Serpent in the Thorns

5

CRISPIN STOOD AGAIN IN the room at the King’s Head that the sisters shared, and noted what had changed and what had not. Jack mumbled his complaints about dead bodies and asked Crispin if he could wait outside with the sheriff’s men-at-arms. Crispin nodded to him vaguely and Jack looked at the room with a little grimace on his lips before departing like a shadow.

The dead man had been laid out on a straw-covered pallet. Two Frenchmen wearing the same livery as the dead man—a quartered houppelande with the French fleur-de-lis—stood over him.

Crispin eyed their slightly pink complexions and their severely coifed hair. Where were these two when the man was killed?

“The French ambassador ordered them to court,” Wynchecombe whispered to Crispin, “but no one here speaks French with any facilty.” He looked at his clerk standing beside him, but the man shook his head.

“Mes seigneurs, un mot avec vous,” said Crispin to the men.

The man with dark hair combed long over his forehead turned. “Oh oui. Enfin, un anglais qui vaut la peine.”

“You three traveled together?” continued Crispin in French. The men nodded. “Did you see what happened?”

The dark-haired man shrugged. “We were . . . occupied.”

“I see. And he did not favor such ‘occupation’?”

“We know not. I think he spied his own conquest. Perhaps he followed her here.”

“I understand the French ambassador wishes for you to appear at the English court.”

The man spit on the floor. “He wants to imprison us for our carelessness. We have no desire to play into his hands.”

“If you came to England for the purpose of going to Westminster Palace, then why did you dally here, in this low place?”

He exchanged looks with his fair-haired companion. “We . . . had business here. We were to . . . to prepare for the English court.”

“Here?” Crispin asked skeptically.

Wynchecombe elbowed him. “What did he say?”

Crispin held up a hand to the sheriff. “Am I to tell the Lord Sheriff this . . . story?”

The man sneered. “Tell him what you like. We have another companion looking for the relic. We don’t need your help.”

Crispin turned to an impatient Wynchecombe. “They refuse to go to court. They feel it is a trap.”

“Damn these French,” muttered Wynchecombe. “Ask them their names.”

Crispin turned back to them. “My Lord Sheriff wishes to know your names.”

The dark-haired man bowed. “Gautier Le Breton. And this”—he said gesturing to his companion—“is Laurent Lefèvre. Our friend here”—he crossed himself—“is . . . was . . . Michel Girard.”

Wynchecombe nodded to his clerk. “Did you get that?” The clerk nodded and busily scribbled on a wax slate with a quill. The sheriff clucked his tongue and turned his attention away from the clerk and the couriers and studied the dead man. The arrow still lay deeply imbedded in his chest. “How about this arrow?” he said to Crispin. “Does it tell you anything?”

Crispin bowed to the couriers and left them in the middle of the room to stand at Wynchecombe’s side. “A nobleman’s arrow. Hawk fletching is more expensive than the more common goose feather.”

“I agree. Where was he when he was shot?”

Crispin strode across the dirt floor and pointed to the spot. There was still a puddle of blood mixed with dirt and now scattered footprints around it. “Here, my lord.”

Wynchecombe joined him and stared at the spot. “No struggle?”

“His weapon was still sheathed.”

“How about that shot?” He looked up at the window. “It would be an easy effort to shoot from that window to down below.”

“Look at the angle of the arrow. The Frenchman would have to have been lying flat on his back to be shot from that window.”

“What?” Wynchecombe marched back to the dead man and leaned over him. He fingered the arrow and snorted. “So. The angle is not right.”

“As I said, my lord.”

“He was shot here, then?”

“It would seem so, Lord Sheriff. At close range.”

“For that damned relic.”

Crispin paused. What was he to say? He knew the mysterious archer did not kill for the relic, the relic he now possessed. “Possibly. But there may be other motives we know not of.”

Wynchecombe’s mouth thinned to a straight line. “And why do you say that?”

One of the sheriff’s men-at-arms shoved his way through the Frenchmen and bowed to Wynchecombe. “My lord, the king’s guards are rousting the men to commence archery practice.”

“The king is doing so now?” asked Crispin.

“His decree said immediately, remember?” Wynchecombe nodded to his man. “Very good. See that all is orderly.” He turned his glare on Crispin. “Shouldn’t you be out there as well?”

Crispin bowed, relieved to get away. “Yes, my lord.” Should he say more? Crispin scanned the room—the French couriers eyeing the sheriff’s men with suspicion, the dank walls, the muddy mess on the floor—and decided to keep his thoughts to himself. He mulled over the relic in his possession. Yes, the more he kept from the sheriff, the better.

