Sword of shadows, p.25
Sword of Shadows, page 25
He said nothing. The room fell silent. Just the crackling of flames in the hearth and the blowing of the wind outside.
Someone cleared their throat.
Everyone turned toward Arno. He hesitated, touched his coat that had been so hastily donned that he hadn’t buttoned it. ‘I … was with him.’
Crispin sipped. ‘And so?’
‘He … he was teaching me … to read.’
Regis threw up his arms and laughed. ‘For the love of—’
‘I didn’t want to say,’ Arno went on angrily. ‘You’re always carrying on about it, mocking me,’ he said to Regis, who turned his nose up at him and continued to drink. ‘But it isn’t a fair thing if you want to arrest Master Palliser for murder. He couldn’t have done it. We worked all day. He’s a good man.’
Palliser lowered his head and folded his hands.
‘You’re a fool, Guest,’ said Regis, slumping in his high-backed chair. ‘You’re grasping at straws. I daresay you might never find the killer. And who cares, anyway? We are forgotten by God, forgotten by the saints, forgotten by the law. Who gives a damn whether a killer was climbing chapel roofs and dispatching our men in holes? We are damned nonetheless.’
Crispin slowly lowered his cup. ‘Sometimes I grasp at straws, Sir Regis. And sometimes …’ He turned toward the man, lounging in his chair like a king on his throne. ‘And sometimes I listen when someone lets slip a word or two. For instance, I don’t believe I ever told you that the killer was stalking us on the roof of the chapel.’
Regis stared at Crispin for a long moment, the ale glistening on his mustache. He swept his glance toward Arno and then Stephen before he began to chuckle. He pointed a finger at Crispin. ‘I see you, Crispin Guest. You think you are a damned clever man, don’t you? You think I can be caught out just because you say so. But that stain won’t wash. You’re a traitor. You’ll always be a traitor.’
‘That may be true, but I am not a cold-blooded killer.’
Regis’s easy smile suddenly faltered. His cup flew toward Crispin, who ducked in time. When he looked up, Regis was standing with his blade drawn.
Tossing his own cup away, Crispin drew his sword.
Everyone moved back to the edges of the room.
‘Regis!’ cried Stephen. ‘Tell him it isn’t so.’
‘He can’t,’ said Arno. ‘Because he’s guilty, the bastard.’
Regis aimed his sword high over his head toward Crispin. ‘Do you know what I hate the most, Guest? I hate that man.’ The sword suddenly pointed toward an unusually quiet Carantok Teague.
‘Me?’ said Teague. ‘What have I ever done to offend you, sir?’
‘Your presence offends me. Your digging holes and hauling out the prizes of the dead offends me. Your stupid face and your damned charter offend me. I dug my own holes when you left. And I found gold trinkets. I was collecting enough to get off this goddamned rock. Until Roger found my trove.’
He and Crispin circled one another, even as Regis sneered at Teague.
‘So on Monday he confronted me when I was looking in that hole you covered up. He knew what I was doing and he wanted part of it too. So I bashed in his sorry head with a rock. As any one of you should have done ages ago.’
Arno stepped forward boldly. ‘But what of Thomas? He’d done nothing.’
‘Oh, you think so? You think he was innocent little Thomas? He saw what I had done and vowed to say nothing … if I paid him enough. He threatened to tell Guest. I suppose I could have just killed you, Guest, except I was tired of paying ransom for my own hoard.’
‘Greed,’ Crispin sneered. ‘You killed them both for greed.’
‘What else is left me here? You sniveling cowards. You complain and do nothing and rot here. I will not. I’m leaving.’
Crispin stepped closer, keeping his blade steady. ‘I beg to differ.’
‘You think you can stop me?’ He looked Crispin up and down. ‘How often do you practice with that?’ He gestured toward Crispin’s sword. ‘And you’re older than I am. Well. We shall see.’
Regis lunged forward and slammed his blade toward Crispin’s neck and shoulder, but Crispin was ready, and blocked it with his own with a loud clang of steel on steel.
Regis stepped back and laughed. ‘You’ll tire. You’re old, Guest. All I need to do is wait until you’re tired.’
