Troubled Bones

by Jeri Westerson

  “Perhaps the murder was a distraction to keep our eyes away from the bones.”

  “Blind me! That’s … that’s … horrible!”

  Crispin nodded, climbed, and made it to the door at the top. It had no lock, so he grasped the ring and pulled the door open and stepped out onto the wide, round tower. The wind whipped at his hair, sending it stinging into his eyes. He looked out past the battlements across plowed fields to the east bordered by dark hedges and more meadows. Sheep grazed, looking like little white pods far below. Moving along the edge and peering between the merlons, Crispin gazed southwest toward Canterbury and its many red-tiled roofs. Smoke lingered above the rooftops, embracing chimneys and spires. Jack stood beside him, drew up his fretted hood, and fell silent. His cloak flapped against his flanks as he, too, assessed the church and abbey grounds.

  Jack’s head came to Crispin’s shoulder. The boy was gaining height and a broadening of his chest. He hadn’t noticed before how big Jack was getting. He seemed to have shot up like a bean sprout. His body didn’t swim in his tunic any longer and his arms were overreaching their sleeves. He still thought of the lad as a child. Though Jack’s voice had begun to change, he still sported the soft, rounded cheeks of childhood. At nearly thirteen, Jack walked the fine line between his formative years and adolescence.

  Crispin turned his attention from Jack to the tower floor, looking for anything that might yield something useful to his investigation.

  “Master Crispin.” Jack stood at the tower’s edge, the sword he grasped in his hand now hanging by his thigh. His gaze was fixed somewhere in the distance but his voice was strong against the wind. “I heard what Master Chaucer said … said about me. You ain’t—aren’t—ashamed to have me as your protégé, are you? If you were, I’d understand if you weren’t to call me that no more—anymore.”

  Crispin rose and clapped the dust from his knees and hands. “Who said I was ashamed of you?”

  “It ain’t—isn’t what was said. It was the way he said it. He’s an important man, isn’t he? You meet other important men all the time for your work, sir. It’s hard to impress them. There is only your reputation as the Tracker. We both ain’t got fine clothes, like you was used to.” He clenched his eyes in frustration. “Were used to. And here I am. A beggar. I told him so m’self, didn’t I? And that’s what I am. And that’s what I look like. Maybe you’d be better off without me in the way. I’d still want to be your servant, mind. But … I’d stay out of the way. So’s they wouldn’t know.”

  Crispin sighed and measured the broad horizon that disappeared in a misty gray fringe of trees. “That was a fine speech. Worthy … But I think you’re a fool.”

  Jack whipped his head toward Crispin. His hood flung back and his red hair flared in the wind like flames. “A fool?”

  “You must not allow men like Geoffrey to intimidate you. It is their chief weapon. For the last time, I am not ashamed of you. You are my protégé. I am proud to call you so and I don’t want to hear anything more about it again, either to gain sympathy or a raise in your wages.”

  Jack raised his hood against the wind. His face broke into an uncertain smile before he grinned wide, freckles and all.

  Crispin wrapped his cloak about him. “I’m cold and there is nothing here. Let’s go back down.”

  He trotted down the steps with Jack at his heels. They reached the bottom, stepped through the door, and Crispin locked it again. “I believe he hid there waiting for the appropriate time to strike. And the cloth must be from that night. Someone would have noticed it before then. Some monk scrubbing the floors. See how clean they keep the stairs? Let me see that sword again.” Jack handed it to him and he unwrapped the pommel. A muzzled bear’s head on a red field. Crispin ran memories of his jousting days through his head but he could not recall ever seeing this blazon before. “Fortis et Patientia,” he muttered.

  “Latin, right, Master? Fortis. Strong. Patientia. Patience?”

  “Enduring. Do you suppose it is the motto to this blazon?”

  Jack snapped his fingers. “Course it is. Isn’t that something like your motto, sir?”

  Crispin eyed Jack. “And how would you know what my family motto is?”

  Jack’s face slackened. Caught. “Well … I came across them rings you got hidden, sir. Came across them last year.”

