‘You may find yourself remembering your parents more and more. Dabit illud tempus. But don’t hesitate to come to me if you are still vexed. I fear I have not been of much help to you.’

  ‘Oh, no, sir! Your regard has been the best help. For I know that you care about these things. Especially in your own household.’

  ‘Indeed, William. We will get to the bottom of it! Never fear that. Pray God gives us the strength and the wisdom to understand all that we find.’

  ‘Amen,’ he said, crossing himself. He offered a grateful smile before he left, clutching again at his cross.

  Nigellus sat back with a sigh. He’d never been the head of a household before. He hadn’t realized the time it would take out of his day, and the new role it meant. He was the father to all who inhabited the place, he supposed. They would come to him now with grievances and their sorrows as well as their joys. He never expected to be in such a position and yet he should have done. He had wanted to be a successful lawyer, after all. It had meant he’d have something of a grand house. Not as grand as this one, but still. And he was glad in the end that he had landed at last in his childhood home after all, even though that meant that Augustus was gone.

  ‘Well, enough of this speculation. I must to my work.’ He pulled the parchments from the top of his desk in front of him, and settled in. But try as he might, he could not manage to concentrate on his carefully penned words, nor on the notes made by William Roke in his very readable hand. He pushed them aside.

  ‘My mind is not on it. Curse this murderer whomever he was.’ Was he even alive? Would justice be served? What a dreadful thing to befall them all. He had noticed some workers leaving, not wishing to work under the onus of the death and whatever blackness that surrounded it, and he could hardly blame them.

  A throbbing in the top of his head began again. This simply wouldn’t do. He had to make the money in the family, for he dearly wanted John to cease all work that didn’t involve embroidery. He needed more clients, more cases. And how was he to accomplish that if he couldn’t even finish the ones he had?

  He tried again, pulling the parchments toward him. He read, scratched notes next to certain points of law that he questioned, but the headache would not abate. Perhaps if he went to Cook for something. Robert always had some sort of potion that he kept for the household.

  He hopped off his chair and stretched his back. And maybe something warm to drink. He should just call a servant, but like John, he was used to getting things himself. He shook his head at the two of them. Alas, it was meant to be that he would have an unusual household.

  As he strode into the entry, he once again heard the sawing and hammering of the workmen above. Since the body had been taken away, they had resumed their work as the steward Philip Able no doubt set them to doing. The man lived up to his name; he was an able steward, to be sure.

  Nigellus could admire the other improvements as he walked down the corridor to the back of the house. This was all John’s work. The man knew well how to coordinate colors to be best pleasing to the eye. After all, he used threads of various colors for his embroidery. He thanked the Almighty each day for John’s presence in his life, even if they sinned by their living together in what the Church would consider an unnatural order. But it didn’t feel unnatural. It felt quite natural and quite … well. He loved him. Though he did worry what God would think. Jesus did not seem to preach against such things. Nigellus had made very careful readings of the Sermon on the Mount. Even so, he dared not broach the subject in confession … which was itself a sin. He sighed.

  It had honestly never occurred to him to love a man. He’d never been interested in women, not with his studies keeping him occupied. He would have obliged his father, he was certain, had he obtained the hand of a willing woman for marriage. But his father was just as preoccupied as Nigellus had been, and never bothered to find his son a wife.

  He stopped to inspect a tapestry he had never seen before. It was small, perhaps two feet square. It could even have been something John had made. Nigellus wasn’t very good at remembering things that John told him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to pay attention, but he had so many things on his mind, and John did love to talk.

  He wondered how long they could keep up their charade. Wasn’t someone bound to notice? He hoped not. As long as they remembered to lock their chamber at night, he supposed they could keep it up indefinitely.

  He opened the door to the garden and stood in the doorway, taking in how dead and weedy it was. Augustus hadn’t taken good care of it, even with the gardener. But now with John cracking the whip, he could see small changes already – though it might take several seasons for it to return to the former glory his mother had created. John had the same sensibilities. He did have an eye for beauty, did his John.

