Cup of Blood: A Medieval Noir: A Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Prequel

by Jeri Westerson

  A misty rain was falling and Jack tugged his hood up over his head, blinking the droplets from his lashes. Her pace was furious, as if she might be late for an appointment, and Jack followed some steps behind.

  Once she looked back, and Jack whirled on his heel. He bent to pick up a bundle of sticks and hoisted it to his shoulder, pretending to walk into the nearest shop with it.

  “Oi!”

  He looked up at the man with the cart full of sticks, gesturing to him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Jack gently placed the sticks where he found them. “Naught, good Master. I, er…farewell.”

  “Knave!” the man yelled, but Jack sprinted away around a corner. He stopped and slammed against the wall of a shop before peering back. No one was after him. Glancing forward, Vivienne was getting farther ahead so he pushed himself away and trailed after.

  I wonder what is it I’m supposed to see, Jack mused. This tracking was more complicated than he thought.

  They were traveling down Old Fish Street toward Trinity. The city was fully awake, and Jack blended in as he always had, walking just behind a man pushing a cart full of onions and turnips. He provided good cover as the avenue widened at Walbrook Street. Vivienne turned down it and Jack lost the man with the cart but picked up the shadow of three monks traveling together.

  Vivienne continued to march down the street until she turned again at Ropery. She seemed to be heading toward another inn, the Bell, by the wooden sign hanging before it. When she slipped inside Jack hurried. He got through the door and looked around hurriedly just in time to spy her up on the gallery with a key in hand and opening a door. Her room, he assumed.

  Well then. What was he to do now? Master Crispin had told him to keep an eye on her and so he decided to wait. He looked about the place and found a stool near the fire and settled in, leaning the stool back until he rested his shoulders against the wall. Travelers and tradesmen sat in groups at the long tables, drinking, talking, or just eating by themselves. One appeared to be a rich cleric of some sort, all bedecked in the colorful robes of his office. He was hand-feeding a sleek greyhound sitting elegantly on the floor beside him.

  Jack licked his lips and felt the emptiness in his belly again. Maybe just one purse. One purse from some unsuspecting drunkard would do, so he could get a meal.

  Eyes keen, he began to examine the crowd for a likely victim. A drunken man to his right staggered to his feet and pulled out some coins. One fell to the floor and his shuffling feet kicked it beneath the table. Jack watched and waited. The man didn’t notice, paid his bill, and shambled away.

  The moment he was gone, Jack dove for it and pinched the silver between his fingers. A penny. He could buy pottage and ale for that, and he looked anxiously for the innkeeper before signaling to him.

  Jack settled in. He’d eaten his bowl of soup, scraping the last bit with the wooden spoon, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, nursing the ale in its wooden beaker. He kept half an eye on Lady Vivienne’s room and the other on the rest of the hall. Men came and went. Others went to their rooms briefly and stomped out of them again. But Lady Vivienne’s door remained shut.

  Leaning against the wall, Jack waited. He took out his small knife and picked his teeth with the blade’s tip. The innkeeper eyed him, but otherwise he went unmolested.

  But after some hours passed, Jack squirmed. He’d never had to stay in one spot for so long. What did Master Crispin want, anyway?

  He stood and stretched…and spied a man whose money pouch was there for the taking. He looked like a student or perhaps a law clerk, the type of young man with patches on his sleeves but with eloquent words on his tongue. His pouch was small and likely mostly empty, but it hung nearly on his back and he was in deep conversation with another of his ilk at the table.

  Jack slid his gaze about the room and straightened his stool. No one was watching. The few customers in the hall were busy in their own conversations and Jack had been there for so long, no one even took heed of him any longer.

  Certainly he had the time for it, he thought, snatching one last look up the stairs to Lady Vivienne’s solidly closed door.

  Slipping gently off his stool he moved closer to the student, pretending to dust off his tunic. He leaned over to tug up his sagging stocking, and while he was low, he raised his knife and swiped at the pouch’s ties. The pouch fell neatly into his waiting hand. Standing up again, he pivoted to return to his seat when he smacked into the chest of a solid individual behind him. A tall, lean man in dark colors looked down at him. A scar pulled up an edge of his mouth and traveled up his face nearly to his eye.