  “Indeed.” A blend of emotions crossed his heart. Was he angry? Jack was prone to find secret places in their lodgings. He had his own cache of hidden goods, so he supposed it was not unlikely Jack could find Crispin’s meager treasure. Two family rings with the Guest blazon on them. His father’s ring and his own. It was all that was left of the Guests. All the memory allowed him. Their family banners had been struck from the Great Hall in Westminster Palace. His surcote of colors long gone.

  Crispin lowered his brows. “Are those rings still there?” Even as he asked it he knew the answer.

  Jack looked aggrieved. “Master Crispin! What do you take me for? I would never touch your family rings, sir. I know what they are.”

  A corner of Crispin’s mouth drew up. “Anyway, my motto is Suus Pessimus Hostilis.”

  “‘His Own Worst Enemy,’” Jack recited. “What does that mean, sir?”

  “As I understand it, the arms were first granted to my ancestor by King Henry Fitzempress.”

  “Saint Thomas Becket’s King Henry?”

  “The very same. My ancestor was Welsh but fought for England, thus becoming his own enemy. Or so the story goes.”

  “How come you don’t wear your ring no more—anymore, sir?”

  “You know why, Jack.”

  “But I don’t, sir. You’ve still a right to it. No one else’s name is Guest. It’s yours and will always be so. It’s your family, sir. And you weren’t no bastard. The king can’t do that to you, now can he?”

  Crispin sighed. “‘Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.’” He stared at his feet. “My name is my name, true, and he cannot take that away. But what good is a blazon without a proper dynasty? No, they are better kept safe in their not-so-secret hiding place.”

  He handed Jack the sword and straightened his coat. He raised his head to take in the chapel and the nave beyond it. “I wonder what business Geoffrey had in the cathedral.” He did not see the poet and when he moved past the pilgrims poised in rapt attention around the shrine, he did not see him in the south aisle either. But something in the aisle did catch his attention. His careful steps toward it soon became a trotting run.

  He heard Jack’s footfalls behind him and then the muffled clang of the sword dropping on the tiled floor. Crispin bent over the dark lump of clothes that wasn’t a lump of clothes at all. A monk lay on the floor and an all-too-familiar dark pool grew around him. He turned the body and saw the young white face of Brother Wilfrid, quite dead.

  9

  “IT’S BROTHER WILFRID!” WHISPERED Jack. His fingers dug into Crispin’s shoulder as he leaned over to stare at the dead monk. “God help us.” He crossed himself.

  Crispin pulled the dagger free and a small amount of blood oozed from the wound in the monk’s throat. He stared at the knife and its bejeweled pommel, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. It was a very familiar dagger. A dagger he’d given as a gift to one of his very dear friends some fifteen years ago. He raised his face and was suddenly aware of people running and then a woman screamed.

  He drew back, barely aware that he was pushed aside by many hands, all reaching for the monk. Soon a crowd clustered around the becassocked form and Crispin was vaguely aware of Jack pulling him completely out of the way and under the shelter of a shadowing alcove. “Master Crispin,” he whispered. “Come, sir. Snap out of it.” The sword’s pommel smacked Crispin on the side of the head and he glared at Jack. Tucker retracted the sword and nodded. “Thought that would bring you round.”

  “It’s impossible.”

  Jack raised the sword again and Crispin blocked it with
his hand. “There’s no need for that. It’s just … I know this knife.”

  “It’s Chaucer’s, ain’t it?” Jack’s rasping voice dropped to a deadly tenor. All of Crispin’s muddled emotions were mirrored on Jack’s face: betrayal, rage, vengeance. Jack whirled toward the pilgrims, his bottled energy thrown outward. He waved the sword at them, moving them back. He ordered a monk to get the archbishop, and he patrolled the body like a Centurion, letting no one near it.

  The archbishop arrived with Dom Thomas Chillenden and Brother Martin. Courtenay stood over the monk and murmured a prayer before he raised his eyes to Crispin. There was no Christian charity within them. “The church will be closed,” he announced, but his eyes were still fixed on Crispin. “A despicable crime has occurred on this most holy ground. We will need to reconsecrate. Send the pilgrims away.” Dom Thomas nodded and moved to comply. More monks came running, one carrying a bier.

  “Master Guest,” said the archbishop. “You are to come with me.”

