“God help us, but yes. The figure slipped back over the wall. No one else saw a thing, neither guards nor page. He seemed to fade into the shadows of court.”
“Hmm. ‘Shadows of court.’ Interesting.”
“Crispin, how do you know of this assassin? Do you know who it is?”
“Yes, I think I do. But there is much I cannot yet reveal.”
Crispin noticed the abbot eyeing the arrows in his belt. “You must! Have you told the sheriff?”
Crispin moved his hand over the arrows before he let his fingers drop away. “No. And I won’t.”
“By God’s wounds! Why not?”
The goblet reached his lips again and the deep peach and citrus flavors of the wine smoothed his tongue. “I have my reasons.”
Nicholas put his goblet aside and stood. “Is it because you would see the king dead?”
Crispin’s eyes narrowed over the rim of his cup and he drank the last of it, licked his lips, and set the goblet down. “Would I see Richard dead at the hands of an assassin? No. He is my king.”
Nicholas shook his head. “You have a strange sense of honor.”
“Is it strange to protect the crown but not its wearer? If that is so, then . . . well. Perhaps I do have a strange sense of honor. ‘It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.’ ”
“As always, Aristotle proves wise. Your heart is in the right place, but your philosophy will invariably cause you trouble.”
“I do not shy from trouble, my Lord Abbot. ‘Trouble’ is my patron name.”
“Indeed. You know too much about this for my liking.”
“Don’t you trust me, my lord?”
“Yes.” Nicholas said it in a drawn-out tenor that made Crispin doubt.
“I see. Even my friends shy when the possibility of treason lies at the heart of it. Well, I have seen the like before.” He strode toward the door in long strides until Nicholas intervened.
“What of your French courier?”
Crispin halted and without turning asked, “What of him?”
“Did you not say he was dispatched by an arrow?”
“Yes. The same sort of arrow, in fact. I do not think it a coincidence.”
Nicholas eyed the arrows in Crispin’s belt again. “My son, is there . . . is there not something you would confess to me? Something . . . you keep deep in your heart?”
Crispin put his hand involuntarily on the arrows, feeling the stiff fletching under his calloused palm. “No, Lord Abbot. I have no need of shriving today.” He turned to go again when the abbot moved forward and laid a strong hand on his arm. Crispin stopped himself from shrugging it off. Nicholas meant well. But then, many had meant well.
Nicholas huffed impatiently. “You would simply leave, Crispin? Surely your path is a dangerous one. Why is it you never ask for a benediction when you depart? Lesser men ask for it. It is so little a gift to give.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Don’t need God’s blessing? Or is it you don’t believe in it?”
“Of course I believe.” He bit down on the rest of his words. What he couldn’t say was that he didn’t believe he deserved it.
Crispin saw the abbot approach and turned his head slightly. The abbot gave his blessing without the asking. The shadow of a cross fell over Crispin, painted in the air by the abbot’s sure hand. Crispin accepted it without comment and passed through the threshold, leaving the abbot’s lodge.
He did not look back as the door closed on the monk’s worried countenance. Instead, he strode purposefully through the familiar colonnade of the cloister, giving the cloister garden a hasty glance, its herbs and greenery slowly browning as summer blooms surrendered to fall. Coming to the end of the colonnade, he met the brother at the gate, thanked him with a bow, and left the abbey’s grounds.
Crispin’s tongue sang with the abbot’s good wine but he still had enough thirst for a bowl of the Boar’s Tusk’s finest.
AFTER A HALF HOUR of walking back to London he turned the corner at Gutter Lane and caught the sweet sight of the tavern, though the incongruity of men being shoved out the door so early in the day gave rise to a snicker in Crispin’s throat.
He watched the spectacle from across the lane. Gilbert himself helped the uncooperative men over the threshold. He clapped his hands together, looked up, and saw Crispin.
“Oi! Crispin!” He waved him over and Crispin trotted across.
“I feared you’d be closing your doors,” said Crispin.
“Not to you. Come in.”
