Veil of Lies

8

Cold water lapped over Crispin’s nose and mouth, and he jerked awake, choking and spitting. He blinked, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He shivered from the cold and wet. Dark. He seemed to be moving, floating.

Slowly, he realized his hands were lashed behind his back and his ankles tied together. He bobbed in the water against something hard and jagged.

Now wide-eyed and fully awake, Crispin measured his predicament. Dead of night, floating in the Thames, and bound. His feet were tied to something. A weight? But if they were, shouldn’t he be in the bottom of the river by now?

He jerked his legs but they were caught on something. Whatever they had used hadn’t worked and his own natural buoyancy had kept him alive. At least for now. He had obviously drifted with the current and was deposited under a wharf.

A swell thrashed him against the crusty pier and washed over his face. He spat the brackish water and lifted his chin. If he did not drown with the tide, he would certainly be battered to death.

Night still hung above the lapping water in dense, bloated clouds of fog. To call for help was useless. No one would hear. He struggled with his bonds, but the water made the rough rope tight. His clothes added more weight. His belt cinched the wet garments to his waist.

The belt. His knife! Still there?

With cold-deadened hands, he felt with the tips of his fingers for the belt. Index and middle fingers grasped it. He pulled in his gut and managed to inch the belt slowly around his waist. Another swell made him rise and washed another brackish swallow of water in his mouth. He shivered but willed himself to stop, to calm his racked body. In such a state, the work would take longer, and he knew he didn’t have much time left. His whole body felt numb and heavy as if it had soaked up the entire Thames.

Laboriously, he continued to drag the belt, but it pulled his coat into bulging gathers.

His fingers touched something. The scabbard? He walked his fingers along the leather until he felt the dagger’s metal guard. He pulled the belt further—difficult for the soaking coat—and managed to wrap his fingers around the hilt.

A disorienting wave lifted him and he hit the pier. Barnacles cut into his shoulder, exciting a wave of pain. He spat water, forgetting the ache and numbness, and concentrated on the dagger’s hilt.

Slowly, he edged the knife from the sheath. The hilt danced on the tips of his deadened fingers. Then the knife slipped. He clenched his hands. They were so cold he wasn’t sure if he had it. He squeezed with all his might and detected something there. Not the coat, he prayed. Something hard between his fingers.

The knife hilt.

He forced his lungs to breathe fully and evenly against his shivering. He inched the blade from its sheath, using his heartbeat as a measuring guide. Slowly…slowly. He felt the tip linger on the edge of the sheath and teeter once free. The knife hung for a moment in his hands. He blew out a breath just as a swell covered his mouth and his breath came out as bubbles. He crashed against the pier again, numbing the scratched shoulder. He tightened his grip on the knife, thankful to have a hold of it.

Though he could no longer feel his knees, he bent them so his knife could reach the tether at his ankles. The action rolled his back and pulled his face below the water. He held his breath for as long as he could and sawed at the wet rope.

Flexing his knees again, he popped his face above the water, took a deep breath, and plunged again, straining his shoulders to saw his feet free from behind his back. Back and forth he bent and flexed and then rested. It seemed to take hours. Was it taking hours? Crispin’s mind unfocused, and he shook out his head to sharpen his concentration again. If he let his mind go he would certainly die.

The rope snapped and his numb feet floated free. He rested a moment before he pulled his knees to his chest and rolled in the water. With a grunt, he yanked his bound hands up from under his feet to the front. One hand hung on his boot. The effort tired him and he bobbed in the water for a span, spine curled, one leg straight with the other gathered to his chest. He breathed, gazed for a moment at the stars, and wondered, only briefly, if it was the last time he would see them.

With waning strength he pulled his hand free. Both legs were now straight and his arms hung forward. With hands still bound, he swam to shore, unsure where along the Thames he was, and crawled up the bank. He lay on the rocky beach, shivering and panting. Gathering what was left of his strength, he drew the knife blade down with his fingers and sawed at the bonds at his wrist while lying prone, the waves lapping at his boots. And then…

Free.

Crispin sprawled on his back, arms splayed like a damp crucifix, the stones of the shore digging into his spine. But he did not care. He was alive. Finally he turned over and rose on his hands and knees, spitting out the last of the Thames. Unsteadily he regained his feet and wrapped his sodden cloak about him, though its icy dampness did little to protect from the cold. I must go home pulsed through his mind. Between the strangulation by Mahmoud’s henchmen and the near drowning, Crispin’s head was good for nothing but the one thought.

He staggered up the bank and glanced up the road, recognizing Thames Street at the mouth of the Walbrook. At least he landed on the correct side of the river, though he had a long way to go to the Shambles.

Crispin gathered his cloak and hugged himself, dragging his numb feet one in front of the other. Vaguely, he thought of seeking shelter in a tavern, but those establishments were surely barred at this time of night. He saw no lights in any windows.

The wind gave no quarter and whipped about his wet clothes, encasing him in an icy cocoon.

Somehow he managed to get to the Shambles, to ascend the stairs of Martin Kemp’s tinker shop. But when he reached the landing he was unable to uncurl his claw of a hand to open his own door. Out of the wind but far from warm, Crispin collapsed at his threshold just as Jack Tucker opened the door.

Crispin dreamed of the giant hearths at Lancaster’s palace. Sheathed in a large fur robe, he settled on a cushion before the blazing fire. A pot of mulled wine warmed soothingly near the flames and its aroma of spices and cinnamon melted his humor into a mellow mood.

Someone nudged his shoulder. “Master,” he said. “Master Crispin.”

Crispin opened his sticky eyes and slowly recognized Jack. The robes wound round him were not fur but woolens, and the spiced aroma from the fire was little more than his steaming clothes drying before the hearth.

“My lord,” said Jack, kneeling by the bed and ignoring Crispin’s admonitions not to use the latent title. “What happened to you, sir?”

Crispin pulled the warm, dry blanket under his chin. He looked down at his wrist and the raw weal encircling the bone where the ropes had been. “Our friend at the Thistle,” he began, in a raspy whisper, “has even bigger friends. I do not think I was meant to survive.”

He recounted to Jack all he knew, from the first moments of his encounter with Mahmoud to his struggle in the freezing Thames.

Jack did not close his mouth throughout the telling, shaking his head and muttering prayers. When Crispin finished, Jack frowned. “So Philippa Walcote sold her body to this pagan—not for money, but because…because why?”

“An interesting question. One I shall put to her the moment I am able to stand.”

Jack rubbed his mouth and squinted. “But Master. Might she be in danger now that this man has told you their doings?”

“They think I am dead. But she needs to be warned that perhaps Mahmoud’s intentions have changed. You’d better give her a message.”

Jack nodded, his hand on his knife hilt.

Crispin thought of asking Jack to get his writing things, but he worried at Philippa’s reading skills. “Get her alone, Jack. Tell her that the man at the Thistle has told me all and her life may be in jeopardy.” He lay back and licked his lips. They tasted of fear. “Go quickly, Jack.”