Sword of shadows, p.4
Sword of Shadows, page 4
He shivered at the word so lately spoken by Carantok Teague. Could there be any truth to such tales? This man seemed to think so.
‘Surely this must be rumor. Could there be pagans living out in the woodlands of Cornwall in these times? Is Cornwall so foreign to the rest of England that it harbors pagans?’
‘I wouldn’t rule it out, Master Guest. In my experience, nothing is impossible.’
Crispin fell silent. He had felt a little sad and anxious when he had slipped downstairs, though Kat’s appearance and her accosting him in the privy had made him feel a little better. He watched the glow of the fire, cast his gaze over the men sleeping before it, heard them grumble and snore and break wind. When he turned to Marzhin again, the man was gone.
Well, it was late. He decided he could return to his bed and sleep now. As he trudged up the stairs and looked down upon the men below again, he no longer viewed them with a twinge of loneliness, but with a sense of the snugness of the fire, the close companionship, and other fool notions his weary mind put upon it.
In the morning, Jack was up first, as usual, poking the fire in their room, heating water, and fetching Crispin and Teague ale. Though Crispin looked for Kat, he did not see her, even as they saddled their horses. Teague hitched his horse to the cart and they all headed toward the castle.
It was no shining fortress on a hill, white and gleaming from fresh limewash, with towers and pennons flapping in the breeze. If they hadn’t been looking for it, they wouldn’t have noticed it.
A long, muddy, hollow way cut through the green hills, first dipping down and then rising up until a small scattering of stone houses came into view. Most looked deserted and derelict. Leaving the empty hamlet, they came to a plateau with a high crag to the left and built up with stone. It narrowed from a natural valley of hill on one side and stacked rock on the other. Before them was the first natural defense leading to a large square gatehouse.
‘The narrow gate of the Lower Ward,’ said Teague cheerfully. ‘Know you that this is the meaning of the name “Tintagel”. Din Tagell. It means “Fortress of the Narrow Entry”.’
‘Seems like a foolish name,’ said Jack. ‘Why not for its solitude or dangerous sea? Or for the stones around us?’
Teague shrugged. ‘Such names are put upon these places by warriors and kings. Perhaps they have less imagination than your young squire, Master Guest.’
‘I think you have the right of it, Master Teague,’ said Crispin with a neutral expression. ‘But it would be, strategically speaking, the best entry. Only three men abreast would be able to enter, and so it could be easily fortified with the minimal number of men.’
They passed through the first fortification without a man in sight. Where was the porter? And the heavy wooden portcullis lay wide open like the maw of some great beast. They came to a stone courtyard flanked by wooden structures, a stable where shaggy horses nibbled on the stall sills and poked their heads out to watch the men. A battlemented wall facing toward the sea rose up above them. Crispin heard the roar of the waves echoing up the stone face of the battlement and smelled the salt spray on the wind. No one greeted them to challenge their presence or to see to their horses. But even so, Teague plodded on, moving the cart horse through another stone gatehouse toward a road.
Where are we going? Crispin wondered. Hadn’t they just left the castle? But no. He saw ahead another green and rocky place with more battlements and stone towers.
A low, narrow saddle of land spanned a sudden chasm before them. The cart and horses moved over its crumbling rock, dislodging rubble as they passed, and Crispin worried it wouldn’t stay intact, looking down with some consternation over the side and below to a sheltered harbor of pebbled sand with waves licking at the rocky shore. The narrow passage seemed to be the only way to reach the rocky spit of land jutting into the sea.
Ahead, rising into the bleak sky, was the Outer Ward of the castle itself, the island. The gate tower, whose stones were crumbling into their path, seemed to have chambers above. From the few who occupied the fortress, Crispin reasoned that this might be some of the only places to sleep, possibly for the men-at-arms. Smoke drifted from its tiled roof, seeming to justify his assumptions.
‘There is the constable’s lodgings,’ said Teague, gesturing to a structure built in what had obviously once been the great hall. Smoke rose from a kitchen chimney. The walls rose solidly and Crispin could see the remaining holes where the roof beams had been removed.
