The Demon’s Parchment cg-3

by Jeri Westerson

  Quick as a wink, a pot was done, pulled from the wheel, and placed on a shelf. Another blob of clay was thrown to the wheel, and the potter began again, something new emerging from his clever hands.

  “Aye, Master,” said Jack. “I could watch them all day. I nearly did. It’s a right fine skill, that is. But I ain’t clever with me hands. I’d best settle on using me mind and becoming a Tracker, like you.”

  He snapped a sidelong glance at his young charge. “I know it is a step down from a potter, Jack.”

  But Jack suddenly straightened and speared his arm outward. “There’s Wat now!”

  A stick-thin boy with gaunt features and straw-colored hair staggered under the burden of a bundle of fuel a donkey might have balked at carrying. It was not an unusual sight to see such young boys working harder than beasts, but Crispin felt a strange sensation in his belly watching this lad. It seemed he noticed all the young boys in London now, seeing them as potential victims and wondering how on earth he was to protect any of them.

  “Wat!” Jack sprinted toward him and immediately took the sticks from his shoulders, carrying them himself. Wat’s look of relief was heartbreaking.

  “Jack,” said the boy. A smile spread on his face, stretching the chapped skin to a shiny sallow color. But when his eyes lifted to Crispin, the smile vanished.

  “Wat,” said Crispin mildly. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Wat looked uncertainly at Jack. “This is me master, Crispin Guest. Worry not. He’s a good soul.”

  The boy seemed disinclined to believe this and remained standing beside his stick bundle.

  “This business of pot-making,” said Crispin, sweeping the row of ovens casually with his arm. “It is fascinating work. Your master must be very skilled.”

  The boy said nothing. His hollow-eyed stare was becoming unnerving.

  “And so,” said Crispin, trying like the devil to think of something to say to draw the boy out, “I am most interested in how it is done. Perhaps you can enlighten me.”

  Wat’s glassy stare rested on Crispin for a long while before he turned it back toward the workers. “There ain’t much to tell,” he said in a slow, careful voice. “You get the clay and you keep it in the slip, and put it on the wheel and then . . . you work it.”

  “So I see.” Crispin nodded importantly, not truly understanding. He rocked on his heels. “And the clay. Where does it come from?”

  The boy squinted. It ruined his already long face by twisting it strangely, and gave an expression that rather assumed Crispin was a simpleton. He thumbed behind him. “It comes from the Thames, don’t it?”

  “That it does,” he said, feeling a bit foolish. “Perhaps I can talk to your master.” Crispin dropped his friendly tone and used one reserved for menials. The boy certainly recognized it. He snatched the stick bundle from Jack and hefted it up to his shoulders.

  “I’ll take you to him.”

  Jack scrambled happily beside his new friend while Crispin took up the rearguard. They threaded through the busy path of muddy snow and clay. Freshly fired pots stood in a row in the mud outside a few shops and huts. Women wove through the streets, bringing bread and salted fish to some of the men.

  Wat lumbered on, finally dropping his bundle with a great sigh when they came to a hovel at the end of the row. He didn’t look back as he entered and Jack followed him right behind. Crispin was a bit more cautious as he ducked his head to enter the low doorway. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the dark space. The floor was made of rotting planks covered in a layer of dust, except for the places where water had been sloshed or muddy footprints had tramped.

  A man, bald except for a fall of ginger hair streaked with gray hanging down his back, sat at a wheel, urging its turning with his toes. He stared at the clay that climbed as he pulled it until it was shaped into a tall drinking jug. It was only then that he looked up and frowned.

  “Eh? Wat? Who is here?”

  Pained by the fearful look on Wat’s face, Crispin stepped forward with a slight bow. “I am Crispin Guest, good Master. And I have come to examine your wares.”

  “My wares?” The man slowly rose and glared from Crispin to Jack. “My wares? They are just like everyone else’s.”

