The Silence of Stones

by Jeri Westerson

  Crispin didn’t budge. ‘Can you describe the men?’

  He shook his head and shrugged. ‘They were like any other men. Except they were northerners. Could barely understand their speech.’

  ‘There was nothing distinguishing about them? Tall or short? Broad or thin?’

  ‘We-e-ell.’ He scrubbed at the back of his head. He stared distantly, attempting to think, or so Crispin hoped, when he shot his hand forward, pointing out the window. ‘There goes one now!’

  Crispin leaped toward the window, eyes scanning the people on the street, trying to discern if anyone looked familiar to him. ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, which one, man?’

  The man went to the window, standing shoulder to shoulder with Crispin. He pointed at a lordly-looking man in a mustard-colored cotehardie. ‘That’s him there.’

  Crispin turned on his heel and grabbed for the door latch. He flung the door open and tore across the threshold. ‘You there!’ he cried.

  Several people turned, looking curiously at Crispin. When the man in the mustard cotehardie turned, his eyes blazed, and he broke into a run.

  I hate it when they run. Crispin took a breath and pelted after him, but he was overtaken by a blur in a skirt. Before he could register what was going on, John Rykener leaped and felled the man in a hard tackle to the mud. The man skidded a few feet on his face.

  John turned a mud-spattered smile to Crispin with the man struggling beneath him, swearing all manner of Gaelic oaths. ‘I got him, Crispin! I got him!’

  THIRTEEN

  Jack had slept fitfully all through the night. He could not get it out of his head that he had been speaking to the queen! And in a most disrespectful manner. Oh, Jack. It’s like you’re asking for the gallows. But Queen Anne had seemed like any other young lady: sad, frightened, desperate. Like many of Master Crispin’s clients, truth be told. Didn’t she deserve the same help as any other?

  ‘And I would help if I could …’

  He cringed on his cot, even as the weak sun of morning threw gray light into the small servant’s room. You’re a coward is what you are, he admonished. He had almost spoken it aloud but remembered that there were other servants snoring softly around him. Sitting up, his gaze swept over the curled bodies of boys in the employ of Henry Bolingbroke. He cast his blanket aside, and as quietly as he could – for he knew that arrogant steward would be in any moment to awaken them all – Jack slipped off of his cot and tiptoed toward the door. He gently pulled it open and left the little room.

  He breathed free again, standing in one of many parlors. Without thinking too hard about it, he went to the hearth, and set about building up the fires. But even as he worked, the face of that gentle woman – the queen! he reminded himself – kept creeping into his thoughts.

  She was distressed, and didn’t he know about getting on the wrong side of King Richard! What could this missing thing be that clapped her in such danger? But how could that be? All the kingdom knew how much Richard doted on his wife, even as childless as she remained. She could simply be imagining her distress … yet, it had looked real enough to him.

  God’s blood, he wanted to help! He could do nothing for himself holed up as he was, but he might be able to do something for the queen. Still, he needed advice. Whom could he ask? Henry was a busy man, and Jack did not feel that he could approach him. Lady Katherine, on the other hand … But she was in her lodgings across the corridor, and he was supposed to be in hiding. Still, it was early yet. Perhaps he could make his way over there, await her.

  He liked that plan. And with no one around he decided to chance it.

  Stealthily, he passed through the archways to the main parlor, first standing against the wall and peering carefully around the corner. A servant was laying the fires, but as soon as he had accomplished his task, he disappeared through another door. Jack saw his chance.

  He trotted silently across the chequerboard floor and grasped the latch. Gently, quietly, he turned the key in the lock and pulled it open. Face pressed against the jam, he searched up both ends of the corridor. A guard paced down at the far end and Jack waited until he had turned away before he darted forward and pressed himself against the walls and made his way to Lady Katherine’s suite.

  He tried the door, but naturally it was locked. He had only moments until the guard had a chance to spot him, so he dropped to his knees, withdrew his lockpicks, and began to drop the pins one by one. They fell easily to his skillful ministration, and he was in with the door closed, before the guard ever blinked in his direction.