Crispin was thinking the same thing. ‘Then we’d best not wait.’ He swung low, aiming for the man’s legs. Regis deflected the sword with his blade. He smiled and sent forth a volley of overhands, uppercuts, and two-handed slices, sending sparks into the air around them. Crispin parried all of them, but without getting in any offensive strikes of his own.
Crispin took two steps back, breathing hard.
‘You’re winded already,’ said Regis, moving the sword tip like a snake waiting to strike. He rolled the sword over his wrist, showing off his prowess. ‘Good.’ Suddenly, he grabbed the blade with two hands and swung the pommel toward Crispin like a club.
Arching away, Crispin slid his hands to his sword blade and used the crossguard like a crosier, hooked Regis’s ankle, and yanked.
The man flipped back onto his arse. But before Crispin could readjust his grip to club downward, Regis scrambled to his feet.
‘That gives you one, Guest. I’ll not let you get another.’
Starkly aware that he wore no armor, Crispin knew that any kind of blow to his person was likely to be debilitating. He had no mail to deflect a blade, no steel plate to protect vulnerable limbs and torso. I could use Excalibur about now.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Guest,’ said Regis, circling.
‘I’ll wager you don’t.’ Crispin matched him move for move.
‘You’re thinking you’re not wearing armor. Any strike will be … well. Could be your last. Aren’t you?’
‘You do like the sound of your own voice, don’t you? Then tell me this. After killing Dunning, how did you get back to the hall before we did?’
He chuckled. ‘You were all watching that bitch run away. I went the other way, down the cliff path. It’s dangerous, but much faster. The same way your pagans got in, I daresay.’
‘And you slipped in by the pantry window. I found it open. So when the others saw you come in, it was by the pantry, where you claimed you were doing an inventory.’
‘Yes, it was terribly clever.’
‘And yet you still couldn’t help talking, and fouled yourself.’
Regis’s smile turned to a sneer. He raised his arm to strike, but Crispin swung upward underhanded and felt the blade pass through muscle.
Regis stumbled. His upper arm bled, bubbling up through his sleeve. He roared a curse and tried to grab his arm with the sword hand.
Crispin rushed in again and cocked back his arm, but Regis blocked it.
‘A little blood, Guest. No more than that.’
But it was more than that. The sleeve was soaked in red in no time at all, and Regis gritted his teeth, wheezing his breath through them as he continued stalking Crispin. ‘I must pay you in kind for that, Guest.’
Running forward, he swung. The blade came at him more quickly than Crispin had anticipated. The steel flashed. It took a heartbeat for the searing pain to register. Crispin staggered back, flicking a glance at his left shoulder, his coat growing as red as Regis’s sleeve.
He heard Kat gasp somewhere behind him.
It was only a slice, not a gash. Painful, but nothing a needle and thread couldn’t fix. But it did hurt like hellfire.
He inhaled sharply through his nostrils, smelling the stench of blood. He hoped it was Regis’s, though he suspected it was his own.
Regis didn’t wait. He stomped forward, raising his sword. Crispin stepped up to meet him, and blocked the blade, smashing it aside. Before he could jab, Regis knocked his sword aside.
And so it went. Advance, chop down, smack aside, turn, block, undercut, reach over, spin.
They both stepped back to catch their breath. His shoulder ached and every now and then twinged, as the cut opened each time he used the blade two-handed.
Crispin took a deep breath and abruptly charged, with a roar searing from his lungs. He chopped mercilessly at a surprised Regis, who backed away with each strong stroke of Crispin’s sword. Regis leapt back, and with his left hand he drew his dagger. Sword in one hand and dagger in the other, he stormed forward. Crispin came up to meet him, blocked the sword, grabbed his left wrist with the dagger, and turned it, plunging it into Regis’s thigh.
Regis hollered and staggered back, wrenching it out to a hot flow of blood; he couldn’t hold the knife in his blood-slickened fingers. It clanged to the floor, and Crispin gripped his sword with both hands, giving Regis no time to adjust his stance.
With strength Crispin hadn’t expected, Regis bared his teeth and knocked each charge away until he swatted underhanded and across, catching the crossguard of Crispin’s sword.
