“Then it is a very good thing I am not you.” Crispin rose, tied the laces of his chemise, and gingerly buttoned up his cotehardie. Retrieving his belt from a peg, he buckled it around his waist and pressed his hand to the dagger hilt. He headed for the door when Jack scrambled from his seat and yanked on Crispin’s sleeve. He looked down at Jack’s hand clenched about his wrist.
“Master! Are you well enough to go out? Them men. They’re still out there. And besides, you didn’t know the dead man. What’s this man’s murder to you?”
“If you think I’m going to allow these scoundrels to put me to torture without penalty, you are mistaken.” He eyed Jack’s hand on him and Jack quickly released his grip.
“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I will stay here.”
Crispin opened his mouth to tell the boy to be off when he thought better of it. Those men were still out there. They probably were none too happy with Jack either. Might it be safer for the boy if he stayed locked inside?
“If stay you will-and only temporarily, mind-then it is best you lock yourself within.” He grabbed the door handle but Jack leaned against the door.
He dropped his gaze and fidgeted with his tunic hem. “So you’re this Tracker they talk about, eh? Isn’t it the sheriff’s job to catch thieves and murderers?”
“And you’ve seen for yourself the fine job the sheriff’s done of it.”
Jack flicked a grin. “The king appointed him. He’s just an armorer, after all. But you. It isn’t worth getting y’self killed now, is it?”
“What do you care? What is your investment? I told you I cannot pay you. I do not need a servant.”
Jack’s eyes took in the room, the hearth, the table. “It’s shelter, isn’t it? And food.”
“And it’s dangerous. You saw what those men did to me. You could be next.”
Jack crossed his arms tightly over his chest and tucked his chin down. “I’ve seen danger before. Never you fear.”
Jack’s face might have been comical in its sincerity if it had not pressed a nerve somewhere in Crispin’s heart. At thirty, he still had no sons…well, none that he was aware of. He fostered no children, mentored no squires or pages. Looking at Jack, then looking at the empty room caused a hard knot to tighten in the center of his belly. “There’s truly no place for you here, you know. For anyone.” He raised his arms in a gesture of futility and dropped them to his sides. “No matter what tales you have heard, you do not know my situation. You do not know me!” He rubbed his head but it only roused an ache on the bruised lump.
“You were kind…and fair to me, sir. That is all I know. That is all I care about. Isn’t that enough?”
His gaze tracked over the boy’s hopeful expression. He grabbed his cloak. “I do not need a servant.” He pushed Jack away from the door, and left through it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Crispin retraced his steps of that morning and stole back to the alley where they had abducted him. Like a hunting dog, he followed the trail along the edges of the buildings, searching for anything that might yield him clues. But there was nothing.
He stood at the mouth of the dank alley and listened to dripping water and creaking eaves. His gaze glided over the dew-slick rooftops, and he pulled his cloak over his sore chest before striding toward the storeroom where he was imprisoned. Its mews emptied onto a dark and colorless alley. The shutters that first blocked the daylight from the windows now hung wide from the efforts of his rescuers.
When he crossed the threshold and stood in the center of the room, coldness numbed the pit of his belly. With a scowl he surveyed the broken chair, discarded ropes, and spattered droplets of blood. His blood. A candle stub sat on an upright firkin, but there was nothing else.
Crispin looked at the remains of the ropes and shivered. Though the room was empty, he could not help but feel the evil that once inhabited it, charring its plaster and stone walls with unseen malevolence.
He left the room with relief and sought out the owner of the building, a man who owned a number of similar mews along the same lane. He told Crispin that these particular stores were unoccupied for the last six months and that he was unaware of anyone using them. He promised with all solemnity to board them up.
Crispin made his way to the Boar’s Tusk and sat in his usual place close to the fire with his back to the wall, the best place to observe anyone entering or leaving.
At that early hour few patrons occupied the benches and stools under a familiar haze of candle and hearth smoke. He glanced at the table where he had found the dead man. The place was conspicuously unoccupied. Word traveled fast on Gutter Lane.
Crispin settled on the bench and drank. His elbow sat in something wet but he didn’t care to move it. A shadow paused over the table and when he looked up he saw Gilbert’s wife, Eleanor, above him. She brushed off the table with a rag before glancing at the jug of wine. “Crispin,” she said softly. Her friendly but careworn face, lined at her brown eyes, seldom wore a sour expression, though her clientele often gave her cause. Her hair was a dull blonde or possibly gray, but Crispin rarely saw it, for she kept it tucked under a white linen headdress.
“What is it, Nell?” He waited for her usual rebuke; ordering the more expensive wine instead of ale. Wine reminded him of better days and he felt it was the one luxury he could not afford to do without.
“There’s a sadness about you today, Crispin,” she said instead. She sat opposite him and slid the wine jug aside. “Usually you’re just cross. But today, it’s sadness.”
Sadness? Nothing particularly saddened him today. There was the usual poverty, but that made him more angry than sad. So, too, his treatment at the hands of those mysterious men. He rubbed his chest, thinking of it. Yet, in a small way, Jack Tucker made him sad, he supposed. Here was a boy who had nothing. Far less than Crispin, no prospects, no shelter, no hope. Yet he was as cheerful a soul as he had ever met. What made him so damned happy?
Crispin shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“Care to say?”
“No.”
“Sometimes,” she said, pouring more wine into his clay bowl, “when a body feels sad and he tells his troubles, he feels better. It’s like confession. It’s cleansing.”
“And sometimes a body likes to be left alone.”
She smiled, wrinkling the bridge of her nose. “Well now. If I thought that for a moment, I’d leave you be.” She set aside the wine jug and laid both arms on the table, leaning toward him. “Have some wine. It seems to be from a better cask today. Those who drink it are in a merry mood.”
After a moment he sighed and reached for the bowl.
“It must be a woman,” she said, ticking her head.
Crispin swallowed the harsh wine and grimaced. If this was the good wine he didn’t want to sample the bad. “How do you reason that?”
“Well! Just look at you.”
He studied her face and took another swallow. “It’s not always about a woman, you know.”
“Well now!” She settled her rump and leaned closer. “Tell me about it. It’ll help.”
“No. It won’t.”
“Crispin.” Her hand covered his. “A woman is sometimes fickle. She does it to inspire her man to artful courting.”
“It’s not a woman! It’s…” He searched for the words. “What purpose do I serve, Eleanor?” The words came out of his mouth, but they weren’t quite what he had wanted to say. But Jack Tucker’s insistence on serving him had crept into his mind and opened his thoughts from a place that should have been long buried. “I do not serve a lord. I do not serve the Church. I am…nothing.”
She sighed and wrapped her fingers around her rag, winding the material into a twisted rope. “I’ve known you a long time, Crispin. Even before I knew your name or you knew mine, you and your friends would come here. And I remember thinking what a jolly lot they were. But looking at you now, you’re not the same man.”