Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

“Ah no, good Master. That is my way, you see. ’Twas I what stumbled against him.”

Crispin saw the room in his mind’s eye. The smoky interior flickered in the firelight. The windows were shuttered against the rain and mist. Candles on the tables offered some light but only sparsely. Crispin’s wine bowl sat before him but there were many discarded on the table, just as there had been in front of the dead man. “There were many bowls on that table. Do you tell me the servant drank from none of them?”

“I only know what I saw, Master, and as you know, I had naught to drink. Until I drank that cursed poison.”

Crispin looked at his wine but did not drink. “Jack, when you bumped into him, did you take his purse as well?”

“Ah, no, Master. He moved too swiftly for me.”

“Damn!”

“Oh, but I did get his broach.”

Crispin slowly raised his face. “Tell me, Jack,” he said, trying to calm the excitement in his voice. “You do not, by any chance, still have that broach, do you?”

“Oh, aye.”

Crispin shot from his chair and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. Jack squealed in surprise and pushed away from him. “Here now!”

“That broach, Jack. Get it!”

“Very well,” he said cautiously once Crispin let him go. He went to the door and grasped the jamb. He guiltily looked back once at Crispin before he pulled and loosened the board and reached with his stick-thin arm into the opening.

Crispin marveled that such a secret place hid under his very nose, but he admired Jack all the more for his ingenuity.

At last, Jack pulled out a parcel wrapped in a rag and tied with string. He laid it on the table and ran his hand under his nose. “Now then,” Jack said, the same hand resting on the parcel. “When I open this, you may be surprised by what’s inside. But there’s no sense in your insisting I return these items to their owners for I have long since forgotten who owned them. I am at your mercy, sir.”

Crispin returned a solemn countenance to Jack’s grave one. “I swear on my honor, Jack, that I will say nothing.”

“Right then.” Jack took his knife and cut the parcel’s string and opened the rag. Crispin’s eyes widened when he beheld the many folded documents, wax seals and leather ribbons in tact. But there were also rings, brooches, pins, and loose gems.

“Jack!” he gasped. “God’s blood!”

“It’s me treasure,” he said sheepishly. “For my retirement. A man can’t be a thief all his life.”

Crispin laughed and touched the boy good-naturedly on the shoulder. “No indeed. My hope is that no new items of late have been added to this cache.”

Jack lowered his face and muttered, “‘Of late’? Well, that depends on what you mean by that.”

“Never mind for now. How is it I missed these things when I caught you that night?”

Jack smiled. “It’s a clever thief with more than one place to hide his spoils.”

Crispin eagerly scanned the cache again. “Which one belonged to the servant?”

“Now let me think.” Jack picked through his bounty and finally weighed something in his hand, nodding. “This one. I think it is this one. With the bird.”

Crispin took the broach and stared at ivory and silver. A bird, a crane. His mind put it together and he shook his head. “Oh, Jack. What a pity.”

“Eh? Someone you know, then?”

“Yes. Someone I know.”

He took his cloak but left his hood behind and said over his shoulder, “Jack, you’d best come with me.”

Crispin struggled to remember. He put himself back in the setting of the Boar’s Tusk almost a week ago; watched the servant in dark livery-certain now it was blue. The man would be familiar, but Crispin’s position across the room and his drunken state contributed to his not recognizing him.

When they reached the White Hart, Crispin told Jack to stand guard at the door until called. Crispin entered and stood in the doorway to get his bearings and to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the dimness. He scanned the room and strode across the tavern until he reached a table near the stairwell. A man sat alone, staring into his bowl of wine. His dark blue coat had a high collar and buttoned up the throat. The skirt, split in the middle, made it easier for him to run and better serve his masters. A black leather belt cinched his waist. A lengthy strap of leather, it wrapped around him almost a second time and folded and tucked over the buckle. It sported a scabbard with a dagger and a leather scrip at his hip near his back. An embroidered crane eyed Crispin from the left breast, the signet of Rothwell.

“Jenkyn,” said Crispin.

He jerked up his head and stared. Crispin made his way to the table and sat opposite him. “What do you want?”

“Now, Jenkyn. Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

Jenkyn stared up at Crispin with cool gray eyes. Not steel gray like Crispin’s, but light with just the barest blue tint to them. His bushy brows hung over his lids. His nose, straight and aristocratic, belonged more to his betters than his long lineage of servants serving the St Albans household as far back as anyone could remember. His hair, slightly wilder than fashion called for, shined darkly, but gray streaks tangled through it and the hairline shot high up his lengthened forehead. “I was not your friend,” he said. “I was my master’s servant. And now I am the servant of my mistress.”

“Just so. We were never friends, but I feel I know you.”

“No, you don’t. You were just another lord like all the rest, and now you’re not even that. Begone. I have no use for you.”

Crispin curled his fingers into fists. He would have struck the man, but Jenkyn was in the right. Crispin was no longer a lord. He could talk to Crispin any way he liked.

“So that is how you truly feel? Interesting. If only our masters could hear what is in our heads, eh? We’d all be released from service.”

“Then it’s a good thing none are mind readers.” He took up the bowl but still did not drink.

Crispin watched him. “You do not drink.”

“I am not thirsty.”

“Yet you ordered wine.”

Jenkyn looked at the bowl in his hand as if recognizing it for the first time. Hastily he put it down. “Habit.”

“Perhaps you have no more taste for drinking wine in taverns. To see a man die from such imbibing…”

Jenkyn rose but Crispin drew his blade and motioned for him to sit again. “I do not believe I am done talking with you,” he said and slowly sat again, echoing Jenkyn’s cautious movements. He kept the knife in plain view. Jenkyn stared at it. His forehead beaded with sweat and his breath became hard and rasping.

“Why don’t you tell me about that night,” Crispin urged.

Jenkyn wrung his hands. “Jesus mercy,” he muttered. “I don’t want to hang.”

“That is the punishment for murder, is it not?”

“Have I not been a loyal servant? Have I not served the house of St Albans for most of my life?”

“There is no denying it.” Crispin’s stomach turned. He had no belly for what was to come; for the pleading and the crying. A man should take his punishment. He knew he should be angrier at Jenkyn for all the flurry he’d caused, for Crispin’s sometimes disastrous meetings with Lady Vivienne and for his trouble with Stephen. And even for Crispin’s encounters with Templars and de Marcherne. Jenkyn had given him a merry chase and now was time to finish it. “Tell me what happened.”

“Oh my poor Lady Rothwell. He was a devil. He…he…”

Jenkyn succumbed to weeping and laid his head on his arms. Crispin sat back and sheathed his knife. He glanced at the others who turned to look. “Pull yourself together. You were surely defending your mistress’ honor.”