Crispin was used to the tavern sitting empty, but such a sight was usually reserved for the middle of the night, not noontime. Ned stood in the center of the smoky room, surveying the vacant, worn tables with a sorrowful look on his face. He nodded a greeting to Crispin but couldn’t seem to smile it.
Gilbert offered Crispin a seat at his usual spot in the back, farthest from the door, and Crispin took it. “I suppose you know the tidings, then,” he said to Crispin.
He nodded and when Ned brought a full jug and two bowls, Crispin felt that he was home.
Gilbert shook his head and poured the wine, scooting the first bowl toward Crispin. “How is the king?”
“He lives,” said Crispin. He quaffed the wine then lowered the bowl, grabbed the jug, and splashed more wine in the cup. “I’m becoming concerned that I will not be able to bring the culprit the full attention he deserves.”
Gilbert’s red nose hovered over his bowl. “You already know who did it?”
“Yes. I have proof right here.” He patted the arrows snug against his side.
Ned shuffled forward and laid a round loaf on the table. Crispin felt his belly rumble at the sight and realized he hadn’t eaten since Jack’s early-morning repast. He tore a hunk from the loaf, clamped a piece in his teeth, and took the bread into his mouth. He chewed and then dipped the edge of a hunk into his wine and sucked up the dripping crumbs.
“Then why don’t you go straight to the sheriff with it?”
“That’s not the direction I intend to go.”
“I don’t understand you, Crispin. You’ve got proof. Let the sheriff do his duty.”
“This is my kill,” he said quietly. Gilbert stared at him strangely and Crispin realized what he’d said. He tried to smile. “What I mean is, I’d rather do it myself.”
Gilbert shook his head and thumbed the rim of his bowl. His lips were slick with wine. “After all you’ve been through, why do you keep trying?”
Crispin knocked back the bowl. He set it down empty and grabbed the jug. His voice was hard. “I want to win.”
“It’s a stark game you play.”
“It’s a never-ending game.” He drank and caught Gilbert’s sorrowful expression. He patted him on the back until the burly man looked up at him. “Don’t worry over me, Gilbert. I can take care of myself.”
“Aye, you keep saying that, yet Eleanor and I keep putting you back together. I’m afraid there will come a time when the king gets ahold of you again and they’ll be no putting you back together.”
Crispin chuckled without mirth. “The king no longer frightens me.”
Gilbert opened his mouth to speak but the rest of his words never made it across the table. He rose halfway to his feet with a stunned expression on his face. He looked past Crispin’s shoulder.
“Gilbert? What—” Crispin followed Gilbert’s gaze and turned to look. He rose abruptly from the bench. The bread dropped from his hand.
Grayce staggered into the tavern’s hall. Her face had collapsed into a grimace of anguish.
Gilbert was at her side first though Crispin was on his heels. “What’s wrong, girl?”
She looked from Gilbert to Crispin. “Oh help us! Good masters, help. Livith!”
She broke down and dropped her head in her hands. Crispin stood at her other elbow. “What of Livith?”
She lifted her head. Her face was streaked with tears. Her lips parted stickily. “Oh Tracker! You must help her! She’s been
shot!”
11
“HANDS OFF, IT’S ONLY a light wound!” Livith pushed Crispin’s exploring hands away. The arrow had whizzed past the woman’s waist, tearing a bit of the flesh and pinning the dress to the worktable. Livith had torn the dress and shift to free herself, revealing a gaping hole. Crispin saw more blood than wound, and though it looked bad, he knew from experience it was not.
“Did anyone see anything?” he asked, looking around the small kitchen.
Livith shrugged. “I think I seen someone at the back courtyard door, but there’s always someone coming and going. I can’t be sure.”
Eleanor knelt at Livith’s feet and dabbed the open flesh with a wet cloth. “Now you,” she said to Grayce, talking slowly and carefully, “go get me a slice of moldy bread. Find me a good green one now, that’s a girl. Your sister’ll be right as rain, never you fear.”
