Veil of Lies (4 page)

“Then why this piss-poor stab to his chest?”

Crispin shook his head. “I don’t know. The attacker saw no more use in continuing, perhaps. Or maybe he heard a sound.” His finger hovered over an almost perfectly round patch of red on the floor beside the body. “See this spot?”

“Only more blood.”

“This is a knee mark. The attacker kneeled here to deliver the last blow that never came.”

Wynchecombe grunted. From appreciation or confusion Crispin could not tell.

“Well, Crispin. With so much evidence, do you suspect anyone?”

Crispin chuckled. “My Lord Sheriff, I did not come here with the intention of investigating a murder.”

“Indeed,” said the sheriff with renewed interest. “Why
did
you come here? And no more of your smart-arse remarks.”

“That is private.”

“Not when the Lord Sheriff asks.”

“
Especially
when the Lord Sheriff asks.”

The sheriff’s gloved hand slammed Crispin’s chest and drew him up. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me clearly. I asked you why you were here.”

Crispin leveled his gaze with Wynchecombe’s. “I cannot tell you.”

The sheriff released him and stepped back but his elbow jabbed Crispin’s belly, bending him in two. Wynchecombe aimed a finger at him and between clenched teeth said, “The next time I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”

Crispin waited for his breath to return. It seemed to take a long time. Once it did, he straightened and rubbed his stomach. William chuckled from his place by the door.

“My principles do not permit me to say,” he rasped, “even though my client is now dead. It concerned a deeply personal matter.”

Wynchecombe adjusted his gloves and glanced sidelong at Crispin. “Principles? When did you acquire those?” He smiled at Crispin’s sneer. “Might any of your client’s secrets have to do with this murder?”

Crispin took a deep breath and stared at the cold body of his client. “It might have. And I promise to alert you if it should take such a turn.”

“You’re going to investigate?”

“Do you have any objections?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Crispin grinned but said nothing.

“Then I give my permission.” Wynchecombe swung his gaze one last time across the room, toward the locked window and the body getting colder on the floor, before he sauntered toward the doorway. But instead of departing, the sheriff whirled and slammed Crispin hard against the wall, fists curled around the breast of Crispin’s coat. With his shoulder blade jammed uncomfortably into the plaster, Crispin winced up into the sheriff’s hardened eyes.

“I’ll give you a day to fully inform me of your role in these matters, Guest. I think a full day is more consideration than you deserve.” His gaze made the circuit of Crispin’s face before he released him with a snort. Crispin sagged, pulling the hem of his cotehardie in a fruitless attempt to smooth the wrinkles. Without another glance, Wynchecombe passed through the doorway with William at his heels. The sheriff’s man cast a long, mocking sneer in Crispin’s direction before succumbing to the corridor’s shadows.

Feeling his cheeks warm from shame, Crispin grabbed his belt and squeezed, hooking his thumbs under the leather. It was better than punching the wall. His cheeks flamed all the more when he heard the shuffling step of Adam behind him. Damn Wynchecombe! Did he have to trample Crispin’s dignity in front of servants? How was he to ask questions of this man and expect truthful answers if he cannot garner respect?

He turned on his heel and glared at Adam, hoping by the force of his will to gain back control of the situation.

But Adam wasn’t paying him any attention. His face was as pale as the sheet he was laying over the body of his master.

Crispin relaxed his wounded pride and took a steadying breath. He studied the area again, letting his eye sweep from point to point. The only possibilities of entrance or egress were the fireplace, the window, and the locked door that now lay in splinters on the floor. The window was untouched and the chimney was too narrow. That left the door. He went to it and knelt at what remained of the latch on the doorway. He ran his hand over it, hoping to find a string or other device to pull the bolt from the other side, but found nothing. He glanced at Adam before he sauntered toward the window and tested the casement again. He tugged on it, but it did not budge.

Adam stood by, his face growing darker the more Crispin touched the objects in the room. Crispin reached above the window and examined the stone frame. “How long have you been a servant in your master’s household?” he cast over his shoulder.

Adam stared at the body and shook his head. “Five years.”

“Did you like him?”

Adam said nothing before he abruptly pivoted toward Crispin. He scowled. “What is your meaning?”

Crispin lowered his hand and stood stiffly before the window. “Nothing. What of Mistress Walcote? How long were they married?”

