Serpent in the Thorns

by Jeri Westerson

  They traveled south. Men with fine garb and fur-trimmed mantles became fewer, replaced by anonymous gray men frowning under rough hoods made of cat skins. Even the horses looked different the closer they came to the Thames. The lustrous coats of good mounts gave way to frail stotts, pulling carts with shuffling gaits, their ribs clearly visible on their dull flanks. The rats, on the other hand, were healthy and sleek and, in some instances, as big as piglets. They shambled along the foundations, foraging unabated.

  Once Crispin and the girl passed through a narrow close, the inn slowly emerged out of the gloom of London’s choking smoke and the brackish mist rising from the nearby Thames. A big, square building, the inn’s dark half-timbers looked like frown lines and its drooping roof tiles like brows. A boy no older than Jack was sweeping the threshold of the inn’s entrance with a mended broom in a lazy back and forth motion. The girl did not greet him nor did the boy look up. Instead, the girl took Crispin across the courtyard and behind the building into the stable yard. The air was pungent with its aroma of sweaty horses, moldy hay, and dung. A rat eyed Crispin with a twist of its whiskers, turned, and scurried up the wall before it disappeared beneath a roof tile.

  The girl looked back once at Crispin to make sure he still followed, stepped down a short staircase to a lower croft, and opened a door.

  The passage lay in darkness except for the slightly brighter outline of a door ahead. The girl opened it and stepped aside. Crispin inhaled old smoke and mildew. The stone walls were streaked brown with moisture. A small half-round window studded with iron bars squinted from above their heads, letting in only strands of blue-tinted light and sprinkling rain. The window sat at street level, and all he could see was the slick street and striding feet.

  One lit candle and the hearth—if the small collection of stones and sticks in the center of the floor could be called a hearth—burned halfheartedly. The smoke rose to the low arched ceiling, whirled in eddies between the beams, and meandered toward the open window.

  The storeroom, with its stacked barrels and plump sacks, offered barely enough space for a pallet with a pile of straw, a chipped chamber pot, a table, a bench, two bowls, two wooden spoons.

  And a dead man in the corner.

  No signs of a scuffle or a break-in. Nothing out of place or out of the ordinary. The man simply seemed to have dropped where he was shot. He lay with his back propped against the wall, legs out before him, head lolled to one side. The wooden shaft of an arrow protruded from his chest, just the right place for his heart. A direct hit. Only six inches of shaft and hawk fletching rose out of a houppelande coat soaked with blood. Crispin knelt and touched the man’s throat, but the ashen skin and dry staring eyes told him he would find no pulse. Except for the rusty smell of blood, the man was fragrant with lavender water. Crispin picked up his limp hand and examined it in the sparse light. The nails were clean and trimmed. By his side rested a large bag containing a wooden box.

  Not a ruffian out for a bit of fun. His garb of a quartered houppelande with its blue and gold fields of fleur-de-lis made Crispin’s skin crawl. This man was not merely a Frenchman, but his livery indicated he came from the French court.

  Crispin glanced over his shoulder to look back at the girl. “Did you open this bag?”

  She shook her head.

  He rubbed sweat from his upper lip. A courier, perhaps. A dead courier. There was no possible good side to this.

  He heard a gasp and turned. A woman stood silhouetted against the open doorway. “What by Saint Cuthbert’s bollocks goes on here?” she cried.

  The simpleton girl rushed into the woman’s arms and fell to loud weeping. The woman’s square face twisted into a look of shock, and she dragged the girl into the room trying to shush her. Her shaking hands covered the girl’s mouth.

  Crispin rose unsteadily. “Are you Livith?”

  The woman clutched her sister’s head to her breast. The girl visibly calmed and nestled there. The woman’s mouth parted, but not in the dull-witted way of her sister. Her shiny lips were ruddy, almost as ruddy as the dark spots on her cheeks. Her angular face—not soft and round like her sister’s—played out in planes of shadows and highlights, touched by long, flailing strands of ash blond hair. And her eyes. Crispin liked those eyes, shaded with hazel instead of the watery gray of the younger woman. There was a cleverness gleaming from them, even with fear shining bright. “Who the hell are you? What have you done here?”

