“What? But why?”
“Demons are afoot, Gilbert. And I do not say this lightly. I do not know what prowls London’s streets these nights, but I fear for its citizens. Do not go out after dark.”
Gilbert stared at him, his jaw hanging. It took a moment, but he slowly closed it and nodded, fear shining though the wine glaze in his eyes.
Crispin leaned in. “There is no reason to tell Eleanor. I would not cause her undue anxiety.”
“Anxiety about what?” asked Eleanor.
Crispin jumped three feet at least. He pressed a hand to his racing heart. “God’s blood, woman! Must you creep up on a man?”
She smiled and folded her arms over her generous bosom. “Sometimes it is the best way.” She eyed the wine jugs sitting before them. “The hour is late, Gilbert. I think the two of you had best bid your farewells.”
“Can’t a man gossip with his friend, Eleanor?” He swung his arm over Crispin’s shoulder, an overfriendly gesture he would never have attempted when sober.
“Now I am certain you are in your cups. Come now. Up, husband. Let Master Crispin to his bed.”
“I’m not sleepy, Nell,” said Crispin and then stifled a yawn.
“Indeed not.” She pulled the large tavern keeper to his feet. “And neither is this fellow. Which is why his lids droop and his step slackens. The two of you! Adolescents. Go home, Crispin.”
“Home,” he muttered and stood. As soon as he did his vision slanted. Ah. Just right.
Ned arrived and Eleanor surrendered Gilbert to him. She took Crispin’s arm and escorted him to the door. “Mayhap you will come to Christmas dinner this year. Do we have to serve it in such an ungodly hour for you to accept our invitation?”
“Christmas.” Crispin was not so drunk that he would capitulate so easily. “I will think on it,” he said with no intention of doing so.
“Aye. I’ll wager you will.” Eleanor was not fooled. Damnable woman.
She propped him against the wall as she lifted the beam that barred the door. She made to open it but the door slipped out of her hands. She gave a little shriek just as Jack Tucker poked his head in. He stuck dirty fingertips into his ears. “Hold, woman! You’ll make me deaf!”
“Jack,” said Crispin, relieved. He needed someone to lean on for the journey home.
Jack looked Crispin over and smirked at Eleanor. “Right drunk, ain’t he?”
She nodded. “As a pickled crabapple.”
Crispin’s foggy brain tried to feel affronted. All he could summon was, “What are you doing here, Jack?”
“Looking for you.”
“I would have come home anon.”
“I ain’t been home.”
Crispin struggled out of the boy’s grasp. Eleanor placed a hand on her hip. She seemed to be wrestling with the notion of pushing them out or hustling them back in.
“Jack! I sent you home hours ago!”
Jack smiled. It was the most insincere thing about him. “I didn’t go. I got a notion. About that Golem, sir.”
Eleanor frowned at them but Jack’s words seemed to decide it. She closed the door and replaced the beam, then shooed them toward the fire. “Well, you might as well sit down if you are to have a discussion. And what, pray, is a ‘Golem’?”
Jack sat but then shifted forward on his seat. “Oh Mistress! It is a foul monster!”
“Jack,” warned Crispin.
“A fiend who stalks the night. We seen him. Master Crispin and me.”
“Jack. . ”
“He was huge and awful. Murdering boys and such with his bare hands-”
“JACK!”
Jack turned mildly toward Crispin. “Aye? What is it?”
The worst had been done. It couldn’t now be unsaid. Crispin sat back. “Never mind.”
“Well then.” Jack licked his lips, staring anxiously at the discarded wine bowls. Eleanor pushed the jug decidedly away toward the other end of the table. With a sigh, Jack gripped the table’s edge. “There is this Jew physician at the palace-oh!” He turned a sheepish expression toward Crispin. “Was I supposed to keep that part a secret?”
Crispin waved his hand and settled back, resting his chin on his chest. “I have no secrets, apparently.”