  Inside he looked around. He could wait there in the outer parlor, or he could try to find her. Hubris had gotten him this far. He reckoned it might as well take him all the way forward.

  There were several bedchambers in the apartments, but he wasn’t certain which one was hers. Not being the burglar kind of thief, he wasn’t used to creeping about into bedchambers.

  He stood in the antechamber and folded his arms. If I were the duke of Lancaster, I’d want a grand bedchamber. Before him stood a wide door, carved in intricate detail. But if I were his mistress, I would not be in it, as it would not be my place. And so, I would be close, but not too close.

  He passed the closest bedchamber and went toward the third. He rubbed his cold hands together and grabbed the latch. Locked. It took only moments to break through, and he slipped in with his back to the door. The large bed had its curtains drawn. The hearth glowed from banked coals, but a lady’s maid – a very young one – lay nestled in an alcove by the hearth. How was he to get rid of her?

  All thoughts fled when she started to stir. Jack darted under the bed as the maid yawned and stretched.

  He peered out from under the bedframe to watch as she rejuvenated the fire, grabbed the jug, and quietly left the room to fetch water.

  Once the door snicked closed, he slipped out from under the bed and stood before the curtains. If he were wrong … But also, what if he were right? Would she endorse such an intrusion? He moaned. And here he imagined he had thought it through.

  ‘God help me,’ he murmured, grasped the curtains, and opened them a sliver. Someone lay in the bed under the blankets. ‘Lady Katherine!’ he hissed. ‘Please, Lady Katherine. Awake!’

  Slowly she stirred but then froze. Without warning, she threw herself forward and faced Jack, a bejeweled dagger in her hand.

  Jack fell backward onto the floor. ‘My lady, it’s only me, Jack Tucker!’

  ‘Master Tucker?’ Bare feet emerged from the side of the mattress and then the lady in her shift, bending to peer at him. ‘Holy Mother! What in Heaven are you doing here?’

  ‘Well …’ He lay on his back like a turtle and felt, under the circumstances and looking at her poised dagger, that perhaps he had best stay there.

  She scrambled out of bed, still brandishing her knife, and with a face full of fury stood over him.

  ‘Forgive me, Lady Katherine. But I …’

  ‘Get under the bed,’ she demanded.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Get under the bed!’

  And then he heard the approaching footsteps, too. He swooped under just as the door opened.

  ‘My lady,’ said the maid. Jack stared at her feet in their pointed shoes and at Lady Katherine’s bare ones. ‘Where are your slippers? Let me fetch them for you, Madam.’

  Scurrying feet, a hand reaching down and grabbing fur-trimmed shoes shot through with foliate embroidery, and then the maid knelt, offering them to the lady to slip on. Once she did Lady Katherine dismissed the girl.

  ‘But my lady …’

  ‘Warm some wine, Joanna. I will sit by the fire while you prepare it.’

  The pointed shoes shuffled out of the room. The door closed, the bedclothes were cast aside, and Lady Katherine’s face was glaring at Jack once more. ‘Master Tucker?’

  He slid out the other side and stood, brushing off his coat. ‘I apologize, Lady Katherine. I did not think …’r />
  ‘Boys your age very seldom do.’ She huffed an exasperated breath and tugged on a fur-trimmed gown. She stepped purposefully toward the hearth and seated herself in a tall wooden seat, adjusting the cushion behind her. ‘Quickly now, Master Tucker, what is it? Are you in danger?’

  ‘Danger? Oh no, Lady Katherine. Not me, at any rate. I came to ask your advice.’

  ‘And a simple note would not suffice?’

  ‘No, no it wouldn’t, I’m afraid. This is a delicate matter.’

  He stood with his back to the flames, warming his backside. He hated to admit how good it felt. No wonder Master Crispin so regretted being tossed out of court, when there were fires and warm bedchambers and plenty of food and wine to be had.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, arranging her robes around her and fluffing the collar up around her jaw.

  ‘Ah. Well, you see, yesterday I went out to the garden. His grace the earl has a wonderful garden, my lady, as wonderful as the duke’s. And so I went out to take in the air and I heard a woman weeping. That’s not a thing I can simply ignore, so … so I went to investigate. I climbed the wall, you see, to see what the matter was.’

