that Crispin breathed again. He looked both ways down the empty corridor.
He looked at Jack, and the boy offered a sincere and sorrowful expression. Crispin squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “Thank you, Jack. For everything.”
Jack nodded. His face was on the verge of tears.
“Did you find Miles Aleyn?” Crispin asked.
“No, Master,” he replied in an unsteady voice. “I’m not even certain he’s in the palace.”
“He is. I saw him. In fact—” Crispin remembered Miles’s face masked in shadows by the column in the great hall. “The French couriers. They saw him, too. And they recognized him. They knew him.”
“But they told you they didn’t.”
“They said they didn’t know him by that name.” This was better. Immerse in the problem and then all the other hurts could be forgotten for a time. The puzzle was the place to hide. The puzzle was a safe haven.
“He’d been to France,” said Jack.
“Yes.” Crispin minced through the puzzle in his mind. “Yes. France.”
Crispin stood that way for a long time, his face blank. Jack finally nudged him. “Something else troubling you?”
“Yes, but it has to wait. I’m not leaving here until I find Miles.” Crispin set off down the corridor, cradling his arm.
Jack trotted after him. “What happened, Master Crispin? To your arm.”
“Miles. There was an arrow. Livith found me and ministered to me.” Pain radiated throughout his left side, especially where the wadded cloth blotted the hole. He looked down and saw blood soaking the linen. He needed to be sewn up like his old coat, but he didn’t have the time.
He took a deep breath and started running. He grunted out the pain but he couldn’t stop, wouldn’t. If he had killed Miles the day he saw him in Islington he’d be in better stead now.
He didn’t know where to look, but his feet took him near the great hall. He slammed himself against the wall just within the shadowed archway and breathed.
Jack straightened his cassock and pulled the cowl up over his head before he leaned toward the archway and peered around the corner. “Only a handful of courtiers,” whispered Jack, “but Miles is not among them . . . Hold there. Someone running.”
Crispin heard the scramble of feet, shouting, and then more feet, marching feet pursuing.
“The poor bastard is down!” hissed Jack. “A cluster of guards wrestled him to the ground. He’s in for it now. Been there m’self.” Jack edged farther into the hall, extending his body. In his black cassock, he looked more shadow than boy.
“They’re picking him up,” Jack continued. “It looks like . . . it looks like . . .”
Jack’s spine snapped to attention and he rubbed his eyes and looked first at Crispin and then back to the hall.
Crispin stared at Jack and whispered, “What is it, for God’s sake?”
Jack shook his head. “It looks like they’ve captured . . .
25
CRISPIN’S FACE DID NOT change for a heartbeat and then he threw back his head and gave a hearty laugh. “Captured
“Well . . .” Jack hugged the edge of the pilaster. “I see a man wearing that cotehardie of yours—”
Crispin continued laughing though it hurt his shoulder and he ceased abruptly. “My decoy has arrived. What are they doing now?”
“They’re ushering him away. Out the other door. Everyone’s going. The hall’s empty.”
Crispin stepped tentatively toward the archway. “Good. We’ll go this way, then. It will save me time.”
“Who was that poor bastard?”
“That was Lenny.”
Jack smiled. “And he agreed to be your decoy?”
“Not exactly. I hinted to him that he might earn a reward at court. Looks like he just got it.”
“Why is he wearing your coat?”
“I needed a way to get across London without being detected. We traded coats.”
“Now, Master Crispin, that wasn’t a very nice thing you done to old Lenny. He won’t appreciate it.”
“I imagine he’s spilling his guts about me now. That will keep everyone busy enough. I hope.”
Crispin checked again to see if anyone remained in the hall and then slipped out onto the stone floor. Heading across the hall was the best shortcut to the courtyard. Miles might be there and Crispin needed to conserve every step.
The tapestry that Crispin climbed in his escape had been removed, leaving an obviously blank space on the wall between more tapestries and banners. The broken rod still hung there by one hanger. Gouges in the plaster pocked the stone wall, reminders where spears had penetrated. The window was covered with boards hastily nailed into place to keep the weather out.
“What happened there?” asked Jack. “Looks like a whirlwind swept through.”
Crispin looked up. “No, only one desperate man.”
Jack turned to stare at Crispin. His jaw slackened and his widening eyes inquired, but he said nothing.
They’d made it halfway across the floor when Crispin stopped. He saw movements in the shadows by the kitchen entrance, the figure of a man and the gleam of a sword pulled from its scabbard.
The figure strode into the light and took a few paces forward. He wagged the sword at Crispin from across the expanse of floor, his gloved hand wound taut around the sword hilt. “Why, Crispin Guest!” Miles said tightly. His voice conveyed a smile even though his face did not. “It’s a miracle. Did I not just see you taken away by the palace guards?”
Crispin stiffened. “No miracle. A trick of the eye, perhaps.”
“So now the king must add sorcery to the charges against you. One wonders how many times and in how many ways you can be executed.”
Crispin raised one edge of his mouth not quite into a grin. “I’ll wager none. It is not my execution that is close at hand, but yours.”
Miles stepped closer. The sword bobbed toward Crispin. “Mine? I think not. For I am not guilty of anything.”
“Do not make the angels weep, Miles.”
Miles’s smile was that of a reptile. “You credit me with far more than my due.”
Crispin backed away from Miles’s advancing blade, running his gaze over the three feet of steel. He raised his voice. “Miles Aleyn, you are under arrest in the name of the king.”
Miles laughed. “And what authority gives you the right—or the gall—to utter such nonsense? Are we talking of the faery kingdom?”
“The sheriff gives me the authority.”
“The sheriff. I wipe my arse with London’s sheriff.”
“We’ve all had enough of your bow work, Miles.” He gestured to his own arm. “Especially me.”
Miles stepped closer, only ten feet from Crispin now. “I wish I can take the credit. But alas, I did not. Besides, I would have rather put an arrow in your heart than your shoulder.”
“Lying to the last.”
Miles chuckled and raised the blade. He stood only a few feet from Crispin.
