Serpent in the Thorns

6

“CRISPIN! ARE YOU MAD?” Martin tugged Crispin’s arms.

Crispin heard him distantly like a midge buzzing about his head. He did not yield. When the two men-at-arms arrived they did a better job. They swung him to the ground. Crispin sprang to his feet and the men grabbed him again.

“Master!” Jack trotted around them like a sheepdog, trying to get to Crispin.

Crispin spun out of the guards’ grip. He kicked one in the gut and slammed his fist in the other’s jaw. The first man recovered and pulled his sword. Crispin darted under the blade and grabbed the wrist holding the weapon. With hands firmly on the struggling guard’s wrist, he directed the steel toward the other man still groaning on the ground and smacked him in the head with the side of the blade. The man slumped solidly down.

With his fist still ringing the swordsman’s wrist, Crispin tried to disarm him, but the man twisted and kneed Crispin’s chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. Crispin had no choice but to release his grip and stagger backward. The man raised his sword, but Crispin whirled and landed a blow with the heel of his boot to the man’s groin. The man’s face squinted and his mouth formed a soundless “O.” Crispin threw an uppercut and smiled when the man slammed backward into the mud. The sword flung from his hand.

Crispin spun. Two more men-at-arms came running and Crispin crouched, bloodied fists clenched.

The Captain of the Archers struggled to his feet with Martin’s help and called for the men to stop. “I said hold!” he said in a more commanding voice. The men stopped and looked at one another with fists curled. “Leave us!” said the captain.

The men cast questioning looks at a scowling Crispin, and slowly departed, though not too far.

The Captain of the Archers brushed his wheat-colored hair out of his eyes. He straightened his muddied velvet surcote and adjusted his gold-tipped sword pommel. The fawnskin gauntlets, hemmed with fur, dripped with mud. Three gold rings flashed from the gloved fingers on his left hand. He wiped mud from his face and stared at Crispin with a growing smile of recognition. “Crispin Guest. I will be damned. I thought you were dead.”

“I might as well have been!” Crispin yanked his fallen dagger from the turf. Jack tried to help Crispin but he shook off the boy. “And you will be damned as soon as I kill you.”

The Captain’s lips drew back in a knife-sharp smile. He examined Crispin and shook his head. He turned toward Jack and Martin as if suddenly remembering them and jerked his head. “Do these two have to be here?”

Crispin swiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand and shook his head.

Without looking at either of them, he said, “Jack. Martin. Would you be so kind as to leave us?”

“Yes, Crispin,” muttered Martin. “Come along, Jack.” A throng of men nearby also departed under the watchful scowls of the men-at-arms, leaving Crispin and the captain alone.

“I’ll be at home, Master.” Jack said it loud enough for the Captain of the Archers to clearly hear him. “Watching for you.”

Crispin ignored Jack and lifted his knife higher. “Now, Miles Aleyn. How do you want to die?”

Miles postured, one foot forward, his gloved hand resting lightly on his sword pommel. His long surcote bore the king’s arms—three yellow leopards on a red field—quartered with red arrows on yellow fields. He twisted his rosy lips, too rosy for a man’s. His dark eyes followed each of Crispin’s moves, hawklike, aware. Crispin knew from experience that those eyes were more alert than Miles’s relaxed manner made them appear. “Still so melodramatic,” Miles said, one brow raised. “One would think you would have outgrown such theatrics.”

“You son of a whore. You misled me. And then like a coward, you tucked and ran.”

Miles took a deep breath. He raised his eyes toward the distant men-at-arms. “Treason is still treason, Crispin,” he said quietly. “Not even I could have saved you. At any rate, you did only what you wanted to do. As I recall, you were one of the easiest to persuade. Still wet behind the ears.”

“I trusted you!”

Miles waved his hand and then let it fall to his side. “Alas.”

“You could have spoken up!”

“And had my bowels ripped from me? I think not.”

“Why did you do it? Why stir up the nobles against King Richard and blame Lancaster?”

“Now, now. Need we be so loud?”

“I’ll shout it to the rooftops.”

“And get nowhere. Try anything, and I will lay you low before you take a breath.”

“If you can.”

Miles chuckled. “Crispin, Crispin. Look at you. Alive. Free. I thought you’d be out of London by now. Still festering, I see. Any other man would have given up, found a life elsewhere. Not you. A glutton for punishment. Or a would-be martyr. Which is it? After all, my dear fellow, it was ages ago.”

“Ages ago? Like yesterday.”

“Not to me.” Miles adjusted his right glove, but Crispin could tell he was measuring how far away his men were.

