Stephen lowered his head and heaved a long sigh. “Thank you.”
“You…” He stopped and started again. “It’s…” No use. What could he say? Crispin compressed his lips and shook his head. “I do not understand any of this.”
“I’m…”
“No.” Crispin held up his hand and grimaced. Now more than ever he longed to strike Stephen, but the man was safe, for now, behind a barred door.
Crispin turned, but the ragged thoughts would not leave him. “For God’s sake, Stephen! You frequented a brothel!”
Stephen shrugged. “To keep up appearances.”
“What in hell did you do there?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I played cards.”
Crispin kicked at the straw-littered floor.
Stephen stood at the door, fingers resting on the iron bars. His pensive expression flickered in the torch light. “Will you truly ask the sheriff to release me?”
“Yes. I said I would. I will not be responsible for hanging an innocent man. But he will ask me what I shall ask you now.” He turned to face him. “If you did not kill D’Arcy, who did?”
Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Wynchecombe will not like that answer and will require convincing.”
“If anyone can do it,” he said, eyes locked on Crispin’s, “it will be you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Crispin sat at home and stared into his untouched bowl of wine. After he left Newgate and returned to his lodgings, he realized he was back to the beginning, with no murderer.
De Marcherne and his henchmen. Crispin had all but ignored him in favor of convicting Stephen.
“Stephen,” he muttered. He did not want to envisage it, but now his mind could not erase the image of Stephen St Albans and Gaston D’Arcy. Crispin met Stephen a year before encountering Rosamunde. He fought beside him in battle. He never suspected the man capable of what his mind conjured. It wasn’t as if he had not known sodomites. Some were even his friends, but Stephen…
He shook his head and quaffed the wine. Rubbing his face, he listened to the silence of his room. Below, he could hear Martin Kemp’s wife Alice berating him for some husbandly error among the clatter of pots and pans. Not long after, a door slammed and the quantity of smoke from the outdoor furnace suddenly billowed, cascading across Crispin’s open window and tumbling into his room. Crispin took two strides to close the shutters, but not before watching Martin Kemp jam wood into the inferno, no doubt thinking of something other than wood burning in the fierce blaze and going up in smoke.
Crispin sighed and leaned his hand against the lintel. “I must return to the problem,” he reminded himself. “Who is the murderer?”
He started when Jack Tucker opened the door and walked in as if he’d lived there all his life. He smiled upon seeing Crispin. “Master. What’s the news?”
Crispin stared, unused to the ease with which Tucker had insinuated himself. He still wasn’t quite sure what to make of the lad and his motives, but he shook his head and walked away from the window. Standing in front of the fire, he mechanically raised his fingers to the flames. It did little to warm him.
“The news, Jack, is far from good.”
“Oh?” Jack settled on the floor beside the fire. He took out a wedge of cheese from his pouch and began eating it. With a wad bulging his cheek, he stopped and offered the hunk in his hand to Crispin. Crispin glanced disinterestedly at the food and shook his head.
“Stephen St Albans is not guilty of murder.”
“No! It’s that wretched sheriff to blame.”
“No, no. It is not the sheriff. It’s me. I have talked with Stephen and mulled over the evidence and I do not believe him guilty.”
Jack eyed him and continued chewing. “The woman, then,” he offered slowly. “That Lady Stancliff.”
Crispin shook his head. “Nor her.”
“Blind me, Master. Who’s left?”
“Exactly.” Crispin sat on the hard wood of the chair.
“Maybe it’s them anti-pope men like I said.”
“Yes. I do consider them. But I also consider D’Arcy’s Templar companions.”
“Eh? Why would they murder him? They were his friends, weren’t they?”
Crispin tapped the wooden bowl with his fingers. “Not entirely. I cannot tell you all, Jack, but it might have been simpler for them to merely eliminate him. Remember, they did steal the body.”
“Oh, aye.” He chewed and thought. “It’s complicated, isn’t it?”
“That it is.”
Crispin rose again to retrieve the wine jug and poured more into the bowl. He stood for a moment with the jug still in his hand and stared into nothing.
“Master,” said Jack at his elbow. “Why don’t you ask them Templars. Get it straight from them.”
“Because I cannot find them. They find me.”
“Then what of de Marcherne?”
“At least I do know where he is.” He put the jug down and ran his hand over his day-old beard.
“Where, Master?”
He sighed, but it came from a weariness far beyond the rigors of the day. “Court,” he answered.
Jack whistled. “Have you been lately to court, Master Crispin? Since…well, since…”
“No. I have not. But I have made many a deal with the Devil today. One more won’t hurt.”
Two strides took him to his wash basin, and he proceeded to shave without a word.
Jack insisted upon escorting him to Westminster Palace, and in the back of his mind, Crispin felt glad the boy came. He tried to look his best. Crispin had shaved, clipped his hair, and groomed his poor clothes as best he could, and though Jack’s attire obviously belonged in no court, it was better to have some kind of retainer than none at all.
But the closer Crispin got to the gates, the harder it was to breathe. “I wish to God I had a horse,” he muttered.
Jack nodded. “It would be more seemly, but a man has to make do.” He glanced up at the walls and the finery of the guards ahead and moved closer to Crispin. “How long ago did you say you were last here?”
“Seven years. Yet it seems like only yesterday.”
They reached the gatehouse and the porters looked them over. Each guard wore a mail hood that covered their chins and rested under their lower lip. Their conical helms fit snugly to their heads. One man-at-arms stood back under the shadows while the other approached. “And what would you want?” he asked.
Crispin resisted the urge to straighten his coat. No amount of tugging would hide its repairs. “I am here to see the dignitary from the French court; Guillaume de Marcherne.”
The guard squinted at him before glancing back to his companion. Although Crispin looked like a common tradesman his manner of speech gave them pause.
“And what would the likes of his worthy want to see you for?” asked the man-at-arms.
“I have business with him. I would send my man here to give him a message.”
The man glanced at Jack and sneered. “What? Him?”
“There now!” cried Jack. He gestured with a jerk of his thumb. “This here is Sir Crispin Guest, and you best show the proper respect for him. He has business at court.”
The man made no effort to move except to lick his lips. “So?”
Crispin tried on his haughtiest expression. “I am sending my man with a message. Now.”
But the guard dropped his hand on his sword pommel. “Take the tradesman’s entrance. Back there.” He gestured half-heartedly and turned his back.
Crispin felt his muscles tense and the urge to grab for his own sword was strong, even though no sword hung at his side.
Tight-lipped, he gestured for Jack to follow him and they walked around the palace by another arch. Men unloaded sacks from a cart and carried them in under the distracted eye of a man-at-arms. Crispin nodded for Jack to follow his lead and they each picked up a sack, hoisted it over their shoulders, and carried it inside. Once they were out of sight of the knights in the courtyard, they dropped their loads and entered a long corridor. Crispin found a wooden staircase and grabbed the railing. “Come along, Jack. Keep close.”