He sidled passed the sheriff’s men, enduring their sneers, and joined Jack in the muddy courtyard. He couldn’t help but look back into the undercroft and wonder about the couriers. Why would they need to “prepare,” as they said, to go to Westminster by lingering at this rough inn? Prepare for what?

They jostled passed the shaggy horses in the inn yard and stood at the yard’s edge, looking out on to Thames Street. “What a to-do, Master. Men scrambling out of their houses with their suppers still in their hands.”

“You heard the Lord Sheriff. It is the law to practice archery. Archers have saved the day in many a battle. An Englishman brandishing a long bow is feared throughout the continent.”

“If it is the law, why have you never gone before?”

He offered a smile. “I do go on occasion. But I must borrow a bow. Even though the law requires it, I do not own one myself. I can’t afford it.” He raised his head and watched the men moving down the streets, bows in hand. “Let us see what we can.”

It was a sight, indeed. Men of all ages and all walks of life were emerging from their houses like bees from a skep, swarming onto the streets, crowding out the shop keep ers. Wayward apprentices hopped nimbly into their shops’ doorways to avoid the melee. Arguments broke out as feet were stomped upon and bows smacked the heads of others. It was a cutpurse’s dream come true, Crispin supposed; that many men in one place, crowded, unaware of those surrounding them. He’d wager many a man would lose their purse this day. He resolved to keep a sharp eye on Jack Tucker.

Men on horses joined the throng, great destriers and embittered sumpters. Fresh horses, old, worn-out beasts. Dogs followed the stragglers, barking for the sheer novelty of it all. Women leaned out of upper windows, ticking their heads. It was as if a great army were heading out to battle, without the usual cheering and waving that accompanied such an event. Crispin had never seen the like and, by the measure of Jack Tucker’s wide-eyed stare, he’d never seen it either.

The dithering lines of men joined their brethren, all under the watchful gaze of the king’s guards, sitting on their mounts at every other corner. The would-be archers traveled through alleys and up widening lanes in a northerly direction toward the plains above London.

When an opening in the flood of men presented itself, Crispin and Jack joined them and headed almost all the way back to the Shambles, but turned instead up St. Martin’s Street to Aldersgate. Passing under the arch, they traveled with the others up Aldersgate Street.

Jack’s eyes were wide as he took in the countryside. “I never been to Islington before.”

“We still have quite a walk to go.”

The boy looked back toward London and shuddered. “I’m glad to be away from the sheriff. He makes me skin crawl. Why do you bother going to him anyway? He’s always beating you or threatening to do so. I say if you’ve found a dead man, say nought and let the sheriff suffer with it.”

“I was fairly confident he would do me no real harm.”

“ ‘Fairly confident’? Them’s not good enough odds for me. He threatened you with his knife! Said he’d cut off something.”

Crispin shrugged. “He didn’t, as you well know. And I always learn more than I inform. For instance, I know that this relic was the Crown of Thorns to be presented to King Richard. And I know what Wynchecombe does not: where those women are and where the relic is.”

“ ’Slud! How’d you know all that?”

Crispin stopped, whirled, and pushed a surprised Jack up against a short hedgerow. Jack looked down at Crispin’s hand pressed into his chest.

“Because while you were on the run from committing larceny, I was out discovering all these matters.” Crispin fixed his eyes on Jack’s. “Those men who came to my lodgings this morning. I don’t want a repeat of that. It soils my good name—such as it is. And it forced an encounter with Madam Kemp. And you know how I feel about that!” The boy’s face fell. “Jack, how many times have I told you not to steal?”

“I didn’t mean to do it . . . I mean, well, they were rich men. Sure to have more riches at home. What’s a few coins to them and, well, it’s . . . it’s a hard habit to break.”

Crispin’s hand pressed harder into Jack’s chest. “I’ll not toy with you further, Jack. If I catch you stealing again, I shall turn you out of my lodgings and return you to the streets where I found you.”

“Ah now, Master Crispin—”

“I mean it, Jack. I won’t tolerate it. Change your ways or you’re out.”

Crispin fastened his glare on him, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. He released Jack, turned his back, and strode onward.

Jack followed at some distance, silent and sullen. After a time he trotted up beside Crispin, head hanging, feet dragging. “It ain’t like I ain’t tryin’,” he said quietly.

“Try harder.”

“Aye. I will.” He said the words like a schoolboy after a brief round with a switch. Crispin almost felt sorry for him. Jack quickly changed the subject.

