Troubled Bones

4

Crispin grabbed Dame Marguerite and clapped her to his chest. Her husky screams turned to gasps and she suddenly collapsed in his arms.

He had to get help. His eyes looked down at Prioress Eglantine’s dark figure on the stone floor, her glistening black robes and veil encasing her. All around her was the debris from a scattered rosary.

A horrible ache started in his chest and traveled up into his throat. If he had not been careless and fallen asleep he could have prevented this. A nun murdered in a church. Such sacrilege! He clutched the limp woman tighter, as if his touch could eradicate the horrors to which she would soon awaken.

A voice rang out, startling him. “Master Crispin!” It was Brother Wilfrid.

“Here! Come quickly!” cried Crispin, his voice unnaturally piercing.

The young monk dashed around the corner and stopped dead. He stared openmouthed at the prioress crumpled on the stone and the blood pooling beneath her.

“Christ have mercy! What have you done?”

“Wilfrid! Don’t be a damned fool. I found them this way. Come help me. Dame Marguerite has swooned.”

The monk moved mechanically toward Crispin, though he couldn’t take his eyes from the lifeless woman on the ground.

“Take Dame Marguerite to the infirmary.”

“But every bed is taken,” said Wilfrid, his voice shrill.

“Then take her back to the inn. And get help. I will … I will stay with the Prioress until you return.” He stared down at the blood-soaked Prioress, his chest heaving.

Even as spare as Wilfrid was, the monk had very little difficulty sweeping the petite nun into his arms. Crispin clenched his hands into tight fists and watched the monk hurry through the darkened church and out the door. Crispin’s quickened breath tasted the cold air and flowered into a white cloud around his mouth.

Looking down at Madam Eglantine’s crumpled body washed Crispin with an uneasy sense of repetition, a vague memory of a broken body at his feet. Then, as now, he suffered a helpless panic that permeated his being. Yes, it had been very like this twenty-five years ago. No sword had done the damage but a horrifying fall down the stairs. Was it worse because he had heard it, every bump and crunch of bone? Maybe because he was the one to find her, and being six years old he hadn’t known what to do. He remembered finally approaching his mother, kneeling, and touching her hand. It was still warm, yet he knew even then that there was no life left in it. He hadn’t gone for help. He knew it was useless. He had simply stayed beside her and held her hand until it grew cold in his own.

Crispin knelt and found the Prioress’s hand. He curled his fingers into hers-the hand growing steadily colder-and didn’t move. Her dark figure lay like a wounded raven, her thin arms crooked at odd angles only the dead could achieve.

A tiny sound like a step and its residual echo. Crispin froze and his neck hairs stood up. Slowly, he turned his head. He could almost have sworn someone stood behind him, but there was no one there.

Footsteps again. He flicked a glance at the sword still on the ground surrounded by a sprinkling of beads. The sword was there. But that didn’t mean the killer didn’t have a knife. I’m a fool! He’s still here.

Crispin rose, huffed a cloud of apology toward the Prioress, and drew his dagger.

Creeping toward the chapel’s wall, he threw himself against the stone and slid carefully along the wall until he reached the archway. He peered around the corner and strained to see through the gray darkness.

The night lay heavily over the long nave. Arches gaped into dusky aisles dimly lit by cloudy moonlight. The thicket of pillars stood like oaks marching away to a murky horizon while the mute quire stalls stood guard in the center of the nave. Their intricate spires seemed like shadowy figures standing tall above the floor.

Crispin crept into the north aisle and stopped to search the gloom. The church was menacing in the dark with its many shadows and hiding places. Slowly, he eased forward and winced when his boots crunched on the tiled floor, but there was little he could do about it. The smell of old incense hovered thickly in the air, but it couldn’t completely mask the coppery stench of blood. His eyes searched. Neck hairs tingling in anticipation of a blow from behind, he glanced over his shoulder into darkness.

There! He turned his head, straining to listen, to see. A shadow swept past his peripheral vision, and he crouched and raised the dagger. His sweaty grip tightened on the handle, and he trotted forward until he reached the south aisle. Slamming into a crevice between a cluster of pillars, he waited, listening, his own musky sweat rising to his nostrils.

A step. Then a sharp noise sounded somewhere in the gated quire. Crispin hesitated. The sound wasn’t right. Not a step. More like the sound of a tossed pebble, trying to send him in the wrong direction.

Cat and mouse, is it? His fingers adjusted their grip on the dagger. Where would the killer try to go? The west door was barred as were the transepts. The cloister door was open, but that was near Saint Benet’s chapel, the scene of the nun’s awful slaying. If the killer wished to escape after the murder he had already been at the nearest exit. Why then did he need to skulk in the church? What else did he want?

