scrawl. “I suspect this is Italian. But I cannot read much of it.” The man did not look Italian to him. He looked like a Saracen from the desert countries. It’s possible he was a merchant who traveled through the Mediterranean. That would account for the Italian papers. But why would Philippa Walcote take up with a Saracen? Such activities were more than immoral; they were against Church law.
He sat in thought for a moment before he folded the papers again and stuffed them into the scrip. “You’d better take this back now.”
“Take it back? But Master—”
“And Jack, put back the coins you took from it.”
Jack heaved a bitter sigh and with deadly slow fingers, pulled the coins from the folds of his shoulder cape and slammed them back in the scrip.
“Hurry, now,” said Crispin, resting his elbows on the table.
With heavy steps, Jack returned up the stairs and disappeared inside the room. No sooner had the door closed than the inn’s door opened with a whoosh of autumn air and crackling leaves swirling in small eddies and collecting in the corners. Ordinarily, such an event would not cause Crispin to take much note of it. But in this instance, he turned and squinted at the man who entered. The man wore a long, dark cloak with a pointed hood. The door shut behind him, blowing the hood low over the man’s face. The capering light from the hearth painted the edges of the cloak in a fiery outline and dropped any clue to his features in impenetrable shadows.
Crispin had only snatched a glimpse of the man’s face before it disappeared again, but he thought he recognized the man as Philippa’s paramour.
Crispin darted a glance up the stairs to the room in which Jack was now trapped.
The man made a cursory sweep of the room—only revealing a shadowy vision of his features—and stomped purposefully toward the stairs, cloak rippling.
Crispin stood. “Jack,” he mouthed. What could he do for a distraction? Call to the man? But what? Who was he?
No time to think. The man reached the bottom step and rose up the first tread.
Crispin moved quickly around the table, jabbing his thigh on the corner of the wood. He strode quickly toward the man, but the cloaked figure was at the top of the stairs in a heartbeat. Jack would come out of that door at any moment and be caught. Crispin grabbed for the sword that no longer hung at his side. “God’s blood!” His hand went for his dagger instead and he rushed up the first three steps.
“Oi, Master!” said Jack behind him.
Crispin spun, nearly toppling down the stairs. “What the devil are you doing
Jack shrugged, still smiling. “I heard someone on the stairs and thought it was our man. So I hightailed it out the window.”
Crispin breathed again and grinned. He mussed the boy’s already disarrayed curls. Jack ducked away from his touch. “You did well, Jack.” Crispin glanced up the stairs. The man had disappeared into his room. The door was shut again. Crispin didn’t feel like confronting the man this instant. There was time. Crispin gave the tavern room a final perusal and signaled to Jack.
“What’s the task?” The boy asked, walking beside Crispin into the street, arms swinging.
Crispin sniffed the cold, damp air. It smelled like the mold at the back of a privy. “Adultery. But I suppose it is now murder.”
“Christ Jesus.”
“A man hired me to discover if his wife was unfaithful. She was. The next day he’s found murdered.”
“’Slud! She did it, then!”
“Possibly. But not without help. This morning I saw her in the same gown as the night before. She would have had to divest herself of her gown, killed him, and changed back into it.”
“Why, Master?”
“Because I saw a bloody knee print on the floor. It should have been evidenced on her gown.”
“Her lover, then?” He thumbed back over his shoulder toward the Thistle, now out of sight around a bend. “He did it.”
“Perhaps. The trouble is, her husband was murdered in a room where the door locked from the inside with no other way in or out.”
“Blind me! That’s a puzzle.”
“Indeed.”
“Who’s the dead man?”
“Nicholas Walcote.”
“Not the merchant? ’Slud!” Jack shook his head. His face slowly changed from shock to an expression of pride. “Are you going to find his murderer?”
“I do not like being cheated out of a client. Especially a wealthy one.”
After a quarter of an hour they reached the Walcote gatehouse and Jack whistled at the size of the walls and the number of chimney stacks. Upon recognizing him, the porter let Crispin pass through the gatehouse, though he gave Jack a sour eye.
Instead of going directly to the front door, Crispin made a circlet of the outside of the manor, gazing up its encircling garden walls until he spotted the upper-floor window of the solar. Even after walking the length of the enclosure he still found no entrance. He inspected the vines that clung to the wall and experimentally pulled on them, hanging with his full weight.
“Master,” said Jack in a nervous whisper. “They’ve let you in the gate. Why are you trying to break in?”
“I wish to inspect that window,” he said, jerking his head upward. He grasped the vines, pushed himself off from the mud, and climbed. Some of the vines were stronger than others. The lesser stems broke off in his hand or snapped under foot, pelting Jack who was climbing directly behind him. With a grunt Crispin reached the top of the wall with his fingers and touched wet granite. He peered over the edge, slid his body out along the top, and jumped heavily to the other side.
Jack fell with a thud beside him, looking unhappy and a little in pain.
“Are you well?” Crispin asked.
Jack got to his feet and rubbed his backside. “Aye. A little worse for wear is all. Garden walls ain’t my specialty.”
“If I find a purse to cut I’ll let you know.”
Crispin glanced about the little garden with its short hedges trimmed down to perfect box shapes and other shrubs cut into ornate cones and spirals. The rest lay dead under an early autumn frost. A few fruit trees divested of leaves lined a far wall. A willow stood near the house, draping its long branches like a maiden’s hair toward a gravel path.
The earlier mist turned to icy drizzle but Crispin did not put up his hood. Instead, he craned his neck to peer at the window, one of three along the face of the damp stone. Tall, arched, the windows’ carved stone sills were dented with ridges and floral carvings.
“Give us a boost, Jack.”
Jack looked at him sideways. He was shorter than Crispin by almost two feet and slight of build. Crispin shrugged and climbed as far as he could up the jutting plinth foundation on his own. He examined the stone sill and the wall below the window, running his fingertips along the stone. He could not reach above the arched window, but he looked along the upper perimeter. He could see no telltale scratches, no ropes, no ladders, and no broken tiles from the roof.
Jumping back down to the gravel path, he stared at the window and the one beside it some four feet away. A third window stood only three feet from the solar window. He looked from one to the other and back again.
Jack patted his arms and stamped the ground to keep warm. He blinked away the raindrops though one dangled from the tip of his blunt, reddened nose and seemed to freeze there. “Master, are we done here?”
Crispin studied first the wall and then the windows again without moving.
“Master, we’re getting wet. And it’s cold.”
When he turned at last to Jack, the boy’s pleas finally registered. “Of course. Let us go to the house.”
Crispin climbed up the wall again. Straddling it, he leaned down, grabbed Jack’s arm, and hoisted him over. Together they walked in the drizzle to the front entrance.