Grayce chewed on her fingers and rushed away to comply. Eleanor shook her head. She glanced up at Crispin. “Why should anyone want to hurt this girl, Crispin? Didn’t that scoundrel get what he wanted?”
Crispin frowned. “A good question. What did he want? I thought it was to kill the king. It certainly wasn’t to steal the—” He caught himself and nodded ruefully. His eyes met Livith’s. She kept her mouth shut for once. Good. Maybe she was learning. “Why would you be a target?”
“Maybe the bastard thinks we saw something.”
Crispin nodded. His hand covered his mouth and he tapped his lips with a finger. “Yes, that could be it. Did you see anything?”
“I told you. I wasn’t there.”
“But Grayce was. We must get her to tell me what happened.”
Grayce returned and held out the greenish slab of bread. “What you want this for?”
Eleanor took it. “It’s for the wound, dear. It helps it heal.” She pressed the oval piece to the open sore. Livith hissed through her teeth.
Grayce shook her fists and stared at her sister. “Oh Livith!”
“I’m well, I tell you. I’ll be fine. Sit down.”
Grayce rattled her head and sat as ordered. Crispin stood beside her, wondering how to squeeze information from her any more successfully than in their first encounter. He squatted to be at eye level and smiled. “Grayce, Livith will be well, as she said. I need to talk to you about that day. The day you found the dead man.”
Grayce sniffed and looked up. Her wet eyes searched his face, stopped a moment on his smile, another on his eyes, and then wandered aimlessly again.
He took her hand lying in her lap. Jesu mercy! “Grayce, listen to me. You must tell me everything about that day, from the moment you rose to when you think you killed the Frenchman.”
Her wide eyes cracked with red veins. She looked at Livith who looked back at her with unblinking eyes.
“I got up as I usually do, before Livith,” she said. She looked down at Crispin’s hand clasping hers and brought up a trembling smile. “I washed me face and hands, like Livith always told me to. Then I had a bit of ale and bread. I went to the privy and when I come back Livith was gone.”
Crispin turned to Livith. Eleanor patted the ban dage she just finished tying around the girl’s waist. Livith pulled the remnants of the dress back over it. “Where did you go?” he asked.
“I went to get more ale for the jug. Master lets us get some from the kitchens.”
“How long were you gone?”
“My Master was up and he set me to work right away. I didn’t come back.”
“What sort of work?”
“Not the kind you think.”
Crispin made an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for that. That was out of place.”
Livith thrust her shoulders back before she winced from the wound. “That’s all well,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Eleanor helped her pin the gap in her gown. “The Master had me sweeping out the hearth in the hall. That took some time taking out the ashes and fixing up the fire. I had to scrub m’self good afterwards and that’s when I come in.”
Crispin nodded and turned back to Grayce. “Once you’d eaten, then what?”
“I was fixin’ to go up to the tavern and off to the kitchens before the Master got angry. He was always powerful angry in the mornings, especially if he’d been drinking the night before. Ain’t that right, Livith?”
“Aye, he has a right temper, he does.”
“Aye,” said Grayce. She smoothed out her skirt and cocked her head to look at it. “I didn’t want no trouble.”
“When did you see the Frenchman? Did you see him come in?”
Grayce’s brows wrinkled outward. She lifted her eyes toward Livith. Her lips parted in her dull-witted way, but she said nothing.
“Grayce.” Crispin shook her hand but it failed to bring her back. “Grayce! When did you see the man come in?”
She eyed Crispin again, frowned, and pulled her hand from his. “I don’t remember!”
“You must! You saw what happened to him.”
“I killed him!”
Eleanor gasped and drew back into Gilbert’s arms.
Crispin clutched Grayce’s shoulders. “You little fool! You didn’t! Can’t you remember what happened?”
Livith’s hand grasped Crispin’s shoulder like a hawk’s talons and pushed him back. “Stop it! She can’t remember. Not anymore.”