“Three years.”

“Did they have rows?”

“Everyone has rows.”

“Were they like ‘everyone’s’?”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. He glanced again at the body. “I don’t know. They were loud.”

“Often?”

He shrugged. “Not too often.”

“What did they argue about?”

Adam narrowed his eyes. The servant’s long nose was turned up at the end like an afterthought. “You are not the sheriff. So why do you ask?”

“I’m a curious fellow. Crime intrigues me. I don’t like people getting away with murder. No matter who they are.”

“I don’t like your implication.”

“You are not required to like it.”

Adam postured, his fists clenched. He considered Crispin’s shabby garb again and the absence of a sword. “Well then?”

“I asked what they argued about.”

“I don’t know. But I also saw how the mistress and master are—
were
with each other. I never saw a more devoted wife. And she took his abuse, right enough.”

“A husband is master in his household.”

“Even a master can go too far.”

“Did he?”

Adam clenched his jaw and strode to the washbasin. He meticulously wrapped the soap cake in the towel and placed it in the bottom of the basin. “I’ll say nothing more until I talk to my mistress.” He got halfway over the threshold when he stopped. “If that will be all, I have duties to attend to.”

Before Crispin could reply, Adam headed out across the gallery.

“I’ll let myself out,” Crispin said to the empty room.

Crispin walked with head down into a wet wind that flapped his hood. The chilled air howled through the narrow passage between the two-story shops and apartments, and carried the smell of rain but could not seem to entirely wash away the acrid odor of London’s dim streets and trickling gutters.

He hunched further into his cloak with his shoulders nearly up to his ears.

Heading north, he passed St. Paul’s, its high, stone walls and spires jutting up into the weak sunshine. The bells suddenly rang out Sext and he cocked an eye back at the bell tower, little believing it was already midday. A growl in his belly reaffirmed this, and as he tread up Paternoster Row, he thought he might stop off at a pie seller on Newgate Market on his way back to the Shambles before its smells of butchering put him off his hunger entirely.

When he reached the corner where Newgate Market became the Shambles, he met a seller with a cart of roasted meat on sticks. Crispin paid his farthing and sniffed at the sour meat. Beggars can’t be choosers. He tore the chewy flesh with his teeth while he walked, trying not to think of what animal the meat might have been when alive. It wasn’t much and he finished it quickly as he approached the first butcher stalls, tossing the stick into a gutter already running with the days gore.

A house with a stone foundation and an open doorway revealed Dickon, one of the many butchers along this row. His apron was bloody and his face flushed. He was a big man, suited to the task of hauling carcasses about. “Ho, Crispin!” called the man congenially. Crispin raised his hand in answer but did not reply. The fact that he was acquaintances with butchers and tavernkeepers always put him in a sour mood, and even the friendliness of such associates could not assuage that.

He inhaled the cold, hoping that the thickness of the autumn air could stifle the smell. Not so. As he walked deeper into the Shambles, the stench of death and offal and the coppery scent of blood permeated the stones and timbers of the tightly clustered buildings leaning into the streets. Beef carcasses, stripped of their skin, hung in stalls. Farther down the row were the poulterer’s stalls. Flightless bodies of birds, their wings frozen outward to mock their captive state, hung beside the glassy-eyed corpses of rabbits and suckling pigs. Crispin ignored the cries of the merchants, the thud of cleavers cutting through bone, the clatter of chickens in stick cages. His only thoughts were of home, or what at least constituted the place he slept and ate.

The tinker shop stood wedged between a butcher and a poulterer. It was a small house. The timbers had aged to gray long ago and the daub between was colored a dull and flaking buff. The ground floor boasted one door and one window that folded down into a stall. Above that was the jutted first floor, easing meekly over the ground floor, cradling an iron kettle that hung on a rod, announcing to all and sundry that this was a tinker shop. Though the second level seemed bigger, the inside was cut in half by a wall, one side being Crispin’s entire lodgings, and the other the bedchamber of the tinker and his wife. Though it was not usual to have a tinker situated on the Shambles, it was good business sense on Master Kemp’s part. For there was profitable industry in repairing pots for melting tallow and for making hooks.

