Blood Lance: A Medieval Noir

by Jeri Westerson

  The days dragged on, cold autumn succeeding into the first signs of winter, even in the last days of October. King Richard’s troubles began in earnest and he tried to escape them by retreating from Westminster to his estates at Eltham, but Parliament would not countenance it and forced his return by refusing to do any business at all. His chancellor, Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, was relieved of his duties and Bishop Arundel became chancellor in his place, along with John Gilbert, bishop of Hereford, who took on the duties of treasurer.

  Crispin sniffed at that. Purse strings would be kept tighter now, he supposed, but much damage had already been done. The problem was Richard himself. If he could not see to mend his ways then Crispin did not see a very rosy future for him.

  It was early November when Crispin saw his way back to Westminster. Not to go to the palace, of course. No, he fully intended to steer clear of that! But he finally had time to visit Abbot Nicholas. A few small jobs had come his way after the Spear disaster and he was glad of the distraction as well as the purse.

  He left Jack behind as he made his way down the Strand, holding his cloak tight against his body, protecting it from the wind boring down on him from the Thames. His eyes roved over the scaffolding erected over the abbey’s façade. There was always some construction going on, some new creation enlivening the cathedral. And was it not all the abbot’s doing? He stopped and watched for a time as stonemasons measured with plumb lines and pored over drawings and charts. He did not notice the horses drawing up behind him, or the sound of someone dismounting. The clack of a spur on the cobblestones finally awakened him and he spun. Henry, Earl Derby, was striding toward him with a smile on his face. Crispin dropped his head in a bow.

  “Ah, Crispin! How happy I am to see you again.”

  “Your grace.”

  The younger man rested his hand on Crispin’s shoulder and turned him to face Westminster Abbey again. “The work is going well.”

  “Yes, your grace. It will be as fine as any cathedral in Christendom. Not that it isn’t now.”

  “Indeed. The grave of many a king. The place where heads are crowned.”

  Crispin measured Henry out of the corner of his eye. “Which is more infamous, I wonder; the coronation or the funeral?”

  He clutched Crispin’s shoulder and laughed. “You are a saucy fellow. I have truly missed you.”

  Crispin smiled in answer.

  “Have you recovered well?”

  “My cold is long gone, your grace.”

  “I do not mean your cold.” He leaned in and said more quietly, “I mean your trials … on the lists?”

  Crispin tried to pull away but Henry had a good grip of him. “Don’t worry. Only those who knew you well could tell it was you.”

  “Chaucer,” he hissed through his teeth.

  “Yes, but he only confirmed my own suspicions. Impetuous. Foolish. You could have been discovered and my royal cousin would have had no choice but to execute you where you stood. I am glad I did not have to witness that. You should be more cautious. I realize you were most likely compelled to do it by some point of honor.” He waited for a reply but Crispin kept his lips firmly shut. Henry sighed. “I only remember how kind you were to me and my siblings. I did not know the half of you. But I’m keeping watch now.”

  Crispin could not tell by his tone if it was meant as a compliment or as a word of warning.

  “I shall try to be a model citizen henceforth.”

  Henry laughed, but it was more restrained this time. “Will you? I shouldn’t like to see that.” His smile faded as he took in the abbey again. “I hear you are friends with the abbot of Westminster. I pray you, go to visit him in all haste at La Neyte. His physicians warn he hasn’t long.”

  “I am going there now.”

  “Good. Give him my best wishes and prayers for his soul.”

  “I will. Farewell, my lord.”

  “This is not ‘farewell.’ Merely adieu. We will meet again.” He saluted Crispin, who gathered his presence of mind to bow.

  He watched Henry mount and then turn his horse to follow the road to the palace. Crispin, on the other hand, took another road and headed on foot toward La Neyte.

  * * *

  HE WAS GREETED AT the door by Brother John, who looked more drawn and harried than the last time Crispin had come. Looking at Crispin with sorrowful eyes, he led him silently to the abbot’s chamber.

