“Saint Thomas Becket’s King Henry?”
“The very same. My ancestor was Welsh but fought for England, thus becoming his own enemy. Or so the story goes.”
“How come you don’t wear your ring no more-anymore, sir?”
“You know why, Jack.”
“But I don’t, sir. You’ve still a right to it. No one else’s name is Guest. It’s yours and will always be so. It’s your family, sir. And you weren’t no bastard. The king can’t do that to you, now can he?”
Crispin sighed. “‘Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.’” He stared at his feet. “My name is my name, true, and he cannot take that away. But what good is a blazon without a proper dynasty? No, they are better kept safe in their not-so-secret hiding place.”
He handed Jack the sword and straightened his coat. He raised his head to take in the chapel and the nave beyond it. “I wonder what business Geoffrey had in the cathedral.” He did not see the poet and when he moved past the pilgrims poised in rapt attention around the shrine, he did not see him in the south aisle either. But something in the aisle did catch his attention. His careful steps toward it soon became a trotting run.
He heard Jack’s footfalls behind him and then the muffled clang of the sword dropping on the tiled floor. Crispin bent over the dark lump of clothes that wasn’t a lump of clothes at all. A monk lay on the floor and an all-too-familiar dark pool grew around him. He turned the body and saw the young white face of Brother Wilfrid, quite dead.
9
“It’s Brother Wilfrid!” whispered Jack. His fingers dug into Crispin’s shoulder as he leaned over to stare at the dead monk. “God help us.” He crossed himself.
Crispin pulled the dagger free and a small amount of blood oozed from the wound in the monk’s throat. He stared at the knife and its bejeweled pommel, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. It was a very familiar dagger. A dagger he’d given as a gift to one of his very dear friends some fifteen years ago. He raised his face and was suddenly aware of people running and then a woman screamed.
He drew back, barely aware that he was pushed aside by many hands, all reaching for the monk. Soon a crowd clustered around the becassocked form and Crispin was vaguely aware of Jack pulling him completely out of the way and under the shelter of a shadowing alcove. “Master Crispin,” he whispered. “Come, sir. Snap out of it.” The sword’s pommel smacked Crispin on the side of the head and he glared at Jack. Tucker retracted the sword and nodded. “Thought that would bring you round.”
“It’s impossible.”
Jack raised the sword again and Crispin blocked it with his hand. “There’s no need for that. It’s just … I know this knife.”
“It’s Chaucer’s, ain’t it?” Jack’s rasping voice dropped to a deadly tenor. All of Crispin’s muddled emotions were mirrored on Jack’s face: betrayal, rage, vengeance. Jack whirled toward the pilgrims, his bottled energy thrown outward. He waved the sword at them, moving them back. He ordered a monk to get the archbishop, and he patrolled the body like a Centurion, letting no one near it.
The archbishop arrived with Dom Thomas Chillenden and Brother Martin. Courtenay stood over the monk and murmured a prayer before he raised his eyes to Crispin. There was no Christian charity within them. “The church will be closed,” he announced, but his eyes were still fixed on Crispin. “A despicable crime has occurred on this most holy ground. We will need to reconsecrate. Send the pilgrims away.” Dom Thomas nodded and moved to comply. More monks came running, one carrying a bier.
“Master Guest,” said the archbishop. “You are to come with me.”
He followed Courtenay like a condemned man walking to the gallows. Jack followed close behind, handling the sword like a club. Was this death his fault, too? Was his old friend guilty? Even when Brother Wilfrid told him the facts, he hadn’t believed it had any bearing on this case. How could it? But there was no question that Wilfrid had been frightened of Geoffrey.
Courtenay pushed open the door to his chamber and slammed the table with his hand. The candlestick wobbled. “Blessed Mother of God!” He whirled. His reddened face scowled. “What have you brought to my church? Death and more death follows in your wake, Guest.”
He fisted the dagger and pressed it tight to his thigh. “I am not the cause of these deaths, your Excellency. Indeed, I am trying to discover the culprit-”
Jack pitched forward out of the shadows. “But you know who killed Wilfrid!” he cried.
Crispin whipped around to glare at the trembling boy. Jack’s pale face reddened with anger.
Courtenay postured. “So! A conspiracy, is it?”
“No conspiracy,” growled Crispin. “The evidence is conditional. I do not believe-”
“It matters very little to me, Guest, what you believe.” He looked at the dagger in Crispin’s hand for the first time. “This killed Wilfrid?”
“Yes, but-”
“Curse you, Guest! Do I throw you into gaol?”
He lowered his head, took a breath, then another. His hand whitened on the knife’s grip. Damn Jack! He’d given him no time to think. Slowly he raised the weapon and showed it to Courtenay. “This is the dagger.” He placed it on Courtenay’s table. “It belongs to … to Geoffrey Chaucer.”
Courtenay threw his shoulders back and Crispin scowled to see a small smile crack the archbishop’s lips. “Indeed. Master Chaucer, eh? Well, well. Yes. I think it time to call in the sheriff.”
“My lord, I cannot imagine an instance when Master Chaucer would resort to murder of a monk. It is impossible!”
“Clearly not, Master Guest, for the evidence is before us. Our very dear brother has been foully murdered in the church. It is likely he also killed the Prioress.”
“It isn’t likely at all! My lord, you must listen-”
“I remember well the trial, Master Guest,” Courtenay trumpeted. “Master Chaucer was most eloquent when he testified. He made a very convincing case on behalf of that scoundrel Bonefey. Even I was tempted to be persuaded toward the Franklin’s cause. But Chaucer was so infested with Lollard platitudes that I was swayed from his startling rhetoric and supported Madam Eglantine’s view instead. How full of ire he was at the trial’s end. I witnessed for myself how he stalked up to her and without remorse for his inelegant actions, tore into her reserve with a string of foul invectives.”
“I cannot believe-”
“Believe it! I was there.” His eyes shone with a bitterness that took Crispin aback. “Oh he was charming and light, oozing his eloquence, but he used his tongue like a knife to cut her down. And only a year later … well. It was an actual sword he used in the end.”
Crispin’s mind paused. For the tiniest fraction, he considered the archbishop’s words. This was a side of Geoffrey he knew well. He could, indeed, cut a man or woman down to size with words, all the while saying it with a smile. Sometimes the target of his attack was not even aware of the infliction of wounds until it was too late, so clever was he. And it had been a full eight years since he had set eyes on Chaucer. It came as a great shock when he discovered Geoffrey served as a spy for the king. He knew that Geoffrey was a man reaching to better himself and skilled at finding his opportunities. When his sister-in-law became Lancaster’s mistress, he exploited that relationship to his advantage, and when he lived in Lancaster’s household with Crispin he sought every opportunity. Yes, Crispin remembered well how Chaucer elevated himself with dealings he thought at the time clever. But looking back, they had the smell of cunning with an undercurrent of deceit.
Courtenay was still talking and Crispin raised his head to catch the last. “… Come, Guest. Even your own man here will not defend Chaucer. Don’t get yourself mixed up in it. You’ve had enough troubles.”
“His Excellency is right,” said Jack.