Cup of Blood: A Medieval Noir: A Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Prequel

by Jeri Westerson

  He chuffed an airless sound. Hadn’t he scolded himself earlier for taking up diversions that did not pay? Ah well. He supposed it wasn’t good for a tavern keeper’s business having a dead man in one’s tavern, and it was the least he could do for Gilbert and his wife Eleanor.

  He left the prison and walked down Newgate Market where it became the Shambles. Gilbert might even be willing to erase Crispin’s debt if he discovered who so ill-used the Boar’s Tusk. He let fantasies of free wine for the rest of his days fill his mind. He even licked his lips at the thought…before a dark sack thrust down over his head.

  Before he could react, a heavy club contacted with his skull and drove his racing mind into black oblivion.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Crispin stared at it a long time, but his hazy mind refused to understand. When finally he could focus, he recognized a single candle flame sputtering on its wick, hovering over a pool of liquid tallow.

  And then pain shot down his neck. The pain radiated down from his scalp, and when he tried to raise a hand to it, he found he could not. He tugged harder but his arms were bound behind him.

  “God’s blood!”

  “Oaths? A very poor use of language.”

  Crispin jerked up his head. He searched vainly for the face that belonged to the male voice, but all he saw was dark and the bright spot of the candle flame.

  “Would not a prayer be more appropriate to such a setting?”

  “What setting? Am I in Hell?” Crispin asked half-heartedly, though once the question left his lips he worried over the answer.

  The voice laughed. “No. Though you may think Hell preferable.”

  “What is the use of such mummery? Unbind me.” Coming to his senses, Crispin took inventory of his numb body; hands tied behind him, each leg likewise fastened to the legs of the chair. His coat had been unbuttoned and pushed back over his shoulders, and his chemise had likewise been opened, his chest bared to the cold. What in heaven—? “Who are you? What do you want of me?”

  “We are men who seek answers.”

  “‘We’?”

  “We will ask the questions. Understand?”

  Before Crispin could reply, a whip lashed across his chest. The stinging pain rolled up and down his body. The back of his knees tingled and weakened.

  “It is a simple question,” said the voice. “We want to know where it is.” Through his pain, Crispin detected the faint pinching of words, of a man cultivating very carefully how he spoke with the under layer of a French accent.

  “Where ‘what’ is?”

  The whip lashed out again and Crispin stiffened against the taut ropes. He blinked away the pain.

  “Wrong answer.”

  “How can I tell you if I don’t know what you seek?”

  The whip slashed again, raising a wash of hot pain across the warming skin.

  “You know very well what it is. We want it back, and if it means removing your flesh one strip at a time, then so be it.”

  Crispin’s belly tightened. His head throbbed, and now his chest flamed with deep red welts. Soon he would lose the tenuous consciousness he fought to keep.

  “It’s not too far,” he gasped. “I’ll get it for you.”

  The voice came closer, speaking into his ear. “Where?”

  “You’d never find it. I will have to show you.”

  “Liar.” The whip slashed twice, catching him once across the throat. He choked on a gurgling breath before the candle’s brightness dimmed to a bronze haze.

  “You must understand,” said the voice. “We have no desire to cause you harm.” He gave a low chuckle. “It is only a bonus.”

  “What would you have me say?” Crispin gasped.

  “Say anything at all,” said the cultivated voice. “But finally speak the truth, for it is the only thing that will keep you alive.”

  “This thing you want. I am certain once I produce it, my life will be terminated. So what is the point?”

  “You may be correct. Well then. It will not prolong your life. Surely that will be a mercy.”

  Crispin huffed. “A small one. You will have to untie me in order for me to show you.”

  “As I said. I do not think I trust you.”

  “That trust goes both ways. First, tell me who you are.”

  “That is not for you to know. And trust need not necessarily go both ways. Only our way.” To prove the point, he slashed the whip across Crispin’s chest again.

  Tears of pain squeezed from his eyes and he held his breath while the sting subsided. “As I said,” said Crispin between breaths, “there seems little point in this. It will not help you if I die. Or faint.”