Crispin whipped his head eastward toward Becket’s shrine, but he couldn’t see it for the surrounding scaffolding, a maze-work of shade and silky shadows cross-hatching the walls and floors.

A loud bang startled him and then the sound of a door closing.

He raced up the south aisle toward the Chapel of Saint Thomas, dodging webs of scaffolding, before he stumbled going up the chapel stairs. Breathless, he stopped before Prince Edward’s tomb, his shoulders rising in silent gasps. The figure of the prince lay undisturbed and staring up at the dark arched ceiling. His brassy skin gleamed dully in the aura of candlelight. In contrast, Becket’s shrine, planted in the middle of the chapel, gleamed from four bold candles burning brightly at each corner of the rectangular sepulcher.

All at once, one of the candles, hidden by a corner of the shrine, snuffed out. A black thread of smoke wound upward toward the canopy.

Crispin crouched low and tiptoed to the shrine’s plinth. He shouldered the wooden base and eased along it toward the edge of the shrine.

He felt it at the back of his neck. Whirling, he thrust his dagger, but in mid-turn something heavy struck his wrist and the knife hit the floor, skidding a few paces. A hooded figure swung a fist upward and caught Crispin’s jaw, and then the ground came up to meet him.

Crispin raised himself up on all fours, only vaguely aware that he shouldn’t be in this position. Hands took hold of him and he flailed his arms to fend them off. His elbow struck a face, and then he heard a grunt of pain.

“Peace, Master Crispin!” said Dom Thomas, voice muffled by his hand. Crispin stopped and looked up at the monk. Blood ran down the monk’s face under his hand.

“Forgive me, Brother. I thought it was my assailant.” He regained his feet and leaned against the shrine, rubbing his jaw.

Dom Thomas wiped his nose and chin and looked at the blood on his fingers with a grimace. “You make a good, solid strike, Master Crispin.” It wasn’t a compliment.

“What happened? Did you catch him?”

The monk looked up at the shrine with a sorrowful expression. “No.”

Crispin turned. The angle made him dizzy but what he beheld made his heart seize. The canopy had been pulled away from the casket and the casket’s lid shoved aside. “Gone?”

The monk nodded.

“What of the Prioress?”

“I’ve only just been told. Others are coming. Brother Wilfrid took the young nun to the inn.”

“The archbishop-”

“He is on his way.”

Against the treasurer’s protests, Crispin stumbled back toward Saint Benet’s chapel. A monk knelt beside the body of the Prioress, now covered with a sheet blotched with red stains. He touched his sore jaw. The pain did nothing to assuage his growing remorse. “You did not disturb anything?” he said to the monk.

The monk reached forward to catch Crispin as he swayed. “No, Master.”

“I am well,” he said, not quite believing it himself. He reached down and slipped the sheet away. “Could you bring a candle, Brother?”

“For the love of Christ, leave her in peace!”

“She is at peace. An examination is necessary to discover her slayer.” He took the candle from the monk and held it above the body, studying her slashed robes. He tread carefully, trying not to step in her blood, but too many feet had already moved around her. The faint hope of finding telltale bloody footprints leading to the murderer was dashed. In the dark, and because of her heavy black robes, it was impossible to see the extent of her wounds, but he could see that she had been struck many times from behind and probably never saw her assailant. Perhaps that was a mercy. He shook his head and smote his thigh with a fist. This never should have happened. None of it.

He took a deep breath and continued his scrutiny of the dark tiles. There were spatters on the floor behind the spot where she had been kneeling and also in front. Each line of blood represented a strike. As the assailant lifted the sword, a line of blood would have splattered before the nun. He wished the light was better, but he didn’t suppose it would help.

All along the tiled floor lay the scattered beads of a rosary. A glance at the Prioress told him that hers was still intact on her belt. Then it must belong to the other nun. He gestured for a monk to gather up the beads.

The murder weapon, the sword, lay on the ground, and he picked it up. Drying blood covered the blade as he expected, but the edges were nicked. The fuller bore diagonal slashes in several deep lines. He recognized the look of such a blade. His own sword had received the same kind of blows while fending off an ax. But it was rust and not blood embedded in these marks, and that told him they were aged scars. The sword itself was old and well used, but not cared for as he had cared for his own long-lost blade. No knight would ever have left his sword in such a state. Whose sword was it? He lifted it, feeling that old pang of loss in his chest. But the feeling was quickly replaced by an equally sore ache of guilt; guilt that he enjoyed handling the weapon so much, the weapon that had killed an innocent.

