Season of Blood

by Jeri Westerson

‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I must leave London. I shall be gone for a sennight at least. But I will return as soon as possible. Keep watch of her, John. I fear someone might be after her.’

  Rykener grabbed the dagger hilt at his hip. ‘You can rely upon me, Crispin. I shall be the perfect lady’s maid.’

  Looking at his small mouth, pert cheeks and long, straight nose, Crispin was inclined to agree. ‘Remember. You are Eleanor.’

  ‘I know that, Crispin. I have been Eleanor for many years.’

  ‘Good. Well. Farewell, then.’

  ‘God speed you, Crispin. And that clever boy, Jack.’

  Crispin left the alley and glanced over his shoulder as Rykener made his way down the lane, heading for Watling Street.

  ‘Was that Master Rykener?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did you just send him to … Katherine Woodleigh?’ Crispin said nothing. But Jack seemed to reckon what Crispin had schemed without his saying it. ‘Oh, Master Crispin,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

  SIX

  It seemed to be a great adventure for Jack. The only other journey they had embarked upon together had been to Canterbury and that had not ended well for his young apprentice. Still, Jack was resilient and seemed to have recovered from the events of five years ago. He also seemed to ride better without fighting the horse’s gait. Even so, he twisted and turned on the saddle, examining the countryside and each village they passed through with bright, wide eyes.

  ‘Where is the farthest you’ve traveled, master?’

  ‘I suppose that would be Jerusalem.’

  ‘Blind me! Truly? What’s it like?’

  ‘Hot. Dry. Dusty. Full of strange people and customs.’

  ‘But it’s where our Lord preached the gospel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Jack. It is also full of churches and holy places. I was with his grace the duke on a pilgrimage and to preserve the streets from the infidel. More or less.’

  ‘You been lots of places, haven’t you, master?’

  ‘Yes. A knight ventures to many battlefields.’

  Jack fell silent. The rolling rhythm of the horse’s gait lulled Crispin and he daydreamed, lids growing heavy. He thought a doze would be very satisfactory about now.

  ‘What do you hope it accomplish at Hailes Abbey, master?’

  Or not. Crispin sat up, rolling his shoulders to urge wakefulness. The sky, streaked by long tails of clouds, was just beginning to glow a yellowish rose. Time to find an inn soon. It was their second day on the road. By this time tomorrow, they should see the blocky towers of the abbey and find hospitality there.

  ‘I hope to find the reason a holy brother was killed and to put his slayer in the noose.’

  ‘And what of Demoiselle Katherine’s niece?’

  Crispin sighed deeply. ‘I worry that she might be … dead.’

  ‘God’s blood. By all the saints, I hope that is not so. What makes you say so, sir?’

  ‘There is precious little known about her. And with the death of two monks and Simon missing …’ He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I cannot help but think the worst.’

  Jack crossed himself. ‘I know you are also thinking of Master Wynchecombe. Sort of a strange coincidence him having a manor near Hailes, the place of two dead monks. And with the man’s knife hidden back in our lodgings.’

  He was thinking that, too. ‘If coincidence it is, it is a poor one.’

  ‘Do you think he did it?’

  ‘As I said before, Jack. Though I cannot rule it out, I find it highly suspicious. Since he is missing, I think it far more likely that he might be in peril.’

  ‘By the saints, I never thought of all that.’

  ‘Well, think on it. If Tracker you mean to be, you must put aside your prejudices and think with an open mind. It is a puzzle only. Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.’

  ‘I was wondering when Aristotle would rear up,’ he muttered.

  Crispin gripped the reins. ‘I do not see why you disparage Aristotle as you do. His thoughts are wise and remarkably apt for most every occasion.’

  ‘Aye, master. I reckon.’ Crispin was pleased when Jack fell silent. He thought, with a judicious heaping of Aristotle into the conversation, he had sent Jack to thoughtful pondering. The boy’s mind tended to wander. He needed reining in if he was to learn Crispin’s skills. After all, the boy was eighteen. At that age, Crispin had accomplished much. Reading and speaking in several languages, martial skills. He had achieved agility in rhetoric and mathematics. Jack needed to immerse in quiet study. Maybe the boy was finally getting the idea.