Jack blinked. “Well.” He looked at Eleanor who urged him on with a gesture. “And so, there is this Jew and he lost some parchments. But they were magical parchments because some whoreson-beggin’ your pardon, Mistress-used them to summon this demon.”
She gasped. “Oh Crispin! Is this true?”
With eyes closed, he waved his head as vaguely as he could. Eleanor took this as an affirmative and Jack as a cue to continue. “They’re made out of clay, these Golems, and the demon somehow goes into the clay body, see. And then it tromps all over London at night, killing what he wills.”
Crispin snorted, barely awake at this point. “Jack, you’re getting it quite wrong.”
“No, I ain’t. It’s killing boys is what it is. And worse!”
Eleanor planted her chin on her hand. “What do you mean by ‘worse’?”
“Eleanor!” said Crispin. “For Christ sake.”
“Very well,” she said, waving him off. “Did you encounter it? How did you get away?”
“It was a fair pace from us. We tried to follow the beast but it was a slick piece of work. Got clean away every time Master Crispin chased it.”
Her eyes flicked to Crispin. “You gave chase?”
“He did,” answered Jack proudly. “He don’t fear nought, does Master Crispin.”
“Only your loose tongue,” he grumbled.
“And so, this night, when Master Crispin sent me home-”
“Where you should have gone!”
“I got m’self an idea. This Golem is made of clay, ain’t it? And me and Master Crispin saw the bits of clay for ourselves, didn’t we? So I thought to m’self, ‘Where can a body get that much clay?’ ”
Crispin suddenly sat up. Not quite sober but not quite as drowsy as before, Crispin stared dumbfounded at his charge. “Jack! You are a genius!”
Jack sat back with a wide grin and laced his fingers behind his head. “I know.”
13
It took some time for Jack to convince Crispin to come home to sleep and see about the clay on the morrow. Climbing the narrow stairway to their lodgings, Crispin had almost tumbled down the stairs, but Jack’s steady arm prevented his breaking his neck. He was grateful in the long run to settle into his bed, the scratchy blanket tucked under his chin, while Jack covered the embers with ashes. Crispin imagined himself to be warm, but he knew it was only due to his inebriated state.
But now that the morning had come, and with it the sharp lance of light piercing the shutters and the raucous clang of iron kettle against clay cauldron, he could no longer appreciate his perceived comfort. Not when his head felt leaden, swollen, and like a pot on an anvil, being beaten upon by an unsteady tinker.
“Jack,” he moaned. “Can’t you be quiet?”
“Sorry, Master,” said Jack heartily. “But it is morn and you said last night that we must get an early start. The water is almost hot for your shave and the peas porridge is ready when you want it.”
He offered Crispin a wooden bowl of ale. Crispin sat up and glared at it. “Where did you get this?”
“Master Kemp brought it up this morning. He heard how you were feeling poorly and said this was a good remedy.”
“I have only just awakened. How did he know I would be feeling poorly?”
“Well, when I came across him this morning I might have mentioned about how you were. . last night.”
Crispin did not question it further. He downed the ale and smacked his lips. It wasn’t enough to take off the edge but it was better than nothing.
Jack took Crispin’s cloak and draped it over his master’s shoulders as he hunched in the bed, trying to keep warm. The boy next pressed the bowl of porridge into his hand and Crispin drank the warm liquid. He wiped his mouth and handed the bowl back to the boy, who scooped up a helping for himself and sipped at it. “Your water, sir.”
Crispin muttered to himself as he slid out of the bed, the straw in the mattress crunching under him. He wrapped the end of his cloak over the kettle’s handle and poured some of the steamy water into a basin and took that to the shelf under a bit of shiny brass nailed to a post. He lathered his chin with a soap cake and hoped the razor was sharp enough. He ignored his shaky hand and did the best he could. He scrubbed his teeth with a finger and the leftover water, and spit it back into the basin.