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

by Jeri Westerson

  Vivienne was resourceful, to be sure, and competent. But he agreed that her wilier nature was capable of much more intricate means to serve her ends.

  “I confess I used you ill,” she went on. “I am sorry for that. But I am only sorry for lying to you…not with you.”

  He paused before he approached her.

  “Will the sheriff arrest me?”

  He sighed. “Guillaume de Marcherne is a dangerous man. But I suppose you already know that. If he threatened you in some way…”

  She sighed, a world-weary expulsion of breath and soul. Moving toward the fire she stood before it, head bowed, gown gathered tightly about her. “And if he did?”

  “Vivienne. You must tell me.”

  “Why? Why must I? Is not our business now over? I’m leaving as much for your sake as mine.”

  “He did threaten you. Extortion? Worse?”

  “Do what he says, Crispin,” she whispered. “I fear for you.”

  “For me? Do not worry over me. I can take care of myself.”

  Her brightened eyes roamed over his borrowed coat and stockings. “Of course,” she said.

  He took her shoulders and turned her to him, gently this time. Her head hung listlessly. “He forced you to try to get the grail from me?”

  “He only wanted to know if you already possessed it. But he frightens me. And extortion or no, I fled London. I am not brave like you, Crispin. I thought I could fool my husband for a time should de Marcherne make good on his threats.”

  “But now you have your ring. His threats are groundless.”

  She smiled. “Thanks to you.”

  “If I were you, I would stay on your estates for a good long time. With your husband.”

  Her smile sagged.

  “And I will deal with de Marcherne in my own way.”

  He turned to go but she stopped him by touching his arm. “If someday…I should find myself a widow…and in London…”

  He did not face her. He gathered his things in silence and left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  After leaving Vivienne, he decided to accept the convent’s humble hospitality. Once the morning light brightened his small room, he donned his own garments and stuffed those donated by Martin Kemp into the saddle bag. He could now happily return the clothes to his landlord and owe nothing.

  But as he stretched into the damp morning and pulled himself into the saddle again, he could think of nothing better than Gilbert’s wine and the comfort of the Boar’s Tusk. Of course he would have to first return the horse to the sheriff and explain why he did not have a prisoner.

  His hips rolled along with the mare’s gait. “I do not have to tell him the whole truth,” he muttered, and put up his hood.

  He rode silently, reviewing his diagram in his head and rearranging the names to piece together the new information. The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold. How many lies were there now? How many more were there to find?

  He arrived in London after sext and slowed his mount to a dull plod before dipping down toward Newgate.

  He left the horse in the stable courtyard with a groom, and took his time reaching Wynchecombe’s hall, but when he neared it, he heard him arguing with someone.

  Rosamunde.

  Flattening against the wall, Crispin considered. He certainly did not wish to challenge Rosamunde again, and the sheriff would not be pleased that he returned empty-handed. The Boar’s Tusk was looking better and better. He felt a bit of a coward when he turned on his heel, but he consoled himself that another confrontation with Rosamunde was bad for his disposition and a bowl of wine was the only cure.

  Crispin pushed his way through the throng blocking the entrance to the Boar’s Tusk. After finally freeing himself, he staggered into the room and scowled at the crowd still pushing their way in.

  All he wanted was some peace and quiet. What the hell was all this?

  He spotted Gilbert near the back doorway and tried to make his way toward him, but the crush of people overwhelmed. No way through. He jumped up onto a long table instead and walked across the planks to the next table until he reached him.

  Gilbert looked up just as Crispin leapt to the ground.

  “Sweet Jesu, Gilbert. What goes on here?”

  “I do not know,” he shouted back over the noise. “There is a rumor about the wine. Now everyone wants it, but I am nearly out. I fear a riot.”

  “The wine? Surely not yours.”

  He shook his head. “I know not. People have come saying they were healed of infirmities, and they think it is my wine.”

  Crispin scoffed. “All because of rumor?”

  “Aye. But the casks are nearly empty. What can I do?”

