Traitor's Codex

by Jeri Westerson

  Still they lingered at the bottom of the steps. The collar ripped away a few more stitches.

  ‘I think it important for a servant to know his master. The fact that you stole gold from your own uncle who put his trust in you, for instance.’

  Francis twisted. ‘He lies!’

  ‘Is that so? So your uncle did not give you money to pay his vendors?’

  ‘Well … that may be true …’

  ‘And they were not paid?’

  ‘These things take time …’

  The servants still had not moved from the bottom of the stairs, watching the proceedings curiously.

  ‘I haven’t got that much time, Master Francis. My hands are weakening and I fear I will soon drop you.’

  ‘My God! My blessed, blessed Jesus!’

  ‘Tell me where the gold is.’

  ‘All right! All right! Lift me up and I will show you. For mercy’s sake!’

  Crispin braced himself against the railing and heaved him up, scraping Francis none too gently along the rails. He dropped him on the floor in a heap and stood over him, fists at his hips.

  Francis breathed great wheezing breaths. ‘You’re a knave, Guest.’

  ‘That I may be, but I am not a thief.’

  He blustered a few more moments, still sitting on his arse, back leaning against the railing. ‘For God’s sake, man, help me up.’

  Crispin yanked the man by his collar to his feet. Francis stretched the cloth away from his pudgy neck and coughed. ‘You are rough, sir.’

  ‘Sometimes a man needs to be rough with another to get his point across.’

  ‘So I see.’ He straightened his clothes and, with as much dignity as he could muster, stomped back into the solar. He grabbed the chair he was sitting in and upended it. A money pouch was tacked to it below the seat. Tearing it free, he thrust it toward Crispin. ‘There! Take the cursed thing. And leave my house. I never want to see you again.’

  ‘I heartily agree.’ He saluted with the pouch, pushed Francis aside, and stalked out of the room, descending the stairs.

  The servants gawked with mouths agape as he walked by them. He gave them a wink and left the shop.

  He hummed to himself as he secured the pouch and adjusted his cote-hardie. Invigorating. That was more like the old days. It was good to know he still could intimidate. It wouldn’t do to go soft and appear gelded.

  He turned a corner at Walbrook with the intention of moving toward Threadneedle and promptly ran into that damned beggar.

  The man grabbed him with his grimy hands. ‘Can you not hear the gathering voices, Master Guest? The wailing of them?’

  Crispin shoved him away. ‘What the devil …? What did I tell you, knave?’

  ‘The voices follow you, as they follow me.’

  ‘The only thing following me is you. If I find you again near me I will take my sword to you.’

  ‘But Master Guest …’ He looked far away, above the rooftops and beyond. ‘Only you can stop the voices.’

  The man was an annoyance, but Crispin’s sense of charity was getting the better of him. He remembered all the help he had received when he was first thrust upon the Shambles with nothing to his name. Taking a breath, he said, ‘Look, old man. Here are a few coins. Get yourself some food, eh? Go to a monastery and get shelter. The brothers will look after you. I can take you …’

  He pulled away. ‘No one puts Hugo Crouch away.’

  ‘Is that your name? Well, Master Crouch, I wouldn’t put you away, but take you to shelter, a place of peace. Then maybe the voices will cease.’

  He smiled with what teeth remained. ‘You think that will stop the voices, Master Guest? A little food, a roof out of the rain.’ He looked upward toward the overcast sky. ‘They’re on the wind. They come from all over. They never stop. They never stop.’

  Crouch’s faraway glance suddenly sharpened and he peered at Crispin from under a wild spray of gray brows. ‘God does not want the voices stopped for you, Master Guest. God wants you to seek out his own. He wants them precious gifts from the dead to be yours. The holy ones. The dead. Beware. Beware!’ Abruptly, he turned and waddled away, tossing his hands up and muttering as he went. People on the street gave him a wide berth and crossed themselves as he passed.

  Crispin watched him go, shaking his head. He supposed the man was to be pitied rather than threatened. Only God knew if Crispin wouldn’t be a jabbering idiot someday after all his truck with relics.

