Cup of Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

They reached the foot of Crispin’s lodgings and he finally spun on Jack. “All I needed was one more moment, one more word from him, you senseless, sorry thief!”

Jack pouted. “Now, Master. That isn’t no way to speak to me. I’m a good lad, I am. I’m loyal to you. But when that man talked about God! I started gripping the curtains and…well it wasn’t my fault they fell! I got all queer inside. Like he didn’t have the right to speak the name of the Lord with his poisonous breath.”

Crispin mashed his lips together and stared at Jack a long time. He ran his hand over his face and nodded solemnly. “You may be right.”

“’Course I am. And you don’t truly believe he done it, do you?”

“Why not? He is evil enough.”

“Aye. That’s my point. If he did it he wouldn’t fear telling you. He’d be proud of it. I think he’s toying with you because he only wished he done it!”

Crispin said nothing. He climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and dropped into his chair.

Jack went to the hearth to coax fire from the ashes.

Crispin watched the renewing flames. The boy busied himself tidying up the room and swept stray ashes back into the hearth.

“Very well,” Crispin said, answering Jack’s question at last. “No. I suppose I don’t believe he did it, and for the reason you cite. But God’s blood, I want him to be guilty!”

He sat with his face in his hands a long while, feeling the room grow warmer from the fire. But he also felt weary and strangely out of place. Returning to court drained his senses. His limbs even felt heavy as if he had been running in full armor.

“Again, we are placed in the unfortunate circumstance of not knowing who the murderer is.”

Jack handed Crispin a bowl of wine. “Aye. But you’ve solved difficult puzzles before, have you not?”

Crispin drank thirstily. His throat felt like parchment. “Yes. But not quite like this.”

Jack went to the larder and poured himself a bowl of wine and stood over Crispin, contemplating his pinched expression. “I wish I could help you, Master. I truly do. I haven’t a head for puzzles, I’m afraid. That is what you do.”

“So they tell me,” he said with a sigh. Jack hurried to refill Crispin’s cup.

“Jack, what am I forgetting? What small clue have I missed?”

The boy settled on the floor by the fire and hugged his legs, his bowl beside him. “I know not, Master. It seems so long ago now, though it was less than a sennight. I was only at the Boar’s Tusk very briefly.”

“That’s right. I was asleep and I felt you cut my purse-”

“Sloppy, that. You never should have felt it,” he said with a brush of hurt in his voice.

Crispin’s mind summoned the scene from one of many wine-soaked memories. “Let me think. I was asleep and…who else was there?”

“Master Gilbert, but was asleep, too.”

“Yes. And then there was you, and John the piper, and the dead man, and some assorted fellows I’ve seen a thousand times before.”

“And the servant.”

“And the servant.” Crispin squinted, trying to see the tavern in the dim corners of his memory. “The servant. He was sitting next to D’Arcy.” He thumped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. “I only saw him…” He tilted his head to the side trying to recollect. “I only saw him through the haze of hearth smoke. And it was shadowy. But I knew he was a servant because he wore livery. Whose? Jack, do you recall his colors?”

“Ah me no, sir. I know they was dark.”

“Dark. Green or blue. I can’t remember. But he sat beside Gaston D’Arcy. How long?”

“He was there when I entered.”

“And how long were you there before you began to thieve from me?”

Jack blushed and lowered his face. “I had to get the sense of the room, Master. And though I knew the rest were in their cups-begging your pardon-I had to wait until no one was mindful of me.”

“And how long was that?”

“’Bout quarter past the hour. Once no one paid me any heed…well, that’s when I made me move.”

“So he sat beside D’Arcy all that time? Doing what?”

“Naught. Not even drinking.”

Crispin sat up. “But I saw him. He was drunk when he got up. He even fell against you.”

“Ah no, good Master. That is my way, you see. ’Twas I what stumbled against him.”

Crispin saw the room in his mind’s eye. The smoky interior flickered in the firelight. The windows were shuttered against the rain and mist. Candles on the tables offered some light but only sparsely. Crispin’s wine bowl sat before him but there were many discarded on the table, just as there had been in front of the dead man. “There were many bowls on that table. Do you tell me the servant drank from none of them?”

“I only know what I saw, Master, and as you know, I had naught to drink. Until I drank that cursed poison.”

