Troubled Bones

by Jeri Westerson

  “Five times a widow now, Crispin. I expect there will be more than one husband hence.”

  He rolled to his back and pillowed his head in his intertwined fingers. “Perhaps you wear them out.”

  She laughed. Her ample breasts shook and he watched them. “Perhaps I do.” She drew the blankets to cover her chest and propped herself against the wall. “But at least it takes our mind off our troubles, if only for a while.”

  “Yes.” He shifted upward and leaned against the wall beside her.

  Her gaze was sympathetic. “Is this the normal course of things during an inquiry? This waiting. Searching. Worrying.”

  He breathed deeply. “Yes. Especially when murder is involved. The culprit rarely confesses. And I must use all means and cunning to ferret him out.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you truly think the culprit is Sir Philip?”

  He laid his head back against the wall and stared up at the beams. “I know he has something to do with it. Blood is on his hands, I am certain. As for the rest, I am puzzled.”

  “The rest?”

  Crispin nearly spoke of the missing relics but caught himself. He said nothing instead and let his lids fall closed.

  “And what of your friend Chaucer?”

  He snapped open his eyes. “Geoffrey,” he breathed. “I … I must arrest him when he shows himself again.”

  “Arrest him? Lancaster’s poet? Whatever for?”

  “Murder,” he growled.

  Alyson shifted upward. “Murder?”

  “Geoffrey’s dagger was found in the neck of Brother Wilfrid. He must face the sheriff and explain it.”

  She leaned toward him. He felt her radiating warmth and all he wanted to do was sink down into the mattress again and wrap his limbs around her. The smell of their coupling was strong within the bestirred sheets. His eyes roved longingly over her bare, white shoulders and décolletage. “Do you believe he did it?” she asked softly.

  “No. I can’t imagine it. But it was his knife. And he had the opportunity. And he is hiding something.” He stared at the blankets for a moment before he threw them off and stood up. He retrieved his stockings, still tied to his braies, and slipped them on one at a time, drawing them up. He shrugged into his shirt and searched for his coat.

  “I’m sorry you have to leave,” she said, still clutching the sheets to her bosom.

  He grabbed his coat from under the bed, dug an arm into a sleeve, and glanced back at her. He offered a crooked smile. “I’ll be back. Will I be welcome?”

  “Most heartily,” she said. She smiled broadly, revealing her gat-toothed grin.

  Buttoning his coat, he leaned over the bed and kissed her, tasting her generous mouth. It was soft and moist. “Bath must be a very accommodating city. I must visit it sometime.”

  “You would be welcome there, too.”

  He made his farewells and left, standing outside Alyson’s room a long time. Finally, he stared down the gallery toward Bonefey’s room and decided to pay him another visit, despite the early hour. Raising his fist, he pounded on the door. He heard grumbling and shuffling and then the bolt was thrown. Bonefey’s squinting face appeared when the door opened a slit and then his eye widened when he saw who it was. Crispin stuck his foot in before Bonefey could slam the door. He pushed the door open and backed the man to his bed where he stumbled and fell onto it. “Where’s your sword now?”

  Bonefey’s eyes darted to the chair where his clothes and scabbard lay.

  Crispin smiled. “Mind if I look at your dagger?” He went to the pile of clothes and pulled forth the dagger, examining the blade. Good condition. Very sharp. He was tempted to toss it in the coals on the fire but resisted and instead sheathed it again and tossed the belt aside.

  Bonefey trembled with fury. “Your insolence, knave, will cost you.”

  He spared him only a glance. “I doubt that.”

  Grasping the chair with Bonefey’s sword and clothes, he tipped it, dumping its contents to the floor. Setting it upright, he sat and studied Bonefey. “Tell me your exact whereabouts the night the Prioress was slain.”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  Staring for a moment at Bonefey’s hairy, bandy legs below his long chemise, he drew a breath, then pulled his dagger free from its sheath and looked the Franklin in the eye. “I don’t believe in wasted time, Sir Philip. I mean to get my information. By any means necessary.”

  Bonefey’s eyes grew to great white-edged disks. “What do you mean to do with that?”

