Crispin decided to hurry.
The armory was left unguarded, possibly because men were constantly entering and leaving it. Crispin blended in and became just one more man among many. He passed row on row of spears, halberds, axes, unstrung bows, and arrows, bundles of them, all piled impossibly high. And seeming to inventory every one of them, an old man bent over a wax slate with a candle attached to it. He was grayer than Crispin remembered. Perhaps a little more unsteady of hand, but there was no mistaking the king’s fletcher.
Crispin thought about the reaction of the archers, but there was little to be done. “Master Peale.”
The man didn’t turn from his work. “Eh? What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Master Peale. I need your help.”
The fletcher stopped and raised his head. “I know that voice.” When he turned, his yellowed eyes looked Crispin over. His lids drooped with extra folds; skin leathery as arrow quivers, lips chalky and flat, revealing long, discolored teeth. “Crispin Guest?” He said it slowly, running the unfamiliar syllables off his tongue as if speaking a foreign language. His lips didn’t seem to believe his words and they murmured an old man’s soundless echo.
Crispin stepped closer into the candle’s circle of light. “Yes, it’s me.”
Peale crossed himself. “Saint Sebastian preserve us.” He looked Crispin up and down again and set aside the wax slate. “What brings you here to court, Crispin Guest?” His voice slid from faint fear to suspicion. His bushy eyebrows lowered over his eyes.
“I know it has been a long time.” Crispin looked at the ground and stood one leg forward, the other back, foot gracefully turned outward. It was a practiced, courtly stance, something Lancaster’s tutors had hammered into him over the many years that he lived in the duke’s household. “How do you expect to be a proper courtier, Master Crispin?” Master Edan would say, correcting Crispin for the thousandth time on his deportment on the dance floor. Master Edan taught Crispin all the dances and courtly courtesy befitting a child of his station, lessons his parents would have shouldered had they lived.
“By my wits,” Crispin had answered. A child’s voice mouthing a child’s youthful sentiments. He didn’t, couldn’t realize then how true those words would become.
Crispin touched the pouch hanging from his belt. “I have here three fletchings from arrows of your design, Master Peale. And I would have you identify for whom they were made.”
“Would you now?” He rubbed his gnarled fingers over his white stubbled chin. His gaze darted past Crispin’s shoulder. Crispin, too, looked back. No one was there. “Everyone is very interested in arrows of late.”
“No doubt.” Crispin produced the arrows from his pouch.
Peale didn’t look at them. His gaze centered on Crispin. “It has been many a day since you have been to court, if I am not mistaken. In fact, I am fairly certain the king is still of the same opinion about you, no?”
Crispin said nothing. Let the old man think what he will. It wouldn’t matter once he got his proof about Miles.
“Still stubborn, eh? Isn’t that what got you into your troubles in the first place?”
“And the sin of pride, Master Peale. But besides my sins, I have been given many gifts. The gift of wit and a keen sense of justice.”
“Aye, I remember. So.” His lips fumbled with a wry smile before his gaze dropped to the three items in Crispin’s hand. “And where did you get these fine specimens, if I may ask?”
“One from a dead man, one from my shoulder—a miss—and the third from a scullion.” He handed them to Peale.
“A dead man, eh? Anyone I know?”
“No. No one I knew either.”
“Yet one you claim was directed toward you.”
“A poor shot when the other was so clean. I wonder if it was meant to merely incapacitate rather than kill me.”
“And the scullion? Dead, too, I suppose.”
“No, barely wounded.”
Peale walked with the fletchings to his candle and turned them over in his hands. He examined the little ridges notched into the shaft near the feathers. “Yes. These are mine right enough.”
“Who were they made for?”
“Hmm.” Peale rubbed his index finger over his marks and stared at the raf ters. “Interesting. I believe—”
“Peale!” A voice shouted from the armory’s entrance. Crispin knew that voice and with one wild glance at Peale, Crispin ducked into the shadows. He slid his back along the wall and slipped into the tight space between a stack of broad axes. A blade’s sharp edge was mere inches from his nose. He tried not to breathe.
Miles’s shadow stretched across the floor. Crispin pressed flatter against the wall.
“Peale,” said Miles, “has anyone come to see you about some arrows?”
Peale was an old man, and old men were often excused from a curt tone or an impolite eye. Peale seemed to take full advantage of his maturity and squinted at the Captain of the Archers. “Everyone comes to see me about arrows, young man. I am a fletcher.” He said the last with careful diction as if speaking to a simpleton.
Miles’s brow arched with irritation. “Of course. I know that. What I meant was did anyone you would not expect come to you? Anyone who has no cause to be here?”
“Who am I to judge who has cause to be here and who does not? Verily, Master Aleyn, you make little sense. I must see about all arrows. Indeed, I must even see to your arrows, Master.”
Crispin threw his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.
Miles glowered. “Damn you, Peale. You act like a simpleton when I know you are not!”
“Then don’t treat me like one, Master Aleyn. Say what you mean and have done with it.”
“Very well. I’m looking for that scoundrel Crispin Guest. Surely you remember him.”
“Crispin Guest?” The old man scratched his head, causing his white hair to twist into a sunburst. “I haven’t seen him in years. What would he be doing at court?”
Miles didn’t sound as if he were having any of it. “If he comes to you, inform me immediately. He is trespassing. It should be made known to the king.”
“I will do my best to inform you, Master Aleyn,” said the fletcher with a dismissive bow.
Miles snorted, looked around for a moment, and then swept out of the room. Crispin heard the door close before he rose from his hiding place.
Peale’s eyes seemed to soften when they roved over Crispin again. “He doesn’t seem very fond of you, Master Guest.”
“He never was. And soon, he shan’t be enamored at all. The arrows, Master Peale.”
Peale brought his hand forward. He had hidden the arrow pieces behind his back. He nodded over them and handed them back to Crispin. “These are very special arrows. I made them for my Lord of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster.”
Crispin’s elation deflated. He drew closer. “Lancaster? Are you certain?”
Peale pointed to his marks. “These are my marks, young man. And these identify the archer. It is the duke. There is no mistaking.”
13
CRISPIN STARED AT THE arrows Peale dropped into his palm. Lancaster.
Peale cocked his head at Crispin. “I take it by your tone that you did not expect that name.”
“No, I did not.”
It had to be a mistake. The blame was on Miles, not Lancaster. Crispin leaned against a stack of spears, didn’t particularly mind when their points dug in his back. “Master Peale, could you be mistaken about this?”