“Crown o’ Thorns,” muttered Jack. “If you know where this Crown o’ Thorns is why don’t you give it to the sheriff? Would you be the cause of war? That’s what the sheriff said.”

“It won’t come to that despite this show,” he said, nodding toward the march of men. “I have played the game of politics before, remember?”

“But that was when they called you ‘sir.’ ”

Crispin grumbled. “One never forgets the game, and it hasn’t changed. Even after seven years.”

“As you say. But I would not see the cursed French set foot in London.”

“Never fear that.”

Jack was momentarily distracted by the flitting of a chaffinch from hedge to hedge. The houses lining the road soon gave way to open country. Mounds of green rolled into the distance like a verdant sea. “Then why not give the Crown to the sheriff?” said Jack, pulling his cloak about him when the wind swirled up from the low-lying grasslands. “Let him dispatch it.”

“Because, Jack, this might be my path back into the king’s good graces.”

“I thought you didn’t give a damn about the king,” he said quietly, mindful of others along the rutted path.

Crispin set his jaw. He would be just as happy to see a sword chop King Richard to pieces, or even to watch him die from a lingering disease. “God’s blood! I weary of living like this,” he growled, not truly meaning to say it aloud, but it was good to give it breath, to snarl it. “If I return the Crown to court, then I will be the hero, not Wynchecombe. I weary of scraping to him. I weary of living in one room on a stinking street. And I weary of—”

“Me?”

He glanced at Jack’s anxious face, smooth with youth. Crispin took a breath and smiled an easy grin. “No, not of you. But I do weary of your stealing.”

Jack’s mouth set in a grim line. “I heard you the first time, Master.”

They arrived at the butts where the target mounds stood at the other end of the field, some sixty yards away. Some still sported wreath rings as smaller targets on their grassy faces. A low ditch ran before them where broken arrows still resided, like the quills of a hedgehog.

The green plains opened up and spread like a river to the distant darkness of the trees. The target mounds across the field stood mutely, their green turf waiting to be jabbed with arrows. Men and boys took their usual places, though there appeared to be more men than Crispin had seen practice in a long time. Little wonder with the king’s soldiers breathing down their necks. The presence of so many people shied a few sheep grazing in the meadow and they scurried off onto a narrow path leading away from the butts.

Jack stood close to Crispin as men gathered at the field’s edge, queuing up in a roughly straight line, facing the targets, and either hitching their quivers over their shoulders, or sticking their arrows into the turf at their feet. No one began as yet, making certain that no stragglers strayed onto the field between archer and target. Many began stringing their bows.

With so many men crammed together, Jack dropped to a whisper. “With this relic, do you think the king will forgive and forget, and bring you back to court?”

Crispin sighed. Wind lifted his hair and whipped the ends against his cheeks. “I don’t know. But I’ve got to try.”

A layer of autumn mist hovered just over the grass and disappeared into the woods smelling of wet field and sheep dung. Back over his shoulder stood London, reaching into the gray sky with spires and pitched roofs of slate, lead, and red tile. A dull layer of smoke drifted over its uneven landscape, climbing over the rooftops like a thief in the night. His city. His home.

With all these men parading into the field, it reminded Crispin of a fair day, only there was little amusing about it. A man, possibly a baker, taught his son how to hold a long bow. An old man showed a younger how to nock an arrow into a compact hunting bow, the younger man’s expression showing his frustration.

Crispin didn’t care that he didn’t own a bow. It was far down on his list of necessities. And since he could borrow one from his landlord Martin Kemp, the idea of owning the weapon disappeared completely.

Even as he thought it he spied Martin standing at their usual place trying to string the bow. Crispin moved toward him, unconcerned with the activity around him. The back of his mind toyed with the murder of the French courier and why Grayce thought she killed him. What great sin had stolen her mind, forcing her to conclude that she was a murderess?

He waved to Martin Kemp who was thrusting arrows into the soft earth and leaning his unstrung bow awkwardly against his leg. But Martin looked up and frowned upon seeing Crispin, and it was only then that Crispin realized why the tinker’s face was so sour. Jesu mercy. I forgot about Matilda. He stopped short. “Master Martin,” he said in solemn greeting.

“Crispin.” Martin Kemp said the one word with a clipped and formal tone, and clamped his lips tight. Martin’s expression jumped from anger to disappointment and even slipped into fear. He postured with one foot forward and clenched the weapon. “I must ask you a question I do not wish to ask.”

Crispin bent his head. Now that he faced Kemp he felt a wash of shame. “You do not need to speak, Martin. If you refer to my rudeness to your daughter, then I fear it is the truth.”

