“So he’s been dead an hour.”
“Longer,” said Crispin.
Wynchecombe leveled a glare at him. “I did not ask you, Master Guest.”
“Nevertheless.” Crispin didn’t look at the sheriff. “He has been dead longer. Possibly all evening.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Try to move his arms. They are stiffening with rigor.”
Wynchecombe snorted. He eyed the stark faces looking expectantly back at him. “Well. Does anyone know who the man is?”
“I know not,” said Gilbert. “I do not remember his coming in, and I have never seen him before. Perhaps he’s a merchant. His cloak is plain enough, but his boots are well made.”
“He’s a knight,” said Crispin.
Wynchecombe strode toward Crispin and measured him with a pinched expression. His mustache twitched. “And how the hell do you know that?”
“He’s wearing a hauberk under his gown. I felt it when I touched his arm. Further, those clothes are not of local origin. That gown is a Damascus weave. I remember it well…from a long time ago.”
Wynchecombe glared a long moment before he slapped Crispin’s feet from the table. “Have you no respect for the dead?”
Crispin clenched his fist at his side but turned an indifferent expression to the sheriff. “I have very little respect for anything. Isn’t that what you’ve heard?”
“Yes.” Wynchecombe chuckled and nodded. “That is exactly what I’ve heard.”
The sheriff studied the dead man, peering at him at close range. “I don’t suppose,” he said over his shoulder, “you know who he is?”
Crispin shrugged. His lids hung heavily. “I do not. He wears no signet. But he did wear a necklace. A thin chain. His neck.”
“What?” The sheriff bent to look closely at the man’s neck.
Crispin yawned and waved in the dead man’s general direction. “See the red stripe? As if it were pulled off. I wonder by whom?”
He did not need to turn his head to know that the cutpurse cringed. The sheriff caught the movement and swiveled, directing his attention to the boy on a stool.
“Well? And who are you?”
“N-no one, m’lord. Jack Tucker. Just an innocent witness.”
“Innocent?” The sheriff swept the anxious faces of Gilbert and Jack with a scowl. “No one here looks innocent to me.” He crossed the room with heavy steps and leaned on the table. The wood creaked under his weight. “What time did you get here, my Lord Guest?”
Crispin slowly withdrew his knife and began cleaning under his fingernails with the tip. “I am no one’s lord,” he reminded tolerantly. “Are you suggesting I killed the man?”
“It was not established he was killed. There is no blood, after all.”
“Natural causes? In one so young? Surely even you are not that dim, Wynchecombe.”
Wynchecombe grabbed Crispin’s hood. He leaned in so close that Crispin could smell the stale wine on his breath. “I am ‘my Lord Wynchecombe’ to you, Guest.” Wynchecombe’s eyes flicked to the dagger in Crispin’s fist, but Crispin never flinched nor took his gaze from the sheriff. “Give me an excuse,” the sheriff whispered, twisting Crispin’s hood tighter. “Any excuse.”
The sheriff’s two men at the door took several steps closer. Their hands clutched their sword pommels.
Crispin blinked. He took his time curling his lips into a slow smile. It made the sheriff’s scowl deepen. “I am your servant as always… Lord Sheriff.”
Wynchecombe released him and straightened. “Then I repeat. What time did you get here?”
Crispin smoothed out his coat and shoulder cape and resumed cleaning his nails. “Sometime after sundown. I am not certain of the hour.”
“How many were here?”
“The usual number. It was nearly a full house, wouldn’t you say Gilbert?”
“Aye, Crispin. A goodly number.”
The sheriff smiled an unpleasant grin. “Been drinking here all evening, eh, Crispin?”
Crispin snapped his blade back in its scabbard without looking up. “I am no longer concerned with the running of estates, Lord Sheriff. What I do with my time is surely my own business.”
“Yet death seems to stalk you.”
“Death stalks us all. And in this case, I believe the man was poisoned. I’d stake my-” He paused, wondering what exactly was left to stake. Certainly he possessed no reputation to wager, no property, and no money. And his life? Likewise discounted. He smiled grimly and looked the sheriff in the eye. “I am certain,” he continued. “See how he struggled? And the foam at his mouth? Yet no one noticed his dying.”
“Poison, is it?” Wynchecombe glanced at the bowls scattered on the table. Wine still glistened in the bottom of both clay cups. The one of wood stood empty. He pushed one bowl with his fingers. It wobbled and sloshed red wine onto the table. “Poison is the choice of cowards and conspirators,” he snorted. “Which bowl was his?”
Crispin grinned crookedly. “I do not recall. Why don’t you try them and find out?”
The sheriff gritted his teeth in a steely smile. “Not today, Guest.” With his gloved hand he tipped over both bowls. The wine ran red like blood. “Tavern keeper!” he said, stepping away from the dribbles spattering the floor. “Clean this mess.”
Gilbert moved quickly and plucked up the bowls with apron-covered fingers.
The sheriff edged toward Crispin. “What sort of poison?”
“The sort that kills quickly. There are a few that would do the trick.”
“You know a bit too much about this.”
“I have a habit of knowing a bit too much about everything. Jack of all trades-”
“Master of none,” the sheriff chuckled. “Then of course you-a man who knows everything-would know where to obtain such poisons.”
“Any apothecary knows of them, but only the more unsavory would sell them. Do not waste your time. It will be difficult finding the purveyor.”
“The king has appointed me to waste my time, as you say.”
Crispin shrugged. “Then be my guest.”
“And what about this fellow, Jack Tucker. Tucker?” Wynchecombe turned, but Jack had vanished. The sheriff glanced a warning at his men. Their faces flattened with guilty apology.
Crispin chuckled. “Your fish slipped the hook.”
“Damn the boy! You two! Go get him!”
“Surely you do not suspect Tucker?” said Crispin over the noise of the sheriff’s men clamoring out. “What cutpurse would waste money on poison? That boy’s a thief not a murderer.”
“I care nothing for what you think you know of it.”
Crispin glanced at the window and groaned at the sight of gray light tinting the open shutters. “As you will,” he sighed. “It is nearly dawn. Are you done with me?”
Wynchecombe’s bushy brows lowered. Crispin well knew that if the sheriff wished, if taunted enough, he could arrest Crispin and put him on trial for the crime. Evidence could be easily cobbled to make him look guilty enough. Especially since the dead man’s money pouch still lay tucked in its hiding place inside Crispin’s coat.
Wynchecombe snorted and turned his back. “Go home. If I need you further, I know where to find you.”
Crispin gathered his sluggish body and rose, made a cursory bow that Wynchecombe did not notice, and dragged himself from the tavern.
He groaned again, squinting at the eastern sky visible now as a bluish-gray wash behind the dark silhouette of rooftops and spires. The morning hung in the air as cold and as damp as last night’s laundry. He put up his hood and wrapped his worn cloak over his chest to protect his chapped fingers. His empty belly complained, but he did not feel well enough to eat, even if there was bread or cheese in his larder. There might be the dregs of wine still left in his jug at home, and that thought sustained him while he leapt the puddles and trudged down gray-edged alleys.
At last he turned the corner and surveyed the familiar haunts of the Shambles. The structures in the narrow lane tilted inward toward one another, their protruding second stories sometimes only separated by three arm lengths, making the lane dim during the day and dismal at night.