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

by Jeri Westerson

  Stephen sniffed. “Gone one day? Would you have bothered to search?”

  “Why was she suspicious?”

  “Because I went to speak with D’Arcy and she did not trust him.”

  “Why?”

  Stephen pressed his lips together.

  “Lady Stancliff was his lover. Did she want the grail?”

  “I know nothing of that. I never knew he was a Templar.”

  “And what of your affair with Lady Stancliff?”

  “Mine? Never.”

  “You lie. She said you were together. She remarked how cruel you were to her.”

  “She made accusations. And that kind of woman does not get away with insults to me.”

  “You never had an affair with her?”

  “No. She is a liar if she claims so.”

  “At first I believed the object she sought was the grail, but she has since told me it was something as innocuous as a ring. A ring I happened to have in my possession all this time.”

  Stephen’s face changed, growing pale. “So? Did you give it to her?”

  “Yes. It belonged to her, after all. Did it not?”

  Stephen scowled and ran his hand over his chin. With that simple gesture, he seemed to release something, and his eyes surrendered into an expression of bleak indifference. “So she said.”

  “What troubles you? That she was not your mistress?”

  Stephen laughed bitterly. “That harridan? As if I would have her.”

  “She warned me you would speak ill of her.”

  Stephen measured Crispin and cracked a wry smile, a smile devoid of joy. “You slept with her. Well and why not! The both of you are whores. She with her cadre of men and you selling your time to the highest bidder.”

  Crispin’s hands curled into fists but he checked his anger. After all, Stephen sat in a cell marked for death, not him.

  “You are right. She did not, in fact, claim you were her lover.”

  “And so.”

  “But there was another lover. She said so. D’Arcy had many, in fact.”

  Stephen turned away from the door and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Lady Stancliff,” Crispin continued, “told me of his many conquests. If he became the lover of another man’s woman…say, yours, perhaps…”

  “I have no one in my life now.”

  “There must have been another lover involved.” Jealousy. He could easily see jealousy as a motive, and jealousy worked well with poison. Crispin struggled with his thoughts, trying to think if he missed something or someone who could possibly be D’Arcy’s lover. And then the sudden insight came to him and struck like a pike piercing his heart. “Jesu! Why did I not see that before?”

  At the same moment Crispin pronounced, “Rosamunde!” Stephen challenged him with a stout, “No!”

  “Rosamunde. It was Rosamunde, wasn’t it?” Stephen’s expression was a muddled mix of anger and fear. Fear? Crispin drew closer, examined his face, and frowned. “That was not the name you expected me to say, was it?”

  Stephen glowered into the fire. “I do not know your meaning.”

  “You were prepared with a denial. Whom did you think I meant to say?”

  “No one. If you suspect Rosamunde then I dare you to accuse her yourself!”

  “Who else, Stephen? You know something, damn you! Are you prepared to die for it? Answer me! Who else?”

  “Go to the Devil, Crispin!”

  Crispin postured and leaned with both hands on the door. “If you had no lady for D’Arcy to woo, then why do you act like a jilted lover? It’s as if…” He stared at Stephen’s bewildered face; saw grief suddenly on his features and something else. Terror. Not the same fear Stephen wore when he spoke of de Marcherne’s men torturing him. This look in his eyes was deeper, older. He studied Stephen, from the rich leather of his boots up to his broad shoulders.

  Like a cascade of icy water, his mind snapped to.

  “Christ’s blood,” Crispin muttered. “Christ’s merciful blood!” He planted his feet before the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “You. Dammit, it was you.”

  Stephen never moved from his haven by the fire but he turned to Crispin. One side of his face bronzed from the flames while the other fell into shadow. “You…you have no proof.”

  “Your expression is proof enough! And you do not deny it! You killed him to keep your secret.”

  Stephen hurled himself at the cell door. “I did not kill him!”

  “You were lovers. Answer me!”

  Stephen trembled, but not from fear. “Damn you.”

  “Well, well, well!” Crispin drew back and strutted before the cell door. “Not only will you be hanged for his murder, but you will be exposed for the disgrace you are!”