  He followed Courtenay like a condemned man walking to the gallows. Jack followed close behind, handling the sword like a club. Was this death his fault, too? Was his old friend guilty? Even when Brother Wilfrid told him the facts, he hadn’t believed it had any bearing on this case. How could it? But there was no question that Wilfrid had been frightened of Geoffrey.

  Courtenay pushed open the door to his chamber and slammed the table with his hand. The candlestick wobbled. “Blessed Mother of God!” He whirled. His reddened face scowled. “What have you brought to my church? Death and more death follows in your wake, Guest.”

  He fisted the dagger and pressed it tight to his thigh. “I am not the cause of these deaths, your Excellency. Indeed, I am trying to discover the culprit—”

  Jack pitched forward out of the shadows. “But you know who killed Wilfrid!” he cried.

  Crispin whipped around to glare at the trembling boy. Jack’s pale face reddened with anger.

  Courtenay postured. “So! A conspiracy, is it?”

  “No conspiracy,” growled Crispin. “The evidence is conditional. I do not believe—”

  “It matters very little to me, Guest, what you believe.” He looked at the dagger in Crispin’s hand for the first time. “This killed Wilfrid?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Curse you, Guest! Do I throw you into gaol?”

  He lowered his head, took a breath, then another. His hand whitened on the knife’s grip. Damn Jack! He’d given him no time to think. Slowly he raised the weapon and showed it to Courtenay. “This is the dagger.” He placed it on Courtenay’s table. “It belongs to … to Geoffrey Chaucer.”

  Courtenay threw his shoulders back and Crispin scowled to see a small smile crack the archbishop’s lips. “Indeed. Master Chaucer, eh? Well, well. Yes. I think it time to call in the sheriff.”

  “My lord, I cannot imagine an instance when Master Chaucer would resort to murder of a monk. It is impossible!”

  “Clearly not, Master Guest, for the evidence is before us. Our very dear brother has been foully murdered in the church. It is likely he also killed the Prioress.”

  “It isn’t likely at all! My lord, you must listen—”

  “I remember well the trial, Master Guest,” Courtenay trumpeted. “Master Chaucer was most eloquent when he testified. He made a very convincing case on behalf of that scoundrel Bonefey. Even I was tempted to be persuaded toward the Franklin’s cause. But Chaucer was so infested with Lollard platitudes that I was swayed from his startling rhetoric and supported Madam Eglantine’s view instead. How full of ire he was at the trial’s end. I witnessed for myself how he stalked up to her and without remorse for his inelegant actions, tore into her reserve with a string of foul invectives.”

  “I cannot believe—”

  “Believe it! I was there.” His eyes shone with a bitterness that took Crispin aback. “Oh he was charming and light, oozing his eloquence, but he used his tongue like a knife to cut her down. And only a year later … well. It was an actual sword he used in the end.”

  Crispin’s mind paused. For the tiniest fraction, he considered the archbishop’s words. This was a side of Geoffrey he knew well. He could, indeed, cut a man or woman down to size with words, all the while saying it with a smile. Sometimes the target of his attack was not even aware of the infliction of wounds until it was too late, so clever was he. And it had been a full eight years since he had set eyes on Chaucer. It came as a great shock when he discovered Geoffrey served as a spy for the king. He knew that Geoffrey was a man reaching to better himself and skilled at finding his opportunities. When his sister-in-law became Lancaster’s mistress, he exploited that relationship to his advantage, and when he lived in Lancaster’s household with Crispin he sought every opportunity. Yes, Crispin remembered well how Chaucer elevated himself with dealings he thought at the time clever. But looking back, they had the smell of cunning with an undercurrent of deceit.

  Courtenay was still talking and Crispin raised his head to catch the last. “… Come, Guest. Even your own man here will not defend Chaucer. Don’t get yourself mixed up in it. You’ve had enough troubles.”

  “His Excellency is right,” said Jack.

  Crispin’s rage ballooned and he took three steps, reached for Jack, and dragged him forward. “You don’t know what you are talking about. You are to keep silent, curse you!”

