Blood Lance (15 page)

“Yes,” said More. “We are most anxious to help. For it is most definitely murder now.”

Crispin curled his fingers around his dagger hilt. “I have no further information to share.” They frowned and Crispin tried again. “That is to say, there are no further tidings.”

Disappointed, the sheriffs commiserated silently before moving toward the door. “I see,” said Staundon. He glanced back at the coffer, at the wine jug on the sill. “You will let us know how the investigation progresses, will you not, Master Crispin? You have promised.”

He bowed. “I give you my solemn word, Lord Sheriff.”

“Hm,” he snorted before grabbing the latch.

More gestured toward the coffer from the doorway. “I used to read a little Greek. When I was a boy, I had a foreign tutor. But it has been a while. Pray, what does the wax slate say?”

Crispin had written it for Jack to copy out. He set his features to a blank expression. “‘Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite; the man who is characterized by righteous indignation is pained at undeserved good fortune, the envious man is pained at
all
good fortune, and the spiteful man falls so far short that he even rejoices.’”

More paused. His brows lowered over his eyes. “Oh. Well. An interesting philosophy, I suppose.”

“I am fond of the wisdom of Aristotle.”

“So I have heard. But ‘envy and spite’?” He reddened. “Surely there is room in between for true righteous indignation. For those, er … interested in seeing justice served. I daresay, these are strong words and from a pagan, no less. How can his opinion hold such store today?”

“Truth is truth, no matter the messenger.” He bowed.

More took the hint at last. He narrowed his eyes at Crispin before escaping out the door. Crispin listened to their footfalls gratefully before he rested against the closed door. “I grow weary of those two.”

“And not one word of paying your fee, Master. They’ve got their nerve.”

Jack suddenly clamped his lips shut. Someone was returning up the steps. Crispin didn’t hesitate to open the door, expecting one of the sheriffs.

Instead, Sir Thomas pushed his way through and all but pounced on him. “Crispin! Where, by the saints, have you been? I waited an eternity for those sheriffs to depart.”

“I’ve been out.” He bolted the door after him.

Jack removed his wet cloak, hung it by the door, and then went immediately to the fire to stoke it.

Thomas tore his gaze away from Crispin as he, too, removed his sodden cloak and draped it over the chair by the fire. Steam rose from the dank wool. The knight paced, wringing his hands. “I am being followed,” he said, striding back and forth across the tiny room.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes … NO! I … do not know.” He stopped before Crispin’s chair and clutched the back of it. “I
think
there were those following me.”

“More than one man, you mean?”

“Yes. But sometimes … sometimes my mind conjures these injuries where there is none. Now it is worse than ever.”

“And so … no one may be following you?”

“I tell you I don’t know!”

Crispin breathed a long breath. “Sit down, Sir Thomas.” Jack was already beside him with a bowl of ale. “Drink, Thomas. And tell me what you would have me know.” He handed the man the bowl and he took it, slowly sinking to the chair.

“My mind is besieged. I fear every shadow, every creak of wood. There
were
men following me. I
know
it.” The hand not holding the bowl clenched to a tight fist. “What am I to do?”

“Have … have you surrendered yourself to the judges yet?”

He shook his head, scrubbed his face, and shakily drank from the bowl.

“You know you must. These shades that haunt you may very well be your conscience.”

“I know, I know.” Shoulders slumping, his breath was harsh and irregular in the quiet room.

“At least I found the armor that Master Grey made for you.”

“Eh?” Thomas’s eyes were dulled and stared into a dim corner when he lifted his face.

“Master Grey made you a fine new breastplate with your arms scrolled upon it. It will surely help with your trials to come.”

“Yes. My trials. He is—
was
—a fine craftsman. Where is it?”

“Back at his shop. I will go with you to fetch it, if you like.”

“That is good of you, Crispin. You have been kind and patient with me. More than I deserve.”

Crispin sat on the stool and scooted it closer to the man. “What has happened to you, Thomas?”

He shook his head. Stubble peppered his chin. He had not combed his hair nor shaved. His whole appearance was that of a disheveled beggar. “I do not know. Would that I did. But I must face my judges and win my trials. Did you know the joust is to be on the bridge?”