  “I cannot help the dying, but of fainting…We can revive you.”

  Crispin’s vision blurred. The shadowy figure before him wavered. He knew he was blacking out and he welcomed the respite, though he knew it would be brief. But before the room darkened completely, he heard something behind him crash. A chair? Men grunted in a wordless struggle. More crashing and scuffling. Empty barrels toppled and rolled across the wood floor. Someone shouted, calling for help. Light flooded the chamber and more voices added to the melee. Footsteps shuffled and finally lit out.

  Men’s voices conversed above him and something sawed the bindings at Crispin’s hands. He tensed his jaw, wondering what new torture awaited.

  “I’ve almost got you free.” A new voice. “It’s me, Master. Jack Tucker. Them bastards may come back, so you must help me once you’re free.”

  “Help you?” There were far too many questions for the state of his mind. His hands were suddenly freed and he stared at them, opening and closing the fingers. Then his feet were free, but he had no urge to rise.

  “Come now, Master. You must get up.”

  “No, no,” he said, lowering to the ground. His head hurt, his chest flamed, and when he reached up to his face, he felt the sticky wetness of blood.

  “Master Guest, arise!”

  Crispin lay on his side, wondering what all the chatter was about. In his clouded mind, he imagined a host of white-garbed Templars encircling him. They urged him to do something, trying to show him an object that he couldn’t quite see. One reached down and shook his shoulder. “Master Guest!” the voice urged, his face masked by silver mail under a bascinet helm. The voice changed from that of a cultured knight to a young boy’s of a lower class. Surely not a squire. Crispin opened his eyes and focused them on the lad. “Who are you?”

  “Jack Tucker, Master. Remember? From the Boar’s Tusk? Arise. You there! Help me.”

  Crispin’s mind arrived back to the present and he grunted in pain. Gingerly, he rose. “Jack. Yes.”

  Jack slung Crispin’s arm over his shoulder while another man helped Crispin to his feet. Jack told Crispin to lean on him while he quickly ushered him to the door and thanked the men who helped with the rescue. A few men offered to assist Jack, but the boy kindly refused them.

  Silhouettes of men crowded the open doorway and eyed Crispin curiously. In a haze, Crispin felt himself dragged past them and through London’s streets, his shirt and coat flapping. He flinched when they reached the sunlight.

  After many turns and twists Crispin mustered his voice. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Home, Master. To your lodgings.”

  “And how, by the Virgin, do you know where I live?”

  “Everyone knows that, Master.”

  They reached the shop below his lodgings and Martin Kemp, the tinker, met them at the door. “By the Mass, Crispin! What’s happened to you?”

  “Help me get him to his room, good Master,” Jack pleaded.

  Kemp quickly complied. With Jack above and Kemp behind, they managed to wrestle him up the narrow stairway. The tinker unlocked the door and they laid him on the bed.

  Kemp hovered and stared at the blood on Crispin’s chest while Jack stoked the meager fire. Thin and wiry, Kemp was almost as tall as Crispin. His brown hair, cut carelessly, was kept tucked under a plain
, leather cap. A leather apron covered him from his jaundiced chest to his knobby knees.

  “Have you wood or peat, good Master?” Jack said over his shoulder. “This room’s as cold as a brothel’s back door.”

  “Wood? Aye, I do. I’ll fetch some, shall I?” He turned but stopped in the doorway. “You are a most blessed Good Samaritan, my boy. Praise God for your timely arrival.”

  “There wasn’t no timely arrivals. I’m his servant, is all. Jack Tucker.”

  “Oh? Indeed?”

  “The wood, Master.”

  “Oh aye. The wood.” He hurried away with heavy steps down the stairwell.

  Jack raised Crispin and settled his pillow more comfortably behind him. Gingerly he made certain Crispin’s coat and shirt were open and pushed away from his wounds. He ticked his head. “Bastards,” he muttered and brought over the basin and water jug. He found a rag and dipped it into the water. “This will smart a bit, Master. Have you wine?”

  Crispin gritted his teeth and shook his head.

  “Then water will have to do until that fellow comes back.” He pressed the soggy rag to the bleeding wounds and Crispin jerked back, pain renewed.

