Chapter 23: The Bishop’s Questions

The rider did not dismount at once. He sat his horse in the falling snow, a dark figure against the white, and let the beast blow steam into the cold air while he studied the manor gate as a mason studies a cracked wall. Tom watched from the shadow of the barn door, his breath pluming, his hand resting on the haft of a pitchfork he had no intention of using.

Baldric came up beside him, boots crunching on the frosted mud. “That’s Edward le Hunte,” he said, low. “The bishop’s steward. I’ve seen him at the assizes. He has a way of asking a question that makes you answer something you didn’t mean to say.”

“You’ve met him before?”

“Once. He asked me how many men I’d killed at Crécy. I told him I’d lost count. He smiled like I’d given him a gift.” Baldric spat. “Watch your tongue, Tom. He’ll have it if you don’t.”

Tom nodded and stepped out into the yard, pulling his hood up against the snow. The steward finally dismounted, handing his reins to a stable boy who appeared from nowhere with the quiet terror of a rabbit in a field of hawks. Le Hunte was a lean man, clean-shaven in a way that seemed almost unnatural for the times, his Church livery dark with melted snow. His eyes were pale grey, and they found Tom immediately.

“You are the stranger,” le Hunte said. Not a question.

“I am Tom Ashwick, steward to Sir Hugh de Lacy’s manor,” Tom said, keeping his voice even. “You’ve ridden far. Come inside, warm yourself by the fire. There’s ale, and bread if the cook hasn’t burned it.”

Le Hunte’s mouth twitched. “You speak like a man who knows his way around a kitchen. Or a ledger.”

“Both, my lord. A steward must.”

“I am not a lord,” le Hunte said, walking past Tom toward the hall. “I am a servant of the Bishop of Winchester. And I have heard that this manor has a servant who appeared from nowhere, with no kin, no history, and no baptism recorded in any parish. A man who heals the sick with strange medicines and grows crops out of season.” He paused at the door, looking back. “You understand why such a man would interest the bishop.”

Tom followed him inside, the warmth of the hall hitting him like a wave. Joan was already there, tending the fire, and she looked up as they entered. Her face was careful, blank as a winter pond. Behind her, in the shadows near the hearth, the woman Tom had saved from fever sat wrapped in a blanket, her eyes dark and watchful.

“Sit,” Tom said, pulling out a stool. “Eat. Ask your questions. I have nothing to hide.”

“Everyone has something to hide,” le Hunte said, but he sat. He accepted a cup of ale, sniffed it, and drank. “The plague has taken three priests in this diocese alone. The Church is stretched thin. We cannot afford mysteries that turn into heresies.” He set the cup down. “Tell me where you came from.”

Tom had rehearsed this answer a hundred times. “I came from a trading house in Flanders,” he said. “My ship was wrecked off the coast. I walked inland, and I found this manor in need of a steward. Sir Hugh was away in France. The reeve took me in. I have served faithfully since.”

“A shipwreck,” le Hunte repeated. “And the goods you brought—the steel, the strange seeds—you carried them from the wreck?”

“Some of them. Others I have made or grown since.”

Le Hunte leaned forward, his pale eyes sharp. “You make steel?”

“I improve it. The old ways are wasteful. I have found better.”

“Where did you learn these better ways?”

Tom felt the trap closing. He had no answer that would satisfy a man who had spent his life parsing the difference between truth and heresy. He opened his mouth to speak, but Joan cut in.

“He learned them from a Jewish physician in York,” she said, her voice calm and flat. “Before the expulsion. The man was old, and he taught Tom what he knew in exchange for shelter. Tom was a boy then. He has carried those lessons all his life.”

Le Hunte turned to her slowly. “A Jewish physician. Before the expulsion. That would have been nearly sixty years ago.”

“The man was old,” Joan said. “And the lessons were good.”

For a long moment, le Hunte said nothing. Then he laughed, a short, dry sound. “You are a clever woman, Mistress Joan. I have heard of you too. The widow who knows her herbs.” He stood, brushing crumbs from his tunic. “I will report that this manor is under the care of a competent steward with an unusual education, and that no heresy is evident. But I will be back, come spring. And if I find that your crops have failed, or your people have died of a sickness you could have cured, I will know that you have hidden something from God’s Church.”

He walked to the door, then paused. “One more thing. There is a woman who was seen near your barn two nights ago. Dark-haired, no kin. She told a shepherd she was looking for you.” He looked at Tom. “Do you know her?”

Tom’s heart stuttered. Margery. The woman from the burned village, who had warned him about traps.

“I know no such woman,” he said.

Le Hunte nodded, as if he had expected the lie. “She is wanted for heresy. The bishop has offered a reward.” He pulled his hood up. “If you see her, Tom Ashwick, you would do well to remember that a man who shelters a heretic becomes a heretic himself.”

He was gone into the snow before Tom could answer.

The woman by the hearth stirred, rising from her blanket. She was pale, still weak from the fever, but her eyes were clear. “You lied for me,” Tom said.

Joan shook her head. “I lied for us. The truth would have burned us all.” She looked at the woman. “And you. You said you had something to tell him about Sir Hugh.”

The woman nodded, stepping closer to the fire. Her voice was rough from illness. “I was in the camp at Calais,” she said. “Before the plague took me. I served in the kitchens of Sir Hugh’s household. He is not merely in debt, Tom Ashwick. He is in treason.” She met his eyes. “He has been selling grain to the French. For two years. The very grain you have been growing for him—he has been shipping it across the Channel in exchange for gold.”

The fire crackled. Snow hissed against the shutters. Tom felt the world tilt beneath his feet.

Sir Hugh de Lacy, the lord who owned his life, was a traitor to the Crown.

And now Tom knew it.