He expelled a long breath and stood. “No. I see she doesn’t.” Livith clutched her side but when she noticed Crispin looking she withdrew her hand. “That hurts you more than you like to admit,” he said softly.
“It don’t.”
He took her shoulder. “Let’s take you to your bed. Where is it?”
“Crispin,” said Gilbert. His brows lowered over worried eyes, eyes that darted toward Grayce who rocked herself and moaned in soothing tones.
“In a moment, Gilbert.”
Livith looked over her shoulder at Crispin. “Master Gilbert gave us a bed in the mews. Our things are down there.”
“I’ll take you, then.”
“No you won’t.” Livith pulled away or tried to, but Crispin’s grip tightened.
“No knight in shining armor, but I still remember how to act like a knight,” he said.
She cocked her head and smiled, an easy slow one. She leaned into him. He didn’t mind the feel of it. “If you will,” she conceded and he led her to the stairs.
The mews were dark. Only one candle in a wall sconce burned. Crispin took it and lit the rest of the way down the steps, but at the bottom of the stairs the light fell on something white and misshapen.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
“It looks like a blanket.”
He pushed the candle forward. A bowl, upturned and near the casks. A spoon lying in a distant corner. Stockings torn apart and lying flayed on the stone floor darkening from a puddle of wine.
Livith made a noise of surprise in her throat and Crispin instinctively pushed her behind him.
He raised the candle. All of Livith and Grayce’s belongings lay scattered, torn, or broken across the cellar floor.
Crispin’s lips pressed tight and he flared his nostrils with a breath. “You’re not staying here.”
12
“I DON’T LIKE THIS, Crispin,” said Gilbert, looking back down the darkened stairwell. Crispin left the sisters below to gather what remained of their goods. “This Grayce says she killed a man.”
“She’s like a child, Gilbert. She doesn’t know what she is saying.”
“All the same—”
“All the same I must get them someplace safe until I can reckon why the killer wishes to eliminate them.”
“What safer place could there be than court?” said Livith, her tone, as always, as mocking as her posture. She stood at the top of the stairs and clutched her shredded bag over her shoulder.
Crispin stared at her. Her expression was filled with scorn, always seemed to be. Determination, too, set her eyes like gray quartz, translucent yet hard and milky. T
hey were eyes that knew how to keep secrets, and for a moment, Crispin allowed himself the luxury of wondering about her, where she came from, what her life had been like caring for a dull-witted sister. He never used to wonder such things when he was a lord. Creatures like her could only be found in the bowels of his manor, never seen, seldom heard, but necessary to the smooth running of a large household. She was like one of many who had cooked his food and cleaned his floors. He never thought twice about them before except in the casual way of a lordling about his people. But Lancaster’s household had been different. Crispin had gotten to know the cooks and valets to serve his lord better. Even at Westminster Palace he had made friends in the kitchens, though little help they could offer once he was cast out of the place.
What did Livith think of him when she heard him speak with his court accent and worldly expressions? Did she see him as a lord in rags, or as merely the man who would save her and her sister?
But Livith’s words caught up to him at last and he considered their worth. Court, eh? Court was a busy place, like a maze. People milling in all directions. The back stairs was busiest of all. And didn’t he have to find a way to see Edward Peale, the king’s fletcher? What better excuse to get into court than under the guise of a kitchen worker. If the guards are looking for an assassin, they will not suspect a man and a couple of scullions.
He smiled. “In truth, that is a good idea.”
“What?” cried Livith. “I was only jesting. Are you completely mad?” She looked at Gilbert for confirmation.
“Aye,” said Gilbert. “He is mad.”
“No. It’s an excellent idea. The killer would never think to look for you at court. What is more invisible than a couple of scullions?”
He dragged her past the stairs, through the tavern, and over the threshold with one hand and Grayce with the other. He made a backward nod of thanks to Gilbert. “It’s closed up secure with extra guards,” he assured. “The killer won’t be looking for you in the kitchens, not at court, at any rate. He’ll be concentrating on the king.”
“But if it’s closed up so tight how will we get in?”
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