  Nicholas was abed, propped up on pillows against the bedhead. He seemed much smaller than the man of wide girth he had been. Much smaller than he had looked only a fortnight ago when Crispin visited him for the first time in his convalescence. Pale and drawn with lids papery thin, his head listed to the side, jaw hanging loose.

  Fear stabbed at Crispin’s chest, thinking that he was too late, but Nicholas took a sudden deep breath and expelled it through his jowled cheeks. He blinked and then opened his eyes. It took a moment, but they focused at last on Crispin.

  He raised a hand feebly before letting it fall to the bed. “Crispin.” The rasping voice was very different from the usual strong tones. “I am grateful you have come.” Crispin moved forward and sat on the chair beside the bed. He pulled it closer.

  “Of course I am here. You were a good friend to me.”

  “Already I am past tense,” he croaked good-naturedly.

  Crispin cringed. “I did not mean—”

  “I know.” He smiled and Crispin took his hand. “I have heard of your latest exploits.”

  “Oh?”

  “Another murderer was brought to justice. And honor upheld.” Were there no secrets at court? If all knew about the joust then what good had it done?

  The abbot seemed to read Crispin’s mind when he gave his hand a frail squeeze. “Only a handful of us, Crispin. Only a handful know. And the king is not among that handful.”

  Crispin said nothing, but a gust of breath through his nose told of his relief.

  “Ah, my friend. It is clear to me that you need more counsel, but I am afraid I shan’t be here to perform it.”

  “You have always been most valuable to me as advocate, confessor, and friend.”

  “And you have been my greatest challenge.”

  “My lord?”

  “Don’t feign ignorance. For that is the one thing you are not. You have been a challenge to me, for many have taken my spiritual counsel but you have always questioned it.”

  “I am a stubborn man,” he admitted.

  “Indeed you are, but it is more than that.” He took longer between sentences. His breath labored.

  “I am taxing you. I should go.”

  “No. Stay. This is my last … my last counsel to you.” He took a deep breath but it would not seem to go as deeply as he tried to do. The rattling in his chest spoke of mortality and Crispin left the chair to kneel beside him. “Two things, Crispin.” His voice was now as light as smoke and Crispin leaned in to hear him. “One, a man should marry.”

  He shook his head. “I have told you before, Nicholas. How could I bring a decent woman into uncertain poverty?”

  “‘Better to marry than to burn,’” he said with a slow wink.

  Crispin smiled. It was then he felt the tears that had reached the edges of his mouth.

  “And two … two…” He paused to gasp a breath and Crispin shook his head at him.

  “Hush, Nicholas. Save your breath.”

  “No. I must tell you. Crispin, these relics that have come to you. There is a reason. You … you must forget what you think you know … Beware of what you find…”

  Even with his ear planted close to the abbot’s dry lips he could not hear the last. Only a long exhalation of breath that seemed to go on and on.

  Brother John was there in an instant, nudging Crispin aside. He brandished a goblet of wine in his hand. Kneeling beside Crispin, he took the abbot’s wilted white hand out of Crispin’s grasp. “Do you renounce Satan and all his works?” muttered the monk to his abbot. Nicholas nodded and took the wine
that John pressed to his lips. A little dribbled out the side of his mouth in a crimson stream and then he moved no more.

  The monk sank his head to the bed and wept on the hand of the dead abbot. Crispin stayed on his knees, feeling no compunction to leave.

  * * *

  IT WAS HALF OF the hour later that Crispin left at last, and that was only because he was warned that the king’s emissaries were coming. He trudged back to the Shambles, his mind filled with mortality. When he reached the tinker shop he stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up the rickety wooden structure. In the winter, the stairs were icy. Inside there were drafts and the roof leaked. He owned none of the furniture and only a few of the items that inhabited the place. Nicholas was a dear man and had cared for Crispin almost as much as Gilbert and Eleanor did, but he could not know the extent of Crispin’s degradation. Crispin knew that alone he was only half a man, but he could not bring a wife to this.

  Trudging up the stairs he finally came to his door, but instead of having to dig for his key, it opened and Jack Tucker stood there, a worried look on his young face. He stepped aside and Crispin entered.

