He searched the rafters. Maybe something heavy would fall on him. “Funny,” he said. “I never intended to say that aloud.”
Philippa’s warm body rested against his for another pleasant moment. But suddenly, as if the house were afire, she scrambled out of bed.
Her naked body gleamed in the waning firelight but she clutched her breast as if enduring chest pains. His heartbeat thrummed before he understood what she was talking about.
“The Mandyllon? Don’t be a fool. Of course it is, but—”
She rummaged for her clothes and drew on her shift. “You must get it out of here! I won’t spend one more moment in its presence. It made you say all those things. Don’t you remember? It made
Crispin dismissed it. Hysteria. And confession was good for the soul. Although he, too, had acknowledged love for her he had no intention of voicing. But he owed that to his sleepiness and a certain amount of shared vulnerability. All easily explained.
Wasn’t it?
“Philippa, it is the middle of the”—he glanced toward the shuttered window and noted light creeping through—“morning,” he finished lamely. “Come back to bed.”
She cowered near the opposite wall looking down at her feet. Nothing could convince her, so he dragged himself from the tangle of bedsheets and stood naked on the cold floor. His stockings, lying across the floorboards like a skinned snake, were still tied to his under braies, so he pulled on each one and slipped the braies up. He shrugged into his shirt and when he grabbed his cotehardie, the Mandyllon fell out of it onto the floor. She gave a little screech and he quickly tucked it beneath his cote as he pulled it on, snorting at himself at the freshly torn-off buttons.
“Put yourself at ease,” he said, buckling his belt. He patted the lump the Mandyllon made inside his coat. “I will find a suitable hiding place until I can decide what’s to be done with it.” He leaned toward her to kiss, but she backed away, pointing to his chest. He scowled instead and pulled open the door.
Jack stood on the landing wearing an expectant smile.
Crispin closed Philippa in the room behind him and rubbed his unshaven jaw. He didn’t know why he felt embarrassed. “Look Jack, this was all unexpected.”
“Course.”
“Stop looking at me like that. Do you need to be cuffed to remind you who is master here?”
“Oh, I know right well who the master is here. She is.”
Crispin’s anger drained away and he leaned limply against the closed door. “I fear you are right. I suppose I must tell you what transpired.”
The boy tucked his hands behind his back and shuffled his feet. Under his breath he said, “I know what transpired—”
Crispin cuffed him lightly. “Not
“’Slud! Who is he, then?”
“No one seems to know. But Philippa knew he was an imposter. She tried to suppress it. Then the sheriff interceded and, well, it was determined that she should be cast out. It wasn’t even a lawful marriage, and so she is left with nothing.”
“Oh, Master! It’s just like what happened to you!”
“Yes, and perhaps that is why I’m sympathetic. Or—” He turned toward the door as if he could spy her through the wood. “I, uh…” Taking in Jack’s expression, he decided he didn’t have to share all his thoughts and suspicions with the boy. “I have an errand to run. Watch over her while I am out.”
“Aye, Master. With pleasure, sir.”
Crispin rambled down the stairs and swore into the wind. He glanced up the Shambles one way and down the other. Animal carcasses hung from great metal hooks near the shop fronts, hallowed, skinned, and bereft of head and forelimbs. He felt a little like that himself.
What was he going to do about these foreign villains; what about the cloth? And what, by all the saints, was he to do about Philippa? The sheriff still thought her guilty of murder but Crispin believed otherwise. Or was it merely his feelings getting in the way?
A pleasant ache suffused his chest when he thought about her desirable softness, her eager compliance. He looked up to the window. A cold sweat dampened his chemise when he also thought about his admission to her.
He lightly touched the Mandyllon under his coat. He didn’t believe in the power of such things. He knew about profitable traffic in relics, and how easily faked they were. Wasn’t this just one more of those? Still, it was provable. All he had to do was deliberately lie in its presence.
A lie was easy to conjure. He’d made many as a means to his ends. A lie was only another tool, like a dagger or a sword.
He strolled down the lane, trying to think of a lie. A butcher called out to him. “Come sir! This is the finest flesh in all of London, except of course for the stews in Southwark.” He laughed at his own bawdy jest and Crispin turned to him. “Oh! Master Crispin. I did not see it was you.”
“Master Dickon,” Crispin responded. “I know how it is in Southwark,” he said with a crooked smile. “How is the meat in your own establishment today?”
Dickon lay his hand on a haunch swinging from an overhead hook. “Truth to tell, it ain’t as fine as it could be. Lots of gristle in this one. Better for stewing than roasting, but I will still try to get the best price. And a good price I will offer to you, of course.”
Crispin eyed him. “Did you truly mean to tell me that?” he asked in a hushed tone. “About the gristle.”
The butcher thought a moment. “Well now, I doubt I would tell another man such, but I have always tried to be honest with you, sir.”
“Are you certain? Did you not just get a sudden urge to tell me the truth?”
Dickon smiled awkwardly. “I don’t rightly know, sir. I don’t know until the moment strikes me, do I?”
Crispin nodded, dissatisfied. He thanked the butcher and proceeded on his way, heading up the small incline of the Shambles, which inevitably led him to Newgate and its prison.
He hadn’t meant to arrive there, but as he looked up its fortress walls and thought of its guards and many cells, an idea occurred to him.
19
Crispin sauntered down the dim corridors, the guards nodding to him in recognition of his uneasy relationship with Simon Wynchecombe. That alone allowed him free rein in Newgate, though it wasn’t his favorite haunt. Usually he headed directly for Wynchecombe’s hall in the corner tower, but today he swallowed his own revulsion of the place and strolled among the few cells, each arched portal closed up tight. Black iron hinges, double, triple strength, bolted tightly to the heavy oaken doors. Some doors had smaller, barred spy-holes, yet still others had none, making them dark and lonely places of despair.
He traveled down the passage lit only by an occasional pitch torch or cresset. All the doors seemed to be closed until he reached the end of the passage. One cell stood open. The straw that served as bedding and toilet sat in an unattended dung cart. Crispin darted a glance down both sides of the empty passage before slipping into the cell, cold with its open arrow-slit window. Embedded grillwork in the stone sill made certain the prisoner could not escape even if it were possible to squeeze through the tight window. If he managed even this feat, he would plunge four stories down, though a death in freedom was often preferable to the uncertain future of prison walls.