Crispin felt the sword leave his grip, watched helplessly as it sailed in an arc away from him, and clattered to the floor. Then the pommel of Regis’s sword slammed his chin and he fell back.
Regis staggered forward, sword raised high. ‘On to Hell, Guest!’
Crispin gritted his teeth. There was little else to do. He couldn’t even roll away. There was no time for a prayer. Just to cringe at the inevitable blow.
Regis paused, sword raised, glinting a little red at the sharpened edge with Crispin’s own blood. He seemed to be suspended in time, like an insect in amber. And then for a little more, before he jerked up his head, and dropped to the ground like a stone.
Crispin blinked. What … what …?
He finally noticed Kat revealed, standing behind where Regis had been, a heavy log in her hand. She threw it angrily at the unmoving Regis, swiped at the strands of hair in her face, and pushed them out of her eyes.
Breathing heavily, she sneered first at Regis and then at Crispin. ‘Men!’ she spit.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Arno and Stephen dispatched a still-groggy Regis to a cell in the gatehouse.
Crispin shouted after them, ‘And see that the authorities – the sheriff of the county, at least – is told of the pagans.’ There was no sense in allowing them to further harass the people of Treknow. The Church authorities should be made aware, too, he thought, but the men-at-arms had already left.
He sat on a stool in front of the fire in the great hall, bare-chested, while Jack and Kat competed to help him with his injury. Kat carefully bathed his wound, as Jack readied needle and thread.
Kat tried to snatch it from his hand. ‘I’ll do it.’
Jack held it away from her. ‘I can do it. I’ve done it hundreds of times before.’
‘Hardly hundreds,’ Crispin muttered.
‘But I’m a woman. I can do a finely wrought stitch that won’t look like some ham-handed apprentice shored it up like a ship’s rigging.’
Jack sputtered, apparently unable to come back at her with a rejoinder.
‘If someone doesn’t do it in the next few moments, I will do it myself!’
They both stared at Crispin until Jack relented and grudgingly handed it to Kat.
‘I hope you have done this before,’ said Crispin, girding himself.
‘I did sew up a goose with its dressing once. How much different could it be?’
She jabbed in the needle and Crispin tensed and hissed. ‘The difference is, Mistress Pyke, the damned goose was dead.’
‘It’s going to hurt no matter what. There’s no use in crying about it.’
He curled his fingers into his knees as each stroke of the needle entered his flesh and pulled it taut with thread, grunting each time.
‘Almost done, Master Guest,’ she said, keeping her shadow out of the way of her stitches.
‘She’s right,’ said Jack, standing watch over the proceedings. ‘She does have a better stitch than me.’
‘If it was only my cote-hardie, I wouldn’t care,’ he hissed.
‘There. All done. You can stop being a baby about it.’ She reached up and kissed his cheek, returning the remaining thread and needle to Jack, who stowed it away in his pouch.
He glanced sidelong at it, tested it by moving his arm, and felt each twinge of the needle and sword edge all over again. She wrapped the arm over the stitches in torn pieces of linen and then helped him ease into his chemise before handing him a cup of wine.
He drank it gratefully, even though it wasn’t very good wine. ‘Thank you for saving my life,’ he said quietly.
‘It wasn’t all that hopeless.’ She smiled.
‘I’m afraid it was. I’m not as young nor as agile as I used to be.’
She looked at him steadily, solemnly, before the enormity of it seemed to fall away. ‘The fight had gone on long enough,’ she said matter-of-factly, straightening out his chemise and tsking at the slash and blood on the sleeve. ‘We’ll have to wash this.’
‘It can wait. Master Palliser.’ The caretaker moved to stand over him. ‘Forgive me for accusing you, sir.’
He bowed. ‘All is forgiven, Master Guest. Routing Sir Regis was almost as satisfying as hearing that Roger was dead. Almost.’
Crispin gave a lopsided grin and cocked his head in an answering bow.
‘And now, Master Teague.’
‘I am here, Master Guest. I have never seen the like. You are a warrior, sir, like the knights of old.’
