Veil of Lies cg-1

by Jeri Westerson

  “I might need you at that, Lenny. Where do you call home these days?”

  “Oh, here and there.”

  “You don’t seem to understand. I may have a job for you. I know this inn is one of your favorite spots to cut a purse.”

  “Ah now, Master Crispin! Such lies to tell about old Lenny. I think me feelings are hurt.”

  “Put your feelings aside. I want information.”

  “It’s that way, is it? Well then.” He sidled closer and spoke in low tones so that Crispin bent over. Lenny’s harsh, foul breath hissed in Crispin’s ear. “What’s that you’re looking for? Old Lenny knows, he does. He knows him what comes and him what goes.”

  Crispin smiled. “I’d like you to keep an eye on the place for a few days. If anything unusual happens, let me know. I’m particularly looking for a foreign man. Looks like a Saracen.”

  “A tall man? Swarthy? Bit of a mystery?” Lenny turned his head and Crispin followed his gaze. A man in a pointed oversized hood trudged through the door.

  “In fact…that man,” Crispin said quietly. The man’s cloak reached the floor and seemed to cover him from front to back. Crispin caught the innkeeper’s eye but the man quickly turned away and scurried into the kitchens, pushing a befuddled servant out into the tavern in his place.

  “You know my lodgings, don’t you? If you see him come or go, or discover his destinations, inform me.” Crispin managed to find a farthing in his scrip and pressed it into Lenny’s hand. “Get my meaning?”

  Lenny’s face broke into a wide, toothless grin. “Thank you, Master Crispin! I’ve always said what a fine gentleman you are!” Lenny scooted off the bench and bowed, stepping backward toward the hearth. His gray clothes blended into the shadows and smoke.

  Over his cup, Crispin hid his face behind his upraised hand and watched the hooded man make his way up the stairs. The man stood at the landing, glanced down with a shadowed face at the bustling patrons, and stepped quickly into his room.

  Crispin set his cup down, belched, and rose. He looked around the tavern but no one was paying him any heed when he stepped lightly up the stairs. He knocked on the door. No reply, but the thin strip of flickering light below the door vanished. Crispin smiled grimly. He knocked again, and again received only quiet. He drew near the door, and in a harsh whisper said, “Smith! I know you are there. Best let me in before I call the hue and cry.”

  For a moment nothing happened. Crispin waited, poised to knock again, when the latch lifted. The door opened to a thin slit. Crispin could just see the slim outline of half a face through the narrow opening. “What do you want?” said the voice behind the door. His accent reminded Crispin of his days in the Holy Land with the duke of Lancaster’s retinue. The followers of Muhammad were swarthy and dark-haired and spoke in a tongue like this man. Smith indeed!

  “I would talk with you.”

  “I will cut the tongue out of that dog of an innkeeper.”

  “You needn’t. I can be quite persuasive in my own way.”

  The single brown eye that studied Crispin blinked once. The voice grunted, “I do not care to talk to you or anyone.”

  The door began to close, but Crispin leaned heavily against it. “I wish to speak of Philippa Walcote.”

  The pressure on the door ceased. “Who?”

  “She is a client of mine. I wish to ask some questions regarding your relationship with her.”

  The man gave a lecherous chuckle behind the door and suddenly slammed it, throwing the bolt.

  Crispin clenched his teeth and stared impotently at the closed door for a long moment. He flicked his gaze to a nearby rushlight and thought of setting the door on fire before a better plan occurred to him.

  Hurrying down the steps, Crispin trotted out the door to the courtyard and found the same ladder from before leaning against the stable wall. He grabbed it and gently placed it under the window. The shutters were slightly ajar and he smiled as he climbed.

  Once at the top rung he peered into the room through the cracked shutters and saw the man sitting before the fire. Crispin girded himself and leaped, shoulder first.

  He crashed through the shutters and rolled across the floor before regaining his feet, pulling his dagger.

  The man was up, his chair thrown down. He reached for his own dagger, but Crispin shook his head. “Too late for that. Sit down.”