  Maybe he should dismiss this gardener. After all, the man had taken his salary under false pretenses. He clearly hadn’t been doing his job. Though, in all fairness, if Augustus hadn’t prodded the man – for his brother didn’t care for things such as gardens – it was, in the end, Augustus’s fault. Nigellus hated to confront people, even servants. And then he chuckled at himself. Imagine a lawyer afraid to confront people, he mused.

  A breeze brought the smell of herbs wafting toward him. It truly would be a home after everything was put in order. Except for that pile of leaves under the trellis. It seemed out of place to the work the gardener was finally putting his back into. Nigellus wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for a ray of sunshine that lit the usually shadowed hollow. He supposed the gardener would soon get to it with his rake and wheelbarrow. Nigellus remembered that when he was small, he liked to watch the gardener work. That had been the old gardener who had a wispy gray beard and even hair in his nose and ears. Nigellus loved watching him swing his scythe and lay low the grass, then rake it up and carry it off. He had watched him trim the roses and all the flowers, laying straw beneath them in the wintertime and trimming them down to stubs, and it was a wonderment when they budded in the spring.

  ‘Young Master Cobmartin, I wondered where you’d got off to,’ the old man would say, and he’d welcomed Nigellus back and even let him trim the dead blooms himself with the old gardener’s clippers. He’d had to use two hands. He had liked that old man but couldn’t for the life of him remember his name now. Was it Samuel? Sebastian? Something with an s. He was long dead, he supposed. One day he was there, and the next time Nigellus was at home, the man was simply gone, and another gardener had taken his place. But that was when Nigellus had been fourteen or fifteen and off to Gray’s Inn by then.

  He walked along the path, the gravel crunching under his shoes, and the gentle rain of autumn leaves settling about him. He looked back at the dark patch of leaves under the trellis and stopped. He cocked his head as he looked at it, for it didn’t seem quite right to him. Should he bother with it? Shouldn’t he just get the gardener Rafe Hemm to remove it? It was his job, after all.

  He was walking toward it before his mind could reckon he had done so. And when he stood looking down at it – the dark shape tucked under some berry bushes and covered by leaves – he realized it wasn’t some garden trimmings at all. It was … it was …

  ‘Holy saints. William! William!’ He knelt and shook the boy’s shoulder. He shook it harder but as he did so, he saw the dark beneath him like a crimson shadow.

  ‘Help! Someone! Help! William is hurt!’

  Workmen came running, servants ran forward from everywhere, and John appeared from the kitchens throwing a hand over his mouth.

  ‘Oh, Lord preserve us,’ John whispered. ‘We must send again for Crispin.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nigellus. He had begun to tremble. He reached back for John’s hand and clutched it hard. ‘Dear Lord in Heaven. Dear, dear Holy Mother. It’s another death.’

  NINE

  Crispin had arrived back to the Cobmartin household and before he could say a word, they hustled him to the back garden. He crouched over the body of the young man and shook his head in disbelief. Jack stooped alongside him.

  ‘Blind me, Master Crispin,’ he said quietly. ‘Why, after so long, would the son of Wilfrid Roke have been attacked?’

  ‘I can think of but one reason, Jack. Because the killer is still here.’

  ‘But that can’t be possible.’

  Crispin glanced at Christopher standing stoically beside Nigellus.

  ‘I’m afraid it is possible. And what’s more, this can’t be the end of the killings.’

  Nigellus, who had been standing back next to John Rykener in his woman’s clothes, dithered with his hands. ‘What did you say, Master Guest? There’s more danger to be had?’

  ‘It’s as if someone is trying to wipe out the memory of the Rokes. And the only two left who even knew them are the cook … and you.’

  John grasped Nigellus so tightly the man squawked. Nigellus carefully disentangled himself from John. ‘My God, what should we do?’

  Crispin rose. ‘You should leave this place. You and the cook.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘As long as it takes for me to find the killer.’

  Nigellus put his fingers to his mouth. ‘Dear me. This is a disaster.’

