Veil of Lies Read online

  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 protégé. 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 not come for charity! I have vital information to impart to his grace the duke.”

  “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 him, risked all for him?

  “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—”

  She dismissed the king with an angry gesture. He knew she did not fear the boy king of England. Not when her father had been king of Castile and her husband, Lancaster, ruled the king’s own council. “I think my lord would be happy to see you again.”

  “My lady, his grace does not share that sentiment.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  A lie eluded him. “I…had hoped to speak with him. But it is better—”

  “Nonsense. Come with me. Lewis, help him in.”

  The coachman eyed Crispin. Crispin backed away. “My lady, no. The duke already refused my admittance.”

  “Are you disobeying a command from your better, Master Guest? I said, get in!”

  Grateful, he nevertheless feared her misplaced loyalty would do them both ill. But she was right. He could not naysay her, especially in front of her servants.

  Lewis lowered the coach’s gate, which also served as a step. Crispin ducked as he entered the arched compartment and sat opposite her along
the pillowed bench.

  “Let us hope John is in an agreeable mood today,” she said.

  Crispin hoped so, too, and he tried to sit back and relax. The unwieldy carriage bumped along the avenue, rattling those within and making it an uncomfortable ride, even with pillows beneath them.

  The maid did her best not to stare at Crispin. He did not know where to look either, and gazed out the small window while holding fast to the bench for dear life.

  The carriage passed through the gates and stopped before the massive arched portico. The door opened, and Lancaster’s steward rushed forward to greet the duchess. She emerged first, and the man bowed.

  Crispin stepped down from the carriage, and the steward’s face went white.

  “My lady—” the steward tried to interject, but Costanza only raised her chin.

  “Where is my lord husband?”

  “His grace is in his apartments, my lady. In the parlor, but—”

  “Very well. Come, Crispin.”

  Crispin looked back at the sputtering steward. There was nothing for Crispin to say to him, and he only shrugged at the man and followed the duchess inside. The familiar corridors and halls settled him in a place somewhere between comfort and misgiving. This was home to him, yet he did not belong here anymore.

  Shadows parted for rushlights, and they walked a long way, first through the massive great hall, through a close, through a chapel, and down a long corridor until they turned a corner and entered the warm apartments of the duke. Crispin recalled the parlor well with its carved oak beams and wood-paneled ceiling, heavy tapestries, carved pillars, ornate sideboards, and lush chairs. The fireplace stood as tall as a man and as wide as five of them. Made of carved stone, it boasted the badges of Gaunt impaled by Castile. A great log within burned with a rolling golden fire, casting an aroma of toasted pine and spicy ash into the chamber. A corona filled with blazing candles stood nearly in the center of the room. Not far from the hearth sat the man himself at his desk, enthroned in his chair, nose immersed in his books. The quill, poised like a dagger, stood straight up in his hand.

  He looked up and smiled upon seeing his wife. The smile fell away when Crispin stepped from behind her.

  Lancaster stood so abruptly the heavy chair fell back. “God’s blood!”

  Crispin bowed and opened his hands. “Your grace, forgive me—”

  Lancaster drew his sword and lunged forward, two, three strides. “By God, when I give an order I expect it to be obeyed!”

  Crispin waited. The sword would either strike him or not. Either way suited.

  “My lord husband! Is this the courtesy you extend to my guests?”

  Lancaster stared at her. His scowl hid amid the dark beard and mustache. The sword lowered and his shoulders with it. “You did this,” he said to her. “You brought him here.”

  “In all fairness,” she said, moving forward and laying a gentle, white hand on Lancaster’s sword arm, “he protested. I forced him to it.”

  With a huff that gusted his mustache, Lancaster slid the blade back in its sheath. Without a word, he made a slow circlet of his overturned chair and finally stood behind it. “You take liberties, Madam,” he said gently to his wife. “You do not understand the seriousness—”

  “I understand when an old friend is neglected. And I understand when it is politically expedient. But I also understand that our friend Crispin does not take such a visitation lightly, and therefore it must be of some import.” She angled her head at Crispin. The gold cages cupping the rolled braids at her ears sparkled when she turned. “It is of some import, is it not?” she whispered to him. “Do not make a liar out of me.”

  “Yes, my lady.” He bowed to her and looked up hopefully at Lancaster. “It is.”

  The duke closed his eyes for a moment. The dark lids rose slowly and he sighed. He leaned down, righted his chair, and sat heavily. “Will you leave us?” he asked her.

  She curtseyed, pressed her hand a moment on Crispin’s, and left.

  Crispin stood alone waiting for Lancaster to speak. The roaring fire diminished under Lancaster’s presence and even the wooden floor feared to creak lest his eye be directed there.

  It was one of the longest silences of Crispin’s life.

  At length, the duke cleared his throat, closed his books one by one, and set his quill aside. “When the king asks me why you were here,” he said, raising his face, “I hope to answer him with substance. For he will ask me, and I must make it known that no new conspiracies are afoot.”