A narrow stairway led upward to Crispin’s first-floor room. The rickety stairs were the only thing separating the tinker shop from the butcher’s house beside it. And though it was always dark in the shadow of the neighboring structure, at least it was a private entrance. It was one of the reasons Crispin chose to live there. That, and the rent was cheap.

He plodded to the tinker shopfront and encountered his landlord’s plump wife, sweeping off the beaded rain from the unfolded counter. When Alice Kemp spied him withdrawing his key, she placed a pink fist into her ample hip and leaned on the broom. “Well now. If it isn’t our lodger. The one who forgets when the rent is due.”

Crispin sighed. One day Alice would be found murdered, and no one, including himself, would look too hard for the culprit. “I am aware of how late I am, Madam. Here, then.” He reached into the purse hanging from his belt and took out the last of his coins and placed them into Alice’s damp, open palm. She closed her fingers over them and popped them into her scrip.

“I should charge you more for that boy that calls himself your servant.”

Crispin did not look back while he trudged up the dim stairway. “I do not see why. He is rarely here.”

“All the same,” she shouted after him, voice like ice. “It’s not proper for Master Kemp and me to go uncompensated. Mark me. I shall talk with my husband about it!”

“No doubt,” he grumbled, and put the key to the lock, but before it kissed the metal she shouted again.

“I let that woman into your room. She claimed she was a client.” She hurled the last shrill words with disdain. “She had better be, Master Guest.”

Crispin grabbed his dagger’s hilt in frustration. Did she need to shout her insults across the entire lane? He positioned himself before the door as if to block the sound from the client within, but of course it was far too late. Everyone on the Shambles surely heard her mocking voice. How could they not?

He looked down and realized his hand was still on his dagger hilt. How dearly he wanted to use it on Mistress Kemp! He took a deep breath and dropped his hand away, staring at the closed door. How much had Mistress Walcote heard? His dignity seemed to be a rare commodity these days. And what did it matter in the long run? His personal honor could be measured by the number of coins in his purse. With a weak laugh, he realized that purse was presently empty. He shook his head at the irony. The entire situation was disquieting. The one who hired him was now dead, half a day’s wage still wanting. And now the wife he was hired to follow wanted his services. For what? It did not feel right working for the wife under these circumstances. But coin was coin.

He opened the door.

3

Philippa turned when Crispin entered. Poor he may be, but at least he had a servant to keep his meager room as spotless as he could, even though young Jack Tucker often made himself too scarce to be useful. But today, the floor showed no signs of dirt, and the dust was wiped from the few surfaces of shelf and sill. Even the hearth was clean. A small peat fire threw a ripple of gold across the floor, the only gold that room would likely ever see.

The room itself was small, smaller than even the pavilion tents he used to occupy when he marched to war under the old king’s banner. One shuttered window overlooked the Shambles and a chipped jug with wine sat on the sill of another window on the opposite wall. It opened to reveal a view of the tinker’s courtyard and the many rooftops of London’s streets beyond.

The head of a small pallet bed was situated against the common wall he shared with his landlord Martin Kemp and his wife. On the other side of the hearth in a corner lay a pile of straw where Jack slept, presently unoccupied. A bucket of water sat by the wooden chest near the door. Above that was a shelf of meager foodstuffs—a half-eaten loaf of bread under a cloth, a wedge of cheese, two bowls, and a razor. Nailed to the exposed timber above that was a small brass mirror. A worn table with a wobbly leg took up the space in the middle of the room where a tallow candle on a disk of tin offered its weak light. A chair with arms and a back, and a stool tucked beneath the table, served as both his dining hall and place of business.

These meager sticks of furniture were rented along with the room. Crispin owned only the scant bits of clothing and writing tools lying in the plain wooden chest.

He peeled off his damp cloak and hung it on a peg by the door. Pushing back the hood off his head, he bowed slightly to her. “You made mention you wished to hire me. In what capacity?”

She pouted. Her lips were as red as her velvet gown, and his former sourness was forgotten amid lips and gown and sinewy woman. They reminded him that he still carried the miniature painting of her in his purse. He thought of mentioning it and handing it over, but that was as far as he got.

“How lost does something have to be for you to find it?”

The room’s dim light illuminated only a stripe across her face, revealing heavily draped lids. Her eyes hid beneath thick lashes, unwilling to reveal all. Slanted and sleepy seemed to be their natural posture.