Martin shook his head, his shoulders following suit. “Saint Loy, Crispin! You know how she is; how my wife is! You shouldn’t have said—”

“I know. And I do apologize. I was out of sorts and—I beg your pardon. Humbly.”

“That won’t satisfy the wife. Crispin, I don’t like reminding you that we took you in when no one would. I do not charge the rent I should for your lodgings. Not as much as my wife would have me do. And then this—” He flailed his bow toward the silent Jack. “You know she does not approve of him! Nor do I, should he continue to cause trouble.”

“I’m trying to improve m’self, Master Kemp,” Jack said. He dragged his torn cloak dramatically over his chest.

Crispin pushed back his pride another notch. “If I must, I shall apologize to Matilda and Alice. Will that suffice?”

Martin rocked his head, thinking. Finally, reluctantly, he nodded. He looked behind with the expectation that his wife would swoop down like a harpy from above. “Have better care in the future, Crispin. I know Matilda is no prize, but she’s all I have, God help me.”

Crispin put on his best contrite expression. Mollified, Martin nodded and settled back into their uneasy alliance.

Martin raised his bow, tucked one end of it in the grass at the arch of his foot, and struggled to string it. He still wore his leather apron and tight-fitting leather cap, whose strings swung in tandem with each bend of the stubborn bow. He looked pitifully out of his element.

Martin managed to string the weapon and watched the others aim toward the targets. Over his shoulder he whispered, “What’s all this about anyway, Crispin? Is there to be war?”

“There may be. It’s complicated.”

“Politics always is. But of course, you would know best.”

Crispin made a sound in his throat, one that almost echoed Jack’s.

A shout across the field of “Loose arrows!” announced to one and all to commence shooting.

“Well,” said Martin, raising his bow. “Here’s to it.”

He pulled back the string and loosed the arrow. Sloppily, the arrow shot away with a discordant strum and sailed over the target.

“Try again,” said Crispin. How a man could practice such a thing for so many years and still prove incompetent, he’d never know. “Pull it farther. Farther! All the way to your ear.” Crispin shook his head with a grunt and positioned himself behind Martin. He placed his fingers over Martin’s and pulled back the bowstring. Crispin felt the bow tremble in the tinker’s hands.

“I can’t hold it much longer,” Martin whimpered.

“Then let it go,” rasped Crispin in his ear.

The arrow whirred forward and tunneled into the ditch below the target. Crispin relaxed and stared at the man.

“It’s this bow,” said Martin contritely. “It’s too powerful.”

“Here. Give it to me.”

Crispin took the offered bow and gripped it in his left hand. He pulled one of the arrows from the turf and nocked the feathered end in the string, holding the arrow’s tip in place with a hooked index finger. With a deep breath he raised the bow. Slowly he pulled back the string until his thumb rested under his cheekbone, took aim, and opened his fingers.

The arrow shushed away and spiraled toward the target, sticking it nearly in the center of a dried wreath.

“God blind me!” exclaimed Jack.

Martin shook his head. “That’s a beautiful thing when done correctly.”

“It takes practice.” Crispin lowered the bow. He looked at the weapon, a fine specimen of yew. He ran his fingers along the waxed linen bowstring and sighed. He turned to Martin and handed it over.

Martin took it and looked at it not with longing but with trepidation. “You don’t think we’ll ever truly have to defend London, do you?”

Crispin shrugged. “It’s always a possibility. Though no one’s invaded since William the Conqueror.”

“You fought in France with the duke of Lancaster, didn’t you?”

Crispin drew an arrow from the ground and handed it to Martin. “Yes. And many other places.”

Martin pulled the string back as Crispin taught him and aimed unsteadily. “I’ll wager you laid a few low with this,” he said.

Crispin flinched but tried to hide it by yanking an arrow from the turf and jamming it back in. He repeated the gesture several times. “I wasn’t an archer,” he reminded Martin quietly.

The shaft flew into the woods. Martin looked up from over his bow and stammered, “Oh. Of course. You wouldn’t have been, would you?”

“No. Indeed.” France. France’s battlefields, villages, forest-glotted estates. Thank God it wasn’t all muddy camps and damp pavilion tents. The duke had estates in France, and there were many similar English holdings where a bed and a grand meal awaited. Crispin circulated in villages aplenty, observing the natives, sampling the food (there was a sweet-tasting bread he especially liked), employing French tailors and French cobblers. French cotehardies were more tapered, more sweeping from the body. Their shoes, particularly the wooden clogs of both peasant and noble, were carved with more flare than the stoically practical English equivalent.

