Blood Lance: A Medieval Noir

by Jeri Westerson

  9

  WESTMINSTER SEEMED FARTHER TODAY. His cold throbbed his head into something like a swollen melon and his nose was frozen shut. He hurried his steps along the Strand if only to keep warm. Armed men patrolled the waterfront and there were clusters of them to his right where the roads drifted into pastureland. Though the king had declared that there was no danger from France, the soldiers were still on alert.

  Westminster Abbey rose from the mist. Crispin made his way through the old arch and strode purposefully down the nave, avoiding the milling clerks and scribes looking for work. He made it to the south transept and stopped a monk who was polishing a statue in a niche. “Pardon me, Brother,” said Crispin. “But might I be taken in to see Abbot Nicholas?”

  The young monk’s pimpled face looked up. Though his tonsure was bone white, his brown hair around it was bountiful and hung almost to his eyes. He gripped his rag and straightened. “And who might you be, sir?”

  “Tell him Crispin Guest would like to see him.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Oh! Yes. I … I will tell his chaplain.” Rag still clutched in his hand, he ran out the door to the cloister, feet slapping hard on the tiled floor.

  Crispin shivered and pulled his cloak tighter about him. He looked back at the clerks haranguing others wandering in the nave. Positions were scarce, what with the threats from outside the borders. It was doubtful these anxious clerks would find employment from the merchants who made their prayers beneath Westminster’s arches.

  Presently, the young monk returned. “You are to follow me, Master Guest.” He bowed awkwardly, and Crispin smiled. This boy reminded him of when he first met Jack Tucker. Jack had been just as awkward, but in three years’ time had learned some aplomb. No doubt he acquired it by mimicking Crispin. Young Jack was a perfect chameleon, to be sure.

  Crispin walked the familiar arcades and shadowed arches of the cloister and reached the abbot’s lodgings, where he was greeted at the top of the stairs by Brother Eric. The usually jovial monk wore a face of concern.

  “Brother Eric.”

  “Master Crispin,” he said sternly in a voice that seemed to say, “I wish you had not come.”

  Crispin acknowledged the sentiment with a nod. “May I see him?”

  The monk turned toward the closed door before looking back at Crispin. Without another word, he opened the door and announced him.

  The old abbot was lifting a hauberk by its shoulders and thrusting it toward his companion, Brother John Canterbery. Neither seemed to notice Crispin’s arrival, even after the announcement. Crispin moved into the familiar warm room. Light from arched reticulated windows shone bright on the wall and tiled floor. The hauberk sparkled from shafts of sunlight. He had only a moment to wonder at their industrious conversation before Abbot Nicholas turned at the sound of his step.

  “Crispin!” He seemed happy at first and then he frowned, his white brows curling over his eyes. “Crispin,” he said more soberly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I know my presence is less than welcome at such a volatile time, Lord Abbot, but it is because of these times I come to speak with you. But if I may ask, what are you and this good brother here doing with armor?”

  “He wishes to don it and protect the city,” said Brother John, ticking his head at his abbot.

  Crispin stepped forward and fingered the fine rings of the hauberk. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” said Nicholas, pulling the shirt away. Beside it upon the bed lay a breastplate and cuisses. “I am fully prepared to march with the king to do my duty and protect the realm.”

  Crispin gazed fondly at the aged man, his pale, wrinkled skin, and faintly pink nose. White hair fell from his tonsured scalp to his ears, curling around the shell. “Don’t be a fool, Nicholas.” He took the hauberk from the abbot’s hand and laid it aside.

  “I am not being a fool, Crispin Guest. And fie upon you for such talk to your elders. These are troubling times.”

  “And well I know it. And I would have more news from you, if you are willing to give it.”

  Nicholas fussed a few moments more until Brother John sighed and with an exasperated, “Bah!” Nicholas turned away. He shuffled very slowly and deliberately to his chair by the fire. The usually robust old monk seemed to have diminished in strength in the last few months. Crispin quickly moved forward and took him by the arm.