He examined the round pommel that sported enameled arms-red with a muzzled bear head. He didn’t recognize them.

The murderer dispatched the Prioress swiftly, so then why didn’t he kill her young chaplain?

Or me? Crispin couldn’t help but turn again toward Saint Thomas’s chapel in the murky distance. Perhaps the assailant did not want to do others harm. The Prioress alone seemed to be the focus of the attack. And soon after, the bones were stolen. Was this all the work of the Lollards? Up until now, the Lollards had used rhetoric to make their case. Had that changed? But if they really only wanted the bones, then why kill the Prioress? She was nowhere near the shrine, whereas Crispin …

He rubbed his sore jaw again and hefted the sword before leaning it against the wall, point down. Curious, that the murderer should leave the weapon behind. Perhaps he meant it as a warning of some kind. Or was it stolen and left to point blame at another?

A monk stood beside him and held up his cupped hands. They were filled with wooden beads. Crispin opened his nearly empty money pouch and the monk poured them in. The monk bowed, retreating.

Two sets of hurried footsteps approached. Crispin propped himself against the wall and awaited the archbishop.

Courtenay’s face was white. He knelt by the Prioress and looked up at no one in particular. “Has she been shriven?”

“There was no time for any confessions,” said Crispin. “She was dead when I got to her.”

Courtenay rose. “Are you well, Master Guest? My monk tells me you were hurt-”

He grimaced. “Mostly my pride, Excellency. I fear I have failed you. The relics were stolen.”

“This is a disaster.” He paced, casting anxious looks at the body on the floor. “What’s to be done?”

“We must call in the coroner. It may take a week for him to get here. The body must not be disturbed in that time.”

Courtenay stopped, whirled, and stared at the body. “No, no. We mustn’t. The coroner cannot be called.”

“My lord, it is the law.”

He turned angry eyes on Crispin. “I do not fear the coroner’s fines. This is an ecclesiastical matter. It is not the king’s business.”

“But a murder-”

“Of a nun in a church! By the mass! It’s appalling. Blood has been spilt just as it was in the days of Becket. And his relics … I say it is his blood again spilt on the church floor. I will not have the king’s men fouling this holy place.”

Crispin shook his head. “I do not agree.”

“It is not for you to agree or disagree. You are now charged with discovering the one responsible for these misdeeds and for recovering the relics that I entrusted to you. You and you alone.”

“My lord!”

“My purse is at your disposal, Master Guest. This is to be kept quiet. Do you understand me?”

Crispin clamped his lips and curled his fingers around his dagger hilt. By agreeing to work for the archbishop he had indentured himself. But for how long? Who knew if the bones would ever be found and returned? And what of the murderer? Canterbury was a big city.

Courtenay gesticulated over the Prioress. “She is to be removed and readied for burial. I believe she had a chaplain with her.”

“Her young companion may not be in a fit state,” said Crispin tightly. “She was taken back to the inn. Surely the whole of the inn knows the nature of these circumstances by now.”

“Then it is your task, Master Guest, to see that these tidings do not get further than that inn. You have my full authority in this. See to it.”

The archbishop turned on his heel. The monks stood around the Prioress, loath to touch her.

Crispin stared at the retreating figure of the archbishop. He cast a glance at the sword and with a deep sigh, turned away from Saint Benet’s chapel and said over his shoulder, “I will get you help, Brothers. Leave her for now. Touch nothing.”

He suspected the Prioress would not wish for these brothers to handle her remains. He could seek help from the female servants at the inn. Or perhaps Mistress Alyson. No doubt she would have the stomach for tending to Madam Eglantine and preparing her for burial.

He asked the monk for a cloth to cover the sword. When the man returned, Crispin wrapped the bloody blade in the tattered linen, winding it around several times.

Halfway through the dismal march back to the inn, he met Jack running up the dark and silent road.

“Master! God be praised! Brother Wilfrid said only that the Prioress was murdered. He did not say how you fared.” His obvious relief at Crispin’s fate played out in nervous fussing over his person.

Crispin slapped his hands away. “I am as well as can be expected for a man who has miserably failed at his task. The damned relics were stolen.”

“Oh!” Jack pressed his hands to his face. “You don’t mean it! Not the blessed martyr!”

“I do mean it. Now we must remain in Canterbury for however long it takes to recover them. But I tell you true, Jack. I will not rest until I see that whoreson of a murderer hanged.”

“Why’d they do such a terrible thing as to kill the Lady Prioress?”

“I don’t know, Jack. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Jack shook his head in disbelief. He searched the dark street as if expecting the imminent appearance of devils swooping down upon them. “Are you going to call the hue and cry?”

