Serpent in the Thorns

by Jeri Westerson

  Crispin stood at the bottom of the steps to the raised platform. The last time he stood so close was on that day, seven years ago. A presence emanated from the throne like some malevolent creature pitched out of Hell.

  Richard. Crispin’s ire for him was more marked today than seven years earlier, when all he had wanted was his mentor on the throne. Was Abbot Nicholas right about Crispin? Did Crispin keep tidings of Miles to himself not to appear the hero but to let him kill the king?

  He didn’t like that feeling creeping into his veins, the feeling of culpability. Was he responsible for setting in motion again the very treason that cast him out of his place at court? A sneer curled his lip. No. That kind of thinking could freeze a man solid. And there was nothing static about Crispin.

  He rested his foot on the lowest step and leaned on his thigh. The throne—marble, cushioned. So much more than merely a chair. Some men coveted such a thing. Maybe even some of the men caught up in the conspiracy. Maybe some of them fancied themselves covered in ermine and wearing a crown, and Lancaster was only the tool to get them there.

  He made a disgusted snort. What did it really matter now? Few men could change the tide of history. He was certainly not one of them. Might have been once, but not now. But Lancaster was such a man. He headed armies and won and lost the day many a time. The son of a king, he was always destined for greatness and he achieved it. It was on Lancaster’s shoulders that the tide of history turned, not on the shoulders of underlings, for though Crispin’s rank had been high, his personal ambitions had never achieved the status of such as Lancaster or his ilk, nor was it designed to.

  If Richard lived or died, what possible difference would it make to Crispin’s life now?

  But suppose Richard did die. He’d been married little over a year and the queen was not yet with child. What if she never was? Who then would be the heir? Would it be Lancaster after all?

  Crispin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Such thoughts bordered again on treason. He would not allow himself to dwell. Better to protect the throne, whoever sat atop it.

  Two servants scraped a trestle table across the floor and Crispin snapped open his lids. The many tables were arranged around the braziers in the center. Everything, of course, piloted the eyes toward the head table on the other side of the room on its raised platform, to Richard.

  Crispin had been a guest at the head table many times before, when Richard’s grandfather, Edward of Windsor, was king. He recalled chatting with the ladies and high-ranking men at that table while breaking his meats with them, drinking fine wine, absorbing the entertainments.

  No more.

  No more because of Miles Aleyn and his seducing lies.

  Crispin chuffed a hot breath. He wanted his life back. Killing Miles wouldn’t grant that, but the deed would make his suffering a hell of a lot easier.

  He felt the weight of the arrows in his pouch. A smile peeled back his lips. He needed to pay a visit to the king’s fletcher.

  He put his hood up and left the hall. The garrison’s courtyard was where the archers congregated. The Master Fletcher would certainly be there.

  He headed toward the garrison’s yard as if he had made the journey only yesterday. His feet took him without question in the right direction. He passed under an arch, down the steps, and into the open courtyard.

  Men walked freely across the gravel quadrangle. Blacksmith stalls, armorers, and carpenter and wheelwright stalls lined the courtyard’s walls. He turned when he heard the unmistakable whistle and thud of arrows hitting their targets. Two archers, both wearing green chaperon hoods with short liripipe tails, practiced shooting arrows at straw butts. The men wore leather tunics lined with metal plates, but the broad-shouldered one seemed too big for his tunic, thick arms bursting through the tunic’s crenelled cap sleeves. A dark fringe hung below the hood’s brim and small dark eyes like a ferret’s peered out from under bruised lids.

  Long sandy hair draped in lackluster strings over the other archer’s brows, and though his eyes were set wide apart in a concentrated stare, he did not look the brighter for it.

  Crispin ambled along the wall toward them, leaned his shoulder into a wooden post, and watched the arrows meet the target one after the other. They were fine marksmen, as fine as any of the king’s archers. Good enough to shoot a man in an undercroft at close range.

  They ran out of arrows and chatted in an easy camaraderie born of longtime service together. Crispin emerged from the shadows. “I beg pardon, good sirs.” The men turned. The bigger man’s small eyes grew smaller. He clutched his empty bow.

