A Maiden Weeping

by Jeri Westerson

  ‘Henry, I can do it myself.’

  ‘But …’ Crispin’s expression finally seemed to register with him. He shrugged and returned the pouch from whence it came. ‘If you will have it so,’ he said, disappointed.

  Crispin laid his hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘It is enough that you offered. Now … surely there are duties for you to get back to. You know you mustn’t be seen with me. Richard’s spies are everywhere.’

  ‘Why must you be so damned practical?’

  ‘It keeps me alive.’

  Henry grinned. ‘So it does. Fare you well, Crispin. I heard about your lodgings. Where will you go now?’

  ‘That is a very good question. But I’m certain that when I do find new lodgings, you will hear about it.’

  Henry laughed. He rolled away from the wall and strode toward an alley, where Crispin could see a glimpse of the retainer holding Henry’s horse.

  Crispin returned to his companions and gathered them in. Just as he leaned in to speak to them, a familiar figure trotted forward.

  ‘Crispin!’ Martin Kemp, with the same knobby knees, the same flapping cap stopped before him. And though he also wore the same world-weary face, his whole demeanor was somewhat brighter. ‘I hoped to catch you. Did you succeed? Are you a free man?’

  ‘Yes, Martin. Praise God I am delivered. Thanks to these three.’

  Martin’s gaze took them in: Jack, of course; he frowned slightly upon recognizing John Rykener, then his eyes flitted over Cobmartin’s unfamiliar features.

  ‘I am gratified to hear it, Crispin. And I can share my own good news, too. I’ve got a new place, not too far from here, down Ivy Lane. Alice is even pleased with it and that’s half the battle won.’ He elbowed Crispin. ‘Oh, it will take some clever moving of coins here and there but …’ He rubbed his hands. ‘I’ll be back in business in no time.’

  ‘I’m heartily happy to hear it.’

  ‘Well.’ He rocked on his heels. He seemed to have run out of conversation. Crispin took the opportunity to offer his hand. A little in awe, as Martin always seemed to be of Crispin, the tinker fit his hand in his.

  ‘I want you to know that I am grateful to you, Martin, for taking me in all those years ago. And though I haven’t been the best of tenants …’

  ‘Say no more, Crispin. You always eventually paid me. And I don’t mind saying …’ He looked around. Crispin could only imagine he feared the sudden presence of his often cross wife. ‘I don’t mind saying that it was … interesting … being your landlord. Your doings and your clients. Never a dull moment.’ He chuckled before sobering. ‘I do pray for God’s blessings on you, Crispin. May he watch over you and keep you.’

  ‘And to you and your family, Martin.’

  ‘If you ever need a pot mended …’ Martin backed away, waving.

  ‘I know where to go.’ Crispin waved as he took his leave and was surprised to feel regret. Though the man’s wife was a shrew and his daughter a horror at times, Martin himself was a kind-hearted and gracious man. Crispin would miss him.

  But with Martin’s departure his own predicament suddenly loomed large. ‘Well, that’s Martin sorted, but what’s to become of Jack and me?’

  ‘God blind me,’ muttered Jack. ‘I nearly forgot we got nowhere to go!’

  Nigellus chuckled. ‘That’s not quite true. Come with me, gentlemen.’ Crispin enquired of Jack with a mere look, but Jack shrugged his shoulders. They had no choice but to follow their swift-legged lawyer.

  They found themselves on the Shambles again. ‘Master Nigellus,’ Crispin began. But when the lawyer took them up the road and stopped at an old poulterer’s, Crispin frowned.

  Nigellus gestured. ‘You see! Master Crispin, this structure belonged to my family, but it has long stood unused. I would gladly rent it out to you.’

  Eyes traveling upward over the building, Crispin slowly shook his head. He hated like hell to admit it aloud, but he knew he had to. ‘I’d happily oblige you, Nigellus, but there is no hope of my ever being able to afford such a place. And we would be in need of furnishings … I’d have to rent that as well. It would come too dear.’

