Jack licked his lips, swathing his tongue several times over his slick mouth. Finally he rose and approached the purse as if it were a wild animal. He opened the flap with only two fingers and reached in.
“Good heavens, boy!” cried Crispin, laughing. “You’re not gutting a fish. Just take it!”
Jack nodded and quickly withdrew a few halpens. He put them in one of the many secret hiding places in his shoulder cape and looked back at Crispin uncertainly.
It was then that Crispin was struck once more by how young the lad was. Jack must have had the devil’s own time surviving as long as he did on his own. The boy was resilient. Clever. He reminded Crispin of…well, long ago.
He watched Jack shrug on his cloak with a feeling of empathy. A man’s life was not easy. And life on the Shambles was harder than most. Was his staying with Crispin only prolonging the inevitable?
Jack looked back at him again and gave him a wary smile. He lifted the latch, yanked on the door ring, and pulled the door open. A misty draft blew in before he slipped out and shut the door behind him.
Alone again, Crispin rose carefully from his cot and swallowed a wave of dizziness. He staggered to the mirror nailed to a timber and stared at his reflection in the small rectangle of polished brass. His left eye looked like two plums pressed together. A gash where Wynchecombe’s ring cut him ran unevenly in a rusted brown line down one cheek while the other sported a mottled blue bruise. He knew he could not go out like this even if he could walk. How was he to ask his questions looking like the loser in a cockfight? He took the rag Jack used to wipe the blood from his face and dunked it in the cold water of the bucket and pressed it to the eye. It was going to be a few days before he was presentable again. By then, he hoped to have more answers he could offer to the sheriff and satisfy himself.
The next morning, Jack had not yet returned. Crispin found he could not simply convalesce, so he busied himself poking the fire and eating the rest of the hen Jack had cooked the night before and left for him. He cracked the bones and sucked out the marrow and tossed the waste into the fire, watching it spit while the bones blackened. He leaned out the back courtyard window into the cold, crisp morning, trying to catch a glimpse of the street between two buildings. When that proved futile, he cast his glance instead across the row of courtyards peeking out from an undulating plain of rooftops. Housewives, plagued by children at their feet, hung laundry. Men sat on stools mending the tools of their livelihoods. And always, cats wandered, stalking the family geese.
He turned back to the room, his good eye scanning until it lighted on the stack of Walcote’s books. He pulled the chair from the table and sat. Dragging the first book toward him, he opened it. The tangy scent of leather blended with the musty aroma of parchment and ink, recalling to Crispin’s mind better days at his own accounting books when he had more than two pence to rub together. Settling down to the business of examining the page, he ran his finger down each column, searching for anything amiss.
For hours he read the entries and tabulations. Only one hand made each entry. He surmised it was that of Nicholas Walcote. No embezzlements, then. No false entries to suggest it, in any event.
He set the book aside and picked up the customs ledger. Many different hands had worked on this book, which dated from two years ago. The entries were full of the minutiae of shipping and exporting; sacks of raw wool and bolts of cloth and the names of ships making for the staple port in France. The Starling headed for Calais with 1,152 sacks for the king’s export tax of eighty pounds in the early spring of 1382. The St. George sailed also to Calais where the taxes were collected for two hundred bolts of dyed cloth. And so it went month after month, entry after entry.
Until a year ago. He read an entry for 1,008 sacks of wool for seventy pounds sailing from the customs port of Sandwich to Calais. Crispin looked at the entry and turned the pages back until he spotted the previous shipments. Clearly they were for 1,152 sacks—eight gross—almost every time for a levied tax of eighty pounds. Page upon page of it.
He studied the new entry. Fewer sacks. And ever after, 1,008 instead of 1,152. Why suddenly were all ships carrying some 144 sacks less? Certainly there would not be less room for them on the ships. He could not tell from the sparse entry, but the same hand seemed to have written only those entries with the 1,008 sacks. He compared it to the entries in Walcote’s ledgers. They didn’t match. So at least Walcote was not the one recording this customs information, and perhaps he wasn’t the one collecting the taxes. Who was it? Only the initials BV were scrawled at the end of the columns. Who was BV? Usually some member of the guild was responsible for such duties, so BV must belong either to the woolman’s guild, the weavers, or the mercers.
