Serpent in the Thorns

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.

7

CRISPIN CLOSED THE DOOR and walked toward the bed. He lightly touched the Crown and then went to the rear window. He looked out to the back courtyard, across the many roofs, but saw nothing but doves delicately stepping over the tiles. Slowly he closed the shutters and barred them. He looked at the Crown again. An anxious feeling crept over him.

The door suddenly flung wide behind Crispin. He spun and Jack staggered into the shadowed opening.

“Jack? Where’ve you been? Did you touch that?” Crispin pointed to the Crown and Jack stared with bulging eyes.

“I fell out the window,” he said.

Crispin grabbed Jack by the shoulders, hastily checking for fractured bones. “Are you drunk?”

“I ain’t. I fell out the window. After tinkering with that!” His hand shot forward, accusing the Crown.

He pushed Jack back to look at him. “But there isn’t a scratch on you.”

“I ain’t lying, Master. I put it on me head. And the strangest thing. I felt like—” He looked up at the cobwebbed beams. “I felt like I could do anything. I took it off me head, I stood on yonder sill, and then I fell out. I don’t remember falling. I was just . . . on the ground. It’s bewitched, that’s what it is.”

“Nonsense.” The word soured in Crispin’s mouth. He, too, remembered feeling an unnatural elation when he wore the Crown, an elation that almost made him pick a fight. Yes, he, too, could well see—in that state—he might have imagined he could fly out the window. He stared at the Crown. Just coincidence, surely. “Now Jack,” he began, soothing himself with his easy words, “you could have imagined it. With a little wine—”

“I tell you true, Master Crispin. I ain’t had no wine!”

Crispin turned from Jack to pick up the Crown, running his thumb over the smooth side of a thorn. “There is something about this—” The Crown felt substantial in his hands. Not particularly heavy, but thick with the woven rushes and the prickly thorns that did not stab him as he thought they should have done. He glanced at Jack and then carefully placed the Crown within its jeweled casket. He rested his hand on the closed lid and shook his head. “No, I do not believe that God’s power can inhabit worldly things. It makes no sense.”

“But God was Himself a worldly thing. As Jesus, eh?”

“So now you are a theologian?”

“I don’t know what that is, but I know what happened to me. I fell out the sarding window and I didn’t feel nought.”

Crispin set the jeweled casket within the wooden box and cast about for a place to hide it. His lodgings were particularly bad for hiding large objects—no alcoves, no other rooms. It wouldn’t fit in his coffer. The only place was the pile of straw in the corner that Jack used as a bed. He took the box to the straw and dug deep to nestle it there.

“In my bed?” cried Jack. “I ain’t sleeping with it. God knows what mischief I’d be up to next. Flying off the roof, maybe.”

“I’ve no other place to hide it.”

“Why don’t you give it over to court if you’re so keen to have the king forgive you?”

Crispin pulled the last strands of yellow straw over the box and stepped back to look at the pile. The straw conjured images of the bed he slept on in one of Newgate’s cells, little better than this pile of straw, and the cell had been much colder than this room. All had been silent and mostly dark, until they allowed him a candle. Alone had been best, for he knew that when the cell door opened, the questioning and the torture would begin anew. He came to dread the sound of whining hinges and rattling keys. Each time the door yawned he hoped the guards would take him to the executioner. But such relief was not to be. Only the last time. The last time at court.

He thought of Miles. How comfortable life must have been for him the last seven years. All Crispin’s comrades executed, and all too brave to name Miles Aleyn. Even Crispin had said nothing. But now Crispin would say. Nothing would stop his tongue. But he must be careful. He must do so with enough evidence. There was still one more unknown conspirator. Someone powerful enough to hire Miles and want either Lancaster or Richard dead. Who at court would dare such a feat? He’d wait to bring the Crown of Thorns so that he could pillory Miles and this other man at the same time. That would be a prize.

He looked at Jack. “Not yet,” Crispin said. The sneer did not leave his lips. “I have more work to do before I can.”

“I would be rid of such a thing. What do you know of it? I mean—” Jack stared at the pile of straw that hid the box. He crushed his arms over his chest. “Is it truly the Crown of Thorns placed on our Lord’s head?”

“That is what they say. But for all the answers, I do know someone better to ask. Get your cloak.”

THEY SET OFF TOWARD the west end of London. Crispin was grateful Jack didn’t ask about Miles. Too much anger bubbled in his gut. It was impossible to discuss the man. But Crispin was puzzled as to why he had not killed Miles outright. Of course, if he had, he’d be in a cell right now truly awaiting the executioner. No axes for him this time, but the strangulation death of the gallows.

He didn’t much care for the idea.

“Where are we going, Master?” Jack asked after they passed Charing Cross.

“There.” Crispin pointed to the large church. Its rounded apse faced the Thames, as did the long walls of its cloister snuggled next to the church under the crook of the south transept, like a kitten cuddling its mother. The big square tower with the rosette window faced north and jutted upward above the cloister’s walls and rooftops. Westminster Abbey.

Over Crispin’s shoulder and farther to the east stood Westminster Hall. Court. But he wouldn’t go there today. No. He was not yet welcomed at court. The few times he attempted entrance went not well at all. The next time he entered court he intended not a triumphal entrance, perhaps, but a more salutary one.