  “Are you well, my lord?”

  He waved Crispin off but sat in his chair by falling into it with an exhausted huff. “I’m tired. These days are vexing. My archdeacon is out of the country again, and I fear for his safety.” His hand gestured vaguely. “Now all of this.”

  “How is Brother William?” Crispin appreciated the intellect and expertise of the abbot’s archdeacon, William of Colchester, who kept the business of the abbey running smoothly both at home and abroad in Rome and Avignon. The old abbot needed someone with a good head on his shoulders, but the man was rarely present, always on a mission to do some papal business or other.

  “By all accounts he is well, but it is dangerous traveling abroad. Rome has its eye fixed on Spain at the moment, as do we all. But France must not be neglected.”

  “The king has decreed—”

  “I know well what the king has decreed. It is his way to pacify the people in hopes that they would not notice his household is under siege. But they have noticed nonetheless.”

  “Yes, there was a rabble on the Shambles just today.”

  “On the Shambles? Bless me. Well, the people are angry, to be sure.”

  “At what, exactly? Taxes, of course, and fear of invasion have everyone on tenterhooks.”

  “Taxes. Oh yes. The Lord Chancellor has angered everyone where taxes are concerned, but more than that, the barons are angry at his presumption of authority. He was never well liked and to have the king put him in such an exalted position … well. Blood will be spilled.”

  “But whose?”

  “Well,” said the said abbot, nodding his thanks as Brother John handed him warmed wine. He poured a second goblet for Crispin. “If the counselors have their way, it shall be Suffolk’s.”

  “They mean to impeach him?”

  “Some say it will be far more than that. And it is all designed to embarrass the king and bring him into conformity. And the duke of Ireland,” he added with some disdain, shaking his head. “Robert de Vere, indeed. It was bad enough when King Richard created him the Marquess of Ireland but did he have to spit in the eye of his counselors and create him duke? Is he the king’s brother? Uncle? It is not well to grant a … a friend a dukedom. That along with the household expenditures, so they say, would seem to show that Richard is uncontrollable. The closer the king comes to his majority, the more highly of himself and his office he seems to think. Too highly.”

  Crispin leaned back but said nothing.

  Nicholas squinted at him and then glanced once at Brother John, busily storing away the armor in a coffer. “It doesn’t matter how right you might have been nine years ago,” he said quietly to Crispin. “The fact remains that he is the king.”

  “And I shall defend the crown as I have always sworn to do.” He sipped the mellow Spanish wine.

  “You obfuscate with words, Crispin,” said Nicholas.

  “‘He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.’ These words are not obfuscation.”

  “Your Aristotle also said, ‘It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.’ I tell you, Crispin, do not involve yourself again. Lancaster is far from England’s shores.”

  “I need no reminding of that, my lord. Nor of the need to keep myself out of court politics. But sometimes it is unavoidable.”

  “Crispin, harken to me. You must not involve yourself. Richard will soon find he is cornered, whether he realizes it or not. And a cornered beast is most dangerous.”

  “‘A bad man can do a million times more harm than a beast.’”

  “Stop that! You will not quote your pagan philosopher at me.�
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  Crispin swallowed his grin. “What can you tell me of these counselors, then?”

  Nicholas narrowed his eyes. He was not fooled by the change of subject. “Alexander Neville, the archbishop of York; Nicholas, abbot of Waltham; William de Courtenay, the archbishop of Canterbury—” He paused and studied Crispin’s face. Crispin continued to sip at his wine. “Richard, Lord Scrope; Thomas of Woodstock, the duke of Gloucester; Thomas Arundel, bishop of Ely; Richard, earl of Arundel; Edmund Langely, duke of York; John Lord Cobham; and Sir John Devereux. Have I missed anyone, Brother John?”

  “William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester; Thomas Brantingham, bishop of Exeter; and John Gilbert, bishop of Hereford,” he said from the back of the room.

  “Oh yes, yes. A horde of bishops. An uneven chessboard. But the king must be made to see.”

