Serpent in the Thorns (6 page)

The green plains opened up and spread like a river to the distant darkness of the trees. The target mounds across the field stood mutely, their green turf waiting to be jabbed with arrows. Men and boys took their usual places, though there appeared to be more men than Crispin had seen practice in a long time. Little wonder with the king’s soldiers breathing down their necks. The presence of so many people shied a few sheep grazing in the meadow and they scurried off onto a narrow path leading away from the butts.

Jack stood close to Crispin as men gathered at the field’s edge, queuing up in a roughly straight line, facing the targets, and either hitching their quivers over their shoulders, or sticking their arrows into the turf at their feet. No one began as yet, making certain that no stragglers strayed onto the field between archer and target. Many began stringing their bows.

With so many men crammed together, Jack dropped to a whisper. “With this relic, do you think the king will forgive and forget, and bring you back to court?”

Crispin sighed. Wind lifted his hair and whipped the ends against his cheeks. “I don’t know. But I’ve got to try.”

A layer of autumn mist hovered just over the grass and disappeared into the woods smelling of wet field and sheep dung. Back over his shoulder stood London, reaching into the gray sky with spires and pitched roofs of slate, lead, and red tile. A dull layer of smoke drifted over its uneven landscape, climbing over the rooftops like a thief in the night. His city. His home.

With all these men parading into the field, it reminded Crispin of a fair day, only there was little amusing about it. A man, possibly a baker, taught his son how to hold a long bow. An old man showed a younger how to nock an arrow into a compact hunting bow, the younger man’s expression showing his frustration.

Crispin didn’t care that he didn’t own a bow. It was far down on his list of necessities. And since he could borrow one from his landlord Martin Kemp, the idea of owning the weapon disappeared completely.

Even as he thought it he spied Martin standing at their usual place trying to string the bow. Crispin moved toward him, unconcerned with the activity around him. The back of his mind toyed with the murder of the French courier and why Grayce thought she killed him. What great sin had stolen her mind, forcing her to conclude that she was a murderess?

He waved to Martin Kemp who was thrusting arrows into the soft earth and leaning his unstrung bow awkwardly against his leg. But Martin looked up and frowned upon seeing Crispin, and it was only then that Crispin realized why the tinker’s face was so sour.
Jesu mercy. I forgot about Matilda.
He stopped short. “Master Martin,” he said in solemn greeting.

“Crispin.” Martin Kemp said the one word with a clipped and formal tone, and clamped his lips tight. Martin’s expression jumped from anger to disappointment and even slipped into fear. He postured with one foot forward and clenched the weapon. “I must ask you a question I do not wish to ask.”

Crispin bent his head. Now that he faced Kemp he felt a wash of shame. “You do not need to speak, Martin. If you refer to my rudeness to your daughter, then I fear it is the truth.”

Martin shook his head, his shoulders following suit. “Saint Loy, Crispin! You know how she is; how my
wife
is! You shouldn’t have said—”

“I know. And I do apologize. I was out of sorts and—I beg your pardon. Humbly.”

“That won’t satisfy the wife. Crispin, I don’t like reminding you that we took you in when no one would. I do not charge the rent I should for your lodgings. Not as much as my wife would have me do. And then this—” He flailed his bow toward the silent Jack. “You know she does not approve of
him
! Nor do I, should he continue to cause trouble.”

“I’m trying to improve m’self, Master Kemp,” Jack said. He dragged his torn cloak dramatically over his chest.

Crispin pushed back his pride another notch. “If I must, I shall apologize to Matilda
and
Alice. Will that suffice?”

Martin rocked his head, thinking. Finally, reluctantly, he nodded. He looked behind with the expectation that his wife would swoop down like a harpy from above. “Have better care in the future, Crispin. I know Matilda is no prize, but she’s all I have, God help me.”

Crispin put on his best contrite expression. Mollified, Martin nodded and settled back into their uneasy alliance.