  “Sorry, sir. Can’t be helped. Don’t want them to fester. We’ll have to put warm water to that, too.”

  Kemp returned and placed the sticks on the fire. “Whatever has happened to you, Crispin?”

  Crispin smiled weakly. “I do not rightly know, Martin. It seems I met some men who mistakenly believe I am in possession of something they own. Or something they want.”

  Kemp put tin-grayed fingers to his lips. “Should you not call the sheriff…”

  “Master Kemp,” said Jack quickly from his place beside Crispin. “Have you wine for these wounds? They’re right foul.”

  “Wine? Oh yes.”

  Jack watched the tinker leave again. “I think it best to keep the sheriff out of it, don’t you, good Master?”

  He turned his gaze toward the boy. “I thought I rid myself of you.”

  “Well now. About that.” Jack wrung the bloody water from the rag into the basin. He laid the cool rag again over Crispin’s wounds. “After I left Newgate, I followed you for a bit.” He lowered his eyes and a blush reddened his pale cheeks. “I wanted to thank you proper, sir, but there isn’t much a lad like me can offer. Before I could speak, you turned down an alley and out of me sight for the blink of an eye and when I got there, I saw these monk’s carrying you off, and you with a sack over your head like you were turnips going to market.”

  “Monks?”

  “Aye. They looked like monks, all robed in dark cassocks.”

  “Hmm. Go on.”

  Well, sir, they didn’t see me. I can keep to the shadows like I am one. So I followed them. When you didn’t come out, I gave the hue and cry and some shopkeepers come running. I suppose the noise scared them villains off. Do you know who they were?”

  “No.” Crispin reached for his head and then thought better of it. He looked down at the wet rag covering his chest. Red stripes welled up through it. “You probably saved my life back there.”

  “Well now. It’s only proper, isn’t it? My being your servant and all.”

  “You are not my servant. You must stop saying that.”

  “I might have been a fine servant, if my mother and sire weren’t taken when they were. Both died of the plague, you see. And my worthless sister abandoned us. I had to make me own way, didn’t I? What’s a lad of eight to do?”

  “What is a lad to do? You were orphaned at eight?”

  Jack nodded. “But I managed, sir. By the grace of God.”

  Crispin studied the boy’s dirty face and crusted hair. He well knew the sting of losing family at an early age. “How old are you now, boy?”

  “Eleven, m’lord. Maybe twelve.”

  “Stop calling me ‘lord’. I am no one’s lord. Not anymore.”

  “Oh. What shall I call you, then?”

  Crispin shifted his position with a grunt. “Call me Crispin. Everyone else does. Now suppose you tell me about this antidote you took.”

  Jack offered a shy smile. “You are as smart as they say, eh? Well, when I heard you and the sheriff talk of poison, I said to m’self, ‘Jack, you had best get your arse out of there or all is lost.’ And almost right away I started feeling all queer in me gut. I heaved soon thereafter and kept on heaving till there was naught left. Saints’ toes, I thought I’d vomit m’self inside out! Well, I never been so scared, and I found an apothecary and begged him for a cure. I got in one swallow, went on me way, and then the sheriff’s men nabbed me, and I reckon you know the rest.”

  “You are fortunate. I know of no antidote to such a poison.”

  “That’s what the apothecary said. He said it wouldn’t do no good for me, but here I am.”

  “Yes. Here you are.”

  “Right then. What victuals shall I fix you?”

  “You will not cook for me.” He closed his eyes half from pain and half from embarrassment. “At any rate…I…I have no food.”

  “That’s simple, my lord. I’ll return anon.”

  “I am not a lord…Tucker!”

  Jack flew over the threshold with a wave. Kemp passed him at the door.

  “A fine servant, that,” said the tinker. “Looks like you acquired him just in time.”

  “He’s not my—oh hell.” Crispin fell back surrendering to the pillow, and stared at the cobwebs among the rafters.

  “I brought some wine.” He lifted the full jug to show him. “It will serve to cleanse your wounds and warm the belly. Now then, if there is more you need, send Jack down to fetch me. Oh. Where was he off to?”