  “My name is Crispin Guest. They call me the Tracker.”

  The arch of her brows showed recognition.

  He glanced back at the body. “I did not kill him. Your sister came to fetch me. She believes she killed this man.”

  Livith stared at the crumpled body in the corner, the arrow shaft now gleaming with a passing ray of sun. “Jesus wept!” she hissed. She pushed her sister from her bosom and glared into her face. “You stupid girl! You couldn’t have killed him. You know it!”

  “But I was the only one here, Livith, and you weren’t—” She choked on a sob and hiccupped.

  “I’m here now.” Clutching the girl, she turned to Crispin. “How could she have possibly shot him?”

  Crispin cast about the room halfheartedly. He didn’t expect to find a bow. “Your sister has somehow twisted the truth. But there is a truth here. And a serious one.”

  Livith put the girl onto the bench and stood back. “Her name is Grayce.”

  Crispin made an uneven bow. “I beg your pardon. She never introduced herself—”

  “And you never bothered to ask.”

  He didn’t dispute it. Instead he nodded and rubbed his heavy eyes with his knuckles.

  “You’re drunk. Some sarding help you are.” She thrust her hand at her hip, chin high. Even a smudge of dirt on her nose did not diminish her appearance, though Crispin was not endeared by her rough speech.

  He straightened his shoulder cape over his cloak. “I am not drunk, wench. Last night I was drunk. Today . . . I am suffering from its venomous aftereffects.”

  She snorted. “The great ‘Tracker.’ ”

  He sighed wearily. “Do you know this dead man?’

  She hugged her arms and gave the dead man a cursory glance before shaking her head. “Never saw him before.”

  “And yet drunk or no, I do know that this man is a French courier. Do you know how much trouble you are in for having such a dead man in your room?”

  “I’m beginning to.” She bit her fingernail.

  He thrust his thumbs into his belt and tapped the leather. “Your sister admitted to killing him.”

  “But she didn’t! Christ!”

  “So it would seem. But the sheriff will not be as understanding as I am.”

  The defiance drained from her sharp features. “Then what are we to do?”

  “I’m thinking.” He turned back toward the dead man, and then stared up at the window. “Why would he have cause to come down here?”

  “He was drunk,” Livith offered.

  “Or looking for someone, perhaps, and came to the wrong room.”

  Livith followed his gaze to the window. She pointed. “The window. Someone could have shot him from there.”

  Crispin examined the angle. “And yet it does not explain what he was doing in here.”

  Livith turned to Grayce sitting in the bench. She knelt at her feet and placed her hands on Grayce’s knees. Her harsh voice gentled. “Now Grayce, you went and fetched this fine gentleman. You must tell us what happened.”

  Grayce, who had calmed during Livith’s arrival, now arched forward with taut shoulders. Her hands curled into claws before her face. “I told him already.”

  “No, love,” cooed Livith. “You didn’t tell him. You only made some cockeyed confession. Now you know you couldn’t have killed him. Ain’t that right?”

  Grayce’s hands plunged into her hair. She matted it into a bird’s nest. “You’ve got me confused.”

  “Now, now Grayce. Just tell the gentleman what happened
.”

  “Yes, Grayce.” Crispin tried to smile. “Just tell me.”

  Grayce looked from one face to another. Her eyes rested at last on the body. “I killed him, that’s all. I killed him! Stop asking me!”

  Livith grasped Grayce’s shoulders, opened her mouth, but said nothing. With an expelled breath of frustration, she released her and rose. “She can’t say nought. When she gets like this, there’s no getting through to her.”

  Crispin stared at the girl. She clasped her arms and rocked herself, whimpering. Gracious Jesu. That wasn’t much to tell the sheriff, and Simon Wynchecombe was a man likely to hang them first and ask questions later. Unless he could manage to talk to the other sheriff, John More, first . . . No. The man deferred all unpleasant work to Wynchecombe. There was no getting around it. He sighed and looked at the dead man again. He knelt beside the body, grasped the courier pouch, and unbuckled its leather straps. Inside was a carved wooden box resembling a reliquary. He lifted it from the pouch and set it on the table.

