“There must be something I can do for you, friend,” urged Timothy, sitting on a stool across from him. “Else why would you be here? Has it to do with what we discussed before?”
“Father.” Crispin leaned forward, closed fists resting on his thighs. “When we die, what exactly happens to us? What do we see?”
“Our hope is to see the face of God.”
“Yes. But before that, what else?”
“I know not. When a man dies, he cannot return to tell the tale.”
Crispin shook his head and sat back. “I am not so certain. At least…” He managed a chuckle. “Perhaps a man can rise from the dead.”
Timothy’s gaze was steady.
Crispin scowled. “I was vilely betrayed by a woman I once loved. She poisoned me and I…I nearly died.”
“By the blood of Christ, tell me! What happened?”
Crispin lifted his hand and touched the rounded belly of the cup under the cloak, testing its substantiality with his fingertips. “There was not enough poison to kill me. But in so doing I might have discovered the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.”
The priest becrossed himself and rested his trembling fingers on his lips. “Blessed be God,” he whispered through his fingers. “Where is the grail now?”
Crispin hesitated. How could he be sure of anyone? He looked at the priest’s strong-boned hands and his ring. “Safe,” he replied curtly. “If this is the grail, then I see no end of trouble with it. Too many are affected by it.”
“You never truly believed.”
“I do not know whether I believe in it now. But some men do. And those men are dangerous.”
“What are your plans?”
Crispin rose and paced the length of the little room. “I know not. Perhaps I should drop the thing down the nearest well. Or leave it on the highest mountaintop, or throw it into the ocean. Miraculous or no, nowhere is safe enough or far enough from the greed of mankind. I wish God would simply take it back!”
The priest tapped his fingers on his lips for some time. “I can well see your reasoning,” he said at last. “But it can also do great good in the world.”
“But has it?”
“‘I have come not to bring peace’. So spake Jesus. Sometimes spilt blood is necessary. ‘We make war that we may live in peace.’”
Crispin measured him. “You quote Aristotle well for a parish priest.” He smiled. “Our kings would have us believe such about war. Its necessity. Yet kings can betray-”
“Or be betrayed.”
Crispin looked up suddenly at the steely expression in the priest’s eyes, not as young as they once looked. “Yes, I know who you are,” admitted Timothy. “And your history. You are a man of sorrows but capable of so much valor. You must weigh very carefully what you do for the next few hours. What you possess is miraculous.”
“There is no proof of that.”
“How do you know?”
“It did not heal me. My body healed itself.”
The priest smiled, a little sadly. “But you will never know for certain.”
Crispin frowned at his own uncertainty and at Timothy’s smug conviction. “I came to ask your guidance in this.”
“I have no more guidance to give you now than I did before. God chose you to be the bearer of this burden. You must decide.”
“And if I make the wrong choice?”
Timothy smiled faintly and then let it go. “I pray…you do not.”
Crispin returned to his lodgings and sat in the chair. He looked about the shabby room, the rickety shelves and nicked table; the shutters that would not quite close; the chipped jug of water and the empty one of wine. He once believed this was the sum total of what he had become, but the last few days told a different story. There may yet be more to him than he ever imagined, for why else should he be chosen to suffer this burden of the grail when all the world seemed filled with more learned and more deserving men than he?
He sat and stared a long time at his few possessions before he slowly inched his hand within his coat. He took out the cup and stared at it. His fingers ran over the carvings along the rim and he wondered just where Jesus had laid his lips. Was it here? He ran a finger on the spot. Or here? His fingers trailed. He couldn’t even be certain that this was the actual Holy Grail. Oh, he was certain that this was the cup that caused so many to lose their lives, but was it the cup of Christ?
De Marcherne hinted that it wielded power. Maybe it healed Crispin. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he’d never know, like Father Timothy said.
There was only one way to know.
If he asked it, asked the grail, what would it do? What did he want the most?
He picked it up and stood. He thrust his arms forward and lifted it up, as if offering it as a sacrifice.
Was it his imagination? Did his arms tingle from the grail’s power, or was it the stiffness in which he held them? Suddenly, he felt the crawling sensation of fear. Not of death, for he’d faced that too many times to count. Not of dishonor, for he’d lost it all already. But of something else, something he was loath to identify.
Power. He feared the power, the terrible and awesome power that did not come from taking a castle with an army or standing above a defeated opponent. This was different. Was this the power of God?
A lump in his gut sat heavily like a stone within him. If he dared ask the grail, might his fondest desire be granted?
He opened his fingers and the cup hit the table with a pop, and spun, finally landing on its rim. Crispin stared at the grail for a long time. He listened to his breath fill and escape his lungs; he listened to the wooden ceiling beams creak and to a puff of a draft whine past his shutter. “Superstition,” he whispered. He touched the cup with his fingertips and laughed nervously. No tingle. No strange visions. Only a cup. Perhaps an old one, but only a cup nonetheless.
He scooped it up, dropped it through the buttons of his coat, and reached for a cup from his shelf. He sat with it in his lap and drew his dagger.
Jack entered with a cursory knock and moved directly to where Crispin sat. “The sheriff is still searching for Jenkyn.”
“He’d best give it up,” Crispin said distractedly, working diligently. “He’s not the killer.”
Jack sat hard on the chest. “’Slud, Master! If he isn’t the killer then who the hell is?”
“A woman.”
“Ah ha! It’s that Lady Vivienne! I knew it. She’s-”
“No,” he said looking up from his work. “I almost wish it were. And yet, for that lady I have much sympathy.”
“Then who?”
He put his knife aside and sighed. To say it aloud meant it was real, that it happened, but this he could not deny. Could he swallow his feelings and fulfill the king’s justice?
Quietly he said, “Rosamunde. Lady Rothwell.”
Jack peered carefully at Crispin’s lowered face. “Eh? What’s that you say? I thought for a moment you said it was Lady Rothwell what killed him.”
“Yes, Jack. That is what I said. She confessed to me…before she attempted to poison me.”
“No!” Jack slid to Crispin’s feet and gazed up at him. He laid his hands on Crispin’s knees. “Master, is it true?”
Crispin smiled fondly. “Yes, Jack. There never was a more pitiful end to a sadder tale.”
“Aye, that’s the truth. Save the brother only to hang the sister.” But as soon as he said it he slapped his hand over his mouth. “Oh, Master! Forgive me.”
“Well and why not?” Crispin snapped to his feet and strode to the window. “The bitch tried to kill me with no more consideration given it than a mud stain on her gown. She killed two men-the apothecary, remember? — and would have happily killed me. She thought she did.”
Jack sat back on his feet. He let his hands drop to his thighs. “What happened, Master? Will you tell me?”
Crispin pushed open the shutter and leaned against the window frame. Martin Kemp’s furnace had quieted for the evening and no smoke marred the air he inhaled. The rooftops of slate, tile, and lead marched away from his view, undulating like an angry sea, their hearth smoke like charred masts standing straight and stiff. “She poisoned me, Jack. The same she used on Gaston D’Arcy. And it would have killed me, too, if…if I had not drunk it from the Holy Grail.”