“Someone is skimming the cream off the milk,” he muttered. He had no doubt that the wool suppliers presented eight gross worth of wool in good faith and paid the standard eighty pounds of tax, but someone was making good money collecting the payment, secreting ten pounds of it, and then reporting only seven gross of wool. But who?
Crispin tapped his finger on the hard edge of the leather binding. He was willing to wager that there was another set of books somewhere that showed the proper eight gross sacks for eighty pounds of taxation—just as in the earlier entries. Perhaps Walcote discovered who this knave was. But alas. He would take that information to his grave.
The sun shone weakly from his window and the bells of St. Paul’s pealed Terce when there was a knock on his door. Crispin turned. A knock could mean anything: a new client or an old enemy. He crept toward the door and called, “Who goes there?”
“It’s me. John Hoode!”
Crispin unbarred the door and opened it. “Master Hoode. How did you find me?”
Hoode ducked his head. “I reckon everyone knows where to find the Tracker.”
“I see. What is it?”
When the man lifted his face from his hood he gave a little cry. “Bless my soul! What happened to you?”
Crispin straightened. “The usual encounter with the Lord Sheriff.”
“Pardon me for saying, but next time you encounter him, perhaps you should duck.”
“Good advice. And so. The reason you are here…?”
“I just thought I should tell you that there was a strange man loitering about outside the Walcote manor last night, just beyond the wall. He didn’t do nought. Only stared at the place. The footman at the gatehouse finally shooed him off, but it weren’t more than an hour hence that he was back.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Naw. It was too dim. But he was about your height and all dark in a cloak. Thought you should know.”
Crispin walked to the fire and stared into it. “I thank you for that, John. This is the sort of thing I feared.”
“Who is it, Master Crispin? Is it someone who threatens my mistress?”
“Yes. Do continue to watch and alert me as you have done. You are a good man to your new household, John. It will not be forgotten.”
“I am glad to hear it. A word from you might put me in good stead. I fear I’ve gotten on the wrong side of that Becton. He has a hard look in his eye that I do not like.”
“Yes. Nor I.”
Hoode stood beside Crispin and watched the flames. Crispin turned to him. “Forgive me. May I offer you wine? Or food?”
“Oh, no, Master Crispin. But I thank you. I just wonder…” His eyes wandered about the sparse room. “That a man like you must live on the Shambles and do the odd job for the wealthy. It don’t seem right.”
“I have made my own fate, Master Hoode. And I must live it out until the Final Judgment. God grant that I am better judged then.”
“Aye,” he answered vaguely, for he surely could not know what Crispin was talking about. “Well then. I must return before I am missed. I will take my leave. God keep you, sir.”
“And you.”
Hoode opened the door just as Jack returned. They stared at one another and Jack refused to move. Hoode finall
y took the initiative and decidedly stepped past him, rumbling down the stairs with a mumbled oath.
Jack stayed on the landing and glared after him until his steps had dispersed. It was only then that he turned a warmer expression on Crispin. Under his arm he carried a round loaf of bread with several sausage links dangling precariously from his fingers while the other arm had a small wheel of cheese tucked against a wineskin. A meat pie bulged from his scrip.
“I don’t like that fellow. There’s a way about him I don’t trust.”
“He’s a good spy. And I must trust him for now.” Crispin pushed the candle and books aside and helped Jack with the victuals. “Well? You were gone all night. What of your task?”
Jack placed the food with care on the table and smiled up at Crispin. “Your eye’s looking better. Can you see out of it yet?”
“To hell with that. Did you find him?”
“Aye. He was still there, or at least his things were. I did not bother talking to the innkeeper, like you said.” He took a long iron fork and skewered two sausages on each prong and propped it over the fire. He withdrew his knife and sliced through the cheese’s rind and stacked several thick slivers on the table.