  “Whatever I need to. Now, I suggest you start talking.”

  Bonefey never took his eyes from Crispin’s sharp blade. “I … I was here. At the inn. The whole time.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “Everyone! They all saw me. I never left.”

  Crispin frowned. “Surely a moment to go to the privy?”

  “Perhaps, but not for more than a few moments.”

  “That’s all it would take.”

  Bonefey’s hands began to tremble.

  “What about last night?” he asked.

  Bonefey stared at the blade. “I won’t say anymore. You are mad.”

  He rose. “I won’t ask a second time.”

  Bonefey rolled off the bed to the other side. “Help! Help! Murder! He’s murdering me!”

  “Oh be still, you coward!”

  But it worked. Soon fists pounded on the door and men rushed into the room. Crispin slammed his blade into its sheath and turned to face Harry Bailey and Edwin Gough, the Miller. “Master Crispin!” cried Bailey. “What goes on here?”

  “I am merely interrogating this man.”

  “Interrogating?” Bailey and Gough both looked to the disheveled and underdressed Bonefey and to Crispin, his hand resting on his knife hilt.

  “A murder inquiry is a serious undertaking, Master Bailey. I will get little out of him now. But see to it that he doesn’t leave his room. I’ll have more to say to him later.”

  “You can’t keep me a prisoner here, Guest. And Bailey and Gough had better not threaten me. I shall take you to the courts. I shall own the Tabard Inn when I am through with you, Bailey.”

  Bailey looked worried.

  “Empty threats,” said Crispin, but he could tell Bonefey’s intimidation was working. Damn the man to the lowest level of hell! “Do what you can,” he muttered to Bailey and pushed past him out the door.

  He stopped in the gallery and stared down the stairs. The innkeeper stood at the bottom looking up, a pitchfork in his hands. “A false alarm,” Crispin called down to the man. “All is well.”

  The innkeeper sighed and lowered the fork. The man went back to his room but Crispin stood as he was, thinking. All is not well. He looked back at Bonefey’s closed door, heard him argue in a loud voice with Bailey and a drunken Gough, and shook his head. Chaucer’s room was the next door down. He pulled his jacket to straighten it, strode up to the door, and knocked.

  Nothing.

  It was almost a relief. He knocked again just to be certain and he was greeted by silence. He tested the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. Carefully he pushed it all the way open and quickly glanced around. No Geoffrey.

  He stepped in. The room was neat. Geoffrey’s fire was covered with fine ashes and his toiletries were laid in a line. Parchment and quills were set in perfect order on the table: used parchment in an exact pile on one side, unused on another. He remembered Geoffrey being meticulous but he seemed to have become even more so over the years.

  He drew close to the chest and exhaled a long breath before he knelt and opened the lid. Inside, his extra coats and gowns all folded; braies rolled alongside rolled stockings. And an extra pair of long-toed poulaines lay atop them all, their exaggerated tips curled up against the wall of the chest. Crispin dug down and found a red, ankle-length gown. His heart burned with a wash of heat when he saw the color. It was close. Very close. He dragged it from the chest and laid it on the bed. His breathing quickened
as he carefully folded over each pleat of the hem, going slowly over every inch of it. And then—

  His breath caught. A tear. A square hole torn from the fabric. His hands trembled as he reached into his pouch and withdrew the scrap of cloth. He knew it long before he ever laid it over the tear. It fit perfectly.

  “What by all the devils are you doing!”

  Crispin whirled. Geoffrey stood in the doorway clutching the doorposts. His eyes were dark with menace.

  Crispin rose to his full height and faced Geoffrey. He felt as if a leaden ball sat in his stomach while a knife pierced his heart. “Geoffrey Chaucer. You must accompany me to the Lord Sheriff. You are charged with the murder of the monk Wilfrid.”

  13

  JACK AWOKE EARLY THE next morning with a start and leapt up from his bed. Bells. Constant bells. It was unnerving. He looked at the small window but saw that it was still dark. What the hell?

