Serpent in the Thorns

Crispin raised his head. One by one, across the circle as if in a wave, the crowd turned their backs. All around him, shoulders stiff and taut. Crispin heard it as the sound of skirts rustling, and shoes scraping the floor. Then nothing.

“What?” he heard himself say.

“You are free to go,” said the knight, fist at his hip. “Begone.”

Then it struck him. The words, all of them, pieced together. You are a knight no more. No title, no lands. No kinsman may support you. His heart lurched. He saw the backs of his friends, his companions. He was nothing. His ambitions, his years as Lancaster’s protege, all crumbled like old bones.

He might as well be dead.

He looked at the belt at his feet, the one that once held his sword’s scabbard and was now naked of it, holding only the meager dagger. He leaned down and grasped the belt, dragging the dagger’s scabbard across the floor. He couldn’t quite muster the strength to lift it higher than his thigh. Dispossessed. From everything and everyone. How was he supposed to live? He reckoned that was the point. “But . . . Sire—?” he whispered.

“You dare address me, Guest!” Richard leaned forward so far from his throne he looked likely to fall. His smooth face stretched wide; mouth baring uneven teeth, eyes wild. His words spilled from him, rushing forward like a rain of fiery arrows. “You may stay in London, but you will not come to court. You will not communicate with anyone of the court. Is that clear? You are an island, Guest. You will remain alone in the sea of London. And if you survive, you may consider yourself lucky. Thus I give you your life and only as a favor to my uncle. But do not ever ask of me anything!”

Richard fell back into his chair and wiped the spittle from his lips.

“Such is the king’s mercy,” said the knight. He drew his sword and raised it. “In the name of the king, begone!”

Miles had been in that crowd. He stared with empty eyes at Crispin and turned his back dutifully with all the others and said not a word.

And even under the torturers’ labors, Crispin, too, had said nothing. Honor bound to hold his tongue, he did. He named no one, knowing nothing of the fate of any of his fellow conspirators. “Like a lamb led to the slaughter house, he opened not his mouth.”

Miles stood there and blended into the crowd and never paid for his part in the Plot.

The memories faded, the echoed voices fell to silence. The reality of his one-room lodgings blurred back into view. Returned to the here and now, a voice at his elbow, soft and timid, still startled him. “Master.”

Crispin turned. Jack, his cloak wrapped tight around his shoulders, his hands invisible beneath the ragged material, gazed up at Crispin with wide, moist eyes.

“What troubles you, Master Crispin? Is it your dream again?”

So Jack knew. Little slipped past that boy.

Crispin ran his tongue over his teeth. His mouth tasted bitter. “Go back to bed, Jack.”

“I would keep watch, if it’s all the same to you, sir.”

Crispin sighed. He looked up between the rooftops into the night sky. Woolly clouds unfurled, parted, while stars winked down at him. “I’m just thinking of that day again.”

Jack shook his head. No need to explain. Jack knew what day he meant. “I can’t say I can ever imagine how you felt when all the world seemed against you. But I know this old town would be a much rougher place without the Tracker on the prowl. And where would I be, eh? In prison, that’s what. Maybe even hanged by now.” He rubbed his neck. “No, God works his mysterious ways and put you in your place for a reason, and I say God be praised for it.”

Crispin smiled a little. “Thank you for that, Jack.”

Jack glanced at the two arrows sitting on the table. “Care to tell me now about the Captain of the Archers?”

“Miles Aleyn.” Crispin said the name like tar in his mouth. He looked at Jack and put his hand on his shoulder. “What I tell you goes no further than this room. Understand?”

“Aye, Master. Let me tongue be cut out if I breathe a word of it.”

He stared at Jack’s open innocence. Torture could not drag these words from Crispin’s lips, though he had come close. Another few days of torture and who knew what he might have said.

“Miles,” he said hoarsely, “was the man who instigated the Plot.”

Jack’s opinion was swift. “Sarding bastard!”

Crispin agreed. “He never paid for his crime. He brought England’s finest young knights together in this conspiracy at the prompting of another, a man still unknown to me. He did not do it for honor or for deep convictions. He did it for greed and vainglory.”

“And the other knights—?”

“All dead.”

“Did you know he was still at court?”

“No. In fact, I do not think he was. Not until recently. I think he was appointed no more than two months ago. The former captain died in his cups Saint Swithin’s day. Fell out of a window. There was talk of a new captain about a month ago but I heard no mention of a name.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Because there was no Captain of the Archers evident a month ago at the archery butts. And I asked. You see, Jack, I do practice. Occasionally.”

Jack’s indignation raised his shoulders and finally his whole body. He paced the brief room, swinging his arms as if to strike an enemy. The sparse hearthlight painted him in the figure of an excitable demon. “And he serves all this time as the high and mighty Captain of the Archers while you live on the Shambles! I’d cut his throat m’self if I could.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Jack, but do me the kindness of sitting. You’ll wake the Kemps below.”

Jack lighted on the stool. “You’re going to get him, aren’t you, Master Crispin? You’re going to see he gets his.”

“Oh yes, Jack. I will. But not merely him. I want to catch the man who hired him.”

Jack looked over his shoulder again at the arrows. “Why’d he kill that French courier do you suppose? For the Crown o’ Thorns?”

“No. He had ample opportunity to take the Crown. He killed that man as he tried to kill me. But I don’t yet know why.”

Neither said anything more for a while. And it wasn’t until Crispin snuffled awake for the second time— sunlight streaming in his face from the open shutter—that he realized he had slept.

The blanket tucked under his chin fell away when he stirred. He arched his back from his awkward position in the windowsill, but he was otherwise rested. Jack sat on the stool by the fire. Crispin’s coat lay across his lap and the boy hunched over it, pulling a threaded needle through the patch at the shoulder. He looked up when Crispin yawned loudly. Jack smiled.

“Good morn, sir. There’s porridge on the fire. Shall I get you a bowl?”

Jack stood halfway but Crispin waved him down. “Jack, why didn’t you wake me?”

“Didn’t know when the last time was you slept so well.”

“Neither do I.” He went to the hearth with a bowl he dragged from the table—last night’s dinner—and knocked its cold contents into the fire. He ladled out the thick porridge of barley, turnips, and peas and stood in nothing but his mid thigh chemise, back facing the fire, and spooned the food into his mouth.

Hot, filling, and even tasty.

“It’s good,” he said, mouth full.

Jack nodded and smiled. Then he raised the repaired coat so Crispin could inspect it. “I think there’s more patches than coat left, Master Crispin, but no arrow hole no more.”

“Thank you, Jack. You do for me more than I deserve. I truly wish I could pay you a proper wage.”

Jack reddened and hid it by brushing out the clotted bloodstain at the repair. “Food and shelter’s good enough for my like, never you fear.”

Crispin finished eating, dressed in clean braies and stockings, and took the coat Jack offered. He shrugged into the warm cotehardie and buttoned it all the way from the hem to his neck, all twenty-three buttons. There was a time he left the bottom thirteen buttons undone so he could ride his horse. But no more horse.