He measured them through the ribboning black smoke of the candle on the table. “You’d be surprised at the things I’ve found,” he said. “Perhaps even mortified.”

She exhaled through her nostrils, blowing the candle smoke toward him horizontally for a moment before the smoke spiraled upward again. “You’d be surprised at the things
I’ve
seen,” she countered. “Perhaps…even mortified.”

He allowed himself a smile. “I know little about you or your husband—
requiescat in pace,
” he said, crossing himself. “What happens behind closed doors does not interest me.”

“It should.” She strode to the table and leaned her thigh against it. “Kingdoms are bought and sold behind closed doors.”

“I own no kingdoms.”

“To be sure.” She perused the room with mild distaste. “If you are so successful at your profession, then why such poor lodgings? I’ve seen stables that are better furnished.”

His smile faded. “If you do not wish to hire me then don’t waste my time.”

She waved her left hand. The gold band gleamed insolently in the candlelight. “I merely asked because I do not trust easily.”

“Indeed. Then why are you here? Alone.”

She turned to look him in the eye. “I trust myself.”

He lowered his face. That was more than he could say for himself. He remembered how she looked with her impatient lover. His face grew hot with the memory. “You must trust someone if you are to get the help you say you need.” He moved away, putting the table between them. “I have no proof of my deeds except by the word of others. I am not a man to parade my triumphs about my person.”

She made a slow measure of him again. She did not smile, but her guarded posture eventually softened. Even weakened. She bit her bottom lip and turned from him. No longer did she wear the expression of the grand lady of the manor, but that of a frightened girl.

“There is something dangerous, something strange hidden in my house,” she said in her throaty voice. “I believe it is why my husband was killed. I want you to find it and dispose of it.”

He frowned. “Why have you not told the sheriff about this?”

She laughed without pleasure. “I reckon I’m a good judge of character, Master Crispin. And of cunning. Of the two, my choice was you.”

He was also a good judge of character, at least he liked to think so. And a good judge of intonation. He again noticed that her accent somehow did not match her status. Her cultivated speech seemed too careful. “There’s no need to be melodramatic,” he said and crossed the room, took up the iron poker, and jabbed it into the ashes and embers. No fire emerged. He broke some sticks and placed them on the radiant coals, blowing on them to catch a flame. When they did, he poked the small fire to give himself time to think.

She moved slowly toward the hearth, each sinuous step rustling the generous fabric of her gown. “You don’t know. You can’t imagine. They killed poor Nicholas. I wish it had never been brought into my house.” She hugged herself even though the fire now burned warmly.

He walked to the back window and closed the shutter. It did not close all the way, and the wind whistled through the open crack. He moved back toward the fire. “They? Who killed him? Your lover?”

“I have no lover.”

He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are we to play this game again? Very well. Then I will checkmate you. I saw the two of you together at the Thistle. In the room.” He raised his brows meaningfully. “I saw what transpired. Must I go on?”

Her expression did not change except to cool. “I have taken the time, Master Guest, to visit these…lodgings. And I have precious little time to give.”

“You would protect a murderer?”

She turned her face away and he stared instead at a soft cheek and a braid looped over a pink ear. “I protect no one but my husband. Now he is beyond my protection.” She whirled. “What good would it do anyone to kill Nicholas?”

“Why Madam, then your lover could have you for himself.”

She shook her head. “Nonsense. He don’t want—” She pressed her lips closed. This time one edge of her mouth turned up in a smile.

“Then I have another question,” he said, monitoring her reactions. “Did
you
kill him?”

The smile vanished. “No!”

He moved nearer. Her expression remained cool. She seemed aware of his closeness, and like a feral animal, attuned herself to it. One shoulder rose and she tucked her chin down. She looked up at him through a veil of lashes. He detected the faint, sweet scent of elderflowers and found himself leaning closer.

She blinked, slow and even. Her gaze seized him, as if drawing him into a secret she was not yet willing to reveal. He could not help but lose himself in those lustrous eyes.

“I know I can trust you,” she rasped. Could those lips truly go unkissed by other men? He tried to imagine what her lips tasted like, how they felt. Were they soft and pliant, or merely flat and moist? He found he wanted to know. He wanted to taste them, to bite them, to feel them like petals running down his flesh. He wondered if she felt the same for him—and then with a jolt he reminded himself of her husband.

