The Demon’s Parchment

9

With his hood over his head and Lancaster’s arms painted across his person, Crispin and Jack slipped unquestioned through the great portico, past guards and pages. Jack spoke not a word. Crispin sensed his fear. He was not beyond a little healthy fear himself. At every turn he was in dread of encountering Giles and his wretched cousin again. What would the man make of Crispin’s new livery? Would he be accused of stealing it? There would be no sheriff to stop Radulfus’s vengeance then.

The great hall was bustling with people, talking in small groups, citizens hoping for an audience with certain nobles, pages milling near their lords, servants trying to stay out of the way.

But it was the servants Crispin wanted to question. He headed toward a door he knew led to a narrow passage through which the workers often passed. Jack was at his heels, sticking close, like a calf to its mother.

Within the passage they encountered many liveried pages, and Crispin decided to try them first.

“You there!” he called, stopping a blond boy wearing the arms of some minor noble.

The boy paused and looked Crispin up and down. “Aye?”

“Can you point out the servants who serve the Jew’s quarters?”

The boy’s eyes scoured Crispin and Jack a second time. “And why would you be wanting to know that?”

Crispin straightened, showing off the colors across his chest. “My lord wishes to know. Why else?”

The boy seemed little impressed. He shrugged and looked around. When he lifted his arm, his finger pointed out a man of middle years with a round face, squat brown hair streaked with gray, and hard black eyes. “That is Bill Wodecock. He would know.” Having discharged this information, the page slipped into the shadows. It didn’t matter. Crispin was now focused on the man. He wore the king’s livery and Crispin suspected he might have sway over some of the other servants.

“Master Wodecock! I would speak with you.”

The man in question turned. The cogwheels of his mind seemed to be turning, trying to come up with a name to the face he seemed to recognize. If he were in the employ of the king some seven years ago, he might well remember Crispin. That meant Crispin had to work fast. “I would speak with you regarding a matter of some import. Is there a place to talk?”

“I cannot tarry now,” said the man, continuing to walk at a quickened pace. “If you would ask a question of me, you had best do it on the run.”

“Very well,” said Crispin, matching his pace to the older man with Jack bringing up the rear. “I seek the servants to the Jew physician.”

“Why?”

“I must ask them questions.”

The man’s gaze flicked once to the tabard and the duke of Lancaster’s arms. “I ask again. Why?”

“It is not for me to know. It is for my master’s sake.”

They reached a corridor that was empty but for themselves and a guard stationed at the other end, far from them. Wodecock stopped at last and gave Crispin a hard look. “I know you are lying. You are Crispin Guest. Give me one good reason why I should not hail yon guard.”

Crispin sighed. Jack edged behind him that much more. “I suspected you knew me. And I also suspect you know something of why I am here.”

“I don’t pretend to know anything. It is unwise for a servant to presume.” He looked back at the guard and scratched his broad chin. “I know what you do now, Master Crispin. I have ears, haven’t I? But there are some here who won’t talk to you no matter what you are investigating. It is too dangerous.”

“Then I need to talk to those who do not fear it.”

The man gave him a wary smile. “I see the king hasn’t killed the pride in you. God help you.”

He turned to go but Crispin grabbed his arm. “This is no mere whim, sir. I need your help to prevent more mayhem.”

He shook off Crispin’s grasp. “I am not your servant, Master. No matter who you once were. And I care little for what you think you are doing here. Be grateful I have not cried out for that guard.”

“I beseech you. I am here to save lives. Whatever you may think of me and my character has nothing to do with my mission now.”

Wodecock sighed loudly and tapped his foot. “By my Lady,” he grumbled. “You are just as imprudent as ever, Master Guest.” He shook his head, his flattened hair moving not at all. “Very well. I do not do it for you. I do it for my wife’s nephew whom you saved from the gallows nigh on two years past. Not that he hasn’t deserved the gallows since.” His next words slid from him reluctantly. “Go to the Jew’s corridor as close as you may. I will send someone anon who might be willing to talk with you. More I cannot promise.”

Crispin offered the man a brief bow. “I thank you, Master Wodecock.”

“Hmpf” was his reply, before he whirled on his heel and hurried on his way.

Crispin caught Jack’s eye. “Let us hasten to the queen’s chamber.”

“I don’t like this, sir,” said Jack, following. He was as skittish as a cat in a kennel. “It don’t matter what livery we wear. Going back to that corridor is cod-pated. The king could appear.”

