Chapter 14: The Thief’s Audit

The lime kiln breathed its heat into the grey morning, a low stone mouth exhaling smoke that tangled with the mist. Tom stood before it with the satchel open at his feet, the leather creaking in the cold. Inside lay the ledger Fulke had pressed upon him—pages of cramped script recording every tithe paid, every bushel owed, every soul the bishop’s men had counted in the parish. And beside it, the iron-bound box of silver pennies that had been meant for the diocese coffers.

He had never stolen anything in his life. Not from his wife, not from his employer, not from the faceless corporations that had consumed his days in the warehouse. Yet here, in a world where a man’s worth was measured in grain and his life in the favour of lords, theft had become a kind of mercy.

The fire crackled. Tom fed the ledger to it page by page, watching the ink curl and blacken. The silver he would keep—hidden in the false wall beside the steel ploughshares, a secret hoard that might buy seed in the spring, or bribe a priest, or pay a fine when the bishop’s steward came calling.

He was still feeding the last pages when Joan found him.

She came up the wood path with her skirts kilted above the mud, a basket of late mushrooms over her arm. Her eyes took in the smoke, the satchel, the smouldering remains of the ledger, and she stopped short.

“You’ve gone mad,” she said.

“Fulke’s records,” Tom said. “The tithe collector’s own hand. If the bishop’s steward asks how the parish was assessed, there will be no answer.”

“And if he asks why the silver is missing?”

“Then Fulke will say the plague took the collectors before the count was done. Or that a thief came in the night. He’ll lie well enough—he’s had practice.”

Joan set down her basket and came closer, her breath misting in the chill. “You’ve made him your creature, then. A blackmailed man is a dangerous friend.”

“He’s not my friend. He’s my investment.” Tom kicked the last ash into the fire. “And I need every investment I can make if Hugh means to bleed this manor dry.”

She was silent for a long moment, studying him with that sharp, unsparing gaze that made him feel like a book left open on a table. “The audit is in two days. Baldric says Hugh has sent for his steward from the southern holdings—a man called Catesby, who knows every trick a reeve can play and most of the ones a lord can.”

“Then we’ll have to be cleverer than Catesby.”

“We?” She laughed, a short, bitter sound. “You’ll be in the hall with the men, Tom Ashwick. I’ll be in the kitchens, counting eggs and watching the servants for a sign of who’s been bought. That’s where I’m useful—invisible.”

He wanted to argue, but she was right. In this world, a woman’s place was everywhere and nowhere, her eyes and ears the only weapons she was allowed. He had learned that much in the months since he had fallen into this century.

“Then watch,” he said. “And if you see something—someone—who shouldn’t be there, find me before the audit begins.”

She nodded, and for a moment the wall between them seemed thinner than usual. Then she picked up her basket and walked back toward the village, leaving him alone with the dying fire and the hidden silver.

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The manor hall was cold despite the braziers set along its walls. Sir Hugh de Lacy sat at the high table with Catesby standing at his shoulder—a thin, grey-faced man with the look of a weasel who had learned patience. Tom stood among the tenants, Baldric at his side, as the audit unfolded.

Catesby spoke in a dry, precise voice, reading from his own ledger. “The harvest has been counted at three hundred and forty bushels of wheat, two hundred of barley, and a hundred and sixty of oats. The lord’s share is one-third, as custom demands. The mill has ground four hundred measures, and the toll is taken in kind. The flocks are reduced by the murrain, but the wool clip was sold at Smithfield for a fair price.”

Hugh nodded, his fingers drumming on the table. “And the new ploughs? The seed that was promised to double the yield?”

Tom stepped forward before Baldric could speak. “The ploughs are in use, my lord. The seed is winter-hardy, sown in the last fields before the frost. Come spring, you’ll see the difference.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Hugh said. “From men who ended up short of a hand.” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “And what of the tithe silver? The bishop’s collector was expected three weeks ago. Instead, I find his man gone and no record of the count.”

Tom felt the weight of the hidden coins in the barn, cold and heavy as a stone in his gut. “Fulke took ill of the fever, my lord. The records were lost in the rain. I can vouch for the count myself—I witnessed every bushel.”

Catesby’s thin lips twitched. “You witnessed, and yet you have no record?”

“I have a memory,” Tom said. “And a ledger of my own, kept in the barn. I’ll present it to your steward if he wishes to verify.”

Hugh’s gaze flickered to Catesby, then back. “Do so. And if there’s a discrepancy, I’ll know who to hang.”

The room fell silent. Tom could feel the eyes of the tenants on him, the weight of their fear and their fragile hope. He had bought them a few more days, perhaps a few more weeks. But Hugh was watching him now with the hunger of a man who had seen a glint of gold in the mud.

And Catesby was watching him too—with the cold, patient eye of a man who had already begun to dig.