Jeri Westerson - The Demon’s Parchment

It was more than half an hour later that the solemn procession neared the duel towers of Newgate. The portcullis creaked upward until the way lay open like a soundless maw, delivering them to the sullen mews below the prison where the boy was to be laid. The sheriffs’ retinue carried the cressets in and mounted them in their sconces, but even that fiery light could scarcely illuminate the dank recesses of stone and shadows. The boy was laid on a table and then the sheriffs’ men left them. There remained only Crispin, Jack, and both sheriffs, though Froshe looked decidedly ill at ease.

Crispin did not wait for permission. He flipped the blanket away. Jack turned his face from the sight of the pale figure. “Bring a light, Jack,” said Crispin quietly, but even as quiet as he was, his voice reverberated in whispering echoes, hissing into icy, darkened corners.

Jack’s shuffling steps added more echoes but soon he brought the light. With a shaking hand, he held it where Crispin needed it.

Crispin closed the boy’s eyes, not wishing for their fishlike stare to consume him any longer. He studied the neck again. A dark ring surrounded the obvious indentation in the flesh. He looked lower. The boy’s pubes were not yet grown with hair. He must be ten or eleven. Delicately, Crispin touched the cut edge of flesh where the skin had been slashed with such brutal accuracy. He pulled the flap of skin aside. No entrails.

“ Guest! ” The Fishmonger’s tone was harsh and shocked. “By our blessed Mother! What are you doing?”

“Examining the body, Lord Sheriff. This child has been eviscerated.”

“It was fish.”

“No. It is cut cleanly. Look here.”

“No! I shall not. It is an abomination!”

Crispin looked up at him. Froshe stepped back and was having none of it. He looked at Exton as forlornly as Jack had done.

“This murder is an abomination!” said Crispin. “We must examine all the evidence to determine the scope of this fiend’s crime.”

Exton gritted his teeth. He did not bother to look toward Froshe, who seemed bent on warming the stone wall with his back.

As a fishmonger, Exton was used to gutted creatures, but a boy was a different matter, to be sure. He seemed to suck up his courage and leaned over, peering into the cut Crispin indicated. He could not look long before his lips paled and sweat pebbled his brow.

“Heinous. Blasphemy.” He staggered toward the lamps in their niches, away from the little corpse.

“Yes.” Crispin continued scouring the boy, down his legs to his feet. His ankles had been bound. The marks of ropes were still there. He lifted a pale hand and examined the nails. Bitten and broken down to the quick. The cuticles were torn and there was dirt still embedded under the nails. Calluses were clearly evident on the pads of his fingers and palms. The boy himself seemed scrawny, underfed, with the evidence of protruding ribs under stretched skin. Crispin pushed the yielding lips open and saw teeth chipped and uneven.

Turning the boy over, he gasped at the bruises on his buttocks and hips. His suspicions provoked, he examined more carefully, ignoring the outraged cries of the sheriff.

“Sodomized,” he said quietly. He vowed silently in that moment to find this murderer, this slayer of the innocent, and utterly destroy him.

“God in heaven!” cried Exton. The lamplight grew even shakier until Jack could stand it no more.

“Let us leave this place, Master Crispin! Please!”

He took the light from the boy and replaced it in its sconce. Standing silently in thought, he finally raised his face to Exton. “He was strangled with something. Not with hands. There are no finger bruises to his throat. I believe the cut to his belly was done after death, else the stroke would not have been so clean. It is too precise. As for the absence of the entrails. .” He shrugged. “I am at a loss. If he were dead, what would be the use of it? His hands show hard work. Hence he was a servant or a child of the streets. A shopkeeper’s child might not have such old calluses. And lastly, his being sodomized. We are therefore looking for a man.”

“No,” said Exton. He stood against the stone wall. The malicious play of torchlight hid his eyes in shadow.

“No?” asked Crispin, perplexed. “We are not looking for a man?”

“These things you have said. I do not believe them. I do not believe the boy was. . was. . sodomized. Nor that his bowels were removed. These can all be explained. The river. A jagged root or a piece of wreckage could have torn him and fish did the rest.”

“Lord Sheriff!”

“Perhaps he was caught in a net while fishing and strangled.”

“Naked? In winter?” He strode up to the man and tried to catch his eye. “Master Nicholas. You know what I am saying is the truth.”

“I have heard of all your tales from Sheriffs John More and Simon Wynchecombe, Guest. You fabricate these wild stories to make yourself important in the eyes of your fellows. I don’t begrudge you that. But I will not have it in my parish! Maybe Wynchecombe bore it but not I-”

“Nor I!” said Froshe weakly from the back of the room.

Exton nodded toward him. “I declare that this boy died in some sort of accident-”

“God’s blood!” Crispin swore. “What ails you? You can plainly see the evidence for yourselves!”

“Leave it be, Master Guest! This was a beggar at best. What does it matter?”

“What does it matter ?” He could not help a darting glance at Jack, who cowered in the shadows. He drew his shoulders back. “A citizen of London was raped and murdered, my lord. That is reason enough to concern you.”

Exton hissed a curse and spun away, shuffling toward a dim corner before pivoting and returning to the spot he started. “You show an appalling lack of respect for this office, Master Guest.” He sighed and Crispin heard the tremble in it. Finally, Exton approached Froshe who looked at him with pleading eyes. He bent his head toward him and they whispered furtively for a moment. By the expressions on their faces it did not look as if they had come to an agreement, but Exton turned to him anyway, despite Froshe’s vigorous head-shaking. One of Exton’s eyes twitched. “This. . is not the first,” he said.

Crispin felt his stomach flip. “God’s blood,” he whispered.

Exton looked ill. The bulbous knot on his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I rue the day I was elected to this post. I thought”-he shook his head-“I never dreamed we’d. .” He glanced at Froshe who was all but cowering in the corner and licked his lips. “What a pair of fools are we, eh, John?” Froshe did not raise his eyes. His fat cheeks were colored a ruddy blush. The shadows seemed to want to swallow him, but there was too much of him to do so. Crispin said nothing. He merely watched as Exton’s face wrestled with something he would not voice. Finally, after an interval, he said, “Let us to the sheriff’s chamber where we may talk. There is wine,” he added. As if he needed to.

Crispin and Jack followed the men out of the mews and up the familiar winding staircase to the sheriff’s chamber. The clerk, who usually sat outside at his desk and who often eyed Crispin with disdain, was absent.

A servant arose from an alcove and scurried to stir the coals in the hearth and added wood until it burned well. Exton slowly lowered into the chair behind the desk and Froshe wandered toward the shuttered window. Crispin stood by the chair opposite the desk and waited. The servant finished his chore and hurried out, closing the door. When Exton looked up and saw Crispin standing before him, he seemed surprised. He waved him into the chair as Jack took his place behind him.