“He could appear anywhere, Jack. This is his palace.”

They wended their way carefully through the corridors and found a guard at the archway to the corridor where the queen’s chamber lay. It was also the corridor to the duke of Lancaster’s apartments and Crispin took courage from their livery that they would not be stopped. With head down, he approached the guard with Jack at his side and released his held breath when they passed him unmolested.

Would lingering in the corridor arouse suspicion? He realized he knew little of the life of the servants who waited on him since birth. Though he served as a page for Lancaster, his life was far different from the likes of Wodecock and lesser servants who stoked fires and changed linens. Many slept in their masters’ chambers in cramped alcoves.

As they waited, a master of wardrobe exited the queen’s chamber, urging two female servants forward, their arms full of linens. Crispin turned his face away but he felt the man’s questioning eyes on him. The footsteps receded and the corridor fell to silence again.

“How long can we tarry and not bring forth that guard?” whispered Jack into Crispin’s sleeve.

Crispin turned his head slightly and eyed the guard. . who was eyeing him back. “Not long, I fear. I pray that servant arrives soon.”

Crispin was barely done speaking when a man in a quilted dark blue tunic carrying a bundle of fuel pushed past the guard. His head was covered in a leather cap with ear flaps whose ties swung freely as he lumbered. He was built more robustly than Crispin but of the same height. His eyes snapped up and captured Crispin’s gaze, keeping it as he approached. His shuffling step was hurried and he did not pause as he whisked by them. But a rasped “Follow!” hissed from the side of his mouth and Crispin and Jack joined him as he opened the door to the Jew’s quarters with a rusty key.

The shadows swallowed them and the man turned swiftly, his back to the doorway. “Master Wodecock bid me speak to you,” said the man in a roughened voice. He looked older upon closer inspection, perhaps ten years Crispin’s senior. His eyes looked out from darkened hollows. The skin on his spotted face was stretched taut with an unhealthy pallor.

“I will mince no words with you then,” said Crispin, eyeing what he could see of the corridor through the opened door. “The Jew physician claims that he is the victim of thievery. Parchments were stolen from him.”

The man’s eyes widened a fraction but he said nothing.

“Might you know of such a theft?” Crispin pressed.

The man licked his lips. His pale blue eyes flicked over Crispin’s livery. “A theft?”

Crispin measured his expression carefully. Something was dancing behind those troubled eyes. “Yes,” said Crispin. “Or perhaps. . not so much a theft. But if, say, a nobleman requested such a thing. Perhaps even paid a servant to open the door for him. .”

The servant’s eyes shifted toward the floor. He licked his lips again.

Aha.

Crispin dropped his own gaze from the man and absently stroked the blazon on his tabard. “It is such a little thing, in the end, isn’t it? Open a door for a lord. Is this not the house of the king? Are these lords not the king’s minions? And what is this Jew but a servant of the king?”

The man’s jaw muscles tightened on his stubbled jowl.

Crispin fingered his money pouch. “I might have a halpen for a man who would share this information. Money well-earned, I may add. And with my being as discreet as a priest, no one would know that such a man told me aught.”

Those eyes darted back to Crispin and traveled over him efficiently like a shuttle in a loom.

“Well then?”

The man opened his mouth to speak when a sound in the corridor startled him. He whipped his head around and glared through the archway. A scowl set his mouth. Hurrying with his bundle, he dumped the wood and sticks into a box by the hearth. He wiped the loose bark and woodruff from his garments and returned to the door. Opening it a crack further, he peered out and kept a white-knuckled grip on the door. “I might find my way to earning that halpen. Meet me at Charing Cross. At Compline.”

“Can you not tell me now-”

“No time!” he rasped. “Later!” With that, he slipped out the door and threw it closed behind him.

Frustrated, Crispin glowered at the closed door. It seemed a simple question. But perhaps it was not simple at all. Yet the fact that they were in the Jews’ apartment suddenly swelled to the forefront of his thoughts. Would this not prove a good opportunity to spy?

Jack was already at the door with his hand on the ring when Crispin whirled away from it to go to the closed inner chamber he had not had the opportunity to examine before. He reached for the door’s latch when Jack was thrown aside by someone entering the room. A slender silhouette pierced the archway, a dagger in hand.