  ‘But don’t you see, I have this standing empty earning me nothing. Whatever you think is fair, I will take.’

  ‘What I think is fair, Master Cobmartin, I still, regretfully cannot afford.’

  ‘See here, Master Guest. There’s no need to be stubborn about it. I am offering you a place to live at a much reduced cost. You get new lodgings, and I get a lodger I can trust. And if the rent is too dear, then pay what you paid before and when I need something investigated, why, I know I can rely on you to do it.’

  ‘I see. But would you require me and my services in sufficient amounts to supplement what I cannot pay?’

  Nigellus merely grinned. ‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ He took a key from his belt and unlocked the door. When he pushed it open, a veil of dust rained down. And a pigeon, who had made a home in the rafters, took flight. Apparently, there was a hole in the roof. Rain and snow had damaged the wooden planks beneath, and a mound of bird droppings was proof the pigeons lineage was prodigious.

  ‘Oh my!’ said Nigellus. ‘I haven’t been in here for nearly five years. Look what time and neglect have done to the place. I think that whatever rent you can pay, Master Guest, will be more than sufficient, given the circumstances.’

  Crispin glanced around the ground floor room. It was a shop or had been. There were still discarded cages piled in one corner, dusty, broken, and the whole place still stank of the poulterer’s, of pullet shit and old feathers. Dust motes soared freely with every shaft of light from the broken shutter to the hole in the roof.

  A wobbly table of some length was covered in a layer of dust but seemed sturdy enough despite its quaver, and the few chairs also seemed of solid construction.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Nigellus. ‘Jack, have you parchment and quill?’

  ‘I do, sir.’ He pulled it from his scrip before turning sheepishly toward Rykener. ‘Oh. By rights, this is your property, Master Rykener.’

  John waved him off. ‘I have so little use for it these days. And you seemed to have the greater need. Consider it a gift, Young Jack.’

  Jack bowed. ‘I thank you, Master Rykener. You are kind indeed.’ He set the ink on the table, dipped the quill, and poised it over the parchment. ‘I am ready, Nigellus.’

  ‘Take this down, Master Jack. One table, six pence. Four chairs … no three, one appears to be broken … at three pence each. A coffer, two shillings … And now the upstairs.’

  Nigellus led the way up the stairs situated in the middle rear of the shop and they all climbed. Crispin saw that the upper floor was divided into two rooms with a narrow corridor in between. The one on the right opened to a large room with a bed with bed curtains.

  ‘One bed with curtains,’ continued Nigellus, ‘six shillings. Another coffer, one shilling. A basin and ewer, two shillings eight pence. A disreputable towel … free. A small table, three pence.’ The hearth was wide and made of carved stone but had not seen a fire for years. There were feathers on the hearth. Crispin was certain something nested in the chimney.

  Nigellus sneezed from the dust and exited, pushing through to the other room. Jack scrambled after, ink pot in hand, quill in his teeth, and parchment in his other hand. He set the ink pot down on the nearest surface. Crispin was adding the sums in his head and cringed at the amount.

  The room was smaller, no doubt for a worker, apprentice, or servant and held a smaller bed with curtains and one coffer. ‘A small bed with curtains, three shillings, and a coffer, one shilling. There,’ said Nigellus, running his hand distractedly through the layers of dust. ‘Calculate that, Master Jack.’

  ‘Very well.’ Jack bit his tongue as he added the sums. ‘I have it as three crowns, two shillings tuppence, sir.’

  ‘And the rent two pounds a year,’ said Nigellus.

  Crispin shook his head. Never had he dreamed when he used to awake from h
is featherbed in those long ago mornings and look out his manor house window to the fields he owned and worker’s cottages under his tenancy, that he would have imagined that a few dusty rooms with old, tired furniture would be a welcomed sight. But he understood now the reality. ‘It simply cannot be done,’ he offered quietly, tamping down his humiliation. No, those long ago days were gone. He didn’t have the means of acquiring decent housing for him and his servant.

