Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

“But Gaston…such a passionate man. I imagined you might have been the same. For many years, you see, when lying in my husband’s bed, I did think of you, Crispin. When he touched me, I closed my eyes and told myself it was you. And when he put his foul-breathed mouth on me, my thoughts were only of you and your sweet lips. But as the years past, I could no longer conjure your face. You abandoned me, abandoned us. When Gaston came along, it was as if new life was breathed into me. I had been a corpse for seven years and suddenly for seven weeks I was reborn. But he became demanding, coarse. When Stephen secured my betrothal I told Gaston it was over, but he would have none of it. Gaston threatened to tell my betrothed, to extort me for his silence. That was when Jenkyn suggested I kill him. But he was too weak to do it himself. So I did it.” She glanced over Crispin in his effort to breathe. “I know what you are thinking. Why did I not go to Stephen? But how could I confess my disgrace? It was not possible to ask him to do it. So I came here to Gaston one last time, not too far from where we are now sitting, and I poured him a bowl of wine-just as I did for you-and I added the poison. It did not take him long to die, but I did not wait to see his final breaths. Later, Jenkyn told me he came here to do the deed himself, but again, his courage failed him. Of course Gaston was already dead, but poor Jenkyn did not know that.”

Crispin sank toward the table. Only the weakening strength of his forearms upheld him. Every muscle in his body cramped and his heart hammered relentlessly. He gasped, casting blindly about the room for someone to notice, someone to come to his aid. He saw neither Gilbert nor Eleanor.

“The apothecary was more difficult,” she went on. “When I discovered you were investigating the murder and that you were seeking the man who sold the poison, I could not risk his discovery. By chance, I was there the same moment you arrived. I was in the back room listening, and when I saw my opportunity I stabbed him with his own dagger.” She looked at her hand, flexed the fingers. “Such a strange sensation, stabbing someone. I had no idea how hard the body is. Of course, with a sharp knife, it is easier.” She raised her chin. Her small nostrils flared with the scents of smoke, sweat, and spoiled ale. “I have no regrets for killing him. He was a vile man. I have no regrets about killing Gaston, for he, too, was a cruel and vile man.” Her gaze returned from far away and rested on Crispin. She cocked her head. Her moist lips pressed together, pouting. “But I do have regrets over killing you, Crispin, for you were dear to me once. You do not know how many times in my marriage bed you saved my sanity.” She rose and looked at him curiously.

Crispin struggled for consciousness. She wavered in his blurry vision. A tear left his eye to run down his sallow cheek.

She leaned forward and touched her lips to his gasping mouth, ignoring his struggle to breathe. “Farewell, my love. I do you a favor. It hurt me deeply to see you so degraded, living this horrid life in that decrepit little hovel.” She leaned forward, and with her lips brushing his, she whispered, “Surely your reward will be greater in Heaven.”

She closed her fingers over the vial and stepped back. She looked at him once more with a pitying expression, and walked from the Boar’s Tusk.

Crispin’s eyes followed her until she disappeared out the door into the gray sunshine.

Rosamunde! He longed to scream it aloud, but no breath came; only a rushing sound in his ears and the approach of blessed death. Slowly-it seemed so slowly-he laid his face on the table. He made no more choking noises. He simply felt his cheek hit the surface and closed his eyes.

Oh God! Oh blessed Jesu! How could she? How could she kill me after all we were to one another?

There seemed little left to think about but this last betrayal. He wondered why it hurt so much. Why was it taking so long to die?

Through his closed eyelids, a bright light pierced the darkness, and he stared through the vibrant red. A moment passed before he realized the color was his own blood through his lids, but he wondered at the light, and with difficulty, pried open his eyes. The light shone starkly white and filled his view. Strangely, though he expected it to, the light did not hurt or make him squint. He simply looked into it and it seemed to go on a long way, a tunnel of pure light. He speculated about this strange apparition for some time. Shadowy figures moved past him but he did not fear them. He knew, without knowing why he knew, that they were friendly, even loving. He felt it a comforting place and he longed to move forward and join the figures that came into sharper focus. He felt glad to be away from whatever disturbed him, and he vaguely wondered why his memory of those events seemed so foggy.

A figure approached out of the bright light, coming closer. Crispin spoke to him, though he was slightly surprised that he did not need to open his mouth.

What is this place?

The figure looked at him. Crispin could not see his face clearly, but he felt the expression was one of paternal amusement. Don’t you know?

Crispin didn’t answer. The situation had all the earmarks of a dream. Yet it also felt distinctly unlike any dream he had ever had. No. Where am I?

Not yet, Crispin Guest. Not yet. There is more for you to do. Much more .

Before he could question the figure again, before he had time to contemplate the sensations rippling about him, the vision receded. Something wrenched him away from the light and the warm sensation of love.

He awoke and snapped upright with a long gasp. His body spasmed and ached, but even that subsided and he slowly warmed from the nearby hearth. He put his hand to his throat. The passageway opened and he felt only a vague sense of grogginess.

He froze with an awful realization. Was he a ghost? Doomed to haunt this place?

He turned to the man behind him and poked him in the shoulder. His finger did not pass through and the man turned to him with a stern but quizzical look. “What the hell do you want?” he growled at Crispin. But upon receiving no reply, he cursed, and turned back to his ale.

I am not a ghost. He ran his hand over his corporeal chest, trying to believe it. She poisoned him, didn’t she? Where was the death he expected?

He lifted his head and darted his glance about the room. No one seemed to take notice of him. He was just another patron in the Boar’s Tusk, one of many men who spent their evenings forgetting their troubles in the bottom of a wine bowl.

Wine bowl.

Crispin looked down. It sat where he left it, almost directly before him. Only dregs remained of the red wine now, and, he assumed, the deadly poison. A simple wooden bowl, much like the two he owned at home. But as he looked around the room, he saw only clay bowls and horn cups. None but this one was made of wood.

He gingerly grasped its edges with his fingertips and turned it. It was worn, with the faintest of etched designs running along its outer rim, a simple design of static waves, lines zigzagging around the circumference creating a border one inch wide. The bowl seemed more worn than the others. Quite old. Wood, smooth to the touch and well-crafted, made by a very skilled carpenter.

Hands now trembling, Crispin lifted it up and looked closely at it, turning it tenderly in the dim light. Such a simple thing. No one would take note of it. And no one had. Countless men drank from it, this humble cup, this wooden bowl.

“The Holy Grail,” he whispered, unable to fathom the immensity. “It’s impossible.” He dumped the last of the poisoned wine on the table and ran his hand reverently over its outer surface.