  “You may have to call in the sheriffs.”

  Gilbert cast his gaze across the heads and faces angrily shouting for drink. “What will they do to my place?”

  “I don’t know. I only came for the peace and quiet. And of course your excellent wine.”

  Gilbert looked at him and suddenly laughed. “Come with me,” he gestured, and Crispin followed him through the back courtyard and down a staircase to the lower mews.

  “At least it is quieter here,” he said, leading Crispin to a table and stools. Oil lamps lit the store room and shadowed the large casks that lined the walls. “If it is wine you want, wine you shall have.” He took a jug from a shelf and filled it from a spigot. He raised the jug triumphantly and brought it and two clay cups to the table.

  “So now your wine has miracle properties, eh? I always thought it was the water.”

  “There now! You know I do not water my wine.”

  They both drank. Gilbert’s face concentrated on the flavors. Crispin found himself doing the same and trying to discern anything new.

  “This is madness,” Crispin said at last, putting the cup down. “There is nothing to this wine. It is a miracle if it tastes good.”

  Gilbert feigned shock. “Indeed! And yet you return day after day.”

  With a nod Crispin drank again. “Hope over experience.”

  “Well, if no miracle, then perhaps a special cask, but I cannot seem to taste a difference from one to the other.”

  Footsteps rushed down the stairs and they both turned to spy Gilbert’s servant clinging to the stair rail.

  “What it is, boy?”

  “Master, forgive me, but I’ve taken the liberty of telling them people that we sent all our wine to the Monk Tavern, and they’ve begun to clear out.”

  “Ned, my boy!” Gilbert rushed up, grabbed Ned by his ears, and turned his head downward to kiss his crown. “That’s good thinking. Now it’s the Monk’s problem.” Ned shook his head and rushed back up the stairs.

  Gilbert returned to the table and sat with a sigh of relief. “I tell you, Crispin, strange things seem to be happening of late. I owe it to that murder. You don’t suppose that dead knight haunts us, do you?”

  “I do not believe in ghosts, Gilbert. But this murder definitely haunts.”

  Gilbert licked the wine from his lips and leaned forward. “How goes your investigation?”

  Crispin settled his elbows on the table and curled his fingers around the cup. “That is madness, too, Gilbert.”

  “Rumor has it you have your man. Stephen St Albans. And may the Devil take him, if he will have him.” He raised the bowl and drank to it.

  “Yes, I apprehended Stephen.”

  Gilbert settled his cup on his thigh and studied Crispin’s expression. “For God’s sake, Crispin! Does nothing make you merry? Why so glum? This must be good news.”

  Crispin sat silently, looking into his cup.

  Gilbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “Oi, Crispin? What ails you? You are miles away.”

  Lifting the cup Crispin slurped its contents. The wine burned its way down his throat. No, this was certainly no miracle wine, but Gilbert’s open expression did much to ease his troubled soul, and he leaned forward, the cup imprisoned withi
n his fingers.

  “It seems to be a hollow victory, Gilbert. Rosamunde has changed. She does not love me and I fear she never will again. Certainly hanging her brother will not endear me.” He sat back still clutching the cup, his nails tapping against the chipped ceramic. “I fear I might have let an accomplice go because of sentiment. Do I grow soft, Gilbert? Have I lost all sense of perspective?” He dropped his face into his wide palm and left it there, breathing through his open fingers. “I could be completely wrong about all of it. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I have never been so personally involved in these matters. Always, I solved whatever puzzle and walked away. But this time…”

  “Well, it seems to me you have put your finger on it,” said Gilbert, wiping his lips and brown beard with his hand. “Everywhere you turn you are personally involved, whether by these Templar fellows or those dangerous men who abducted you, or by ghosts from your past.” He drank another dose and set the cup down. “This accomplice you have let go. It isn’t a woman by any chance?”

  Crispin nodded.

  “I see. Crispin, this convinces me of something I have considered for a long time: you need a woman.”