Martin raised his bow, tucked one end of it in the grass at the arch of his foot, and struggled to string it. He still wore his leather apron and tight-fitting leather cap, whose strings swung in tandem with each bend of the stubborn bow. He looked pitifully out of his element.

Martin managed to string the weapon and watched the others aim toward the targets. Over his shoulder he whispered, “What’s all this about anyway, Crispin? Is there to be war?”

“There may be. It’s complicated.”

“Politics always is. But of course, you would know best.”

Crispin made a sound in his throat, one that almost echoed Jack’s.

A shout across the field of “Loose arrows!” announced to one and all to commence shooting.

“Well,” said Martin, raising his bow. “Here’s to it.”

He pulled back the string and loosed the arrow. Sloppily, the arrow shot away with a discordant strum and sailed over the target.

“Try again,” said Crispin. How a man could practice such a thing for so many years and still prove incompetent, he’d never know. “Pull it farther. Farther! All the way to your ear.” Crispin shook his head with a grunt and positioned himself behind Martin. He placed his fingers over Martin’s and pulled back the bowstring. Crispin felt the bow tremble in the tinker’s hands.

“I can’t hold it much longer,” Martin whimpered.

“Then let it go,” rasped Crispin in his ear.

The arrow whirred forward and tunneled into the ditch below the target. Crispin relaxed and stared at the man.

“It’s this bow,” said Martin contritely. “It’s too powerful.”

“Here. Give it to me.”

Crispin took the offered bow and gripped it in his left hand. He pulled one of the arrows from the turf and nocked the feathered end in the string, holding the arrow’s tip in place with a hooked index finger. With a deep breath he raised the bow. Slowly he pulled back the string until his thumb rested under his cheekbone, took aim, and opened his fingers.

The arrow shushed away and spiraled toward the target, sticking it nearly in the center of a dried wreath.

“God blind me!” exclaimed Jack.

Martin shook his head. “That’s a beautiful thing when done correctly.”

“It takes practice.” Crispin lowered the bow. He looked at the weapon, a fine specimen of yew. He ran his fingers along the waxed linen bowstring and sighed. He turned to Martin and handed it over.

Martin took it and looked at it not with longing but with trepidation. “You don’t think we’ll ever truly have to defend London, do you?”

Crispin shrugged. “It’s always a possibility. Though no one’s invaded since William the Conqueror.”

“You fought in France with the duke of Lancaster, didn’t you?”

Crispin drew an arrow from the ground and handed it to Martin. “Yes. And many other places.”

Martin pulled the string back as Crispin taught him and aimed unsteadily. “I’ll wager you laid a few low with this,” he said.

Crispin flinched but tried to hide it by yanking an arrow from the turf and jamming it back in. He repeated the gesture several times. “I wasn’t an archer,” he reminded Martin quietly.

The shaft flew into the woods. Martin looked up from over his bow and stammered, “Oh. Of course. You wouldn’t have been, would you?”

“No. Indeed.” France. France’s battlefields, villages, forest-glotted estates. Thank God it wasn’t all muddy camps and damp pavilion tents. The duke had estates in France, and there were many similar English holdings where a bed and a grand meal awaited. Crispin circulated in villages aplenty, observing the natives, sampling the food (there was a sweet-tasting bread he especially liked), employing French tailors and French cobblers. French cotehardies were more tapered, more sweeping from the body. Their shoes, particularly the wooden clogs of both peasant and noble, were carved with more flare than the stoically practical English equivalent.

Crispin looked down at the arrow in his hand, rolled the shaft between his fingers. He missed those days. They
seemed
carefree, with that preponderance of time separating those events from these. He had certainly been free with his money. What he wouldn’t give for one of those French cotehardies now . . .

He raised his head and scanned the other men practicing with poorly hewn long bows and short bows. Women gathered, too, making an outing of it with food and drink—and why not? The king decreed it, but it didn’t mean the people could not make pleasant what the king made a chore.