  “It is done,” he said to the boy. Jack becrossed himself and released a whimpered sob. Crispin had done his weeping. He stared into the fire.

  “He was a good man, Master Crispin. A good soul.”

  He nodded, still thinking of his words. The man had tried to tell him something about the relics. Always relics coming into his hands. Why? While in that strange territory between Heaven and Earth, had Nicholas glimpsed the world’s unanswered questions? Had he found reason in the chaos? Was there a reason these relics seemed to come to Crispin, and Crispin alone? You must forget what you think you know. Beware of what you find. What did that mean? It had been a tantalizing morsel that Nicholas unwittingly dangled before him.

  Now it was nothing but a headache.

  And the other. To marry. Before he could stop himself, he cast his eyes toward his bed, to the mattress, beneath which lay the portrait of Philippa Walcote. She had asked him, and he had refused. Partly it was because of his poverty but partly because of his pride. She wasn’t fit to be the wife of a lord. She wasn’t fit. And yet he wasn’t a lord. He would laugh but he hadn’t any jollity left in him.

  Instead, he rose, and despite the presence of Jack, he knelt by his bed, reached under, and pulled the portrait out. He returned to the fire and plopped down into the chair, staring at the little picture so carefully painted. Such an unusual thing to have a small portrait of a person, not a saint, not a king. But he knew that Lancaster had such a thing. It was probably in the hands of his mistress, Katherine Swynford. She would have such a keepsake and keep it dear.

  “She has a babe, you know,” said Jack quietly behind him, nodding toward the portrait.

  Crispin’s heart lurched at the thought. “No. I didn’t know.”

  “Aye. Married well and good. It … it’s best to forget her, sir.”

  “I know.” He swept his thumb across her perpetual smile, over those sleepy eyes. He thought of stuffing the image under the mattress again, but he decided to keep it in his pouch, keep it close. A constant reminder that he had once been a great fool and it had cost him.

  The small fire was a comfort. Jack’s silent presence beside him even more so.

  Afterword

  Just which lance are we talking about in this latest Crispin adventure? When we talk of the Holy Spear or the Spear of Destiny or the Spear of Longinus or the Holy Lance, there seems to be a surprising number of them to talk about.

  There is possibly the most famous one, which has been used in movies and fiction before, and that is a lance that belongs to the Reichskleinodien, or the imperial regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1796, it was moved to Vienna to keep it safe while the French revolutionary army marched near Nuremburg, where it had been stored. It was supposed to stay in Vienna only until the war was over, but by then the Holy Roman Empire had ceased to be and Vienna saw no reason to return it to Germany. Finders keepers. It is a long blade, broken in the center, and imbedded with a nail. That broken piece was bound with silver and then with an engraved gold band.

  But this lance point, even though it appeared old enough and housed what was believed to be one of the nails from the crucifixion in its blade, was dated only to the seventh century when extensive metallurgical tests were done on it in 2003. So this clearly could not be the right spear that Crispin was involved with, even if Hitler thought it was and supposedly wanted to get his hands on it, too. (Although, it appears to have its own pre-Christian history of having belonged to, or being a copy of the one belonging to Odin himself and hence gave credence to the German kings’ claim to be descended from Odin. I’m hearing Valkyries singing in the background. Can you hear them?)

  There was also the relic of just the point of the spear, known as the Vatican Lance. In AD 570, a pilgrim called Antoninus of Piacenza described an object he saw in Jerusalem in the Basilica of Mount Zion. In his writings, he claims to have seen the Crown of Thorns and the spear that pierced the side of Christ. Gregory of Tours also attested to the spear’s location, though he was not an eyewitness and had never been to Jerusalem. He must have just read the brochure.

  Such is the written record of history.

  This lance, or at least its point, left the Basilica when the Persian King Khousrau II captured Jerusalem. The point got broken off of the spear and it was this relic that made its way to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, where many Christian relics seem to end up. The point was later set into an icon and sold in 1244 to Louis IX of France where, along with the Crown of Thorns, it was enshrined in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. But this is not the one we are after either.

