“I do not know what London is coming to,” said Gilbert, his voice slurring. The both of them finished the jug in no time. Fortunately, Ned had poked his head out earlier, and now approached with what looked like another full jug.
“Ned, my boy,” said Gilbert. “Bless you. You know us too well.”
“As does Mistress Eleanor,” said Ned. He wore a patched cap and a stained apron. “She warned me she’d box me ears if I didn’t send Master Crispin home soon.”
Crispin eyed the jug critically. “I think much can be accomplished in that time, Ned.”
It was Gilbert who took up the jug, saluted to the retreating Ned, and poured more into each of their bowls.
“Now, I’ve always said. . . .” said Gilbert, leaning precariously toward Crispin as he poured. The jug’s spout barely teetered over the bowl. Crispin pulled his leg out of the way to avoid a drenching. Gilbert laughed. “Whoops. Perhaps this shall be my last bowl.”
“Perhaps it should be,” said Crispin, though his own words weren’t as crisp as when they’d started.
Gilbert thumbed the rim of his bowl. “What was I saying?” He stared at Crispin with a lopsided expression. “Oh yes!” His eyes suddenly brightened and he sloshed his wine when he sat up. “I’ve always said what a clever man you are. You will not let this murderer go free.”
“I thought I had found him tonight. But it might be that I . . . I was wrong.” Even the drink did not take the sting out of it. He drank but it did not numb the irritation he felt for Julian. But it was more than irritation. His emotions seemed all over the map. He could not reconcile his feelings in this instance. He wanted to throttle the young man, to be sure, but there was something else about him.
He laughed at himself and drank. Too much of this had softened his well-earned frustration with the youth. He had not wanted relief from that but from the other strange tidings today: of the secret Jews and the murdered servant, plainly killed by the same monster that slew those boys.
Monster. Was there not a monster on the loose? That strange being that was more demon than man? Had he not seen him with his own eyes? And Jack. He had seen it, too. Dare he call it a Golem?
He raised his head. It felt muzzier than it had before. With a serious tone that came out a bit more slurred than he would have liked, Crispin said, “Gilbert, be warned. Do not let your own out after dark.”
Gilbert blinked at him. “After dark? As a matter of course, we have no cause. Except to the kitchens.”
“Even to go outside to the privy. Stay within.”
“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!”