Free Blood Lance by Jeri Westerson

it’s not high prices it’s high taxes. What the devil is Lancaster doing leaving the country at a time like this?”
    Crispin kept silent. He brooded over his cup of wine while covertly surveying the room. Seeing Sir Thomas had awakened in Crispin something he had thought long dormant. The very idea of battle and encounters the knight must have had made Crispin’s sword arm itch. He should have been there with Lancaster! Nothing would have made him leave his lord’s side when the smell of battle was in the air. Thomas said he was sent back to England, but Crispin would have found any excuse to stay. Dammit, he would have stayed to the last stroke!
    He pushed his wine bowl away and stood up. Perhaps a bit too fast, for the wine made him dizzy. Or perhaps it was that persistent fever and wooly head. He took a moment to feel the ground under him settle and stepped away from the bench. Jack stood, too, trying to anticipate his mood.
    “Thank you, Gilbert, for opening an ear.” He reached for his pouch and was glad to have money for once to pay for the drink. “Here,” he said, offering more coins than that single jug cost. “I owe you more than this, I know. But you are too kind a friend to keep a roll of my debts. Please take this, at least, while I am flush.” He laid the coins on the table since Gilbert seemed loath to take them in his hand.
    He walked out the door without looking back, knowing Jack would follow. At some point, Crispin would pay a call on Abbot Nicholas. The abbot of Westminster Abbey was bound to know all the more intimate details of what might be happening around the throne. But he supposed his presence in Westminster would not be welcomed, especially now.
    He stomped through the mud churned by the rabble. He could hear shouting in the distance but the king’s men, no doubt, were doing their job.
    “Master! Master Crispin!”
    He did not stop but glanced over his shoulder at Jack trotting to keep up with his furious pace.
    “Wait, Master Crispin. You are stirring yourself up.”
    That boy knew him too well. “Go on, Jack. Go on to whatever devilry you do all day.”
    “I don’t do no devilry, sir.”
    “Go on, Jack. I would be alone.”
    “Now Master Crispin, don’t go doing that, sir. You’ll only upset your fever.”
    “My fever is no business of yours. Go on!”
    “Bless me. You’ll be the death of me,” he muttered, hanging back.
    The death of him? The nerve. That boy was getting too big for his station.
    Crispin returned to the Shambles and trudged up his stairs. He opened the door and looked around, scowling. This room, this single room above a tinker’s shop, seemed as barren as his soul. A simple table with a chair and a stool. A coffer, a bed, a bucket. He didn’t own any of it. Only the meager things stored in the coffer and perhaps a few of the clay pots and iron pans hanging by the tiny hearth. His scowl deepened and he kicked the stool closest to him. It clattered along the floor. He was lucky it hadn’t shattered, but what of it if it had? He’d just owe his landlord one more coin, one more day’s wage. Paltry wage. Sixpence. That was the wage of an archer, but at least they were clothed and fed along with their regular sixpence.
    He slammed the door shut behind him and stalked to the hearth, leaning his arm on the wall over it, glaring at the smoky embers glowing under their mantle of ash. Sir Thomas sneered at the very idea of the knights who had gone to Spain. Sneered! What would Crispin have given if he could have gone?
    Nine years ago, he had no idea how much he was throwing away. Oh, but he had learned just how much in the intervening years. How he had learned.
    He sat hard on his bed, tallying the list. He knew it wasn’t healthy, always put him in a fouler mood and encouraged him to seek out a wine bowl in which to drown the memories, but he indulged anyway, couldn’t stop himself. All that he had lost. And then some.
    And then the woman, Anabel. Her face