Cup of Blood by Jeri Westerson

Author:Jeri Westerson [Westerson, Jeri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Historical
ISBN: 9781497476127
Google: YnWfoAEACAAJ
Amazon: B00KI1R0RW
Publisher: Old London Press
Published: 2014-05-20T18:30:00+00:00

Jack settled in. He’d eaten his bowl of soup, scraping the last bit with the wooden spoon, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, nursing the ale in its wooden beaker. He kept half an eye on Lady Vivienne’s room and the other on the rest of the hall. Men came and went. Others went to their rooms briefly and stomped out of them again. But Lady Vivienne’s door remained shut.

Leaning against the wall, Jack waited. He took out his small knife and picked his teeth with the blade’s tip. The innkeeper eyed him, but otherwise he went unmolested.

But after some hours passed, Jack squirmed. He’d never had to stay in one spot for so long. What did Master Crispin want, anyway?

He stood and stretched…and spied a man whose money pouch was there for the taking. He looked like a student or perhaps a law clerk, the type of young man with patches on his sleeves but with eloquent words on his tongue. His pouch was small and likely mostly empty, but it hung nearly on his back and he was in deep conversation with another of his ilk at the table.

Jack slid his gaze about the room and straightened his stool. No one was watching. The few customers in the hall were busy in their own conversations and Jack had been there for so long, no one even took heed of him any longer.

Certainly he had the time for it, he thought, snatching one last look up the stairs to Lady Vivienne’s solidly closed door.

Slipping gently off his stool he moved closer to the student, pretending to dust off his tunic. He leaned over to tug up his sagging stocking, and while he was low, he raised his knife and swiped at the pouch’s ties. The pouch fell neatly into his waiting hand. Standing up again, he pivoted to return to his seat when he smacked into the chest of a solid individual behind him. A tall, lean man in dark colors looked down at him. A scar pulled up an edge of his mouth and traveled up his face nearly to his eye.

Jack staggered back but the man shot out a hand and closed it over his shoulder. “How kind of you to retrieve that poor man’s money pouch,” he said in accented English.

Jack stiffened, especially when the hand squeezed hard on the bone.

The man kicked the student, who flashed angry eyes at him and rose, looking at the man askance. “Why do you kick, sir?”

His friends rose, too, and squared off with the Frenchman, for that was what Jack perceived him to be. After all, he had seen him before, and his gut chilled from the remembering.

The man smiled. “This boy retrieved your money pouch. You dropped it.”

The student instantly put a hand to his belt and, feeling nothing there, glared down at Jack. Jack proffered the pouch, not knowing what else to do.

The student grabbed it from Jack’s fingers and gripped it tightly. “Thanks, boy.” He stared at Jack and Jack, frightened to do anything else, stared back.

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