Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

“With the might of the king’s majesty?” said Crispin.

Wynchecombe nodded abruptly. “Yes. Yes, to be sure. Am I right in assuming you mean to hire this churl, John?”

“It is just that he has inconvenienced us, has he not? With his distractions of cutpurses and Templars. We must be about the king’s business, not this nonsense.”

Wynchecombe smiled, though not a pleasant one. “So? What say you, Guest?”

Their mummery was good, he mused. Not as practiced as it could have been, but good enough. “‘Evil draws men together’,” he muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Pardon my asking, but what do I gain from this extraordinary partnership?”

More stuttered.

“What?” cried Wynchecombe. “You mean pay you? Ha!” He finally drank and then grimaced, looking quizzically into the bowl. He handed it off to Jack who took it and sniffed its contents, shaking his head.

“My wages are sixpence a day,” said Crispin.

Wynchecombe laughed. “Sixpence? I pay my archers as much and they work harder.”

“Sixpence is my fee, archer or no. And more often than not, I hit the mark.”

Jack snorted a laugh but quickly suppressed it when both sheriffs eyed him with twin scowls.

“Yes,” said Wynchecombe. “I do recall something a year ago about your finding Westminster Abbey’s missing altar goods. They were returned forthwith.”

“Not so forth with ,” said Crispin, shying from the warmth of flattery. “A fort night , perhaps.”

Wynchecombe pushed More aside to glare hard at Crispin. “You think yourself very clever.”

“As long as I am clever, my lord, I eat.”

Wynchecombe smirked. His dark mustache framed his white teeth. “You were fortunate they did not execute you for treason.” The low growl of his words reassured them both of their status with one another.

Jack froze while setting the empty bowl back on the shelf.

“Was I?”

“Come, Crispin,” Wynchecombe said, magnanimous again. “You live.” He glanced about the dingy room. “Such as it is.”

“My title, my lands all taken with my knighthood,” he managed to say without gritting his teeth. “Yes. I live. Such as it is.”

More snorted and clutched his gloved hand on his sword hilt. “By God! The gall. You were a traitor, sir! Conspiring with other traitors to put Lancaster on the throne over King Richard, the rightful heir.”

Wynchecombe leaned against the wall, his arms folded in front of him. “You do not think you deserved to lose your knighthood over that? Better your knighthood than your head, eh?”

Crispin eyed their swords still in their sheaths before flicking his gaze away. “I know not. In similar circumstances, I, too, might have cast my vote to degrade such a knight. But when it is oneself, the circumstances seem…unjustified.” The flames caught his attention and he shook his head. “Richard is king now. There is nothing to be done. But ‘they should rule who are able to rule best’. I stand by that now as then.”

Wynchecombe laughed. “Still quoting that pagan Aristotle? No wonder you are without your sword.”

“And without food. Do you pay my wage or not?”

Wynchecombe frowned. “Yes. I agree to your fee.”

“Now wait a moment…” said More.

“Be still, John,” Wynchecombe said wearily. “These matters are best left to me, are they not?” More scowled deeply. It was true that Crispin rarely saw More in these duties except to take his place of pride in processions and other high profile events. Still, for Wynchecombe to rub his face in it…

“Though I may not need to pay it,” the sheriff went on. “I know now who killed our missing knight, and it may cheer your heart to hear it.”

Crispin nodded. “Stephen St Albans.”

“How the hell-? Oh! That wench at the Boar’s Tusk.”

“You forget. She is my friend.” Crispin took two steps to the fire and warmed his knuckles near the blaze. Behind him, rain drizzled against the half-closed shutters and misted the floorboards. “Will you arrest him?” The idea tingled Crispin’s neck, coursing an energized sensation throughout his gut.

He did not even look at More. “Yes. Unless you have a better idea.”

“My better idea isn’t exactly legal.” He twisted back to look at both sheriffs. “You do not seem as concerned as one would expect that your corpse has vanished.”

More waved his hand in dismissal. “We no longer need the corpse to know he is dead. It is the same as if he were buried.”

Crispin turned. “But he is not buried! He is stolen. Do you make nothing of that?”

More moved as if to speak but Wynchecombe cut him off. “I do not care.”

“ We do not need the body,” assured More, face glowering comically.

Crispin chuckled. “The Templars are now out of your hair, eh? One problem solved.”

“That is not your concern. Your concern is only to help me find Stephen St Albans.”

“You forget, Wynchecombe. The body must be produced for a trial.”

“I can get round that, never you fear.” He huffed at More and turned back to the fire to warm his hands. “What troubles you? I would have thought nothing would please you more than to put that particular man on the gallows.”

Wynchecombe was right. Nothing could possibly please Crispin more except to drop the rope over Stephen’s neck himself. But something about Stephen’s guilt gnawed at him. He worried at it, like a widow at her rosary.

“Yes,” was all he said. Stephen a poisoner. Crispin hated him with all his being, but was Stephen dishonorable enough to use poison? It was mostly that thought that kept him silent when he and Jack followed the sheriffs out to the street and watched them and their entourage of horses and men finally depart up the avenue back toward Newgate.

Stephen St Albans. Was there a day gone by where Crispin had not thought of him? It was he who revealed the conspiracy that felled many a knight and threw Crispin into the poverty he now suffered. Stephen. Rosamunde’s guardian.

Standing in the street, his mind flitted unbidden to the image of Rosamunde. She had been the most beautiful creature he had ever set eyes on. Did love still haunt him, or was she only one of many objects wrapped in his past like hurts and dashed dreams?

He remembered her pale face on that day when they cut his scabbard and unsheathed the sword. Though all of court watched, only she had mattered. They smashed the blade against the stone floor, but it was well made and expensive, and refused to break. It took three such blows to finally knick the tip. Then they cut his family arms from his surcote, tore off the whole garment, and broke his spurs. Left with nothing but the clothes on his back, the whole court turned away from him. Humiliated, he dared not look at Rosamunde. Did she turn her back, too? Even now he couldn’t decide what was worse: his complete degradation and dispossession, or his loss of her.

She never even fought it. She never stood up to Stephen and came to me. I thought she might. But what woman would have done? Willingly become a pauper and the laughing stock of court, all for him? How could he blame her? Yet he did. A year earlier they had both signed the betrothal contracts and the families thought it a fine match. But something happened between the contracts and the courtship: Crispin fell in love.

How could I not? She was so beautiful . There were many days they would steal away, leaving her maidservants behind. They would kiss and touch and whisper those silly phrases only spoken in romances and love songs. And though he loved and desired her, often raining kisses along her throat, he would go no further. A proper courtier was he.