Traitor's Codex Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Titles by Jeri Westerson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Afterword

  A Selection of Titles by Jeri Westerson

  The Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series

  VEIL OF LIES

  SERPENT IN THE THORNS

  THE DEMON’S PARCHMENT

  TROUBLED BONES

  BLOOD LANCE

  SHADOW OF THE ALCHEMIST

  CUP OF BLOOD

  THE SILENCE OF STONES *

  A MAIDEN WEEPING *

  SEASON OF BLOOD *

  THE DEEPEST GRAVE *

  TRAITOR’S CODEX *

  Other titles

  THOUGH HEAVEN FALL

  ROSES IN THE TEMPEST

  * available from Severn House

  TRAITOR’S CODEX

  A Crispin Guest Medieval Noir

  Jeri Westerson

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  This eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2019 by Jeri Westerson.

  The right of Jeri Westerson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8875-4 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-987-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0213-0 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  To Craig, the only man more loyal than Crispin

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Many events and characters from previous volumes will be mentioned here. You may wish to refresh and enhance your memory by revisiting Veil of Lies, The Demon’s Parchment, and The Silence of Stones.

  GLOSSARY

  Anchorite, Anchoress – a religious recluse anchored to a church by a specially built cell or Anchorhold – usually attached to the side of the church itself.

  Breviary – A small prayer book.

  Cod – Middle English word for scrotum.

  Domus Conversorum – Residence for converted Jews during the reign of King Edward III in 1232. It was granted to the Keeper of the Rolls of Chancery in 1377 to house the close roll records – records of activities, grants, and other official documents. These were written on parchment and sewn together by year into the close rolls.

  Lollard, Lollardy – Reformist movement of John Wycliffe who, among many differing beliefs, felt the Bible was the supreme authority, and that baptism and confession were not necessary to salvation.

  Mummer – An actor. There were few plays as such. But a Mummery or performance of a satirical or religious nature was more common, particularly on certain feast days.

  Rood Screen – A decorative wooden, sometimes stone, screen spread across the nave of a church, blocking the assembly from the altar. Above it was generally a crucifix, or ‘rood’.

  Watching Loft – A second story in a church or hall as big as a gallery or as small as a narrow passage, where watchers could look down on to a shrine or other important area below.

  ONE

  London, 1394

  Crispin Guest eyed the room. His favorite tavern, the Boar’s Tusk, was raucous with the noise of men talking and laughing, a man playing a pipe, cups clinking, and a hearth crackling. A permanent lingering haze of smoke hung in the air just at eye level. He’d spent many a day here in an earnest attempt to get himself good and drunk on the wine he barely had coin to pay for, wallowing in the misery that had characterized his life since being banished from court and losing his lands, his wealth, and his sense of himself.

  But that had been some years ago.

  Today, drinking ale in a horn beaker, he relaxed somewhat in his usual place against the wall with a view of the door (some habits were hard to break), and amusing himself – sober these days – on the goings-on around him.

  There were fewer men in the tavern than usual. The plague always struck in late spring and summer, when the weather warmed. He used to leave with the rest of court and summer in Sheen on his estates or at Lancaster’s. Now, of course, he stayed in London, doing his best to avoid certain streets, keeping an eye out for the telltale signs. Perhaps it should have made him more cautious in London this time of year, but he didn’t see the point. Either God would protect him or He wouldn’t. There was no use bargaining for it.

  A shadow of a large man fell over him; and then the man sat on a stool opposite. Crispin raised a smile to Gilbert Langton, the tavern keeper.

  ‘Well, look at you,’ said Gilbert in a smoke-roughened voice. ‘I never thought I’d be serving you ale, Crispin Guest, when you always groused for your wine.’

  Crispin glanced at his cup and tipped it to his lips. ‘Well, I have a whole houseful of Tuckers these days, and I must save money where I can.’

  Gilbert laughed, a hearty sound. ‘You’d think they were your family, the way you carry on.’

  He didn’t take offense. Once, in an earlier day, and a jug full of wine in him, he would have scowled and railed that a servant meant nothing to him. But today, he merely offered a crooked smile. ‘I do indulge them. It is still strange to me how my own servant can take over my life.’

  ‘Because Jack is more than a servant to you. He’s a friend, a companion.’

  ‘That is the truth of it.’ Who would have thought it? Certainly not him. Not in the days when he was Baron of Sheen, with his manor house, his knighthood, his place at court, where servants were invisible to him. It was different now in his life on the Shambles, the stinking butcher’s district of London. Living in a poulterer’s shop because it was all he could afford, Crispin had made a life for himself with his apprentice Jack Tucker. And then his
servant brought a wife and child. And then it was two children, and the girl was pregnant again. Jack was as studious a husband as he ever was as an apprentice.

