Jack offered him his belt with its scabbard, and Crispin fitted it around his waist and buckled it in place. He gave his scabbard one slap out of habit and took the arrows from the table and slid them both in his belt.
“Where do you go now, Master?”
“I must go to a fletcher, the man who made these arrows. I would have him identify for whom he made them. That will fix Miles.”
“What about archery practice? Did not the king’s decree command it daily?”
“Yes, but it will have to wait.”
Shouts. Feet running through the early-morning street. Crispin looked at a perplexed Jack. The market bells had not yet rung. Crispin knew the shops must remain shuttered until they did, but this was not a shout to open the markets.
He dashed to the streetside window and cast open the shutters. A young boy ran down the lane below him and then disappeared down another. Butchers slowly emerged from their shops and stood on the muddy avenue.
“Oi!” Crispin cried down to one man standing in the street’s filthy gutter spiraling with yesterday’s blood. “Master Dickon!”
“Eh?” Dickon looked up and spied Crispin and pointed at him.
“What goes on, Master Dickon? What is the shouting?”
“That boy,” said Dickon gesturing after the lad. “He said that all business was to be suspended today.”
“Suspended? Why on earth for?”
“He said there’s been an attempt on the king’s life and his Majesty is in seclusion at Westminster.”
10
OPEN OR NOT, THE Boar’s Tusk was Crispin’s next destination. He knew Gilbert would let him in.
Jack stayed at home, begging off. Crispin knew how he felt. A little frightened, a little at a loss as to what to do. Jack would spend the day cleaning the little room they shared, and that suited Crispin.
The streets were oddly deserted. Merchants stood in their windows staring impotently at the streets. Several philosophers stood over a brazier, shaking their heads, commenting. A short man with a receded hairline hovered just outside their circle. He edged closer as their words became more heated.
“Lenny!” called Crispin to the short man.
Lenny swore an oath with a cloud of breath. The men glanced at him once, but it was enough to break the spell of his anonymity.
He trotted toward Crispin with shaking head. He had the habit of hunching his shoulders and keeping his head below them, much like a buzzard. Crispin supposed he caught the habit from too long a time in low-ceilinged gaol cells.
“What you go and spoil me game for, Master Crispin?”
“You don’t want to end up in gaol again, do you, Lenny? You might lose a hand this time for certain.”
“You wouldn’t put old Lenny back in gaol, would you, good Master? Weren’t it enough you done it three times?”
“Let’s not make it a fourth. The sheriff is not likely to be cozened again out of taking a limb of yours in punishment. Wasn’t the loss of an ear enough?”
Lenny rubbed the scabbed place where his ear had been and where his long, stringy hair covered it. “How’s a man like me to make a living, I ask you? I ain’t fit for much else, and that’s the truth.”
“Let my example be yours.
“Well you’re you, ain’t you?” Lenny rubbed his chin bristling with a three-day beard. His eye twinkled. “There wouldn’t be something you want to hire old Lenny for, is there?”
“Not at the moment. You still live near the Thistle Inn?”
“It’s a place I can be found.”
Crispin considered. “I may have something for you. You know my man Jack, don’t you?”
“We met once or twice.”
“He may come round and give you a message from me.”
“And a farthing?”
“And a farthing. You see? It isn’t all that hard to make a decent living.”
Lenny smiled and revealed blackened teeth. He trotted off, running along the edge of the gutter.
Crispin watched him disappear into London’s grayness. He felt the arrows at his side and thought about the fletcher he needed to talk to. Edward Peale was his name. Crispin had known him well from the old days at court, in the days Crispin used to hunt in the king’s deer park with other courtiers. Peale made the finest, straightest arrows. And he made his mark on every one of them, the mark Crispin recognized on both shafts. He also made marks to show the ownership of such arrows. It would be a simple matter, then, for Peale to identify the marks and convict Miles.
But there was the matter of getting into court to talk to Peale. Certainly he was ensconced in the palace grounds as he always had been. Difficult, that. For one, Crispin was forbidden entrance to court. And two, with an attempt on the king’s life, Westminster Palace would be shut up tighter than a barrel of French wine.
Thinking of the king he wondered how severe this attempt was. Abbot Nicholas would surely know.
He glanced toward Gutter Lane just ahead and licked his lips. The Boar’s Tusk was only a short distance around the corner and it was a long, thirsty walk to Westminster.
“Damn.”
Business first. He must find out what happened to the king.
THE STREETS ALONG WESTMINSTER Abbey and Westminster Palace simmered with activity. Soldiers scrambled everywhere like ants, moving just as mindlessly. They stopped Crispin three separate times with a “what’s your business?” before he was able to make his way to the abbey’s doorstep.
When Crispin rang the bell, it took longer than usual for a monk to appear and open the gate. The monk wasn’t a brother Crispin recognized, but he took Crispin to the abbot’s empty chamber. The monk served Crispin wine and hurriedly left, leaving him alone to contemplate the stained-glass window raining colors on the abbot’s desk.
After a brief interval, the door opened and the abbot rushed in.
“Forgive me, Crispin. As you can imagine, this is a busy time.”
“Yes. I came to get information on those very doings.”
“Good. I see you have wine. I will pour my own. Please. Sit.” Abbot Nicholas fussed with the flagon, lifted the goblet, and pressed the goblet’s rim to his dry lips. His throat, peppered with gray stubble from a rushed razor, rolled with a swallow. He moved smoothly to his chair, settled on its cushion, and looked up at Crispin. “A busy morn.”
“No doubt.”
A pause fell over the room until Nicholas broke it by something between a sigh and a snort. “The king is in good health, God be praised. Thank you for asking.” Nicholas’s sardonic expression disappeared behind the goblet.
Crispin quaffed his own cup. No, he didn’t ask, didn’t really care all that much about Richard’s health, but as a citizen he was interested to know. “Didn’t kill him, eh?”
Nicholas raised a hand. A benediction? A call for silence? “You truly should not speak your treason so loudly.”
“Is it treason to wonder if the king is dead?”
His age-yellowed eyes fell kindly on Crispin. “For you, perhaps.”