“So why? Why betray us? What had you to gain?”

“I barely remember now. Probably someone paid me to do it.”

Crispin’s fist knotted over the dagger. “Who paid you? What coward would dare?”

“So many questions.” Miles glanced back. The men-at-arms talked furtively in a tight knot, hands on sword pommels. They looked toward Miles, awaiting his signal. “You’re a very curious fellow, aren’t you? You should have been more curious seven years ago. It could have saved your hide.”

“Who hired you!”

Miles blinked languidly. “Did I say someone hired me? I do not recall.” He looked Crispin up and down. “Why such concern? You thrive, do you not? And Lancaster did speak up for you. ‘Begged’ for your life, I think the king said. Like a good foster father should.”

Crispin snorted. “And the others all under the ax. Except you. But I shall remedy that now.”

“Kill a nobleman? They’ll put your head on a pike.”

“Better that than a coward’s life.”

“Oh be still, Crispin. You are alive and well. No worse for wear.”

“You don’t know. You have no idea what I have suffered!”

“So you lost a few shillings—”

“You were there! I lost everything, you bastard! My knighthood, my lands, my title!” Crispin opened his arms, whipping the air with his knife. “This is what the king left me!”

Miles perused Crispin’s patched cotehardie, leather hood, thread-bare cloak with its tattered hem trailing threads. “And yet you managed to make your way.”

“Make my way?” Crispin decided that stabbing him in the gut would be more pleasing. A knife thrust deep and then jerked upward. Those entrails would nicely cover the shine of Miles’s boots and golden spurs.

Crispin gestured with the dagger. His fingers curled tightly around the grip. “You seem to have done very well for yourself. The king’s Captain of the Archers?”

“I managed. I went to France and fought in Richard’s army and climbed my way into his good graces.”

“And you never sought me out, never bothered to discover how I fared?” He couldn’t breathe. “You’re a dead man.”

“I beg to differ.” Miles looked down his blunt nose. “Should you attempt to attack me, my men-at-arms would be upon you.”

“What do I care if I kill you first?”

“You didn’t scrape by all this time just to kill me. You didn’t even know I was alive. Surely your life is precious to you. You survived the king’s wrath, after all. That is certainly a feat worth note. What have you managed to do all this time? Are you a scribe, perhaps? Or does the Church suit you?”

Crispin looked back over his shoulder. Too many guards. He’d never have the chance to strike a decent blow. Disappointment stabbed at his gut with a long, slow pain, as slow as his knife blade sliding back into its sheath. He raised his chin. “No. I am called the Tracker. I recover lost objects. Find estranged relatives. Investigate for the sheriff.”

“God’s teeth! That’s you?” Miles laughed. “I only just heard about this wily fellow yestereve at dinner.” He laughed again and hid a guarded expression behind his hand. “Well then. All ends well after all. You defend the indefensible. ’Tis a noble calling.”

“Devil take you, Miles!” Crispin looked back at the guards. Maybe one blow would be worth it.

Miles’s face drew on a mask of indifference. “Surrender to it, Crispin. It’s all in the past. There’s truly nothing you can do about it now. Who would believe your word against mine at this point?”

“All the more reason to simply kill you.”

“Is that a challenge?” Miles withdrew his sword, inching it from the scabbard.

Crispin stiffened. “I don’t have a sword, you turd.”

Miles smiled. “So you don’t. Keep your little knife where it is then, and there will be no difficulties, eh?”

Miles whipped the air once with the blade and sheathed it. He chuckled. “Good to see you again, Crispin. God keep you.” He turned on his heel, reached for his horse, and mounted. He glared down at Crispin and yanked on the reins. The horse arched his neck and Miles turned him, dug in his spurs, and galloped the beast away.

The men-at-arms followed at a trot. They glared back at Crispin but left him alone. Crispin clenched his fists so tight they shook. With a hissing breath through his teeth, he opened his cold fingers and allowed the blood to rush back into them. Pins and needles jabbed his hands until they warmed, warmed as much as a cold September on a London meadow would allow them. He stood a long time, so long the sun burned off the mist, leaving a clear path of trod turf back to town.

He cast a glance toward the grassy butts with his arrows thrust into its center wreath. If only that were Miles’s heart. Yet surely the man didn’t have one. No wonder he was so difficult to kill.

He snatched the bow from the ground and stomped toward the target. He didn’t even bother to watch for flying shafts as he grabbed all five arrows and yanked them free. He hunted for Martin’s misspent arrows and found only the two in the ditch in front of the target. The one in the woods was lost.

He turned toward London and strode across the vast field. No question as to where he was going now.

