Until a year ago. He read an entry for 1,008 sacks of wool for seventy pounds sailing from the customs port of Sandwich to Calais. Crispin looked at the entry and turned the pages back until he spotted the previous shipments. Clearly they were for 1,152 sacks—eight gross—almost every time for a levied tax of eighty pounds. Page upon page of it.
He studied the new entry. Fewer sacks. And ever after, 1,008 instead of 1,152. Why suddenly were all ships carrying some 144 sacks less? Certainly there would not be less room for them on the ships. He could not tell from the sparse entry, but the same hand seemed to have written only those entries with the 1,008 sacks. He compared it to the entries in Walcote’s ledgers. They didn’t match. So at least Walcote was not the one recording this customs information, and perhaps he wasn’t the one collecting the taxes. Who was it? Only the initials BV were scrawled at the end of the columns. Who was BV? Usually some member of the guild was responsible for such duties, so BV must belong either to the woolman’s guild, the weavers, or the mercers.
“Someone is skimming the cream off the milk,” he muttered. He had no doubt that the wool suppliers presented eight gross worth of wool in good faith and paid the standard eighty pounds of tax, but someone was making good money collecting the payment, secreting ten pounds of it, and then reporting only seven gross of wool. But who?
Crispin tapped his finger on the hard edge of the leather binding. He was willing to wager that there was another set of books somewhere that showed the proper eight gross sacks for eighty pounds of taxation—just as in the earlier entries. Perhaps Walcote discovered who this knave was. But alas. He would take that information to his grave.
The sun shone weakly from his window and the bells of St. Paul’s pealed Terce when there was a knock on his door. Crispin turned. A knock could mean anything: a new client or an old enemy. He crept toward the door and called, “Who goes there?”
“It’s me. John Hoode!”
Crispin unbarred the door and opened it. “Master Hoode. How did you find me?”
Hoode ducked his head. “I reckon everyone knows where to find the Tracker.”
“I see. What is it?”
When the man lifted his face from his hood he gave a little cry. “Bless my soul! What happened to you?”
Crispin straightened. “The usual encounter with the Lord Sheriff.”
“Pardon me for saying, but next time you encounter him, perhaps you should duck.”
“Good advice. And so. The reason you are here…?”
“I just thought I should tell you that there was a strange man loitering about outside the Walcote manor last night, just beyond the wall. He didn’t do nought. Only stared at the place. The footman at the gatehouse finally shooed him off, but it weren’t more than an hour hence that he was back.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Naw. It was too dim. But he was about your height and all dark in a cloak. Thought you should know.”
Crispin walked to the fire and stared into it. “I thank you for that, John. This is the sort of thing I feared.”
“Who is it, Master Crispin? Is it someone who threatens my mistress?”
“Yes. Do continue to watch and alert me as you have done. You are a good man to your new household, John. It will not be forgotten.”
“I am glad to hear it. A word from you might put me in good stead. I fear I’ve gotten on the wrong side of that Becton. He has a hard look in his eye that I do not like.”
“Yes. Nor I.”
Hoode stood beside Crispin and watched the flames. Crispin turned to him. “Forgive me. May I offer you wine? Or food?”
“Oh, no, Master Crispin. But I thank you. I just wonder…” His eyes wandered about the sparse room. “That a man like you must live on the Shambles and do the odd job for the wealthy. It don’t seem right.”
“I have made my own fate, Master Hoode. And I must live it out until the Final Judgment. God grant that I am better judged then.”
“Aye,” he answered vaguely, for he surely could not know what Crispin was talking about. “Well then. I must return before I am missed. I will take my leave. God keep you, sir.”
“And you.”
Hoode opened the door just as Jack returned. They stared at one another and Jack refused to move. Hoode finally took the initiative and decidedly stepped past him, rumbling down the stairs with a mumbled oath.
Jack stayed on the landing and glared after him until his steps had dispersed. It was only then that he turned a warmer expression on Crispin. Under his arm he carried a round loaf of bread with several sausage links dangling precariously from his fingers while the other arm had a small wheel of cheese tucked against a wineskin. A meat pie bulged from his scrip.
“I don’t like that fellow. There’s a way about him I don’t trust.”
“He’s a good spy. And I must trust him for now.” Crispin pushed the candle and books aside and helped Jack with the victuals. “Well? You were gone all night. What of your task?”
Jack placed the food with care on the table and smiled up at Crispin. “Your eye’s looking better. Can you see out of it yet?”
“To hell with that. Did you find him?”
“Aye. He was still there, or at least his things were. I did not bother talking to the innkeeper, like you said.” He took a long iron fork and skewered two sausages on each prong and propped it over the fire. He withdrew his knife and sliced through the cheese’s rind and stacked several thick slivers on the table.
Crispin slammed his hand down over Jack’s wrist and glared almost nose to nose with him. “What did you find?”
Jack withdrew his hand, shook out the tenderness, and sheathed his dirty knife. “Well now. I went and talked to the chambermaid and she said that the master told her not to speak of the man in the room. She knew nought of the man except that he is a foreigner and keeps odd hours, coming in quite late and leaving early. She said she didn’t know why the master would not let anyone speak of him or let on that anyone was in that room.” Jack grimaced and blushed. “I didn’t have to bribe her. She chucked me chin, told me I was a sweet pup, and to be on me way. I ain’t no pup!”
Crispin hid his smile by turning toward the fire. The sausages sizzled over the flames. Their savory aroma filled the room. “Is that why all this bounty?”
“If you mean the food, aye. No pottage tonight! And there’s wine here from the Boar’s Tusk with a message from Mistress Eleanor. She said she was sorry to have scolded you and hoped you’d be feeling better. She put it on your account.”
“You told her.”
“Well aye! You saved me from the sheriff. It was a gallant deed.”
Crispin sat and dropped his still throbbing head in his hands.
“She said she’d be by tomorrow to see to you.”
“Christ!”
“Aye, I know. I told her I was doing the job but she would hear none of it. Women!” He handed Crispin a slice of cheese and stuffed one in his own mouth, chewing noisily.
“Why did this task take you all night?”
Jack swallowed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I wanted to keep a sharp eye on the knave’s room. I stayed in the inn’s hall as long as they would let me before they sent me away and barred the door. I stood by a brazier all night and watched the window.” And as if to prove the point, he did not bother to stifle a yawn as wide as Newgate’s archway.
Crispin poured himself some wine and drank it all in one swallow. He poured more and dug his fingers into the meat pie, scooping out a ragged chunk. He chewed and stopped when his aching jaw told him to slow down. Jack tended to the sausages.