Authors: Jeri Westerson
A ginger-haired boy threaded through the crowd, squeezing through with apologies on his lips. Unseen by the patrons, his hand with the small knife slipped down and up, neatly slicing purse from belt on one man after another without detection. It was something quite amazing to behold and Crispin couldn’t help admiring the boy’s skill even as he grew more annoyed with him. The boy zigzagged quickly through the throng and slipped outside.
Crispin followed hard on his heels, came up behind him, and nabbed his hood. “Jack Tucker.”
Jack spun. “
Master!
What are
you
doing here?”
“Working. And so are you, I see.”
“W-what? Me?” He tried to hide his hands as if their mere presence made him guilty. “I gave up me thieving ways when you rescued me from the sheriff, remember? All I want in this life is to serve you.”
“And I told you I don’t want a servant.”
“Now, Master Crispin. A man like you ought to have a servant.”
“If you would have it so, then why aren’t you at home?”
“Well, I just stepped out for a breath of air, didn’t I.”
“You’re a bit far from the Shambles.”
Jack smiled. It lifted his entire countenance into an act of revelry with its blunt nose, ginger hair, and array of freckles speckling his cheeks and forehead. “The air’s better over here,” he said.
“Let’s have it.” Crispin opened his hand.
Jack tugged uncomfortably on his tunic. “Now Master. I’m hurt, I am. That you should doubt me when I said I’d given it up.”
Crispin thrust his hand down the open laces of Jack’s tunic and pulled out the money pouches. Three in all. “And how did you come by these?”
Jack pressed his lips together and looked at the ground. “It’s a very hard habit to break, sir. And I know you’ve been low on funds. I was just trying to help.”
Crispin laid his hand on Jack’s shoulder. The boy winced at first, but relaxed under Crispin’s gentle tone. “I do not need this kind of help, Jack. You know my stance on this. You are the one who insists on being my servant, not I. If you truly wish to be worthy, then I suggest you return these to their owners. Now.”
“But Master—”
“
Now,
Jack. I will watch.”
Crispin handed back the pouches, crossed his arms over his chest, and raised his brows expectantly. Jack withered under his gaze. “Ah now.
All
of them?”
Crispin’s frown deepened. “And be careful about it, boy. If they notice you and mistake your purpose, you’ll surely hang, and I won’t be able to save your neck a second time.”
Grumbling, Jack moved back into the inn followed by Crispin. The boy slipped through the crowd and handed each pouch back to its rightful owner, explaining how he’d found them on the floor. The men thanked him and suspiciously tucked them away in their coats, except the last man. He withdrew a farthing and handed it to Jack, thanking him for his honesty.
Jack returned and showed Crispin the coin. “Now look at that! For my honesty. The Lord does forgive!”
“Yes. And you’ll repay Him by dropping that in the alms basket next Sunday.”
“But Master! What good is an honest living if you can’t keep a day’s wage?”
Crispin hid his smile by turning away. A day’s wage. How hard it was to earn one honestly. He could almost sympathize with Jack. He stared at the boy in all his bland simplicity; a boy who wanted to become what Crispin once was to his former lord John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. Crispin, too, had followed his lord about, seeking encouragement and flattering words. He had worked hard in Lancaster’s service, though not for a wage, for Crispin had been wealthy enough on his own, being Baron of Sheen. But after Crispin’s disgrace eight years ago, Lancaster did not welcome Crispin’s company. Yet there was a time when they had been so close. Like father and son. Yet even father and son can have a falling out. Crispin only wished it hadn’t involved treason.
Treason. He was the only man he knew who had been found guilty of it and yet lived. By all rights, his body should have been strung up at Smithfield, his entrails dangling from a battered corpse, dead eyes plucked out by ravens. But it was Lancaster who had begged the king. Though he could not save Crispin’s knighthood or his title, he had at least saved his life.
He sighed. Ancient history. Best forgotten.
