“So it would seem. But the sheriff will not be as understanding as I am.”
The defiance drained from her sharp features. “Then what are we to do?”
“I’m thinking.” He turned back toward the dead man, and then stared up at the window. “Why would he have cause to come down here?”
“He was drunk,” Livith offered.
“Or looking for someone, perhaps, and came to the wrong room.”
Livith followed his gaze to the window. She pointed. “The window. Someone could have shot him from there.”
Crispin examined the angle. “And yet it does not explain what he was doing in here.”
Livith turned to Grayce sitting in the bench. She knelt at her feet and placed her hands on Grayce’s knees. Her harsh voice gentled. “Now Grayce, you went and fetched this fine gentleman. You must tell us what happened.”
Grayce, who had calmed during Livith’s arrival, now arched forward with taut shoulders. Her hands curled into claws before her face. “I told him already.”
“No, love,” cooed Livith. “You didn’t tell him. You only made some cockeyed confession. Now you know you couldn’t have killed him. Ain’t that right?”
Grayce’s hands plunged into her hair. She matted it into a bird’s nest. “You’ve got me confused.”
“Now, now Grayce. Just tell the gentleman what happened.”
“Yes, Grayce.” Crispin tried to smile. “Just tell me.”
Grayce looked from one face to another. Her eyes rested at last on the body. “I killed him, that’s all. I killed him! Stop asking me!”
Livith grasped Grayce’s shoulders, opened her mouth, but said nothing. With an expelled breath of frustration, she released her and rose. “She can’t say nought. When she gets like this, there’s no getting through to her.”
Crispin stared at the girl. She clasped her arms and rocked herself, whimpering. Gracious Jesu. That wasn’t much to tell the sheriff, and Simon Wynchecombe was a man likely to hang them first and ask questions later. Unless he could manage to talk to the other sheriff, John More, first . . . No. The man deferred all unpleasant work to Wynchecombe. There was no getting around it. He sighed and looked at the dead man again. He knelt beside the body, grasped the courier pouch, and unbuckled its leather straps. Inside was a carved wooden box resembling a reliquary. He lifted it from the pouch and set it on the table.
Locked.
Crispin went back to the man and rummaged through his other pouches and purses. He found gold and silver coins, letters of passage in French, and a key. He scanned the letter, but it told him what he already surmised: the man, along with two others, was a courier for the French court and was to be given safe passage across France and England. Their intended destination was London. “Well,” he said to the corpse, “you’ve arrived.”
3
CRISPIN TOOK THE KEY to the box, fit it in the lock, and turned it. He lifted the box’s lid. Within sat another box made of gold, studded with gems. Livith stepped closer.
“Mary’s blessed dugs!” she whispered over his shoulder. “That’s solid gold, that!”
“I doubt it is solid gold,” said Crispin. But he felt as excited as any thief peering at the royal treasury. With both hands, he lifted the golden casket free of the wooden box and set it on the table.
“Was he killed for this?” she asked.
“If that is so, he was killed in vain.” The courier’s letter mentioned other companions and Crispin wondered about those men. Where were they? Also dead? Or perhaps simply guilty of murder.
“Could he have been shot outside and made his way in here?”
Crispin glanced along the earthen floor to the entry and saw no blood, no scrapings of staggering steps along the dirt. “The evidence does not bear it out.” He grasped the lid and opened. The box was lined in red velvet. In its center indentation sat a wreath made of rushes woven in a decorative pattern of diamonds and zigzags. Large black thorns were thrust here and there within the rush circlet, some three to four inches long. Crispin ran a finger along one of the pronged spikes. “Curious.”
“What is it?”
“I have no idea. It looks like some sort of circlet . . . with thorns. Very unpleasant.”
“A crown of thorns?”
“Crown of thorns?” He looked at her. “You may be right.”
“Not the Crown of Thorns?” She took a step back, grasping her patched skirt with chapped fingers.
“No, but possibly a crown of thorns, used for feast days.” He closed the lid and ran his hand over the gold and gems. He picked it up again, replaced it into the wooden box, put that back into the courier bag, and slung it over his shoulder.
“Here! What are you going to do with that?” Livith’s hands gestured toward the pouch, fingers moving, grasping.
That much gold would be a king’s ransom to the likes of her. Come to think of it, the same would be true for me. “If it’s any business of yours, I’m taking it for safekeeping. As for him—” He glanced back at the dead man. “I will have to call in the sheriff.”
“But he’ll arrest Grayce!”
Grayce leapt up and threw her arms about Livith.
“She is surely innocent,” said Crispin. “I can make the sheriff see that.”
“But I’m not!” she cried between sobs. “I shot him.”
Livith glared up at Crispin. “What will the sheriff make of that?”
Crispin sighed. He pictured Wynchecombe’s face. “I’m afraid he’ll hang her.” Grayce wailed and Livith tried to calm her with cooing sounds. She held Grayce’s shoulders and rocked her.
Crispin rubbed his stubbled chin and considered. The first priority was to get Grayce the hell out of here, but he couldn’t take both women back to his lodgings. His landlord’s harridan of a wife would raise the devil.
He thought about his dry throat and decided a trip to the Boar’s Tusk was in order.
* * *
CRISPIN LEFT THE WOMEN alone to survey the yard, looking for clues that did not materialize. The women gathered their meager belongings quickly and soon joined him. They set out toward the Shambles in silence, but it didn’t last. Livith dragged Grayce behind her. “God’s teeth, be still, Grayce! You’re wearing me out!” Grayce’s cries fell silent except for an occasional sniffle. Livith left Grayce to shuffle along in the mud behind while Livith trotted up to Crispin, boldly appraising him. “Where are we going?”
He didn’t like Livith’s tone or her constant use of foul language. She was the lowest kind of wench, little better than a whore. “A friend of mine owns a tavern,” he said. “He’ll hire you both and give you lodgings. It’s temporary until all this blows over.”
“Just like that. No asking us what we’d sarding like?”
Crispin stopped. Livith ran into him before she could stop herself. He leaned toward her and scowled. “Are you actually ungrateful? You do recall I’m saving your hides, and with very little hope of remuneration for my effort.”
She nodded to the parcel slung over his shoulder. “Looks like you got plenty right there.”
“The gold box? It does not belong to me. Nor to you, so get those ideas out of your head.”
She steadied her gaze on his face and stood so close he felt her fiery breath on his lips. He was angry, but staring at her at such close range made him rethink the situation. Her heavy brows seemed on first glance unattractive, but such bold strokes served to give her face more expression and animation. Her mouth was small but possessed a certain tartness a fuller set of lips lacked—though he feared she would open that mouth again and he’d have to endure a string of unwholesome taunts.