  “Will he?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “It is difficult to say. It is no coincidence that this move was made while Lancaster is out of the country.”

  No, Crispin didn’t think it was either. “What’s to be done?”

  “For you, nothing. In fact, I advise staying out of Westminster altogether. But I doubt you will take that advice.”

  “But what would I do without your council?” Crispin smiled at the old man’s frown but soon enough he was frowning himself. “Do you also know about … have you heard anything about the convening of a trial for cowardice and desertion?”

  Abbot Nicholas rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “It is no secret that the Earl Marshal’s court is condemning a knight for cowardice.”

  Crispin took a deep breath. “Sir Thomas Saunfayl.”

  “Yes.” The abbot raised his yellowed eyes. The blue of his irises was pale, like thin ice. “And Geoffrey Chaucer has been charged with defending him. But it is said there is little expectation of a positive outcome. Trial by combat is his only hope. You knew him, I take it?”

  “Yes. I thought I did.”

  “If he is a coward then is he not best left to God’s mercy?”

  If a man could not take his rightful place on the battlefield then he was a detriment to those around him. A man who could not defend his lands let alone the king’s was a liability the realm could ill afford. Crispin bowed to the sense of it, but he could not separate the man he had known from this new disgrace. Even so, he had made a vow to Thomas, and he would see it through.

  “I don’t have an answer to that,” he said after a long pause. “I leave such discussions to theologians. Like yourself.”

  Nicholas nodded and seemed to sink into the furs on his chair. The greyhound lying before the hearth raised its head, tail thumping, before he lowered it again and blew a huff of breath along the stone tiles.

  Brother John was suddenly at Crispin’s side. “My Lord Abbot is weary, Master Crispin. Perhaps we should leave him to his rest.”

  Nicholas was already dozing. Crispin rose and handed the younger monk his goblet. “Thank you, Brother,” he said quietly. “I forget that Abbot Nicholas is an old man. We have had so many robust arguments.”

  “Yes, I know. But of late, he has slowed down considerably. It is the way of things. The old must make way for the new.”

  “I would not be so quick to dismiss the old, Brother John. I have known Abbot Nicholas to be full of surprises.” He walked with the monk to the door, bowed to him, and saw his way out through the cloister.

  When he passed through the south transept and out onto the street at last, Crispin’s thoughts were a jumble. But one thing was certain. Knights and politics aside, he had a murderer to apprehend, and he could not do it in Westminster. He had to return to London Bridge.

  10

  IT WAS WELL PAST None by the time Crispin reached the bridge. Where had the day gone? Between traveling to Westminster and back to the bridge, he had walked across London more times than he could count. He paid his toll again and passed through the bridge’s gate, then made his way down the avenue. A brisk wind from off the Thames whipped his hood about his face but the tight position of the buildings afforded some shelter from the river’s wind and spray. The late afternoon sun gave bleak light behind a shade of clouds, laying a pale yellow sheen over the bold faces of the shopfronts.

  The hammering continued, and now the narrow stands were forming along the avenue. They’d block some of the shops and houses, and the shop owners looked none too keen on that, but everyone loved a joust, especially if it meant that a man was fighting for his very life.

  Crispin scowled and turned away from the beams and carpenters.

  Among the background noise of shopkeepers, lowing beasts, and hammering, the susurration of the river passing beneath and clashing against the piers hummed in his ears. He supposed it could have a lulling effect when all were quiet in their beds, but it could also drive a man mad with the constant hiss at his senses.

  He reached the armorer’s and slowed to a stroll. Two men in the livery of the city of London were boarding up the door. The sheriffs’ men were keeping all secure, he supposed. He stood behind them as one hammered—badly—and placed one board atop another while the other man picked through a handful of nails.

  “What is this?” asked Crispin, and got grim satisfaction as the man hit his thumb instead of the nail. He howled while the other laughed, but the other was soon howling, too, when the board fell and landed on his foot. They were both hopping around until they turned twin scowls on Crispin. “I beg your pardon,” he said with a bow to hide his smirk. “By whose order are you securing this shop?”

