Grey, your price changes with each missive. My lord is becoming anxious. He will deliver unto you the amount on our last agreement and I beg you not to change your mind again. I will send it to you anon.”

“There’s no signature, nor seal, sir.”

“Yes. But I know this writing. It is Geoffrey Chaucer’s.”

“Blind me. Is the lord he is speaking of the duke, sir?”

“I do not know.” Crispin gazed at the tawny parchment a moment longer before setting it aside. He took up the next one and read. “The plans have changed. And with those changes, more gold I send to you. I shall reach you by the middle of October. I shall take possession as my lord has instructed. The object shall now be in my keeping. See to it that all is made ready for my arrival…”

“That does not look like the same hand, sir.”

“That’s because it isn’t. It is signed Sir Thomas Saunfayl.”

“Wait.” Jack grabbed Chaucer’s letter and read it over, then read in his slow, careful perusal Sir Thomas’s letter. “Sir, it looks to me as if … as if…”

“As if Sir Thomas bypassed Chaucer to make his own move on the relic? It certainly looks that way to me.” Crispin scowled at the parchment. That would mean that not only was the man a coward but a cheat as well. For if Chaucer were negotiating the Spear for Lancaster, Sir Thomas was maneuvering to slip it out from under him.

Of course, if Chaucer was trying to obtain it for a Spaniard, then Sir Thomas would be a hero.

Crispin searched through the rest of the documents, but they were either more receipts or matters inconsequential to their present circumstances. He gave them back to Jack. “Return these where you found them. They’ll be as safe there as anywhere else.”

Jack did as ordered and then jerked up his head. Crispin wondered at it until he heard it, too. It sounded like someone in the place next door. The tailor’s.

They hurried downstairs and out the shuttered window. The door to the Coterels’ home was ajar and Crispin crept to it, pulling it open. A shadowed figure picked through a small coffer, head bent low in its search.

“I’d stop right there, if I were you,” said Crispin.

The pale face of Robert Coterel shot up and stared with wide eyes.

Crispin let out the breath he was holding. “God’s blood,” he muttered. “Tucker, light a candle.”

It took a few moments with some stumbling and scuffling, but soon Jack had one, then two candles lit. Coterel’s frightened expression did not change but he turned and groped for a chair. Without a cold clogging his sinuses, Crispin could now tell that the man reeked from wine.

“Master Coterel, did I not give you strict instructions not to leave the inn?”

“Yes, yes, but I needed my needles. I had left some behind in our haste to leave.” His fingers moved restlessly over the small ivory cylinder in his hand. But he seemed in no hurry to leave just yet.

Crispin watched him, his uncertain swaying over the chair, his tongue licking sluggishly over his lips, the day-old beard that came in grayer than the hair on his head. He couldn’t waste this opportunity, even if it meant taking advantage of the man. “Master Coterel, can you tell me about … Master Grey?”

Hesitantly, he jerked his head toward Crispin and blinked, as if only just remembering he was there. “Master Grey? What would you like to know of him?”

“Was it true he was to marry your daughter?”

“Marry Anabel? Oh my, yes.” He shook his head sloppily from side to side. “He was devoted to her. Did my heart good to see it. A man worries over his daughter, you know. Do you have children, Master Guest?”

Crispin resisted glancing at Jack. “No. Were the banns posted?”

“No, not as yet. Anabel said he was waiting for something. Some great opportunity was coming his way. In fact, she spoke of the possibility of leaving London. How right he was.”

“Leaving London?” And yet Anabel insisted this was a lie. “For where?”

“I don’t know. She said he had plans to make. Always plans.”

“So he had formally asked for her hand?”

“Let me think. No. No, he never actually asked me. It was Anabel who told me. Told me of all his plans.”

A sinking sensation swooped in Crispin’s gut. He refused to look at Tucker. “It was Anabel alone who told you these details.”

“Yes, yes. Such a good daughter. Whenever we seem on the brink of destruction, it is Anabel who pulls us from the fire. She can always find the funds when they are needed. God be praised for such a wise and thoughtful daughter.”

“How does she find the funds?”

“Well, she sells small portions of our cloth.”

“Oh? Why then did she not do so when you needed to make the rent?”