  He cast his thoughts back to that book in his lodgings. Well, it was to be given over to the bishop tomorrow, and good riddance to it. It was no relic, thank God. And why was he so staunch in protecting it? Why had he simply not returned it to Ashdown when he’d asked for it back? Crispin frowned. There was something about the way the man had said it that Crispin had not trusted. When he had given it to Crispin in the first place at the Boar’s Tusk, he’d seemed to be a different man with a different character. He had entrusted it to Crispin. But when he had asked for it back …

  ‘Speaking of suffering fools,’ he grumbled. Now it was all too late. He’d promised the bishop and hoped with every hearty prayer he knew that he would never have to see the man again.

  ‘Other people’s property,’ he muttered, touching the money pouch in his own that he was to return to Edward Howard. Books and coins and relics. What did it all add up to but more trouble for Crispin?

  Suddenly he laughed, and then felt like a fool for doing it for little reason and ducked his head at the stares he got. It was just that he realized this was his life, and why not? It was better than the death he would have received for treason … yet Richard had found a way around that, would have done anything to avoid his execution, it seemed. He loved Crispin, after all. Like a brother? Another uncle? He shook his head at that, too. And then his thoughts lighted on Philippa and his son. They could have lived together. In poverty, certainly, but … perhaps they could have been happy. How could he have been so wrong about so many things? Sometimes he felt like a child, disciplined this way and that for not thinking it through. He had thought he was so clever all those years ago. Fate had shown him otherwise.

  He asked someone on the street, who pointed out Edward Howard’s house, and he stepped up to the door and knocked. A servant answered and had Crispin wait in the entry.

  ‘So soon, Guest?’ boomed the voice of the man before he appeared around a corner. ‘I warn you, I’ll pay you no more than I already have.’

  Frowning, Crispin withdrew the pouch from his own and dangled it before the man. ‘Your gold, sir.’

  ‘What?’ He staggered forward and cradled it in his palms before closing his fingers on the pouch. ‘How did you—?’

  ‘I told you. I put the fear of God in him. And now …’ He bowed. ‘We are done.’

  ‘But … what of my money stolen from me from that scoundrel who impersonated you?’

  ‘You have your gold, Master Howard, and your peace of mind. Is that not enough?’

  Howard seemed to struggle with the idea. ‘Well … bah! Very well. You’ve done an exemplary job, Guest. I won’t have a quarrel with recommending you.’

  Crispin waved without turning and exited, feeling lucky to have got away with a fee for so simple a job.

  He looked back at the Howard house, so much like many a merchant’s lodgings, and suddenly stood at the crossroad of Threadneedle, Cornhill, Lombard, and Poultry. If he continued down Poultry it would take him down Mercery … where Philippa lived. It was the quickest way to the Shambles, after all. At least that’s what he told himself. He dared not chance it. At Poultry he cut down to Budge Row and hurried along the twisting avenues until he could get back up to St Paul’s. Back on the Shambles, Crispin returned to the poulterer’s, just as Jack was coming around the corner.

  ‘Jack, you’re back.’

  ‘And you, too, sir. Where have you been?’

  ‘I had an encounter from one of my imposter’s clients. I fixed his problem and made a shilling.’


  ‘Ah, well done, sir!’

  ‘And what have you discovered?’

  Jack stood before the cold hearth and stripped off his shoulder cape and hood. ‘Well, I talked to many folk along the street, and they seen naught. Just the regular men along the way. It doesn’t sound like the bishop’s henchmen, sir. And it don’t sound like … well, anyone we already know.’

  ‘This is a terrible puzzle, Jack. Could it be that we will never know?’

  ‘Not with you on the trail, Master Crispin.’ He sighed, crumpling his hood. ‘I wish I could bring me wife and children home.’

  ‘Soon, Jack. As soon as that book is gone from us.’

  ‘Sir, if you knew the trouble we would have with the murders and such, would you have taken on the book?’

  ‘That’s impossible to answer, Jack. I … feel a responsibility to guard it. Was it worth the lives of those men? Was my own honor worth it? I don’t honestly know.’

  Jack’s mouth twisted.

  ‘And you, Tucker. What would you have done? You’ll be a Tracker someday. Men will come to you and rely on your honesty. What would you have done?’