Jack was no page to Crispin’s lord. There would be no lands to inherit for him, no battalions to lead in war. Crispin did not even pay the lad, but instead compensated him for his time and his company in food and lodgings, and those were poor wages indeed. In many ways, he envied Jack Tucker his blissful ignorance.
Crispin well remembered the day he had caught Jack stealing Crispin’s meager purse. On that day several months ago now, the boy had been more animal than man. Eleven years old, possibly twelve, Jack was dirty with mud and lice. An orphan, a street beggar, and thief. Bound for the gallows, Crispin had rescued him from Sheriff Wynchecombe’s clutches only to be rewarded by the boy’s unexpected and unflagging devotion. One day he found the boy in his lodgings cleaning the place and the next thing he knew the knave had moved in. An opportunist, was young Jack.
Crispin turned from the boy’s concentrated gaze and looked back at the inn’s hall with its revelers and quiet sorts drinking at their places, stuffing their mouths with food.
Philippa’s lover was lodged here. The more he thought about him the tighter the knot in his neck became. Who was he? Did she harbor a murderer? He could call in the sheriff, but the thought left a sour taste in his mouth. He couldn’t merely forget it or leave it to the sheriff, especially when his client was killed right under his nose.
That was bad for business.
He pushed his way deeper into the room, searching for the innkeeper. Jack scrambled to keep up with him. “What are we doing, Master?”
Crispin jabbed his finger at Jack’s nose in warning. “
You
are being quiet.” He hailed the innkeeper.
The innkeeper’s plain face resembled a hound’s with its long features and jowls. His oversized hands hung from hairy forearms. “Aye, good Master. What can I do for you?”
“I would know who is staying in the room at the top of the stairs,” said Crispin. “I think it is an old friend of mine. Dark hair, ruddy complexion…”
The innkeeper glanced up the stairs and turned a perplexed expression back on Crispin. “But Master, there is no one staying in that room.”
“Nonsense, man. I just saw him there not too long ago.”
“Good Master,” he said with a chuckle. “Someone plays a jest on you. There is no one in that room, today or yesterday.”
“Well now,” said Crispin good-naturedly. “A jest. That must be it. What a fool I’ve been, eh?”
“Not at all, not at all. And you are a good fellow to take it so well. Is there anything else?”
“No, thank you. I’ve had my wine.”
The innkeeper left and Crispin’s smile quickly fell away.
“What’s that all about?” Jack whispered.
“Jack, I have a task for you. Go up the stairs to that room and go inside.”
Jack blanched. “What? Me?”
Crispin sat at a vacant table and toyed with an empty wine bowl. “Yes. You. You’re so anxious to commit larceny, I thought you would jump at the chance.”
Jack looked up the stairs and then back at Crispin. He sat beside him on the bench. “What am I supposed to do once I’m in there?”
Crispin smiled a lopsided grin. “The innkeeper is lying. He’s let the room to a lodger. I want you to steal his scrip.”
“Master! After what you just gone and told me! For shame on you. That’s not an honest living, now is it?”
Crispin curled his arm around Jack’s shoulders and leaned in. “We’re not stealing it for the money, Jack,” he said in conspiratorial tones, “but for any information it may contain on the man. Got it?”
Jack sighed and rubbed his nose. “What if it ain’t there? What if he’s got it with him?”
“Then we’ll wait till he returns.”
“What if he’s there now?”
“You’re the thief. Reason it out.”
Jack thought a moment, then nodded decidedly. “Right, then!” He leaped to his feet and stomped up the stairs. At the top of the shadowed stairway, he looked both ways down the dim gallery and gently tugged the door ring. When it did not budge, he looked again down the gallery of closed doors, knelt, and worked at the lock until he sprang it.
Crispin glanced to either side of him. No one seemed to notice the boy’s covert activity hidden by the gloom and smoke of the gallery above.
