Troubled Bones

by Jeri Westerson

  She turned toward the statue of Saint Benet and then looked again at the spot on the floor where the Prioress had lain, not too far from the place of Becket’s martyrdom. “I needed to come to the church.”

  “But it is closed. It must be re-consecrated.”

  “Oh? I did not know.” She pulled her veil about her like a cocoon. “I just felt … I should come. Here.”

  He said nothing. And then he remembered the rosary bead still housed in his pouch. Reaching in, he took it in his fingers. “Dame, this belongs to you. I know Mistress Alyson repaired your rosary”—and he gestured to the string of beads hanging from her belt—“but I hope this last bead can be added back.” Small comfort but it was all he had to offer.

  She opened her hand as if feeding a bird and he dropped the wooden bead into her palm. There was a bit of brown blood on one side of the berry-sized bead. This did not seem to affect her and she closed her hand over it. “I shall do my best,” she said. She gazed at him squarely, even critically before she cast her eyes on Jack. She gave him a strangely alluring look that disturbed Crispin and made Jack’s face blush even redder. She bowed her head to both of them and slowly left the chapel.

  He watched her long shadow stretch until it blended with the others in the church. The sound of hammering thudded in his head.

  “You don’t think she’s still in danger, do you?” whispered Jack.

  “I do not know.” Crispin stared at the floor worriedly, hearing her screams echoing in his head. “If she were, then why wasn’t she killed that night? I wonder how…” He remembered a raven-black gown spread out on the floor with a scarlet pool of blood beneath it; rosary beads scattered like teardrops. He thought a moment, looking at the floor, eyes scanning to every nook and shadow. He raised his head and his search grew wider, encompassing the whole church. When he spotted his quarry he darted up the nave and accosted a monk exchanging candles. “Good Brother,” he said to the startled man. He glared at the man’s rope belt and huffed with disappointment. “Never mind,” he cast over his shoulder, leaving the puzzled monk where he stood. He spied another quietly sweeping the paving tiles with a gorse broom. Crispin grasped his shoulders, and the monk, taken unawares, shrank back and dropped his broom. “Forgive me, Brother. But may I borrow your rosary?”

  “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.”

  22

  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?”

  “Aye, sir, I know. I am heartily sorry for that. I did not have all the facts. Someone clearly snatched Master Chaucer’s dagger from him and did the deed. But who, Master? Sir Philip?”

  His mind snagged on one word: facts. Did they have all the facts? It wasn’t for the bones. He knew that. Then if not the bones, why? “We don’t have all the facts. The sword, Jack. We don’t know who it belonged to.”

  “I just assumed it was Sir Philip’s.”

  “He has his own sword. But Master Harper was researching that blazon for us. Perhaps we had best revisit him to see what facts he has uncovered.”

  It was not much, but it was something. Crispin turned on his heel to head back to the cathedral. He went straight to the priory gates and rang the bell before his impatience made him slam his fist repeatedly to the door. “Open up, I say!”

  A monk drew the door open a crack. “Why do you disturb the peace of this priory, sir? It is late.”

  “Get out of my way.” He pushed the door open and the monk fell back. He had no time for apologies and stomped forward. Jack scurried in quickly behind.

  Crispin paid no heed to the monks he shouldered out of his way, nor the angry words and gestures they invoked toward him as the monks threaded in the direction of the chapel for Vespers.

  His eyes were fixed on the arched colonnade ahead and to the little door that led to the courtyard where the pensioners lived. No one said anything more to him as he passed through the cloister. He thought about sending up a prayer for forgiveness as he trespassed but swallowed it back. There would be time later for shriving. He trusted that Dom Thomas was doing his part. Crispin would do his.

  They reached the courtyard at last but Harper was not out hoeing his garden. Of course not. It was Vespers already. Crispin had barely registered the sounds of bells chiming above him and the line of monks heading to the chapel to perform the Divine Office. He hoped Harper was in his cottage with his books and not with the monks.

  He stalked up to the door and knocked. The door immediately opened and Harper greeted Crispin with a grim expression. “You’re back. Good. I have the answer you are seeking.”

  “God be praised.” Entering, he stepped right up to Harper’s table. The old herald was directly behind him and reached forward to open a parchment. He moved a candle forward, its light casting a warm glow over the piece.

  “You see, Master Guest,” he said, pointing to the parchment.

  Before Harper could speak, he pressed his hand to the man’s arm, silencing him. He didn’t know what to say. His mind raced like a stallion in a meadow. He could not have fathomed this, but slowly, it began to make sense to him.

  “Master Harper,” he said, his strained voice strange to his ears. “May I borrow this?”

  Harper looked over the paper and frowned. Clearly, he did not like to part with his Ordinaries, but when he looked up, Crispin could see the conviction in his pale eyes. “Yes, of course. If it will help.”