THE DOORS OF THE Boar’s Tusk yawned open as if inhaling the first breaths of winter, though winter was still months away. The opened maw welcomed Crispin and he walked through, found his usual seat with his back against the wall, facing the door, and slammed bow and arrows to the table.

A man sitting on the bench beside him gestured toward the weapon. “It ain’t right the king should decree a man go forth today. It ain’t a Sunday, after all. When’s a man to work?”

Crispin never looked at him. “When have you ever done a day’s work?”

“That ain’t friendly, Master Crispin.” He pulled his hood down to his brows.

Crispin rubbed his crusty eyes with the heels of his hands. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

The man rose, and with an indignant and drunken swagger, departed and nearly bumped into Gilbert.

Gilbert sidestepped the drunk then looked Crispin up and down and motioned for Ned to bring wine and bowls. He sat opposite Crispin with his arms folded over his chest, and after a long, silent pause, Crispin raised his eyes. “What?”

“You’re in a sour mood, is all. I was merely waiting for you to tell me.”

“Tell you what? That I’m a pauper? That I’m nothing in the eyes of the court? This you already know.”

Gilbert eyed the bow and arrows. “What’s amiss, Crispin? Is it the archery practice that vexes you?”

Crispin ran his hand over his chin. He felt the spot he missed while shaving. He pictured Miles on the ground and himself above him. Why didn’t he slit the bastard’s throat when he had the chance? And who, by God, was Miles protecting?

Crispin looked at Gilbert. “I ran in to an old acquaintance today.”

“I take it this old acquaintance stirred foul memories.”

“He did indeed.” Crispin’s voice dropped in volume though it wasn’t a conscious move. “This man I saw today . . . I have not seen in some seven years. He was the instigator of the Plot.”

Gilbert hunched forward, cupping their dialogue within his bowed shoulders. There was no need to distinguish which “Plot.” “No!”

It was the first time Crispin spoke about Miles to another human being. What did it matter? Miles was right. Who would believe Crispin now after so many years?

Crispin searched over Gilbert’s shoulder. Where was Ned with the wine? Such a distasteful subject needed the satisfaction of spirits. “Paid by someone to start the deceit,” Crispin went on, “he was the unknown conspirator whom none of us divulged even under torture.”

Gilbert’s face, so round, so naturally jolly, elongated with horror. “Torture?” he murmured. “I did not know they tortured you, Crispin. You never said. You never spoke much about it at all.”

Crispin’s belly rumbled uneasily, remembering. The smell of fear made of sweat and piss; the odor of burning flesh. He shut it away again and bolted the memory behind his hate. “It is of no consequence. It turned out to be the least of my worries.”

“But Crispin, why wouldn’t you say? Why not reveal the scoundrel at the time?”

“I hadn’t realized his full guilt then. It was only sometime after it was all over that I knew. Perhaps, even if I had known, I wouldn’t have revealed his name.”

“For God’s sake, why not?”

Crispin looked up, taken aback. “It would not be the honorable thing to do.”

Gilbert snorted. “Your honor. It hasn’t gotten you very far.”

“If I have not that, then what is left to me?”

The wine arrived but not by Ned. Livith faced Crispin and leaned far closer to him than necessary to put the drinking jug on the table. He inhaled the scent of hearth smoke on her clothes and sweat on her skin. When she bent over, he noticed perspiration dotting the tender flesh between her breasts. She put two bowls down, taking longer with Crispin’s. “Would you have me pour?” she asked.

Thoughts of torture and Miles Aleyn suddenly receded to a far place in Crispin’s mind. A tentative smile wiped away some of the day’s rancor. “Yes,” he said. She slid the bowl to her, scooped it up to her breast, and poured the wine.

Gilbert squinted at her. “None of your tricks now.”

She cast a wearying glance at Gilbert and lowered the cup to the table. She had to push the arrows and bow aside and glanced at it before raising her eyes to Crispin. “Ah now. This brings back memories,” she said, sliding her finger suggestively up the curved weapon. “Me dad was an archer in the king’s army. Always fiddling with a bow and arrows. Talked of nought but.”

Crispin eyed her fingers lightly sliding up the bow. “What happened to him?”

“Died of sickness in his bed. Not the way he would have wanted to go.” She sighed and shook out her apron. “And now all this trouble with archery practice. It’s a shame, it is.” She gave Crispin a smile and sauntered away, looking back over her shoulder in a casual manner, not exactly looking all the way nor catching Crispin’s eye, but Crispin knew well what she was about.

“She’s trouble.” Gilbert shook his head.