  Crispin tried a smile. He wasn’t certain if he succeeded. “Would either of you know the whereabouts of the Master Fletcher, Edward Peale?”

  The archers exchanged looks. “Sometimes he’s at yonder booth,” said the sandy-haired one, and gestured with his bow. Crispin turned and examined the empty booth. “But he isn’t there today,” continued the archer. “Try the armory.”

  This time Crispin’s smile was more sincere. “Yes. I will do that. Much thanks.” He turned toward the direction of the armory and wondered why the first burly archer’s hand had curled around his arm.

  “Say!” said the archer. “Didn’t you used to be somebody?”

  Crispin’s face warmed. The urge to snap his arm out of the man’s grasp was strong but he did not move. They recognized him, ruining his plan of stealth. Maybe they wouldn’t recall. Maybe he’d get away after all without humiliation.

  “I know who he is,” said the other. “He’s Crispin Guest. The Traitor.”

  No getting away today. The word was meant to sting, and sting it did. Crispin leveled an icy glare at the sandy-haired one.

  “Now, now, Peter,” said the other. They let Crispin go and stepped back, but only to assess him as one assesses a horse. “That was a long time ago. I hear tell he’s that private sheriff they talk of.” His tone mocked. As an archer, he had been lower in rank than Crispin. There seemed to be no end of men who were below Crispin in rank and who relished rubbing his nose in his change of status.

  Peter made a doubtful expression and rested his hand on his dagger. “Why do you suppose he’s here then, Wat? Traitor and all.”

  “Maybe he’s inquiring about the attempt on his Majesty.”

  “Or maybe,” said Peter, drawing his dagger, “he’s the one who tried to kill the king.”

  “Gentlemen.” Crispin stared at the dagger pointed at him. Wat also drew his and the two archers maneuvered to block off his escape. Crispin quickly measured the courtyard. Open avenues there and there. He could outrun the big man Wat, but the lanky Peter he doubted he could outmaneuver. Crispin lifted his empty palms and took a step back. He used the only weapon left to him: his inbred nobility. “I am here to investigate. But I have an urgent need to speak with Master Peale. If you have a dispute with me—” With two fingers he lifted his dagger from its sheath, flipped it up into his hand, and postured. His smooth and practiced movements were obvious even to the archers, and they hesitated. “Then let us meet our troubles here head on.” He took a step forward and smiled when they took a step back. Two against one and they were still frightened of him. He wanted to laugh but didn’t want to spoil the mood. Instead, he slammed his knife back into its scabbard. “But if there is nothing more . . .” He backed away, eyeing the men with their bobbing blades. They made no more provocative moves, and when Crispin turned, he heard Wat say, “Peter, you best go find Master Miles.”

  Crispin decided to hurry.

  The armory was left unguarded, possibly because men were constantly entering and leaving it. Crispin blended in and became just one more man among many. He passed row on row of spears, halberds, axes, unstrung bows, and arrows, bundles of them, all piled impossibly high. And seeming to inventory every one of them, an old man bent over a wax slate with a candle attached to it. He was grayer than Crispin remembered. Perhaps a little more unsteady of hand, but there was no mistaking the king’s fletcher.


  Crispin thought about the reaction of the archers, but there was little to be done. “Master Peale.”

  The man didn’t turn from his work. “Eh? What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Master Peale. I need your help.”

  The fletcher stopped and raised his head. “I know that voice.” When he turned, his yellowed eyes looked Crispin over. His lids drooped with extra folds; skin leathery as arrow quivers, lips chalky and flat, revealing long, discolored teeth. “Crispin Guest?” He said it slowly, running the unfamiliar syllables off his tongue as if speaking a foreign language. His lips didn’t seem to believe his words and they murmured an old man’s soundless echo.

  Crispin stepped closer into the candle’s circle of light. “Yes, it’s me.”