  “It will. And Master Harper, I thank you. You have saved a man’s life.” The herald bowed. Crispin folded it up, carefully following the creases, and stuffed it in his belt. “Come along, Jack.”

  Jack waved his farewells to Harper and ran after his master’s long strides. Crispin didn’t want it to be true, but he didn’t see how it couldn’t be. It all fell into place. Except for Wilfrid. But he’d have to ask …

  When he got to the transept door, he entered the church. The masons had given up their work for the day and Crispin’s troubled soul fell into the quiet and solitude of the lonely spaces of vault and column. He walked up the nave, stopped before the rood screen, and turned on his heel to face Jack.

  “What is it, sir? Do you know who owned the sword? Did Master Harper—?”

  “Yes, Jack.” He couldn’t help it. His eyes fell from the boy’s. How was he to say? He tugged the parchment from his belt and opened it. He pointed to the red shield with the muzzled bear head. Then his finger traced downwards from the shield. “This was the Fitz-Urse line. The murderer Reginald had no issue, but his brother Richard did; a daughter named Mabel and a son Warine. Then Warine had an issue named Gilbert. But as you see here, by the fourth generation, they changed their name.”

  He took a breath and glanced up at Jack.

  Jack looked back at him, puzzled. “And what is that surname sir?”

  Crispin lowered the paper to his thigh. “Bereham.”

  It took a moment, but Jack’s face slowly changed from puzzlement to pale incredulity, and finally to reddened outrage. “That’s a lie! That’s a filthy lie! Let me see that paper!” He snatched it from Crispin’s hand. He gazed over Jack’s shoulder, following his finger tracing over the stiff paper, resting here and there on a name until he reached the sixth generation. Margaret de Bereham was Crispin’s age and there was a line struck through her carefully penned inscription. A note was written to the side probably by Master Harper some years ago. Crispin recognized the look of such slightly browned ink. It read: Gave birth to bastard daughter and was banished from the family. May God have mercy.

  Jack dropped the parchment and walked like an old man to the rood screen, dragging the sword behind him. His fingers curled around the rood’s carved wood and he stood a long time facing it. Crispin didn’t know whether he should go to the boy or better to stay away. “Jack,” he said softly.

  Tucker slowly shook his head from side to side, but he did not turn to Crispin. His voice sounded wrung from him, taut, fighting back tears. “Why did it have to be her? Of all people. Why, Master Crispin, did it have to be her?”

  Crispin licked his suddenly dry lips. “I do not know, Jack. But this sword most certainly belonged to Dame Marguerite. She … she must have known the nature of Prioress Eglantine’s name and bided her time. Or…” He shook his head. “I know not why. But it explains the broken rosary. An errant sword swipe could not have cut through it without harming her. But if she had lifted the sword herse
lf and caught the crossguard on her own rosary in her belt, it would have snapped it.”

  “That is so clever of you,” said Marguerite.

  Crispin and Jack both spun. Dame Marguerite stood behind them in the darkening church. She cocked her head and looked at Jack. “He is a clever man, isn’t he?” she said to Tucker.

  “Dame Marguerite,” whispered Jack, anguish breaking his voice.

  Footsteps. From around a pillar, Chaucer and Dom Thomas trotted and suddenly stopped.

  “Cris! This monk—”

  “Master Crispin?” asked Dom Thomas, taking in the tableau.

  “Silence! Both of you!” Crispin swept his hand up, gesturing for them to stay as they were.

  “I have decided something,” said Marguerite, face white within her surrounding veil. She seemed little put off by the presence of two more, and in fact took little notice of them. “I shall leave the Church and go with you, Master Tucker. Yes, I think this is best.”

  “Marguerite.” He took a step closer to her.

  Crispin clasped Jack’s shoulder and pulled him back, stepping forward in his place. “Dame Marguerite. That sword.” He gestured to the one in Jack’s hand. “Did it belong to you?”

  “Of course. I am of the family Fitz-Urse.”

  Chaucer and Dom Thomas gasped but wisely stayed silent.

  “It is Bereham now. Fortis et Patientia. The Bereham motto. ‘Strong and Enduring.’ So foolish a thing, truly. Strength and endurance, aye. My mother had it in abundance. She was a Bereham but she was shunned from the family. They gave the sword to her. I do not know if it was a jest or whether she was supposed to use it on herself for disgracing the family so. Or perhaps they simply wished to rid themselves of the reminder of their dreaded past.”

  She edged closer to Jack. Crispin shoved the struggling boy behind him.

  “Did you kill the Prioress?”

  She smiled. It was the same as her pitying smiles. It chilled him to the bone.

  “Yes, of course. She needed to die.”

  The words, so gently spoken, could well have been mistaken for something else. But Jack’s gasp behind his back told him it was true. Crispin felt the boy’s fists at his spine and Jack suddenly burst forward. Tears streaked his face.