Crispin clenched his jaw, but the soreness stopped him. “No. The archbishop strictly forbade that. And in fact-” He scanned the quiet street. The houses were dark except for the occasional yellow lines of candlelight etched in the cracks of shutters. “How much was told to those at the inn?”

“When the monk came with the chaplain, all he could blubber was that the Prioress was killed most foully and to beg help for the poor pretty nun.”

He eyed Jack. Poor pretty nun, eh? “Did anyone leave the inn?”

“No, sir. Not that I could tell. Mistress de Guernsey went up to attend Dame Marguerite. The rest have been sitting in the hall drinking and talking.” Jack gestured to the package in Crispin’s hand. “What’s that?”

“This? The murder weapon.” He thrust it into Jack’s hands before the boy could protest. They now stood before the inn door and Crispin pushed it open. The pilgrims had indeed assembled as a quiet crowd. They stood when they saw him enter. Without asking, he was given a beaker of wine, and he sat before the fire, surrounded by the anxious pilgrims. He took a quick inventory. Besides Mistress de Guernsey, one other was missing.

Harry Bailey sat beside him and shook his head. “Can you tell us the tidings, Friend Crispin? What we heard cannot be wholly believed.”

“Believe it.” He drank then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His jaw and his head hurt. Vaguely he wondered if a day was allowed to pass without some part of him in pain. “The Lady Prioress was murdered in the church. At the same spot as Saint Thomas the Martyr.”

The assembly burst into troubled conversation. “It’s an outrage,” cried the portly tradesman. “I have never heard of such a thing. Who could have done it?”

Crispin lowered the bowl from his lips. “I intend to find out.”

The young, pale merchant shook his head. “I cannot recall a time I heard of such a horrific case. By my life, but the last time such a thing occurred must be when the blessed martyr himself was murdered.”

“One of our own,” muttered the tradesman. He eased down to the bench beside Crispin and slid his hand to Crispin’s shoulder. “I was the last one to talk to her. She and Dame Marguerite were leaving for the church. I bid them good prayers. She touched my hand.” He lowered that hand from Crispin’s shoulder and looked at it. “She said to me, ‘Much thanks, Good Miller. Bless you, sir.’ Just that. And then she went. We all traveled for two days together. All of us.” He rubbed his hand absently with the other calloused one. “Whatever you need, sir, I am your man. This cannot be allowed. Not in England.”

“I thank you, Master,” said Crispin wearily. His blood had been hot in pursuit of the killer, but now he felt near to collapse. Cold.

A thump at the stairs made him turn his head. Alyson descended, looking back over her shoulder at the closed room she had just quitted. She ticked her head.

He stood and parted the company to go to her. “How is she? Can she speak?”

“No, alas. She has uttered nothing and does not look as if she will be able to for quite some time.”

“She is the only witness,” he rasped.

“There is nothing to be done,” she said quietly. She turned to the others gathered about them. “Bless me. Such tragedy to befall so temperate a company.”

“The tragedy is great,” said Crispin. “Before I relate the whole of it,” he said to the assembly, “pray tell me … where is Master Chaucer?”

They looked around helplessly.

Sir Philip Bonefey shrugged. “I have not seen him since supper.”

“Were all here for supper?” asked Crispin. An emptiness inside him reminded that he had missed supper, too.

“All but the nuns,” said the merchant. “Bless their souls,” he added, crossing himself. Everyone followed suit.

“Nor were Master Maufesour and Master Chaunticleer,” said Father Gelfridus with a little too much malice.

Chaunticleer the Pardoner squinted his pale eyes at the priest. “We are here now,” he said.

Maufesour, Chaunticleer’s stout companion, stroked his greasy beard. “What has that to do with aught?” he snapped. “We have our own business in town. It is not all saints’ relics for us.”

“Indeed, not,” said Bonefey. “It is your stealing the souls from poor folk who fear the Church’s wrath, foul Summoner,” he said, turning a beady eye on Maufesour, “and the galling fees to be paid to the Pardoner to get them out of Purgatory. You two should always travel together, like Disease and Death, the two partners of Fate.”

Maufesour pushed aside the Pardoner and strode up to the Franklin. “You’d best watch your tongue, Bonefey,” he shouted. “Or you might find yourself slain and not in a fine church, but a back alley as you deserve.” Maufesour’s tirade left spittle dotting the Franklin’s beard.

Bailey and the Miller grabbed Bonefey before he could draw his sword. They wrestled him to a bench. Maufesour huffed and strutted, smoothing out the breast of his gown. Crispin was behind him in an instant and pulled the man’s dagger from its sheath before the Summoner knew it happened. He whirled, but without a weapon there was little he could do but glare.