  Jack’s eyes enlarged with fear but he raised his chin as much as he could with Crispin’s hand fisting his shirt. “I can’t keep silent when I see you on the wrong side of the law, sir,” he said, voice unsteady. “Maybe I have no right to speak, Master, but you are always telling me of justice and weighing consequences. You live by this rule, sir. How could you go on if you threw it away?”

  He glared at Jack so hard his eyes watered.

  “If Master Chaucer is innocent,” said Jack softly, “then let him prove it. Let him answer the charges. That is justice, sir. Or does it only concern those who are not your friends?”

  “You found his dagger in our poor Wilfrid,” said Courtenay from a distance. Crispin suddenly remembered the archbishop was there. “You will arrest him and bring him to the sheriff. You will do your best to find him. Is that clear?”

  Crispin clenched his eyes shut. It must be done. Geoffrey had to answer for these charges. “Yes, Excellency,” he said between gritted teeth. He opened his eyes and glanced at Jack. Slowly, he lowered him and released his shirt. Jack straightened his tunic and stepped back, red-faced.

  Weary. Crispin felt it in his bones. Too many betrayals, too many lies. Lancaster was one thing. He was almost a king himself, so far above him now that he might as well be a beggar. But Chaucer! Chaucer was below him in status—was below. No longer. But he had been his dearest friend. How could Geoffrey have lied so cavalierly to him?

  He wanted dearly to be home or at least at the inn, smothered under the blankets. But he made no move to leave. He stared instead at the stained-glass window and its depiction of Thomas à Becket with his monks. They clustered around him, their hands uplifted, their faces blank but adoring.

  “Brother Wilfrid spoke of a disagreement with his fellow brothers,” said Crispin hoarsely.

  “Did he?” Courtenay sat and leaned his head back against the carved wood.

  “Yes. He said they told him not to come to me, that it was something they wanted to keep quiet. Do you know what that might be?”

  “If you will recall, Master Guest, this was the reason I called for you in the first place: I believe one of my monks is a secret Lollard.”

  “Yes. Or more than one. I need to speak with them.”

  “But if Master Chaucer is your culprit—”

  “I explore all avenues, Excellency, not merely the easy ones. I presume that is why you called for me. I get results.”

  Courtenay’s smile was wry. “Then what do you propose? They will tell you nothing if you question them.”

  “I don’t know.” He pressed a hand to his throbbing head. His ja
w still hurt where he was struck and Jack’s insolence and Chaucer’s lies were giving him a supreme headache. “Perhaps disguise myself as a monk and blend with them, interrogate by listening.”

  Courtenay shook his head. “They’ve already seen you. They know what you look like and who you are.”

  Crispin nodded. “Yes. Curse it. But it’s still a good idea. What I need is someone they have not yet seen.” He walked to the far wall, wishing the monks hadn’t seen his face. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. He paced, wondering just how he was going to interrogate them when the idea hit him square in the forehead. He stopped and slowly pivoted toward Jack.

  Courtenay turned his eyes to Jack, too, and Jack looked from Crispin to Courtenay, suddenly nervous. He pulled at his collar and asked a meek “What?” with a wince as if he already knew the answer.

  10

  “YOUR LATIN IS GOOD. Good enough for a young man in a monastery.” Crispin ushered Jack hurriedly through the street, but Jack resisted each step.

  “I won’t do it, Master Crispin. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “I’m serving justice, remember?”

  Jack crossed himself. Crispin shoved him forward. “Curse them words for ever leaving me mouth.”

  “‘Those words for ever leaving my mouth,’” he corrected.

  “What difference does it make? No one will ever believe that I am a m-monk.”

  “People will believe anything you tell them as long as it is dressed in the proper form. A beggar can be a king … and vice versa. That’s why we seek a tailor. Ah!”

  A wooden sign painted with a golden scissors wobbled in the breeze under a thatched eave. He tried to push Jack forward but the boy dug in his heels.

  “Master Crispin! Wait! Now have a care. I’ll foul it up, you know I will. I haven’t got the sense you’ve got. Someone will find me out and then all will be lost. Don’t force me to it, sir, I beg you!”

  Crispin rested an arm on the shop’s doorframe and leaned over Jack. “You are the one who spoke of justice.”