Chapter 26: The Woman in the Linen

The snow had stopped by the time Tom reached the cottages, leaving the world muffled and white, the thatch roofs bowed under their burden. Smoke rose from a dozen chimneys in thin, patient columns, and the smell of woodsmoke and dung hung in the air like a blessing. He stamped his boots on the threshold of the healer’s hut and pushed inside.

Joan was at the hearth, stirring a pot that smelled of barley and leeks. She looked up, and the firelight caught the hard lines of her face. “You look like a man who has been measured for a noose.”

“Catesby wants a full inventory of the harvest by Christmas. He wants to know where the steel came from. He wants me to teach his smith the tempering.”

Joan set the spoon down with a clatter. “And what did you tell him?”

“That I would comply.” Tom moved closer to the fire, letting the warmth sink into his bones. “But I’m not going to. I’m going to London.”

Joan’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “The King will not see you. You are a nameless man with a tale that sounds like madness.”

“Then I’ll make him see me. I’ll bring the turnip seed. I’ll bring the ploughshare. I’ll show him what I can do for his armies, for his people, and he will have to listen.”

“Or he will have you hanged for a sorcerer,” Joan said quietly. “Kings are not known for their patience with miracles they do not understand.”

Tom opened his mouth to argue, but a soft sound came from the corner of the hut—a rustle of linen, a breath drawn in. The woman they had saved from the fever was sitting up on her pallet, her eyes open and clear for the first time in days. Her name was Alice, they had learned, a servant from Sir Hugh’s own household, sent ahead to prepare the manor for his arrival. The fever had nearly taken her, but Joan’s willow-bark tincture and Tom’s careful dosing had pulled her back from the brink.

“You came,” Alice said, her voice thin but steady. She looked at Tom with an intensity that made him take a step back. “I dreamed you would.”

Joan moved to her side, pressing a cup of water into her hands. “Drink. You are still weak.”

Alice drank, then set the cup aside. Her fingers plucked at the blanket, and her gaze never left Tom’s face. “You saved my life. I owe you a truth.”

Tom crouched beside the pallet. “What truth?”

Alice glanced at Joan, then back at Tom. “Sir Hugh is not what he seems. He returned from France with more than debts. He brought a prisoner.”

Tom felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. “A prisoner? Who?”

“A man from the French court. A clerk, I think. He speaks Latin and writes in a hand so fine it looks like silk.” Alice lowered her voice. “Sir Hugh keeps him in the old cellar beneath the manor, the one with the iron door. He feeds him bread and water, and he beats him when he will not write.”

“Write what?” Joan asked, her voice sharp.

“Letters. Many letters. I do not know what they say, but I saw one once, left on the table when he thought I was asleep. It was addressed to the Bishop of Winchester.”

Tom’s blood ran cold. The Bishop of Winchester. The man whose steward had been asking questions about the stranger who appeared from nowhere. The man whose traps Margery had come to warn him about.

“What did the letter say?” Tom asked.

Alice shook her head. “I cannot read. But I saw the seal—a red one, with a cross.” She paused, her fingers tightening on the blanket. “And I heard Sir Hugh speak of you. The night before you saved me, he was in the hall with his steward, and he said your name. He said you were a gift from God, sent to fill his coffers. And then he laughed.”

Tom stood, his mind racing. Sir Hugh had a French clerk prisoner, writing letters to the Bishop of Winchester—letters that mentioned Tom. The lord was not just hungry for Tom’s methods. He was building something. A case. An accusation. A transaction.

“I have to see that cellar,” Tom said.

Joan grabbed his arm. “You will do no such thing. If Hugh catches you in his manor, he will have you hanged before the snow melts.”

“And if I do nothing, he will sell me to the Church for the price of a few bushels of grain.” Tom pulled his arm free. “I need to know what that clerk is writing. I need to know what Hugh knows.”

“Then go carefully,” Joan said, her voice low and fierce. “Take Wat with you. He knows the manor’s passages better than any rat.”

Tom nodded, then turned back to Alice. “Will you be all right here?”

Alice smiled, a thin, tired smile. “I have been dead before. I know how to wait.”

Tom left the hut with the snow crunching under his boots and the weight of the letter to the King pressing against his chest. He found Wat in the barn, mending a harness with clumsy, patient fingers. The boy looked up, his face pale in the dim light.

“We’re going to the manor tonight,” Tom said. “I need you to show me the way to the old cellar.”

Wat’s eyes went wide. “The one with the iron door? That’s Lord Hugh’s private place. No one goes there.”

“We do,” Tom said. “Tonight.”

The boy hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll get the lantern.”

Tom watched him go, and for a moment he felt the weight of everything pressing down on him—the dying battery, the bishop’s questions, the hungry lord, the cold winter. He had one winter. Maybe less.

And somewhere beneath the manor, a French clerk was writing words that could seal his fate.

He would not wait for the snow to melt. He would find the truth tonight, or he would burn trying.