  “To get some food.”

  “I see. Then circumstances for you must have improved. What with a servant and such. Perhaps, well, perhaps this isn’t quite the proper time, but my wife would hide me if I did not remind you…”

  “The rent. I know it well, Martin. I will send Jack anon to pay you.”

  “Well then!” Kemp nodded and rubbed his long hands together.

  Crispin watched him leave with a pang of guilt. The rent was days overdue, but he had lied about paying him. He had already borrowed from Gilbert and could not even repay that. Vaguely he wondered how Jack was acquiring food and decided he didn’t want to know.

  He cast a glance at his money pouch, but it lay undisturbed.

  Crispin slowly awoke to savory aromas. He opened his eyes and spied Jack stirring a pot on a trivet over his fire, humming to himself.

  “You again? Why are you here?” Crispin asked groggily. “And what’s that?”

  “Rabbit stew. Will you have some?”

  “How did you afford this rabbit and the rest of it?”

  Jack didn’t answer and Crispin rose from the pillow. “Tucker?”

  “I’m here to help, Master. As to the rabbit…well now. It isn’t polite to ask after a gift, is it?”

  Crispin sighed and laid back.

  The mattress sank under Jack’s weight. Crispin sat up, squinting at the boy. Jack offered a steaming bowl.

  “It smells good,” Crispin grunted and grudgingly took the spoon.

  Jack poured wine into the other wooden bowl and then sat again on the mattress. “Them men,” Jack began while Crispin tasted the stew with a tentative tongue. “What did they want?”

  “I wish I knew,” he answered between spoonful’s.

  “Must have mistaken you for someone else, eh?”

  “Possibly.” Crispin felt Jack’s eyes on him before he looked up at the boy’s anxious features.

  “Is it good?”

  Crispin offered a crooked grin. “Yes, Jack. Much thanks. For everything. Now, suppose you prepare to be on your way.”

  Jack frowned. “After all I done, you’d still be rid of me?”

  “Jack, I told you the truth. I haven’t any money to pay you. I haven’t even enough for my rent.”

  “Oh, that! That’s taken care of.”

  Crispin l
owered the spoon. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “I’ve taken care of it, is all.”

  Crispin set the bowl aside and lay back. “Jack. What have you done? You did not cut a purse, did you?”

  “Aw no, Master. It’s just that I went downstairs to thank Master Kemp for his kindness, and it seems some of his loose coins were sitting there on his accounting books. Well, they were just sitting there and all, and I just naturally come by ‘em. So then I ask him, ‘Master Kemp, how much is it that Master Crispin owes you?’ So he looks in his book and he says the number and I hand him the coins.”

  Crispin bit his lip. The pain helped but didn’t entirely dull the smile from curving the edge of his mouth. “You paid him with his own money?”

  “Now Master. Don’t you think it’s time you lay back and rest?”

  Crispin allowed Jack to push him gently into the pillow. He watched the boy stoke the fire and listened to his humming. He must have slept again, because he awoke some time later and Jack was standing over him. Crispin raised his hand to his forehead. A roaring headache was in full bloom. “What is it, Jack?”

  “There is a message for you.”

  Crispin noticed the paper in Jack’s hand. “Who brought it?”

  “I know not, Master. It was left tucked into the door.”

  Crispin unfolded the small bit of parchment and inhaled a sharp breath. There was no writing on the parchment. Only the careful

  rendition of a red cross. The cross of the Knights Templar.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Crispin wracked his brain, trying to remember as much about the Templars as he could recall with a sore head and an equally sore chest. Templar history hadn’t been part of his studies as a young man and it certainly wasn’t part of the conversation at court. But he did recall some snippets at various tournaments and battles. How the Templars fought at Mansurah. The Battle of Arsuf under Richard Lionheart. And the last decisive battle in the Holy Land, Hattin. But as with talk of any battle, it was strategy and failure that was studied and discussed, not the wisdom of an order of warrior clerics.

  He moved to the chair and stared at the wall. The parchment hung limply from his hand.