He peered around, surprised that there was no guard, that they were still unchallenged. There were two men-at-arms nearby, huddled around glowing braziers and passing around a skin to drink from, but they never glanced toward them.
‘Here now,’ said Jack, with a quiver in his voice. ‘What’s all this, Master Teague? What manner of castle is this?’
‘An old one, Master Tucker. Forgotten. Disowned. That is why I may come and go so freely.’
‘Blind me,’ Jack muttered. He twisted around on his saddle, eyes scanning the broken walls, the shuttered buildings barely paved with roof tiles. Indeed, many of them bore naked rafters where birds and the weather imposed upon their ruined rooms.
Crispin wondered just what Edward of Woodstock had done to rebuild the castle when there was so little evidence of fresh structures or occupation.
Teague pulled the reins, halted his cart, and pointed across the courtyard. ‘There, Master Guest, is our destination. You see that broken gate at the other side? We will go through it to the hills beyond the castle, where we shall begin to look for our quarry.’
‘Will we be detained? Questioned?’
‘Not a bit of it. The men that are posted here … well. The less they do, the happier they are. They gamble, they drink, and gain the company of the occasional woman in the village. They will not trouble us.’
‘It has been my experience, Master Teague, that many a bored knight will harry a stranger to quell their restlessness.’
‘That is why you are here, Master Guest.’ He eyed Crispin’s sword as he snapped the reins again, urging the beast onward. ‘I have not found it that way at Tintagel, Master Guest. In any other place, I would say that a certain level of vigilance is usually proper. But be at ease. They will not trouble us.’
But Crispin wasn’t at ease. He couldn’t help but glare back at the men-at-arms in their drunken laughter.
They passed through a broken stone passageway and out into the verdant hills of the rest of what seemed for all the world to be an island.
There were tracks winding up the hill and around, ancient tracks, by the look of them. Possibly trod on by Arthur himself. It gave Crispin pause, and he turned this way and that in the saddle, gazing at the land that this ancient king had also gazed upon. He turned lastly toward Teague on his rocking cart. With a little excitement in his voice that even surprised himself, Crispin asked, ‘Where do we go?’
Teague pointed onward. ‘There, Master Guest. To a mound of old foundations below the chapel on the top of yon hill. According to my maps and the old tales, these were the places King Arthur and his men sheltered.’
Sheep grazed there now where Arthur’s knights might have walked. It seemed strange, but who was Crispin to question? In Arthur’s day, this whole island was likely protected by that narrow passage – Tintagel, indeed – to prevent armies from marching through. It was very likely that the castle itself was not all there was to this place. It had been Arthur’s home, the castle of Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall, before Uther Pendragon had urged Merlin to weave his magic and disguise him as the duke, so that he could lie with Gorlois’s wife and beget Arthur. Deceit after deceit had doomed the place. For the duke had died miserably in battle the very night Uther lay with his wife Igraine, and Uther was later poisoned, for he had broken his promises and dishonored himself. The castle had fallen to ruin and, though Earl Richard of Cornwall had tried one hundred years before Crispin’s time, no one had restored it since, even as the doomed Edward of Woodstock had promised … and failed to do.
A shudder slithered down his spine. Were the very stones cursed? What in God’s name was Crispin doing here?
Carantok Teague seemed to care little for this history spinning in Crispin’s head, even as the man hummed merrily to himself and drove his cart down to a freestone half-structure.
He threw the reins aside and jumped off. ‘And now, Master Guest, Master Tucker, I shall show you the wonders of what I have found. I have taken the jewelry – the bracelets and arm rings – for safekeeping. For, er, the king, of course. Some of the rest remains here. Old rusted swords and axes. I was certain they would not be disturbed. Let us have a look. I’ll need your help to move the stone covering the hole.’
He marched toward the low wall or foundation and stepped over it.