  ‘Better that we found out now,’ said Crispin, ‘than after the fact.’

  ‘After the fact!’ squealed John. ‘God in Heaven! We must pack at once!’

  Nigellus turned to him, his face pale. ‘But where would we go, my dear?’

  ‘I don’t care. Far from here. Back to Gray’s Inn?’

  ‘Yes, I do have lodgings there. But, er, they don’t allow … females.’

  ‘Nigellus! Don’t be a silly fig. I’ll change my clothes.’

  Crispin sighed. It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. ‘Come to my lodgings when your luggage is prepared. You can change there.’

  ‘Oh, Crispin!’

  He stiffened as Rykener descended upon him and enclosed him in a bone-shattering embrace. ‘John,’ he winced, ‘I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ He stepped back, dusting down Crispin’s cote-hardie.

  ‘But what of Cook?’ asked Nigellus.

  Crispin felt a headache coming on. ‘If he has no relatives, then, I suppose, he can lodge with me, as I fear there will be no privacy at Gray’s Inn.’

  He and Nigellus exchanged glances. The lawyer had one room there. And with John … how would he explain Rykener’s presence?

  The steward approached. ‘Master Cobmartin … and Master Guest. The sheriffs are here.’

  Nigellus placed a hand to the side of his face. ‘Not again.’

  ‘I’ll deal with them,’ said Crispin. ‘You and … and Eleanor should pack. Very lightly.’ He signaled for Jack to help them and Christopher followed.

  The sheriffs turned at his approaching step and glared in his direction. ‘My lords,’ said Crispin with a deep bow. ‘And so. Another murder.’

  ‘Weren’t getting paid enough, eh, Guest?’ said Sheriff Askham. ‘It’s not by the body, is it?’

  ‘I have no idea of your meaning, my lord. I am here assisting Master Cobmartin with his difficulties.’

  ‘Right under your nose, Guest,’ said Sheriff Woodcock, stalking toward him with hands tucked behind his back, and his nose jutting forward in the attitude of a common crow striding across a green.

  ‘In fairness, I was pursuing another avenue of my investigation, and wasn’t on the premises at the time.’

  ‘Excuses he has by the penny,’ tisked Askham, shaking his head. ‘There’s always an excuse, isn’t there, Guest?’

  ‘Obviously the investigation continues. But I have ordered Master and Madam Cobmartin from the premises, as well as the cook.’

  ‘And what is the meaning of that, by all the saints?’ asked Woodcock.

  ‘Because, my Lord Sheriffs, they were the only members of the household who knew the first murdered man, and I fear for their safety. The original murderer is obviously still here among us.’

  Askham fiddled with his chain of office and rested a gloved hand on his sword hilt. ‘What foolery is this, Guest? The murder was twenty years ago. What makes you think this new one has aught to do with the other?’

  ‘Because it is the murdered man’s son who was slain. It can’t be a coincidence.’

  Woodcock sneered. ‘I can lay bare hundreds of writs that show coincidences.’

  Crispin said nothing. He merely stood as he was, waiting.

  ‘It’s damnable, is what it is.’ Woodcock swung away from Crispin to go to the sideboard and pour himself some wine. ‘Traipsing all over London to this same household. You’re not doing your job, Guest.’

  Only because you aren’t doing yours, he huffed in his head. It would have been satisfying saying it aloud. At one time he might have. But he was getting too old to be brutalized by sheriffs. It was easy to keep his own counsel under the circumstances.

  Woodcock drank as Askham watched him. He didn’t even try to join him at the sideboard. He seemed to itch to leave. Crispin expected it when he said, ‘Then we can leave this for the coroner as well.’

  ‘I will await him,’ said Crispin helpfully. The more helpful he was the sooner they would leave.

  ‘That’s right, you will,’ said Woodcock, jabbing a finger at him as he swigged down the wine from the cup. He slammed the cup down on the sideboard and smoothed his mustache. ‘Right, then. We’ll be off. Do your work, Guest, and you won’t run into any difficulties with the Lord Sheriffs’ office.’

