He had rested enough and was ready to depart until he saw a cluster of small children running up to the cistern. Each took a drink from the ladle that was there and then let it fall again into the font. One of the children, the smallest, wasn’t running as fast as the others and had to stop to catch his breath before he hurried to keep up. He did not look well.
A notion struck Crispin. A foul, diabolical notion. He looked back at the water carriers trudging to their duties. Others, maids and housewives, also moved under the burden of heavy buckets or skins swollen with chilled water from the cistern.
No.
Crispin leapt to his feet and ran back the way he had come, knocked on the doors of the grieving houses he had only just visited to ask one question: Which cistern did they use to get their water?
Each section of London had its own cistern. There was the Standard down Cheap, where Crispin got his water, and the Mercery near the hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, and the Tun up Cornhill way, and numerous other smaller cisterns and conduits. Some of the wealthier patrons even had running water through pipes, a rare innovation stolen from the ancient Romans, as Crispin had seen in his younger days in Bath and in Lancaster’s castles.
But the three families afflicted used the water from the Tun. Crispin looked down at the parchment in his hand. Unmindful of the stares, he raced down the lane in search of the others.
His suspicions were confirmed. All the families with losses had partaken of the cistern at the Tun. And only those who most frequently drank of the water-the youngsters and a few elderly-took sick and died. Babes in swaddling and toddlers did not, for they suckled at their mother’s breasts. And the rest of the family consumed ale.
As diabolical as it seemed, someone had poisoned the cistern.
14
Crispin stood in the lane, a sense of helplessness dragging at his limbs. How could he stop such a horrific scheme? To whom could he go?
He thought of Henry but did not know how to find him. The sheriffs, then. His only hope in the matter.
He trotted toward Newgate, weaving in and out among the people along the busy avenue and up and around alleyways. When he arrived at last to the stone gate, he straightened his clothes and dusted the snow from his shoulders. His feet were wet and cold, but there was nothing to be done. He approached the two guards and nodded to them. “Are the sheriffs in?”
One of the serjeants, Tom Merton, cocked back his kettle helm. He looked Crispin insolently up and down. He well knew that the majority of the sheriffs that passed through these doors did not favor Crispin’s presence.
“Why do you want to know, Guest?”
“Because I have important information to impart to them. Why else would I ever have cause to be here?”
“Well, you never know,” he said, picking his teeth with his dagger. “You are known to be a man to cause mischief.”
Crispin let the matter slide. He knew better than to engage the sheriffs’ henchmen. They were more brawn than brain.
“Are they in?” he tried again.
“To you? Not likely.” He sheathed his dagger and spit on the ground before Crispin’s boots. Stubbornly, he leaned on his pike and blocked the entrance. The other, Wendell Smythe, just as blunt-faced as his companion and standing by the brazier, laughed behind Crispin’s back.
“Masters, may I please pass? It is urgent that I speak with them.”
“Urgent, he says, like we are supposed to wait on him,” said Tom to the other.
“I am not asking you to wait on me or even announce me. I merely ask for permission to pass.”
Wendell joined Tom at the entrance. “But it is our duty to guard the way,” he said, elbowing Tom. “We can’t let just any knave through, scumming up the place.”
Crispin eyed the both of them with a sneer. “Too late.”
As soon as he said it, he knew it had been a bad idea. Tom growled and swung his fist. Crispin ducked but jabbed upward into the man’s belly. Tom doubled over, but his companion tried to grab Crispin and managed to shove him up against the wall. Wendell tried for a gut punch, but Crispin rolled out of the way in time for the serjeant to deliver his blow to the stone wall. He yowled and spun away, clutching his injured hand.
By then, Tom had recovered and remembered he had a weapon. He grabbed the pike and aimed the point at Crispin’s midsection, drawing it back to strike. The spear point jabbed and Crispin jumped out of the way at the last moment. The iron point clanged against a stone column instead. Recovering, he stabbed toward Crispin again, but Crispin sidestepped nimbly out of the way.
Crispin grabbed the pike’s staff and swung it wide, while Tom, still clutching it, slammed against the wall. Tom tried to wrestle it from Crispin’s grasp … and kept getting smashed into the wall for his trouble.
“By all the saints, what is going on here?”
Tom froze, with Crispin holding tight to the pointed end of the pike. “Crispin Guest,” Tom snarled in explanation, as if that were all the reason anyone needed for violence.
Sheriff William Venour made a sound of disgust. “Guest. I should have known. God’s wounds! Why do you vex us? What sin have we committed to be so abused by you?”
“Call off your serjeant, my lord. I merely come for your help. It is your duty.”
The sheriff did not look as if he would comply, but after a moment that went on far too long, he finally motioned for Tom to put away his weapon. Crispin released his hold of it. Venour glared at the other serjeant, who was still nursing his hand. “What happened to you?”
Wendell motioned with a jerk of his head toward Crispin.
“Fools and incompetents. I am surrounded by fools and incompetents. Come, Guest.” The sheriff turned up the stairs and didn’t look back.
Crispin kept a careful eye on Tom, who had lowered his spear but did not relinquish it. He followed the sheriff upward to the parlor, past a wizened clerk scratching on a parchment by lantern light, and into the warm room.
Sheriff William took a seat behind a large table, with bulky round legs carved and scrolled with leaves and vines. Sheriff Hugh was nowhere in sight.
He did not offer Crispin a chair as he folded his hands over his pouched belly and looked down his long nose, ginger mustache twitching. “Well?”
Crispin took a breath. “My Lord Sheriff, I have discovered a plot that has left twenty-five of London’s citizens dead.”
He jolted to his feet. “What?”
“Twenty-five at last count, my lord. I do not know how many more there might have been or might be in the future if you do not act.”
“Me? What can I do?”
“You must close the cistern at the Tun. It is poisoned.”
“Poisoned? What utter nonsense is this, Guest?” He passed a hand over his face and sat again. “God’s toes, you had me worried for a moment. Poisoned indeed! Is this another ploy to extort a fee from this office? I have heard of your tricks. This is foul, even for you.”
Hands on the table, Crispin leaned in toward the man, much closer than he would have liked. “I am not lying. The cistern is poisoned and children have died. More will die unless you shut the cistern.”
“Your imagination astounds me. What next, I wonder? French spies creeping into our houses to slit our throats? I suppose it’s the French poisoning the wells, then, correct? I receive reports all the time from hysterical fishwives, thinking a Frenchman is hiding in their cellars. They blame the French now for souring their milk or when their horse goes lame. The French are the new boggart. Begone, Guest. I’m sick of you.”
“Lord Sheriff, I entreat you. Do not dismiss me. More people will die. I don’t know whether it is a French plot or not, but it is there nonetheless.”
“Where’s your proof, Guest?”
“I have spoken to Father Edmund of St. Aelred’s parish, and he had ministered to the families of these children. They died suddenly and hideously. No one else in the house was affected. Don’t you see? Only children who regularly drank water were affected. Not babes that suckled, and not older ones who drank ale.”