  His apprentice jerked to his full height – a few inches taller than Crispin, he noticed. ‘Well now. That is a problem for a philosopher.’

  Crispin tried not to smile. He would have wagered his whole estate that Jack Tucker would never have uttered those words had he not come into Crispin’s life.

  ‘But if I had to choose … if a man came to me and told me I’d know what to do … Aw, blind me! I would have done what you’ve done. And that don’t make me feel better.’

  ‘It makes me feel better.’

  ‘Still, there you were, forced to keep hold of it. Made you keep it for this “important personage”! Well, where is he, eh? For all his words, where, by all the saints, is this important personage?’

  A knock sounded on the door. They glanced at each other before turning their faces toward the barred entry.

  EIGHTEEN

  A knock again.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get it?’ asked Crispin.

  ‘I … well.’ Jack rose, straightened his cote-hardie, and walked with all dignity of any steward to the door. He lifted the lock and opened it. ‘Who is calling?’

  A woman’s voice. ‘Is this the house of Crispin Guest?’

  Crispin twisted in his seat to look. A nun, by the look of her, in a black gown with a long black veil covering the white wimple. He rose and walked to the entry, gently pulling Jack aside.

  ‘Dame,’ he said with a bow. ‘I am Crispin Guest.’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, good. May I come in?’

  She had a retinue of three nuns and two footmen.

  ‘I have a very small and humble dwelling. Perhaps the footmen and your ladies can wait outside?’

  In answer, the other nuns only crowded closer, concern on their faces. ‘Or just the footmen. Your ladies are welcomed inside to accompany you. But I …’ He turned to survey the room he knew well. ‘But there isn’t enough seating or tableware to accommodate you all.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Jack, ‘your ladies can come through and stay in the back courtyard. There is seating there, with shade and flowers.’ He smiled congenially.

  The nuns looked to their leader. She turned to them, instructing them to go with Jack. She told the footmen to wait outside. ‘All will be well,’ she told them.

  The nuns moved through. They tried to keep their eyes downcast but they couldn’t seem to help but look around at their strange surroundings. Soon their treads quieted as Jack escorted them out the back and closed the door.

  The nun walked over Crispin’s threshold and stood in the center of the hall, unashamedly gazing around her. ‘You must excuse me, Master Guest. You see, I am used to such small surroundings. I don’t leave my convent. And this has been a very unusual journey for me.’

  ‘Oh? Whence do you come?’

  ‘Do forgive me, Master Guest. I have not introduced myself. I am Dame Julian. I am usually … well,’ she chuckled. ‘It has been my custom to be an anchoress, but of late, I seem to have no anchor at all. But my convent is in Norwich.’

  ‘You’re … Julian … of Norwich?’

  ‘Yes.’ She gave him a beatific smile.

  He bowed low. ‘Dame, you … you honor me.’

  ‘Oh no, Master Guest. It is you who honor me. I have heard of you, you see. A man who encounters relics, who is touched by the hand of God. Well, in my vanity to see such a man, to talk with him, I did, perhaps, a very foolish thing. I asked to leave my cell and come to see you.’

  ‘Me? All the way from a convent in Norwich?’

  ‘Yes. Any man who deals so much in the relics of our Lord’s friends is surely someone I had to know.’

  ‘But … I could have come to you should you have wished an audience.’

  ‘That is true. But I desired to see where it is you dwelt. You can know a man by his surroundings. How humble or how selfish.’ She shook her head, chuckling. ‘Surely a vain thing. I will do my penance accordingly.’

  ‘My lady.’ He found himself down on one knee to her. ‘You should not have come all this way … for me.’

  ‘Arise, Master Guest. Please. I am not such a brittle thing that I need your kneeling. Please, sir.’

  He rose and stood a bit away from her. Jack returned as she sat. ‘Master?’ he said warily.

  ‘Jack, see that Dame Julian receives refreshment. Anything she desires. She’s come a long way. All the way from Norwich.’

  The man was faster on it than he expected. ‘Julian of Norwich,’ Jack gasped. He bowed. ‘My lady, what is your will? W–we have wine. If you hunger, I–I can make you food.’

