Crispin’s rage ballooned and he took three steps, reached for Jack, and dragged him forward. “You don’t know what you are talking about. You are to keep silent, curse you!”
Jack’s eyes enlarged with fear but he raised his chin as much as he could with Crispin’s hand fisting his shirt. “I can’t keep silent when I see you on the wrong side of the law, sir,” he said, voice unsteady. “Maybe I have no right to speak, Master, but you are always telling me of justice and weighing consequences. You live by this rule, sir. How could you go on if you threw it away?”
He glared at Jack so hard his eyes watered.
“If Master Chaucer is innocent,” said Jack softly, “then let him prove it. Let him answer the charges. That is justice, sir. Or does it only concern those who are not your friends?”
“You found his dagger in our poor Wilfrid,” said Courtenay from a distance. Crispin suddenly remembered the archbishop was there. “You will arrest him and bring him to the sheriff. You will do your best to find him. Is that clear?”
Crispin clenched his eyes shut. It must be done. Geoffrey had to answer for these charges. “Yes, Excellency,” he said between gritted teeth. He opened his eyes and glanced at Jack. Slowly, he lowered him and released his shirt. Jack straightened his tunic and stepped back, red-faced.
Weary. Crispin felt it in his bones. Too many betrayals, too many lies. Lancaster was one thing. He was almost a king himself, so far above him now that he might as well be a beggar. But Chaucer! Chaucer was below him in status-was below. No longer. But he had been his dearest friend. How could Geoffrey have lied so cavalierly to him?
He wanted dearly to be home or at least at the inn, smothered under the blankets. But he made no move to leave. He stared instead at the stained-glass window and its depiction of Thomas à Becket with his monks. They clustered around him, their hands uplifted, their faces blank but adoring.
“Brother Wilfrid spoke of a disagreement with his fellow brothers,” said Crispin hoarsely.
“Did he?” Courtenay sat and leaned his head back against the carved wood.
“Yes. He said they told him not to come to me, that it was something they wanted to keep quiet. Do you know what that might be?”
“If you will recall, Master Guest, this was the reason I called for you in the first place: I believe one of my monks is a secret Lollard.”
“Yes. Or more than one. I need to speak with them.”
“But if Master Chaucer is your culprit-”
“I explore all avenues, Excellency, not merely the easy ones. I presume that is why you called for me. I get results.”
Courtenay’s smile was wry. “Then what do you propose? They will tell you nothing if you question them.”
“I don’t know.” He pressed a hand to his throbbing head. His jaw still hurt where he was struck and Jack’s insolence and Chaucer’s lies were giving him a supreme headache. “Perhaps disguise myself as a monk and blend with them, interrogate by listening.”
Courtenay shook his head. “They’ve already seen you. They know what you look like and who you are.”
Crispin nodded. “Yes. Curse it. But it’s still a good idea. What I need is someone they have not yet seen.” He walked to the far wall, wishing the monks hadn’t seen his face. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. He paced, wondering just how he was going to interrogate them when the idea hit him square in the forehead. He stopped and slowly pivoted toward Jack.
Courtenay turned his eyes to Jack, too, and Jack looked from Crispin to Courtenay, suddenly nervous. He pulled at his collar and asked a meek “What?” with a wince as if he already knew the answer.
10
“Your Latin is good. Good enough for a young man in a monastery.” Crispin ushered Jack hurriedly through the street, but Jack resisted each step.
“I won’t do it, Master Crispin. Why won’t you listen to me?”
“I’m serving justice, remember?”
Jack crossed himself. Crispin shoved him forward. “Curse them words for ever leaving me mouth.”
“‘Those words for ever leaving my mouth,’” he corrected.
“What difference does it make? No one will ever believe that I am a m-monk.”
“People will believe anything you tell them as long as it is dressed in the proper form. A beggar can be a king … and vice versa. That’s why we seek a tailor. Ah!”
A wooden sign painted with a golden scissors wobbled in the breeze under a thatched eave. He tried to push Jack forward but the boy dug in his heels.
“Master Crispin! Wait! Now have a care. I’ll foul it up, you know I will. I haven’t got the sense you’ve got. Someone will find me out and then all will be lost. Don’t force me to it, sir, I beg you!”
Crispin rested an arm on the shop’s doorframe and leaned over Jack. “You are the one who spoke of justice.”
“Aye, I know it. But justice for you!”
“Justice is justice-for me, for you. For those poor souls who lost their lives in the cathedral. They must have it. I personally do not believe Geoffrey is guilty, but … My good sense in these matters of former friends and lords…” He sighed. “I must admit to a certain lapse in judgment of late. I need this information if only to eliminate the wrong path. I know you can do it. Don’t you remember telling me only last year you could never learn to read or write? How many languages can you read now?”
“Three, sir. Almost four.”
“True, your Greek is rusty, but you will improve. You’ve a head for it. Faith, Jack, with your learning you may be the most highly educated monk there.”
Jack considered, his mouth drawn down in a frown. “Do you truly think so?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Jack glanced at the tailor’s sign, then at the ground. “You are my master. Do I have a choice?”
“Yes.”
The freckles nearly disappeared as Jack’s eyes widened and his brows leaped upward. “I do?” he whispered.
“You’ve always had a choice. I have no bond with you. You owe me no fealty. We have sworn no oaths to each other. You are free to leave me at any time.”
Jack swallowed hard. His ginger brows knitted. “I never said I wanted to leave you, sir.”
“And I’ve never asked you to stay. Well”-he fit his thumb in his belt-“now I am.”
“Oh for Christ’s bones! So now you would!”
“I don’t know how much clearer I have to be. Didn’t I declare my intentions on the Corona tower?”
“You want this that bad?”
“No. But it is clear you must know exactly where you stand with me.” Crispin pushed back from the wall and took a step into the muddy street, the air filled with the smells of wet thatch, stone, and horse droppings. “It grieves me to see that most of my former life has been a lie. Lancaster, Geoffrey. I didn’t realize the level of deceit. Perhaps they are merely the symptom of a greater disease. A disease I was never aware of, foolish, naïve man that I am.” He gazed at Jack fondly. “But I will not have that with us. There are to be no lies, no secrets. My ‘yes’ means ‘yes’ and my ‘no’ means ‘no.’ And thus it will always be between you and me.” He thrust out his open hand but Jack only stared at it.
“Master Crispin, you shouldn’t aught to do so much. I’m … I’m no one.”
“And so am I.” He smiled. “What say you, Jack Tucker? Shall you be in league with the scoundrel and traitor Crispin Guest once and for all, forsaking your soul and your peace of mind?”
“I done that already,” he muttered. He eyed Crispin’s hand as if it were a snake. “You want me to do this, don’t you? I don’t think you truly know what you are asking.”
“But I do.” He cracked a lopsided grin. “Must I foster you to show you my sincerity?”
“No, Master! I … I believe you. Very well, then.” He reached a trembling hand forward and grasped Crispin’s, guardedly at first then stronger as Crispin shook it once and released him.