Martin handed Crispin the bow again and Crispin took his turn with several arrows. The string calloused his fingers, but he didn’t care. Fine gloves or leather tabs used to protect his fingers, and a leather brace shielded his bow arm when out hunting with Lancaster on his lands. But Crispin owned no such leather goods now. Still, it felt good to have a weapon in his hands, under his control. To feel the tautness of the string at the folds of his fingers, the arrow’s shaft resting on his index finger as he aimed, the breath of wind as the fletching hissed by his ear, and the satisfaction of the faint thud when the point sunk into its target.

“I’d go to war m’self,” said Jack, standing just behind Crispin, chin up like a cockerel and keeping a sharp eye on every movement he made.

“Oh?” Crispin pulled back the string again and carefully aimed above the shaft already in the target.

“To see the gonfalons and the banners. And the horses. I’d fight with the best of them and win me ransom. Aye, I’d like to see that.”

The arrow whirred away and struck an inch above the first. Jack handed him another and Crispin nocked the arrow in the string. “So you’d like to fight, eh? Ever seen a battle?”

“Only at tournament. The melee. A fine show, that.”

Crispin closed his left eye and took aim with the right. “You think so, do you?” He let loose the arrow. It stuck the target above the last shaft. He lowered the bow until one end rested on the ground. He leaned on it and turned to Jack. “Ever see a man dismembered and disemboweled?”

Jack’s brows widened. His lips parted and hung open. “No.”

“You’d see plenty of it. Swords chopping and arms flung off. Men’s entrails spilling out at your feet.” Jack looked down at his own feet and stepped back. “Blood spattering your face as you swing your blade. Bits of bone snapping up at your eyes. Men screaming and then drowning in their own blood. That’s in the
true
melee, not the spectacle with wooden swords at a tournament.” He took the last arrow from the turf and jabbed the point toward Jack’s chest. The boy jerked back and stared down his nose at the arrow point. Crispin pursued, jabbing and stepping forward for each of Jack’s steps back. “In all probability, you’d be struck down by an arrow before you ever raised a weapon.” He jabbed at him again and Jack cringed, his chest caving inward. The boy’s fingers covered his breast protectively as if trying to stop a misdirected quarrel.

“Still want to go?” prodded Crispin.

Jack looked at Martin. Both their faces paled with new sobriety. “Well,” said Jack, quieter than before, “maybe not.”

Crispin turned back to his bow, nocked the arrow, and lifted the weapon.

Jack wiped his hands down his dirty tunic and licked his lips. He sauntered with recovering dignity back beside Crispin and watched him aim. “But what about you, Master? That’s what being a knight is, eh? If you were a knight again, would you go to war with the king?”

Crispin drew back the bowstring and pressed his thumb hard against his cheek. He blinked slowly in rhythm to his even breathing. “In a heartbeat,” he murmured.

The noise of men and the thump of a heavy horse drew up behind them. “What’s all that?” asked Crispin, still taking aim. He couldn’t decide whether to hit the target below or above the arrows in the center.

“It’s the king’s Captain of the Archers,” said Martin. “He’s a fine-looking gentleman on a splendid horse all frilled out in a colorful trapper.”

“All men look like fine gentlemen on a horse,” said Crispin. He let the arrow fly. It struck in the middle of his arrows and trembled. Five arrows bristled from the target, all clumped together in the center circle. “But not all
are
gentlemen.” He set the bow on one end and turned to look at the Captain of the Archers.

It was a fine horse. Its trapper—the hem reaching down to the horse’s fetlocks—swished in the wind and with the horse’s skittish gait. A bow hung on the saddle’s high pommel as did a quiver with arrows. Crispin looked higher.

A cold hand seemed to close over Crispin’s heart and squeezed, holding his breath, his blood, his very life in a suspension of time. Blinding anger overtook the shock and he gritted his teeth to keep from shouting outright. He flung the bow away and stomped up to the man on the horse. Before anyone could say or do anything, Crispin reached up and dragged the man to the ground. He pulled him up to a sitting position, yanked out his blade, and thrust it toward the man’s surprised face.