  ‘It’s good to see you happy, Crispin. I know that has not always been the case.’

  ‘You’ve always told me how I should reconcile myself to my lot, Gilbert, and I have been … reluctant.’

  Gilbert laughed again, harder this time. ‘Reluctant? There’s a word.’

  ‘Very well. Decidedly unpleasant about it.’

  ‘And it only took Jack Tucker taking my niece to wife to mellow you, eh?’

  ‘Perhaps. But it is in days like today that I find my escape to the Boar’s Tusk most necessary.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I have never lived in such close quarters with squalling infants, Gilbert. The boy has his moments, and the babe is a colicky child.’

  ‘And so now you understand why many a man spends his time and his coin here.’ He swept the room with a brawny arm.

  ‘I do indeed. But … tell me.’ He sipped again, and just over the rim of his cup, he said, ‘I have noticed yon man with the blue houppelande, staring at me for some time. Do you know him?’

  Gilbert made a sly turn of his head, taking the man in before turning back to Crispin. ‘Can’t say that I have. Shall I have him tossed out?’

  ‘No, no. I would see what transpires.’

  ‘On the scent again, are you? Then I’ll leave you to it. Give my best to my niece.’

  ‘I shall.’

  Gilbert rose, straightened his stained apron, and rumbled his way through the crowded room. Crispin poured more ale into his cup from the clay jug in front of him. He sat alone, as he was wont to do. And because most of the patrons knew who he was – and who he used to be – they allowed him his privacy.

  Drinking, Crispin watched the man who still seemed to be staring at him, watched as he rose from his table, and pushed his way in a slow stride toward Crispin. When he stood over the table, Crispin merely gazed up at him.

  The man hid his face in the shadow of his hood, but there was a trace of blond beard and hair. His eyes were brown but little could be read there. His clothes were that of any man on the streets of London, nicely made, even a bit of fur, legs encased in dark stockings.

  ‘Are you Crispin Guest, the Tracker?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  The man reached into his scrip, pulled out a wrapped bundle tied with twine, and dropped it in front of Crispin, nearly knocking over the jug.

  ‘Don’t open it here. Best to keep it off the table. You’ll know what to do.’

  And then he walked away. His quickened steps took him to the door.

  ‘Wait!’ said Crispin, rising. ‘What am I supposed to—’

  But before he could even hope to get to the man without making a spectacle of himself by leaping up on tables and throwing men aside, the stranger was gone.

  He stared at the package. It was covered in soft leather wrappings and tied tightly. He could not tell from its rectangular shape what it might be and, without knowing the man who left it, it was a mystery burning him with curiosity.

  Casting a glance about, no one appeared to be looking his way. He scooped the package off the table and dropped it into his scrip. Nothing for it but to take it home.

  He walked down Gutter Lane to West Cheap. On the corner a few people had gathered, listening to a man preaching.

  Crispin only heard a little of what the man said, but it soon became clear that the preacher was a follower of Wycliffe, a Lollard, a religious reformer. He spoke loudly how the Bible was supreme even over that of the words of priests and bishops, and how those clergymen should not hold property but be as poor as Christ. The man was holding a book that he waved around. No doubt a Bible written in English. Was the man tempting the authorities to seize him?

  Though the crowd mostly booed him and hurled insults, some seemed intrigued. With friends like the Duke of Lancaster, many emboldened Lollards seemed to go about these days preaching their beliefs. Crispin was of the opinion that a man’s beliefs should be left alone; though he agreed with some aspects of Lollardy, he did not like their doctrine that baptism and confession were not necessary for salvation.

  He slowed and listened for a few moments before he turned away and took Cheap till it became the Shambles, leaving the ranting preacher behind. Stalls of butchers selling meat filled the air with a special kind of lingering smell that never seemed to leave his clothes. A boy with doves kept in small baskets hanging from a yoke over his shoulders moved carefully down the lane, where he headed toward a shop that specialized in game birds. Crispin sidestepped a plump woman moving geese down the trodden mud, gently urging them on with a stick.

  Hands suddenly clamped to his arm and he swung away, ready to pull his dagger.

  A man in ragged clothes and a dirty face smiled a crenellation of missing teeth. ‘The dead are all around us. Do you hear them speak?’

  ‘Sometimes too often. Away with you, beggar.’

  ‘I’m not no beggar. I just tell what I hear. And the dead speak to me. But they mostly speak to you.’

