come out of it alive.”
“The trick is,” said Gilbert, “to find the real assassin.”
“I can’t do that if I’m not at court.” Crispin gulped the wine and set the bowl down again. Gilbert refilled it and he watched the alluring flicker of ruby red and yellow candlelight play against the sides of the clay bowl.
Gilbert drank his wine. “The king has it in for you. Always has. Probably jealous of you and Lancaster. After all, a man can tell the difference between fawning and true affection.”
Crispin rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble. He looked up into the shadowy faces of Jack, Ned, and Gilbert. “I can’t think anymore tonight. Let me rest. But Gilbert, you must keep watch. The sheriff may come here looking for me.”
ONCE NED AND GILBERT left them alone, Jack settled Crispin on the cot, and as soon as he hit the straw he lost track of Jack and everything else.
Until the sound of men shouting awoke him.
He scrambled out of bed. His knife was in his hand and he looked up the stairs where Jack pressed his ear to the door. He motioned down to Crispin to be quiet and hide.
Crispin cast about for a reasonable hiding place. Behind the large tun cask. A tight fit with his nose pressed against the damp wood. His nostrils filled with the smell of must and old wine.
Wynchecombe’s voice trembled the rafters. “I know he’s here!” He crashed through the door sending Jack tumbling down several steps. Crispin squeezed his dagger hilt. If anything happened to the boy because of him . . .
“Bring a candle,” bellowed the sheriff.
One of the sheriff’s men thrust a candle at him. He took it and held it aloft. “Ah, Jack Tucker. Where the lapdog is, the master is close at hand.”
“No, my good lord. I don’t know where Master Crispin is. What is all this about?”
“Get out of my way.”
Crispin heard a slap. He held his breath, ready to pounce.
The sheriff’s heavy footfalls thundered down the steps. He paused at the bottom and then silence.
It had been folly coming to the Boar’s Tusk. Now Crispin endangered all those he loved. He should have taken his chances on the Shambles or simply gotten out of London completely. Of course it was all too late. What was the use in hiding? There was no way out of the cellar and Wynchecombe was going to catch him. It was over.
The sheriff blew a long breath through his nose. “Go out to the tavern and wait for me.” He called this up the stairs, Crispin assumed to his men.
“My Lord Sheriff? And leave you alone with a desperate criminal?”
“He can’t get out except up the stairs. Leave me, I say.”
Crispin listened to the sound of the men’s retreating footsteps until they finally disappeared.
“Jack,” said the sheriff, his voice low and slick. “Close the door.”
“My Lord Sheriff, I’m telling you—”
“Close the damn door!”
Jack’s miserable steps trudged slowly upward and then the door clicked closed. “He’s not here, my lord,” repeated Jack in a desperate voice.
Wynchecombe didn’t reply. His echoing steps made a slow meander. The flat of his boots crunched damply on the stone floor. “Crispin.” His voice echoed hollowly. Each cask tossed the sound back to Crispin. “Oh Crispin. I know you’re here. Best come out and talk to me. It’s your only and last chance.”
Crispin didn’t think he could stomach being thrown into prison again. And he did not relish the idea of more torture. This time, they would devise something better, something more lingering. And then his execution was bound to be long and agonizing. Perhaps he could use the sheriff as a hostage. It was worth a try.
Crispin squeezed out of his hiding place and stepped before the sheriff. The candle in Wynchecombe’s hand lit his face with enough malevolent light to sharpen his features to demonic proportions.
“Well, well. Here he stands.” The sheriff laid his hand on his sword pommel, seemed to consider, and let his hand fall back. “A merry chase, but now it is done.”
“You have something to say to me, Wynchecombe?”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Must I constantly remind you, Crispin, that you must address me as ‘my Lord Sheriff’? Why is that so difficult to remember?”
“I have no time for games. If you’ve come to arrest me I warn you. I won’t go quietly.”
“I didn’t expect that you would. I will be happy to see you in gaol again where you belong and to collect the reward for your capture.” He smiled. The candlelight caught it. His teeth glowed like bones. “Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t.”
Crispin glanced down at his hand, and turned the dagger in the candlelight.
Wynchecombe looked at it, too. “Are you going to use that?”
Crispin tightened his hold. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Wynchecombe’s smile flattened. “I’m still waiting for a reason.”
Crispin tried, as he had tried many times before, to discern the man behind those dark eyes. Wynchecombe was greedy, self-important, vicious, cruel, and ambitious. But his dealings with Crispin had been fair, tempered, of course, by Wynchecombe’s threats and imperious style.
The sheriff seemed to be offering him a chance—whatever that chance was. His other options didn’t look so good.
Crispin took a breath. “I can’t bribe you. You know that.”
“Intimately.”
“All I have is our history. We’ve known each other for a full year. I’ve helped you more often than not, surely you recall that. Little compensation have I had for it. You usually garnered the credit for work I did—”
Wynchecombe canted forward. “There’s no need to go into that, is there?”
“You know I didn’t do this, Lord Sheriff.”
“I know no such thing. I was there, after all. The bow was in your hand. So many witnesses.”
“And none of them saw what truly happened.”
“Now you weave tales. How can you possibly dispute the testimony of so many eyes? Even if
“I didn’t do it.”
“So says the condemned man. I’ve heard it so many times before.”
Crispin shook his head. “After all this time, you haven’t a sense of me?”
Wynchecombe opened his mouth to speak but held it in check. He looked around the dark room as if for the first time.
Crispin moved his fingers over the knife’s handle. “Simon . . . you can’t be that much of a bastard.”
“What kind of bastard I am depends on you. No, you’re as enigmatic as they come, Guest. You wallow in it. Maybe you tried to kill the king and maybe you didn’t. It would still be a prize for me to bring you in, guilty or not.”
Crispin glanced at Jack. His face was pasted with an expression of terror, marking it white and longer than usual.
“You know I would never have a chance to prove my innocence. I’m a dead man the moment I walk back into court.”
“You didn’t let me finish.” Wynchecombe sauntered toward the tun and kept a careful eye on Crispin’s movements. Crispin followed the sheriff’s progress and kept his knife drawn but lowered.
The sheriff sneered and sniffed the spilled wine dripping from the spigot.
“I was going to say,” said Wynchecombe, turning toward Crispin, “that though you are a great prize, so is the Crown of Thorns. I think I am in a good bargaining position now. I do not think it will cost me the usual to get it from you. Will it?”
“Are you that certain I have it?”
Wynchecombe laughed. “Now I
“Will you help me bring the true culprit to justice?”
“Bring me the Crown and I’ll consider it.”