Crispin glanced at Jack and signaled for him to dismount. They followed the man over the stone foundation and found a flat, squared stone covering what could have been a well. Crispin’s cloak flared with the cold and salty breeze, sweeping over the desolate green and rocky land.
Each positioned themselves at a side, bent over, and lifted. Walking backwards with the heavy stone, Crispin and Jack lowered it as Teague instructed.
Teague had covered the hole with a sheet of canvas. He stepped toward it, grabbed a corner, and whisked it off. A gasp halted his breath.
Crispin turned at Jack’s squeal of surprise. But he quickly trotted to the edge of the hole and looked down with the others.
A man-at-arms lay folded tightly, as if trying to make himself as small as possible, arms wrapped around knees held up to his chest, with his whole body lying on his side, sword still in its sheath, and dagger there as well.
And quite clearly dead.
FOUR
Crispin heaved a sigh before stepping down, and with one foot in the hole, he leaned in and looked the man over. Coshed in the back of the head, which was still covered in dried blood and brains, with the skull neatly dented. But, by the bloated look of him and the smell, he’d been there a few days at least. He was wearing mail and a surcoat. Something was in one of the hands clasping his legs. And because the rigor had come and gone, Crispin could easily loosen the fingers. He reached down and took the object from the dead man. A gold brooch with a horse’s head and wrapped gold wire. He turned it in his hands, looking it over. He showed it to Jack, who peered at it before he shrugged and looked up to his master. ‘Master Teague, some of your treasure?’
Teague looked at it with a stark, white face and shook his head.
Crispin slipped it into his money pouch and stood up. ‘Jack, why don’t you fetch the constable. I fear they have lost a member of their company.’
Jack nodded and, mounting quickly, spurred the horse back up the trail in a trot that became a gallop.
‘How could this have happened?’ said Teague in a whisper. It was the first thing he had spoken after a long interval.
‘I don’t know. You say no one knew of this place.’
‘I had no help and those in the castle were not interested in my diggings here. They had no idea what I was doing. For as I said, any gold or gems I had already liberated. Only rusty swords and axes remained. Hardly of any interest to those fellows.’
‘The question is was he murdered here, or murdered and dumped here?’ Crispin crouched down again and examined the place where the man lay. The soil around him was covered in a rusty color. He scooped some into his fingers and rubbed it between them. Blood. So he had bled out here and was likely killed here. With a cursory glance, there was no evidence remaining of footprints. The weather and time had taken care of that.
He wiped his fingers on his cloak. ‘He died here, and was deliberately stuffed within and hidden. Perhaps the murderer did not know that you would return.’
‘This is awful. Disgraceful. What’s to be done?’
‘Little, until the authorities come to examine the body.’
‘We have no coroner. And my work!’
‘A man has been killed by foul means, sir. Surely that is paramount.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Teague remained quiet, only ruminating under his breath with a hand to his mouth, until Jack returned with two men-at-arms behind him. Jack dismounted quickly, clutching the horse’s lead with a cold-chapped hand.
A man Crispin took to be the constable looked down at the scene from his saddle. ‘What goes on here? Who are you?’ He was looking directly at Crispin and at the sword hanging from his hip.
Crispin bowed and stepped up to his stirrup. ‘I am Crispin Guest, known as the Tracker of London.’
‘And what the devil is a “tracker”?’
‘I can speak to that, Sir Regis,’ said Teague, dragging his cloak tighter over his chest as a gust blew up from the sea, full of cold, salt and isolation. ‘I have hired Master Guest. He has a fine reputation in London for solving crimes. His patron was the Duke of Lancaster himself.’
Sir Regis’s dark eyes roamed over Crispin again with suspicion. ‘Is that so?’ He threw his reins to Jack, who grabbed them with one hand, and dismounted. He strode to the edge of the makeshift grave and peered down. ‘Why, that’s Roger,’ he said softly. ‘Roger Bennet.’
The other man-at-arms made a sound of surprise.
‘So you know him,’ said Crispin. ‘Then you were aware he had been missing for some days.’
