Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

He turned his gaze toward the boy. “I thought I rid myself of you.”

“Well now. About that.” Jack wrung the bloody water from the rag into the basin. He laid the cool rag again over Crispin’s wounds. “After I left Newgate, I followed you for a bit.” He lowered his eyes and a blush reddened his pale cheeks. “I wanted to thank you proper, sir, but there isn’t much a lad like me can offer. Before I could speak, you turned down an alley and out of me sight for the blink of an eye and when I got there, I saw these monk’s carrying you off, and you with a sack over your head like you were turnips going to market.”

“Monks?”

“Aye. They looked like monks, all robed in dark cassocks.”

“Hmm. Go on.”

Well, sir, they didn’t see me. I can keep to the shadows like I am one. So I followed them. When you didn’t come out, I gave the hue and cry and some shopkeepers come running. I suppose the noise scared them villains off. Do you know who they were?”

“No.” Crispin reached for his head and then thought better of it. He looked down at the wet rag covering his chest. Red stripes welled up through it. “You probably saved my life back there.”

“Well now. It’s only proper, isn’t it? My being your servant and all.”

“You are not my servant. You must stop saying that.”

“I might have been a fine servant, if my mother and sire weren’t taken when they were. Both died of the plague, you see. And my worthless sister abandoned us. I had to make me own way, didn’t I? What’s a lad of eight to do?”

“What is a lad to do? You were orphaned at eight?”

Jack nodded. “But I managed, sir. By the grace of God.”

Crispin studied the boy’s dirty face and crusted hair. He well knew the sting of losing family at an early age. “How old are you now, boy?”

“Eleven, m’lord. Maybe twelve.”

“Stop calling me ‘lord’. I am no one’s lord. Not anymore.”

“Oh. What shall I call you, then?”

Crispin shifted his position with a grunt. “Call me Crispin. Everyone else does. Now suppose you tell me about this antidote you took.”

Jack offered a shy smile. “You are as smart as they say, eh? Well, when I heard you and the sheriff talk of poison, I said to m’self, ‘Jack, you had best get your arse out of there or all is lost.’ And almost right away I started feeling all queer in me gut. I heaved soon thereafter and kept on heaving till there was naught left. Saints’ toes, I thought I’d vomit m’self inside out! Well, I never been so scared, and I found an apothecary and begged him for a cure. I got in one swallow, went on me way, and then the sheriff’s men nabbed me, and I reckon you know the rest.”

“You are fortunate. I know of no antidote to such a poison.”

“That’s what the apothecary said. He said it wouldn’t do no good for me, but here I am.”

“Yes. Here you are.”

“Right then. What victuals shall I fix you?”

“You will not cook for me.” He closed his eyes half from pain and half from embarrassment. “At any rate…I…I have no food.”

“That’s simple, my lord. I’ll return anon.”

“I am not a lord…Tucker!”

Jack flew over the threshold with a wave. Kemp passed him at the door.

“A fine servant, that,” said the tinker. “Looks like you acquired him just in time.”

“He’s not my-oh hell.” Crispin fell back surrendering to the pillow, and stared at the cobwebs among the rafters.

“I brought some wine.” He lifted the full jug to show him. “It will serve to cleanse your wounds and warm the belly. Now then, if there is more you need, send Jack down to fetch me. Oh. Where was he off to?”

“To get some food.”

“I see. Then circumstances for you must have improved. What with a servant and such. Perhaps, well, perhaps this isn’t quite the proper time, but my wife would hide me if I did not remind you…”

“The rent. I know it well, Martin. I will send Jack anon to pay you.”

“Well then!” Kemp nodded and rubbed his long hands together.

Crispin watched him leave with a pang of guilt. The rent was days overdue, but he had lied about paying him. He had already borrowed from Gilbert and could not even repay that. Vaguely he wondered how Jack was acquiring food and decided he didn’t want to know.

He cast a glance at his money pouch, but it lay undisturbed.

Crispin slowly awoke to savory aromas. He opened his eyes and spied Jack stirring a pot on a trivet over his fire, humming to himself.

“You again? Why are you here?” Crispin asked groggily. “And what’s that?”

“Rabbit stew. Will you have some?”

“How did you afford this rabbit and the rest of it?”

Jack didn’t answer and Crispin rose from the pillow. “Tucker?”

“I’m here to help, Master. As to the rabbit…well now. It isn’t polite to ask after a gift, is it?”

Crispin sighed and laid back.

The mattress sank under Jack’s weight. Crispin sat up, squinting at the boy. Jack offered a steaming bowl.

“It smells good,” Crispin grunted and grudgingly took the spoon.

Jack poured wine into the other wooden bowl and then sat again on the mattress. “Them men,” Jack began while Crispin tasted the stew with a tentative tongue. “What did they want?”

“I wish I knew,” he answered between spoonful’s.

“Must have mistaken you for someone else, eh?”

“Possibly.” Crispin felt Jack’s eyes on him before he looked up at the boy’s anxious features.

“Is it good?”

Crispin offered a crooked grin. “Yes, Jack. Much thanks. For everything. Now, suppose you prepare to be on your way.”

Jack frowned. “After all I done, you’d still be rid of me?”

“Jack, I told you the truth. I haven’t any money to pay you. I haven’t even enough for my rent.”

“Oh, that! That’s taken care of.”

Crispin lowered the spoon. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“I’ve taken care of it, is all.”

Crispin set the bowl aside and lay back. “Jack. What have you done? You did not cut a purse, did you?”

“Aw no, Master. It’s just that I went downstairs to thank Master Kemp for his kindness, and it seems some of his loose coins were sitting there on his accounting books. Well, they were just sitting there and all, and I just naturally come by ‘em. So then I ask him, ‘Master Kemp, how much is it that Master Crispin owes you?’ So he looks in his book and he says the number and I hand him the coins.”

Crispin bit his lip. The pain helped but didn’t entirely dull the smile from curving the edge of his mouth. “You paid him with his own money?”

“Now Master. Don’t you think it’s time you lay back and rest?”

Crispin allowed Jack to push him gently into the pillow. He watched the boy stoke the fire and listened to his humming. He must have slept again, because he awoke some time later and Jack was standing over him. Crispin raised his hand to his forehead. A roaring headache was in full bloom. “What is it, Jack?”

“There is a message for you.”

Crispin noticed the paper in Jack’s hand. “Who brought it?”

“I know not, Master. It was left tucked into the door.”

Crispin unfolded the small bit of parchment and inhaled a sharp breath. There was no writing on the parchment. Only the careful

rendition of a red cross. The cross of the Knights Templar.

Crispin wracked his brain, trying to remember as much about the Templars as he could recall with a sore head and an equally sore chest. Templar history hadn’t been part of his studies as a young man and it certainly wasn’t part of the conversation at court. But he did recall some snippets at various tournaments and battles. How the Templars fought at Mansurah. The Battle of Arsuf under Richard Lionheart. And the last decisive battle in the Holy Land, Hattin. But as with talk of any battle, it was strategy and failure that was studied and discussed, not the wisdom of an order of warrior clerics.