Serpent in the Thorns (23 page)

Lenny fussed over the fire, prodding the peat, which only offered a meager flame and smaller heat. “ ’Course if you’re caught, it’s over for sure. King Richard has no love for you. There might be no trial. After all, you ain’t no lord no more—beggin’ your pardon.”

Crispin paced the small room again. “A disguise is a good idea, Lenny. I might even be able to get into court.”

“Oh Master Crispin. You
are
mad. You’d never make it past the guards. My, my. You’ve got bollocks, to be sure. Who’s the guilty bastard, anyway? Some lord?”

“This isn’t the toughest task I’ve ever had.” But Crispin knew that wasn’t quite the truth. His life had been in danger before, but never like this. “If I can prove this once and for all, I might be able to clear my name completely. Maybe the king will not distrust me anymore.”

“You fancy you’ll go back to court?”

“I’ve got no other choice, Lenny. It’s this or leave London for good.”

“What’s so good about London?” Lenny grumbled. “I’d leave in a tick if I could.”

“And how would you make your living?”

Lenny’s scowl widened into a grin. “Aye, you got me there, Master Crispin. A wily one, you are. Where would old Lenny go, eh? Straight to the Devil!”

“Lenny, I need another favor from you.”

“Another favor from old Lenny?” Lenny turned to the fire and crouched before it. His rags hung about him like a great fur cloak. “Giving you shelter, feeding you. That’s more than I done for anyone, Master Crispin, and that’s a fact. And only because I know you well. Even if most of our association comes from your arresting me.”

“Of course I’ve no right asking anything more of you.”

“That’s the truth. I done more than a Christian should. Charity, it is.”

Crispin nodded and reached into his pouch for a coin. A sharp pinprick. He yanked his hand out. A bead of blood formed on his finger. Gingerly, he reached inside again and pulled out the thorn.

“What’s that, Master Crispin?”

Crispin stared at its black, sleek surface, turned it over in his hand. “Madness. Foolery.” He reached into his pouch with the other hand and grasped a coin. He held it out for Lenny. “For your kindness, Lenny. And for the favor.”

“Well now. Ain’t that generous of you.” Lenny snatched it. The coin disappeared somewhere on his person. “What favor?”

“I’d like you to find Jack Tucker. I need his help. I know the fool didn’t leave London as I told him to do. But he should be nearby. Tell him to meet me at Westminster Abbey.”

Crispin rubbed his fingers over the thorn. He didn’t want to believe it, but his hand tingled where the thorn stuck him and he felt the growing sensation of confidence in his chest.

Crispin squinted at the man. “And Lenny. I also need to borrow your coat.”

22

THE SUN SENT A puss-yellow glow into a wash of clouds, dissipating the morning shadows and leaving London to awaken into another dismal and overcast morning. Crispin trotted along the edges of the houses and shops, not looking up, but keeping his gaze concentrated on the street or on the feet of horses and passersby. Lenny’s coat of rags, now resting on Crispin’s shoulders, stank of sweat, mold, and decay, as if something had died within its folds.

Crispin suspected that this was entirely possible.

The last he saw of his own rust-colored cotehardie was over Lenny’s hunched body.
This better be worth the sacrifice
. He didn’t mind holding his breath all the way to Westminster as long as he could get there undetected.

The king’s men were everywhere. They trotted down the lanes two by two. The closer Crispin got to Westminster, the more numerous they became. He forced himself to move slowly, even limp, and always, he kept his head shaded by his leather hood.

He hobbled to the alms door at Westminster Abbey and pulled the bell rope. After a few minutes, a monk appeared at the barred window. “There are no alms today, friend. Come back tomorrow.”

Crispin raised his head and winked when Brother Eric’s eyes widened in recognition. “The only charity I need, Brother, is to talk with the abbot.”

Brother Eric took a moment to compose himself. He stretched his neck looking past the barred window before he put his key to the lock and opened the door. “Master Crispin,” he said in a husky whisper. “What by blessed
Jesu
are you doing here? Do you seek sanctuary?”

“Not yet, Brother. I merely need to speak with the abbot.”

“He is at Prime with the others.”

“May I wait for him in his quarters?”

Crispin’s aromatic coat must have finally reached Eric’s senses. The monk wrinkled his nose and ran his gaze over the offending garment.

“I promise to leave the coat outside.”