  Jack staggered back but the man shot out a hand and closed it over his shoulder. “How kind of you to retrieve that poor man’s money pouch,” he said in accented English.

  Jack stiffened, especially when the hand squeezed hard on the bone.

  The man kicked the student, who flashed angry eyes at him and rose, looking at the man askance. “Why do you kick, sir?”

  His friends rose, too, and squared off with the Frenchman, for that was what Jack perceived him to be. After all, he had seen him before, and his gut chilled from the remembering.

  The man smiled. “This boy retrieved your money pouch. You dropped it.”

  The student instantly put a hand to his belt and, feeling nothing there, glared down at Jack. Jack proffered the pouch, not knowing what else to do.

  The student grabbed it from Jack’s fingers and gripped it tightly. “Thanks, boy.” He stared at Jack and Jack, frightened to do anything else, stared back.

  “Should you not reward the boy for his honesty?” asked the tall Frenchman.

  Sneering and clearly not wishing to do so, the student reached into his tightly cinched pouch and rummaged for a long time until he finally removed a farthing. He stuck his hand out toward Jack. “Here,” he said. “God keep you.”

  Jack didn’t hesitate to close his fingers on it. He bowed and nodded his head. “Thank you, sir. Bless you, sir.”

  The Frenchman let him go at last and stepped back. The others seated themselves again and resumed their conversation, albeit a bit cautiously.

  Jack shrank away from the dark man. But the Frenchman winked at him, his scar whitening as he offered a half smile, before he stalked to the stairs and trotted upward. He knocked on Vivienne’s door and when she opened it, she startled back upon seeing him. Jack watched as she exchanged a few quiet words before allowing him to enter.

  The student was still glaring, and so Jack retreated to the back of the inn into the gloom. He could still watch the room from there, while keeping out of sight of the suspicious student.

  After a brief time, the Frenchman emerged from the room and trotted back down the stairs and out the inn’s door. Jack stayed in his corner a long time, until his bladder told him he needed to find a privy.

  Out the door he went and toward the back of the stables when someone nabbed him by his hood and spun him around.

  The Frenchman with the scar leaned close. “Don’t I know you, boy?” He looked Jack over as he quivered in the man’s grip. “Ah yes, I remember. Such a brave boy you are. So valiant. A proper squire, are you not? A fitting squire for such a knight.” He chuckled at his own joke, before he peered closely, too close. “But, of course, your master is no longer a knight, is he? You must tell your master this: that I have not forgotten him. Oh no. Not at all. Eh, boy?”

  Suddenly, he released Jack and he fell backward into the muddy hay of the courtyard. The Frenchman smirked and strode away, not looking back.

  Trembling, Jack remembered well that man. He was the man who had held Master Crispin captive before Jack had led the rescue.

  Jack looked down at his braies with shame. He no longer needed the privy.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  With the cell door closed and bolted behind him, Crispin experienced a raw chill of recollection.

  Stephen sat on the wooden pallet, knees up and arms wrapped around
his legs. He stared blankly into the cold hearth. The chiseled window allowed for a little gray light but made the room cold. “What do you want now?” Stephen snarled. “I thought I was free of you.”

  “It is none too comfortable, is it?”

  Stephen glared at Crispin but said nothing.

  “You will grow accustomed to it. I did. I, too, awaited judgment. You, of course, will die for this murder and justice will be served at last.”

  Stephen’s face lay in shadow and his voice arose equally dark. “You will never succeed in this.”

  “I already have.”

  “You are spineless, Guest. They should have drawn and quartered you. They should have pulled out your worthless guts and set them ablaze before your eyes.”

  Crispin’s mouth slanted in a crooked smile. “But they didn’t. Perhaps God spared me for this day.”

  “How were you ever made a knight? Whose wife did you lay with to smooth the way of your pardon?”

