Cup of Blood

CHAPTER TEN

No sign of Jack Tucker. The boy had obviously taken Crispin’s words to heart. As usual, the timing was excellent. He wanted to ask the boy if he’d seen anything and help him clean his cotehardie and his room. Alas.

He tidied his lodgings as best he could. Nothing was broken or missing but it did not please him that strangers had been through his private things. What was it they were looking for? He rubbed his sore chest distractedly.

His pouch was heavier for a change. Usually it was feast or famine. And today it was raining clients. First the sheriffs and now Lady Vivienne. He sighed thinking of her. What a fool he was. How a flicking eyelash could bestir him!

Vivienne sought an “object of great price” and since she was not forthcoming he could only speculate as to what that might be. Some rare jewel, perhaps. Or something else. How could he begin to know?

He dismissed thoughts of Vivienne for the moment and thought of the other job. Yes, he wanted to solve this murder, and yes, he wanted more than anything to see Stephen hang for it, but now there were these damned men hunting him and ransacking his place. It was all getting to be a bit more trouble than sixpence a day might be worth.

Well, one thing at a time. He had no idea how to find Stephen, but he could first go to the Spur and find Lady Vivienne’s unnamed mystery man.

Crispin locked his lodgings and traveled down the Shambles, making the long walk west. He turned a corner and went down Friday Street before he stopped, measuring the two-story tavern, the Spur. Its front steps were washed, its sign newly painted.

He stood across from the tavern for a while before he ambled across the lane and pushed open the door. Making a slow circuit around the great room’s perimeter, he measured faces and characters of its noble inhabitants.

No one fit the description given by Lady Vivienne. At length, he decided to ask.

The innkeeper, a solitary man, stood very tall and very thin. He eyed Crispin’s clothes as Crispin inquired. “Nay. I do not remember a man of that description.”

“Perhaps it was a sennight ago. A man in a foreign gown or cloak. A Frenchman.”

“A Frenchman you say? Aye. There was such a gentleman. He’s been a lodger here for a sennight.”

“Is he still here?”

“His room is here, but as to the gentleman, I have not seen him for two days, maybe three, yet he paid for a full fortnight.”

“His room. Where is it?”

The innkeeper suddenly brought himself up short. “And just who might you be, my lord?”

Crispin straightened his shoulders. The cloak resting on them felt almost like it used to. “I am Lord Guest, and this man has something of mine. I would consider it a courtesy if you would take me to his room.”

The man jerked his head in a hasty bow. “If it’s as you say…then follow me, my lord.”

The man led Crispin up the stairs along the gallery where he glanced down below at the long tables and raucous drinkers. The hearth flung its light across their drunken faces.

The innkeeper unlocked a door and pushed it open. The room smelled musty and stank of old smoke. Crispin toed a gray log that rolled out of the cold hearth. On a corner side table he saw what looked like a shrine; a crucifix, a candle stub, bumpy with hardened drips, and a red velvet cloth. He trailed his fingers over the velvet and spied a chest by the bed. He glanced at the inn’s host still standing awkwardly in the doorway. Crispin approached the chest, knelt, and opened it.

Empty.

He strode to the bed and yanked up the pillow, crushing it with both hands. He turned over the mattress and flung the cheap bedding across the floor. He went to the wall and felt with his fingers along the timber frames, but he found nothing hidden, no clues to the man’s identity.

“Does a chambermaid come in here at all?”

“No. We do not disturb the travelers who come here unless they request it.” He eyed the crumpled mattress with distress. “A man likes his privacy.” He rubbed his neck and looked behind, perhaps expecting the owner to return at any moment.

“Then no one would enter here unless asked?”

“Aye, my lord.”

Crispin dug his fists in his hips and swept his gaze across the room one last time before leaving. He stood on the gallery while the innkeeper ticked his head and locked the door.

“Will there be anything else, my lord?”

Crispin enjoyed for that fleeting moment the feeling of being a lord again. “That will be all,” he said, and leaned on the railing to look down on the room below, dismissing the hovering innkeeper. He would have offered the man a coin, but since he had only a few, he could not spare it.

The innkeeper thumped down the stairs. When his head disappeared beneath the landing, Crispin glanced at the closed door. He drew his dagger and snipped some threads from the inside collar of his coat. He used the blade’s tip to insert the red threads between the door and the jamb. Satisfied, he sheathed the dagger and hurried down the stairs and into the main room. The clink of cups and hearty laughter stoked his thirst, but he had no wish to find a place at a long table amongst the knights and squires. Instead, he left the Spur to seek his comfort in the familiarity of the Boar’s Tusk.