Crispin looked down at the arrow in his hand, rolled the shaft between his fingers. He missed those days. They seemed carefree, with that preponderance of time separating those events from these. He had certainly been free with his money. What he wouldn’t give for one of those French cotehardies now . . .

He raised his head and scanned the other men practicing with poorly hewn long bows and short bows. Women gathered, too, making an outing of it with food and drink—and why not? The king decreed it, but it didn’t mean the people could not make pleasant what the king made a chore.

Martin handed Crispin the bow again and Crispin took his turn with several arrows. The string calloused his fingers, but he didn’t care. Fine gloves or leather tabs used to protect his fingers, and a leather brace shielded his bow arm when out hunting with Lancaster on his lands. But Crispin owned no such leather goods now. Still, it felt good to have a weapon in his hands, under his control. To feel the tautness of the string at the folds of his fingers, the arrow’s shaft resting on his index finger as he aimed, the breath of wind as the fletching hissed by his ear, and the satisfaction of the faint thud when the point sunk into its target.

“I’d go to war m’self,” said Jack, standing just behind Crispin, chin up like a cockerel and keeping a sharp eye on every movement he made.

“Oh?” Crispin pulled back the string again and carefully aimed above the shaft already in the target.

“To see the gonfalons and the banners. And the horses. I’d fight with the best of them and win me ransom. Aye, I’d like to see that.”

The arrow whirred away and struck an inch above the first. Jack handed him another and Crispin nocked the arrow in the string. “So you’d like to fight, eh? Ever seen a battle?”

“Only at tournament. The melee. A fine show, that.”

Crispin closed his left eye and took aim with the right. “You think so, do you?” He let loose the arrow. It stuck the target above the last shaft. He lowered the bow until one end rested on the ground. He leaned on it and turned to Jack. “Ever see a man dismembered and disemboweled?”

Jack’s brows widened. His lips parted and hung open. “No.”

“You’d see plenty of it. Swords chopping and arms flung off. Men’s entrails spilling out at your feet.” Jack looked down at his own feet and stepped back. “Blood spattering your face as you swing your blade. Bits of bone snapping up at your eyes. Men screaming and then drowning in their own blood. That’s in the true melee, not the spectacle with wooden swords at a tournament.” He took the last arrow from the turf and jabbed the point toward Jack’s chest. The boy jerked back and stared down his nose at the arrow point. Crispin pursued, jabbing and stepping forward for each of Jack’s steps back. “In all probability, you’d be struck down by an arrow before you ever raised a weapon.” He jabbed at him again and Jack cringed, his chest caving inward. The boy’s fingers covered his breast protectively as if trying to stop a misdirected quarrel.

“Still want to go?” prodded Crispin.

Jack looked at Martin. Both their faces paled with new sobriety. “Well,” said Jack, quieter than before, “maybe not.”

Crispin turned back to his bow, nocked the arrow, and lifted the weapon.

Jack wiped his hands down his dirty tunic and licked his lips. He sauntered with recovering dignity back beside Crispin and watched him aim. “But what about you, Master? That’s what being a knight is, eh? If you were a knight again, would you go to war with the king?”

Crispin drew back the bowstring and pressed his thumb hard against his cheek. He blinked slowly in rhythm to his even breathing. “In a heartbeat,” he murmured.

The noise of men and the thump of a heavy horse drew up behind them. “What’s all that?” asked Crispin, still taking aim. He couldn’t decide whether to hit the target below or above the arrows in the center.

“It’s the king’s Captain of the Archers,” said Martin. “He’s a fine-looking gentleman on a splendid horse all frilled out in a colorful trapper.”

“All men look like fine gentlemen on a horse,” said Crispin. He let the arrow fly. It struck in the middle of his arrows and trembled. Five arrows bristled from the target, all clumped together in the center circle. “But not all are gentlemen.” He set the bow on one end and turned to look at the Captain of the Archers.

It was a fine horse. Its trapper—the hem reaching down to the horse’s fetlocks—swished in the wind and with the horse’s skittish gait. A bow hung on the saddle’s high pommel as did a quiver with arrows. Crispin looked higher.

A cold hand seemed to close over Crispin’s heart and squeezed, holding his breath, his blood, his very life in a suspension of time. Blinding anger overtook the shock and he gritted his teeth to keep from shouting outright. He flung the bow away and stomped up to the man on the horse. Before anyone could say or do anything, Crispin reached up and dragged the man to the ground. He pulled him up to a sitting position, yanked out his blade, and thrust it toward the man’s surprised face.

“Throat or gut?” rasped Crispin. “Your choice. Either way, you’re a dead man!”