“I had heard that. I did not know it was to be for your trials.”

“Why not? Sport and humiliation go hand in hand.”

“You will be triumphant.”

“You are so certain. I am not.”

“Thomas—”

“I am under no delusion, Crispin. I am as good as a dead man.”

“No. NO! I refuse to believe it. And
you
must not. The battle is won in the mind first, you know this as well as I.”

Thomas shot to his feet. “That is why I need that relic! Crispin, are you any nearer to finding it?”

Guiltily, Crispin rose, too. “No, Sir Thomas, I am not. But—”

“There shall be no more secrets between us, Crispin. I feared that you would somehow let it slip, that others would know and then they would seek it out and grasp it for themselves. And I could not allow that. But now I see the folly in this. I must tell you what it is. Then, sweet Jesu, you may find it for me and save my life.”

Crispin waited, unwittingly grasping his dagger hilt with tightening fingers.

“This armorer, this Master Grey,” said Thomas slowly. “He was a most ingenious fellow. He obtained this precious relic through means I know not of. Legal? I didn’t care. He had it and I wanted it. He wrote me letters, keeping me apprised of his dealings, and when he had it in his possession, he begged me to return to London to receive it along with my new armor.”

“God’s death, Thomas. Tell me! What
is
it?”

Softly, he said, “It is the Spear of Longinus, the Holy Lance; the spear that pierced the side of our Lord while he hung dying on the cross.” His red-rimmed eyes stared distantly with a glassy haze. “That very relic was to be in
my
hands, on the end of
my
lance. I would be victorious every time. He wrote me of its provenance. It was the true relic, Crispin, and it was to be mine. And now it is gone.”

Crispin hadn’t realized that his mouth was hanging open until he shut it. He spared a glance at Jack, who was pressed against the wall beside the fireplace. He wore that same fishlike expression.

“The … Holy Lance? Good Christ. What … where…” Crispin sat. “God’s blood, I never expected
that.
”

“But you will search for it, will you not, Crispin? You made an oath to me.”

“Yes, I know, but…” The man wasn’t even looking at him anymore. His thoughts were far away, and so were Crispin’s. On impossible tasks. But he
had
made an oath …

Crispin gazed up into his rafters; dark, smoky, cobwebbed. “Thomas, at least go retrieve your armor. Talk to Master Coterel, the tailor next door. His daughter will get you inside.”

Thomas said nothing more, didn’t even ask what Crispin meant. He simply rose and dragged his feet to the door.

“One thing more,” said Crispin, stopping the knight. “The letters from Master Grey. Where are they? May I see them?”

“I burnt them. I did not want anyone to know.”

Crispin closed his eyes briefly, mourning the loss of a valuable clue. “Of course not. Regrettable.”

Sir Thomas glanced at Jack, then Crispin, and nodded solemnly, before unbolting the door.

When they could hear the tread of his feet on the steps no more, Crispin sat and stared into the fire. Jack came up beside him. “You don’t think that Master Grey
really
got the Spear, do you, Master?”

“Anything is possible.”

“What do you know of this relic, sir?”

“Nothing. Only as much as anyone might.”

“Then we’d best go to the Abbot of Westminster, eh? He knows all about relics and such. How else are we to find it?”

“That is a very good suggestion, Jack. Let us go now.”

*   *   *

WESTMINSTER WAS BUSTLING AT
midday, even through the rain. Though shopkeepers seemed to have empty shops, people were on the streets, moving from place to place or talking furtively in front of braziers.

Crispin stopped a meat pie seller pushing his cart through the mud and bought a small hand-size pie each for Jack and himself. Remarkably, his was still warm when he bit into it, the flavors of clove and cinnamon awakening his tongue. The exertion of earlier seemed to have burned the illness out of him and he inhaled appreciatively, simply because he could. He could taste the pie, too, and he chewed enthusiastically, even though there was more gristle in it than meat.

When he finished, he rubbed his hands together, divesting them of crumbs and grease. By then the abbey stood before them and Crispin led Jack through the ancient church to the south transept and asked a monk to allow him in to see the abbot.

But instead of the young cleric hurrying him through as Crispin was used to, the monk apologized with a sorrowful expression. “Forgive me, Master Crispin. But the abbot is not here.”