He retreated deliberately.

She took a deep breath and the neckline of her gown rose and lowered. Her face grew somber. “What I am about to say, well. It is plainly unbelievable. But you must believe it. If you don’t, then I might as well leave now.”

“How can I promise before I hear?”

Her eyes searched his. They seemed to drag him forward and shake him, willing him to listen. “Do you believe in the power of holy relics?”

He ran his hand over the back of his neck to wipe away the sweat. “I may have had a run-in or two with relics.” He nodded. “But I do not know whether I believe in their power or not.”

“But you must believe in this. Have you ever heard of the veronica?”

“Do you speak of Veronica’s Veil?”

“Aye. But there are supposed to be many veronicas. They take the words from the Latin and Greek,
vera icona
. It means—”

“True Image,” he finished. “Yes, Madam. I know my languages.”

She nodded. “There is one veronica’s veil that our Lord encountered while on his way to the cross. The woman Veronica offered her veil to wipe our Lord’s face, and his image was miraculously imprinted upon it. The other was the shroud from his tomb. But there were others that came before.”

“I never heard of these.”

“Few have.”

“How do
you
know of them?”

“May I sit?”

He motioned her to take the only chair. He sat on the edge of the chest.

Methodically, she folded her hands on her lap. She took her time as if she were recounting exactly how to sit and how to place her hands. Finally she raised her head. “Six months ago Nicholas returned from a long journey on the continent. When he returned, he was a changed man. Nervous. Afraid. Oh, I know what they say. He never leaves the house except to travel. He was always cautious of strangers. But this was different.
He
was different. I begged him to tell me what vexed him but he would not. Soon he had locks affixed to every door, and me and Adam Becton were given the only other keys and told to lock the doors after going through each of them.”

“Adam Becton? The steward?”

“Aye. You met him.”

He frowned. “Yes. Becton. Go on.”

“There isn’t much more to tell. Nicholas told me about this Mandyllon, that’s what he called it, and that he kept it in the house. I want it gone.”

“But why should you fear such a thing? Surely your husband was duped into believing it was authentic. There is much traffic in so-called relics—”

She shook her head. “No. It is authentic. And it is dangerous.”

“In what way?”

“It does things to people.”

“What sort of ‘things’?”

“Please! Can’t you find it and rid me of it? I will pay you.” She rose and fumbled at her scrip. Crispin watched dispassionately while she spilled a handful of coins on the table, more money than he had seen for a long time. She raised the coins in her cupped hands and thrust them toward him. “Take them! And I will no longer be cursed!” He said nothing and her face became fierce. “You need it, I have it. Take it and do as you are bid! Are you so rich that you would refuse a Walcote?”

The words stung that sore place on Crispin’s pride. He lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. The coins jangled and hit the table, some spinning across the floor. He tightened his grip. “I work for myself. I do what I like, when I like. And I need not abide a lying, adulterous serpent of a woman filling my head with straw and nonsense about cursed relics. I care not how wealthy you are. You reek of blood. It could be mine next.”

Fear changed her expression to something wild and distant. She stared at his whitened fingers wrapped around her wrist. “You are hurting my arm,” she said.

He chuffed his displeasure and threw her hand aside. “Our business is over. Take your coins and be gone.”

She blinked hard in succession. Her red lips grew darker when she mashed them together. “You won’t help me?”

“Why should I? You come to me with a ridiculous story to hide your own wantonness. I do not wish to waste my time. Good day.”

“I cannot go to the sheriff.”

“That is not my affair. Good day, Madam.”

She raised her chin and gathered the coins. He helped her find those on the floor and dropped them smartly into her open scrip. She said nothing more and strode in harsh steps to the door, yanked it open, and stomped through.

Crispin stood for a moment looking at the open doorway.

“I’m hungry,” he decided.

He sat by the fire in the Thistle and stared up the staircase to the door of Philippa Walcote’s most recent tryst. The thick broth he ordered tasted savory, its flavors melting on his tongue, but he found no pleasure in it when considering the possible identity of her dark paramour. With a hunk of brown bread, he sopped the rest of the pottage out of the bowl and looked up from his meal with a belch before he spied a familiar face that had obviously not yet noticed him.