  “Crispin.”

  Crispin spun on him. “Do you plead with me? You?”

  Stephen took a deep breath. “Hang me if you must. But I implore you. Say nothing for Rosamunde’s sake.”

  “Then you admit to murder?”

  “If it will spare her, yes.”

  Crispin frowned. This man he had known, who had been his friend. Crispin never suspected this secret side of him. But why then did he murder D’Arcy in such a cowardly way? Why did he lie about the grail, for surely he must have known D’Arcy had it, knew where it was? What was the point in keeping it secret now?

  The more Crispin thought about the murder, the harder it was to imagine it. A crime of passion required the spilling of blood. From experience, Crispin knew that it felt far more satisfactory to let the offender see the blade coming, for him to feel it slice into him, and for him to know that his life’s blood would ebb away.

  He looked up at Stephen’s woeful expression and gritted his teeth. He could walk away now, satisfied of his revenge. He could. Instead, he took a tentative step closer and peered through the grate almost nose to nose with him. “You did not kill him, did you?”

  Stephen shrugged and pulled his cloak over his chest. “I might as well have done. Perhaps I should have. And so,” he said with a shuddering sigh. “You can still have your revenge. Just let me hang.”

  Crispin’s lips peeled back in snarl. “Not if you’re innocent!” He pushed away from the door and furiously paced.

  “You have a strange sense of honor.”

  “Why shouldn’t I have my revenge?”

  “That is the core of it, isn’t it?” Stephen shook his head. “This isn’t about justice. It’s about you. You blame everyone else but yourself. God’s bones! You committed treason, Crispin! You acted against the rightful heir! You acted against England itself. Why can’t you see that?”

  “I did what I thought was just.”

  “You thought! What about the law? Oh how well you now uphold the law, but what about then? If we have not our laws and the rule of succession, we are nothing. We might as well go back to wearing skins and painting our faces blue.”

  “But Lancaster—”

  “Never had rights! God, Crispin! Lancaster was not in line! It was Richard. Richard was the rightful heir. No matter that he was a child at the time. It would not matter if he was a babe. He was king, not your Lancaster. Mother of God! It’s been seven years and you still don’t see how wrong you were. Revenge? Everyone else is to blame but you.” He shook his head and wiped the spittle from his lips with the back of a trembling hand. Stephen’s anger fell away. His shoulders slumped and he turned from the door. “But as for me,” he whispered, placing his hand on his chest. “This has been champing at my heels all my life. Don’t you think I would change if I could? Try to understand…”

  Crispin shook his head. “Understand? You must be mad!”

  “Yes. I thought as much. The great Crispin Guest. Protégé to Lancaster.” He gestured to Crispin’s clothes, his lack of a sword. “See where your pride has taken you.”

  “At least I am not behind a prison door.”

  “No visible door.”

  “No.” His eyes narrowed again with vici
ous fury. “And I have you to thank.”

  “Seven years ago,” Stephen said solemnly, “I discovered a plot and I was honor bound to reveal it. I did not know that it involved you. Not at first. But by then it was far too late. Don’t you realize? You were not the only one destroyed. It destroyed Rosamunde. It destroyed our family. You and I. We were friends. That, too, was lost.”

  Crispin shook his head and swallowed a hard lump in his throat.

  “I did not kill him,” Stephen said softly. “Not for me and not for Rosamunde, for I know she and he…” He sighed. “It was one of the reasons I broke it off with Gaston. For God’s sake, she was my sister! And he knew it, the bastard. Another reason was…oh, there were many reasons.” He threw his head back to gaze up at the arched ceiling. His lashes were moist. “He said many things, made many promises.”

  Crispin grimaced. “Spare me.”

  “He gave that ring to me! I thought it was mine. When I discovered it was not I threw it back at him.”

  Crispin wiped his face with a clammy hand. “So you are saying Rosamunde… She was his…his…” Crispin could not bring himself to say it. It was worse than D’Arcy and Stephen. Almost.