Eric hesitated a heartbeat longer and finally nodded. He opened the door and Crispin stepped through. He stood in the cold porch while the monk closed the door and turned the key in the lock. Crispin shrugged out of Lenny’s coat, let it fall to the stone floor, and kicked it aside. A cold draught slithered along the colonnade and whirled around Crispin. He shivered and rubbed his hands up his arms. He was cold, but much relieved to be rid of that putrid coat.

He followed the silent monk through the cloister and up the steps to the abbot’s lodgings. Eric opened the door for Crispin but stood aside for him to enter alone. “My Lord Abbot will be in anon, as soon as Prime is over. I must return to my duties.”

“Brother.” Crispin reached out and touched his dark sleeve. Eric raised his pale face to Crispin. The monk’s eyes were rimmed with red from lack of sleep and his pale hair was cut in wisps on his high forehead. “I must ask you to tell an untruth should anyone inquire if you have seen me.”

Eric’s expressionless face brightened momentarily. “Seen who?” he said, and turned to retreat down the colonnade.

Crispin smiled and stepped over the threshold. He was grateful the room was warm as he was clad only in his chaperon hood and shirt. He stood by the fire, its soft crackle the only sound. Or did he hear the distant song of the monks chanting their devotion in the church’s choir?

The peace and quiet should have pacified, but it only set his teeth on edge. He paced before the fire, glancing once at the chessboard frozen in the midst of their play, and once at the large crucifix on the opposite wall. The figure of Christ lay in shadow even as the morning light rose through the stained-glass window. Crispin ignored the crucifix at first and strolled to the chessboard. He examined the pieces, his mind jumping five moves ahead. His fingers closed over a pawn and he edged the piece toward the white king. “Your king is still in jeopardy,” he whispered to the empty room. He saw the game play itself out, saw the white king fall, Crispin’s black pieces surrounding it. But his gaze snagged on the black knight, superbly carved in ebony. A knight in full harness, his lance lowered, the charger reared. Compelled by its intricacies, he closed his fingers over it and raised it up for a closer look. Each detail of mail and surcote, all amazingly reproduced in miniature. He looked at the board again; at his pieces closing in on the white king. “After all the careful strategy, it is the pawn who brings down the king despite everything the knight does.”

He turned the piece in his hand and noticed the pinprick on his finger. He placed the knight back on its square and raised his hand to examine the fading mark, rubbing his fingers together. He turned again to the crucifix.

The carving of the crucifix was a realistic study of agonizing death, that promise of redemption for sacrifice. The figure’s arms were outstretched almost beyond endurance, the feet cruelly nailed. On his head, a carved wooden crown of thorns.

Crispin reached into his pouch and carefully felt for the large thorn. His fingers examined, smoothed, grasped the object and then let it go. “Invincible?” he murmured. “I’ve never felt more vulnerable.”

If he couldn’t find that Crown and give it to the sheriff, he dreaded to think what would happen to Gilbert and Eleanor. Lenny’s mocking tone rang in his head. No, he hadn’t been careful. It was the height of idiocy ever setting foot again at the Boar’s Tusk. What had he been thinking?

He glared at the crucifix again. “I
need
your help,” he whispered. “If those bastard Frenchmen have the Crown, then I’ll never get it back, and Wynchecombe might suppose I tricked him. I will
not
have harm come to my friends!”

“Are you giving orders to God?”

Crispin whirled. The abbot stood in the entryway. Under the dark cowl his face wore a frown.

“My Lord Abbot,” said Crispin with a bow.

“Crispin.” The abbot tossed back his cowl and strode to the fire. He stretched his hands over the flames, turning them. “Forgive me if I do not say I am happy to see you.”

“Understandable. But I had little choice in coming.”

“Are you seeking sanctuary?” The abbot’s voice was gentle but his expression seemed to infer he’d rather not agree to it.

Crispin stood several paces from the abbot and the fire, but he never moved closer to the hearth. He shivered. “No. I can’t do what I need to do if I request sanctuary.”

Nicholas aimed a reddened eye at him. “And what is it you ‘need’ to do?”

“Find the true assassin.” The abbot’s expression of doubt drew a ball of heat from Crispin’s chest and up his body. He clenched his fists. “I am
not
a killer!”

“This is not what I heard.”

“Forget what you heard. What do you
believe
?”

Nicholas sighed and sunk into his chair. He dragged the fur wrap over his legs. “I’m not quite certain what to think. But—” His eyes, a glossy gray, studied Crispin, his lack of cloak or coat, and finally rested their gaze on Crispin’s face. “I do not believe you are a murderer.”