Crispin yanked Jack out of harm’s way before the door closed again and the figure made its way to the fire. “What is the meaning of this?” The voice of Julian made whole the shadowed stranger. His knife flashed in the fire’s glow. Face still in shadow, the heat glittered fiercely in his eyes.

Crispin made certain Jack was behind him. “We were speaking with a servant.”

“So I saw. Why in our rooms?”

“This is an investigation of a theft. Surely you expected me to look at your chamber.”

“You are a liar!” The blade rose but Julian made no move toward them even as he vibrated like a psaltry string. His nostrils flared.

Instinctively, Crispin raised his empty hands in appeasement, but it was only a ruse.

He lunged. One hand closed around the wrist with the knife while the other clasped Julian’s throat. He shoved the young man hard into the wall, tightening his grip on that slender throat and slamming the hand with the knife into the plaster until it fell from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Crispin heard Jack scrambling to pick it up but his eyes were solely on Julian’s face. He leaned closer, their eyes fastened on each other. Julian’s green eyes were wide as he struggled to breathe.

“You are quick with that knife, boy,” he growled into his face. “What is it you are hiding, I wonder.”

The youth gasped, his face reddening, eyes bulging. Crispin leered into his cheek. “Not so nice a thing to strangle to death, is it?”

“Master!” cried Jack behind him.

“Maybe you have something to do with the death of these boys, eh? I cannot abide a murderer. And a murderer of children. Tell me. How does it feel to be helpless?”

“Master!” Jack tugged on his coat.

Without tearing his eyes from the frightened Julian’s, Crispin sneered, “What?”

“Stop, Master. How else can he answer you?”

The arm that held the boy’s throat still throbbed from its knife wound, but Crispin could see the sense in Jack’s plea. But how he enjoyed putting that whelp in his place! He gave the trembling youth one last look, sweeping his eyes up and down his person, before he slowly released his grip on that throat. He was satisfied to see the red marks from his hands clearly visible.

Julian put a trembling hand to his neck and coughed. His eyes were still wild with panic and he slumped against the wall. “You are mad,” he choked. And then muttered words that Crispin only guessed were Hebrew.

“None of your magic, Jew. Keep your incantations to yourself.”

“It is a prayer, Gentile! I would not expect an ungodly man like yourself to recognize it as such.” He shoved Crispin aside and staggered toward the hearth, gasping.

Crispin watched him dispassionately. He wished he could drag out the Thomas of Monmouth text now and shove it the lad’s sour face.

Julian was still huffing into the fireplace. He wiped at his eyes and grabbed a straw from the mantle. He leaned in and lit the tip, cupping it in his hand as he lit a nearby candle. With the glowing straw he lit more until the shadows shied from them and flitted into the dim corners.

Julian scowled and turned to Crispin. Crispin merely sneered in reply and set about examining the alchemy on the tables in the room’s alcoves, touching anything he could, eliciting a further snarl from the livid boy.

Small burners, strange glass vessels, broken quills, scraps of parchments. There was something dark burned at the bottom of a crucible smelling of sulfur. He looked at Jack, who was still holding tight to Julian’s dagger, before he walked to the other alcove and surveyed that messy table.

More of the same. A milky glass canister held some slimy substance, and when he pulled off the glass lid, it smelled faintly of lavender.

“A poultice for soothing the nerves,” said Julian acidly. “Perhaps you should try some.”

Crispin did not answer. He strode next to the door of the mysterious inner chamber and pulled at the ring. Locked. He turned toward Julian. “Give me the key.”

The boy stiffened. “No.”

Crispin straightened his shoulders. “Perhaps you did not hear me.”

“Perhaps you did not hear me. I said no.”

It took only three strides for Crispin to grab the young man’s collar. He hauled him up to the balls of his feet. “Give me the key to that door or I shall bash your head through it.”

The boy’s lower lip trembled and his eyes suddenly glistened, but tears refused to fall. “Bâtard! Vaillant, fort chevalier!”

The words bored into Crispin’s pride. He could force his way in, yes. Even be pleased to do so should this lad prove to be a murderer. But it did not sit well with him. Technically, these Jews were his hosts. And though the son deserved his ire, the father did not.

He slowly lowered the boy and unwound his fingers from the fabric.

“You are an English brute,” Julian gasped, choking on a sob even as he raised his proud chin. “That is our private chamber. Why would I ever allow the likes of you to soil it?”