  “Indeed.” Crispin looked idly at the tilting shelves of pipkins, bowls, and small jugs. They might not even be as good as some of the other wares he had seen, but he certainly did not voice this opinion. “Well, truthfully, there are a few things I am most interested in knowing. For one, if a man should want a large quantity of clay, how should he acquire it?”

  Jack, who had been trying to chat with Wat, suddenly fell silent. His face was turned anxiously toward the potter.

  The man rose to his feet and dipped his hands in a basin of clear water, washing away the layers of dried clay up his forearms. The water instantly turned brown. His sagging stockings seemed to have a perpetual splatter of wet clay. His back was to Crispin when he spoke. “I am only a poor potter, sir. I do my job, make my wares. That is all.”

  “Yet if a man should want such a thing. . . .” urged Crispin, stepping closer.

  The man turned. His wide-spaced teeth bit into his lower lip. “It is a strange request. I remarked upon it the first time I heard it.”

  Crispin felt a surge of excitement burn his chest. “The first time?”

  “Aye.” The man reached up slowly and scratched his bald pate. “A man—oh, it was a good long time ago now—asked for bucketfuls of clay. Not from me, you understand, but from some of us. I remember hearing it. ‘Bucketfuls of clay?’ I asked. What would a body be doing with that? And him a gentlemen, so they said.”

  “A gentleman? Who?”

  He stuck a finger in his ear and reamed it good before pulling it out again. Crispin ignored the finger the man stared at before wiping it down his tunic. “He didn’t say. Now I ain’t the suspicious kind, mind you. But I did wonder, as did my fellows here. And there was only one scheme we could reason out.”

  Crispin leaned in, curious. “And that is?”

  “That whoreson wants to take our business!” He stood up properly and squared with Crispin. “And if you have the same intention, sir, you can be on your way. We potters aren’t getting wealthy here, but we’ll take no more money for our own clay.”

  “He paid, did he?”

  “Aye. But don’t be getting notions. I’ll not take a farthing.”

  “You mistake me, Master. I do not wish to buy your clay. I have no use for it.”

  The man looked Crispin up and down suddenly, as if registering him for the first time. “Truly?”

  “Indeed. Did the man indicate that he was going into business?”

  “I don’t rightly know. It wasn’t me talking to him, was it.”

  “I suppose not. When did you say this was?”

  The hand returned to the head again and rubbed slowly, back and forth. “I reckon it was before Michaelmas. I remember because I sprained me ankle and Wat here had to turn the wheel for me. You recall that, Wat?”

  Wat nodded and offered nothing more.

  Michaelmas. That was when the murders began, when the Jewish physician arrived from France. “I must know who talked to this man. Will you tell me which of your fellows it was?”

  The man suddenly became reticent. He glanced at Wat before he turned distractedly toward his wares drying on a shelf. “I mind me own business, good sir. I don’t wish to cause trouble for any of my fellows.”

  “No one is in trouble. I am not the law. I am merely here to see to these matters to make certain . . . to make certain . . . er. . . .” He had no wish to go into specifics. He blurted the next thing that came to him. “That the guild is not being impinged upon.” It seemed like a poor excuse but it made the man ponder.

  He brought up his head. “Aye. The guild, did you say?” He looked at Crispin anew. Yes, Crispin supposed he might look more like someone who might speak on behalf of the guilds. “We did not know this man who wanted
the clay,” said the potter thoughtfully. “And we know many of our competitors. The Oxford men and the Kingston men. These Londoners,” he growled, “that they would buy the wares from far away over the good pottery we make right here in the city! It’s a shame, it is. There’s no loyalty at all anymore, is there?”

  “Very little,” Crispin agreed. “But can you direct me to someone who spoke to this man?”

  He nodded. “Oh aye. Come with me, then.” He ambled toward the door in a stooped posture that spoke of his years over the wheel and motioned for Crispin to follow.

  Many eyes followed Crispin and his little company. The potter took the lead, hailing his fellows through their doorways as he passed. Crispin strode behind him with Jack in the rear, trying to urge a contrary Wat to follow.