  Crispin grabbed Stephen’s shirt and hauled him up. Nose to nose, he took a ragged breath and then another before he finally released him. Stephen fell back on the pallet and laughed, shaking his head. “You poor bastard. Even in revenge you fail. For if I am convicted, it will be for murder, while you will always be known as a traitor.”

  Crispin’s fingers whitened on his dagger. He stepped back and took a cleansing breath. “And yet, your sister will be my wife. And all of your lands will be mine. When you are dead, it will be as if you never were. Consider that.”

  Stephen looked up only to sneer at him.

  “The sheriff sent me to ask you questions.”

  “The both of you can go to Hell.”

  “I’ve already been there.” Crispin kept his distance. “If you will not answer my questions, Sir Stephen, how can I help you? The sheriff will then ask, and his methods are far more unrefined.”

  “You? Help me? You must think me a fool. Anything I tell you will be twisted and used to destroy me.”

  “I see you still have no inkling about my character.”

  “I know a traitor when I see one.”

  The words stung, but Crispin only smiled in reply, the kind of smile reserved for menials. “Let us not dwell on history. Such is past and done. Today we talk of you. Of murders and of… other adventures. When I discovered you, you were being pursued. Your hands had been bound. Shall we begin there?”

  Stephen rubbed his wrists. “Yes, why not?” Crispin watched him carefully. Stephen appeared to be weighing his words. “I was abducted. Held hostage for two days.”

  “Indeed. By whom?”

  Stephen opened his mouth then closed it. He paused before starting again. “By disreputable men.”

  “What did they want?”

  The knight laughed, a sound like crumpled parchment. “To torture me.”

  “Is that all they wanted?”

  “No. They wanted something they thought I possessed. For a while I convinced them I didn’t have it.”

  “And how did you accomplish that?”

  “By telling them you had it.”

  Crispin pushed away from the wall and drew his knife. “You bastard. You set them on me!”

  Stephen smiled broadly and leaned back against the wall. “I suppose I did. I take it you were also not in possession of this object. Did they torture you, too? I would have liked to have seen that.”

  Crispin felt his hand clench tighter around the dagger hilt. He took a breath. Took another. He tapped the flat of the blade against his other hand and quickly sheathed it. “What did they seek?”

  “I am uncertain.”

  “No you’re not. They seek the Holy Grail.”

  Stephen’s smile dimmed and he scrambled to his feet. Crispin touched his dagger and stepped back, but Stephen did not draw near him. His face changed. The skin paled to a sickly gray. “God’s toes, Crispin!” He trembled. “They hinted at such but I never believed…I couldn’t! Does it…is it real?”

  Taken aback, Crispin lowered his hand from his weapon. He angled slightly away from the knight but kept him within his field of vision. “I know not. I have yet to see it.”

  “Christ!” Stephen raked his hair with his fingers. His haughty bitterness lay forgotten. “I thought them insane, asking over and over. I could tell them nothing. How could I say? It’s the stuff of legends, is it not?”

  “Do you know who they were?”

  “No.”

  Crispin eyed him, looking for any sign of deception, annoyed he couldn’t find any. “It is rumored they are Clement VII’s men.”

  Stephen’s eyes widened.

  “The anti-pope. Apparently they want the grail. The knight you killed, Gaston D’Arcy, was the cup bearer, the keeper of the grail. Everyone assumed you took it after you killed him.”

  “Cup bearer? What riddle is here? You say Gaston D’Arcy was a Knight Templar?” Crispin nodded. Stephen sat and dropped his head in his hands. He said nothing for a long time. Crispin waited.

  “A Templar!” Stephen spat. “A Templar indeed!”

  “Tell me what you argued about.”

  With his head still resting on his palms, Stephen shook his head. “There is nothing further to say.”

  “You are a whoreson, but you are no idiot. Tell me!”

  Stephen raised his head. “I repeat: Go to Hell.”

  Crispin nodded. “Then you are a fool. And you will hang.”

  “Then so be it.”