Julian wiped at the tears on his reddened face, pretending they were not there. A swath of guilt slithered up Crispin’s spine, but he would not apologize. The boy disturbed him deeply. There was something that he could not identify about the lad that put Crispin in an odd mood.

With only suspicions and without proof Crispin could not force the issue. He could not tackle the youth and snatch the key from him. Much as he wanted to.

God’s blood! He wanted the boy to be guilty. But wanting a thing did not make it so. Perhaps the answers were behind that chamber door. Or on the tongue of a servant whom he would meet at Compline. Whatever it was, he suddenly felt too close in the dark room. He drew himself up and headed steadily toward the front door. “This is not over, Master Julian.”

“Would that it were, Maître Guest.” He spit the words after Crispin, rubbing his sore neck. Crispin paused at the threshold. He looked back and felt a flutter of guilt. The lad was headstrong, to be sure. Protective of his father and of his faith. Grudgingly, Crispin recalled acting in a similar vein when he was that age.

But it didn’t mean he had to treat the boy as if he were made of glass.

“Be assured, I will be back,” said Crispin firmly. “And I will look in that room. And you will have nothing to say about it.” He yanked on the door ring. “Jack.”

Jack tossed the knife and it landed with a harsh clatter on the table. “That is the second time I have disarmed you,” he said to Julian. “Do not pull it on my master again or you shall suffer the penalty.”

Julian sneered and made a false charge toward Jack. Jack hadn’t expected it and startled backward into Crispin. Julian laughed. “Go away, little man. I am not afraid of you. Or of you, Guest.”

Crispin slammed the door behind him. He suddenly felt winded. It was the easiest course, finding the physician’s son guilty, but the easiest was not always the wisest. Or the truest. Was he banking on William of Ockham’s the simplest explanation is the best? Yet the boy was hiding something. That room. He had allowed his own pride to sway him from forcing the youth to relinquish the key. What was the matter with him? Going soft?

Crispin hurried through the corridors, wishing that servant could have told him at once what he wanted to know. He could be using his time to search the palace, but looking at the solemn-faced Jack beside him, he knew he could not risk overstaying his welcome. The palace was full of spies, full of people both servant and noble who would recognize his face and call the alarm. He was surprised he had made it this far without being stopped. Yet Gaunt’s livery might buy him a needed reprieve. It might be assumed that the king allowed him the life of a page again. But he could not count on this thin assumption.

They ducked into St. Stephen’s chapel in order to leave secretly again. A few people knelt in prayer in the sacred space. A woman in a moss green gown pressed her forehead against her clenched hands. A man, obviously a merchant, murmured words while looking upward at the rood screen.

As he crossed the floor to the other side a shadow came up behind him. His reaction was instant.

Spinning, Crispin drew his dagger but nearly dropped it when he encountered blue eyes and a slight form. The stranger from the carriage smiled and watched each of Crispin’s careful movements as he sheathed his knife again.

He looked Crispin over, noting the new addition of his tabard. The smile broadened. “Master Guest.”

Crispin was used to hiding Jack behind his back by now. “Yes, my lord.” He bowed perfunctorily. But then the thought suddenly occurred to him. “Are you. . following me, my lord?”

“Following you?” He smiled, his eyes taking in Jack before dismissing him. “How goes your mission, Crispin?”

The idea that this man was following him was bad enough. But that Crispin had not noticed was worse still. What had he seen? What had he heard? “As well as can be expected,” he answered slowly. “For whatever it is I am doing.” He managed a half-smile.

The man nodded in acknowledgment.

“My lord,” asked Crispin, “I am certain it was an oversight, but you neglected to tell me who you were when last we met. And since you are making it your business to know my doings, perhaps a gesture in kind from you would be mete.”

But the man seemed in no hurry to divulge anything. He slipped his hand into his scrip and withdrew a familiar coin-filled pouch. “I am still willing to pay for your services, Master Guest. Those parchments are preying heavily on my mind. It is imperative that I have them. And soon. What say you?” He swung the pouch in a tantalizing arc.

“If parchments there were,” he said casually, “what would you do with them?”

Slender fingers closed over the purse. “This amount of silver does not grant you my every thought, Crispin. It is only a fee for a job well done. I insist you take this.”

Crispin stiffened. “No.”

“No?”

“I choose my own clients, my lord. Little is left to me as it is. And so this small freedom is my own.”

“But coin, Crispin. Much more than your feeble sixpence a day. I could double it. Treble it.”

