“Don’t jest about it!” cried Jack.
Crispin picked gingerly across the slick tiles until he reached the gable. He grabbed it and looked over every inch of the roof surrounding it. He did not expect to find footprints on the slate, but he hoped for other clues that might lead to finding the culprit. He almost gave up when he spotted a half moon of mud. A heel? No, too small. The ball of a shoe, perhaps? He looked along the edge of the gable and glimpsed something more along the rough edge of its daubed wall. The archer must have leaned there to take his shot. Crispin peered closely and grasped with two fingers. A few hairs—gold-colored—and a few threads. White. Possibly a shirt.
“Find anything?” asked Jack from below. Crispin could not see him from the pitch of the roof.
“Yes, but not much. I’m coming down.”
Crispin took one more look over the spine of the roof in the opposite direction, saw nothing, edged down to the eave, lowered himself to the jutting beam, sat on it, and leaped the rest of the way. He showed Jack his spoils.
“That ain’t nought but a hair and a thread. What can you make of that?”
Crispin shook his head. He let the items fall to the ground. “I don’t know. There was a partial footprint up there, too. It only proves he was where I thought he was.” He stood a moment thinking, glancing at Martin Kemp’s tinker shop just two doors down.
A queasy feeling rumbled in his gut. “Jack.” He slapped Jack in the chest and leaped forward into a run. “The Crown!”
Crispin reached the foot of the stairs first. He took the steps two at a time and fumbled for his key, finally sliding it into the lock. He turned it, left it in the lock, and pulled the door open.
Everything was as he left it. The box lay buried under the straw. He fell to his knees and dug it out and lifted the golden casket out of the wooden box. He lifted the lid.
Still there.
He sat back on his feet just as Jack slammed into the doorjamb, panting. “Well? Is it gone?”
“No.” Crispin slowly closed the lid and replaced the gold casket in the box. He carefully assembled the straw about it again and stood, brushing bits of straw from his knees. “It’s untouched. The room is untouched. Surely he knew where I lived. Why didn’t he take the Crown?”
“Maybe he wanted to kill you first.”
Crispin looked at Jack and noticed the boy clutching the arrow in his fist. Jack raised it. “I thought you’d want it. Evidence.”
Crispin smiled. “Very good, Jack. You’re learning. You’ll be an accomplished Tracker on your own someday.”
Jack’s brow grew a crop of wrinkles running up into his loose fringe. He handed over the arrow for Crispin’s inspection. “What, me? A Tracker? I ain’t as smart as you, Master. I could never—”
“You’re young. Keep your eyes and ears open and you can be more than a servant.”
“God blind me.” Jack shook his head and caught sight of Crispin’s torn coat. “Oh Master! Let me see to your wound.”
He shook off Jack. “It’s nothing, I tell you.” Crispin was more entranced by the arrow. He knew it was the brother of the one that killed the courier. Hawk fletching, barbed tip. Expensive. Not the kind a man would use for target practice. A hunter’s arrow. A nobleman’s arrow. The same sort of arrows sitting in the quiver of the Captain of the Archers.
AFTER SHEDDING HIS COAT for Jack to repair and shrugging on his cloak to cover his shirt, Crispin went back outside to look up at the gable across the way. Despite the odd looks from passersby, he climbed the wall again and slid up onto the roof. A light drizzle washed away all sign of the muddy footprint. Not that it could have helped him. Only a shoe left behind would have done that, but Miles would not have been so careless.
Crispin looked up. Was his mind playing tricks, or did he hear Miles’s voice?
He stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. There was Miles, astride his horse and talking to a page. Miles patted the boy on the shoulder and sent him off. He chuckled and fisted the reins.
Crispin noticed the quiver of arrows hanging from the saddle—hawk fletching all.
Miles would be gone in another moment. The horse shook his large head, awaiting his master’s instructions.
Crispin scanned the street. The page disappeared around the corner. The street emptied. The drizzle kept them away from the pungent butcher’s street. Crispin stared at the top of Miles’s head . . . and leaped.
He landed heavily on Miles’s back, knocking him off his horse to the mud. Winded, Miles tried to right himself, but Crispin pushed him down. Miles grabbed his ankle and Crispin fell with him. They rolled, each trying to get the upper hand as the horse grunted and stepped out of the way, its trapper swishing.
Crispin shoved Miles down, grinding his face in the sludge. Then he scrambled on top of Miles’s shoulder blades, forcing him deeper into the mushy ground. He yanked out his knife and held it to the man’s neck.
Miles glared over his shoulder and when he finally got his breath back hissed, “Get the hell off me!”
“I think not. I’d like to have a parley, if you will.”
Miles tried to rise but Crispin used his knees to dig into Miles’s spine.
Miles twisted to look back. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“You know,” said Crispin calmly, more calmly than he felt, “it’s bad enough you manipulated me into committing treason all those years ago, but trying to kill me is quite another matter. I don’t like it.”
“I never tried to kill you.”
Crispin grit his teeth and pressed the blade’s tip into Miles’s jaw just at the juncture of his ear. Miles grunted when Crispin pressed harder. A pearl of blood oozed up, bulged, and then ran down his neck. “I don’t tolerate liars. Let’s try this again. Why did you try to kill me?”
“Dammit, let me up! I never tried to kill you, you bastard, but I will now!”
“I am in possession of one of your arrows that just grazed my shoulder not more than a few moments ago. There is another stuck in the flesh of a dead French courier. Care to tell me about these unrelated events?”
Miles stopped struggling. A line of red ran down his neck like a necklace. He blew two bursts from his nostrils and then a third before he turned his head as much as Crispin’s blade allowed him. “Let me up and we will talk.”
“Why should I do that?”
“I have much to say.”
“I rather enjoy my knee in your back.” Miles said nothing. Crispin stared at the back of the archer’s head, watched his shoulders fall and rise with each labored breath. At last, Crispin leaned back, grabbed Miles’s sword from its sheath, and rose. “Get up. No tricks.”
Miles pushed up from the mud on his hands and knees and carefully rose. He turned to face Crispin before raising a gloved hand to his bleeding neck. He looked at the blood and mud on his glove and scowled. “Always one for the dramatic, aren’t you? Tell me what all this is about.”
“I told you. You killed that French courier and you tried to kill me.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. What French courier?”
“Must we play this?” Crispin raised the sword. It felt good in his hand. “The French courier that may bring the war with France to our doorstep. The one carrying a particular object from the French court to this one.”