  He went to the bucket and washed his face with the icy water and wiped his nose and cheeks on his sleeve. He remembered now. Monks rose before the sun to pray the Divine Office. He shook himself fully awake and opened the heavy door with a creak. He poked his head out and saw the sleepy monks meander toward the quire.

  He joined them, using the same sleepy stride they used. Bunch of sarding sheep. He followed them into the dark church. The only light came from candles set on either end of the quire stalls, where the monks followed their chantry in their books. Jack made his way to Wilfrid’s old chair, feeling a bit guilty for using it thus, and looked up curtly at Cyril who seemed to be dozing. They all stood when the prior took his place at the head and then the chanting began. Jack cringed at it. It echoed all around him. He did not think it possible to fill the space within the hulking cathedral, but it did. Unearthly. Magical. He listened, forgetting he was supposed to be participating, yet he could not have if he tried. The notes followed their own pattern, like a path through a forest, meandering this way and that, finding alternating sunshine and shadow, cool and warm. The beauty of it struck him deeply in his heart. He did not know such feelings were within him. He was glad they were. He felt God’s presence in the music and the words and he understood then, for at least that moment, why a man would wish to become a monk.

  By the time the Office was complete, it was time for their meal. Jack wanted to ask more questions of Cyril but he took his cue from the others and did not talk unless they talked first. And now they were going to another silent meal. Frustrated, Jack ate and drank down his beer as if by his hurrying he could hurry along the others. Finally, the silent time was over and they shuffled outside the hall to their separate tasks. Jack got separated from Cyril and tried to spy him among all the identical cassocks. Like a needle in a haystack. He stretched up on his toes to look above the cowled heads when an arm tugged him against the wall.

  Jack looked up into the pointed face of Brother Martin. “Don’t I know you?” asked the monk.

  Jack shook his head vigorously. “Oh no, Brother. I don’t see how.”

  His eyes roved over Jack’s face thoughtfully. “What monastery are you from?”

  “Oh … er … do you know Saint Michael’s in Suffolk?”

  “Why yes, I do.”

  “Well I’m not from there,” he said quickly. “I’m from a very small friary south of there. You wouldn’t know it.”

  “Still, you have a familiar look about you.”

  He smiled. “I have that kind of face.”

  Martin sneered. “I do not know why you stay. Hasn’t anyone told you? If you’ve come to see the martyr’s relics, they are gone.” His expression was far from one Jack expected. He seemed almost … glad.

  Jack decided to play his hand. “So I heard. Truth to tell, is it not better for the common folk if such things were not here to tempt them to spend their hard-earned wage?”

  Martin raised his chin. A few hairs bristled there where his razor missed. “You have a shrewd head, Friar. But I would not mouth such sentiments”—he looked over his shoulder—“so freely.”

  He shrugged. “I am not learned in such things, so maybe I am in error. For it does seem to give them comfort—”

  “They should find their comfort in God. His only Son sacrificed Himself for us to offer the comfort of Heaven. Should that not be enough?”

  “But so, too, did Thomas à Becket sacrifice himself for the love of the Church, Brother. Is that not a good example? Is that not why we venerate the saints?”

  “We venerate, yes. But a saint is not God. And some would place their precious saints before the worship of the Almighty. I have seen it too many times, Brother. It sickens me. And this monastery is the worst of the lot. Thomas à Becket has become little better than a slab of meat hanging in a butcher’s stall. The best cut goes to the richest and therefore the least deserving. I rue the day I chose this place and not some humbler institution. But youth,” he said, eyes glaring at Jack, “is flawed.”

  That was an earful if ever Jack heard one. “Er, well…” He didn’t quite know how to respond but he didn’t need to. Martin narrowed his eyes at Jack and released him.

  “I have my work to do.” He offered one more backward glance and scurried away, boots slapping the stone.

  “And I have found my Lollard,” Jack whispered. He allowed Martin to get ahead of him and shadowed his steps.

  Martin hurried forward. Jack held back, unseen by his quarry but keeping him within sight. The monk moved with purpose and it soon became very apparent that the man was headed into the church. Jack hid behind a column. Martin entered the church door and it closed after him. Jack scuttled forward. He waited another beat before he grasped the handle and pulled the heavy door open. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim surroundings but used his ears and turned his head to the left. He heard Martin’s frantic footfalls and pursued, careful to keep his own steps quiet and to stay to the shadows or behind pillars.

