Serpent in the Thorns

16

LANCASTER’S EYES ROUNDED AND his lips went white.

Crispin did nothing. He neither smiled nor implored with his eyes. If he were a dead man, then he’d rather get it over with.

Lancaster took the full goblet, put it to his lips, and drank deeply. He drank it down, but did not offer it up for a refill. He dismissed Crispin by curling his hand around the goblet and leaning on his arm.

Crispin wanted to ask him, wanted to cast the arrow pieces on his trencher and demand an explanation. Though he imagined Lancaster had his own questions for Crispin about now.

Instead, Crispin ducked his head and took the opportunity to slip down the steps to return to the main hall. He felt Lancaster’s gaze on him but he couldn’t worry over it. He had other things on his mind. He had to keep his eyes on Miles.

He turned toward the low tables and his heart lurched for the second time.

Where the hell was Miles?

Crispin hurried through the benches and people and stared at the place where Miles once sat, but it was empty like an open pit. He risked raising his head to look about the room, but he didn’t see him.

“God’s blood!” he hissed.

“Wine, here!” someone called over his shoulder.

Crispin cringed. Not him! Why did he have to be here? Crispin shook his head. Better and better. He lowered his face until the leather hood caressed his cheeks. He pivoted.

Simon Wynchecombe sat with his cronies at a low table and lifted his clay cup toward Crispin. Deep in conversation with the man beside him, the sheriff never raised his eyes. Crispin poured quickly and hustled away before anyone else at the table could ask him to serve them.

He looked for Miles in earnest. The man had simply vanished. How had he done it? Should he ask? No, that would be dangerous and someone was sure to recognize him. He slid as quickly as he could through the crowd, looking over heads, searching faces.

Suddenly everyone stood.

The duke had risen from his seat and was making some sort of pronouncement with his wine cup raised. Crispin was at the other end of the hall by then and Lancaster’s voice did not carry. But he surmised that Lancaster had called for a toast to the king. Everyone raised their cups.

Crispin put down the wine jug on a table. He didn’t want to be bothered with any more requests. He had to find Miles and quickly.

A juggler blocked the aisle but Crispin shoved him aside, and one ball fell and rolled under a table. The man swore an oath and Crispin pressed forward, moving toward the edge of the room.

Lancaster talked on.

Miles had to be here somewhere! Crispin shoved courtiers out of his way. It didn’t matter anymore if they saw him. What did it matter if he couldn’t stop Miles, for he knew with the blood singing in his bones that Miles would make another attempt sometime this night.

Had he seen it? There was an abundance of jewelry on both men and women alike; men with their swords in decorated scabbards and women with jeweled baselards secured at their girdles. With all the glittering finery, he couldn’t be certain he saw a flash of something. He wasn’t even sure in what direction he saw it. Whatever it was it didn’t belong, but he couldn’t make his mind locate it a second time.

Frantically he searched, saw it again, and froze for the span of a heartbeat.

The tapestries. They fluttered throughout the hall from the movement of the diners and the servants, from the heat of the fires and candles. But this one, hanging on the south wall halfway between the king’s dais and the exit, did not flutter. It bulged.

And an arrow was slowly edging its way farther and farther from behind it.

All sound—diners clinking goblets, trilling laughter and hoarse guffaws, music piping merrily—were all suddenly swallowed up by the quick inhale of the universe. The racing thump of Crispin’s heartbeat replaced them; a hollow thud growing steadily faster.

He sprinted forward.

With an unapologetic heave, Crispin shoved a servant. His tray of cooked peacock dressed in its indigo plumage tumbled to the floor. The peacock’s head snapped off and rolled between the legs of a merchant who stumbled to get out of its way, and in turn, tripped a woman behind him. She screamed and teetered backward and fell into the arms of the juggler. The four balls scattered. One bounced into a large kettle of pottage. Two others rolled under the feet of two men carrying in the confection, Onslow’s prized creation of the city of London in spun sugar and cakes.

The man carrying the front of the bier stumbled but recovered. But the man behind him was not as lucky. He tried to right himself but couldn’t without dropping his end of the bier. He let one handle go as he flung a hand outward to steady himself. The shifted weight dislodged the first bearer and he slid backward. The bier tipped and, in slow degrees, the whole confectionery slid off the bier and crashed in upon itself onto the floor in splatters of frosting and crackling sugar. The horrified forward bearer stared at it helplessly. The other slipped on a wayward cake and fell face first into the rest of it.

Crispin dived through the crowd; his only thought was to stop the arrow from launching. But there were too many damned people in his way! Move!

In the back of his mind, he could hear that Lancaster had stopped speaking. A buzz of conversation amid high-pitched yelps of surprise followed in his wake. None of it mattered. All his concentration was centered on that tapestry.

The bow advanced. He could see it now peeking from the tapestry. If he couldn’t make it in time—No! He wouldn’t think of it. Couldn’t. He doubled his efforts and threaded quickly between the courtiers.

Finally shoving his way past the last stragglers at the crowd’s hem, Crispin leapt for the tapestry, grabbed the exposed weapon, and slammed it to the wall.

The arrow shot forward, drastically off target from its intended mark. It flew and stuck in the wall just above the king’s chair.

Richard leapt to his feet and snatched his wife’s hand, pulling her behind him. Someone screamed. The men on the dais threw themselves before the king, drew their swords, and whipped their heads around, searching.

By then, the archer had released his grip on the short bow and rumbled behind the banners and tapestries to make his escape. The tapestry flew up, furling like a sail. Footsteps ran.

Crispin tried to get to him, but now there was a crushing throng pushing against him. He stumbled. He reared up. His hood fell back, but it was too late. The crowd closed up again. Confused heads turned every which way. Women were wailing and everyone seemed to be shouting.

And then someone gasped. Before Crispin knew what was happening, the crowd parted and left a wide circle around him. He suddenly and unaccountably found himself alone.

Not so unaccountable. With a sinking feeling in his gut he knew exactly why.

Crispin stared back at the anxious and horror-struck faces. A trickle of sweat dribbled down his temple to his cheek.

“It’s Crispin Guest!” said a voice, shock spinning it to a whisper. The hall fell silent.

Crispin didn’t need to look down at the guilty bow still clenched in his left hand.

“Holy Christ,” he muttered.