Crispin looked at his wine but did not drink. “Jack, when you bumped into him, did you take his purse as well?”

“Ah, no, Master. He moved too swiftly for me.”

“Damn!”

“Oh, but I did get his broach.”

Crispin slowly raised his face. “Tell me, Jack,” he said, trying to calm the excitement in his voice. “You do not, by any chance, still have that broach, do you?”

“Oh, aye.”

Crispin shot from his chair and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. Jack squealed in surprise and pushed away from him. “Here now!”

“That broach, Jack. Get it!”

“Very well,” he said cautiously once Crispin let him go. He went to the door and grasped the jamb. He guiltily looked back once at Crispin before he pulled and loosened the board and reached with his stick-thin arm into the opening.

Crispin marveled that such a secret place hid under his very nose, but he admired Jack all the more for his ingenuity.

At last, Jack pulled out a parcel wrapped in a rag and tied with string. He laid it on the table and ran his hand under his nose. “Now then,” Jack said, the same hand resting on the parcel. “When I open this, you may be surprised by what’s inside. But there’s no sense in your insisting I return these items to their owners for I have long since forgotten who owned them. I am at your mercy, sir.”

Crispin returned a solemn countenance to Jack’s grave one. “I swear on my honor, Jack, that I will say nothing.”

“Right then.” Jack took his knife and cut the parcel’s string and opened the rag. Crispin’s eyes widened when he beheld the many folded documents, wax seals and leather ribbons in tact. But there were also rings, brooches, pins, and loose gems.

“Jack!” he gasped. “God’s blood!”

“It’s me treasure,” he said sheepishly. “For my retirement. A man can’t be a thief all his life.”

Crispin laughed and touched the boy good-naturedly on the shoulder. “No indeed. My hope is that no new items of late have been added to this cache.”

Jack lowered his face and muttered, “‘Of late’? Well, that depends on what you mean by that.”

“Never mind for now. How is it I missed these things when I caught you that night?”

Jack smiled. “It’s a clever thief with more than one place to hide his spoils.”

Crispin eagerly scanned the cache again. “Which one belonged to the servant?”

“Now let me think.” Jack picked through his bounty and finally weighed something in his hand, nodding. “This one. I think it is this one. With the bird.”

Crispin took the broach and stared at ivory and silver. A bird, a crane. His mind put it together and he shook his head. “Oh, Jack. What a pity.”

“Eh? Someone you know, then?”

“Yes. Someone I know.”

He took his cloak but left his hood behind and said over his shoulder, “Jack, you’d best come with me.”

Crispin struggled to remember. He put himself back in the setting of the Boar’s Tusk almost a week ago; watched the servant in dark livery-certain now it was blue. The man would be familiar, but Crispin’s position across the room and his drunken state contributed to his not recognizing him.

When they reached the White Hart, Crispin told Jack to stand guard at the door until called. Crispin entered and stood in the doorway to get his bearings and to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the dimness. He scanned the room and strode across the tavern until he reached a table near the stairwell. A man sat alone, staring into his bowl of wine. His dark blue coat had a high collar and buttoned up the throat. The skirt, split in the middle, made it easier for him to run and better serve his masters. A black leather belt cinched his waist. A lengthy strap of leather, it wrapped around him almost a second time and folded and tucked over the buckle. It sported a scabbard with a dagger and a leather scrip at his hip near his back. An embroidered crane eyed Crispin from the left breast, the signet of Rothwell.

“Jenkyn,” said Crispin.

He jerked up his head and stared. Crispin made his way to the table and sat opposite him. “What do you want?”

“Now, Jenkyn. Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

Jenkyn stared up at Crispin with cool gray eyes. Not steel gray like Crispin’s, but light with just the barest blue tint to them. His bushy brows hung over his lids. His nose, straight and aristocratic, belonged more to his betters than his long lineage of servants serving the St Albans household as far back as anyone could remember. His hair, slightly wilder than fashion called for, shined darkly, but gray streaks tangled through it and the hairline shot high up his lengthened forehead. “I was not your friend,” he said. “I was my master’s servant. And now I am the servant of my mistress.”

“Just so. We were never friends, but I feel I know you.”

“No, you don’t. You were just another lord like all the rest, and now you’re not even that. Begone. I have no use for you.”