  A shiver ran up his neck. He shook the man loose from him and reached into his money pouch. ‘Maybe this will quiet them,’ and he handed the man a farthing.

  The man took it, looked at it as if it were a foreign thing. ‘When the dead speak again, you will listen … Crispin Guest.’

  The beggar clutched the farthing in his dirty fist and shambled away, seeming in his manner that he had forgotten he had ever stopped Crispin.

  Crispin let out a long breath. ‘London,’ he muttered.

  Once the prophesying beggar disappeared into the crowd, Crispin finally turned toward the old poulterer’s, a rickety structure with two bedchambers above and a shop below. All the shutters were open, letting in the breezes of June, and he hopped up on to the granite step and let himself in.

  A small boy, barely two years old, ran headlong into him before he could speak a word.

  ‘Crispin! Get your arse over here!’

  Crispin startled, as he always seemed to these days when his servant Isabel Tucker yelled at their oldest child. They had named the little boy ‘Crispin’ to honor their master, but he was beginning to think it wasn’t so much of an honor after all.

  Crispin bent to grab the boy and hoist him in his arms. The pale skin and bright red hair was definitely the face of his apprentice Jack Tucker. ‘My lad,’ he said sternly, ‘what have you got up to that makes your mother so cross?’

  Isabel burst through the back door and put her hands to her ample hips. Pregnant again with her third, she had a scolding look to her face. ‘Now, Master Crispin, you must not indulge him.’

  ‘Indulge him? I was saving his life from a terrible dragon, wasn’t I, boy?’

  Little Crispin giggled and chortled and muttered nonsense words that only his mother seemed able to decipher. He reached for her arms and she took him. ‘He was pulling poor Gyb’s tail and chasing the chickens.’

  ‘He was merely being a boy. I’m certain I did my share of pulling cats’ tails and chasing chickens.’

  She laughed and brushed a lock of hair from her face. ‘I cannot imagine it.’

  ‘Madam, do you think I arose from my mother’s head fully formed as you see me now?’

  ‘I wonder.’

  He snorted at her back as she turned away toward the hearth, the boy clinging to her like a vine, she stirring the pot on the trivet. The babe, Helen, lay in her cradle, sleeping between the hearth and window, amazingly quiet even with the loud conversation.

  Gyb jumped up into the window then, flicking his aforementioned pulled-tail and eyeing Little Crispin judiciously. Little Crispin nearly leapt out of Isabel’s arms and cried, ‘Gyb!’, one of the few words Crispin could interpret.

  But the black-and-white cat was having none of it. He dropped down on the other side of the sill to the street and was, no doubt, going to his other favorite occupation of watching the chickens I
sabel had acquired. In all his years on the Shambles, Crispin had never kept chickens. When would he have had the time or fortitude – or indeed, the knowledge – to tend to them? But Isabel was a good wife and servant and managed it all.

  The front door opened and Jack strode into the hall and smiled at his wife and child. ‘There they are.’ He gathered them both in his arms, much to the squeals of wife and son.

  Jack was now twenty-two, and there was never a more formidable man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with flaming red hair and beard, he was like a fearsome giant from tales of old. Yet Jack was neither fierce nor much of a giant, all told.

  ‘Master, where’d you go off to this morning?’

  ‘Getting away from … er, from my …’ He shut his mouth. He would not hurt the feelings of his apprentice for anything in the world. And then he admonished himself for being so soft on a servant.

  ‘Looking for a bit of peace and quiet?’ Jack smiled and winked.

  ‘As it turns out,’ said Crispin, taking the parcel from his scrip and placing it on the table in the middle of the room, ‘it was a good thing I did. I think.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Jack, looking the package over before pulling up a chair to the table.

  Isabel, still clutching Little Crispin and letting him hold the stirring spoon, got closer and peered over Jack’s shoulder.

  ‘It is a mystery,’ said Crispin with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I was minding my own business at the Boar’s Tusk when a man I did not recognize left it with me. All he would say was not to open it in public and I would “know what to do”.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jack muttered.

  With his fingernail picking at the knot of twine, Crispin pried the strings loose and folded back the wrappings.

  ‘It’s a book,’ said Jack.

  Leather-bound and thick, Crispin made a sound of assent. He opened the cover and looked at the pages. Written in a language completely unfamiliar, he nevertheless tried to make sense of the carefully penned writing. ‘Greek. Ιησούς … No. Only a few words in Greek here and there. Yet … not quite right.’ When he turned a page, he ran the edge through his fingertips, running his hand down its strangeness, its almost basket-weave surface.