  ‘How about them sheriffs?’ piped Jack suddenly.

  So much for quiet contemplation.

  ‘What ails them, anyway?’ he went on. ‘One moment they are keen on you, the next not.’

  Despite his annoyance, Crispin could not hold back a smile. ‘You’re a mother hen.’

  ‘I am not. I just … you get into trouble, master, and no mistaking.’

  ‘True, I suppose. Every pair of sheriffs seems to see me in the same light: that of a nuisance. These are important men, aldermen of the city, some even Members of Parliament. They must make themselves seem more important and they think the way through it is over the backs of others. Only very small men think that way. You must always be kind to servants, Jack. All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jack trying out Aristotle’s saying with silently moving lips.

  They rode into the day until the evening arrived soft and gray around them. An inn with rickety beams and a leaky thatched roof kept the north wind at bay.

  In the drizzly morning, they headed down the mud-sticky path onward. By afternoon the rain had not abated and they rode toward the escarpment of Bredon Hill with their hoods hanging low, dripping rain onto their saddles. A steep descent down the scarp took them along a narrow path through the woods, which opened to a wide pitch of green fields toward Hailes at last.

  The stone monastery sat in the hollow of a meadow. Its gray walls were streaked dark with rain. Crispin led them up the muddy path to the gatehouse. He leaned down from the saddle and spoke to the porter, who opened the gate for them. They urged their horses across the courtyard and dismounted at the monastery’s arched entry. Crispin slid the wrapped relic from its place in his saddlebags and tucked it in his scrip. At first mention of Hailes, Crispin had surmised what the relic was and cradled it carefully as he ascended the wide stairs with Jack in tow.

  An old monk dressed in white with a black scapular greeted them at the archway. Crispin told him who he was and why he had come. The monk surveyed him with curious eyes but took it upon himself to lead Crispin to the abbot.

  Down a shadowed arcade they went and emerged into a courtyard where buds hung heavy on dark branches. Crispin could see a door through another arch, and that’s where the monk led them. A knock or two and they were inside, facing a man in his middle years with graying hair among the dark, with a ring of hair over his temple and his ears. His eyes measured Crispin and Jack and he nodded for the monk to leave them.

  ‘Crispin Guest, you say? I do not know you.’

  ‘I do not know why you should. I am from London. A man who solves puzzles and finds lost objects. For a fee, of course.’

  ‘So why do you come all this way to me, young man?’

  ‘I also work with the Lord Sheriff. Missing persons. Murder.’ He presented the folded and sealed parchment the sheriffs had given him.

  The monk’s face opened with a gasp even as his fingers closed on the parchment. ‘Brother Ralph! You have found him. Where is he?’

  ‘His remains are with St Mary Graces in London.’

  At the word ‘remains’ the monk eased back. ‘Ah. He is dead. I feared it.’

  ‘Did you? And what of this other dead monk?’

  ‘You seem to know much, Master Guest. Please, sit
down. May I pour you wine? I fear these circumstances have stolen my hospitality. I am Abbot Robert.’

  Crispin bowed and sat. Jack stood properly behind him.

  The monk first opened the parchment and read, looking up at Crispin with pondering eyes. He left it on his desk and poured two goblets, giving one to Crispin before he, too, sat and faced him. ‘Your sheriffs seem to have great confidence in you.’

  Crispin raised his brows but said nothing. He could not have known what the parchment revealed without breaking the seal. He felt a measure of satisfaction that it was, at least, complimentary.

  ‘These are ill tidings,’ the abbot went on. ‘I do not understand what has been happening. Two brothers killed.’

  ‘How did the first die?’

  ‘A knife wound. To the stomach. It took two days for him to die.’ He murmured a prayer into his goblet before he looked up again.

  ‘Was he able to say who slew him?’

  ‘Alas, no. He was mercifully unconscious the whole time. He never awoke … until it was into the arms of God.’

  ‘A pity. Have you the knife?’

  He shook his head. ‘There was no knife.’

  ‘Another pity.’

  ‘What of Brother Ralph? How did he—?’