Crispin turned the wooden bowl with his two thumbs and index fingers and watched the red wine gleam and swirl against its smooth sides. He did not drink as much tonight as he expected to. In fact, he was still on his first cup, but what few sips he took seemed to settle his heart into a calm numbness. It even warmed his chest with a radiance resembling vague contentment. He wasn’t exactly happy, but not too morose either. Gilbert’s good cask seemed to have done the trick. Even his chest no longer felt sore. He sipped the wine again and felt its warmth glide down his throat and infuse him. He raised his head. The hearth flames seemed brighter, more alive. Faces glowed with merry expressions. Even the room’s normally stale air filled with pleasant toasty aromas of burning logs, rich wine, and savory roasted meats, their juices dripping and sizzling over the flames.

Crispin drank and sighed. It would be so pleasant to simply sit in the Boar’s Tusk the rest of the day and absorb his surroundings, but with another sigh that had no contentment in it, he knew he did not have the luxury to do such a thing.

He glanced over his shoulder at the place the mysterious knight died. How was Stephen involved in this? Skillful with a sword like any knight and certainly ruthless, would he ever resort to poison when face-to-face violence would do? Unless he showed himself and offered some answers, the sheriff would use Eleanor’s testimony to prove his guilt. With a short chuckle, Crispin realized Wynchecombe didn’t care who was hanged, as long as his writ was complete.

Crispin considered the murder scene: Stephen arguing in hushed whispers to the knight, perhaps threatening him for something that the dead man possessed. Did he give him the poison then, during this bitter argument? Afterwards, he must have spied Crispin and hastily departed. Then, in came the woman. What of her? He could not help but wonder at the message she conveyed to the dead knight. A warning given too late? How did she fit into the tapestry?

It bothered him not to know, but in the end, it would not matter. If Stephen hanged, the inquiry would be over.

But it would not solve all Crispin’s problems no matter how satisfying it might be. It would not return his knighthood. It would not entirely erase the past.

“You are a thorn in my side, Stephen St Albans,” he muttered, “living or dead.”

Crispin felt the sharp prick in his flank, thinking of thorns and sides. He chided himself for never noticing the man beside him on the bench and allowing him the opportunity to press the knife blade to his ribs.

A voice, course like the crackle of ancient parchment, hissed in his ear. “You will be silent.”

He took in the blurred impression of a monk’s robe and cowl, and a frieze of white hair that ran the rim of his forehead.

“You will come with me and we will talk. Only talk.”

Not the voice in the torture room, Crispin was certain of it. He heard instead a slight purring accent. Welsh?

More curious than afraid, Crispin slowly rose, allowing the man to withdraw his blade from Crispin’s side. “I warn you against fleeing,” the little man said when they reached the door. “I have compeers all around.”

They walked several feet into a rain that fell hard and harsh, slanting across their path and spattering mud against the stone foundations. They entered an alley and traveled down its long, narrowing path before taking a left turn to what looked like a dead end. The old monk instructed Crispin to push a barrel aside revealing a jagged hole cut in the wattle and daub. Crispin peered into the dark hole but could not see what lay beyond it.

“I will go no further until you tell me who you are and what you want.”

Another monk popped his head out of the mysterious hole. He, too, brandished a blade and gestured for Crispin to enter.

Crispin turned to look over his shoulder. Two silhouettes in robes stood at the alley’s mouth, their unsheathed blades gleaming in the rainy twilight.

He weighed the circumstances and shrugged. “Very well. We will do it your way.”

He bent nearly double to fit into the tight opening and found himself creeping forward in a crouched position through a long wooden passage, much like a flour chute. He followed the man toward a light and felt relief to step out into a room where he could finally stand erect.

Candles in sconces flickered but did little to light the space. Dusty barrels, sacks, and kegs lined the walls. Not the same site of his imprisonment but it might as well have been.

The two monks greeted him, both their daggers drawn.

Crispin spread out his empty hands. “What? No sacks over the head? No bindings? No whip?”

The two exchanged inquiring glances.

“Play no more games with me. Isn’t this enough?” He tore open his coat and bandages, revealing the welts on his chest.

Their faces seemed to light with recognition and as one, they both sheathed their weapons.

“Forgive us, Sir Crispin,” said the older man. “You mistake us for others. That is the work of the henchmen of the false pope of Avignon.”

Crispin dropped his hands. His coat fell closed over his bare chest. “What? Then who the hell are you?”

Both men tossed back their hoods and opened their robes revealing hauberk and white surcote. When they opened their collars, Crispin felt no surprise to see the embroidered Templar cross on the underside of their surcotes.