  “Yes,” Stephen finally answered, covering his face with one hand before dropping that hand away. “But she does not know about me.”

  Crispin suddenly wished he never came to Newgate, never met Templars and dead men and courtly ladies. He wished to go back to the Boar’s Tusk and drown his senses in bad wine and smoky hearths.

  Wearily, he heard himself ask, “What of her betrothed?”

  “I know not. The last I heard, he was still in France.”

  Crispin froze. “France? Your French business?”

  “Yes,” nodded Stephen. “We have been negotiating for months.”

  Crispin fell silent. The neat package tied up in a tight string was now unraveling and so much else with it. He pulled distractedly at his coat. Suddenly he felt weary. “For what it is worth,” he said, voice hoarse. “I believe you. And whatever you believe about me, I am a man of honor, however misplaced. I will do my best to see you freed, though the sheriff will not like it.” He strained on the next part, wondering even at the last moment what he was going to say. “I will say nothing to Rosamunde about the…the other matter.”

  Stephen lowered his head and heaved a long sigh. “Thank you.”

  “You…” He stopped and started again. “It’s…” No use. What could he say? Crispin compressed his lips and shook his head. “I do not understand any of this.”

  “I’m…”

  “No.” Crispin held up his hand and grimaced. Now more than ever he longed to strike Stephen, but the man was safe, for now, behind a barred door.

  Crispin turned, but the ragged thoughts would not leave him. “For God’s sake, Stephen! You frequented a brothel!”

  Stephen shrugged. “To keep up appearances.”

  “What in hell did you do there?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I played cards.”

  Crispin kicked at the straw-littered floor.

  Stephen stood at the door, fingers resting on the iron bars. His pensive expression flickered in the torch light. “Will you truly ask the sheriff to release me?”

  “Yes. I said I would. I will not be responsible for hanging an innocent man. But he will ask me what I shall ask you now.” He turned to face him. “If you did not kill D’Arcy, who did?”

  Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Wynchecombe will not like that answer and will require convincing.”

  “If anyone can do it,” he said, eyes locked on Crispin’s, “it will be you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Crispin sat at home and stared into his untouched bowl of wine. After he left Newgate and returned to his lodgings, he realized he was back to the beginning, with no murderer.

  De Marcherne and his henchmen. Crispin had all but ignored him in favor of convicting Stephen.

  “Stephen,” he muttered. He did not want to envisage it, but now his mind could not erase the image of Stephen St Albans and Gaston D’Arcy. Crispin met Stephen a year before encountering Rosamunde. He fought beside him in battle. He never suspected the man capable of what his mind conjured. It wasn’t as if he had not known sodomites. Some were even his friends, but Stephen…

  He shook his head and quaffed the wine. Rubbing his face, he listened to the silence of his room. Below, he could hear Martin Kemp’s wife Alice berating him for some husbandly error among the clatter of pots and pans. Not long after, a door slammed and the quantity of smoke from the outdoor furnace suddenly billowed, cascading across Crispin’s open window and tumbling into his room. Crispin took two strides to close the shutters, but not before watching Martin Kemp jam wood into the inferno, no doubt thinking of something other than wood burning in the fierce blaze and going up in smoke.

  Crispin sighed and leaned his hand against the lintel. “I must return to the problem,” he reminded himself. “Who is the murderer?”

  He started when Jack Tucker opened the door and walked in as if he’d lived there all his life. He smiled upon seeing Crispin. “Master. What’s the news?”

  Crispin stared, unused to the ease with which Tucker had insinuated himself. He still wasn’t quite sure what to make of the lad and his motives, but he shook his head and walked away from the window. Standing in front of the fire, he mechanically raised his fingers to the flames. It did little to warm him.

  “The news, Jack, is far from good.”

  “Oh?” Jack settled on the floor beside the fire. He took out a wedge of cheese from his pouch and began eating it. With a wad bulging his cheek, he stopped and offered the hunk in his hand to Crispin. Crispin glanced disinterestedly at the food and shook his head.

  “Stephen St Albans is not guilty of murder.”