He wagged a finger. “Ah, but then she found you, did she not?”

Crispin felt his jaw clench. “Indeed. She did.” That swoop in his gut was now turning into a ball of anger.

“She is always making friends. Friends who help us when we are in need. I am afraid to say that sometimes … well.” The tailor crooked a finger to bring Crispin closer and the fumes of wine were strong when he huffed an embarrassed laugh. “Sometimes I drink too much. And then I gamble. And before I am aware of it, our funds are diminished. I have tried to be less of a sinner, but alas. I do penance but then I return to the tavern and the dice games before I ever realize that I have fallen back into sin.” His smile faded, his eyes glistened, and soon tears rolled down his cheeks. “I am a poor father indeed!” Dropping his face in his hands, he sobbed.

Crispin stared at the wreck of a man before him. He had been negligent. He should have talked to Coterel much sooner. Instead, he had relied on his heart to lead him, an unpredictable organ at best.

“I’m gladdened that she has such good friends,” he whimpered. “Men who watch over her when I cannot.”

Crispin tried to keep his voice even. “Are there many such men, Master Coterel?”

“A few. There is the carpenter, Master Mark; the law student, Master Jonathan; the clerk, Master Lucas, the cordwainer, Master-”

“I beg your pardon. Did you say a clerk by the name of Master Lucas?”

“Did I?”

“You did,” said Jack, drawing forward.

“Then I did.” He nodded vigorously.

“Do you know his surname?”

“Stumpy, Stately…”

“Stotley?”

“Of course, it must be.”

Crispin curled his hand around his dagger hilt. He did not like the shape of this.

“You cannot remain here, Master Coterel. You must return to the inn. Jack, see that he gets there.”

“Yes, Master Crispin.” He tugged Coterel to his feet, and the man stood reluctantly. “Come along now, good master, it is time for you to return to your inn. No doubt your daughter is waiting.”

“If she is back she might very well be.”

Crispin turned as they reached the door. “If she is back?”

“I heard her come in very early this morning, but now she is gone again. She has her many friends to consult. Many places to be. She always returns with a small bit of coins. A good daughter, is my Anabel.”

“Yes, perhaps she is back and wondering where her father is.” He didn’t mean it to come out with such vitriol, and Jack frowned at him for it, but Master Coterel did not notice as Jack led him outside and down the lane.

Crispin closed the door and locked it with the use of his knife in the lock. His hand shook from anger but he kept it in check. He’d save it for later. He’d need it for facing Lucas Stotley, convenient Samaritan from the Boar’s Tusk and, if he was not mistaken, also acquaintance of Lenny.

* * *

HE TOOK HIS ANGER with him as he stomped through the streets of London. His intention was to return to the Shambles and brood. The multiple levels of deception were an outrage to his sensibilities. But as he turned a corner, his eye caught an ale stake angling into the street. He could do with a cup of wine to cut the edge off his wrath. He veered toward the unfamiliar tavern and pushed open the door.

It was dark inside the raucous interior, but it took only a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they had, he stopped dead. In a darkened corner stood Chaucer, talking furtively to a man. And who should that man be but Lucas Stotley.

He drew his dagger and pointed it. “You!” cried Crispin. Stotley whipped his head toward Crispin. Terror swept over his face and Chaucer quickly pushed him away and gestured for him to escape.

“Oh no you don’t!” The crowd was in his way, and Crispin tried to push through, to no avail. He growled his frustration and leapt onto the nearest table, to the outraged cries around him. He jumped to the next, making his way toward Stotley over the tables. Stotley moved furiously through the crowd toward the door, looking back at Crispin with widened eyes.

Men sitting at the tables shouted and fell out of Crispin’s way as he strode along the surface, oblivious to their curses. His feet kicked wooden cups and ale spilled out in cockerel tails through the air.

Stotley scrambled toward the exit, pushing men out of the way. Crispin changed direction after him, still bounding from table to table, now knocking over candles and spilling wine jugs, some crashing to the floor in scattering shards.

Crispin leapt and hit the floor. He lunged, nearly reaching the clerk, when hands pulled him back. He lost his footing, slipped, and careened backward, barking his shoulder on a bench.

