“Our apologies, brothers,” muttered Crispin to the cowled men. The friars nodded and stepped aside for them, finding a new place at two prie-dieux beside a fat, white candle.
Crispin cast aside the gauzy shroud covering the body and stared at the plain surcote. No arms or badge to indicate the man’s background, title, or name, but Crispin whispered a curse when he saw that the surcote was white. A Templar color.
“That means nothing,” said Wynchecombe, seeming to read his thoughts.
Crispin ignored him and examined the hauberk of finely linked rings. The clerics had dressed the man in his mail hood and hauberk and covered it all with his white surcote. They laid his hands over the hilt of his sword that now rested on his legs, point downward. He wore no shin armor. This would have been observed peeking out from under his merchant’s gown, Crispin supposed. His leather belt was cinched tightly about his waist, and on it hung a dagger and an empty pouch like a scrip.
Just as he had completed his examination, the candles flickered, casting light across the dead man’s chest. Crispin bent lower. The shadows of some irregular stitching marred the otherwise smooth line of his surcote, as if something had been embroidered there. No, not on the surface but beneath, on the other side.
Crispin reached for the corpse’s surcote but Wynchecombe stayed his hand.
“Crispin, even you would not desecrate a body…”
“I mean no disrespect,” he said more to the corpse than to the sheriff. “But there is something I must see.”
Crispin pulled down the surcote, and looked on its inner face. There. The Templar’s cross stitched lightly over his heart in white. It matched the cross on the pouch.
Crispin stepped aside so the sheriff could see it.
“Mother of God,” Wynchecombe gasped.
Crispin returned the surcote in place over mail, padded gambeson, and lambskin shirt.
“I would not believe it-”
“-if I had not seen it,” Crispin finished. “It seems the Templars are not extinct after all,” he whispered, mindful of the friars.
“But what does this mean? Now what’s to be done? Do we notify Rome? The Knights Templars were disbanded and abolished seventy years ago.” He bit his lower lip. “Perhaps we should send a message to the Archbishop of Canterbury…”
“No. Do nothing yet.” With half an eye fixed toward the friars, Crispin’s voice drew low. “This business of an abolished order and a poisoned man. It smells of treachery.”
Wynchecombe licked his lips and changed his weight from one foot to the other. “I do not like this.”
“Nor do I. There is much to discover. Do I have your leave to go, Lord Sheriff?”
The sheriff eyed him darkly. “Crispin. Leave it alone.”
“I am the Tracker. It is now my vocation.”
“Tracker of what? There is nothing lost here.”
“A life is lost. A murderer is worth discovering.”
Wynchecombe stuck his thumbs in his belt and stared down his nose. “You are mad to pursue this, especially since no one will pay you. Do you have leisure now to waste time on such? Leave it alone, I say.”
“‘There is no great genius without some touch of madness.’”
“Scripture?”
“Seneca. Do you need me further, my lord?”
Wynchecombe scowled. “Perhaps you would do better with Scripture and not with pagans, no matter how sage.”
“Are you suddenly concerned with my soul, Lord Sheriff?”
“What? What nonsense. Off with you. Let me see nothing of you and corpses from now on.”
Crispin grunted his reply, but becrossed himself cursorily before leaving the chapel. Once free of Newgate, he breathed the smoky air of London with relief.
His mind worked on Templars and poisons, of crosses and Latin phrases. The sheriff would not help him. Nothing unusual there. But this was no ordinary murder if it involved a long abolished order. Templars? He could scarce believe it.
Poison might be administered by anyone. It could have been stealthily done with the victim none the wiser. It was best to discover just who was at the Boar’s Tusk last night…
He chuffed an airless sound. Hadn’t he scolded himself earlier for taking up diversions that did not pay? Ah well. He supposed it wasn’t good for a tavern keeper’s business having a dead man in one’s tavern, and it was the least he could do for Gilbert and his wife Eleanor.
He left the prison and walked down Newgate Market where it became the Shambles. Gilbert might even be willing to erase Crispin’s debt if he discovered who so ill-used the Boar’s Tusk. He let fantasies of free wine for the rest of his days fill his mind. He even licked his lips at the thought…before a dark sack thrust down over his head.
Before he could react, a heavy club contacted with his skull and drove his racing mind into black oblivion.
CHAPTER FIVE
Crispin stared at it a long time, but his hazy mind refused to understand. When finally he could focus, he recognized a single candle flame sputtering on its wick, hovering over a pool of liquid tallow.
And then pain shot down his neck. The pain radiated down from his scalp, and when he tried to raise a hand to it, he found he could not. He tugged harder but his arms were bound behind him.
“God’s blood!”
“Oaths? A very poor use of language.”
Crispin jerked up his head. He searched vainly for the face that belonged to the male voice, but all he saw was dark and the bright spot of the candle flame.
“Would not a prayer be more appropriate to such a setting?”
“What setting? Am I in Hell?” Crispin asked half-heartedly, though once the question left his lips he worried over the answer.
The voice laughed. “No. Though you may think Hell preferable.”
“What is the use of such mummery? Unbind me.” Coming to his senses, Crispin took inventory of his numb body; hands tied behind him, each leg likewise fastened to the legs of the chair. His coat had been unbuttoned and pushed back over his shoulders, and his chemise had likewise been opened, his chest bared to the cold. What in heaven-? “Who are you? What do you want of me?”
“We are men who seek answers.”
“‘We’?”
“We will ask the questions. Understand?”
Before Crispin could reply, a whip lashed across his chest. The stinging pain rolled up and down his body. The back of his knees tingled and weakened.
“It is a simple question,” said the voice. “We want to know where it is.” Through his pain, Crispin detected the faint pinching of words, of a man cultivating very carefully how he spoke with the under layer of a French accent.
“Where ‘what’ is?”
The whip lashed out again and Crispin stiffened against the taut ropes. He blinked away the pain.
“Wrong answer.”
“How can I tell you if I don’t know what you seek?”
The whip slashed again, raising a wash of hot pain across the warming skin.
“You know very well what it is. We want it back, and if it means removing your flesh one strip at a time, then so be it.”
Crispin’s belly tightened. His head throbbed, and now his chest flamed with deep red welts. Soon he would lose the tenuous consciousness he fought to keep.
“It’s not too far,” he gasped. “I’ll get it for you.”
The voice came closer, speaking into his ear. “Where?”
“You’d never find it. I will have to show you.”
“Liar.” The whip slashed twice, catching him once across the throat. He choked on a gurgling breath before the candle’s brightness dimmed to a bronze haze.
“You must understand,” said the voice. “We have no desire to cause you harm.” He gave a low chuckle. “It is only a bonus.”
“What would you have me say?” Crispin gasped.
“Say anything at all,” said the cultivated voice. “But finally speak the truth, for it is the only thing that will keep you alive.”
“This thing you want. I am certain once I produce it, my life will be terminated. So what is the point?”