Crispin slammed his hand down over Jack’s wrist and glared almost nose to nose with him. “What did you find?”
Jack withdrew his hand, shook out the tenderness, and sheathed his dirty knife. “Well now. I went and talked to the chambermaid and she said that the master told her not to speak of the man in the room. She knew nought of the man except that he is a foreigner and keeps odd hours, coming in quite late and leaving early. She said she didn’t know why the master would not let anyone speak of him or let on that anyone was in that room.” Jack grimaced and blushed. “I didn’t have to bribe her. She chucked me chin, told me I was a sweet pup, and to be on me way. I ain’t no pup!”
Crispin hid his smile by turning toward the fire. The sausages sizzled over the flames. Their savory aroma filled the room. “Is that why all this bounty?”
“If you mean the food, aye. No pottage tonight! And there’s wine here from the Boar’s Tusk with a message from Mistress Eleanor. She said she was sorry to have scolded you and hoped you’d be feeling better. She put it on your account.”
“You told her.”
“Well aye! You saved me from the sheriff. It was a gallant deed.”
Crispin sat and dropped his still throbbing head in his hands.
“She said she’d be by tomorrow to see to you.”
“Christ!”
“Aye, I know. I told her I was doing the job but she would hear none of it. Women!” He handed Crispin a slice of cheese and stuffed one in his own mouth, chewing noisily.
“Why did this task take you all night?”
Jack swallowed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I wanted to keep a sharp eye on the knave’s room. I stayed in the inn’s hall as long as they would let me before they sent me away and barred the door. I stood by a brazier all night and watched the window.” And as if to prove the point, he did not bother to stifle a yawn as wide as Newgate’s archway.
Crispin poured himself some wine and drank it all in one swallow. He poured more and dug his fingers into the meat pie, scooping out a ragged chunk. He chewed and stopped when his aching jaw told him to slow down. Jack tended to the sausages.
“So this man lives in the Thistle without anyone’s knowing who he is. Curious.”
Jack gestured with his knife. Pieces of meat pie flew from the blade’s tip. “I thought so, too. ‘Who is this knave?’ I thought to m’self. So at dawn when he left his lodgings, I went up to his room and had another little look round.”
Crispin leaned forward and slowly bit into the greasy sausage that Jack handed him. A dribble of grease ran down his chin but he wiped it neatly with his hand. “Indeed. What did you find?”
Jack stared at the ceiling and chewed as if picturing the room before him. “A right strange arrangement it was, I don’t mind saying,” he said, mouth full. “He had all manner of papers lying about. They looked like the same writing we saw before. I would have taken one for you, but you said before you couldn’t read it and he might have missed it. In his trunk he had all sorts of strange foreign clothes. Smelled funny, too.”
“How do you mean ‘strange’?”
“Robes all in silk. Sashes. No coat or houppelande. Only them robes. They all smelled like a mince pie.”
“Robes, eh? Like something in a church window?”
“Aye. That’s clever, that.” He smiled at Crispin’s description. “Aye. Like them three kings going off to Bethlehem.”
And smelling like spices. Exotic spices. What was such a man doing with Philippa Walcote? It was time to find out.
7
Against Jack’s admonishment, Crispin rose early the next morning. He shaved quickly and carefully over his bruised chin, and examined his eye in the brass mirror. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday. At least he could open it fully now, but the bruise was still dark and puffy. If he could have afforded it, he would have called in a barber to leech the bruising from his eye. But as it was, cold compresses would have to suffice.
Crispin left his lodgings and plunged into London’s weather. Rain fell in indiscriminate sheets, pelting some streets and ignoring others. Huddled in his hood, Crispin trotted along the muddy avenue, grateful when the Thistle arose from the persistent drizzle. He ducked in the door and shook out his cloak, using the opportunity to scan the smoky room.
He saw the innkeeper and approached him in a swift, sure gait.
The man turned, and Crispin thought he detected the merest hint of recognition on his face.