  Crispin turned and knocked on the door. “Gaoler! I am done here.” When the door swung open he glanced once more at Stephen. “And so are you.”

  The door slammed on the knight and Crispin smiled with grim satisfaction, but the smile remained only briefly. The sense of triumph he expected fell short.

  Crispin returned to the sheriff in his chamber. Wynchecombe did not gloat, or at least his expression did not show it. “Well?”

  Crispin sighed. “He told me nothing.”

  The sheriff sat back and pressed his fingertips together. “Are you satisfied?”

  Crispin shook his head. “My lord, I must leave now.”

  “Don’t let me stop you.”

  Crispin would never understand the sheriff. Here was a puzzle of great import and he had no interest whatsoever in any of its intricacies. Did he not wish to know who captured and detained Stephen, the same who did so to Crispin? Had he no curiosity at all about the grail? Be myth or reality, dangerous men sought it, were willing to kill for it. Wynchecombe didn’t care. If it didn’t fall within his usual sphere of rogue, cutpurse, or murderer, he had no use for it.

  Quickly, before he changed his mind, Crispin scraped the coins from the table into his hand. No use letting them go to waste. With a curt bow to hide his embarrassment, Crispin took his leave. He dropped the coins into his money pouch on his way down the stairs, and soon finally stood outside the prison. He looked up, scanned the walls. His eyes lit momentarily on each slotted window in the gate tower. Stephen’s cell would be the one on the far left overlooking Newgate’s sewage run-off that slipped in green tendrils toward the Fleet.

  Why was Stephen so stubborn? What did he hide? He had concentrated so tightly on events surrounding Gaston D’Arcy and the grail that he’d quite forgotten to ask about Vivienne. No matter. Stephen was going nowhere and there would be time enough to discover what Lady Stancliff and Stephen had in common, as well as the subject of Stephen’s earnest conversation with Rosamunde.

  Rosamunde. He wondered if there would ever come a day when he thought of her name without a pang of longing in his heart.

  He tried, with little success, to think of her in the abstract all the way back to his lodgings. When his boot touched the bottom step, he paused. Visions of Rosamunde fled.

  A man. He felt more than saw him in the shadows at the top of the landing. It wasn’t Jack, but that was all he knew. The landing above creaked and confirmed what his gut told him.

  He braced himself against the railing, held his breath and shot up the sta
irs like a quarrel from a crossbow. The man had no time to escape—where was he to go?—and Crispin pinned him against the wall so hard the plaster gave way and flecked on the man’s shoulders. The man groaned and hung his head.

  “You have to the count of three to tell me who you are,” Crispin rasped, cocking his fist at the man’s eye level. “One…two…thr—”

  “Hold! Hold! I am the sheriff’s man!”

  Crispin’s gnarled fist remained near the man’s face. “Say again.”

  “I am the Lord Sheriff’s man!”

  “Why have you been following me?”

  “I was under orders.” His gaze darted from Crispin’s fist, to his face, and back again.

  “Orders?”

  “To follow you. My Lord Sheriff did not trust you to find Sir Stephen and report it immediately.”

  Crispin clenched his fist, wanting now more than ever to mash it into the man’s face, but it was really Simon Wynchecombe he wanted before him.

  He lowered his hand, released the man’s shirt and stepped back. “Then your charge is done,” he said coldly. “Get back to your master and never let me see you again.”

  “Aye,” he grumbled. He straightened his cotehardie and skirted warily past Crispin down the stairs.

  Crispin heaved a sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “Damn the man,” he hissed, thinking of Wynchecombe and his suspicions. He took another breath to relax and lifted the key from his pouch. He pushed the door open, but stopped on the threshold, neck tingling.

  Too late he sensed the men in the room. They dragged him forward, and slammed the door shut behind him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The hearth had burned down to an undulating sea of red embers. Crispin could not see the men clearly. They moved like phantoms in the ragged light. He counted five men, possibly six. They wrestled him into his chair but did not bind him.

  No use in angry protestations. Crispin simply sat where they put him and waited.

  “I think you know who we are,” said a chillingly familiar voice.