  Locked.

  Crispin went back to the man and rummaged through his other pouches and purses. He found gold and silver coins, letters of passage in French, and a key. He scanned the letter, but it told him what he already surmised: the man, along with two others, was a courier for the French court and was to be given safe passage across France and England. Their intended destination was London. “Well,” he said to the corpse, “you’ve arrived.”

  3

  CRISPIN TOOK THE KEY to the box, fit it in the lock, and turned it. He lifted the box’s lid. Within sat another box made of gold, studded with gems. Livith stepped closer.

  “Mary’s blessed dugs!” she whispered over his shoulder. “That’s solid gold, that!”

  “I doubt it is solid gold,” said Crispin. But he felt as excited as any thief peering at the royal treasury. With both hands, he lifted the golden casket free of the wooden box and set it on the table.

  “Was he killed for this?” she asked.

  “If that is so, he was killed in vain.” The courier’s letter mentioned other companions and Crispin wondered about those men. Where were they? Also dead? Or perhaps simply guilty of murder.

  “Could he have been shot outside and made his way in here?”

  Crispin glanced along the earthen floor to the entry and saw no blood, no scrapings of staggering steps along the dirt. “The evidence does not bear it out.” He grasped the lid and opened. The box was lined in red velvet. In its center indentation sat a wreath made of rushes woven in a decorative pattern of diamonds and zigzags. Large black thorns were thrust here and there within the rush circlet, some three to four inches long. Crispin ran a finger along one of the pronged spikes. “Curious.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have no idea. It looks like some sort of circlet . . . with thorns. Very unpleasant.”

  “A crown of thorns?”

  “Crown of thorns?” He looked at her. “You may be right.”

  “Not the Crown of Thorns?” She took a step back, grasping her patched skirt with chapped fingers.

  “No, but possibly a crown of thorns, used for feast days.” He closed the lid and ran his hand over the gold and gems. He picked it up again, replaced it into the wooden box, put that back into the courier bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Here! What are you going to do with that?” Livith’s hands gestured toward the pouch, fingers moving, grasping.

  That much gold would be a king’s ransom to the likes of her. Come to think of it, the same would be true for me. “If it’s any business of yours, I’m taking it for safekeeping. As for him—” He glanced back at the dead man. “I will have to call in the sheriff.”

  “But he’ll arrest Grayce!”

  Grayce leapt up and threw her arms about Livith.

  “She is surely innocent,” said Crispin. “I can make the sheriff see that.”

  “But I’m not!” she cried between sobs. “I shot him.”

  Livith glared up at Crispin. “What will the sheriff make of that?”

  Crispin sighed. He pictured Wynchecombe’s face. “I’m afraid he’ll hang her.” Grayce wailed and Livith tried to calm her with cooing sounds. She held Grayce’s shoulders and rocked her.

  Crispin rubbed his stubbled chin and considered. The first priority was to get Grayce the hell out of here, but he couldn’t take both women back to his lodgings. His landlord’s harridan of a wife would raise the devil.

  He thought about his dry throat and decided a trip to the Boar’s Tusk was in order.

  * * *

  CRISPIN LEFT THE WOMEN alone to survey the yard, looking for clues that did not materialize. The women gathered their meager belongings quickly and soon joined him. They set out toward the Shambles in silence, but it didn’t last. Livith dragged Grayce behind her. “God’s teeth, be still, Grayce! You’re wearing me out!” Grayce’s cries fell silent except for an occasional sniffle. Livith left Grayce to shuffle along in the mud behind while Livith trotted up to Crispin, boldly appraising him. “Where are we going?”

  He didn’t like Livith’s tone or her constant use of foul language. She was the lowest kind of wench, little better than a whore. “A friend of mine owns a tavern,” he said. “He’ll hire you both and give you lodgings. It’s temporary until all this blows over.”

  “Just like that. No asking us what we’d sarding like?”

  Crispin stopped. Livith ran into him before she could stop herself. He leaned toward her and scowled. “Are you actually ungrateful? You do recall I’m saving your hides, and with very little hope of remuneration for my effort.”