  ‘I shall take five shillings now, and five quarterly, Master Guest. Due compensation for the work that must be done to make these rooms habitable.’

  ‘Master Cobmartin, perhaps you didn’t hear me. I cannot pay this sum. Even at half the rent.’

  ‘Very well, three shillings, but you are getting a bargain, particularly since I will throw in the furnishings for … half. Paid when you can. Or in kind.’

  ‘Master Nigellus …’

  ‘Master Crispin!’ Jack beckoned to him and Crispin walked over. Jack leaned in to his ear. ‘Master Crispin, I have the rent. And in a year’s time, if it is well with Gilbert and Isabel Langton, I shall gain a fine dowry. We can pay it.’

  ‘I’ll not have it! My servant will not be paying my way!’ It was humiliating. He pushed his way from Jack and hurried down the stairs. He had to leave, had to breathe fresh air. Stomping across the dirty shop where dust kicked up in clouds, he yanked the door open and inhaled deeply of the rancid air of the Shambles. The same street, the same circumstances he had suffered for the last thirteen years. He knew he would die here in some ramshackle room. And he would die the pauper he was. But, by God, he would not take charity from his own damned servant!

  Breathing hard, he stared at the mud. He had hoped for one spark of a moment that this might work. For there was a separate space for Jack who was a man in every sense of the word now and needed that privacy, especially if he was to have a wife. But it was the master who was to care for the servant, not the other way around. It seemed that Jack was in better stead than he. And he supposed in the long run this was a good thing since he had nothing to leave to the boy but his expertise. And what was that worth in coin these days?

  Still, the boy had accomplished much on his own. He was becoming this invention of Crispin’s, this ‘Tracker’ and with his own natural cleverness, he had managed to reason his way through the nearly impossible. He was proud of the lad, to be sure. He deserved a place such as this.

  Crispin turned and ran his gaze over the structure, its sorry state of plaster, its rotted timbers, it’s patched and broken tile roof. His gaze dropped to the ring on his finger. This one was his from all those years ago as a baron and part of the chivalry of the kingdom. But he also still had his father’s ring in his keeping, and little good it did them in its hiding place … well, former hiding place. Jack kept it safe somewhere. Probably the Boar’s Tusk.

  The thought rippled the skin of his spine. If he sold it …

  What would his father have said, the man he hadn’t truly known and little remembered? The ring had no value as it was, hidden, stored away, forgotten. Wouldn’t it be more practical if sold? He could get five pounds at least for it.

  He looked up again at the old poulterer’s place and suddenly envisioned the possibilities. They’d have to do the work themselves. Or maybe he could barter his services to a carpenter. If not ‘tracking’ then do the books or write out documents. He’d done it before for a living.

  It would be good to have a separate parlor for clients. True, it would also have to serve as their kitchen, but that was manageable with maybe a curtain. Someday.

  Was he talking himself into it?

  A dark shape suddenly appeared over the top of the roof and minced delicately along its spine before trotting down till it landed on the sill of the window that would serve as Crispin’s chamber.

  ‘Gyb? Is that you?’

  The cat, with its black mask and white blaze down its nose and muzzle, gazed down at him with bored yellow eyes, meowed once, and made himself at home on the sill, hunkering down and wrapping his tail about his plumped body.

  Crispin smiled. He supposed that settled the question as much as anything else.

  AFTERWORD

  As you have seen throughout the Crispin Guest series, sometimes the relic is forefront and sometimes it’s only a McGuffin, the thing that propels the plot forward. In this instance, it was definitely in the McGuffin category. In the next book, however, it comes to the forefront. A blood relic – Jesus’s blood in particular – was the holiest and most prized. And so Crispin must pursue an old nemesis, acquire yet another romantic entanglement, and still keep his wits about him when the crimes of thievery, blackmail, and murder come right to his doorstep in Season of Blood.