  The church was otherwise quiet. The artists painting the stone runners and ceilings had not yet arrived. Nor was the furious pounding from the masons shattering the still of the cold interior. Just Martin’s footsteps … except …

  Jack slowed and Martin’s steps, too, faltered.

  Whispering. Two men were talking somewhere in the cathedral. The sounds—their sibilants hissing into the canopy of stone above—rushed here and there. It could have been coming from the quire as much as the sanctuary. But no. It was down there in the nave, Jack was certain of it. But where was Martin?

  He heard the soft slip of a shoe on the floor. Yes. There he was. Crispin was fond of telling Jack that whispers never boded well.

  He slipped back behind the gates of the quire and made his way past it. He cocked an eye back and saw Martin several pillars down, listening. Jack hurried as quietly as he could, catching an occasional glance at Martin through the pillars and tall seats of the quire as he shot past. Finally, the whispers were closer and he slid his way forward. He crouched down behind a thick stone column abutting scaffolding.

  Dom Thomas Chillenden was there and his exasperated whispers were directed to a burly man Jack recognized as one of the stone masons. Jack leaned against the column, trying to sift the echoes from the hushed voices.

  Dom Thomas raised a small sack in his hand and reached in. He pulled out several gold pieces that made Jack nearly salivate, and the monk thrust them into the mason’s hands. “There!” said Chillenden with a sneer. “Is this not what you asked for?”

  The mason looked at the gold in his hand and considered. “Aye. It is a goodly sum.”

  “Is it enough for your silence? I have had enough of your innuendos.”

  The mason closed his large hand over the coins and rocked his fist as if weighing them. “My silence, Brother? But of course.” There was more amusement in his voice than commitment.

  “Master Nigel.” He moved closer to the man and looked as large and as threatening as he could, though he stood several inches shorter than the broad-shouldered mason. “I will make no more paym
ents. I had your word that this was the final sum. The archbishop will become suspicious.”

  The mason chuckled and tucked the gold into the money pouch hanging from his thick leather belt. “I gave you my word, sir, and it is my bond.”

  “Your bond!” the monk sniffed. “Extortion comes with honor, does it?”

  “I gave you my word,” the mason said loudly. The monk looked around worriedly. “But I’d like to know who’s the more dishonest, Brother: the man who committed the crime”—and he pointed a stubby finger at the monk’s chest—“or the man who witnessed it,” and he thumbed his own. “Fear not. I will not reveal your sins, for you have paid right well for my silence. You have only God to contend with you now.” He straightened his leather tunic, gave the monk a derisive snort, and turned his back on him.

  Dom Thomas stood frozen and watched him leave before he seemed to snap out of his torpor and spun on his heel. His quick steps soon disappeared.

  Jack slumped against the cold stone and slapped his hand over his mouth, for surely he’d blaspheme himself in the church if he allowed himself to speak. What had he just heard? Dom Thomas was guilty of something. Was it murder? “Jesus preserve us,” he whispered. A monk. Guilty of murder. Of Brother Wilfrid’s? It was almost too much to bear. How could he face him again? He had to get out of the monastery and soon!

  He forgot all about Brother Martin as he left the church. He needed to get out and tell Crispin all he had heard. Preoccupied with his thoughts he never noticed Edward Harper until he smacked into him.

  “Oh! Master Harper!”

  Harper steadied Jack with a smile. But Jack’s thoughts were still of murder and he looked back anxiously over his shoulder toward the church. “You’re up early, Master Harper.”

  “There is no reason not to rise with the sun. And sloth in a monastery is not to be borne.”

  “But you are a pensioner.” He tried a smile in answer to Harper’s raised brows. “I talked to Father Cyril. It was he who told me your name.”

  But Harper must have noticed Jack’s demeanor for he moved forward and touched his shoulder. “Brother John? You look ill. Come. Some refreshment may revive you.”