  Then there is the Holy Lance of Echmiadzin of Armenia. In 1098, crusader Peter Bartholomew claimed that he received a vision from St. Andrew showing him where the lance was buried—which happened to be in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Antioch. Handy, that. He excavated, and lo and behold, found it! It gave the crusaders the oomph they needed to rout the Muslims and capture Antioch. No one really knows what happened to it after that. But many believe it is the one that fell into the hands of the Turks and is now housed in the Vatican. Is it? Or is it the one that Crispin found?

  Remember that lance that was in the Mount Zion Basilica? The point broke off and was sent on to Constantinople. But what about the bigger piece left behind? This part ended up in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in AD 670. Somehow, it, too, appears to have arrived in Constantinople, because fourteenth-century pilgrims claim to have seen it in both Constantinople and Paris. Point and larger piece? Hard to say. (Do you see why Crispin is so skeptical?) During the French Revolution, the point was removed from Sainte Chapelle and taken to Bibliothèque Nationale, where it promptly vanished.

  Whatever piece the Vatican still has, they are not necessarily claiming it as genuine. It would have to undergo scientific tests for that—to at least date it to the proper era—and the Vatican is famously reluctant to do such tests on any of its relics.

  The Acta Pilati, one of many noncanonical gospels, has given us a great deal of information regarding events, people, and relics not necessarily backed up by canonical accounts. It gave us the name of the centurion who pierced Jesus’s side as Longinus, but since it wasn’t considered part of the canon it is hard to take it—indeed, any of the gospels—as a record of strictly historical facts. Nevertheless, it is an interesting document that throws some light on ancient events and sometimes offers more speculation than answers.

  We also bid a fond farewell to Abbot Nicholas, who gave up the ghost on November 29, 1386. He was responsible for a great deal of the rebuilding and redesign of Westminster Abbey itself, and is credited with the building of the south and west sides of the great cloister, the Jerusalem Chamber, the abbot’s dining hall, and the Deanery. He also seemed like a crusty bird with a lot of pluck, for among the effects in his will he left a lot of battle accoutrements to various beneficiaries, incl
uding six hauberks, eight helmets, a pair of steel gloves, some “leg-harneys”, and four lance heads. He was well prepared to defend the abbey in more than just letters to Rome, or so it appeared. This is, after all, a society where anyone and everyone is armed in some way and is fully expected to defend the home turf.

  As for the joust on London Bridge, there is precedent for that. Indeed, there had been jousts on the bridge and elsewhere both in and around the immediate outskirts of London. Jousts are fabulously entertaining and if you ever get a chance to see a real one I urge you to go. They stir the blood, that’s for sure.

  And by the way, Lancaster did indeed have a Spanish secretary, bishop of Dax, Juan Gutierrez, along with a retainer, the knight Dom Lope Perez. Though Lancaster claimed the title as King of Castile and Leon because of his marriage to Costanza, the daughter of Pedro the Cruel who was the former King of Castile, the Spanish don’t bother listing Lancaster on their rolls. King Richard may have crowned him King of Spain, but the Spanish didn’t. His military campaign in Spain—which was to last until 1389—was unsuccessful. Alas.

  Henry, earl of Derby, also called Henry Bolingbroke for where he was born (Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire), was the firstborn legitimate son of John of Gaunt from his first wife Blanche. Henry, barely a year older than his cousin King Richard, would eventually lead an army against said cousin, sending him fleeing, and then seize the throne for himself, becoming Henry IV.

  Because Lancaster is absent in Spain for the next few years, expect to see Henry hanging around and bedeviling Crispin.

  And finally, the idea of knights suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, fascinated me. I wondered if throughout history, in the days before modern artillery, combatants suffered from it. After all, it is a malady that manifests once a soldier returns home to “normal” life and many soldiers and knights were away from home for years and years. Even though there is little in the way of discussion about it in old documents because of the cultural and sociological differences between then and now, I didn’t suppose it was a modern phenomenon, though we have given it fancy modern names.