Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

“How you can stand there and tell me…” Crispin held out his arms showing himself in all the rags and shabby finery of days past. “Look at me, Wynchecombe. I am nothing but history!” He laughed, slightly hysterically, and dropped his arms to his sides. Advancing toward the table he smiled when Wynchecombe subtly retreated. “You are not a brilliant man, Wynchecombe. But surely even you must recognize that history plays the most important part in a man’s life. Mine especially. If it were not so, I should have taken a sword to you years ago.”

Wynchecombe said nothing. He hovered over the table, eyeing his knife. His sword and baldric lay out of reach. “You’d take a sword to me, eh?” asked Wynchecombe warily. “Why? Because I give you the insolence you deserve?”

Crispin nodded. His face felt hot. Anger reddened it and forced his mouth into a grimace. “The insolence I deserve,” he echoed, thinking about the words. “Who knows what I deserve? Perhaps I taunt you so that you will thrust that knife into my gut. You want to, don’t you? Why don’t you take it up? I won’t stop you.”

Wynchecombe grasped the dagger hilt and pulled it free of the wood. He held the blade but not to strike. Crispin could imagine the heft of it. He knew it was well made with soft leather strips carefully wound about the wooden grip. A red gem crowned the pommel.

The dagger hanging from Crispin’s belt was the same he owned for three decades. They did not see fit to take it from him when they stripped him of everything else. It was as fine a thing as Wynchecombe’s blade.

But Crispin made no move to retrieve it. He was as anxious as Wynchecombe to discover what would transpire next.

“Enough of your arrogance,” the sheriff said at last. “Yes, you have a history. You are not a great lord anymore. You are not a knight. You are…what? What are you now, Crispin? A day ago you were my lackey. Is that what you are?”

All the vitality and anger released from him, rushing out with a long, ragged sigh. “Yes,” Crispin said gravely. “That is what I am. That is all I will ever be.”

The sheriff toyed with his knife. He touched the blade’s tip with his finger and turned the hilt, catching the light in flashes on its polished brass. All at once he laughed.

Crispin drew himself up and stared at the sheriff’s ruddy countenance: eyes squinted, teeth bared, mustache lifted up at the corners.

Has he gone mad, too?

“Crispin, you sorrowful bastard!” He slammed the knife into its scabbard and stood back, looking at him.

Crispin knew he had done a terribly stupid thing. Not only had he been uncivil and rude to a better, but he showed his hand, revealed his vulnerability. In a fight, he never would have done so. But in a true fight, he would have been better armed.

The sheriff swung and caught Crispin’s jaw with his fist.

Flashes of light, motes of black. Crispin looked up at the sheriff from the floor.

“That’s for your ill manners,” Wynchecombe said and walked around the table, but not to help Crispin up. Instead, he kicked him hard in the side. Crispin rolled away with a gasp and curled inward to protect the damage.

“And that is for using me.”

He grabbed Crispin by his collar and lifted his shoulders off the floor long enough to snap his fist at Crispin’s face a second time. He let him fall back down. His head hit the wood floor with a bang.

“And that is because I felt like it.”

Crispin lay on his back and groaned. He tasted blood and probed his teeth with his tongue, searching for loose molars. His jaw swelled. The room spun and his bruised side caused nausea to tighten his belly.

“Now,” said the sheriff standing over him. To Crispin’s blurry vision, he looked like a dark, shaggy bear. “Tell me again why I must release Stephen St Albans.”

Slowly, Crispin moved his hand to feel the floor, making certain he knew exactly where it was before trying to push himself into a sitting position. Once he sat up he gave himself a moment to quell his uneasy belly. “My lord,” he began, and gingerly touched his jaw. He glanced admiringly at the sheriff. “Stephen may have had a motive and the means, but he never would have dishonored himself by using poison. He covets his honor almost as much as I do.” He tried to smile but his jaw hurt and he winced instead.

Wynchecombe jerked his head in a satisfied nod and offered his hand to Crispin. When Crispin hesitated the sheriff thrust it forward. “Come now. Take it.”

Crispin slapped his hand into the sheriff’s and allowed Wynchecombe to haul him to his feet. He stood unsteadily, surprised when a wine cup was thrust into his hand.

“You have made a proper mess of this, Crispin.”

Crispin slurped the wine and nodded, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “I admit as much. I was fortunate that the servant Jenkyn all but confessed. He knew he was caught.”

“That is all very well for you but what of me? Sir Stephen has no love for me for throwing him in prison. If he goes to the king…”

“I might be persuaded to influence Stephen to press no countercharges.”

Wynchecombe studied Crispin. “I see.” He nodded and released a sound not quite a chuckle. “How much will this cost me?”

Crispin dabbed his sleeve on his bloody lip. “I require no payment.”

“Not in coin, eh?”

Crispin said nothing. He blinked and touched his fingertips gently to his swollen jaw.

Wynchecombe scowled. “What about this Jenkyn, then? Are you certain this time?”

“As certain as I can be. Jenkyn knows too much to be completely innocent. We will have to thoroughly question him.”

“Then I will send my men with a description of him. He will be apprehended anon.” He cleared his throat and postured beside his chair. “I will release the prisoner. But I tell you truly, I shall not arrest him again if you are wrong.”

The Boar’s Tusk was crowded full of men drinking and making merry. Crispin edged his bruised body through the throng and found a quiet place in the back. He eased down onto a bench and cradled his face in his hand, hoping he could dull the throb in his jaw with Gilbert’s wine.

“Crispin, dear.” He looked up at Eleanor through his fingers and he saw her tick her head at him while planting one hand on her ample hip. “Tsk! You look awful. What happened?”

“The sheriff and I have come to a mutual understanding, is all.”

She waited for more explanation, but since Crispin offered none she asked, “Will you have wine?”

“Ah, such sweet words,” he sighed. “I will have wine. And plenty of it.”

She left for only a moment. When she returned she set a wooden bowl before him and poured wine into it. She did not leave the jug as expected. Instead, she cradled it in a ragged cloth and stared at him worriedly until he gestured for her to put the jug down.

“I don’t know, Crispin. Mayhap you should just go home.”

“I am home. And since I am home I am master here. Put down the jug.”

“Now Crispin-”

“Down!” He slapped the table with the flat of his hand.

She hesitated a moment more before slowly setting the jug beside the cup. “I should bring you something to eat. You look like the ragged end of a battle.”

“I don’t want food.”

“But Crispin-”

“Madam, please!”

She swiped once at the table with her apron as if to punctuate her hurt feelings and thumped away with hard steps.

“Bless you,” he said, barely realizing her absence, and then filled the half empty bowl to the rim. He lifted it to his lips and drank gratefully, rolling his upturned throat in long swallows before he set the empty bowl down. He refilled it and settled more comfortably on the bench.