“My good sir,” said the innkeeper. “How can I serve you?”
Crispin’s right hand toyed with his dagger’s hilt while he clutched the man’s arm with the left. “You can serve me right well,” he said in low tones. The man alternated between staring at Crispin’s hand as it tightened on his arm and his face. “You can tell me the name of the man in that corner room upstairs.”
“I-I told you before. There ain’t no one in that—”
“Then let us go now. If what you say is true, there will be no chest of clothes, no papers, no hearth embers—”
“No!” He pulled back from Crispin, yanking them both away from the stairs. “He’ll kill me!” he whispered.
Crispin let him go and stood back. He patted his dagger. “Either him or me.”
The man scanned the room and motioned for Crispin to come into the kitchens.
A short man sat beside a huge kettle hanging from an iron rod swung over the fire. The aroma of savory meat and spices bubbled from the steamy cauldron’s depths. Two assistants argued while they clattered iron pans and wooden bowls in a wide washtub, scrubbing the pans with large bristle brushes.
The noisy room seemed to convince the innkeeper he would not be overheard. In fact, Crispin found it difficult to hear the man.
“He paid me a right good sum to tell folk he weren’t there,” said the innkeeper, mouthing his words in exaggerated motions. “And he threatened me, too, I don’t mind saying.”
“Who is he?”
“He calls himself Smith.”
“‘Calls himself’?”
“Can’t be his true name. He’s a foreigner.”
“From where?”
“Can’t rightly say. Maybe he’s a Moor. He’s dark enough.”
“Maybe.” Crispin took a halpens from his pouch and gave it to the man. “It isn’t gold, but perhaps you will hold your tongue about my asking.”
The man nodded and clutched the coin in a whitening fist. “There’s no need to tell the gentleman aught.”
Crispin spent all day in the Thistle’s raucous tavern, drinking wine from a chipped horn cup and picking periodically from several pullet carcasses before him, now cold, their grease congealing on a wooden plank.
He sat in a far corner against the wall, watching patrons come and go while the frantic innkeeper moved nerv
ously between the tables trying not to look at him.
Sitting low on his bench, Crispin spotted a hunched figure entering the tavern and trying to lose himself in the crowd. The man glanced once at Crispin then darted forward with all intentions of escape, until Crispin stuck out his foot. The man tumbled to the floor amid the laughter of those seated nearby and looked back over his shoulder from his place in the filthy straw.
Crispin looked down at him, his lips twisted in a smile. “Master Lenny. I thought it was you. Up to your old tricks?”
“Why it’s Master Crispin!” Lenny rose and shook the straw from his tattered cloak. “I didn’t notice it was you, sir.” He started to sit beside Crispin, seemed to think better of it, then gingerly took a place beside him after all. He cringed but managed a weak smile when Crispin put his arm around him.
“Skulking in a tavern,” said Crispin. “You can’t be up to any good.”
“Well, I could say the same of you”—he glanced up at Crispin’s face; his smile fell—“but I won’t.”
“How long has it been, Lenny, since I last sent you to gaol?”
“Oh, nigh on eight months, Master Crispin. The sheriff released me two months ago. I ain’t been arrested since. And look.” He raised his hand and wiggled the fingers. “I ain’t lost a hand or ear yet. Thanks to you, I hear tell.”
Crispin looked away. “What would the sheriff want with your grimy hand?”
Lenny laughed. He ran his hand over the stubble on his pointed chin. His hair receded, leaving a wide dome atop and stringy dark hair dangling down around it. His neck was thin and crooked like a buzzard’s. “I reckon you’re right there, m’lord.”
“Not a lord, Lenny.” He patted Lenny’s shoulder and released him. It had been many a year since he was “Lord” anything.
He cast his thoughts back to the present and gazed at Lenny. “I don’t think I’ll tell the sheriff I saw you,” said Crispin.
“Ah now! Master Crispin, that’s right Christian of you. Anything you want, anything you need, you just call on old Lenny.”
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