  ‘Most imprudent,’ she muttered under her breath.

  ‘Aye, that might be so, Madam. But I did, and I saw a young woman weeping most piteously. So I asked her what was wrong and befriended her, for she looked like she could use a kind face. And she was grateful … was this lady. And said that something was stolen from her and then, well, I might have boasted a bit about my master and me and how we find things.’ Jack becrossed himself and flicked his eyes heavenward, beseeching forgiveness from on high.

  She ticked her head. ‘That was most gracious of you, Master Tucker. Noble, to wish to succor a woman in distress.’

  ‘Aye. That was my thought. My master trained me so. And … so … I offered to help, to do as she wished. It’s a point of honor, my lady.’

  ‘And you wish to fulfill this oath.’

  ‘Aye, that I do. But … then I discovered—’

  They both glanced at the door and Jack dove for the bed again, pulling his feet in just as the door opened.

  The maid set down a metal jug of steaming wine. She poured some into a silver goblet. ‘It’s a bit hot, Madam, so let that cool but a moment.’

  ‘I shall. Thank you, Joanna. You may withdraw until I call you.’

  ‘You … do not wish to dress?’

  ‘In a moment. Let me enjoy the wine first.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, Madam.’ She seemed to hesitate before turning and walking out the door.

  Jack poked his head out from under the bed again. ‘I hadn’t thought to hide under beds till I was a bit older.’

  Lady Katherine hid a smile behind her hand and fussed with the goblet, blowing gently on the steamed wine. ‘Is that something Master Guest taught you as well?’

  He smiled sheepishly, feeling his cheeks warm. ‘My lady. I’m speaking indelicately. I forget where I am.’

  ‘No need to apologize, Master Tucker. It is good to have young people speak their mind to me again. It is very refreshing. But you were saying …’

  ‘Oh! Well, I discovered that the lady over the garden wall …’ He swallowed through a hard lump in his throat. ‘The lady … is the queen.’ He whispered the last and wrung his coat hem in his hands.

  She sobered. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Aye. What am I to do?’

  ‘Oh, Master Tucker. You and your master are well suited to one another.’

  He couldn’t disagree.

  ‘I need not remind you how dangerous that could be, associating with Queen Anne. The king, after all, visits those quarters as well.’

  ‘Aye, Madam. I am painfully aware of that. That is why I seek your advice. I made a promise to her, an oath. Is it mete that I should break it?’

  She took a sip of the wine, swallowed, and then set the goblet to her thigh. ‘No, Master Tucker. It is never proper to break one’s oaths.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’

  ‘Does she know who you are?’

  He brightened. ‘No! She called me an ekename: Goat. On account of my climbing the wall.’

  ‘I see. Well, that is something. She doesn’t know who you are or your association with Master Guest … and I would keep it that way.’

  ‘That sounds a bit like I’m to talk with her again.’

  ‘You made an oath, Master Tucker. Though it will not be easy to fulfill, you are bound by your honor to try.’

  ‘Aye. Well then. How am I to contact her?’

  ‘I shall help you there. I will send a message to the queen and tell her to meet me at Henry’s lodgings. And there you will explain yourself.’

  ‘Aye, my lady.’

  ‘And now,’ she said, rising. ‘How to get you out of here?’ She thought for a moment, staring at Jack the whole time, before she nodded. ‘I am afraid I will be soiling one of my favorite shifts for you, Master Tucker.’

  ‘Oh, my lady!’

  ‘Never fear. A soiled shift is a little thing to the great deed you are to perform. It’s best you get under the bed again.’

  Puzzled, Jack complied and watched, wondering what he was supposed to do.

  Lady Katherine stood staring into the fire for a moment when she picked up her goblet and deliberately poured it down her front. ‘Joanna! Come quick!’

  The maid scurried in.

  ‘Look what a clumsy oaf I am, Joanna.’

  ‘Oh, my lady. Let me get this off of you before it stains.’