  “By order of the Lord Sheriff,” grumbled the one with the swollen thumb. “And if you don’t want to find yourself in Newgate this night, you’ll move along.”

  He watched them for a moment more before he quit them and went next door to the haberdasher, who was yet to be talked to. If there was much ado in the armorer’s, surely they would have heard.

  He passed through the archway. A wire-thin man was bent over a bench with a wooden form. Wool batting stuck through the loose seams of dark blue material wound about the form, and the man was carefully stitching a long liripipe tail to what would become a roundel hat.

  “I beg your pardon, good master,” said Crispin with a bow.

  The man continued on without acknowledgement of Crispin’s presence.

  Crispin cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon,” he said a bit louder.

  Still, the man worked on.

  Either the haberdasher was being insulting or …

  Crispin reached out and touched the man’s shoulder. He jumped so abruptly he fell off his stool. Crispin knelt to help him up.

  “Why by God’s teeth are you creeping up on a man like that!” he accused.

  Crispin brushed the dust off the man’s gown and bowed. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Eh?”

  “I said, I beg your pardon?”

  “What? Speak up. I can’t countenance mumbling.”

  “I SAID, I BEG YOUR PARDON.”

  “No need to shout, young man.”

  Crispin sighed.

  It took a great deal more shouting before Crispin discovered from the nearly deaf craftsman that not only had he heard nothing the night of the murder but he did not even know the armorer was dead.

  “How did he die?”

  “I BELIEVE HE WAS MURDERED.”

  “Murdered? By Saint Agatha, bless us all.”

  “HAD YOU ANY REASON TO BELIEVE HE TOOK HIS OWN LIFE?”

  “Eh? I thought you said he was murdered. I don’t hear well, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. BUT THERE WERE SOME WHO THOUGHT AT FIRST HE MIGHT HAVE DONE IT HIMSELF.”

  The man shook his head. “No. Not Roger Grey. He was a robust man. A man of ambition. He would never do such a thing. I was under the impression he expected a windfall and had planned to leave London.”

  The third time someone had said as much, yet his betrothed said it was not so.

  Crispin thanked the man, walked out of the shop, and headed for the tailor
only two doors away.

  Master Coterel was at his bench, carefully sewing a sleeve for a blue and as yet sleeveless cotehardie hanging from a straw-stuffed mannequin. The coat was still in a raw stage with seams open and chalk marks where pleats would be added. Crispin realized this was to be Jack’s new coat. He looked it over, running his hands along the shoulders. A fine coat. The man was a decent tailor, at least. “Master Coterel,” he said softly, not wishing for a repeat of the scene at the haberdasher’s.

  The man glanced up and put his sewing aside. “Master Guest. You’re back. What may I do for you?”

  Anabel peeked down the stairs and soon she trotted down the treads to stand on the bottom step. She patted her hair under its kerchief. Those large eyes looked him up and down again.

  He noticed a window overlooking the Thames, similar to the one in the armorer’s shop. “I had hoped to look again in Master Grey’s shop for more clues, but the sheriffs’ men are locking it up tight.”

  “Yes,” she said, approaching him. “I saw that. I begged them not to but they refused. What will you do?”

  In answer, he walked to the window and opened the shutters. The Thames rushed briskly below. It wouldn’t be low tide until Compline.

  He looked to his right, and not too far away—about five feet, by his reckoning—was the armorer’s window. The shops cantilevered out over the Thames. He could not see the base of the bridge below him except for the piers in the midst of the water, but there were corbels jutting out from the shop foundation beams running every two feet. It would have to do.

  He leapt onto the sill and climbed down to the first corbel. Anabel screamed, as did her father, and they both dashed to the window and leaned over. She reached out with her arms. “Sir! What are you doing? Come back inside!”

  “I must get into the shop next door. Short of climbing down his chimney—which I do not think a wise choice—this is my only way in.”

  “But … but—” Her eyes were wide in fear, taking in the whitecaps of the Thames below.