Serpent in the Thorns

“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.”

The servant glanced up with hangdog eyes. He scooped a swath of debris onto his tray. “She was ‘telling’ me awful loud.”

Crispin nodded. “I have been under that glare myself, Ned, many a time.”

“Make haste, Ned,” she barked and smoothed her spotted apron. She looked up and only then noticed Livith and Grayce standing behind Crispin. Her brows drew down and her wimple with it, making her face appear only as a small horizontal oval. “What’s this?”

Crispin pulled her aside and said quietly, “Nell, I have a favor to ask.”

“Oh no, Crispin. Not again. Why do you use our poor establishment as a dumping ground for your discards?”

Crispin drew himself up. This was the second time this morning a woman accused him of lechery. Not that he wasn’t often guilty, but his innocent protestations today seemed to fall on deaf ears. “They are not my ‘discards,’ ” he said in a rumbling tone. “They are my clients. They need my help and I need yours.”