  ‘Also a knife wound, but to the back. Yet he seemed to know who I was, for he came directly to me and called me by my name before he succumbed to his wounds.’

  ‘Did he? Strange. How could he have heard of you?’

  ‘I am not without a certain amount of … infamy.’

  The abbot looked at him anew, even sparing Jack a long appraisal. ‘Well. This … is all very disturbing.’ His hand massaged his forehead.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Crispin, setting his goblet aside and taking the wrapped relic out of his scrip, ‘this will ease some of your grief.’

  He unwrapped it and the abbot shot upward from his chair and staggered toward him. ‘Holy Mother of God! Where? Where did you find it?’ He sunk to his knees before Crispin and took the crystal monstrance in both trembling hands.

  ‘Your Brother Ralph brought it to me. I daresay, risking his life.’

  ‘The Holy Blood of Christ!’ He pressed his forehead to it and wept, kneeling on the floor. Jack gasped by Crispin’s ear but he ignored him. The blood in the monstrance had once again caused a tingle in Crispin’s fingers as he passed it to the cleric, but now that he was free of it he breathed easier.

  ‘Thank you, Lord, for returning Your precious blood to us,’ the monk went on.

  Crispin grumbled. It wasn’t God who’d traveled the rough and muddy road for three days with sparse meals and cold nights.

  Abbot Robert wiped his face and rose, clutching the relic to his chest. ‘Come, Master Guest. This is bountiful news indeed! We will feast in thankfulness of the relic’s return, even as we mourn our dear brother.’

  He rang a bell for his chaplain, who entered quickly as if he were listening at the door. Crispin eyed him critically. Was he listening at the door?

  He bowed before his abbot and Abbot Robert expounded on the return of the relic and news of Brother Ralph. Both elated and concerned, the chaplain exited to tell the rest of the monks.

  Abbot Robert refused to relinquish hold of the monstrance. He patted it gently, rocking it as if it were a babe. ‘You see, Master Guest, we did not know what to make of the theft and the disappearance of our dear brothers. Not one of us could believe that Brother Ralph could have stolen it, though others have tried.’

  ‘Indeed. I should like to hear of this.’

  The abbot seemed overcome and younger now that good news had roused his blood. He sat by the fire again and shook his head, gazing at the relic with glistening eyes.

  ‘In the last few months, the monastery has been burgled. We suspected ruffians from the town, unhappy souls indeed to steal from the church. Other strange events compounded and then the death of Brother Edwin. It threw us into chaos. We are men here, but we are not fighting men. We are trained in peace and the quiet contemplation of the Lord, not in war or defense. Who should break into a monastery and kill one of our brothers? It was a mystery. And then someone tried to steal the relic.’

  Jack couldn’t help himself and uttered an oath. The abbot ignored it.

  ‘They did not succeed,’ he went on. ‘But it wasn’t more than a few days later that our dear Brother Ralph went missing and the relic, too. You can imagine what we thought. May God forgive us.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Crispin thoughtfully. ‘Why would your Brother Ralph have cause to run away with your relic?’

  ‘Greed, of course. Lust, maybe. He was seduced by a Jezebel. And yet, it can hardly be believed of so devout a soul as Brother Ralph.’

  ‘He … ran off with a woman?’

  ‘Difficult to say.’

  ‘But if he was running off with a woman and the relic, why come to me? If he knew me by name, surely he would know of my reputation and that I would return the relic here.’

  The abbot blinked at him silently.

  ‘You mentioned that brothers went missing,’ Crispin went on. ‘Who else was gone?’

  ‘Did I? A slip of the tongue.’

  Crispin eyed the abbot as his fingers traced unsteadily over the beryl crystal. He left it for later. ‘So this … Jezebel,’ said Crispin. ‘Do you know this woman?’

  ‘A so-called friend of the abbey. Sybil Whitechurch. She has been known to enter the monastery precincts, which is forbidden. We realize that in many orders there is a laxity of the Rule. But in a Cistercian house the gate is a portal to the sin and corruption without. Few are allowed in. That is … we have patrons that must, of course, traverse inside for hospitality’s sake. We had royal patronage at one time, Master Guest. But those of the outside are not allowed within without proper vetting. Like the two of you. If your request was of a simple nature, you would have been denied.’