“Yes,” said Crispin into his bowl. “Maybe the kind I’m looking for.”

“Don’t get mixed up with her, Crispin. She’s got a sly way about her that doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Never fear, Gilbert. She’s not the sort I usually favor.” But he watched her disappear behind a curtained alcove and thought long about her slick lips and sweat-misted flesh. Gilbert was talking to him, yet he did not hear his words. He rose with his bowl and walked toward the kitchens when Gilbert grabbed his arm.

“Crispin,” he warned.

Crispin merely smiled and when he moved again Gilbert’s hand fell away.

He reached the doorway and cast aside the curtain. The alcove led to another door and to the kitchens in a small outbuilding situated too close to the tavern to do much good if it caught fire. He leaned in the open doorway and scanned the tiny space, smaller than his own lodgings. Ned and a female servant were busy roasting and basting meats over a fire burning within the high-arched hearth. Black iron pots, pans, and cooking tools hung on hooks beside the arch, swaying with the smoke rising from the turning meat. A large kettle hung from a rod, its lid rattling from steam.

Grayce sat on a stool by the hearth, peeling turnips. The peels piled in her apron-covered lap like autumn leaves. She did not seem to be looking at her work, but distantly; looking farther than any sane person could, Crispin reckoned. Ned almost tripped over her as he worked, giving her the evil eye.

Livith stood at the worktable that took up the bulk of the floor. She bent over it, kneading a large wad of dough, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows. Flour dusted her breasts. He thought about brushing them off for her, but instead he stood quietly watching, sipping wine from his bowl.

At last she looked up and smiled, a little triumphantly, he thought. “Now what would you be wanting, Master Crispin, that you have to come all this way to the kitchens to get it?”

He sauntered forward two steps, reaching the other end of the table. The woman servant elbowed Ned in the ribs.

“Something I can’t get out there in the tavern’s hall.”

She slapped the dough one last time and planted flour-covered knuckles at her hip. Flour smudged her nose. A wisp of hair dangled from her kerchief and swung before her eyes but it didn’t make her blink. Crispin suspected that not much made her blink. “And what would that be?”

He smiled at her audacity. Her angular face was more appealing than on first glance.

“I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Questions?” She leaned over and rested her hands on the table, giving Crispin a clear view. “I’d ’a thought you already knew all you needed to know.”

He made a point to examine her obvious features before raising his gaze to her’s. “You can put those away. I’m not interested.”

She straightened abruptly and looked as if she would spit.

Crispin smiled. “I’d like to know where you were during the shooting.”

“I was in me place at the inn,” she said stiffly.

“On your back?”

She picked up a knife lying on the table. Crispin leaned back to dodge it as it hurled past him out the door.

Grayce popped up, knocking over her stool. “It’s the Tracker, Livith. Look, it’s him.”

“Aye, Grayce. I see him.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’m talking to him, ain’t I? You go back to your work.”

“I’m done with the turnips.”

“Then go stir the pot.”

A wide smile broke out on Grayce’s face. “As you will, Livith. ’Day to you, Tracker.”

Crispin gave her a nod and watched her set the stool back on its feet and lean over to stir the pot under Ned’s supervision. He wondered how good an idea it was letting her get close to so big a fire, but he supposed Livith knew her business better than he.

Livith wiped her hands on her apron. “You’ve got a mouth on you, too, Tracker.” She said the last with oozing sarcasm.

He watched her wipe her apron over her hands. “Why did Grayce admit to killing that man?”

Ned looked up, his face an open question.

Livith shrugged. “She’s a simpleton is why. Who knows why she says what she does?”

“Has she always been . . . slow?”

“Aye.” Livith glanced at her sister, dreamily stirring the big cauldron. Livith pulled at her apron one more time and let it drop. “She’s always been that way. Can teach her a few things and she remembers them, but other things she forgets the moment she’s done with it. It’s a curse, that.”

“Your duties at the King’s Head—”

“Don’t concern working on me back!”

Crispin raised an unconvinced brow. “Of course. You’ve been working at the King’s Head—how long did you say?”

“I didn’t.” Her hand at her hip formed the last word on it. Crispin didn’t press the matter. Livith seemed to soften. Her weight shifted over one hip. “Any news on that man and who killed him? Can we go back to the King’s Head yet?” she added sweetly.

“No, to both. The sheriff is looking for you two.”

Her calm manner fled. She crouched forward as if to leap like a spider. “You saw him? You didn’t tell him what Grayce said, did you?”

“Of course not. But he knows I am the one who hid you two away.”

