Jeri Westerson - Troubled Bones

He described the Franklin and then took his leave of the sheriff, much invigorated that he would get real help this time. And he knew he needed it. Between Chaucer’s incarceration and the threats from Bonefey, he was a little unsure of how to proceed. It was as if every bit of this mystery was made of glass: the least amount of pressure one way or the other could shatter it.

He stared at a shadowy statue for a long time before he turned to glance at Saint Thomas’s chapel. With a weary heart, he dragged himself up the nave and then around to the pilgrims’ stair and entered the rounded chamber. But instead of going to Saint Thomas’s shrine, he walked a little further and stood before the latten knight, the image of Prince Edward. He reached out and rested his hand on the cold metal. “Sire,” he said softly. “I pray you rest in peace in Heaven where you are, for there is so little of it here below. You left us in great turmoil. I should be angry with you, but alas, I am certain it was not your intention to die so young without a crown. And then your brother Lancaster with a crown snatched from his grasp by your son.” He walked beside the tomb, running his hand along the edge of the lid. “Little did we know. Little did we all know.” His fingers stopped trailing and he glanced again at the knight in repose, studying the ornate figure with somber eyes.

“Sir, sir! You must come away from there!”

Annoyed, he sneered at a monk gesturing to him and scuttling closer.

“You must come away. You must not disturb the tombs.” He faced Crispin, his eyes glittering.

“Worry not, little monk. I will disturb them no more.” Gathering his cloak about himself, he strode away down the pilgrims’ stair and through the nave. Immersed in his thoughts, he reached the courtyard. But with its merchants and milling townsfolk, he almost didn’t hear Jack calling out to him.

“Master Crispin!”

He turned. He was more relieved than he expected to be upon seeing the boy again. “Jack! You’re back. You have news?”

Breathless, Jack stopped, leaned over, and rested his hands on his thighs. But when he straightened, he brought up a scowl.

“What’s the matter?”

He threw off his hood and Crispin saw. “Oh dear.” His mood had been so black that he needed the respite of laughter, and Jack’s expression and the gleaming white of his newly shaved tonsure rendered Crispin incapable of suppressing his mirth. But Jack wasn’t amused and Crispin tried to recover in order to at least offer Jack some dignity.

“What am I supposed to do about this!”

“Nothing. It will grow back.”

“You never said-”

“Jack, I am sorely glad to see you, but aren’t there more important things for you to tell me? Why you’ve left the monastery, for instance?”

Jack cringed and threw the hood back over his bald scalp. “Very well,” he grumbled. “I did find out a few things.” Crispin urged him back toward the tailor shop as he talked. “For one thing, none of them monks trust you because they think you are a Lollard.”

“Indeed. Interesting. Who could have told them that, I wonder?”

“My instinct tells me it was the archbishop. They have no cause to connect you to Lancaster unless he told them.”

“Quite right, Jack. What else?”

“Well, the Lollard among them appears to be Brother Martin.”

“I met him almost the first thing. A sharp-faced fellow. With a dislike for Dom Thomas.”

“He ain’t the only one,” said Jack, scratching his shaved head over the hood. “But Dom Thomas and the others are already aware of him.”

“So this big secret that the archbishop would have me discover is not such a secret after all.”

“That ain’t the big secret,” said Jack eagerly. “For one, there was some ado about Saint Thomas’s bones far before you was called.”

“The archbishop was anxious about them.”

“Not so much that. I think it is something else. Something the monks are keeping to themselves.”

He stopped. “The bones were gone ever before I was called.”

“That’s it!” Jack shook his head, a wide smile spreading on his face. “Aye. That must be it! They were already missing. I’ll wager anything-”

“And you’d win. Then why this farce? Why call me all this way to protect something that wasn’t even there?” He paled. “Then Chaucer was right.”

“Right about what, sir?”

He looked at Jack and took a deep breath. He related the past day’s experiences, the clues he’d found, and Chaucer’s confession.

Jack’s eyes grew wider and wider. “God blind me with a poker! Then it’s that Sir Philip what done it!”

“Yes. But then where are the bones?”

“You don’t suppose he has them? He is a Lollard, after all.”

“I don’t know. I have to think about it all. But you said that you had two things to tell me. What was the other?”

Jack sidled closer and said in soft but excited tones, “I seen that Dom Thomas in the church paying extortion money to one of them masons.”

“ What? Are you certain?”

“Aye. I saw them and heard them m’self. The mason said, ‘I’d like to know who’s the more dishonest: the man who committed the crime or the one who witnessed it.’” Jack told Crispin all he had heard and seen.

He listened without interrupting. When Jack finished he said nothing for a long time. “The man in the cassock,” he breathed.

“But how does that fit with the red gown, sir?”

“It means that Chaucer did not kill the Prioress or the monk.”

“And the bones?”

“Well, that’s another question.”

“And Sir Philip, sir?”

Crispin gritted his teeth. Sir Philip. If Dom Thomas was a murderer then what part did Sir Philip play in this chess game? Or was it only his desire to see the arrogant Franklin brought low? He cradled his head. His temple was pounding again. Too many twists. Too many guilty parties. And if he made the wrong move it could be him who sent Chaucer to the gallows.

“Let’s get to the tailor and then back to the inn as soon as we might.”

“Good. I can’t wait to get me own clothes back.”

The sun was just sinking below the rooftops when he and Jack made it back to Master Turpin’s tailor shop. Though the man was about to bar his doors, he opened them for Crispin.

“We have come to return your property, Master Turpin,” he said, closing the door behind him. He winked to the tailor.

“Oh yes. Yes, Master. All is ready.” He took Jack aside and told him to strip the cassock off. Jack wore a resigned expression and untied his rope belt and yanked the cassock up over his head. When the tailor returned, he had a blue coat slung over his arm. He shook it out and opened it for Jack to slide his arm into, but Jack shrunk back.

“That ain’t my tunic, Master Turpin. You’ve made a mistake.”

“No mistake. I made this especially for you, young man.”

Jack didn’t move, but his eyes did a wild dance scouring the tailor’s face, then back to the garment, then to his face again. “Why?”

“Because your master instructed me so to do. And paid me.” He smiled.

Jack’s jaw dropped several inches. Turpin took advantage of Jack’s limp body to pull on his new cotehardie. He yanked on the collar to straighten the shoulders-waggling Jack’s loose head-and buttoned it up all the way from the hem to his yoke, twenty-three buttons, just like Crispin’s coat.

Crispin folded his arms over his chest and looked Jack up and down, moving all around him. He nodded approvingly. “Perhaps a bit long at the thigh-”

“He will grow, Master Guest. I allowed for that.”

“How about the gusset at the armpit? Is that adequate for growth as well?”