  She nodded to the parcel slung over his shoulder. “Looks like you got plenty right there.”

  “The gold box? It does not belong to me. Nor to you, so get those ideas out of your head.”

  She steadied her gaze on his face and stood so close he felt her fiery breath on his lips. He was angry, but staring at her at such close range made him rethink the situation. Her heavy brows seemed on first glance unattractive, but such bold strokes served to give her face more expression and animation. Her mouth was small but possessed a certain tartness a fuller set of lips lacked—though he feared she would open that mouth again and he’d have to endure a string of unwholesome taunts.

  “And I urge you to curb your tongue,” he said. “The Boar’s Tusk may be on Gutter Lane but I do not tolerate gutter language.”

  “You don’t?” Her lips twisted artfully. “Well, I beg his majesty’s pardon.”

  Crispin’s frown deepened. “You think this a game? It’s your sister’s life you gamble with.”

  Livith dropped her eyes and toed the ground with her muddy wooden shoes. “We’ve never needed some knight in shining armor rescuing us.”

  Crispin’s frown firmed into a tight line. “Well, I’m no knight.”

  “Grayce and me have done fine on our own. It ain’t our fault some poor bastard got himself killed in our lodgings. What are we to do? That was our life back there. And just like that it’s snuffed out.”

  “There is little I can do about the circumstances. And though it may not be your fault a man died in your lodgings, it certainly does not help your cause when your sister keeps confessing to the crime. But if you don’t need my help—” He straightened his shoulders and pulled at his patched coat. “I’ll be on my way.”

  He took several steps before she grabbed his arm. She lowered her face and bit her lip. He had a feeling she wasn’t used to asking for help. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful,” she said. This time he sensed her sincerity. “But I—I—”

  “Don’t know how to be grateful?” He snorted a halfhearted chuckle. “Neither do I.”

  Her face changed when she looked at him. Her demeanor seemed to lighten, finding a kindred spirit, perhaps. How long had she suffered with her dim-witted sister? Grayce did not look more than twenty and Livith maybe a few years older, though the worry line that divided her brow and the dark pouches under her eyes added years
to her. She managed a smile. It took those years off again. “Lead on, then,” she said and gestured him forward like a noblewoman.

  Crispin hid his smile and proceeded on, helping her over the bigger puddles in spite of himself. Grayce followed, carrying the heavy bundle of their goods.

  The Boar’s Tusk crouched on its corner of Gutter Lane like a great sleeping turtle. Long before Crispin’s day, it had boasted the patronage of knights and lords, but the passage of time changed the parish, and now only ruffians made the Boar’s Tusk their home. Crispin preferred it that way. Its timber frame was grayed from the weather and the speckled daub had needed refreshing for years, but its great oaken doors were as strong as ever. Needed to be to keep out would-be thieves at night.

  He pushed open the door and scanned the low-slung room. Dark, except for a few sputtering oil lamps on the tables and a large hearth burning with decent-sized logs. The heavy beams above seemed as old as Merlin, and Crispin often wondered with their weathered and cracked state if they had the integrity to uphold the roof at all.

  Under the uncertain beams, uneven rectangular tables crowded together and were sparsely filled with men hunched over their horn cups, eyes shadowed by hoods or dark deeds.

  The tavern’s owners, however, were the opposite of its dilapidated plaster and frame. Though they trafficked in the rougher elements of Gutter Lane, Gilbert and Eleanor Langton were kind and generous souls. They somehow did not belong where their sad tavern gripped its foundations, but it would be a poorer place indeed without them.

  Crispin spied Eleanor sweeping the floor with a gorse broom and yelling at a servant over a spilled tray.

  Crispin approached. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  Eleanor spun. “Oh Crispin! Bless my soul.” She grinned and hugged him. The white linen wimple, wrapped about her face in folds and tucks, revealed only her face’s smooth contours. An ageless face. Crispin reckoned she might be thirty like himself, but he wasn’t certain. “I was just telling this knave,” she said, gesturing with the broom toward the servant, “what a wastrel he is, dropping good food onto my floor.”