“Then what are you doing here? Off with you!” She scrambled around the table and shoved him hard in the chest. It barely tilted him.

Crispin chuckled. “The sheriff isn’t standing behind me, is he?”

“Get out before he is!”

Crispin smirked and allowed her to turn him and push him toward the open doorway. “Out!” she cried and shoved.

He found himself in the courtyard and chuckled again. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he suspected Livith kept the greater part of the truth from him. Whether it had to do with the murder or something else he was uncertain. Perhaps she is a thief and lured our courier to his doom—but no. If that were the case, who had the bow? And besides, Livith did not appear to be in the room at the time of the murder and nothing was stolen. And Grayce was not capable of such deception . . . He had nothing. But murder was murder and someone had to hang for it.

His mind lit on the object that waited for him at his lodgings. “The Crown,” he muttered. They didn’t get the Crown, if that’s what they were after. The courier was murdered and Grayce came to get Crispin. That took half an hour at the most. Another delay while Crispin tried to wrestle the information from Grayce and to return to the King’s Head—another half hour and more. That allowed at least an hour for the killer to take what he wished, yet when Crispin examined the dead man, he still possessed his purse, his scrip, and the Crown.

The Crown. He tapped his finger on his lips. He’d better hide it before Wynchecombe decided to pay him a visit.

He entered the Boar’s Tusk once more, waved to a frowning Gilbert, and left by the front door. Gutter Lane teemed with people. Not only were men still returning from the butts, but the corn had been newly threshed in the outlying fields and men with scythes or bundles of straw were lumbering down the narrow corridor, laughing and jesting with one another in easy camaraderie. The harvest was nearly done. Crispin had seen its plenty in the stalls of fruit sellers and those merchants selling herbs and vegetables. Soon the plenty would give way to the sparseness of winter and there would be less on his table than there was now.

His lodgings on the Shambles was only a short walk from the Boar’s Tusk. He side stepped a man dragging his goat down the lane, avoiding the beast as the goat whipped its head, pulling on the lead wrapped tight around its horns. But he slowed when he noticed Martin Kemp nervously pacing outside the shop—with Alice beside him.

“God’s blood.” Crispin moved forward slowly, fingering Martin Kemp’s bow and arrows. His apology to Alice Kemp had to be done and in quick order. It wouldn’t do to have a raging Alice hovering near his door every moment. He tugged at his wrinkled coat and stiffly approached them. But before he could open his mouth, Alice swooped upon him like a hawk.

“How dare you speak to Matilda in that manner! And you threatened her! You should be locked up, Crispin Guest! You are not safe to be hard by.”

“Mistress Kemp, I offer my sincerest apologies for my lapse in behavior. I was out of sorts and did not know my right mind.”

“Out of sorts! So much transpires in that room. I tell you, husband, it is not safe.”

“Now dear. He is apologizing.”

“Never pays the rent on time—and too little of it there is, I dare say. Strange people coming and going at all hours. And then he threatens the very fruit of your loins.”

“He apologized to me, dear. Quite humbly.”

“Humble? Him? He hasn’t a humble bone in his body.”

Crispin rocked on his heels. Impatient to get away, he knew he could not leave until Alice was mollified.

“Ma-til-da!” she screeched.

Crispin held his breath. Out of the shadows, the wide specter of Matilda Kemp blocked the light. She posed shyly behind her mother, peered around her, and glared venomously at Crispin.

“You will apologize to my daughter. And further, we will require a service of you to make up for your threats to her.”

“A service?” He kept his voice steady, though the effort was supreme.

“Yes. I will decide at a later date what that shall be.”

Crispin’s glance darted from one woman to the other. Martin Kemp looked worried, but the two women were nothing if not triumphant.

Crispin wished he could use the bow. He swallowed the sour taste in his mouth and inclined his head to Matilda. “Damosel, forgive me for yesterday’s outburst. I do apologize for my rudeness and for any distress I might have caused you.”

Matilda glanced sideways at her mother and finally curtseyed in return. “I do accept your apology, Master Crispin.”

Crispin frowned. I hope they don’t expect me to kiss her hand. I’ve already kissed her arse.

The Kemps seemed satisfied. Martin took the weapon and arrows from Crispin and ushered his wife and daughter away. He looked back at Crispin apologetically.

What “service” could Alice want? Perhaps he should offer to look over Martin’s books again before Alice could think of something else. Crispin shuddered at the possibilities.

He trotted up the stairs in his relief to get away, pushed opened the door, and felt an immediate prickling on the back of his neck.

The Crown of Thorns sat on the bed out of its casket, and Jack was nowhere to be found.