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

by Jeri Westerson

  Crispin pulled at his muddy coat to straighten it, mustering as much dignity as he could. “I am honored.”

  “Can I trust you, sir?”

  “I am trusted in all my endeavors. I may not be a wealthy lord—” and he opened his arms unnecessarily to display himself and the room— “but none can speak ill of Crispin Guest. Not these days, at any rate.”

  Her taut shoulders relaxed. “Yes, I have heard much about you. I wonder if you have recently recovered an article of any import. Such I sometimes hear of at court and I find it…fascinating.”

  He measured her. “Nothing lately that would interest the court. And surely you did not come all this way to the Shambles merely to ask to be regaled of my feats of investigation.”

  “Indeed not.” She turned at just the correct angle to catch the best light from the window. She thrust out her chin, artfully elongating her neck. “You do get to the point.”

  Crispin watched the display with admiration. “The point, damosel? The point is for you to make. What would you have me seek? Thing or person?”

  “Person.”

  He retrieved the water jug—glad it still had water in it—and repositioned the tin basin on a shelf. He pushed up his sleeves and poured the water in the basin and then paused. He looked back at her for permission and she gave a slight nod for him to continue. He offered her the chair again and she took it this time, though she made a show of it, arranging her skirts about her legs, but not quite to hide them.

  Crispin took a moment to consider her. He knew she came from court by her jewels and the expensive cut of her gown but seldom did his clients include the highborn. Only shopkeepers and a few landowners used his services. Those from court were another matter. Memories ran long at court, and certainly his name still conjured the same amount of head wagging and varying degrees of revulsion and sympathy as they had these last seven years.

  “Your name, damosel, eludes me,” he said. “I do not traffic in court these days.”

  She smiled politely and showed by her silence that she knew his history. “My husband is Henry FitzThomas,” she said simply. “Lord Stancliff.”

  “Then you are Lady Vivienne.” His mind shuffled the names and painted them with vague likenesses. It settled on Henry FitzThomas, the corpulent fool whose wife of twenty years spent him nearly to poverty. When she died, he married this one, some twenty years his junior and all the court jeered. Apparently the man had wealth enough to woo the young Vivienne into an old man’s bed.

  He dipped his hands into the cold water and splashed his face. The cake of soap had not been disturbed in the aftermath of the ransacking. He took it up and wetted it in the basin. “Is there a reason you come to my lodgings without an escort? A woman of your position would surely send for me, not come to my doorstep.”

  She sighed. “These are personal matters, Master Guest. I have my reasons.”

  “Indeed. I am the friend of last resort. This is how I make my living.”

  He continued washing and in that time his words finally sunk in. She raised her head, forming her lips into a charming red “o”. “Payment? Of course. I have coin, sir. I can pay.”

  He raised his hand magnanimously and even smiled, though it was the kind he reserved for such occasions. “Perhaps you should first tell me who this person is and why you search for him.”

  Her features darkened, whether from anger or shame he could not tell. “That is a long tale. And I shall not burden you with particulars.” Vivienne gazed steadily at Crispin. “I merely need you to follow him.”

  He scrubbed the back of his neck and up his arms until the basin was as brown and murky as the Thames. “Follow, Lady? I am not in the habit of shadowing men without good cause.”

  “But this is a matter of much import!” She controlled the panic in her voice by laying her delicate hands on her thighs, thighs that were easily defined by the cascading gown’s drape. “He has something of mine. An object of great price. I naturally want it back.”

  “Naturally.”

  “It is something I desperately need. I want him followed so that I may retrieve it.”

  “And what is this object?”

  “That is not your concern. You have only to follow him. My coin buys that and only that.”

  He took up a relatively clean cloth and wiped his face and hands. If she was trying to intrigue him she succeeded. “I take it he is an important man. May I know his name?”

  She hesitated. “Is a name important?”

  “It makes it easier to inquire.”

  “Then you shall have to work that much harder, Master Guest.”

  Crispin made a half smile and clutched the damp cloth. But she offered nothing more. “My lady, do you jest with me?”

  “No indeed. It is a puzzle for you.”

  He waved his hand. “Very well. Continue. The rest should be just as disarming.”

  “He was staying at the Spur,” she offered suddenly. “Perhaps he is still there.”

  “If you know that, then why don’t you inquire at the Spur yourself?”

  She raised her chin. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “And once I have found this man what am I to do?”

  “Stay clear of him. Inform me only.” Her eyes never wavered from Crispin’s. “I need to know his movements. If he leaves London, for instance. Who he meets. And if he exchanges any…packages.”

  “Packages? Of what size?”

  “Of any size.”

  “I see,” said Crispin, amused. He vigorously rubbed out his coat with the damp cloth. “And so, a man with no name with an object of no particulars is staying God-knows-where. Is that correct?”

  “Be flippant if you wish, sir, but I am willing to pay.”

  Crispin sighed as he worked on the coat. “My empty larder is convinced of your desperation. When was the last time you saw him?”

  Lady Vivienne blinked her thick lashes and slowly rose. When she sauntered toward him, he dropped the cloth. Her hips rolled and the sinewy body followed, the whole suggesting the gait of a slender cat. She stood close to him, measuring him up and down. He smelled the scent of lavender but it did little to mask the muskiness of woman. “It might have been a sennight. It might have been less.”