  “God’s blood.” Crispin sank his head to the table and wrapped his arms around his head, hoping to muffle Gilbert’s words. He heard them anyway.

  “Not the sort you crave for a time and cast away, mind you. But a woman to straighten you out. A woman to marry.”

  Crispin rolled his head within his arms. All the protestations in the world would not make Gilbert stop, and where he left off Eleanor was certain to take it up again. “Gilbert, for the love of Christ, please!”

  “I’m only saying…”

  “My life is complicated enough without a woman mixed in it.”

  “And yet you do entangle yourself.”

  Crispin stopped moaning and cracked a weak smile. He raised his head. “I do indeed. Would you deprive me of that?”

  Gilbert shot a quick glance up the stairs. “Well now. I am not a man to stifle a man’s appetites. What sort of tavern keeper would I be then, eh?”

  Crispin’s smile grew broader and he took up his wine again. “In truth, Gilbert, this is a vexing case.”

  “With the murderer caught and imprisoned, you should be in better stead with the sheriffs. That is a good thing, at least.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “But?”

  “But I can’t help but feel that the wrong man awaits the gallows.”

  Gilbert smacked the table with his hand, sloshing Crispin’s wine onto the stained wood. “For God’s sake! It is the man who ruined you. What better scoundrel could there be?”

  “And I truly wish I could see it that way. Indeed, I did at first. But now…there is no sense to it. Stephen is an intensely honorable man. Both of them were knights. If he wanted him dead or needed to avenge himself, he would have challenged him on the field. They would have fought it out like true knights, not in deception with poison. I tell you truly, I cannot picture Stephen doing such a thing.”

  Gilbert set down his bowl and nudged his stool closer to the table. The oil light behind him glowed the stray strands of his brown hair with a golden edge. “Then you have a problem. You need to discover his motive in killing him in this secret fashion, or…”

  “Or, I need to find who did do it.”

  “What about this woman you let slip through your fingers?”

  “I believe she is capable, but…”

  “Did you swyve her?”

  Crispin drew up sharply and peered down his nose at Gilbert. “That is hardly your business.”

  “No. It isn’t my business. It’s the king’s. If you let yourself be influenced by every quim that comes your way, then justice cannot be served.”

  Crispin launched to his feet and paced across the dusty floor. “I made a decision and I stand by it.”

  “Well then. It looks like you made up your own mind at last. Perhaps you best question Sir Stephen and find a motive you can live with.”

  Crispin stopped pacing and swiveled his head in Gilbert’s direction. “Yes. There is a lot of sense to what you say.”

  Gilbert laid his hand on his heart. “I am a man of many gifts.”

  Crispin set down the cup and headed for the steps. “God keep you, Gilbert. And your good wife,” he said over his shoulder and raced up the stairs.

  He turned up Gutter Lane, heading toward the Shambles, concentrating on what he would say to Stephen as well as what he would be forced to admit to the sheriff. He hoped that Rosamunde had left Newgate by now so he could be alone with the sheriff and the prisoner.

  The Shambles was crowded with a man moving pigs down the avenue and Crispin slipped up an alley to skirt around them. Until three figures blocked his way.

  It didn’t matter, he decided. His spirits were high and a fight would do him good.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  He stood his ground and let the men approach. He knew these alleys. By coming to Crispin, they cut off their own escape. He tensed with fists clenched, wondering if he would need his dagger.

  They breached the boundary of shadows, and light flooded their faces.

  “Forgive us,” said Parsifal holding out his empty hand.

  “We did not startle you, did we?” Edwin gestured to another knight Crispin did not know.

  Crispin relaxed his guard but not completely. “I did not expect to see you. What is it you want?”

  “We are only asking about your progress in finding the object we seek.”

  Crispin’s instinct included glancing behind him, which he did. The alley lay empty. “I have not yet found it.”

  Parsifal lowered his head and shook it slowly. His tonsured scalp caught the vague sunlight and gleamed. “We are sorry to hear that. We hoped to be gone from this place by now.”