  The man scowled. Keeping his gaze glued to Crispin, he bent, righted the chair, and gingerly sat.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Crispin ordered, and the man complied. His face was round and flat, mouth wide like a frog’s with bulging amphibian eyes sitting below the dark crests of black, bushy brows. Bronzed skin tones told of sunny places. “Now then, Master Smith. What is your real name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’m not a patient man. I begin by slapping, move quickly to my fists, and then to my knife. You won’t find it pleasant.”

  The man registered no emotion except for a fleeting look of admiration. “Are you skilled enough to slice thin strips of flesh from the muscle? This is very excruciating and very effective.”

  Crispin tightened his grip on the dagger. “Does knowledge of your name require such extremes?”

  “Abid Assad Mahmoud. It is easier for you English to pronounce ‘Smith.’” When he said “Smith” his wide mouth stretched, revealing uneven, serrated teeth.

  Crispin nodded. “You’re a Saracen.”

  “I am of the fortunate race of the Prophet Muhammad, infidel. But who I am is of no importance.”

  “What have you to do with Philippa Walcote?”

  “That whore?”

  Before he knew what he was doing, Crispin backhanded Mahmoud hard. He was satisfied to see blood on the man’s mouth. But Mahmoud seemed satisfied, too, and a smile grew on his features before he spat the blood onto the floor.

  Crispin straightened, keeping the dagger at the ready. “I prefer a more civilized description.”

  “Is there a more civilized description for her kind? A woman who would lay with a man for a price?”

  How good it would feel, thought Crispin, to plunge his knife into the man’s eye. After thrashing about a bit, he would die as the blade slowly bored into his brain.

  Crispin gritted his teeth again and sheathed the blade to remove the temptation. “She is a wealthy woman,” he replied more calmly than he felt. “She has no need to sell herself.”

  “Did I say it was for money? Does not everyone have a price?”

  Crispin drew aim down his sharp nose at Mahmoud. “You extorted her for sex? What kind of man are you?”

  “The kind who gets what he wants.”

  The door flung open. Two figures silhouetted against the bright doorway rushed forward. Crispin tried to draw his dagger, but one man closed enormous hands over his throat. The hands pressed tighter until Crispin could not take another breath. The already dark room sank to blackness and then nothing.

  8

  Cold water lapped over Crispin’s nose and mouth, and he jerked awake, choking and spitting. He blinked, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He shivered from the cold and wet. Dark. He seemed to be moving, floating.

  Slowly, he realized his hands were lashed behind his back and his ankles tied together. He bobbed in the water against something hard and jagged.

  Now wide-eyed and fully awake, Crispin measured his predicament. Dead of night, floating in the Thames, and bound. His feet were tied to something. A weight? But if they were, shouldn’t he be in the bottom of the river by now?

  He jerked his legs but they were caught on something. Whatever they had used hadn’t worked and his own natural buoyancy had kept him alive. At least for now. He had obviously drifted with the current and was deposited under a wharf.

  A swell thrashed him against the crusty pier and washed over his face. He spat the brackish water and lifted his chin. If he did not drown with the tide, he would certainly be battered to death.

  Night
still hung above the lapping water in dense, bloated clouds of fog. To call for help was useless. No one would hear. He struggled with his bonds, but the water made the rough rope tight. His clothes added more weight. His belt cinched the wet garments to his waist.

  The belt. His knife! Still there?

  With cold-deadened hands, he felt with the tips of his fingers for the belt. Index and middle fingers grasped it. He pulled in his gut and managed to inch the belt slowly around his waist. Another swell made him rise and washed another brackish swallow of water in his mouth. He shivered but willed himself to stop, to calm his racked body. In such a state, the work would take longer, and he knew he didn’t have much time left. His whole body felt numb and heavy as if it had soaked up the entire Thames.

  Laboriously, he continued to drag the belt, but it pulled his coat into bulging gathers.

  His fingers touched something. The scabbard? He walked his fingers along the leather until he felt the dagger’s metal guard. He pulled the belt further—difficult for the soaking coat—and managed to wrap his fingers around the hilt.

