“Aye. The rest you’re trying so hard not to tell me.”
Suddenly the pork didn’t taste as good. Crispin tossed the bone into the fire. He rose and went to the water jug and basin, pouring the icy water over his hands and shaking off the wet. “I discovered from whom the arrows came.”
Jack gulped his wine and settled expectantly on his stool. “Well?”
Crispin shook his head, tried to chuckle. “It’s absurd,” he said, returning to the table and sitting. “There is a simple explanation.”
“Aye. There could be. If you’d just tell me.”
Crispin stared at Jack, at a face that didn’t seem to belong to a young boy anymore. Jack’s eyes were wise. Well, sympathetic, at any rate. They did not show impatience as they should. They only waited. Who was this boy? As alone in the world as Crispin was. Clever. Resourceful. Just born on the wrong side of the Thames.
Crispin sighed. “Very well, Jack. Master Peale was quite insistent that the arrows were made for . . . the duke of Lancaster.”
No protestations, no jumping up with shouts of denial. Jack was calm, even nodded thoughtfully.
It irritated like hell.
“The duke’s arrows, eh? That’s a sly trick, that. Stealing his arrows so he’d appear to be guilty.”
The simplest of explanations. Crispin’s gut was so tangled that he had not been able to dredge up such an uncomplicated rationalization.
“So,” said Jack, mouth bulging with food. “Whoever stole his grace’s arrows is the killer.”
Crispin bobbed his head inattentively. “It’s as good a conjecture as any.”
“So what you’re saying is, there ain’t no way to trace them to the Captain of the Archers now, is there?”
Crispin gritted his teeth and took a swig. The wine—turning quickly to vinegar—burned down his throat. “In truth, no.” He slammed the table with the flat of his hand. “Damn!”
“Then you’ll have to catch him in the act.”
He looked up at Jack. The boy’s face wore all the confidence in Crispin that Crispin did not have for himself. Jack’s chin jutted in pride, the same pride he’d seen on the faces of squires watching their masters at tournament or on the battlefield.
Crispin leaned back in his chair. His fingers toyed with the rim of his wine bowl. “There is the possibility that he will not strike again. Not any time soon.”
Jack chewed thoughtfully until his jaw slowed and stopped. “You may be right, there. He might lie low for months!” Jack scratched his head. He slowly pivoted his glance toward the buried reliquary. “Master! What are we going to do with that? We can’t keep it for months.”
They both looked at the unassuming pile of straw.
“The longer we delay giving it back,” said Jack, “the worse it will get.”
“For ‘us’?”
“Well, I deem m’self in your care—and you in mine.”
Crispin’s smile flattened. “You’re right, of course. I’ve kept it too long already. I suppose I can leave out how I acquired it.”
“Will the king accept that?”
“I don’t know.” He scowled. “God’s blood! It’s looking more and more like I should surrender it to the sheriff.”
“It would take the blame from you.”
“And the credit!” He shot from the chair and paced the small room. Finally he lighted in front of the hearth. He leaned forward and pressed his hands against the wall and stared into the short flames. “I have so few opportunities—so few chances to prove myself.” He laughed but it came out a bitter sound. “Who am I fooling? No matter what I do—even if I announced the Second Coming myself—Richard would never allow me back to court. Never give me back my—” He made an airless chuckle. “My title and knighthood.” He shook his head, a smile still pasted on his mouth. “I am nothing,” he said quietly. “That’s what they told me, Jack. ‘You are nothing.’ And only God can make something from nothing.”
He hung his head between his outstretched arms and closed his eyes. What foolish pride had made him think he could overcome this Hell with a simple return of goods? His head whipped up and he glared at the straw pile. He stomped toward it and cast the straw aside.
“What are you going to do?” asked Jack’s worried voice behind him.
“Why do these things curse me?” Crispin opened the box. He lifted out the golden casket and threw open the lid. He snatched the Crown of Thorns and turned it in his hand. “Look at this. It should be so treasured a thing. But look what it’s done to me. It gave me hope. I promised myself I would allow no one and nothing to do so ever again.”
Jack stood at his shoulder and looked down at the Crown. His hands fumbled forward as if trying to protect it. “But it touched Jesus’ head, Master. I wouldn’t—You shouldn’t be touching it.”
Crispin clenched the Crown in his hand. The dry rushes crackled. He wanted to heave it against the wall. He wanted to see it splinter into a million pieces. And he didn’t know why he was so angry at such a thing. It certainly wasn’t the Crown’s fault he was in this situation. After no choices for so long, he had chosen to become this “Tracker,” and it had been his saving grace. He could use the acuity of his mind, his fighting skills, and his knowledge to fight injustice. He was proud of his accomplishments. Miles was evil and had tricked him as he tricked all those other knights, now dead. But it wasn’t the Crown’s fault. It was only because of those couriers. That’s how he got the Crown.
The French couriers. What had they to do with this? He wondered where they were.
With a sigh, he slipped the Crown unsteadily back into its casket, closed the lid, and put it back within the wooden box. He packed the straw around it again but snatched his hand back with a sharp inhale. A bead of blood appeared on his finger. He’d pricked it. He looked in the straw and found a stray thorn. It must have fallen out of the Crown when he manhandled it. He drew it from the straw and dropped it in his pouch.
He concentrated his hate on Miles. Surely it was all Miles, not Lancaster. Jack was right, had to be. Lancaster was an innocent pawn in this.
There was much more to be learned. He needed answers not more questions. And if he was to learn anything he had to know more about why that Crown had not immediately been taken to court as it should have been.
He had to find those couriers.
14
THE KING’S HEAD WAS blazed golden by the late-afternoon light, but it belied a grimy interior, more so even that the Boar’s Tusk. When Crispin entered, a haze of wood smoke hovered over the tables. Men hunched in a circle near the fire and lifted their heads from stooped shoulders long enough to look Crispin over before they gave him a dismissive flick of their lids and turned back to their coven.
A woman approached Crispin. Mislaid strands of her hair hung in lifeless strings before her eyes and she wiped her hands on her apron. She might be the innkeeper’s wife, or just another wench who worked in the tavern’s hall. It was hard to be certain. “Good day. What will you have?”
“I would speak with your Master.”
She sighed. “Aye. He’s in the back.”
He followed her leisurely steps through a ragged curtain. The innkeeper was there filling jugs of ale from a keg. He was a tall man, bald, with a beaklike nose. He aimed a milky blue eye at Crispin. “Eh? What’s your business?”
