Crispin and Jack pushed the passersby out of the way and led them, by the boy’s guidance, to the house in mourning.
Crispin didn’t know why he followed them in, but he was ushered along with some of the other neighbors and they all found themselves squeezed through the door of the humble dwelling and watching the priest administer the bread of Christ to the dying girl.
She was thin and wan, lying on a pallet bed. She could be little more than eight or nine. Breathing shallowly, she could barely take the Host between her lips, but a woman Crispin took to be her mother propped the lolling head on her thigh and with great gentleness brushed back the lank hair from her perspiring forehead. Her body was convulsing, and foam pooled at the corners of her mouth. When her eyes rolled back and her body gave a great heave, she suddenly stilled and the woman sitting above the girl, head cradled in her lap, began to weep.
“She went with Christ,” the priest declared. “She took the Host and renounced Satan. She squeezed my hand to tell me so.” He signed a benediction over her sunken form and then another over the weeping mother and sad-eyed father. The boy who had brought the priest gave the cleric a cup of ale and a coin and thanked him wearily for coming. He did not look well himself, with dark circles around his eyes and a yellow pallor to his skin. His thin fingers clutched at his belly as if it pained him.
The old man drank the proffered ale, bowed to them, and set the beaker aside before he shuffled toward the door, shaking his head.
“Such sadness,” he said as he passed under the lintel. Crispin met him outside, allowing more neighbors to crowd in. They offered bread and jugs of ale to the family. “It was only yesterday that I offered the last sacraments for their little boy.”
“Two deaths in two days?” asked Crispin.
“It is the way of it sometimes,” he said, pocketing his coin. “Tragedy often compounds upon tragedy.”
“The boy in there, he does not look well. What illness is it that has taken their children?”
“I do not know. It is not like any illness I have seen before. Usually, there are signs. But these came on suddenly. Much as the others in the parish.”
“Others?”
“Yes. Yesterday it was an old woman and an old man. And the day before a young boy and his grandfather in another parish. Little signs of illness in the rest of the family, though some were briefly ill. But by my Lady, I know what a plague is and this looks nothing like it. They died very quickly after feeling weak and unwell. But very painfully.”
“Odd. And what of the sick families? Did they succumb?”
“No, they said that they dosed themselves with garlic and thick pottage.”
“Only the very young and the old died? Any in swaddling?”
“No, none, thank the Virgin. I have seen plenty in all my years, Master. Many ways that men die.”
“But this does strike you strangely.”
The priest put up his hood and shivered when a cold wind swept down the lane. “Yes. It has the foul stench of the demon’s work about it. Witchcraft, striking the innocent. There is a preacher that has been going about the city proclaiming loudly of the sin and corruption of the soul. He says that witchcraft and the works of Satan are nigh. Those foul symbols. They should be scratched off when they are discovered.”
“Symbols? Do you think they have to do with these illnesses? How can that be?”
“It is the way of God’s mystery that is beyond our ken, good Master. If I see another of those foul Devil’s marks, I shall eradicate them!”
“I wish you would not.”
“Eh? What? Preserve the signs of Satan himself? Let him get a foothold in our city, smiting the young and the old?”
“I am investigating something, my lord. Something equally heinous. They might help me. They might be a clue to what I need to discover and who I need to bring to justice.”
His eyes scanned Crispin and then fell on Jack. “Are you … are you by any chance that fellow they call the Tracker?”
“Yes, my lord. Crispin Guest.”
“Blessed Mother. I have heard strange tales of you. A onetime traitor who purges himself by serving the people of England. A new Robin Hood. Strange tales indeed.… I’ve also heard that you were the friend of the abbot of Westminster.”
“Yes to all of that. Will you help me? Will you tell me the other places you have seen these symbols?”
“What is it you are after, man?”
“A murderer, perhaps. One of flesh and blood.”
“I see. Then yes, I will help you, of course.”
“Take my apprentice here. His name is Jack Tucker.” Jack bowed. “Jack, see that this kind father makes his way home safely.”
“Yes, Master Crispin. My lord? Lead me.”
Crispin watched them go, thinking. These illnesses did not sound like a plague to him, at least not any plague he had ever heard of. The young and the old had fallen. But no one of middle years. And no infants. And those who fell ill seemed to recover with a quick remedy. As he’d watched that young girl die, his mind had brushed against the notion of poison, but it was a fleeting thought. Foolish. What and who would poison so many different unrelated people? He dismissed it as unreasonable.
A bell chimed from the nearby church, and soon each one sounded in every parish of London, echoing, calling to one another like ravens in the trees. Vespers.
Too many mysteries. His plate was already full with a murdered apprentice and a missing woman. These symbols might have to do with it, but of that he wasn’t certain. He needed to seek out that preacher. If only Crispin were two people!
He suddenly thought of Lenny, the nearly toothless beggar and thief he had used many a time to help in his investigations. A farthing would go a long way with Lenny, but Crispin also recalled that they had had a falling-out. Crispin had been fed up with Lenny’s thieving ways and threatened him with the law … and more.
He reached back and pulled his leather hood up over his head, securing it in place. Standing in the middle of the emptying street, he wondered what to do, which way to go. Back to Flamel’s? To Avelyn? To the Boar’s Tusk for a much-needed drink, bite of food, and warmth? Back home, where he might ponder these strange events?
It was late. Home won out, and he made his way back to the Shambles but paused when he turned the corner at Cheap and saw a horse tied up below his stairs. The owner of the horse might be visiting the tinker, his landlord, Martin Kemp, whose shop lay below his lodgings. But it was a fine horse with an even finer tack, and he did not think such men patronized a lowly tinker on the Shambles.
He girded himself and climbed his stairs. The door was open, which meant his landlord had let the person in. Cautiously he pushed on the door with his foot, and it whined, falling back.
Henry Bolingbroke was there with more fuel in and beside Crispin’s fireplace. His smile was not as broad as it had been before, but he beckoned Crispin in.
“Crispin. By God, you are seldom here! Come in. We have much to talk about.”
11
Crispin stood at the door, leaning against it. “Have you come to confess?”
Henry did not look as stern as he had a day ago. But his smile did not reach his eyes. “You’re an impudent knave. Have you always been so? Is that what my father liked about you?”
“Your father-his grace the duke-was fond of me for my loyalty and perseverance.” He pushed away from the door, glanced at the new stack of wood piled by the hearth, at the haunch of what smelled like lamb roasting over his fire, and turned to Henry with his thumbs thrust in his belt. “We also confided in one another … after a fashion. Why are you here?”
Henry had the decency to look abashed, but only slightly. “I treated you badly yesterday, Crispin. I never meant to do that.”
“I do tend to bring out the worst in people.”
“Nonsense. I was out of sorts and you caught me off guard. A foolish thing to be caught at in these times.” He raised his face. Contrition was written all over it. “Please sit with me.”