  Lady Katherine turned deliberately toward the door so that the maid stood with her back to it. Jack got the message quickly and slid smartly out from under the bed, and keeping low to the floor, made for the door. Lady Katherine winked at him as he finally slipped out.

  He tiptoed through the antechamber, to the parlor, and out the main door and waited against the wall for the guard to disappear before trotting back toward Henry Bolingbroke’s lodgings.

  Once back inside he leaned against the door and breathed. ‘Blind me with a spoon,’ he gasped. A fool! A fool, to take such chances. It might have been wiser to simply forget his oath, but Master Crispin was too good a tutor.

  It was early, but Jack was too agitated to simply wait for news. He set himself to work, and when the steward finally arrived, he was surprised when Jack was already at his tasks.

  ‘Very good, Master Tucker. You are more industrious than the earl’s common retinue.’

  ‘Thank you, Master Waterton, but I am the product of my own master’s industriousness. In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities. So says Aristotle. So my master teaches.’

  Waterton’s look of astonishment was almost comical. ‘Indeed! I had heard of the qualities of Master Guest’s philosophies but it was not in accord with his indictment of treason.’

  Taken aback by the steward’s harsh words, Jack lowered his face, feeling his master’s shame. ‘While it is true that a man’s deeds are the mirror of his qualities, Master Crispin’s intentions were never selfish. And he has paid the price many times over.’ He lifted his eyes and looked Master Waterton in the face, for he didn’t wish to imply that he was ashamed of his master by his manner.

  ‘Well said, Master Tucker. Should you ever find yourself in need of employment, I would be happy to recommend you to his grace’s household.’

  ‘Oh! Master Waterton, that is a great honor. But I would never leave Master Crispin. You see, he needs me, sir.’

  Waterton nodded with only a flicker of his lips. ‘So he does. Carry on then, Master Tucker.’

  Jack watched the man depart and continued the tasks he knew he could fulfill.

  But as each hour struck, he kept glancing toward the main door, wondering when the queen might arrive. Would she? Surely it was better to concentrate on who stole that wretched Stone from Westminster Abbey. After all, if it could not be found in – he ticked the days off on his hands – two more days! – he would be d
oomed.

  Two days. Would it be possible? Sometimes Master Crispin found stolen objects within hours. But this was more than a simple stolen item. This was a conspiracy, and that meant the hands of many men. The Stone could be anywhere, and suddenly two days did not seem enough time to find it.

  A knock on the main door startled him and he froze, listening hard. A woman’s voice! He crept through the antechamber and stood near the archway. Indeed, it was Lady Katherine.

  ‘Forgive this intrusion, but I would speak to Lord Henry.’

  The servant dithered. ‘Lord Henry is not within.’

  She pushed past him and entered into the warm room, with its tapestries and painted murals, dark wood sideboard and cupboard, and cushioned chairs by a merrily burning hearth. ‘Then I will wait.’

  ‘M-Madam. It is not known when his grace will return.’

  ‘I am in no hurry. Do me the favor of fetching me warmed wine. I feel a chill. And, er, two goblets. One never knows, does one?’

  Jack had seen that same expression on many an apprentice when their masters asked an unfathomable task of them. This servant was no different as he passed Jack hiding in the shadows. As soon as he was gone, Jack peered into the room. ‘My lady!’ he whispered.

  ‘Come in, Master Tucker.’ She watched him approach and stand over her as she sat. ‘I have sent a message to the party in question, and she will arrive shortly.’

  The servant returned and stiffened upon seeing Jack. Jack straightened and looked down his nose at the man. The servant set down a tray with a flagon and two goblets, all the while eyeing Jack with deep suspicion.

  ‘You may go,’ said Lady Katherine. ‘Young Jack here will attend to me.’

  The servant did not change his expression of suspicion as he left the room, but at least he did leave. Jack breathed again.

  ‘Lady Katherine, I’m sorry for putting you through this.’

  ‘I took responsibility for you. And I mean to see it through.’

  ‘To the bitter end, eh?’ He sagged. ‘What … what will happen if Master Crispin can’t … if he can’t …’