Jack winked down at Crispin, gently pulled the door, and looked inside. He raised his thumb to Crispin and, like a shadow, slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind him.
Crispin settled himself and spun the empty bowl to pass the time. He glanced up the stairs now and again. Time dragged. A man with a bagpipe struck up a lively tune. A few men drummed their hands on the table to follow the rhythm. When the piper finished, they tossed him some coins.
Crispin lifted the bowl, forgetting it was empty. With a snort he put it down again and looked up the stairs. At last the door opened and Jack’s head appeared. He shut the door softly behind him and took the stairs two at a time and flopped down on the bench beside Crispin.
“Well?”
“Got it!” Jack reached under his shirt and pulled out the scrip.
Crispin snatched it and opened the flap. He pulled out several papers and smoothed them out on the table and stared at the writing.
“What does it say?” Jack whispered, peering over Crispin’s arm.
Crispin shook his head. “I don’t know. It is close to Latin, but it is not Latin.” He ran his finger along the scrawl. “I suspect this is Italian. But I cannot read much of it.” The man did not look Italian to him. He looked like a Saracen from the desert countries. It’s possible he was a merchant who traveled through the Mediterranean. That would account for the Italian papers. But why would Philippa Walcote take up with a Saracen? Such activities were more than immoral; they were against Church law.
He sat in thought for a moment before he folded the papers again and stuffed them into the scrip. “You’d better take this back now.”
“Take it back? But Master—”
“And Jack, put back the coins you took from it.”
Jack heaved a bitter sigh and with deadly slow fingers, pulled the coins from the folds of his shoulder cape and slammed them back in the scrip.
“Hurry, now,” said Crispin, resting his elbows on the table.
With heavy steps, Jack returned up the stairs and disappeared inside the room. No sooner had the door closed than the inn’s door opened with a whoosh of autumn air and crackling leaves swirling in small eddies and collecting in the corners. Ordinarily, such an event would not cause Crispin to take much note of it. But in this instance, he turned and squinted at the man who entered. The man wore a long, dark cloak with a pointed hood. The door shut behind him, blowing the hood low over the man’s face. The capering light from the hearth painted the edges of the cloak in a fiery outline and dropped any clue to his features in impenetrable shadows.
Crispin had only snatched a glimpse of the man’s face before it disappeared again, but he thought he recognized the man as Philippa’s paramour.
Crispin darted a glance up the stairs to the room in which Jack was now trapped.
The man made a cursory sweep of the room—only revealing a shadowy vision of his features—and stomped purposefully toward the stairs, cloak rippling.
Crispin stood. “Jack,” he mouthed. What could he do for a distraction? Call to the man? But what? Who was he?
No time to think. The man reached the bottom step and rose up the first tread.
Crispin moved quickly around the table, jabbing his thigh on the corner of the wood. He strode quickly toward the man, but the cloaked figure was at the top of the stairs in a heartbeat. Jack would come out of that door at any moment and be caught. Crispin grabbed for the sword that no longer hung at his side. “God’s blood!” His hand went for his dagger instead and he rushed up the first three steps.
“Oi, Master!” said Jack behind him.
Crispin spun, nearly toppling down the stairs. “What the devil are you doing
there
?” Heart racing, blood rushing through his ears, he stared at the smiling boy.
Jack shrugged, still smiling. “I heard someone on the stairs and thought it was our man. So I hightailed it out the window.”
Crispin breathed again and grinned. He mussed the boy’s already disarrayed curls. Jack ducked away from his touch. “You did well, Jack.” Crispin glanced up the stairs. The man had disappeared into his room. The door was shut again. Crispin didn’t feel like confronting the man this instant. There was time. Crispin gave the tavern room a final perusal and signaled to Jack.
“What’s the task?” The boy asked, walking beside Crispin into the street, arms swinging.
Crispin sniffed the cold, damp air. It smelled like the mold at the back of a privy. “Adultery. But I suppose it is now murder.”