“Stop him!” he cried, but Stotley was out the door before anyone could react.

Crispin twisted around to see who had had the audacity to hinder him and wasn’t surprised to see Chaucer’s face. He hauled back a fist and punched him.

Chaucer’s head snapped back and he wobbled but was able to whip his head about and shake it off.

“God’s blood, Geoffrey! What the hell do you think you are doing?”

Geoffrey moved his jaw back and forth, testing it, before he frowned with a painful squint to his eye. “Damn you, Crispin.” He swung but Crispin ducked, coming up with a fist in Chaucer’s gut.

Geoffrey doubled over, took a breath, and head-butted Crispin.

Crispin crashed backward into a tray of bowls and jugs. Everything scattered and splintered and he found himself gasping and sitting on his bum surrounded by a pile of broken crockery. He sneered and jumped to his feet.

By then Chaucer was standing upright, balling his hands into fists. He drew one back and swung forward, but Crispin caught it in his hand and twisted. Chaucer yowled and sank to one knee and bit Crispin’s leg on the way down.

It was Crispin’s turn to yell, and he kicked, not caring where the blow landed.

It landed in Geoffrey’s side. The man spun away, clutching his ribs, and glared back over his shoulder. He made a sudden lunge and grabbed Crispin’s coat, hauling him close. “Come with me!”

But Crispin fought and grabbed Geoffrey’s gown at its furred collar.

“No, you’re coming with me!”

They struggled for a bit with the sound of ripping cloth before both came to a halt. Glaring got them nowhere until Crispin heaved a disgusted sigh. “Let’s have this out.” He pointed to the alcove with a curtain and Chaucer silently agreed, though neither one let go of the other’s gown.

It was obviously a place for a servant to sleep, nothing more than a space for a mean cot and a niche for an oil lamp, but Chaucer pulled the curtain closed and pushed Crispin hard against the wall. Crispin recovered and shoved Geoffrey into the opposite wall and kept pushing, fists curled around his now torn collar.

“Are you a murderer, Geoffrey?” he rasped, mindful of the thin curtain separating them from the tavern. The scrape of bench and table being righted and men talking loudly about the disruption masked something of their conversation. “Are you aware who that man is?”

“I’m not a murderer, you idiot! Let go of me!”

Crispin shoved harder. “Tell me, dammit, or I swear I’ll … I’ll…” With a growl he released his friend’s gown and stepped back, running a trembling hand over his mouth. He shook his head and grimaced. “Lancaster put you up to this,” he whispered. “Answer me.”

Geoffrey didn’t fix his clothes. His expression warred between rage and disbelief. He seemed to be deciding, shoulders tensing. And then he let it go, all of it. His body became fluid and he leaned against the wall, head back, throat rolling as he swallowed. “Cris. Damn you. Why did you have to be involved?”

Crispin flopped against his own wall, needing the plaster and stone to hold him upright. “Answer the question.”

“Of course Lancaster charged me! He is my master.”

“To kill?”

“No! What do you take me for? I am no assassin.”

“And yet you track with them. What of Lucas Stotley?”

He didn’t think Chaucer could look more shocked, but his face configured that way. “He is not a murderer, nor did I contract with him to that end.”

“But you did hire him. To do what?”

Chaucer sighed and sat on the cot. The straw crunched beneath his weight. “He was to find a thief to steal the Coterels’ rent money so that they would be evicted so that the shop would lie empty, allowing us to do our work.”

It was everything Crispin suspected, but knowing it was true did not give him pleasure.

“But you fouled it up when you paid their rent,” Geoffrey continued. “I thought you were without your own funds.”

“Thanks for your confidence. Yes, that is generally true, but I was flush from a recent venture. How did he know where the money was hidden?”

Chaucer shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t care. All I know is that Stotley was accomplished and did his part well. Until you showed up.”

“Lancaster wants the Spear.”

“Of course he wants it. Wouldn’t you?”

“How did Sir Thomas get wind of it, then? Of your transaction with the Moor?”

Chaucer’s cheeks flushed. “How the devil did you know that?”

Crispin crossed his arms and simmered.