  After the man greeted what seemed like every potter in London, they finally arrived at their destination. Just another potter’s hovel, in Crispin’s estimation. The white daub had long ago turned gray. The thick mist could not hide the unnatural slope of the roof whose clay tiles were mostly broken or missing.

  “A cobbler’s children,” Crispin muttered.

  “Eh? What’s that, good sir?” asked his guide.

  “Nothing,” said Crispin. “Is this the place?”

  “Aye. But Bert does not look to be within. We will have to wait.” And then the man proceeded to push open the door.

  Crispin stood on the lane as the man disappeared into the shadowed doorway and didn’t reappear again. He had time to share a look with Jack before the man poked his head out again. “Coming?”

  Jack gave a shrug and gestured for Crispin to go first. Manners appeared to be a little less formal on the potter’s row. Crispin girded himself and stepped over the threshold, ducking his head under the lintel.

  It was little bigger than Crispin’s own lodgings and as sparsely furnished. A cot, a potter’s wheel, and some makeshift shelves were all there was to it. The room itself was smoky from a neglected fire situated in a ring of stones in the middle of the floor. This particular potter did not appear to have an apprentice to keep the fires stoked and the rest clean.

  “Should be nigh at any moment, I reckon,” the man said, pouring what looked like ale from a decorative jug into an equally decorative ceramic beaker. He drank up without hesitation as Crispin eyed the doorway. At length, a woman stepped through and Crispin straightened.

  “Bert!” The potter wiped his mouth and set the beaker aside. The woman entered and stared suspiciously at Crispin.

  “Dickon. What mischief is here?” She was carrying a heavy bundle and set it down by the smoky fire ring. When she rose she brushed back a lock of brown hair. Her face was plain, drawn. A small nose perched above chapped lips. Her squinting eyes, what Crispin could see of them, were light in color.

  “This man is from the guild, Berthildus, and he would like to talk about that knave who bought your clay.”

  Her head snapped up but her face did not lose its suspicious glint. When she crossed her arms over her chest and clutched her elbows, Crispin could see the dark clay imbedded under her nails. So this woman must be “Bert” the Potter.

  “Damosel,” said Crispin, dipping his head in a slight bow, “I am investigating whether certain men are bypassing the guild to make and sell their own wares. Can you tell me what this man looked like?”

  Slowly, she bent to her sack and withdrew her shopping; a stringy-looking pullet, some eggs, and a bundle of onions tied together by their dried stems. She set them into a basket under her cot. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she looked from Dickon to Crispin. She had a shrewd look in her eye. More so than the gullible Dickon.

  “ ’Bout time our guild fees showed for something,” she said with a nod. “Aye, I recall him right enough. He was a short man, birdlike. Very young. A gentleman. All golden. And foreign.”

  Crispin’s breath caught. He certainly knew this man. “And so. He wanted a quantity of clay?”

  “Indeed he did. Six bucketsful. And he paid well for it.”

  “Did he say what it was for?”

  “Alas, no. I was suspicious at the time, but what is a poor widow to do?”

  “Indeed. What did he pay for this bounty?”

  “Two shillings. I wish I had those shillings still. Business is poor.”

  “Did you, by any chance, catch his name?”

  “He did not offer it and I did not ask it. It is rare indeed that a gentleman comes down to the potter’s row to buy anything at all. When I discovered he wanted clay and not pots, I wasn’t keen on it. But coin is coin.”

  “Coin is coin,” echoed Crispin. How well he knew that particular chant. “How did he transport this clay? Surely he did not carry it himself. Did he have servants?”

  “No servants. I sent my boy after him.”

  “And where did your boy deliver these buckets?”

  “To Westminster Palace. The boy had a lot to say about it, he did. Took him three trips.”

  “Where is the boy now? I would speak with him.”

  Berthildus gave a proud smile and her hard face softened. “Hugh, that’s my boy, he was told that he had promise. A gentleman of the court, taking him on as a page to teach him to read and write? I could scarce believe it. I gave my consent at once. You never saw a boy more excited than my Hugh.”

