“Good. Now, can we please go inside?”
“Aye, master.” He grabbed the door handle and stopped. “But I ain’t calling you by your Christian name. That I will not do!”
“Of course not. I am your master. That would be improper.” He gestured for Jack to pull open the door.
Inside, the cold of April succumbed to the golden tones of the warm room. It smelled of a toasty fire, cloth and pungent wool, acrid dyes, and habitation. A man scuttled down the ladder of a loft and turned his head once to spy the customers. “Bless my soul! It’s Crispin Guest!”
“Greetings, Master Turpin.”
“My, my,” said Turpin, reaching the ground level and turning round. His frame was similar to Crispin’s, though his hair was sandy and thin, unlike Crispin’s own thick, dark locks. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
“As I’ve told you before, any favor I can render, any at all. I am your man.”
Jack eyed Crispin and muttered, “Is there no one that don’t owe you a favor?”
He ignored him. “This is something of an urgent nature, master.” He stood behind Jack and dropped his hands on the boy’s shoulders. Quietly, he said, “I need to style this young lad as a Franciscan friar.”
Turpin’s eyes enlarged but he never asked. “I may have something that will suit. I’d merely need to hem the bottom and the sleeves. I take it you need it right away.”
“If we can wait for it?”
“That urgently? Of course, Master Guest. When was ‘leisure’ ever part of your lexis.”
“Once, Master Turpin, a long time ago.”
“Very well, then. Young man,” he said to Jack. “Please remove your cloak and tunic.”
Crispin took the wrapped sword from Jack’s hands and set it aside.
Jack looked from one to the other and slowly peeled his chaperon hood off his head and shoulders. He made as if to drop it on the floor but Turpin took it tenderly between his fingers. Except that Jack would not let it go. “What will you do with that, sir?”
“I’m merely putting it aside.”
“Tell him, Master Crispin. Tell him that’s all I got in the world.”
“He knows it, Jack. Do as Master Turpin tells you.”
Reluctantly, Jack released the hood and unbuttoned his cloak, which Turpin also took. He unbuckled his belt with a reddened face. He unlaced his tunic and pulled it over his head, leaving him in his stockings and shirt.
“Dear me,” muttered Turpin, examining Jack’s threadbare clothes. He folded them into a neat pile without further comment and placed them on a shelf. “If you will excuse me.” He disappeared through a curtained doorway.
Jack rubbed his arm self-consciously. “I feel like a sheep being sheared,” he muttered.
“Nonsense. A sheep looks happier.”
Turpin returned, a brown gown draped over his arm. “This will do, I think. I can sew on a hood and provide a belt. Er-”
Crispin stepped forward. “I can pay you, Master Turpin.” His pouch bulged with the archbishop’s reluctant generosity.
“Oh no, think nothing of it. I owe you after all, Master Guest. But-”
“We will return it when we are finished. Will that suffice?”
Turpin’s pointed face did its impression of a grin. “Oh indeed! Indeed!” Crispin flashed Jack a quick, reassuring smile. “Now, young man, if you will … will…” He urged the gown on Jack. Jack took it in both hands and meekly lifted it over his head. “Other way, other way,” chirped Turpin. He grabbed the material wrapped around Jack’s head and twisted. Jack released a muffled curse and his head finally popped through. Turpin pulled it down over his torso and lifted Jack’s arms into the sleeves. Jack stared at him as if he were mad. He took Jack’s shoulders and turned him around pulling up the collar of the robe and measuring across his shoulders with a string. He turned Jack around again to face him and ticked his head at the hem. “The hem seems fine but the sleeves are a bit long.”
“That’s fine the way it is,” said Crispin. “But it needs the cowl.”
“Yes, I have something. Very well, young man. Off with it.”
Jack gave a pleading look before Turpin whisked it up his body, obscuring his face.
The tailor disappeared once more and left Jack standing in his shirt and stockings again. His sorrowful expression caused Crispin to chuckle. At least it made him forget the circumstances for an instant or two. But then he thought again about Chaucer’s dagger back in Courtenay’s lodgings and the mysterious and secretive monks of Christchurch Priory. What was it they wanted to hide? Did Dame Marguerite see a cassock on the assailant as she thought? Though by her own admission she wasn’t certain. If not the archbishop-and it truly seemed an outlandish supposition-then perhaps one of the monks. Any one of them could have used the archbishop’s cloak to hide themselves. But what was the reason for killing the Prioress? Was it merely a distraction to hide the theft of the bones? And what did Chaucer’s dagger have to do with it? No, something was amiss. The only certainty was the missing bones. He only hoped they hadn’t been destroyed.
Turpin returned and showed his handiwork. Crispin smiled and nodded appropriately and Turpin proceeded to entangle Jack in the cassock again. He tied the laces at the yoke of his neck, adjusted the belt, threw the hood up over his head and opened his hands. “And there. One young Franciscan, Master Crispin.”
“Excellent, Master Turpin. I thank you for your time. And one more thing.” Crispin whispered in his ear and Turpin withdrew from him with a wide smile. “I would be most pleased, Master Guest.”
“Good. Take your time. Fare you well.”
“God protect you, Master Guest. And you, too, young man.”
“And you, sir,” mumbled Jack. He walked out of the shop and stood in the street, head down. “I feel like the proper fool.”
“But you look most convincing.” He handed Jack the wrapped sword again as they walked back to the cathedral.
Jack pulled uncomfortably at the gown, loosening the leather belt. “I can’t do it, master.”
“Yes, you can. You disguised yourself so once before to steal into court.”
“But that was different! I didn’t have to talk to nobody!”
“Stop sniveling and listen. When you greet someone you say, ‘Benedicte.’ And they say ‘Deo gratias.’ Got it?”
“Aye. Benedicte. Deo gratias. Christ’s toes.”
“And no oaths. You don’t want them to flog you, do you?”
“What!”
Crispin hid his smile by glancing ahead. “At meals there are considerably more prayers before you may eat. Never touch your food until the prior touches his, and don’t eat as if you will never get another scrap.”
“I don’t eat like that.”
“Yes, you do. A slower pace, Jack, remember.”
“What if they ask me to say a prayer?”
“Then say one.”
“I don’t know no prayers.”
“You don’t know any prayers. And yes, you do. Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Gloria Patri-”
“Very well! I know them. But the chanting. I don’t know that.”
“Feign it.”
He glared. “Feign it? That’s your great advice? Feign it?”
“You’d be surprised how often that advice works … in all circumstances.”
“How can I feign-”
“Then feign a cold.”
Jack blinked. “Oh aye. I can do that.”
He shook his head. “For a boy who made his living stealing men’s purses you seem to have an awfully weak stomach.”
“I knew what I was doing there, didn’t I? I was quick.”
“And you’ll be quick at this. Don’t do much talking. Listen. Discover if you can why they needed to keep secrets from Dom Thomas and if they know anything about Becket’s bones. I’ve told you the Lollard philosophy. Listen for any signs of that. And don’t make yourself obvious. Blend in.”
“If I’m to blend in, then why am I dressed as a Franciscan in a Benedictine priory?”