  Crispin looked at the scuffed toes of his boots. “I needed to come—”

  “Rashness, Crispin. Always your downfall. You do not spend enough time reasoning it out.”

  “Your grace—”

  “Is it another one of your criminal inquiries? Why you cannot leave it to the law I will never understand.”

  “Because the law founders on its own ineptness…your grace.”

  By the look on Lancaster’s face, he didn’t exactly agree. The duke rose from his chair and took his time approaching. Lancaster studied Crispin’s threadbare coat, its patches, and the careless stitching that repaired his stockings.

  Crispin felt each blink of the man’s lash, each snort of disdain in his throat. To appear before his lord in something little better than rags…Crispin felt his face flush with heat.

  Finally, Lancaster stopped and looked Crispin in the eye. “I thought I made it clear that I did all I could for you. Wasn’t saving your life good enough?”

  The words smarted. “And I thanked you for it. But there is information only you can provide. No one else in the council will have anything to do with me. I hoped you would have the courage to admit me.”

  Lancaster’s hand slapped his sword hilt. “How dare you!”

  Crispin eyed the sword and slowly raised his gaze. “What more can be done to me?”

  Lancaster’s brows were perfect black arches. His lower lip jutted slightly forward. “I can think of a thing or two,” he said in a deadly voice.

  Crispin’s blood chilled, but he would not stand down. “I would not be here if I did not think England’s welfare was at stake.”

  Lancaster’s hand fell away from his sword. “So”—he snorted—“your loyalty brings you?”

  “I am London born and raised, your grace. I am as much England as the king.”

  Lancaster huffed a sound somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. “His Majesty would not be particularly pleased to hear that.” He glared at Crispin before retreating to the sideboard. He poured himself wine from a silver flagon but offered none to Crispin. He stood with his back to him and drank.

  Crispin studied Lancaster’s wide shoulders. Being at home, the duke wore no armor, but Crispin was almost more used to him in the black armor he was so fond of. Today he wore a velvet houppelande whose sleeve points surpassed the gown’s knee-length hem and nearly touched the floor. The coat’s face was quartered by the colorful arms of Gaunt and Castile. Only ten years Crispin’s senior, he seemed so much older, so much stronger and heroic. Here was a man with claims to the throne of Castile and Leon. He was unafraid of any power in Europe. And though he warned Crispin of the king’s wrath, Crispin suspected he did not fear Richard himself.

  “What worries you so about England’s welfare,” Lancaster asked, his back still to Crispin, “that only the Tracker could salvage it?”

  He did not know Lancaster knew his new title. He felt uncomfortable hearing him utter it. “I know of a scheme that has our enemies embezzling England’s export taxes.”

  Lancaster spun and stared at him openmouthed.

  Crispin’s solemn lips curved up at one edge. “Is that important enough to concern you?”

  “Who? Who is stealing the king’s money?”

  “I have reason to believe it is the duke of Milan, Bernabò Visconti.”

  Lancaster set down the bowl and grabbed Crispin’s arm to steer him toward two chairs at the fire. He pushed Crispin into one and sat in the other.
“Tell me what you know.”

  Crispin’s heart panged. This was too much like the old days. “I do not know much. Only that there is an Italian syndicate working its plots in England. I suspect they have on their payroll a guild member who performs creative bookkeeping at the staple ports.”

  “Do you have proof?”

  Crispin leaned forward and rested his fist on his thigh. “Alas, no. The ledgers were stolen from my lodgings. I think a man was murdered because he knew the truth.”

  “Who was this murdered man?”

  “A mercer. A rich one. Nicholas Walcote. I suspect those particular funds are stolen to prevent Richard from lining his war chest. Does he plan on marching to France any time soon?”

  Lancaster sat back and pinched his lower lip between his thumb and finger. “Yes. That is…he did. Before Parliament advised him there were insufficient funds for such a venture. Now I know why.”

  “Why would Visconti wish to interfere with our war with France? What’s to be gained?”

  Lancaster sat as he was for a long time. He lowered his hand at last and let his arm drape over the chair arm. “Do you remember Geoffrey Chaucer?”

  The name sent a warmth of memories through Crispin’s mind. “Of course. He served in your household. We were the best of friends. But it has been years since I have seen him.” Another ache of longing tightened his chest. Naturally he was forbidden from seeing his former friends for fear that the king’s vengeance would rain down upon them. They had been like brothers and never would he risk that.

  He cleared his thickened throat. “I hear of his works from time to time.”

  “Yes. I am his patron, as you know. But he is also a customs controller…and a sometimes spy for the crown.”

  “Geoffrey?”

  “Do you recall when I sent you to Visconti’s court?”

  “Yes. I still smart from my stupidity.”

  “You are not the only one. It pleased Visconti to make fools of the king’s emissaries. Chaucer was sent some years ago and also quite recently.”