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shoulders and thrust him toward the man. “You will make a fine cotehardie, two shirts, and a pair of stockings for this young knave. And use the best material a shilling will buy. That will cover the five pence and my fee.”
    “Master Crispin,” Jack muttered, struggling to pull away.
    “Take your measurements, sir,” he said to the tailor. “In the meantime, I have some investigating to do.”
    Jack was still arguing when Crispin opened the door and stepped out onto the bridge’s street. He didn’t get very far before Anabel accosted him, pulling her cloak about her. The wind caught the hem of it and billowed it up until she captured it with a wind-chapped hand. “That was a fine thing you did, sir. My father and I are grateful for your honorable deed.”
    “It is more that I hate greedy landlords. Were you much in arrears?”
    “No, Master Guest. In fact, he had never been so impatient before. We were only two days late and he threatened to turn us out. Well, you saw for yourself. He has never been so insistent before.”
    “Yes, he did seem anxious.” The street was busy now with carts and drovers, tapping at the heels of sheep with sticks to move them along toward Southwark. Young girls were weighted down with heavy bougets of water from the cisterns in London proper and they hurried up the street as fast as their heavy burdens would allow. The smells of cooking meats rolled down the avenue as sellers with carts with songbirds on sticks called out to buyers. Shopkeepers and apprentices hustled along the single avenue, setting up their folding shopfronts and laying out their wares, though few were buying in these uncertain times.
    “Is it true about your father? Does he overindulge?” Even as he asked it he felt a twinge of guilt. He was one to talk, for he overindulged plenty. And he had the overdue bills at the Boar’s Tusk to prove it.
    She swiped at the air and rubbed her elbow distractedly. “Perhaps he does. What of it? It doesn’t affect us. He gets the job done. There is always food on the table.”
    “And what of you?”
    Her bright eyes caught his. “What of me?”
    He wanted to ask if what the landlord said of her was also true, but her steady gaze and squared shoulders gave him pause. He offered a crooked smile instead. “Never mind. I … God’s blood.” His eye caught a spectacle he had no desire to see. Down the street on their fine horses dressed in silky trappers, simply waiting in the shadows, were the sheriffs. When they saw Crispin their faces broke into large grins and they trotted their mounts forward.
    “You see,” said William Staundon. Their horses suddenly flanked Crispin, hemming him in. “I told you he would be here.”
    “I told you that!” said William More indignantly.
    Good Christ. Crispin sighed and gave an apologetic shoulder lift to Anabel. “And so you find me, my lords. What do London’s sheriffs need with me?”
    “Oh, nothing,” said Sheriff Staundon airily. “Nothing at all.” He gave a conspiratorial smile to Sheriff More. “But we seldom find you at your leisure, especially out of the Shambles, Master Guest. Might you be doing a share of … investigating?”
    No use trying to hide it. “Just as you suspected. There is murder here.”
    Their squeals of delight turned his stomach.
    Staundon leaned down from the saddle. “Pray, Master Guest. Can you tell us?”
    “Do you intend to inform the coroner’s jury so that justice will be served, for I could not convince Charneye even though the evidence was there.”
    He exchanged a look with Sheriff More and sighed. “Alas. It is the jury that will decide if it was not an accident.”
    “Even given new evidence?”
    “And what new evidence is there?”
    Jack had just come out of the tailor’s buttoning his coat when Crispin called him over. The boy bowed curtly to each sheriff. “Master Tucker will show you. Be so kind as to take the sheriffs into the armorer’s and explain it,