  A disorienting wave lifted him and he hit the pier. Barnacles cut into his shoulder, exciting a wave of pain. He spat water, forgetting the ache and numbness, and concentrated on the dagger’s hilt.

  Slowly, he edged the knife from the sheath. The hilt danced on the tips of his deadened fingers. Then the knife slipped. He clenched his hands. They were so cold he wasn’t sure if he had it. He squeezed with all his might and detected something there. Not the coat, he prayed. Something hard between his fingers.

  The knife hilt.

  He forced his lungs to breathe fully and evenly against his shivering. He inched the blade from its sheath, using his heartbeat as a measuring guide. Slowly…slowly. He felt the tip linger on the edge of the sheath and teeter once free. The knife hung for a moment in his hands. He blew out a breath just as a swell covered his mouth and his breath came out as bubbles. He crashed against the pier again, numbing the scratched shoulder. He tightened his grip on the knife, thankful to have a hold of it.

  Though he could no longer feel his knees, he bent them so his knife could reach the tether at his ankles. The action rolled his back and pulled his face below the water. He held his breath for as long as he could and sawed at the wet rope.

  Flexing his knees again, he popped his face above the water, took a deep breath, and plunged again, straining his shoulders to saw his feet free from behind his back. Back and forth he bent and flexed and then rested. It seemed to take hours. Was it taking hours? Crispin’s mind unfocused, and he shook out his head to sharpen his concentration again. If he let his mind go he would certainly die.

  The rope snapped and his numb feet floated free. He rested a moment before he pulled his knees to his chest and rolled in the water. With a grunt, he yanked his bound hands up from under his feet to the front. One hand hung on his boot. The effort tired him and he bobbed in the water for a span, spine curled, one leg straight with the other gathered to his chest. He breathed, gazed for a moment at the stars, and wondered, only briefly, if it was the last time he would see them.

  With waning strength he pulled his hand free. Both legs were now straight and his arms hung forward. With hands still bound, he swam to shore, unsure where along the Thames he was, and crawled up the bank. He lay on the rocky beach, shivering and panting. Gathering what was left of his strength, he drew the knife blade down with his fingers and sawed at the bonds at his wrist while lying prone, the waves lapping at his boots. And then…

  Free.

  Crispin sprawled on his back, arms splayed like a damp crucifix, the stones of the shore digging into his spine. But he did not care. He was alive. Finally he turned over and rose on his hands and knees, spitting out the last of the Thames. Unsteadily he regained his feet and wrapped his sodden cloak about him, though its icy dampness did little to protect from the cold. I must go home pulsed through his mind. Between the strangulation by Mahmoud’s henchmen and the near drowning, Crispin’s head was good for nothing but the one thought.

  He staggered up the bank and glanced up the road, recognizing Thames Street at the mouth of the Walbrook. At least he landed on the correct side of the river, though he had a long way to go to the Shambles.

  Crispin gathered his cloak and hugged himself, dragging his numb feet one in front of the other. Vaguely, he thought of seeking shelter in a tavern, but those establishments were surely barred at this time of night. He saw no lights in any windows.

  The wind gave no quarter and whipped about his wet clothes, encasing him in an icy cocoon.

  Somehow he managed to get to the Shambles, to ascend the stairs of Martin Kemp’s tinker shop. But when he reached the landing he was unable to uncurl his claw of a hand to open his own door. Out of the wind but far from warm, Crispin collapsed at his threshold just as Jack Tucker opened the door.

  Crispin dreamed of the giant hearths at Lancaster’s palace. Sheathed in a large fur robe, he settled on a cushion before the blazing fire. A pot of mulled wine warmed soothingly near the flames and its aroma of spices and cinnamon melted his humor into a mellow mood.

  Someone nudged his shoulder. “Master,” he said. “Master Crispin.”

  Crispin opened his sticky eyes and slowly recognized Jack. The robes wound round him were not fur but woolens, and the spiced aroma from the fire was little more than his steaming clothes drying before the hearth.

  “My lord,” said Jack, kneeling by the bed and ignoring Crispin’s admonitions not to use the latent title. “What happened to you, sir?”

