Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

“A servant woman or higher?”

“Oh, much higher. Fur-trimmed cloak and all.”

He nodded. “You were correct on one account, Eleanor. It was good to talk.” He climbed from the bench and before Eleanor could speak again, he slipped out the door.

A soft rain gentled the street, hazing its somber features. He pulled the leather hood over his head and clenched it over his chin. The chill still permeated the scuffed leather, and it suddenly reminded him of warmer capes and cloaks he once owned, fur-lined with fox or miniver. Some were sturdy weaves of wool while others were of velvet and brushed serge. His boots, too, had been sturdier and also lined with fur, except for the courtly slippers with their impossibly long, pointed toes.

His fist tightened on the hood and he felt the raw skin stretch. He used to have gloves, too. Masculine things for the hunt or on the lists. He remembered the feel of his gloved hands curled around a sword hilt, or pulling back the strings of a hunting bow with the gloved fingers veed around a nocked arrow.

One man took all these things away. Stephen.

Crispin felt giddy. If Rosamunde’s brother was the last man to see the Templar alive-a man he had argued with-then there was a good possibility he could be the murderer. It was almost too good to be true.

Crispin exhaled a laugh more like a bark. “Then you’ll hang,” he whispered into the hood. “I will make certain that you’ll stand in disgrace on the scaffold and hang for your crime. And I will be the one to bring you to justice. Thank you Jesu for this mercy!”

It fit nicely into his plots of revenge. Stephen guilty of murder. Stephen hanging.

Until his thoughts suddenly drew up short. What about the woman?

He rubbed his face. Who was she and what did she discuss with the dead Templar? Did she have anything to do with the murder?

“Perhaps not,” he reasoned. “Perhaps it is mere coincidence.”

A crowd blocked the avenue and stopped his momentum and his musings. People seldom gathered in the rain. Most Londoners did their best to escape the muddy streets and raw wind. Why then should this mob gather here?

Crispin peered through the throng and saw an ordinary man who smiled and waggled his arm. The crowd seemed to be excited by this.

“What the devil is going on?” Crispin demanded to no one in particular.

One of the men standing beside him pointed at the man in the center of all the attention. “Said his arm’s been healed.”

“Healed? How?”

“Miracle, I suppose. I don’t know the man. Don’t know what all this foolery is.”

Crispin watched the man in the center of the crowd. The people guffawed or congratulated him on his good luck, but did not seem interested in dispersing. Crispin observed them for a moment more before he gave up with a shrug and pushed his way through.

The lowly were always making more of such events than were called for, he decided. A physician’s remedy somehow becomes a miracle. The simple truth of it, Crispin knew, was that the body healed on its own. He himself sustained many a battle wound, some horrendous. Nasty gashes from swords; blows from maces that dented his helm. But he recovered each time, some under a physician’s art and some simply because of his own obstinacy.

He walked on, thinking of Man’s folly, of his own, and even of revenge. “Living on revenge,” he muttered, considering Eleanor’s words. He had not liked those words when she spoke them, but now he could not erase them from his mind. They rang in his ear, punctuated by each of his plodding steps. They prevented him from immediately noticing Jack Tucker standing in his path until he nearly ran him down.

Crispin stopped and looked up. “My shadow,” he said with a frown.

“Aye, sir. A good servant knows what his master is about.”

Crispin felt in no mood for the “not my servant” roundelay, so he said nothing and side-stepped him.

“The sheriffs are awaiting you at your lodgings, Master,” Jack said to Crispin’s retreating back.

Crispin took one more step then stopped. He raised his head and stared up into the raining sky. It misted his cold cheeks with the patter of drops. “Of course they are,” he muttered defeated. “Then I must see them at once, no?”

“They are not patient men.”

Crispin yanked his cloak across his chest and cursed under his breath. “Neither am I.”

Crispin found Sheriff Wynchecombe and Sheriff John More staring at his meager hearth flames when he entered. Jack took up a post in a corner of the small room. Crispin nearly told him to be off but at the last moment decided against it. He turned to Wynchecombe and More and bowed. “Welcome, my lords,” he said without a shred of welcome in his voice. He strode past the sheriffs to stoke the fire.

“So these are your lodgings.” Wynchecombe looked about with distaste. His gaze swept over Jack but there did not appear to be any recognition in his eyes.

“What would you expect?” said More. He was a shorter, rounder man than Wynchecombe, appearing his opposite in every way. Where Wynchecombe was dark, More was light with sandy blond hair. And where Wynchecombe sported beard and mustache, More was clean-shaven like Crispin. His houppelande was scarlet with small pearls sewn onto the chest. He chuckled and placed his thumbs in his wide belt. “For my part,” he went on, “it appears better than I anticipated.”

Wynchecombe scowled. London well knew that he did not approve of his partner being elected to the post of sheriff and in fact, More was more absent in most proceedings than not. He sniffed, ignoring More. “Why London, Crispin? One would think you would hide yourself far from here.”

“A man can lose himself in London. Or at least…” He set the poker aside and faced them both. “He can try.” He felt a wave of uneasiness with the sheriffs standing in his place of safe and private surroundings. “My lords, to what do I owe-?”

Wynchecombe looked at More before answering. “The body is gone.”

Crispin raised a brow. “Indeed.”

More shook himself. “Is that all you can say?”

“What would you have me say, Lord Sheriff?”

“Damn you, Guest,” said Wynchecombe. “You couldn’t let it go, could you? Couldn’t let me hang that useless cutpurse who now seems to be your lap dog. Now it’s missing Templars and dark mysteries. I want none of it, I tell you.”

“You have a sworn duty-”

Without warning, Wynchecombe slammed his forearm into Crispin’s chest and pinned him against the wall. Jack made a half-hearted lurch forward, but truly, what could he do?

More stood beside the fire uncomfortably, shuffling from foot to foot.

Inhaling a sharp breath through his teeth, Crispin swore softly. The freshening pain of his wounds smarted. “Don’t tell me my duty,” Wynchecombe spat at Crispin’s cheek. “I know it right well.” The sheriff waited, but Crispin said nothing. Wynchecombe snorted. He held Crispin one moment more before releasing him. He paced, as if nothing had happened between them. “But this,” he said. “This is beyond me. Templars. Bah! I tell you I know not what to do.” He snarled in Jack’s direction and the boy cringed. There was a pause and Crispin waited for whatever pronouncement Wynchecombe would surely hurl at him. Instead, he was surprised by Jack scurrying around them offering bowls of wine. Wynchecombe took one, looked into his bowl, but did not drink. More refused the offer, lifting his face in disdain.

“Perhaps…we might work together on this,” offered More.

The wine proved interesting again to Wynchecombe, but only to look at. “Eh? What is it, John?”

“Well, might I suggest, just this once, mind you, that Master Guest…I mean him with his history as a knight and us with… with…”