Jack whined behind him, but Crispin swung a foot, connecting with the boy’s shin to shut him up.

“An undeserved boon, surely, my lord.”

The man stared at him. Clearly, he was a man unused to being refused. He shook his head. “A very unusual man,” he muttered and dropped the pouch back into his scrip. “But there will come a time, my dear Crispin-soon, perhaps-when you will regret this decision.”

Crispin’s stomach growled. He already regretted it, but not quite enough to change his mind.

A servant Crispin recognized as the man’s driver approached. Ignoring Crispin, he bowed to the dark-gowned stranger. “Your Excellency,” he said, the rest of his words lost in whispers.

Excellency? An honorific for a bishop. But the man seemed young to be a bishop. But if he were, it might explain why he rode in a rich carriage and wore no weapon. Why then did he not wear his vestments and enjoy the full honors of his title?

The man inclined his head toward his minion and, after listening for a moment, finally straightened. “I must take my leave, Master Crispin. Forgive me for my haste.”

Crispin bowed. “Of course. . Excellency.”

The man’s eyes narrowed slightly before their edges crinkled with amusement. He said nothing, and followed his servant out. Crispin watched them depart, waiting just long enough before he began to follow him with Jack in tow. They made it outside in time to watch as the man and driver strode across the gravel courtyard.

Crispin slipped the scrip out from under his tabard and turned to the boy. “Jack, take this and go back to the Shambles. I have other work to do.”

He started after the man when Jack tugged at his coat. “But Master! Surely there is more I can do.”

“You can go back to our lodgings where it is safe.”

“But Master Crispin-”

“I do not like repeating myself, Jack.” He strode ahead, keeping well away from his quarry, too distracted to register that Jack had not turned in the direction of the Shambles.

Crispin allowed his target to forge ahead. The man’s servant walked with him and led him to the carriage. The strange lord climbed inside while the driver swung himself up to the seat where he took the reins from an attendant. The carriage moved unhurriedly, pausing for traffic across the busy avenue before joining the throng of carts and wagons laden with wares.

Crispin kept pace. There was something dangerous underlying the man’s character. One did not give cryptic warnings without reason.

And Crispin especially did not like the idea of this unnamed man following him.

They moved steadily out of the bounds of Westminster Palace and toward Charing Cross. At a trot, Crispin tracked. They traveled a long way down the broad avenue. He soon found himself pinned behind a man moving his swine toward London. On foot, there seemed no way around the many donkey carts, wagons, and travelers. The carriage lay far ahead and he feared to lag too far behind. Though it was clear to Crispin that they were heading toward London, they could easily be swallowed by the traffic the closer they got.

Crispin looked down at his tabard. He did not wish to appear obvious. Whipping off his cloak, he slipped out of the livery, turned it wrong side out, and tugged it back over his head. No sense in losing the extra bit of warmth it allowed. With his cloak back in place, he continued his stealthy pursuit.

At last, the man with the wayward swine moved toward the river, and Crispin was free to move past him and his squealing charges. But instead of the carriage bearing toward London’s gates as Crispin expected, it veered northward.

The carriage rolled into dim alleyways. Crispin worried that the diminishing crowds would make him noticeable, but the driver’s attention lay before, not behind. He kept to the walls just in case, pressing himself into the shadows and was almost relieved to see the dusky outline of fog rolling up from the river. It swept slowly beyond him up the road like the Angel of Death and shrouded the carriage, painting it a ghostly shape with only the sound of creaking wheels and clinking harness anchoring it to reality.

At Chancery Lane the driver stopped and waited at the end of the street.

Crispin leaned against the wall of a shop, his shoulder resting against a closed shutter.

In time, the man emerged from the carriage, yet he appeared as only a gray spirit in the enveloping fog. A small boy, another ghostly figure, carried a bundle across the lane, dropping one of his packages. The stranger paused and appeared to be merely looking at the boy. After another pause, he moved forward, stooped to retrieve the package, and returned it to the stack in the boy’s arms. He spoke and the boy listened attentively.

Crispin’s senses prickled. The driver stood as a lookout, effectively barring the street’s entrance with the carriage’s girth. No one but the boy and the mounted man could be detected on the hazy street, now clouded with fog. The stranger seemed to engage the lad with a friendly air. He pressed a hand to his scrip and after a moment, took something from it-a flash of silver. He held it forth. The boy stepped closer, and every nerve in Crispin’s body had the sudden urge to scream out a warning to him. They became one silhouette, man and boy, against the gray. The horse turned its large head and chuffed an icy breath before shaking its head. The jangle of his harness was the only sound to travel so far, not the soft tones the man spoke to the boy, who moved closer as if under a spell, transfixed by the offered coin.