  “No! It’s that wretched sheriff to blame.”

  “No, no. It is not the sheriff. It’s me. I have talked with Stephen and mulled over the evidence and I do not believe him guilty.”

  Jack eyed him and continued chewing. “The woman, then,” he offered slowly. “That Lady Stancliff.”

  Crispin shook his head. “Nor her.”

  “Blind me, Master. Who’s left?”

  “Exactly.” Crispin sat on the hard wood of the chair.

  “Maybe it’s them anti-pope men like I said.”

  “Yes. I do consider them. But I also consider D’Arcy’s Templar companions.”

  “Eh? Why would they murder him? They were his friends, weren’t they?”

  Crispin tapped the wooden bowl with his fingers. “Not entirely. I cannot tell you all, Jack, but it might have been simpler for them to merely eliminate him. Remember, they did steal the body.”

  “Oh, aye.” He chewed and thought. “It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

  “That it is.”

  Crispin rose again to retrieve the wine jug and poured more into the bowl. He stood for a moment with the jug still in his hand and stared into nothing.

  “Master,” said Jack at his elbow. “Why don’t you ask them Templars. Get it straight from them.”

  “Because I cannot find them. They find me.”

  “Then what of de Marcherne?”

  “At least I do know where he is.” He put the jug down and ran his hand over his day-old beard.

  “Where, Master?”

  He sighed, but it came from a weariness far beyond the rigors of the day. “Court,” he answered.

  Jack whistled. “Have you been lately to court, Master Crispin? Since…well, since…”

  “No. I have not. But I have made many a deal with the Devil today. One more won’t hurt.”

  Two strides took him to his wash basin, and he proceeded to shave without a word.

  Jack insisted upon escorting him to Westminster Palace, and in the back of his mind, Crispin felt glad the boy came. He tried to look his best. Crispin had shaved, clipped his hair, and groomed his poor clothes as best he could, and though
Jack’s attire obviously belonged in no court, it was better to have some kind of retainer than none at all.

  But the closer Crispin got to the gates, the harder it was to breathe. “I wish to God I had a horse,” he muttered.

  Jack nodded. “It would be more seemly, but a man has to make do.” He glanced up at the walls and the finery of the guards ahead and moved closer to Crispin. “How long ago did you say you were last here?”

  “Seven years. Yet it seems like only yesterday.”

  They reached the gatehouse and the porters looked them over. Each guard wore a mail hood that covered their chins and rested under their lower lip. Their conical helms fit snugly to their heads. One man-at-arms stood back under the shadows while the other approached. “And what would you want?” he asked.

  Crispin resisted the urge to straighten his coat. No amount of tugging would hide its repairs. “I am here to see the dignitary from the French court; Guillaume de Marcherne.”

  The guard squinted at him before glancing back to his companion. Although Crispin looked like a common tradesman his manner of speech gave them pause.

  “And what would the likes of his worthy want to see you for?” asked the man-at-arms.

  “I have business with him. I would send my man here to give him a message.”

  The man glanced at Jack and sneered. “What? Him?”

  “There now!” cried Jack. He gestured with a jerk of his thumb. “This here is Sir Crispin Guest, and you best show the proper respect for him. He has business at court.”

  The man made no effort to move except to lick his lips. “So?”

  Crispin tried on his haughtiest expression. “I am sending my man with a message. Now.”

  But the guard dropped his hand on his sword pommel. “Take the tradesman’s entrance. Back there.” He gestured half-heartedly and turned his back.

  Crispin felt his muscles tense and the urge to grab for his own sword was strong, even though no sword hung at his side.

  Tight-lipped, he gestured for Jack to follow him and they walked around the palace by another arch. Men unloaded sacks from a cart and carried them in under the distracted eye of a man-at-arms. Crispin nodded for Jack to follow his lead and they each picked up a sack, hoisted it over their shoulders, and carried it inside. Once they were out of sight of the knights in the courtyard, they dropped their loads and entered a long corridor. Crispin found a wooden staircase and grabbed the railing. “Come along, Jack. Keep close.”