‘And I am feeling every bit like an ancient knight. But that’s not what I wish to talk about. You, sir, assured me that you were not robbing graves.’
For the second time in the same evening, Carantok Teague seemed to have been struck dumb.
‘Well? Did you lie to me? Regis is a turd, but there have been others mentioning that they saw bones in the “holes” you’ve dug. And you admitted as much earlier.’
He licked his lips. ‘Master Guest, I can assure you that if graves they were, they were not Christian graves.’
‘Dammit, man. They were still graves and forbidden to rob.’
‘I was not robbing them. I object to that characterization. I was liberating ancient objects from pagan burials.’
Crispin drummed his fingers on his knee. ‘No matter how you wish to define it, it comes to the same thing. You will cease this at once.’
Teague blustered, pulling himself up and placing a hand on his heart. ‘Forgive me, Master Guest, but my business is my own.’
‘No, sir, the law is everyone’s business. You will cease it at once or I shall be forced to declare you to the coroner.’
‘But … but Master Guest!’
‘I am adamant on this. The things you find that are not found in burials … well. That is for you to keep, I suppose. But no more burial mounds. I want your oath on that, sir.’
Teague wore a sour expression, and he seemed to plead with Kat and Jack, but they remained stoic. Even Palliser said nothing. He sighed. ‘Very well, Master Guest. I so swear. That has severely curtailed my plans, I’ll have you know.’
‘I don’t care. And you will pay me in full upon our return to London.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course … But wait. What about the—’ He caught sight of Palliser and bit his lip. ‘What about the stolen object?’ he whispered.
‘Oh, that. I will do my best to recover it before we leave, Master Teague.’
‘Well … see that you do. That was our sole purpose for coming here, you will recall.’
‘I do, and I shall do my best. But in the morning. I think the night has been full enough.’
‘But … won’t the trail be cold? Won’t they have escaped completely into the night and out of Cornwall?’
Crispin groaned as he rose. Since his blood had cooled, his muscles, unused to such work, now made themselves known. ‘I said, Master Teague, that I shall continue this on the morrow. Good night.’
‘Oh. Well. Good night, then.’
Crispin walked past the man, Jack on one side of him, Kat on the other. He made his way slowly up the stairs and leaned on Kat as he got to his chamber. Jack hovered in the doorway. ‘Then … I’ll say good night too. Kat can see to you. I suppose.’
‘Thank you, Jack.’ He eased himself onto the edge of the bed as Jack closed the door behind him.
‘Let’s get you comfortable, Crispin.’
‘I’m not an invalid.’
‘Of course not.’ She pulled the sheets aside so he could slide his legs in.
‘Then why are you treating me like one?’
She looked at him for a silent moment and suddenly reached over and squeezed his shoulder. He gasped through his teeth. ‘How’s the shoulder?’ she said, with a less-than-innocent smile.
‘Damn you,’ he mumbled.
‘Then shut it and let me help you.’
He did, and, grudgingly, he admitted he was grateful for her ministrations. He lay propped against the pillows as he watched her disrobe. No, he decided. There were compensations after all.
‘Are you done ogling me?’ she said, climbing into bed beside him, on the side of his good arm.
He watched her with half-lidded eyes. ‘I’m far from dead, demoiselle.’
She chuckled and blew out the candle. The room was still lit by the golden sky. It was likely the fire in the village. He hoped it did as much damage as possible.
When she finally scooted down and turned to him, he could gaze at her face, cheeks glazed by the faraway light. ‘You came for me,’ she said, eyes glittering.
‘At first I thought you’d stolen the sword and run.’
She sat up. ‘The sword is stolen? Is that what Carantok was whinging over?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I didn’t take it.’
‘I know.’
‘How did you know where I’d been taken?’
‘Strangely, Sir Regis informed me.’
‘By the saints …’
‘Yes.’
She eased back down where he could gaze at her again. He reached forward to touch one of those flushed cheeks. It was soft under his fingertips. ‘I’m glad I saved you, too.’
‘We are a pair, aren’t we?’ She sighed.
‘Two of a kind, in a way.’
She studied him in the gloom. He wondered what exactly it was she saw.