Crispin snorted. “I’m relieved to hear it,” he muttered.

“So why are you here?”

Crispin sat in the chair opposite the abbot and closed his head in his hands a moment. Had it only been yesterday that all hell had broken loose in the palace? “I think I had better tell you everything.”

Nicholas settled back and clasped his hands over his chest. He lowered his lids. “I’m listening.”

Crispin smiled. The abbot looked as if he were prepared to hear Crispin’s confession. “Four days ago, a simpleton, a scullion, came to me confessing that she killed a man. When I reached the scene of the murder I realized she could not possibly have killed him.”

Nicholas raised his head.

“The man was shot with an arrow,” Crispin explained.

Nicholas nodded and eased back, though his eyes weren’t as lidded.

“It happens this man was the French courier transporting a certain relic from the court of France.”

Nicholas snapped opened his eyes. “The Crown of Thorns!”

“Yes. It was there. I took it.”

“
You
took it? Why?”

Crispin smacked his fist in his palm. “I wanted a bargaining chit. I wanted a way back to court. I would appear clever and devoted if I could deliver the Crown into Richard’s hands.”

Nicholas said nothing, but his expression was a changing mask between tolerance and reproach. “Where is it now?”

“That’s just it. The sheriff knows I have it. He’s agreed to let me go, but in return I must give the Crown to him. But now it’s been stolen from me.”

Nicholas had been steadily leaning forward and now he almost rocked out of his chair. “Dear me. Do you have any suspicions as to who might have it?”

“I think the remaining French couriers stole it—or, I suppose, regained it. But now my friends are in danger—those held under house arrest by the sheriff—and the true assassin is still afoot.”

“Do you know who the assassin is?”

“Yes. It is the cursed Captain of the Archers, Miles Aleyn.” Crispin scowled deeply and stared at the flames. “But the most troubling aspect of it all is the arrows. Those used to kill the courier, to try to kill me, and to try to kill the king. They belonged to my Lord of Gaunt.”

Nicholas popped up from his chair and paced before the fire. “This is all very troubling.”

“There is something more.”

“More?” The abbot swiveled toward Crispin. His brows couldn’t go any higher.

“The Crown. As a jest . . . in a moment of indulgence . . . I put it on my head.”

Nicholas’s glance took in the crucifix behind Crispin. Crispin could not help turning as well and he strode to the object to stand below it. “Yes!” said Crispin, shaking a fist at the corpus. “I put it on my own cursed head and I’ve been in no end of trouble since.”

Nicholas’s voice washed over Crispin like a cool hand to a fevered forehead. “And what happened?”

At first he was going to tell the abbot that nothing happened. But with his eyes transfixed to the wooden carving, his lips parted, and he said instead, “I don’t know. An odd sensation of confidence.” He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the tips tingle. “That I could do anything, be anything.”

“I see. I did hear tell of that magnificent escape of yours up the tapestry.”

Crispin never shifted his gaze from the corpus’s crown. “It wasn’t the Crown. The effect had worn off by then.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, dammit! I had to do it myself. No great power of God interceded to save me. I climbed the damned tapestry myself and fell out the damned window, all on my own.”

“Crispin, Crispin. Why do you doubt so much? God watches over all we do. He cares for us as His children. Can you not put your faith in God, your fate in His hands?”

He shook his head. “I find it impossible to do so.”

“But why? You strive to do good. Look at this holy relic that came into your hands. God is using you through the Crown.”

“I know no such thing.”

“Your deeds will be rewarded. Mark me.”

“No good deed goes unpunished, eh, Father Abbot?” He tried to chuckle, but it came out more like a bark. Crispin thought it was due to his dry throat and he walked to the flagon for a remedy.

Crispin felt the abbot’s eyes on him as he poured himself a goblet of wine. He gestured to the other goblet and Nicholas nodded. Crispin poured another, drank a dose of his own, and handed Nicholas a full cup.

The abbot took a sip and stood thoughtfully with it. “It is no accident that the Crown fell into
your
hands, Crispin. You experience its power but you are loath to believe it.”

Crispin tipped up his goblet. “ ‘It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.’ ”

“You quote the pagan philosophers well,” said the abbot. Crispin smiled, a genuine one, and saluted with his cup. “But I find it telling, Master Guest, that you would rather quote a pagan than a holy saint.”

“Very well.” Crispin held up his goblet. “ ‘O Lord, help me to be pure . . . but not yet.’ ”