  Crispin bowed, relieved as they made their way from the room. He listened as their mutterings and footsteps took them across the foyer and out the door.

  ‘Thank God for that.’ He sighed.

  Nigellus and Rykener arrived in the parlor with a small chest. ‘There’s little space in my lodgings at Gray’s Inn,’ said Nigellus, staring forlornly at the pitiful coffer.

  ‘Pray God it won’t discommode you for long, Master Cobmartin. And … Eleanor.’

  ‘But how will I change at your lodgings if you are bringing the cook?’ asked John quietly, looking over his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll have him come after,’ said Crispin. ‘In fact, you should go now.’

  ‘But …’ Nigellus gestured upward toward the construction noise. ‘I’ve told no one …’

  ‘And you need tell no one where you are going. I’ll convey it to the steward that all messages to you should come through me.’

  ‘Dear me. Ordinarily I’d have William run back and tell them. Now …’ He wiped at his eyes. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

  John was beside him in an instant, patting his shoulder.

  ‘Jack, take them quickly.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Come along, Master Nigellus. Hasten, now.’

  Christopher joined them and Crispin watched them go, as strange a couple as he had ever known. But he couldn’t help but like the two of them. He turned and headed for the steward’s chamber. When he poked his head inside the door sitting ajar, he wasn’t there. Must be with the workmen, he speculated. Up the stairs he went. The dust, the noise, all hung in the air on the first floor of the manor house. Men carrying lengths of wooden planks, plasterers with their buckets and spattered aprons, and all manner of apprentices carrying whatever their masters instructed them to. With so many, he wondered why it wasn’t all complete already. Delays with the coroner visits no doubt cut into their time. For who did not wish to stop their work to watch the carrying of a dead body?

  He searched amid the plaster dust lingering in the air for the figure of Philip Able. When he found him, he waited patiently as the steward directed the workmen to finish as quickly as possible. When the man turned at last, he nearly ran into Crispin.

  ‘Oh! Master Guest. I thought you’d gone.’

  ‘And just returned. I will await the coroner, but I wanted to inform you that Master and Madam Cobmartin will be … in another location for the moment. Should you wish to communicate with them, you may contact me on the Shambles.’

  ‘And why is that? Where are they going?’

  ‘They are leaving for their safety. I know where they will be lodged and I can get a message to them. And, indeed, Master Robert the cook will also be relocated. Again, for his safety.’

  ‘The cook? What in heaven is happening here? We’ll have no cook?’

  ‘I daresay, you shall have to learn to fend for yourselves.’

  ‘But this was supposed to be the most respected of houses. Why, you could ask anyone and they would say that the Cobmartin household was as wholesome as they came.’

  ‘Murder does change things, Master Able.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I have informed you. I will await the coroner below.’

  He left the man to work it out and descended the stairs. The coroner arrived an hour later and after he and his men took away the body of William Roke, Crispin crossed himself and sought out the kitchens.

  Robert was scrambling about as Crispin had seen before, stirring one pot, then tasting another, and all the while ordering his scullion to various tasks.

  ‘Master Robert!’ shouted Crispin above the din of clashing pots and crockery.

  The cook glanced over his shoulder and frowned upon seeing Crispin. ‘Master Guest, I am much too busy to talk to you now.’

  ‘I’m afraid all will have to wait, good sir.’

  ‘Eh?’ He grabbed a cooking pot off the fire with the hem of his apron, and spun with it toward an already cluttered worktable. ‘What’s that you said?’

  ‘You may put all that aside and come with me.’

  He stopped, spoon midway to his lips. ‘Put it aside? But dinner? It’s nearly ready.’

  ‘Your scullion will have to take care of that, Master Robert. Your masters have already left the house and they have ordered that you must go too.’

  ‘Go? Go where?’

  ‘I’m afraid to my household. It is …’ Crispin lifted his eyes to the vaulted ceiling, ‘… a poorer place than this one. But there will be children to feed and such. It is for your safety, sir. Because of William Roke’s murder.’

 

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