‘He wasn’t missing,’ said the knight. ‘He was making a trip to see his sweetheart in Treknow.’
Crispin watched the man rub his bearded chin, eyes staring at the dead man, unable to tear his gaze away.
‘And when was that?’
‘It was … two days ago, wasn’t it, Thomas?’
The other man, Thomas, nodded from his perch on the saddle. ‘Yes. Monday. God have mercy.’ He crossed himself.
Sir Regis belatedly crossed himself.
Crispin dug into his pouch and pulled out the brooch, holding it up. ‘Do either of you recognize this?’
Regis passed his gaze over it but soon returned his stare to the dead man. ‘No.’
Thomas shook his head.
Crispin punched it down into his pouch again. ‘Did anyone see him leave? His horse?’
That made Sir Regis lift his head. He and Thomas exchanged glances. ‘I saw him leave,’ said Thomas. ‘On his horse, as he always did.’
They all seemed to scan the hills, the rocky cliffs at the same time. ‘Then … where is the horse?’ said Crispin.
‘Look here.’ Sir Regis stared again at the dead man. ‘If you are this “tracker” then you can find the killer.’
Crispin glanced at Teague, who nodded vigorously. He supposed Teague’s fee would cover his time. ‘Yes. But what of the coroner?’
‘We don’t have the luxury of London to have a coroner at our beck and call. You’ll have to get along without one.’
‘Then you are the law in this region?’
‘As good as, I suppose. You there. Teague, is it? When did you arrive?’
He stood upright, putting a hand to his breast. ‘You must have seen us arrive today. Only just now.’
Regis nodded distractedly. ‘Yes, yes. I suppose so. Well, then. We’ll need your cart.’
Carantok looked shocked at first, but then acceded to it. Crispin reckoned the man was worried about his secrets and whatever bounty he had stowed away in there, but a dead man would have little to say about it, and these two men-at-arms were too befuddled to make a search of the man’s possessions.
They all helped to gather up the stinking corpse and hustle it to the cart, wrapping him in his own cloak. The constable ordered them to take him to the parish church. The stone church with its tower was just visible at the horizon of a distant crag on the mainland.
‘It would help, Sir Regis,’ said Crispin, standing at his stirruped foot, ‘if you and your men scoured for the horse. Perhaps in Treknow, the countryside, the beach.’
Regis nodded, bearded jaw tightening. He nodded to their company, and Carantok snapped the reins, moving the cart slowly up the road.
Jack was about to go with him, when Crispin held him back. ‘There’s no need to follow their solemn trek, Jack. We need to do some thinking here. He’s only a corpse now. He’s told me all he could.’
Crispin tied both mounts to a stump and began walking slowly around the site.
‘What could have happened, Master Crispin?’
‘Could he have returned on foot?’ he muttered. ‘No, it’s too long a trek, and in any case, why leave the horse behind? If Thomas saw him leave, then something brought him back here.’
‘Thomas could be lying.’
He looked at Jack, studied the man, that flaming red beard of his, and nodded. ‘He could be. I shall have to see if he were. But if he hadn’t, what could bring Bennet back?’
‘The woman? They talked of him seeing a woman in the village.’
‘But why would she take the trouble to lure him back here to murder him?’ Crispin bit his lip in thought. ‘Wouldn’t it be just as expeditious to murder him secretly in the village?’
‘You never know with women.’
Crispin turned to stare at his apprentice again … and laughed.
Jack shuffled uncomfortably.
‘Tucker, if you plan on being a Tracker after me, it’s best you leave the more radical musings behind. Could a woman move that stone back over the body?’
‘No, sir. Only if she had help. But something brought him here, that’s a fact.’
‘Indeed.’ Crispin looked out over the whole area, back toward the road from which they themselves had traveled, to the higher road where the stone chapel sat, just peeking over the hill, to the lonely jagged hills that dropped off to the sea. ‘He could have been lured, so you say, but by something else. Master Teague seems to think that his own doings are secret … but are they?’
Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Oh! Him looking for treasure?’
