Jeri Westerson - Blood Lance

Crispin rolled his eyes. “Yes, if a foolish thing has been done, no doubt it was me doing it.”

“I knew it was you. I would have laid down coin on it.”

“Perhaps you should wager next time.”

“Perhaps I will.” He rolled the wine in the pan, watching the steam feathering upward. Rising, he grabbed two bowls from the pantry shelf and poured the warmed wine into them; the larger steaming bowl he handed to Crispin.

“To your good health, sir,” said Jack, eyes crinkled in mirth as he raised his bowl.

“The devil take you,” he murmured good-naturedly before pressing his lips to the bowl’s rim. It warmed all the way down his throat to his belly. He sighed, sniffed, and pulled up a chair, tucking the blanket under him before he sat.

Jack sat cross-legged at his feet. “Do you truly think that man was murdered?”

Crispin rested the bowl on his thigh. “True, if a man was determined to kill himself, he might be lackluster in his leap, but he flailed not at all. And he might have struck his head on a pier, but his nose, too? His neck bore bruises. I have a mind the man was in a fight. Jack, I believe he was dead or dying before he ever reached the Thames.”

“But the Lord Coroner does not mean to investigate. At least unless a jury charges him so. He said as much.”

Crispin gave his own lopsided grin. “You know what that means.”

Jack sighed deeply. “But Master Crispin, there’s no money in it. Unless the sheriffs will pay.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“Then why, sir? We can’t govern the whole city on our own, for no wages.”

“Being the Tracker comes with its own weight of responsibility, Jack. As a knight I was raised with a set of rules. I believe in them to the letter. And I will not allow a lack of funds to dissuade me. I thought you knew me better.”

“Aye, sir, I do. I’m just trying to manage our funds as best I can. I didn’t mean naught by it.”

He patted Jack’s shoulder. “And I am not chastising you. Merely pointing out that calling oneself a Tracker means more than earning coin. It … it speaks of honor and integrity. I expect when you take the reins someday that it will come to mean the same to you.”

Jack’s eyes were wide and honest. “It does, sir! I swear by the Holy Virgin it does. I’ll not disappoint you, Master.”

Crispin smiled. “I know you won’t. And so because we are our brother’s keeper, I cannot let this lie. I saw the man for myself, after all. I’d see it through to the last, till he receives justice under the eyes of God. And besides,” he said, watching Jack sip his wine, “the man’s betrothed might be willing to pay, if she can be convinced.”

A wet cough kept Crispin awake most of the night. He dragged himself from his bed when the false dawn seeped through the shutters. His nose was still red and stuffed like a winter goose.

Dressed and dry, he and Jack made their way back toward London Bridge by first light. The bells of the local parish churches were ringing Prime by the time they arrived to the gate. They paid their fee to enter and walked up the avenue. Industrious shopkeepers scrubbed down the plaster walls of their houses while some in upper stories hung garlands of dried flowers and greenery. A festive place, thought Crispin absently. The sounds of hammering, too, plagued the air. Something was always being built or fixed in London. He supposed its bridge was no different, though he was damned if he could envision anything more being constructed on the already overcrowded and overhanging bridge. Would they raise their houses up four stories?

After inquiring of a shopkeeper just opening his doors which shop it was, they arrived at last to the dead armorer’s. It was wedged between a haberdasher’s shop and a tailor’s and extended up one more story.

The door lay ajar. Reaching for his dagger and pushing Jack aside out of habit, Crispin cautiously peered in.

The woman from the night before was there, standing in the middle of what looked like the detritus of a terrible fight.

Crispin pulled the door open, and the woman looked up. “Master Guest! You returned.”

“As I said I would, damosel. Er … I apologize, but I was out of sorts and did not get your name last night.”

“Anabel Coterel.” She curtseyed.

Jack popped in behind him and swore. “Blind me! What a mess is here.”

“Yes,” she said warily. “I found it this way this morning.”

Crispin walked in and glanced around. He cursed himself for not looking last night.

Tools of the trade hung on pegs above worktables. But the numerous armor pieces-greaves, breastplates, poleyns, cuisses-were strewn about. Such careful armorer’s art, now dented and scratched. A chunk of unfinished mail hung from a splintered table edge, and even the ashes from the forge were spilled out and made a gray matting over the floor. The window overlooking the Thames still had its shutters wide open and Crispin examined the floor up to it. In the widely scattered ash, two long streaks showed the floor beneath. The streaks climbed the wall toward the window and then widened to an uneven gray swipe across the sill.

He looked to the side and the ash was a hatching of swirls in all directions, suggesting a struggle. Darker spots mixed with it here and there. More blood. In other spots, gray footprints scattered and dispersed. He crouched and examined and swore that there were two sets of footprints, possibly more. Some were smaller than the others. A woman’s? Rising, Crispin rounded a table and found the ash had collected in neat ninety-degree angles, leaving a clean spot in the midst of it.

Striding to the window, he looked out. The Thames, just catching the morning sun through the clouds and casting it in shades of gold and green, churned onward below. Jack came up beside him and looked over the sill.

“That’s a long way down,” he said.

“Indeed,” said Crispin.

“Did all this happen this morning?” asked Jack, gesturing all around him. He tilted his head toward the woman.

She shook her head. “I do not know. My father and I were out most of the evening. We hadn’t yet returned when the night bell was rung. Roger often worked late, and he frequently clattered and made loud noises in his work. But last night I lay next door without a wink of sleep. I would know if there had been a sound this morning.”

“Are you convinced now, damosel?”

She looked around. “It proves nothing. He was an untidy man. Only God can know what transpired here.”

“Master,” said Jack, turning to Crispin. “She’s right. How can we know?”

Crispin fit his thumbs in his belt. “What do you observe in the room, Jack?”

His apprentice swiveled his head again and took in the scene. His eyes followed the same view, the same swirl of ash, the two long streaks across the floor and up to the window.

He pointed to the floor before the forge. “Looks like a fight here.”

“Yes. And blood.”

“Oh aye. I see it now, mixed with the ash. It’s darker in color. Not too much, though.”

“No. Not there, at any rate. Perhaps a bloodied nose. What else?”

“The struggling stopped, for these are the marks of two feet or heels dragged to the window.” He looked up at Crispin for confirmation.

“Very good, Jack. And the sill. See how the ash was stirred up enough to leave traces of something large going over.”

“Aye, I do. That’s horrible, sir.”

“What does this tell you, then?”

“It tells me that whatever happened here, a man did not go willingly out that window.”

Anabel winced. Her face, pale and beautiful, betrayed the emotion she seemed so keen to hide. “You have proved nothing to me,” she said stonily.