“Have a care,” said Crispin in a low voice. “Too much blood has already been spilt this night.”

Maufesour calmed, even as he looked at Bonefey, still chomping at the bit. “Very well,” he said. “I will if he will.”

Crispin turned to Bonefey. “Sir Philip, his threats are groundless, as you might have surmised were you to keep your blood cool. Do you acquiesce?”

Bonefey glanced up at the hearty Miller and the equally solid Harry Bailey flanking him and nodded. “I do.”

They released him, and he straightened his houppelande. Crispin approached Maufesour while examining the dagger. The blade was hatched with deep scratches and grooves radiating upward from the point. “Your blade, Master Maufesour, is in poor shape. It looks to me as if you recently tried to pry something open with it.”

Maufesour snatched it back and promptly sheathed it. “Those are old scratches.”

“Indeed not. The scratches go all the way to the edge of the blade. Were they old the whetstone would have erased them from the edges by now.”

Maufesour frowned and glared at the others. “And what if I had? It is of no business of yours.”

“We’ll see about that.” Crispin made a slow circuit of the room, studying the faces glaring back at him. “A heinous murder has been committed.” He wondered whether to continue but decided he’d like to see the reaction. “And further … there has been a theft in the cathedral.”

Gasps erupted. The pilgrims muttered to one another, and invariably, most eyes turned toward the Pardoner and the Summoner. It was not lost on the two. “This is unconscionable!” cried Chaunticleer. “It is plain they mean to accuse us. We are entirely innocent.”

“Not entirely, surely,” said Crispin.

Maufesour lunged forward, hands clenched. “This is an outrage!”

“No one is accusing you,” said Crispin mildly before baring his teeth. “Not yet.”

They stepped back and all eyes focused on Crispin. Jack stood guard by the door. He wore an anxious look and clutched the wrapped sword to his chest. Would any of them bolt? Crispin had little reason to suspect the pilgrims of these crimes, though they all seemed to be acting guilty enough. He slid a glance again toward Maufesour and Chaunticleer. Those two certainly seemed in league with each other. What a coup if they managed to snag one of the greatest relics of all. A pretty price it would bring from some lord. He wouldn’t mind seeing them hang for it.

“It’s my duty to inform you,” said Crispin to the assembly, “that no one is allowed to leave Canterbury.”

“What? That is quite impossible.” It was Father Gelfridus who spoke first, but Bonefey was on his tail.

“You cannot mean to keep us prisoner here,” said Bonefey.

“I do not call it ‘prisoner,’ Sir Philip,” said Crispin. “I simply state that you may not leave the city. Further, I advise that you stay close to the inn. I should not like to go searching for you. And lastly … you are not to mention the murder or the theft. At all.”

“By what authority do you dare this?” cried Bonefey.

Crispin sneered. He pushed Bonefey back until his legs hit a bench, and he sat hard. “I’m not telling you all twice. The archbishop so charged me. I don’t like it any better than you do. But if stay we must, then it is to your benefit to assist me in any way you can. The sooner these crimes are resolved the sooner you can leave.”

They fell silent, each looking at one another.

“Mistress Alyson,” said Crispin. She raised her head. “A word with you.”

She stepped from the crowd and came to him. He moved with her into a corner. She tilted her head back and rested her hand at her hip. “Bless me,” she said. “I’ve never been accused of murder and mayhem before. I assure you, I am just as appalled as the rest. More so, after tending to that poor, sweet nun.”

His jaw ached. “I have not called you aside to accuse you. There is another matter for which I think you are suited. I believe I read you well, madam, in assuming a little blood will not frighten you.”

She nodded solemnly. “You may assume I have a hearty constitution. Do you speak of the Prioress herself?”

He was grateful for her candor. “Yes. The monks are not suited to deal with a woman. The archbishop insists on an expeditious burial. Can I prevail upon you to … to prepare the Prioress?”

She nodded gravely. “I would be honored, sir.”

“Shall I call upon the assistance of the maids here?”

“They are a hardworking lot, but I do not think it prudent to involve them. I can manage without help, I think. I shall go to the cathedral with you.”

He nodded. “It is best it be handled there. The archbishop would prefer it.”

“Let me get my cloak.”

He turned to Tucker. “Keep watch. Harry Bailey can be relied upon to keep our charges here tonight. But I want you to inform me when Chaucer returns.”

Cloaked with her hood raised, Alyson awaited Crispin by the door. In the still of the night, they walked toward the looming cathedral.