“Not here? Where is he, then?”

He becrossed himself and with a hitch in his voice declared, “He has taken ill, sir. Very ill. His chaplain, Brother John, has taken him to the abbot estates at La Neyte.”

“His estates? But I saw him here only yesterday.” Crispin’s mind had suddenly stopped working. The abbot had always been at Westminster, seldom at his estates. He had known Nicholas a long time. He
was
Westminster Abbey. He was the architect of all the renewal and renovation the abbey had undergone, commissioning the Purbeck marble for the pillars, enlarging the abbey cloisters, and so many other innovations that Crispin had lost count. He did not want to contemplate the abbey without him, and, selfishly, he did not want to lose a friend and ally.

“May I go to see him there?”

“He is at his ease for the moment,” said the monk, sniffing and rubbing his nose. His eyes were red and ready to tear. “I think he would be pleased to see a friend.”

“Then I will go. Thank you, Brother.” He bowed and Jack did likewise before following Crispin out.

He walked dazedly away from Westminster, north toward Tothill Fields. Houses were few as they left the city behind.

Jack had been quiet but he wiped the rain from his face, looked up at the darkly mottled sky, and sighed. “You’ve known the Lord Abbot a long time, sir?”

Crispin’s thoughts had been on that. “Yes. All my life, in truth. But I did not know him well until I became a young man. At eighteen or so.”

Jack said nothing more and followed Crispin down the muddy lane into the meadow and past small clusters of woodland at the slow rise of the land.

They entered a wood—little more than a stand of sweet-scented laurels—and when they emerged again they came to the lane of a manor house surrounded by a low stone wall. There was no one at the gatehouse, and so they proceeded up the pathway to the front entrance. Crispin pulled the bell chain and waited. Presently, Brother John came to the door and bowed to him. “Master Guest,” he said. “Please come in. He will be cheered to see you.”

They entered into a great hall and stood on straw, their cloaks dripping. Crispin discreetly shook out his heavy mantle and peeled back his hood. He moved forward at the urging of Brother John and entered into a room under an arched doorway just off the hall.

A canopy hung over a bed, where the pale abbot lay propped up against a bedhead. He was not in his cassock as Crispin was used to seeing him, but instead in a chemise and a fur-trimmed bed gown. Crispin approached. The abbot appeared asleep, but when a floorboard creaked under Crispin’s boot, his eyes snapped open, focusing on him.

“Crispin. So soon I see you again.”

Crispin knelt by the bed. “My Lord Abbot. I heard that you had taken ill. It is not usual for you to retreat to La Neyte to take your ease.”

“Ah, Crispin. Does not a dog at the end of his day return to the hearth? And so, too, do I. For I know I am at the end of my day.”

“No, Nicholas. You are robust yet. It was only yesterday that Brother John was laying out your armor.”

“No more battles for me. Please get up, Crispin. Here. Young Jack? Fetch a chair for your master and bring it here beside my bed.”

Jack scrambled and found a folding chair in a corner by a window, grasped it by its arms, and hustled it back to the side of the abbot’s bed. Crispin swept his cloak aside and sat.

“Though I am not a wagering man,” said the abbot, “I am willing to venture that you did not come to wish me well.” He held up his hand to Crispin’s protests. “I merely mean, Master Tracker, that you most likely went to the abbey to query me on some matter and discovered I was here.”

Caught. Crispin shook his head. “It does not matter now, Nicholas.”

“Oh come. My eyes are too weary to read and my ears too taxed to listen to Brother John.” He smiled, his wrinkled mouth furrowing. “So tell me, Master Guest. Use me, while there is light left in this soul.”

Crispin glanced at Jack, and the boy, as usual, was standing behind his chair. “You know me too well, Father Abbot. Very well. This will pique your interest. I came to learn of the Holy Lance.”

Nicholas’s eyes widened. “The Spear of Longinus? Crispin, I … it frightens me when you ask these questions.”

“Frightens, my lord? I merely ask out of curiosity—”

“It is not appropriate that you should lie to me, Crispin. We have known each other far too long. You have come to me for years asking about this relic and that. Haven’t you ever wondered? Haven’t you ever pondered why the Almighty has graced you with their care?”