  “‘Might have been’? My lady, you are imprecise in the extreme. If I am to help you at all, I need more from you.”

  “You need more from me?” She stepped closer. “I have told you what I know.”

  “But only as you want me to know it.”

  She laughed, giving her the excuse to touch him lightly on the chest. He winced from the renewed pain of the raw flesh beneath the coat. Her face betrayed her displeasure and he felt the need to explain.

  “A wound newly received, Lady. I wear bandages beneath.” He gestured to the rust-colored coat.

  “Oh. For a moment I thought my touch revolted you.”

  “Now how could that be?”

  She touched his shoulder. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  Her features softened with sympathy. She took in the room before settling again on Crispin’s face. “Have you no one to see to your needs? It is a terrible thing to be alone. And in pain.”

  Crispin drew a deep breath. “I have seen to my own needs for quite some time now.”

  “But a wound so close to the heart….” Her fingers brushed his neck. She suddenly noticed where her hand lay and she blushed and drew it back.

  Her face in its crumpled sympathy was far too close to his and he felt the warmth of her, and even smelled a faint breath of anise sweetening her lips. The effect intoxicated and he stepped closer. “You are too familiar with me, my lady. And here you are in a man’s room unescorted. What could you be thinking?”

  She did not step back as expected. “It only seems to me that I recognize a kindred spirit. A man who is perhaps as lonely and as vulnerable as I.”

  Was it his imagination, or was she leaning closer? He was a little too light-headed to debate it, and he foun
d himself slanting toward her and met her mouth with his. His arms drew her into his sore chest causing only a hissing inhale through his nose. A dream. It must have been. He wasn’t in the habit of kissing strange women on their first meeting, but Vivienne’s palpable distress beckoned him. And her lips did nothing to repel his own. In fact, they seemed particularly inviting. He wanted to kiss her, but the circumstances restrained his full passion, and good sense finally made him push her back.

  “My lady,” he whispered, and then cleared his throat. He offered an awkward bow. “You are quite correct. We are both most vulnerable.”

  She offered a sad smile and sauntered the long way around the table to the door and touched the post. “Forgive me, Master Guest. I have a habit of giving in too easily to my…whims.”

  A creeping sense of embarrassment reddened his ears. He pulled his coat partly to straighten it, partly to give him time to think. “Yes, well. It…it will help if I know what he looks like,” he said hastily. “I have been known to find a man by his description alone.”

  She measured him coolly under her lashes. She seemed unmoved by their encounter. “He is slightly taller than you, clean-shaven, dark hair, with cruel, blue eyes. Ask for the Frenchman with the foreign gown. He is fond of wearing it.”

  “A clean-shaven Frenchmen at the Spur. This shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “It is very important you find him and follow him. Not merely for me, but…” She cut herself off and shook her head slightly. Clearly she felt she had revealed too much.

  “When I discover something, how shall I contact you? Shall I…send to court?” Court wasn’t a place Crispin was welcomed. He hadn’t passed through its doors in many a year now and he did not relish even passing by it.

  “I will contact you.” She pulled a silver coin from the purse at her belt. “Your payment.”

  He shook his head. “It is too much.”

  “I am certain you will earn it.”

  A smile lifted one side of his mouth, remembering their kiss. “I am certain I will.” He took the coin and watched her leave.

  CHAPTER TEN

  No sign of Jack Tucker. The boy had obviously taken Crispin’s words to heart. As usual, the timing was excellent. He wanted to ask the boy if he’d seen anything and help him clean his cotehardie and his room. Alas.

  He tidied his lodgings as best he could. Nothing was broken or missing but it did not please him that strangers had been through his private things. What was it they were looking for? He rubbed his sore chest distractedly.

  His pouch was heavier for a change. Usually it was feast or famine. And today it was raining clients. First the sheriffs and now Lady Vivienne. He sighed thinking of her. What a fool he was. How a flicking eyelash could bestir him!

  Vivienne sought an “object of great price” and since she was not forthcoming he could only speculate as to what that might be. Some rare jewel, perhaps. Or something else. How could he begin to know?

  He dismissed thoughts of Vivienne for the moment and thought of the other job. Yes, he wanted to solve this murder, and yes, he wanted more than anything to see Stephen hang for it, but now there were these damned men hunting him and ransacking his place. It was all getting to be a bit more trouble than sixpence a day might be worth.

  Well, one thing at a time. He had no idea how to find Stephen, but he could first go to the Spur and find Lady Vivienne’s unnamed mystery man.

  Crispin locked his lodgings and traveled down the Shambles, making the long walk west. He turned a corner and went down Friday Street before he stopped, measuring the two-story tavern, the Spur. Its front steps were washed, its sign newly painted.

  He stood across from the tavern for a while before he ambled across the lane and pushed open the door. Making a slow circuit around the great room’s perimeter, he measured faces and characters of its noble inhabitants.

  No one fit the description given by Lady Vivienne. At length, he decided to ask.