  Her words settled in and a chill of realization rippled slowly up Crispin’s flanks. God’s blood! Was it as easy as that? Rather than snatched, were these boys lured away with the promise of a better life right under their parents’ noses? By all the saints! How diabolical! They would never be reported missing. They had been given away! And these simple folk could not expect a letter they could not read. Nor any other message from so far away. These boys were gone, never to be seen again. But for all their parents knew, they were simply in a better place. Little did these trusting parents know that that better place was Heaven.

  Crispin glanced at Jack to see if he had caught on, but apparently he didn’t. Crispin licked dry lips. Should he tell her? Could he dash her hopes and bring the roof down upon her? On any parent?

  “Master?” Jack was at his elbow, touching his sleeve. His voice was soft. “Master, what is amiss? You are pale.”

  “Nothing,” he said hastily. He raised his head and nodded to the woman, saying slowly, “Life as a page is difficult. He will have much to learn but it will be rewarding. He . . . he will have little time to communicate with you. There is the possibility that you will see him no more. . . .”

  She nodded and wiped at her eye. “Aye. But it’s a small price to pay for a better life, I say.”

  Crispin gritted his teeth and couldn’t help but offer a bow. “I thank you for your time.” He thought of offering her a coin and wondered if it might seem more like blood money. In the end, he could not leave her without offering something. He dug out two farthings and handed one each to both potters. “For your time,” he said lamely and staggered out of the hovel. He walked quickly over the clay-slick lane. Jack ran raggedly behind to catch up.

  The boy seemed to sense his mood and said nothing until they were well away and on the Bank, hurrying back to where they could catch the ferry across. When they reached the wharf they had just missed it and had to wait for its return.

  “Master,” said Jack soberly. “You know something, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Jack.” With a sigh, he leaned against the damp pier jutting up from the wharf. “Did you not hear what she said? She gave her boy away, thinking it was for the good of him.”

  It took only a moment. “Oh! Oh my God!” Jack began to tremble and Crispin almost wrapped an arm around him. Jack was not an infant. He was nearly a man, having lived as a man for some years. He could deal with this knowledge as a man.

  “You don’t think—” Jack struggled with the notion. “Why did you not tell her, sir?”

  The sick feeling would not leave him. “What would be the use in it? Her child was gone. Dead. Worse than merely dead. It could not help her to know t
he truth. It might even destroy her.”

  “ ’Slud! That’s a sore, sore thing.” He chewed on his fingers and stared out onto the gray water. Perhaps Jack was thinking the same thing as him: that had Jack consorted with the wrong man instead of Crispin, then he, too, might have been found floating in the Thames.

  “Do you know who did it?” he said after a long pause. His voice was roughened by anger.

  “Yes. It is Julian.” The satisfaction that he had not been wrong settled in his chest.

  “Aye.” There was recognition in the one word. “That was his description right enough. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to haul him to Newgate before I do something.”

  Jack made an affirming sound. They said nothing more as they waited for the ferryman slowly making his way across the choppy river.

  Crispin did not allow Jack to accompany him. He didn’t want Jack anywhere near Julian. It was nearly Sext when he reached the gates of Westminster. He still wore his livery from Lancaster over his cotehardie but his hood was drawn low over his face, as always. A light dusting of snow helped to disguise him. He joined a group of pages filing in through the great hall like a pack of sheep.

  Westminster Hall was nearly as grand as a cathedral. It was as wide as a row of infantry lined up shoulder to shoulder. The roof reached upwards on columns into a ceiling of wooden beams and trusses. A remarkable space, to be sure, and one that Crispin had enjoyed at many a feast when he was still in the good graces of the old king, Edward of Windsor.

  Crispin kept his head down, well acquainted with the high ceilings and hanging banners and shields. He recalled all too well the last time he had been in this hall facing King Richard. It was an event he did not willingly wish to repeat.