  ‘Just a little refreshment. Make sure my ladies and my footmen sup first. The road was long. Just a little bread and cheese, if it won’t come too dear.’

  Jack scurried to do as bid. Crispin sat gingerly beside her. ‘What has brought you to my humble home, Dame?’

  She laid her hand on Crispin’s. There was a strangeness about it, for he had felt the same thing when he had touched a true relic; an odd tingling in his hand and a sense of something unreachable. He did not move his hand away, but longed to and yet, at the same time, would have stayed thus for an eternity.

  ‘There were tales of the disgraced knight who righted wrongs and to whom religious relics came. I wanted to see such a man, to understand him. And then, next I heard, he was in possession of an unusual book that I had longed to see.’

  ‘How could you have heard the latter, for that book came into my hands only yesterday.’

  ‘Strange, isn’t it? How these things communicate to us. God hides his secret things from us, but in Him we are made to know them. Through God, through those that know, I have come to hear of your sad history. Our courteous Lord knows of your suffering. In falling and in rising we are ever kept in Him who loves us all.’

  He had no voice. His throat was suddenly too hot, too thick to be able to form the words. He merely stared at her hand on his. He knew who this woman was. She was known far and wide as the anchoress of St Julian’s Church in Norwich. She lived as a near hermit, in a cell built for her on the side of the church building. She was a holy woman, a living saint, and that she would leave her solitary place to cross England to find him … was completely unheard of.

  It was obvious that Jack knew of her too, for he stumbled by her, bringing a tray to her ladies out in the back courtyard, but never taking his eyes from scrutinizing her.

  ‘I would bring you wine …’ said Crispin at last.

  ‘Only water. That will do.’

  Reluctantly, Crispin released her hand and rose to fetch a cup of the water they kept in a bucket by the door. He wiped the rim of it with his sleeve and offered it up. She took it with thanks and drank.

  He watched her face, determined to remember everything of this encounter. How the wimple, so starched and white, dug into the sides of her cheeks from its tightness. And how pale her skin seemed, wi
th a soft smoothness, though there were wrinkles at her eyes and forehead that peeked from below her bandeau. She was plainly, for all the rosiness of her cheeks, an older woman, certainly older than Crispin. But in her, as he had not seen in clerics very often, was the acceptance without judgment of the man with whom she was speaking. Her eyes lit with wonder at everything she gazed at. He could no more imagine her scolding than the Virgin herself.

  ‘Forgive me, my lady. But what is it you would have of me?’

  ‘I know your soul is troubled, Master Crispin. May I call you so? I feel we are siblings.’

  ‘Of course, my lady. Whatever you wish.’

  ‘Your soul, Master Crispin. You mustn’t worry so much over it. You must never fear, for He is here with us, leading us, and shall be until He brings us all to His bliss in Heaven. Your soul, as well. Never doubt it.’

  It was unexpected. The flush of emotion assailed him and a hot lump in his throat halted his voice. He had worried for the last seventeen years about his soul, knew for a fact that he was bound for Purgatory only if he were lucky. Expected Hell for his betrayal. And yet, such simple words from this small woman’s lips calmed his searing soul like no other cleric or murmured prayer had. ‘Well, my lady … if you say so, I have no argument against it.’

  ‘Of course it is so. How silly of you to think otherwise. For we have all sinned, Crispin. Every one of us. Did not Adam, the first man, sin? Our gracious God took the falling of Adam harder than any other creature He created, for Adam was endlessly loved and securely kept in the hollow of His hand. How could you be any less in His eyes?’

  ‘It is hard living in the world, Dame. Men suffer. Men do vile deeds and must be brought to punishment, to justice in this world. It is difficult to understand how God can still love us when we cause such pain and suffering.’

  ‘But you have only to know your own heart, for that is the seed of your soul. As the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the whole, so are we, soul and body, clad in the goodness of God.’

  He shook his head. ‘I find that it is so when you say it. But I fear just as much that when you leave, the truth of that will fade as well. Though tell me, my lady, for I must know. Was it Hugh Ashdown that told you of this book?’