“Yes. Simple.”
Crispin rubbed his chest. “You could have asked before. Why didn’t you?”
De Marcherne sipped his wine. “When one is accustomed to certain methods it is hard to change. As I said, I do regret my earlier treatment of you.”
“I work for a fee of one shilling a day, plus expenses.”
“You work for sixpence a day. But I will pay you twelve.” He motioned to one of the men who handed him a pouch. “Here is a sennight’s worth in advance.”
Crispin looked at the pouch but did not take it. “What if I don’t find it? What if it falls to another?”
De Marcherne smiled, took Crispin’s hand, and placed the pouch within it. “Don’t disappoint me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Crispin looked up from his wax slate when Jack returned early the next morning,
“Ah. Jack. What have you to tell me?”
Jack stood before Crispin, pulling on the hem of his tunic. “Well, Master. I followed Lady Stancliff like you told me.”
“And?”
Jack moved to the fire and warmed his hands. He turned and aimed his backside at the hearth and rubbed that, too. “She went to the Spur just like you said she would. She went to the room at the top of the gallery but it was locked. Then she went and fetched the tavern keeper. When she entered that room upstairs, I could no longer see her, but it did not take her long to come out.”
“Did she have anything in her hands?”
“No, master. Naught that I could see.”
He nodded and resumed drawing. “Continue.”
“After that, I followed her to another inn: the Bell on Ropery. That is where she is lodged. But then, before I left…she had a visitor.”
“Oh? Who was it?”
The boy hesitated. “I… I did not know him. But he was a gentleman. He was tall and dark and he had a scar going up from his mouth to his eye.”
Crispin froze. “Did you hear him speak?”
“Aye. He was a Frenchman.”
“What happened?”
“She was surprised to see him. Unpleasantly so, but it was clear she knew him. But she welcomed him in.”
“And then?”
“Naught. For about half past. And then he left. Alone.” Jack hesitated and ran his hand up the back of his neck. He sensed the boy wished to say more, but though he waited, Jack remained silent.
Crispin did not press the matter. “If you ever see that man again, Jack, fetch me. And stay clear of him. He is very dangerous.” He eased back into the chair. “You have done very well. Now bring us both some wine.”
Jack scrambled to the larder and pulled down the jug. He brought the bowls to Crispin’s table and offered him a cup.
Casually, Crispin said, “I had a visit yesterday from the anti-pope’s men.”
Jack froze. “Jesus mercy! What did you do?”
“Not much but listen. Their leader, one Guillaume de Marcherne, hired me to find the grail.”
“After they’d gone and flogged you? Madness!”
“Yes. Of a sort. But it did give me pause.”
“You aren’t going to work for no anti-pope, are you, Master?”
He shook his head. “By the way, de Marcherne has a very distinctive feature: a scar running up from his mouth to his eye.”
Jack seemed less than surprised but kept his lips shut up tight.
Crispin said no more and hid his thoughts in his wine bowl. Jack pondered quietly and finally sidled up to him and glanced sideways at the drawings on the wax slate. He took a swallow from his own cup and said, “I’ve been thinking about all this,” said Jack quietly.
“’All this’?” asked Crispin, jotting down more notes.
“Aye. This tracking you do. That I done for you. I took a nice long time to think about it. About all them people mixed up in this murder. And I think I’ve come to some ideas, beggin’ your pardon.”
Crispin set down his quill and did his best to repress a smile. “Have you, now. I’d like to hear.”
“Well…” Jack straightened his disreputable tunic and, much like a minstrel launching into a song, he postured and began. “The way I see it, it’s all mixed up, isn’t it? All them people coming and going. They can’t all be involved. So I carved it down to bits and pieces. Seems easier to think of it all in that way.”
Crispin sharpened his gaze. “How very enterprising.”
“First, you got this Vivienne woman-”
“Lady Stancliff.”
“As you will. Lady Stancliff-wanting you to find some fellow who has some fine thing she’d like to get a hold of. Then there’s Stephen St Albans, a knave if there ever was one. Then this vile, devil of a man-what did you call him? G-Guillaume de Marcherne.” He shuddered. “He abducts you and treats you right foully. He wants the sarding Holy Grail, of all things… Who am I forgetting?”
“You’ve done very well,” said Crispin, surprised. “I was unaware of your talent for juggling information.”
“Oh aye,” said Jack, ignoring Crispin’s compliment. “Them Templars. I don’t trust them. Why you hold such store by them I do not know. Perhaps it is the unwariness of noblemen.” Crispin frowned at that. “And so. I’ve come to some conclusions, as I said.”
“I am all ears.”
“First of all, I’m not so certain there is a grail.”
Flicking extra wax from the nib of the quill, Crispin stopped to look at Jack. “Why would you say that?”
“I’m just saying. All these men certain it exists yet who has actually seen it?”
Crispin raised a brow of amusement. “Then let us say, for the sake of argument that the grail exists.”
“Well then. This is the list of people that seek it,” Jack said, ticking them off on his fingers. “The Templars, of course. Guillaume de Marcherne of the anti-pope’s camp-the foul devil-and Lady Stancliff… And you.” Jack offered the last timidly.
“Yes. I am hired to return it to one of these.” He scratched a word onto the slate. “But Sir Stephen says he knows nothing of the grail. He admitted that he did not even know D’Arcy was a Knight Templar. He could be lying, of course….”
“Ah! Then I would remove his name from the hunt for the grail. So that means he didn’t kill no one for no grail.”
Crispin nodded.
“So if Sir Stephen didn’t want the grail,” Jack continued, “then why did he kill him?”
“That has yet to be seen, for he will not say.” He tapped the slate with the quill nib. “By Lady Stancliff’s actions, it appears she well knew of D’Arcy’s Templar history but believes, for some reason, that the grail belongs to her, and may stop at nothing to get it. She is a woman of questionable character.”
Nodding, Jack fingered the edge of the slate. “That sounds like you might be blaming her for the murder.”
“I very well might be.”
“But Master! What of Sir Stephen?”
“It does not remove the possibility that they worked together.”
“But you said Sir Stephen knew naught of the grail.”
“Lady Stancliff can be very persuasive.”
Jack whistled. “Aye. You have not yet mentioned about Lady Rothwell. You were hired to find her brother and find him you did.”
“Yes. She was seen arguing with Sir Stephen during the time she said he was missing. Obviously, he was missing for far less time than she admitted. She must have feared something in that brief disappearance. Yet she, too, was seen talking to D’Arcy.”
“How does she know him?”
He shook his head. “She will not say. She says it is a private matter.”
“The grail?”
“I know not.”
“There’s something I left out. What of the dead apothecary, Rupert of Kent? I think he was killed to silence him.”
“Very good, Jack.” Crispin drew another line on the slate. “Rupert was indeed killed for that reason so that the identity of the person to whom he sold the poison would remain a secret.”
“How about the dagger that killed him?”
“It was of very ordinary origin. It was even possibly owned by Rupert himself. No clue there.”
Jack studied the slate and cocked his head, sipping his wine. “So what’s this you’re at, sir?”