“You are fortunate. I know of no antidote to such a poison.”
“That’s what the apothecary said. He said it wouldn’t do no good for me, but here I am.”
“Yes. Here you are.”
“Right then. What victuals shall I fix you?”
“You will not cook for me.” He closed his eyes half from pain and half from embarrassment. “At any rate…I…I have no food.”
“That’s simple, my lord. I’ll return anon.”
“I am not a lord…Tucker!”
Jack flew over the threshold with a wave. Kemp passed him at the door.
“A fine servant, that,” said the tinker. “Looks like you acquired him just in time.”
“He’s not my-oh hell.” Crispin fell back surrendering to the pillow, and stared at the cobwebs among the rafters.
“I brought some wine.” He lifted the full jug to show him. “It will serve to cleanse your wounds and warm the belly. Now then, if there is more you need, send Jack down to fetch me. Oh. Where was he off to?”
“To get some food.”
“I see. Then circumstances for you must have improved. What with a servant and such. Perhaps, well, perhaps this isn’t quite the proper time, but my wife would hide me if I did not remind you…”
“The rent. I know it well, Martin. I will send Jack anon to pay you.”
“Well then!” Kemp nodded and rubbed his long hands together.
Crispin watched him leave with a pang of guilt. The rent was days overdue, but he had lied about paying him. He had already borrowed from Gilbert and could not even repay that. Vaguely he wondered how Jack was acquiring food and decided he didn’t want to know.
He cast a glance at his money pouch, but it lay undisturbed.
Crispin slowly awoke to savory aromas. He opened his eyes and spied Jack stirring a pot on a trivet over his fire, humming to himself.
“You again? Why are you here?” Crispin asked groggily. “And what’s that?”
“Rabbit stew. Will you have some?”
“How did you afford this rabbit and the rest of it?”
Jack didn’t answer and Crispin rose from the pillow. “Tucker?”
“I’m here to help, Master. As to the rabbit…well now. It isn’t polite to ask after a gift, is it?”
Crispin sighed and laid back.
The mattress sank under Jack’s weight. Crispin sat up, squinting at the boy. Jack offered a steaming bowl.
“It smells good,” Crispin grunted and grudgingly took the spoon.
Jack poured wine into the other wooden bowl and then sat again on the mattress. “Them men,” Jack began while Crispin tasted the stew with a tentative tongue. “What did they want?”
“I wish I knew,” he answered between spoonful’s.
“Must have mistaken you for someone else, eh?”
“Possibly.” Crispin felt Jack’s eyes on him before he looked up at the boy’s anxious features.
“Is it good?”
Crispin offered a crooked grin. “Yes, Jack. Much thanks. For everything. Now, suppose you prepare to be on your way.”
Jack frowned. “After all I done, you’d still be rid of me?”
“Jack, I told you the truth. I haven’t any money to pay you. I haven’t even enough for my rent.”
“Oh, that! That’s taken care of.”
Crispin lowered the spoon. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“I’ve taken care of it, is all.”
Crispin set the bowl aside and lay back. “Jack. What have you done? You did not cut a purse, did you?”
“Aw no, Master. It’s just that I went downstairs to thank Master Kemp for his kindness, and it seems some of his loose coins were sitting there on his accounting books. Well, they were just sitting there and all, and I just naturally come by ‘em. So then I ask him, ‘Master Kemp, how much is it that Master Crispin owes you?’ So he looks in his book and he says the number and I hand him the coins.”
Crispin bit his lip. The pain helped but didn’t entirely dull the smile from curving the edge of his mouth. “You paid him with his own money?”
“Now Master. Don’t you think it’s time you lay back and rest?”
Crispin allowed Jack to push him gently into the pillow. He watched the boy stoke the fire and listened to his humming. He must have slept again, because he awoke some time later and Jack was standing over him. Crispin raised his hand to his forehead. A roaring headache was in full bloom. “What is it, Jack?”
“There is a message for you.”
Crispin noticed the paper in Jack’s hand. “Who brought it?”
“I know not, Master. It was left tucked into the door.”
Crispin unfolded the small bit of parchment and inhaled a sharp breath. There was no writing on the parchment. Only the careful
rendition of a red cross. The cross of the Knights Templar.
CHAPTER SIX
Crispin wracked his brain, trying to remember as much about the Templars as he could recall with a sore head and an equally sore chest. Templar history hadn’t been part of his studies as a young man and it certainly wasn’t part of the conversation at court. But he did recall some snippets at various tournaments and battles. How the Templars fought at Mansurah. The Battle of Arsuf under Richard Lionheart. And the last decisive battle in the Holy Land, Hattin. But as with talk of any battle, it was strategy and failure that was studied and discussed, not the wisdom of an order of warrior clerics.
He moved to the chair and stared at the wall. The parchment hung limply from his hand.
Jack cleared his throat and Crispin looked up.
“Pardon, sir,” said Jack, crumpling the hem of his tunic in dirty fingers. “But what is that?” He pointed to the paper in Crispin’s hand.
“This is a cross of the Knights Templar.”
“I see. And what, sir, is a Knight Templar?”
“What’s the matter with you, boy? Born under a rock? Has not all the world heard of the Knights Templar?”
“Maybe all the world, Master Crispin…but not me.”
Crispin looked at him before chuckling. “Well, Master Tucker. Perhaps you are too young. Come here. Sit down.” He offered him the stool. Jack moved closer and gingerly took the stool, drawing it into the light. He slid atop it smoothly. His legs dangled. Crispin leaned on the table toward Jack and Jack leaned forward to match him. “They were an order of warrior monks who guarded travelers in the Holy Land. But then they took to warfare. They chiefly fought in the Holy Land during the Crusades. You have heard of the Crusades, have you not?”
“Oh aye,” he said with a casual sweep of his hand. “So them monks went off fighting, did they?” He took a swing at the air. “I like a good melee m’self.”
“Yes. Well. These Templars were more knight than monk, so it is said. And they were supposed to have a cache of treasure hidden somewhere in France. But that is long past. The order was suppressed by the pope seventy years ago.”
Jack pointed to the paper on the table. “Then what’s that for?”
“The dead man in the tavern was a Knight Templar.”
“God blind me! I thought you just said they was no more.”
“So they were. Or so it was thought. And now this.”
“Oh!” Jack shot to his feet. “Them men what grabbed you! They’re them Templars!”
“I was just thinking that. And yet how can that be? And why torture me? Why this missive?”
Jack slowly sat again. “It seems plain enough to me, sir,” said Jack. He dropped his voice to a soft whisper. “They don’t want you poking around no murders. If I was you, I’d take that counsel.”