  Peale crossed himself. “Saint Sebastian preserve us.” He looked Crispin up and down again and set aside the wax slate. “What brings you here to court, Crispin Guest?” His voice slid from faint fear to suspicion. His bushy eyebrows lowered over his eyes.

  “I know it has been a long time.” Crispin looked at the ground and stood one leg forward, the other back, foot gracefully turned outward. It was a practiced, courtly stance, something Lancaster’s tutors had hammered into him over the many years that he lived in the duke’s household. “How do you expect to be a proper courtier, Master Crispin?” Master Edan would say, correcting Crispin for the thousandth time on his deportment on the dance floor. Master Edan taught Crispin all the dances and courtly courtesy befitting a child of his station, lessons his parents would have shouldered had they lived.

  “By my wits,” Crispin had answered. A child’s voice mouthing a child’s youthful sentiments. He didn’t, couldn’t realize then how true those words would become.

  Crispin touched the pouch hanging from his belt. “I have here three fletchings from arrows of your design, Master Peale. And I would have you identify for whom they were made.”

  “Would you now?” He rubbed his gnarled fingers over his white stubbled chin. His gaze darted past Crispin’s shoulder. Crispin, too, looked back. No one was there. “Everyone is very interested in arrows of late.”

  “No doubt.” Crispin produced the arrows from his pouch.

  Peale didn’t look at them. His gaze centered on Crispin. “It has been many a day since you have been to court, if I am not mistaken. In fact, I am fairly certain the king is still of the same opinion about you, no?”

  Crispin said nothing. Let the old man think what he will. It wouldn’t matter once he got his proof about Miles.

  “Still stubborn, eh? Isn’t that what got you into your troubles in the first place?”

  “And the sin of pride, Master Peale. But besides my sins, I have been given many gifts. The gift of wit and a keen sense of justice.”

  “Aye, I remember. So.” His lips fumbled with a wry smile before his gaze dropped to the three items in Crispin’s hand. “And where did you get these fine specimens, if I may ask?”

  “One from a dead man, one from my shoulder—a miss—and the third from a scullion.” He handed them to Peale.

  “A dead man, eh? Anyone I know?”

  “No. No one I knew either.”

  “Yet one you claim was directed toward you.”

  “A poor shot when the other was so clean. I wonder if it was meant to merely incapacitate rather than kill me.”

  “And the scullion? Dead, too, I suppose.”

  “No, barely wounded.”

  Peale walked with the fletchings to his candle and turned them over in his hands. He examined the little ridges notched into the shaft near the feathers. “Yes. These are mine right enough.”

  “Who were they made for?”

  “Hmm.” Peale rubbed his index finger over his marks and stared at the raf ters. “Interesting. I believe—”

  “Peale!” A voice shouted from the armory’s entrance. Crispin knew that voice and with one wild glance at Peale, Crispin ducked into the shadows. He slid his back along the wall and slipped into the tight space between a stack of broad axes. A blade’s sharp edge was mere inches from his nose. He tried not to breathe.

  Miles’s shadow stretched across the floor. Crispin pressed flatter against the wall.

  “Peale,” said Miles, “has anyone come to see you about some arrows?”

  Peale was an old man, and old men were often excused from a curt tone or an impolite eye. Peale seemed to take full advantage of his maturity and squinted at the Captain of the Archers. “Everyone comes to see me about arrows, young man. I am a fletcher.” He said the last with careful diction as if speaking to a simpleton.

  Miles’s brow arched with irritation. “Of course. I know that. What I meant was did anyone you would not expect come to you? Anyone who has no cause to be here?”

  “Who am I to judge who has cause to be here and who does not? Verily, Master Aleyn, you make little sense. I must see about all arrows. Indeed, I must even see to your arrows, Master.”

  Crispin threw his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.

  Miles glowered. “Damn you, Peale. You act like a simpleton when I know you are not!”

  “Then don’t treat me like one, Master Aleyn. Say what you mean and have done with it.”

  “Very well. I’m looking for that scoundrel Crispin Guest. Surely you remember him.”

  “Crispin Guest?” The old man scratched his head, causing his white hair to twist into a sunburst. “I haven’t seen him in years. What would he be doing at court?”

