Jeri Westerson - Troubled Bones

“My rosary?” His hand automatically slapped the beads hanging at his belt. It looked to be made of wood or possibly ivory. The berry-sized beads were similar to Dame Marguerite’s. “Surely you can purchase your own from the many purveyors in the courtyard.”

“I’ll only need it for a moment.”

The monk eyed him askance and snatched it protectively from his belt. “But-”

Crispin deftly liberated it. “Much thanks. Only a moment. I promise.” He hurried back to the chapel where a perplexed Jack was still waiting. “Jack, I will need you to collect the sword one more time.”

“But Master! I just went and put it back in our room.”

“Jack.”

Astonishingly petulant, thought Crispin as Jack huffed a weary sigh and dragged his feet out of the church. Crispin held the circlet tightly in his fingers and waited. Yes, he, too, had owned a rosary once upon a time, beads of filigreed silver. How ostentatious! He thought of them with embarrassment now. Shouldn’t a ring of prayers be of humble materials? It was the one thing he was glad to have lost.

After a brief interval, Jack returned, lugging the sword over his shoulder. “Here it is, Master. Again .”

“Thank you, Jack. I will take it.” He unwrapped the hilt first and held it aloft, letting the linen flutter off the blade. Candlelight shimmered along the cool length of steel. He stepped back and gave it an experimental swing. It whooshed as it passed through the air.

Jack leapt back. “Oi! Warn a man, eh?”

Crispin swung it again, getting a feel for the blade. Good balance, good weight. He turned to Jack and handed him the rosary from his belt. “Tuck this into your belt, Jack, and stand there.”

Jack took the rosary, pondered the beads for a moment, and then draped it double over his belt as he had no doubt seen the monks do. He backed up to position himself as Crispin instructed.

“Now Jack, don’t move.”

Crispin swung the blade up and dropped it down, right beside Jack. The boy yelped and leapt back.

“I told you not to move.”

“God’s eyes and toes! What, by the blessed Mother, are you doing!”

“Visualizing. Now kneel and take out that rosary.”

Jack looked for all the world as if he were going to his own execution. He gingerly knelt on the paving tiles and took the rosary in his hands. He stared uncomprehendingly. “Now Jack, for your own good, do not move. ”

Jack nodded and closed his eyes.

Crispin swung upward again and, as close to Jack as he dared, chopped downward. Jack cringed as the blade whistled by him, but did not otherwise move.

Curious. He stared into the space that had once been Prioress Eglantine.

Jack pried open one eye. Once he saw it was safe, he opened them both. “What are we doing, Master?”

“‘What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.’ But it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps I am making too much of this. Take that rosary and return it to that brother there. The nervous one standing behind that pillar.” Maybe it had nothing to do with anything. Maybe it was the key.

But one thing was certain. Neither Gelfridus nor Marguerite would remain safe until the killer was caught.

The sun was lower when Crispin searched the monastery and finally found Dom Thomas. The monk turned and saw him. “Ecce iterum Crispinus!”

Crispin didn’t find it amusing. “I must have words with you, Dom Thomas, and there is little time.”

“Yes,” he said, more breath than word. “I have heard of the fate of Master Chaucer. I am at a loss as to my archbishop’s thinking in this.”

“Yes. It is of such things I must talk with you. I am in haste.”

Dom Thomas looked up the empty colonnade and down the other way. “Very well. Come with me.”

He led Jack and Crispin to a little room that served as his study. Parchments and leather-bound journals lay on a shelf on a wall next to a small arched window. He closed the door and stood beside his table. The surface was covered in parchments, an ink pot, and several quills stripped of their feathering, their sharpened tips stained black. “Well?”

“I’ll be brief, Dom. Are you cheating the priory’s books?”

Dom Thomas’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“I do not have time for your theatrics. I am trying to save a man’s life. Did you fix the books? I have sources that saw you pay bribery to the masons.”

Dom Thomas darted an enraged glare at Jack who moved slightly behind Crispin. “I do not know what you think you saw,” he began, voice chilled. “But I did no such thing. If you even breathe such a thing to his Excellency-”

Crispin lurched forward and grabbed the monk by his cassock. “Is this the truth?”

Chillenden’s eyes enlarged, never leaving Crispin’s. “It is the truth. I swear it by Almighty God.”

He released the monk and stepped away. “Very well, then. I must tell you that I do not believe you guilty of killing Brother Wilfrid.”

“Me?” He staggered backwards. His face seemed almost on the verge of tears. “I would never- He was like a son to me. I grieve over his death every moment.”

“Yes, yes. I think I know what the mason saw and that you were keen to keep secret.”

“How could you possibly-”

“I am paid to know. But never mind this. I will keep your secret for now if you will keep mine. I need your help, Dom. I cannot allow your archbishop to execute Master Chaucer. If you wish to redeem yourself in my eyes, there is something you must do.”

Crispin explained it and then quickly took his leave. Jack scrambled to catch up to him. “Master. Master! Not so fast. Where do you go now?”

“Back to the inn. It is time to do a proper interrogation of Sir Philip. He is the key to this.”

“He’s the murderer, isn’t he?”

Crispin strode quickly down the avenue. Sir Philip. If he had to, he’d beat a confession out of him.

As they neared the inn a man wearing the city’s tabard looked up and trotted forward. Now what? He stiffened, expecting the worst.

“Are you Crispin Guest?” asked the man.

“Yes.”

“I have bad news, good sir. The man I was watching-Philip Bonefey-”

“Well?”

The sheriff’s man lowered his head and shook it. “I do not know how it happened. I do not know what to say-”

“Spit it out, man!”

He nodded. “I am aggrieved to say that, somehow, he escaped. I do not know where he is.”

Crispin’s heart sank. Without Bonefey and the information he suspected the man was harboring, his chances of proving Chaucer innocent were nil. He stood in the courtyard, the sun sinking lower, the sky darkening. He thought furiously, or tried to, but his mind was a frustrating blank.

Something was pulling on his coat. He swung back his arm to strike it away when he realized it was Jack. “Master, what are we to do now?”

“I don’t know, Jack!” he said a little more harshly than he intended. He paced in a small circle while Jack stood to the side, wringing his coat hem in one hand and clutching the sword with the other.

This was impossible. Impossible! Geoffrey’s life hanging from a thread; the only and best suspect gone. Why was God treating him so? Hadn’t he done his penance for forswearing his king? Was there no end to it?

“ Why! ” he cried out, fists in the air. If he could climb the cathedral and reach God himself he would do it and ask Him personally.

“Th-there must be something we can do for Master Chaucer,” said Jack softly. “There must be some way to prove it was not him.”

“And weren’t you keen to prove it was him not too long ago?”