  The innkeeper, a solitary man, stood very tall and very thin. He eyed Crispin’s clothes as Crispin inquired. “Nay. I do not remember a man of that description.”

  “Perhaps it was a sennight ago. A man in a foreign gown or cloak. A Frenchman.”

  “A Frenchman you say? Aye. There was such a gentleman. He’s been a lodger here for a sennight.”

  “Is he still here?”

  “His room is here, but as to the gentleman, I have not seen him for two days, maybe three, yet he paid for a full fortnight.”

  “His room. Where is it?”

  The innkeeper suddenly brought himself up short. “And just who might you be, my lord?”

  Crispin straightened his shoulders. The cloak resting on them felt almost like it used to. “I am Lord Guest, and this man has something of mine. I would consider it a courtesy if you would take me to his room.”

  The man jerked his head in a hasty bow. “If it’s as you say…then follow me, my lord.”

  The man led Crispin up the stairs along the gallery where he glanced down below at the long tables and raucous drinkers. The hearth flung its light across their drunken faces.

  The innkeeper unlocked a door and pushed it open. The room smelled musty and stank of old smoke. Crispin toed a gray log that rolled out of the cold hearth. On a corner side table he saw what looked like a shrine; a crucifix, a candle stub, bumpy with hardened drips, and a red velvet cloth. He trailed his fingers over the velvet and spied a chest by the bed. He glanced at the inn’s host still standing awkwardly in the doorway. Crispin approached the chest, knelt, and opened it.

  Empty.

  He strode to the bed and yanked up the pillow, crushing it with both hands. He turned over the mattress and flung the cheap bedding across the floor. He went to the wall and felt with his fingers along the timber frames, but he found nothing hidden, no clues to the man’s identity.

  “Does a chambermaid come in here at all?”

  “No. We do not disturb the travelers who come here unless they request it.” He eyed the crumpled mattress with distress. “A man likes his privacy.” He rubbed his neck and looked behind, perhaps expecting the owner to return at any moment.

  “Then no one would enter here unless asked?”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  Crispin dug his fists in his hips and swept his gaze across the room one last time before leaving. He stood on the gallery while the innkeeper ticked his head and locked the door.

  “Will there be anything else, my lord?”

  Crispin enjoyed for that fleeting moment the feeling of being a lord again. “That will be all,” he said, and leaned on the railing to look down on the room below, dismissing the hovering innkeeper. He would have offered the man a coin, but since he had only a few, he could not spare it.

  The innkeeper thumped down the stairs. When his head disappeared beneath the landing, Crispin glanced at the closed door. He drew his dagger and snipped some threads from the inside collar of his coat. He used the blade’s tip to insert the red threads between the door and the jamb. Satisfied, he sheathed the dagger and hurried down the stairs and into the main room. The clink of cups and hearty laughter stoked his thirst, but he had no wish to find a place at a long table amongst the knights and squires. Instead, he left the Spur to seek his comfort in the familiarity of the Boar’s Tusk.

  Crispin turned the wooden bowl with his two thumbs and index fingers and watched the red wine gleam and swirl against its smooth sides. He did not drink as much tonight as he expected to. In fact, he was still on his first cup, but what few sips he took seemed to settle his heart into a calm numbness. It even warmed his chest with a radiance resembling vague contentment. He wasn’t exactly happy, but not too morose either. Gilbert’s good cask seemed to have done the trick. Even his chest no longer felt sore. He sipped the wine again and felt its warmth glide down his throat and infuse him. He raised his head. The hearth flames seemed brighter, more alive. Faces glowed with merry expressions. Even the room’s normally stale air filled with pleasant
toasty aromas of burning logs, rich wine, and savory roasted meats, their juices dripping and sizzling over the flames.

  Crispin drank and sighed. It would be so pleasant to simply sit in the Boar’s Tusk the rest of the day and absorb his surroundings, but with another sigh that had no contentment in it, he knew he did not have the luxury to do such a thing.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the place the mysterious knight died. How was Stephen involved in this? Skillful with a sword like any knight and certainly ruthless, would he ever resort to poison when face-to-face violence would do? Unless he showed himself and offered some answers, the sheriff would use Eleanor’s testimony to prove his guilt. With a short chuckle, Crispin realized Wynchecombe didn’t care who was hanged, as long as his writ was complete.

  Crispin considered the murder scene: Stephen arguing in hushed whispers to the knight, perhaps threatening him for something that the dead man possessed. Did he give him the poison then, during this bitter argument? Afterwards, he must have spied Crispin and hastily departed. Then, in came the woman. What of her? He could not help but wonder at the message she conveyed to the dead knight. A warning given too late? How did she fit into the tapestry?

  It bothered him not to know, but in the end, it would not matter. If Stephen hanged, the inquiry would be over.

  But it would not solve all Crispin’s problems no matter how satisfying it might be. It would not return his knighthood. It would not entirely erase the past.

  “You are a thorn in my side, Stephen St Albans,” he muttered, “living or dead.”

  Crispin felt the sharp prick in his flank, thinking of thorns and sides. He chided himself for never noticing the man beside him on the bench and allowing him the opportunity to press the knife blade to his ribs.