  Miles didn’t sound as if he were having any of it. “If he comes to you, inform me immediately. He is trespassing. It should be made known to the king.”

  “I will do my best to inform you, Master Aleyn,” said the fletcher with a dismissive bow.

  Miles snorted, looked around for a moment, and then swept out of the room. Crispin heard the door close before he rose from his hiding place.

  Peale’s eyes seemed to soften when they roved over Crispin again. “He doesn’t seem very fond of you, Master Guest.”

  “He never was. And soon, he shan’t be enamored at all. The arrows, Master Peale.”

  Peale brought his hand forward. He had hidden the arrow pieces behind his back. He nodded over them and handed them back to Crispin. “These are very special arrows. I made them for my Lord of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster.”

  Crispin’s elation deflated. He drew closer. “Lancaster? Are you certain?”

  Peale pointed to his marks. “These are my marks, young man. And these identify the archer. It is the duke. There is no mistaking.”

  13

  CRISPIN STARED AT THE arrows Peale dropped into his palm. Lancaster.

  Peale cocked his head at Crispin. “I take it by your tone that you did not expect that name.”

  “No, I did not.”

  It had to be a mistake. The blame was on Miles, not Lancaster. Crispin leaned against a stack of spears, didn’t particularly mind when their points dug in his back. “Master Peale, could you be mistaken about this?”

  “My mark is my mark, young man.”

  “So it is,” he answered absently. He crushed the arrows tight in his hand. Perhaps if he could crush them altogether he might still the thumping of his heart, the pain throbbing there. Lancaster couldn’t be involved in such a plot. Unthinkable. What had Miles to do with Lancaster?

  “I thank you, Master Peale.” He looked toward the empty doorway. “For everything,” he added pointedly.

  Peale inclined his head and then turned back to his work as if the encounter had never happened.

  “Oh. One thing more,” asked Crispin. Peale continued his inventory but never looked up. “Did you have the opportunity to examine the arrow that was directed at the king?”

  The fletcher shook his head. “No. The fools. They destroyed it. They aren’t as clever as you.” He turned his head, and Crispin thought he saw him wink.

  Crispin thanked him again and left the armory. He dropped the arrow pieces into his pouch and brooded as he walked. Miles w
as the shooter. Crispin felt it in his bones. When Crispin had examined the roof where the archer had treacherously fired on Crispin, he found light-colored strands of hair—hair that matched the archer’s.

  Perhaps Miles had used Lancaster’s arrows. And this would not be so troubling a thing if it weren’t for a rising note of conspiracy. For Miles would have little to gain for killing the king, just as he would have had seven years earlier. Unless he was paid by someone to do it. Someone with enough wealth and influence. Someone who would have something to gain.

  Crispin looked up and saw Miles turning a corner and striding in his direction. He slipped back and slammed himself against a wall. He didn’t want Miles to see him just yet. His clear case against him had suddenly become muddied.

  Cautiously, Crispin stole into a side passage. He had to get out of the palace. His mind was not on the task. That kind of carelessness might get him killed.

  HE MADE HIS WAY back to the kitchens, keeping his hood low over his face and his head down. When he left the kitchens no one remarked on it. No one remarked his passing through the Great Gate and he was safe to make his way through Westminster and back to London. He arrived at his lodgings by late afternoon.

  Walking in the door, he inhaled the heady aromas of two hocks of pork roasting over the fire.

  Jack turned from his basting and smiled. “Master, what’s the news?”

  Crispin took off his cloak and hood, hung them on a peg, and fell into a chair. He sighed. “Much has happened, Jack. I’ve had to move the wenches again.” He related the story.

  Jack listened and took one hock. Laying it on a slab of hard bread, he handed it to Crispin and then fetched a bowl from the larder shelf and poured wine into it from the jug. He put the bowl beside Crispin and then prepared his own supper.

  Crispin chewed the meat, keeping his eyes on his food.

  “So,” said Jack, settling beside Crispin. “When are you going to tell me the rest?”