Jeri Westerson - Cup of Blood

Still, his analytical mind reasoned. How did it get here?

He recreated the incident in his mind. He saw Gaston D’Arcy sitting here in the tavern hatching his plots, and with a pang of an unnamed emotion, he saw Rosamunde enter and argue with D’Arcy. Somehow, without his seeing, she administered the deadly potion. He drank it, and she left him to choke to death just like she did to Crispin.

Crispin wiped the sweat from his brow. Unimaginable that she murdered two men and tried to add him to her list. Him!

His knuckle removed the last tear he would shed for Rosamunde, and he resettled his mind again to the puzzle. D’Arcy struggled to breathe just as Crispin had, and no doubt D’Arcy suspected poison. What then did he do?

He had the grail. The scrip. It held the grail. After all, he was the ‘Cup Bearer’. He did the only thing he could do to try to save his life; he tried to get the cup. And he succeeded. He brought it forth, but he was perhaps too ill to pour the wine into it and drink. He believed that it would heal him, but he could not manage to do it. It was on the table. There were several cups there, but it was the only one of wood and it was the only one empty. My God. It’s been here all along and no one knew it.

He stared at the cup and felt its solidity.

But what of me? Did the grail heal me?

He glanced toward an open shutter and noticed the darkness. He had lain unconscious a long time, for hours, allowing the poison to work itself out of his system. Isn’t that what the apothecary said? If he had only consumed a small portion of it, a grain or two, it would have caused a great deal of unpleasantness but he would survive. How much did Rosamunde have left in the vial? Not enough to kill, that much was certain. He couldn’t quite make himself believe that this cup healed him. But others believed it and believed in the other powers they said it possessed. So many men wanted it so badly.

Even if it were just the true cup of Christ, wouldn’t it be worth fighting for?

He examined the cup one last time before he slipped it under his cloak. Rising from the bench, he glanced anxiously about the room, fearing someone saw him and knew what he had. Hastily he left the Boar’s Tusk and hurried down the lane. He made it several yards before he slowed and suddenly stopped. Where should he go? To the sheriff? To his lodgings? He wiped his face with a clammy hand.

A horseman galloped down the lane and forced Crispin against a wall, spattering him with clods of mud. Crispin took no notice and simply leaned there, thinking, his hand pressed to the object beneath his cloak.

“I need guidance,” he whispered. And before he truly knew the direction he traveled, he made for the little chapel of Father Timothy.

The chapel lay in darkness but the altar glowed in a wash of candlelight. The cross’s gold beckoned, and Crispin threw himself forward, clutching the cup at his side. When he knelt, he felt a sense of gratitude and relief. Even if the grail had not healed him, Divine intervention had still saved his life. He had not forgotten the strange vision of the figure.

Behind him he heard steps approach, and he jumped to his feet. Father Timothy strode down the short nave and smiled upon recognizing Crispin. “Welcome again, my friend. It is good to see you.”

“Oh, Father, you do not know how good it is to see you. Can we talk in your rectory?”

“Of course.” The young priest led the way and soon Crispin sat on a stool by the humble hearth. He forced himself to drop his hand away from his cloak, but he satisfied himself with the feel of the cup against his thigh. Silently he gazed into the fire.

“There must be something I can do for you, friend,” urged Timothy, sitting on a stool across from him. “Else why would you be here? Has it to do with what we discussed before?”

“Father.” Crispin leaned forward, closed fists resting on his thighs. “When we die, what exactly happens to us? What do we see?”

“Our hope is to see the face of God.”

“Yes. But before that, what else?”

“I know not. When a man dies, he cannot return to tell the tale.”

Crispin shook his head and sat back. “I am not so certain. At least…” He managed a chuckle. “Perhaps a man can rise from the dead.”

Timothy’s gaze was steady.

Crispin scowled. “I was vilely betrayed by a woman I once loved. She poisoned me and I…I nearly died.”

“By the blood of Christ, tell me! What happened?”

Crispin lifted his hand and touched the rounded belly of the cup under the cloak, testing its substantiality with his fingertips. “There was not enough poison to kill me. But in so doing I might have discovered the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.”

The priest becrossed himself and rested his trembling fingers on his lips. “Blessed be God,” he whispered through his fingers. “Where is the grail now?”

Crispin hesitated. How could he be sure of anyone? He looked at the priest’s strong-boned hands and his ring. “Safe,” he replied curtly. “If this is the grail, then I see no end of trouble with it. Too many are affected by it.”

“You never truly believed.”

“I do not know whether I believe in it now. But some men do. And those men are dangerous.”

“What are your plans?”

Crispin rose and paced the length of the little room. “I know not. Perhaps I should drop the thing down the nearest well. Or leave it on the highest mountaintop, or throw it into the ocean. Miraculous or no, nowhere is safe enough or far enough from the greed of mankind. I wish God would simply take it back!”

The priest tapped his fingers on his lips for some time. “I can well see your reasoning,” he said at last. “But it can also do great good in the world.”

“But has it?”

“‘I have come not to bring peace’. So spake Jesus. Sometimes spilt blood is necessary. ‘We make war that we may live in peace.’”

Crispin measured him. “You quote Aristotle well for a parish priest.” He smiled. “Our kings would have us believe such about war. Its necessity. Yet kings can betray-”

“Or be betrayed.”

Crispin looked up suddenly at the steely expression in the priest’s eyes, not as young as they once looked. “Yes, I know who you are,” admitted Timothy. “And your history. You are a man of sorrows but capable of so much valor. You must weigh very carefully what you do for the next few hours. What you possess is miraculous.”

“There is no proof of that.”

“How do you know?”

“It did not heal me. My body healed itself.”

The priest smiled, a little sadly. “But you will never know for certain.”

Crispin frowned at his own uncertainty and at Timothy’s smug conviction. “I came to ask your guidance in this.”

“I have no more guidance to give you now than I did before. God chose you to be the bearer of this burden. You must decide.”

“And if I make the wrong choice?”

Timothy smiled faintly and then let it go. “I pray…you do not.”

Crispin returned to his lodgings and sat in the chair. He looked about the shabby room, the rickety shelves and nicked table; the shutters that would not quite close; the chipped jug of water and the empty one of wine. He once believed this was the sum total of what he had become, but the last few days told a different story. There may yet be more to him than he ever imagined, for why else should he be chosen to suffer this burden of the grail when all the world seemed filled with more learned and more deserving men than he?

He sat and stared a long time at his few possessions before he slowly inched his hand within his coat. He took out the cup and stared at it. His fingers ran over the carvings along the rim and he wondered just where Jesus had laid his lips. Was it here? He ran a finger on the spot. Or here? His fingers trailed. He couldn’t even be certain that this was the actual Holy Grail. Oh, he was certain that this was the cup that caused so many to lose their lives, but was it the cup of Christ?