Veil of Lies by Jeri Westerson

Wynchecombe’s ring tear his cheek, felt the warm blood run in a tickling dribble down his face, felt his eye take the brunt of it.
    Jack made a small noise from his place in the shadows, like a trapped mouse.
    Taking a deep breath, Crispin slowly turned his head to face the sheriff. He ran his tongue in his mouth and tasted the bitter flavor of his own blood.
    “I said I want an answer,” said Wynchecombe. His voice rumbled like distant thunder.
    “And I told you I can’t give you one.”
    Wynchecombe’s fist sank into Crispin’s belly and he would have dropped to the floor on his knees had the sheriff not been holding him up. Crispin gasped but no sound came from his lips.
    “Tell me.”
    Without voice, Crispin shut his eyes and shook his head.
    Wynchecombe dropped Crispin and he tumbled to the floor holding his sore belly. He rolled into a hedgehoglike ball.
    The sheriff rubbed his tender knuckles into his palm and walked a slow circuit around Crispin. Wynchecombe leaned down and grabbed his hair, jerking Crispin’s head back.
    There was no time to feel humiliation at being on his hands and knees. The raw pain of his belly and eye was still too fresh.
    “Is it worth taking a beating?”
    His eye swelled and shut. Crispin managed a defiant smile. “But you enjoy it so much.”
    Wynchecombe drew his arm back, and Crispin tensed for the blow. But the sheriff’s attention was diverted by a movement in the shadows. He dropped Crispin’s hair and stood above him with his legs apart. “It’s true. I could easily, and happily, beat you for the rest of the afternoon. But I think I would rather thrash… him .”
    Crispin painfully turned his head in the direction the sheriff stared with such glee, and the rebellious smile fell from his bloody lips.
    Jack cowered behind the door when the sheriff neared him.
    Crispin lurched forward. “No! Wait!”
    Wynchecombe closed his enormous hand over Jack’s tunic and pulled him from the floor. Walcote’s ledgers fell out of his cloak one by one. The sheriff’s other hand closed into a red fist and bobbed close to Jack’s face.
    “Oh please,” Wynchecombe oozed, smiling over his shoulder at Crispin. “Just one?”
    Crispin’s face burned, and his belly felt as if it were folded together and nailed closed. “Release him and I will tell you everything.”
    “I was just getting started.”
    “Simon!”
    He curled his fist around Jack’s tunic even tighter. Jack blanched. His eyes gaped to terrified holes. “It’s Lord Sheriff to you, remember?”
    “My lord…please…”
    Wynchecombe held Jack suspended above the floor for what seemed an interminable time before he grimaced a chuckle and dropped him. Jack scrambled back to his corner like a mouse in search of a hole. He collected the books and scooped them into the safety of his cloak. “Weakness for a servant?” The sheriff tutted. “I am surprised at you, Crispin. It’s not a very admirable trait.”
    Crispin raised his head but could only do so at an odd angle. He squinted with his one good eye. “‘You become just by performing just actions.’”
    “Not your damned Aristotle again. You seem to hold great store by what that pagan said.”
    Crispin dragged himself across the floor to the chair but only to lean against it. His head felt close to bursting and his eye felt as if a knife had jabbed it. He put his hand to his head. His hand didn’t help the pain, but it reassured him that his head was still in one piece. “There is much wisdom in the writings of antiquity.” He said the words mechanically. Perhaps he’d said the same words to Wynchecombe before. Difficult to remember when his head was hammering.
    The sheriff moved with deliberate posturing back to his chair and sat, gloating over his beard. “You were about to tell me why Walcote hired you.”
    Crispin ignored him for the moment and peered as best he could into the dim corner. “Are you well, Jack?”
    Mute, Jack nodded vigorously and