The boy reached up, his arm extending in a soft arc. The momentary tableau could have been the mirror of a sacred carving. A shepherd boy entreating his lord; the child Jesus speaking to the men in the temple.

But the gentle picture suddenly shattered.

The man’s hand shot forward, capturing the boy’s wrist. Another clamped over his mouth. The packages flew. The child was only able to squeak out one surprised sound before he was dragged toward the waiting carriage.

Crispin’s dagger was in his hand and he was running before he could gather another thought.

The driver turned and got a fist in his jaw for his trouble. He wheeled back, falling into the horse. The horse whinnied and pulled on the harness, jostling the wagon.

Crispin wasted no time on the fallen driver. He lunged for the boy and grabbed a flailing arm. “Release him!” he shouted.

The bishop turned white-rimmed eyes toward Crispin. Gone was the haughty expression he’d worn for Crispin’s benefit. He scowled and pulled harder on the child, thrusting his foot onto the carriage step.

Crispin clamped a death grip on the boy and raised his dagger. He plunged it deep into the man’s thigh with a meaty sound. He screamed. The boy fell from his grip. The knife bobbed in his leg as he struggled, half in, half out of the carriage. Crispin pulled hard on the child’s arm, wrenching him back and flinging him away into a snowy bank. Crispin spun back toward the man when a booted foot caught him in the chin. He staggered back, stars exploding in his vision.

The fog thickened about them. Cold. Deathly cold. The man’s features were lost in gray. Still lingering in the carriage doorway, he pulled the dagger from his bleeding thigh and pitched it to the ground. He slid painfully to the bottom step and came at Crispin again with a snarl.

Crispin recovered and swung, his fist hitting solid flesh. He heard the man grunt and double over, but he wasn’t down long. He exploded upward and slashed out with his arm. Crispin detected the flash of a blade and leapt back, his body flexing and scrambling.

A slice of silver and Crispin jumped back again. How he wished he had not left his knife in the man! Only God knew where it was now.

He chanced a look behind him for weapons or defense and saw nothing in the swirling mist. He felt the man swinging before he turned and nearly caught the blade arcing toward him. He flung his foot upward and connected with a wrist. The knife went flying and Crispin reared back, his fist ready.

The man was faster and sank a punch deep into Crispin’s belly. Dropping to one knee, Crispin’s breath whooshed away, and he raised his arm in defense, feebly trying to ward off another strike.

He never saw the driver rush up from behind. When that blow fell, the world slanted, and the wet street came up to meet his face.

Crispin didn’t want to awaken. Clearly it would make the ache in his skull that much greater. But with someone bathing his forehead in a cold cloth and cooing softly to him with a whispered song, he could not seem to help himself.

He blinked, his eyes feeling hot even for the cold cloth. When they focused, he did not expect the knot of people surrounding him. And then fear made him jerk to a sitting position. “The boy! Is he safe?”

A gentle hand pushed him back, and his pounding head was more than grateful for it.

A small voice at his side said, “I am, my lord. I am safe. Because of you.”

“I am not a lord,” he replied automatically.

“You are to me, good sir.”

“And to me,” said a woman’s voice, the one who soothed his brow with a cool hand.

The small feeling of satisfaction was offset by his bewilderment. He had been embroiled in a violent encounter with that vile stranger. Once down, he had not expected to rise again, but obviously, he had somehow come out the victor. “Where is that man? The would-be abductor?”

“Gone,” said the woman at his side. “Once you fell, he and his man made off.”

A mercy, then. His head felt an ache like an ax slowly wedging further into his skull. A small mercy.

“I do not suppose there is such a thing as wine?” he asked hopefully, closing his eyes against the throbbing pain.

Not long after his plea, something was pressed against his lips. He gulped it gratefully before it was pulled away. He opened his eyes carefully again and tried to make sense of his new surroundings. The room looked to be a workroom of sorts, with shuttered windows through which dim light filtered in angled, pale shafts. Heavy beams held up wide rafters. Benches lined one wall.

“What. . is this place?”