  “My apologies. But these things take time. In the interim, why don’t you tell me something of Gaston D’Arcy.”

  Edwin kept his steady gaze on Crispin. Parsifal and the other knight exchanged furtive glances. “And so you know his name,” said Edwin.

  “Yes. A piece of information you did not deign to share with me. Tell me of his character.”

  Edwin smiled. “It matters little now. He is dead.”

  “Yes. He is. And no end of trouble has come from it. Tell me about his character.”

  “We do not see the point. It is past; over and done with.”

  “A man sits in gaol for his murder. Do you care nothing for that?”

  “It is no longer our affair.”

  Crispin guffawed and slowly paced around the three disguised knights. “No longer your affair? A pretty picture, this. Funny you should mention affairs. It seems Gaston D’Arcy was involved in many ‘affairs.’ Your celibate knight had many paramours, I hear tell.”

  Edwin snorted. “Rumor and innuendo.”

  “On the contrary. I have reliable testimony. Did you know your Cup Bearer was so engaged?”

  The unnamed knight drew forward, his hand on his sword hilt. He began to withdraw it. “You are insulting, sir, to the honorable order of Templars!”

  “Hold, Anselm” said Edwin, stepping in front of the knight. “Crispin is our ally.”

  “He does not sound like an ally,” grunted Anselm.

  Crispin postured. “Do you draw your blade on me?”

  “Yes. To any man who makes such accusations.”

  “Then hear this,” said Crispin. “Lately I have heard much about Templars; how they deceive in order to conquer; how their only aim is to dominate. Perhaps the grail is how you wish to achieve it. Perhaps you never had it to begin with.” He glared at each solemn knight. “Maybe to silence the rumor and innuendo, you killed your own comrade.”

  Anselm drew his sword and shoved Edwin aside. Crispin backed away from him, desperately searching for something that could serve for a shield.

  “Crispin!”

  He saw Parsifal offer his sword. The knight tossed it and Crispin caught
its hilt. He curled his fingers around the leather and wood-covered grip and felt the heft and perfect balance of the weapon. How good it was to feel a sword in his hand again! But with almost the same breath he glanced up at the oncoming knight and realized that it had been seven years since he had last used one.

  Anselm slashed. Crispin swung his own sword to block it. The metal clanged. Anselm swung again. Crispin ducked in time to save his head. While low, he jammed the heavy pommel into Anselm’s boot. The knight yowled and staggered back. Anger flushed his face and he increased his volley of blows upon Crispin. Crispin backed away. The shock of Anselm’s blade against his sword weakened his arm. His unused muscles screamed at the new activity demanded of them. Anselm backed him against the wall but Crispin blocked his blade with a heavy downward stroke and kept it there with a trembling hand.

  Anselm bared his teeth. Close enough to feel his angry breath upon him, Crispin cocked back his left fist and punched.

  He heard a satisfying crunch, and blood rushed from Anselm’s nostrils. The knight’s eyes rolled upward, he dropped his blade, and fell backward into the mud.

  Crispin stood over him and panted for a moment before he handed Parsifal his sword. “Much thanks,” he said once he caught his breath.

  Edwin sighed and looked down at the supine Anselm. “I am sorry for my brother’s hot-headedness. Believe me. He is a good knight. Far better than…than our dearly departed.”

  “And so,” said Crispin, straightening his coat. “You admit it.”

  “Yes,” he said stiffly. “He was unable to keep his vows. His time with the grail was almost up and once it was, I was to take him to the Master and have him removed from the order.”

  “Why did you wait?”

  “It was hoped the grail would change him,” offered Parsifal. He lowered to one knee to minister to Anselm. “It changes many who guard it.”

  “Then you still maintain there is such an object.”

  “Of course!” cried Parsifal. “We have all seen it. Touched it.”

  “Then who is Guillaume de Marcherne?”

  The three knights froze. Edwin was the first to move and he seized Crispin’s arm. “Do not have congress with that man. He is the Devil incarnate.”