Crispin arched a brow. “My family was noble as far back as Adam and Eve.”
“’Slud!” Jack lifted his nose mockingly and straightened his shoulders as if they wore ermine. “Course, that ain’t the situation no more.” He seemed to relish saying it, and Crispin resisted the urge to strike him. “But if you should marry well, say Walcote’s widow, then you’d move up again.”
Crispin’s black mood deepened. “Marry in a class beneath me,” he said, voice deadly, “in order to advance? You must be mad.” He twisted. His cloak spun out around him like a raven’s wing.
“The trouble with you—begging your pardon, Master—is that you can’t forget yourself; your old self. You can’t let yourself be who you are now.”
“The only thing different about me is my status,” he growled. “I am myself.”
“That’s your true image, right enough,” Jack grumbled.
Crispin halted and Jack ran into him. Swiveling his head, he eyed Jack. “What did you say?”
Jack swallowed and raised his hands to ward off a blow. “Now Master, I don’t mean nought. I was raised on these streets and I say what comes into me head. You live here now, and so I think of you as one of us, see. Course your manner and your skills say otherwise, don’t they?”
“No. I mean, what did you say? Just now.”
“Er…y-you said ‘I am myself’ and I said ‘that’s your true image, right enough.’ But I didn’t mean nought by it.”
“What made you say ‘true image’?”
Jack scratched his flat chin. “Dunno. It just popped out of me mouth.”
Crispin’s wine-dampened mind rolled the thoughts one over the other. True image. So many “true images” from so many false ones. “I’ve been distracted.” He chuckled, though it came from no place near good humor. “A pretty face will do that. I’ve been acting like a child.” He looked at Jack’s eager expression, sometimes as wily as Robin Goodfellow, sometimes as frightened as an infant. “There is a cloth I am supposed to find and it very well may have to do with murder. Let this ‘true self’ concentrate on that.”
Instead of entering through the Walcote front door, Crispin and Jack walked around to the servant’s entrance situated in a dingy alley smelling of moldy vegetables and rotting bones from past feasts. An old woman with matted hair under a stained kerchief was just opening the door and looked up at Crispin. Her etched features were accentuated by grime and bore a strong resemblance to a castle’s stony exterior.
“And who might you be?” She glared at Crispin but aimed an eye at Jack, hiding behind Crispin’s left flank. “This is the Walcote kitchens. It ain’t Westminster Palace where all come and go as they like.” Several of her front teeth were missing and those that remained were black or gray. She brandished a long cooking fork that Crispin didn’t like the look of.
“I am Crispin Guest, woman. I am here investigating the heinous crime of your master’s murder.”
She gave his clothes a quick scrutiny. “You?”
“Bless my soul! Friend Crispin!” John Hoode rushed forward. Surprised to see the man he met at the brazier, Crispin was nevertheless relieved. “Stupid woman! This is Crispin Guest. He’s a friend of mine.”
“I am glad to be so acquainted,” said Crispin. “Master Hoode, I see your fortunes have turned.”
“Aye. I’m in the kitchen now. Going to try to give the mistress a chance at hiring you, eh?”
“Well, in point of fact, I am working for her. I am trying to discover the culprit who killed Master Walcote.”
“No! Then I was right about you. You are an educated man.”
“Of a sort.”
“Oh!” said the woman. “You’re that man I seen in the hall with the mistress.”
Crispin flicked a nod at her. “Yes. I only wish to ask a few questions concerning your master.”
“Oh it’s a sad, sad thing, it is. Who would do a thing like that?”
“Indeed. That is what I wish to know.”
“He was a good and fair master, m’lord. Always a kind word to all.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Since five years now.”
“Has anyone worked here longer than five years?”
“Well now.” She put a dirt-blackened finger to her temple and scratched. “Only Master Becton would have been here longer. He’s the one what hired me and the others.”
Crispin offered a smile bereft of mirth. “I see. May I look in the hall? Is the way locked?”
“The mistress no longer locks all the inner doors. Just go through that passage. Mind your head. It’s a low ceiling.”
“I will see you again, Crispin,” said Hoode, and he glanced at Jack a little suspiciously. Jack glared back.
Crispin entered the kitchens. There were two hearths flickering with light, each tended by a young boy. Other kitchen servants stopped their chopping or dough kneading to watch Crispin and Jack as they passed through, but no one spoke to them. Jack strained his neck looking back curiously when they arrived at a low passageway that led across a courtyard to the rear of the great hall.
“What are we looking for?” asked Jack, once the kitchens were far behind.
“I’m not certain.”
“Why did you ask that old woman how long she worked here?”
“Because apparently there is no one in this household who has been here longer than five years.”
“Is that unusual?”
“In most houses, Jack, generations serve their masters.”
“Aye, but maybe Walcote has not been rich for generations.”
“True. I shall have to make inquiries.”
They reached the far edge of the hall and passed under its arch only to encounter Philippa Walcote. She and Crispin stood apart in mutual assessment before her face passed from surprise to anger. “Why are you here?” she said.
Crispin smiled a lopsided grin. “Why does everyone ask me that in that same uncivil tone?”
“Maybe it’s because you don’t know when you ain’t welcome.”
“Seldom am I welcome.” He raised his arm and leaned on the archway. His eyes roved insolently over her. “And so, Mistress Walcote.” He relaxed against the carved stone. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About that cloth. You never finished telling me.”
She eyed his casual posture with a frown. “I recall you did not want to have anything to do with it. You refused my coins.”
“Perhaps I was rash.”
Her frown deepened. She slapped his arm leaning against the arch. He stumbled before straightening. “That’s better. When you speak to me in this house, you will conduct yourself with more respect.”
“In this house? The house you used to clean, you mean?”
If it were possible for a human to expel flames, Philippa would have done so. Though she did not speak, her lips seemed to form the word “Adam!”
After a pause she said tightly, “I do not care for your manners, Master Crispin.”
“I’m not particularly impressed by yours.” He straightened his coat and slipped his thumbs into his belt.
She darted a glance at Jack who remained mute and wide-eyed.
“So,” she said, “you know who I am. Or rather, who I was.”
“It is difficult to disguise that inflection. But you perform it well. You are like a mummer playing a part.”
She turned her wedding ring on her finger. “Aye. It is a useful skill.”
“So we need play no more games, Philippa.”
She raised her chin. “So now you think you may call me by my Christian name?”
Her accent thickened the more he jibed her. “It’s not so much the chambermaid, but the adulteress.”