Geoffrey ran a hand through his hair and only just realized he’d lost his hat somewhere. He looked around for it for a moment and then gave up. “I’m not certain. Possibly he overheard my discussing it with someone. His messenger was faster, his gold heftier. He slipped in right under my nose.”

“Is that why you are after him?”

“Among other things. He is being tried for cowardice. And you need not hide him any longer, for I have found him. He is in custody now.”

Crispin slumped. Not good news.

“So there is no more a reason to hide the Spear either, Cris. You should hand it over to me as soon as possible.”

Crispin raised his head and studied his friend, his torn collar, his mussed beard and hair. So fastidious, but not today. Crispin’s voice was rough and low when he asked, “Why were you conspiring with the earl of Suffolk?”

Chaucer’s lips parted but Crispin interrupted whatever he was about to say. “You need not lie. I saw you with him. At a tavern.”

With brows raised the man nodded. “I have forgotten how thorough you can be. Well … he, too, wanted the Spear for Lancaster. He has supported the duke in the past, you know. I told him my plans and he agreed.”

“Are you certain it was for Lancaster?”

He frowned and would not look Crispin in the eye.

“I think you are over your head in this one, Geoffrey. I think he might have changed loyalties. He either wants it for the king or more likely for himself, for he is in sore need of it.”

“So I have heard.”

“Nevertheless, no matter how much you must have trusted him, he did not reciprocate the feeling. He hired his own men to kill Roger Grey and be done with it. Those men also killed his innocent apprentices, brothers, aged fifteen and ten. One of their bodies was recovered by the sheriffs.”

Chaucer was suitably horrified and Crispin felt a modicum of satisfaction. His arms tightened across his chest.

“How do you know-but you must be certain. I believe you. All the more reason to surrender the Spear, Cris.”

“I might be tempted if only I had it, Geoffrey. I do not. I am still searching for it.”

He shot up from the cot. “But you can’t be! You must know where it is by now!”

“I am no miracle worker. Chances are it is far from here, perhaps even heading back to where it belongs. Wherever that is.”

“But this is ghastly! I thought-” He sat again, his head in his hands. “Ah Cris, I thought you had it. What are we to do now?”

It was tempting. Working with Chaucer would certainly be more rewarding than working against him, but a niggling doubt still poked at his senses. After all was said and done, he didn’t think he could truly trust Geoffrey. Keeping silent was the best option, and he took it, watching his friend moan and roll his head. At last, Geoffrey finally looked up.

“What are you going to do now, Cris?”

“I’m going to ask you one more question.”

He straightened. “Oh? What more could you possibly need to know?”

“Why you were discussing these matters-or any matters at all-with a Spaniard?”

With his hands gripping his knees, Geoffrey huffed a humorless laugh. “Very well. You’ve earned it. Come with me.”

His doubt must have been written on his face, for Chaucer laughed at Crispin’s expression. “I swear on my life. I am not trying to trick you.”

“Then lead on.” He gestured toward the curtain, which he pulled aside.

The men of the tavern turned to look at them and Crispin felt their resentful glares as he made his way between the rearranged tables. The floor was still wet from spilled wine and ale and there were a few shards still kicked by wayward feet across the floor. He made it to the door, and noticed Chaucer hanging back and paying the tavern keeper for the destruction. He felt a bit guilty until he surmised that Geoffrey could well afford it.

They walked up the avenue and soon left the bridge, where they turned at Thames Street and followed it to Queenhithe. The Swan Inn had a newly painted sign and they passed under it through the door. Crispin followed Geoffrey as they climbed the stairs to the end of the gallery. Chaucer stopped at the door there and knocked with a series of particular taps. They waited. A scratching at the door and a bolt was thrown.

They entered into darkness. The faint glow from the hearth did little to illuminate the shadows but a spark grabbed Crispin’s attention. The spark ignited a bit of moss in a man’s hand until he lit the candle with the small flame and then tamped out the clump of moss on the candle’s dish.

He picked up the candle and held it in his hand close to his face. The bearded man looked familiar.

“Buenos días, Señor Guest.”

“God’s blood! You are Juan Gutierrez. You’re-”

He bowed. “Ah, you remembered that I am my Lord of Gaunt’s Castilian secretary.”