rabble when necessary. It was a large set of rambling buildings, a grand edifice of sandy stone and arched windows, chapels, apartments. Its exterior was certainly not as grand as its interiors of painted floors, sumptuous tapestries, seeming miles of passageways and corridors, and the immense great hall as large as any cathedral space.
But it was still a formidable structure. It did not sit on some promontory, unapproachable by the common citizen, but seemed to revel in its central accessibility. The king, when in residence, made certain to meet with the burgesses and aldermen of London and Westminster weekly, making decisions as mundane as how many chickens could be traded for how many slabs of pork. Even young Richard with his favorites and cronies could not alter what had been for centuries.
Crispin recalled fondly the dinners in the great hall, the quiet alcoves for trysts, and even the masses celebrated with the other courtiers and hangers-on in St. Mary Undercroft. But more often than not he was in the company of Lancaster even at mass in the ornate Chapel of St. Stephen, the twin of the grand Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Lancaster liked to keep Crispin at his side like a lapdog, but Crispin had not minded. He had been privy to many of the machinations of court, and enjoyed the status for which he was being groomed.
Until it all fell apart.
Crispin had only been to court once in the last eight years. Raised in Lancaster’s household like many other noble-born boys fostered by wealthy men, Crispin began as a page, and at eighteen, Lancaster knighted him. And just as Jack served Crispin, Crispin, too, attended the man well and became Lancaster’s protege. He had enjoyed living in familiar society with Lancaster’s son, Henry of Bolingbroke. Crispin’s shoulders had served as “horse” many a time for young Henry. He could scarcely believe the boy he’d helped to raise was now a man of seventeen—the same age as his cousin the king.
Approaching the place forbidden him knotted his gut, but he preferred to remember the good memories in Lancaster’s company than dwell on that dreadful course of events that sent him spinning away from court like a falling star.
He crossed St. Margaret’s, reached the top step to the Great Gateway, and rested his fingers on the damp granite. Raising his head, he stared at one of the guards standing stiffly under the gatehouse arch. With a face stern in its tight conical helm, silvery camail surrounding his cheeks and chin, the guard’s gaze took in Crispin and then dismissed him.
Crispin edged closer. His feet disrupted the gravel path.
The guard looked his way again. “Your business?”
Crispin looked the man up and down. He threw back his shoulders and raised his chin. “I wish to speak to his grace the duke of Lancaster. Tell him Crispin Guest is at the gate.”
The guard’s immovable face showed surprise at Crispin’s manner of speech, which did not conform to the shabbiness of his clothes.
Crispin urged him to his task with a practiced tilt of the head before he turned his back on the guard. The guard left to fetch a page and Crispin waited, tapping his fingers on his scabbard, pacing and watching riders and carts travel along St. Margaret’s Street.
He looked down at his shabby cotehardie. Clean, but there was no doubt of the coat’s age. His stockings, too, could use some repair, but he never seemed to have the time, though Jack made certain to sew up the holes when he found them, much as Crispin had done for Lancaster’s surcote after a battle when Crispin was Jack’s age.
After a long spell, the page returned with what looked like a steward in tow and Crispin snapped to attention. The steward’s long face sported a prominent chin and small eyes. He wore long robes trimmed in fur. A chatelaine of keys clinked importantly from his belt. He wore the badge of Gaunt on his breast.
Crispin did not recognize him, but by the scowl on the man’s face, he certainly seemed to know Crispin.
The steward scrambled forward and took Crispin’s arm, but Crispin wasn’t fond of such familiarities and firmly removed it.
“Master Guest,” said the steward. He rubbed his sore hand, the one Crispin removed from his sleeve. “If you have come for alms, I suggest you try the kitchens.”
Crispin’s face warmed. “I have
“His grace does not wish to receive missives from you, Master Guest.” He scanned the courtyard with nervous eyes. “Of this you must certainly be aware. I must ask you to leave. His grace the duke is not at home to you.”
Crispin’s features stiffened. “Did he tell you so?”
“Yes, he did. Do yourself a courtesy and do not return. You do not wish to endanger my lord of Gaunt by your presence, do you?”
Crispin clenched his jaw. His molars crunched in his head. He opened his mouth to protest but didn’t know what to say.
“Please, Master Guest,” said the steward quietly. “The king has spies everywhere. Should they report that you were here—”
“Say no more.” Crispin stared at the busy ward. Londoners walked stiffly in the wind, wrapping their cloaks tightly over their breasts. The courtyard’s shrill wind was not as cold as the frost that struck his heart.
He turned back briefly to the steward, gave him a courtly bow, and noticed a growing look of pity before he jerked away from his gaze.
His heavy steps snapped over the gravel in the courtyard to the street. It was a long walk, as long as the lists, before he reached an ornate stone archway that marked the edge of the king’s palace grounds.
He should have expected the rejection. In a small place in the back of his head he did expect it, but this knowledge did not make the hurt any less stinging. It was as if a father had disowned his son.
He passed under the arched gateway and came upon a wide avenue. He turned right and ducked between the shadows of spacious houses boasting large gardens and walked a long way along walled courtyards, at least a bowshot, until he reached the end of the lane, where the Thames cut the city in half. He leaned over the sea wall and stared down into its brown depths. This river nearly swallowed him up only two days ago. The men who tried to kill him were now willing to offer a king’s ransom to possess the Mandyllon. Yet even if Crispin earned such bounty, it could not buy him an audience with Lancaster. That avenue was closed. How he hated the circumstances that kept him from the place he belonged!
His nails dug into the stone wall. Didn’t Lancaster realize that Crispin had done it for
“But treason is treason,” he murmured. The river didn’t care if he poured his heart into it, told it his tales of woe. The Thames kept flowing regardless. Kept winding its way through London, carving a division between the best and the worst of the old city. That’s why Crispin had stayed on the north side. No Southwark for him. No dreary low speech such as came through Jack’s lips. Or Philippa Walcote’s.
Yet he was still a man between. Like the river. Between the rich and the lowly and belonging to neither. He, too, would simply flow on.
He loosened a pebble with his fingers and tossed it down into the water. It sank below the surface, never to be seen again. He slammed the wall with his fists. “Damn the king to the lowest level of hell!” he hissed.
“Is it Crispin? Crispin Guest?”
He spun. The female voice startled him, but he could not mistake the soft Spanish dialect where his name sounded more like “Creespin.”
Costanza of Castile gazed down on him from her carriage.
“Your grace,” he said with a deep bow.
Her maid beside her rolled up the curtain for the duchess. The duchess of Lancaster rested her arm on the sill of the canvas-covered cart and leaned out. “It has been so long.” Her smile was gentle and offered him all the regret, all the kindness his sore heart yearned for.
“But you have not changed, my lady.”
She laughed. “So full of flattery. It was always so with you. In truth, I miss it.”
Her lips clamped down on that last and they stared at each other in silence. She broke their stalemate by waving her hand. “But here you are. Have you come to court at last to see us? Our prodigal son.”
He turned a glance down the long avenue toward the unyielding gates just around the corner. “I think it best I do not. The king—”