  Crispin pulled the warm, dry blanket under his chin. He looked down at his wrist and the raw weal encircling the bone where the ropes had been. “Our friend at the Thistle,” he began, in a raspy whisper, “has even bigger friends. I do not think I was meant to survive.”

  He recounted to Jack all he knew, from the first moments of his encounter with Mahmoud to his struggle in the freezing Thames.

  Jack did not close his mouth throughout the telling, shaking his head and muttering prayers. When Crispin finished, Jack frowned. “So Philippa Walcote sold her body to this pagan—not for money, but because…because why?”

  “An interesting question. One I shall put to her the moment I am able to stand.”

  Jack rubbed his mouth and squinted. “But Master. Might she be in danger now that this man has told you their doings?”

  “They think I am dead. But she needs to be warned that perhaps Mahmoud’s intentions have changed. You’d better give her a message.”

  Jack nodded, his hand on his knife hilt.

  Crispin thought of asking Jack to get his writing things, but he worried at Philippa’s reading skills. “Get her alone, Jack. Tell her that the man at the Thistle has told me all and her life may be in jeopardy.” He lay back and licked his lips. They tasted of fear. “Go quickly, Jack.”

  9

  Crispin awoke the next morning. No sign of Jack, and the fire dimmed to a few halfhearted flames. Crispin wrapped the woolens about him and staggered toward the hearth. He grasped the poker and broke up the slabs of peat mingled with bundled sticks, renewing the fire’s fervor. He stood unsteadily and stared into the hearth, hoping Jack’s message was made plain enough to Philippa. His heart buffeted his chest when he thought of her. Why was she giving herself to this man? Was she mad? What did she need to protect so badly that she was willing to subject herself to Mahmoud’s lust? Was it the Mandyllon?

  He straightened. He still felt shaky but wanted to get to Philippa himself and talk with her. She must not go back to Mahmoud…or did she already know that? Better yet, he’d rather pay a visit to Mahmoud and find out what the man was hiding. If it was something about the Mandyllon, perhaps he could bargain.

  After all, Crispin knew where it was.

  He threw off the blankets and carefully dressed. The clothes were dry but still smelled of the Thames, though with a smoky tinge.

  He descended the steps unsteadily, resting halfway. He supported
himself with a hand to the wall and continued down until he reached the bottom.

  He lifted his head and stared down the avenue. He hadn’t felt this weak in a long time and wondered if this were the best time to face Mahmoud. But then the scene of Philippa in Mahmoud’s room filled his mind. Damn her and her secrecy! If only she would say. How he hated secrets.

  The Thistle had never seemed farther.

  He trudged down lane after lane, hugging his cloak against the shrill wind that snaked through the twisting streets. It brought with it a cascade of whirling brown leaves plucked from autumn-dead trees. They rambled about his feet like playful pups, darting unpredictably before and behind. Their playfulness would turn soon enough once the earnestness of winter hit—not with a patter but more like the sound of rattling bones.

  His steps echoed. His steps? He took a brief glance behind and saw, distantly, a man in livery, head bent forward out of the wind. The man trudged diligently though not as quickly as Crispin.

  Crispin turned a few corners, just to see, and looked back again.

  The man was gone.

  Suspicious. Every footfall was now filled with portent. His mouth felt dry even though he’d almost swallowed all the Thames. It wasn’t water he wanted. It was wine, and plenty of it.

  Crispin reached the Thistle and spied Lenny trying to blend into the street’s shadows. Crispin glanced at him and Lenny gave him an acknowledging nod.

  Entering the inn’s warm interior, Crispin sighed. The smoky fire partially obscured the nameless men beside the hearth, and the others at farther tables were too absorbed by their drink and food to bother with him.

  He stood for a moment and scanned the room, trying to locate the men who guarded Mahmoud, but he did not recognize anyone. The men who had tried to kill him seemed enormous, but he never really got a good look at them. They could be any of a number of these men in the room, laughing over their beakers of ale.

  It didn’t matter. He strode across the room, licking his lips at the many jugs of wine, and caught sight of the innkeeper. The man blanched when he spied Crispin and tried to escape through the kitchens.