Glances were exchanged above him. Worried brows told him he would not receive the truth. He looked them over: men, women, children. Wardrobes of every stripe, from that of servants to the rich in furs like a merchants’ garb. What the devil? Could this still be Chancery Lane, or had he been brought elsewhere? His eye snagged on a man who immediately slipped behind another, ducking his face. Even Crispin’s pounding head could not hide the fact that he recognized that face. But from where? His muzzy mind would not allow him to sift out the answer. He dropped his forehead into his palm, trying to squeeze away the pain. He’d give up all the gold in the world for relief from the splitting ache in his poor head. . wait. Gold? Goldsmith! He raised his head again and speared the man with a narrow-eyed stare. “I know you. You’re-” What was the name? “Middleton. Matthew Middleton.”

Accusing faces turned toward the hapless goldsmith trying to become smaller behind a man with a broad hat.

Crispin rose and rested back on his elbows. “Days ago I questioned you. About the dead boy. You’re that goldsmith.”

The man eased away from the others, his hands placating gently. “Aye, good sir. I am he.”

“What are you doing here? What is this place?”

Middleton looked to the others and cautiously approached. “A place of safety, Master Crispin. We are indebted to you for saving the boy. Surely when you are well enough you can be on your way.”

Crispin pushed the soothing hand away and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the pallet. It was a mistake. His head swam but there was nothing for it.

It also did not go without Crispin’s notice that the crowd blocked his way out.

He gripped the pallet and slowly rose. “I thank you all for this kindness. . ”

“It is we who thank you, sir,” said the woman who had ministered to him. Probably the lad’s mother. From her apron she brought forth Crispin’s bloodied knife. She offered it hilt first.

Crispin took it and sheathed it. Apparently he was to be released after all. He moved unsteadily forward and the crowd parted for him. But their desperate faces, their furtive looks toward one another, were an uncomfortable mystery. There was more to this gathering than the relief of a boy’s salvation. He looked again at the long, rich gowns, the tattered tunics. “Tell me who you are.”

“Master, please,” said Middleton, the reluctant spokesman. “It is best you leave and think of us no more.”

“This I cannot do. I have sworn to protect those in London. So, too, am I compelled by my knightly vows. And protect you I shall. If you fear retribution for your actions, do not. I am your witness to an attempted abduction. I have the ear of the sheriff.” Which was not strictly true but could be managed.

Minutely, those near the exit shouldered closer. Something was definitely amiss. In one instant, they seemed to be ushering him out and the next, preventing his departure. “Am I being held against my will?”

“No, good sir,” said Middleton. His anxious expression and beaded forehead did little to allay Crispin’s anxiety.

“Then explain yourselves. You would do well to tell me now. Did you know that man who attacked the boy?”

As one they shook their heads. Some cast their eyes to the polished wooden floor.

“I see,” said Crispin. “How can I help you if I cannot get the truth?”

“Master Crispin,” begged Middleton. “Please. Just leave us in peace.”

“And I would if my way was not barred.” He glanced again to the men at the door. They seemed confused as to what to do.

“Shall I bring the law on this place?”

“No!” Middleton pressed his hands into fists.

“Master Crispin!” The boy was at his side.

He looked down at the earnest child tugging at his coat. He had freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks, much like Jack’s. He couldn’t be much younger than the cutpurse. “You mustn’t bring the sheriffs,” the boy went on. “They’re not to know-”

“John!” cried the mother. She reached a trembling hand for the boy.

“No, mother. I can tell him. He’s the Tracker. He protects good folk. I’ve heard the stories.”

“John,” said Middleton urgently. “Listen to your mother.”

“Let the boy speak,” said Crispin slyly. He knelt before the boy and took his shoulders gently. “Go on. What is it you would tell me, lad?”

“You mustn’t tell about us,” said the boy. His grave expression reminded far too much of Jack Tucker.

“I cannot promise until I know your meaning.”

The boy licked his lips. His dark eyes blinked rapidly. “But sir,” he whispered. “We could die.”

As much as Crispin wanted to, he could not look away from those earnest eyes. Against his better judgment, he said, “Then I promise, child. I will keep my own counsel.”

The boy sighed with relief. “I knew you would, good sir. You are like the knights in the songs.” Crispin felt the air in the room fall still. No one seemed to breathe. The boy leaned forward and whispered as if they were the only two present. “Because we are Jews, sir. It’s to remain a secret, you see. Now you understand why you mustn’t tell?”