Crispin curled his fingers into fists. He would have struck the man, but Jenkyn was in the right. Crispin was no longer a lord. He could talk to Crispin any way he liked.

“So that is how you truly feel? Interesting. If only our masters could hear what is in our heads, eh? We’d all be released from service.”

“Then it’s a good thing none are mind readers.” He took up the bowl but still did not drink.

Crispin watched him. “You do not drink.”

“I am not thirsty.”

“Yet you ordered wine.”

Jenkyn looked at the bowl in his hand as if recognizing it for the first time. Hastily he put it down. “Habit.”

“Perhaps you have no more taste for drinking wine in taverns. To see a man die from such imbibing…”

Jenkyn rose but Crispin drew his blade and motioned for him to sit again. “I do not believe I am done talking with you,” he said and slowly sat again, echoing Jenkyn’s cautious movements. He kept the knife in plain view. Jenkyn stared at it. His forehead beaded with sweat and his breath became hard and rasping.

“Why don’t you tell me about that night,” Crispin urged.

Jenkyn wrung his hands. “Jesus mercy,” he muttered. “I don’t want to hang.”

“That is the punishment for murder, is it not?”

“Have I not been a loyal servant? Have I not served the house of St Albans for most of my life?”

“There is no denying it.” Crispin’s stomach turned. He had no belly for what was to come; for the pleading and the crying. A man should take his punishment. He knew he should be angrier at Jenkyn for all the flurry he’d caused, for Crispin’s sometimes disastrous meetings with Lady Vivienne and for his trouble with Stephen. And even for Crispin’s encounters with Templars and de Marcherne. Jenkyn had given him a merry chase and now was time to finish it. “Tell me what happened.”

“Oh my poor Lady Rothwell. He was a devil. He…he…”

Jenkyn succumbed to weeping and laid his head on his arms. Crispin sat back and sheathed his knife. He glanced at the others who turned to look. “Pull yourself together. You were surely defending your mistress’ honor.”

“Yes, yes. That is so!” He raised his wet face. His trembling hands opened and closed until he finally grasped them together and dropped them into his lap. “She has been good to me. So good. When I discovered what that knave intended…”

“There’s no need to speak of that,” Crispin interrupted. He looked behind at the curious faces and suddenly thought better of a public encounter. “Come now. We will discuss this with the sheriff.”

Jenkyn’s face drained of its ruddiness and became flat and white like a plaster wall. “The sheriff? Gaol? Oh, Sir Crispin! You don’t mean to turn me in, do you? Was I not equally loyal to you, good sir?”

So swiftly Crispin changed from a troublesome nobody to “Sir Crispin” again. He had no time to enjoy the irony. “Though that is true, there has been a crime, Jenkyn. As a knight…well, even though a knight no more, I still have sworn to uphold the king’s laws, and I must.”

The servant’s speed caught Crispin off guard. Jenkyn sprinted from the table and zigzagged through the benches and chairs. Crispin snapped from his seat to pursue, but the man was always an arm’s length out of reach. Just as Crispin almost caught up, he got tangled in a crowd of men playing dice, and tried vainly to shove them aside.

Jenkyn slipped out the door, knocking down Jack Tucker. Crispin called out, “Get him, Jack!” but Jenkyn disappeared far from sight by then, having ducked down a nearby alley.

When Crispin reached the door he scowled at Jack. “Did I not tell you to be on your guard?”

Jack picked himself up and wiped the mud from his sagging stockings. “I’m sorry, Master. Forgive me.”

Crispin glared down the bleak avenue, with its few passersby, and thrust his fists in his hips. “No, Jack, I was at fault. I am the one who was not on guard. But there is nowhere for him to run. We will wrest him yet.”

“Is he the murderer?”

“Yes, Jack. Right under our very noses all along.”

“Why’d he do it? Did he know the gentleman?”

“He knew him. He did it for his mistress’ honor,” he said, looking up at the threatening sky. He remembered he left his chaperon hood back at his room. “But he will tell all when we apprehend him. We must go to Newgate and inform the sheriff.”

“He won’t like this. Will he believe you, I wonder? Enough to release Sir Stephen?”

“I don’t know. Pray he does. Then this whole matter will be over with.”

“Except for one thing.” Jack glanced behind him as if expecting doom to descend upon him with his utterance. “The Holy Grail.”