  ‘Then how in the world is this woman—?’

  ‘Well … as a patroness …’ He shrugged, troubled.

  Crispin could well imagine. Their Rule often warred with their need to make a living. He noticed the dense flocks of sheep in the pasturelands. He knew that Hailes boasted of their sacks of fleeces. But this was no Westminster, and a monastery in the wilderness of England fought for every penny it earned. The relic brought pilgrims who paid. He wondered if the abbot had alerted any of the locals to the theft or kept it quiet, hoping that there would be no cessation of pilgrim fees. It was Canterbury all over again.

  ‘Many a time we discovered her here,’ the abbot grumbled.

  ‘Sybil?’ He caught Jack’s eye. Katherine Woodleigh’s niece was called Sybil. These tidings did not bode well. Perhaps she wasn’t as innocent as Katherine supposed. Caught in a cloister? Maybe she was the one seducing Simon Wynchecombe, not the other way around. ‘Do you know where Demoiselle Sybil is now?’

  The abbot touched the side of his face. ‘On her estates, I expect. They are not far. In Winchcombe.’

  ‘Speaking of Winchcombe, are you acquainted with Simon Wynchecombe, a noble citizen of London and lately sheriff there?’

  ‘Of course. He is one of our most valued patrons.’

  ‘And would you have knowledge as to whether he is present on his estates here or not?’

  ‘You’re the second person to ask me that in a sennight.’

  ‘Oh? Who was the other?’

  ‘Sybil Whitechurch.’

  Crispin mulled this information before the abbot rose. ‘A celebratory mass is in order. Come with us, Master Guest. And bring your young squire. Let us all partake of the Lord’s body and blood before we sup.’

  Hungry, Crispin nevertheless agreed. He seldom partook of the holy bread of mass these days and it would be good to feed his soul before his flesh.

  Crispin and Jack both shrived themselves with the generous ear of the abbot, who gave them both few prayers in penance, and then they followed the abbot to the church.

  The monks assembled in the quire and C
rispin and Jack were invited to sit in chairs just outside it, like lords.

  Crispin knelt to receive the host and Jack followed suit behind him. They prayed silently on their knees until a monk rang a hand bell. The monks arose and Crispin and Jack with them, following them to the chevet in the apse.

  There, a shrine sat solemnly between two candles in floor sconces. It was similar to shrines he had seen before, similar even to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Except at the very top of the shrine was a tower of sorts and a door with a grille. The abbot himself climbed a special ladder that two monks had brought and placed beneath it, unlocked it, placed the relic within and then knelt before it a very long time.

  Crispin scanned the other monks, fifteen in all, their faces mostly hidden by their cowls. What had they thought happened to the relic and their brother monk? Or monks, plural, for he did not believe there was a slip of the tongue at all. The abbot suspected which of his monks might be a murderer and obviously had no wish to say. Curious. A lack of discipline had allowed Katherine Woodleigh’s niece the run of the abbey, and look where it had gotten them all. Crispin wondered how Simon Wynchecombe fitted into it. Had he met Sybil here in the abbey and fallen for her? Was this monk killed because he had witnessed something he shouldn’t have? But what of the other who died at Crispin’s door? He hadn’t been stabbed three days prior and traveled all the way to London with a knife in his back. Someone in London dispatched him. Simon? This other missing brother? And if their reason for murder was to covet the relic, Crispin had seen to it that they did not get it.

  Jack elbowed him hard. He squinted at the boy with a scowl. Jack gestured with his head toward the doings at the shrine, and Crispin realized he had been daydreaming without giving proper respect to the proceedings. He nodded, pressed his hands together in prayer and tried to contemplate the miracle before him. But his thoughts intruded again, and instead of the prayer he should have been chanting in his head, he worked on the puzzle.

  When he looked up, it seemed to be over, and he and Jack held back as the monks filed out. The abbot left, but another monk approached them and bowed. ‘I am Brother Thomas. I will show you to the refectory. Come.’