Chapter 28: The Woman’s Words

The cottages huddled against the wind like sheep against a storm, their smoke flattened by the gale. Snow had begun to fall in earnest, thin flakes that stung the eyes and melted on the tongue. Tom pulled his hood low and ducked through the low door of the farthest cottage, where the woman lay on a pallet of straw, propped against a rolled sack of wool.

Joan sat beside her, grinding something in a stone mortar. The air smelled of feverfew and old sweat. The woman—Margery had named her Agnes, though she had not spoken enough to confirm it—turned her head as Tom entered. Her eyes were pale grey, sharp as flint, and they watched him with the wariness of a creature that had learned to expect blows.

“You are the one who saved me,” she said. Not a question.

“I am,” Tom said, crouching by the pallet. “You asked to see me.”

She glanced at Joan, then back at Tom. “You are the stranger. The one who comes from nowhere, with things that should not exist.”

Tom’s jaw tightened. “That’s what they say.”

“They say worse.” She coughed, a wet sound, and Joan pressed a cup of steeped willow-bark to her lips. She drank, grimaced, and continued. “They say you are a warlock. But I have seen warlocks, or what the Church calls warlocks. They burn them in my village. I saw my own mother burn, and she was only a woman who knew how to set a broken bone.”

Tom said nothing. The fire crackled.

“You did not burn me,” Agnes said. “You did not let me die. So I will tell you what I know.”

She shifted, wincing. Joan helped her sit higher. The wind rattled the shutters like a man demanding entry.

“Sir Hugh de Lacy,” Agnes said, “owes money to the Crown. More than he can pay. He sold his wool clip to a Flemish merchant two years ago, before the plague, and the merchant’s ship sank. The money was never recovered. Hugh borrowed from the Jews of York to cover the debt, but the King expelled them, and the debt passed to the Crown. Now he owes the Exchequer three thousand marks.”

Tom let out a slow breath. Three thousand marks. A fortune that could buy a small army.

“That is why he wants your grain,” Agnes continued. “Your methods. He means to pay his debts by squeezing every manor he holds dry. But there is more.” She paused, licking her cracked lips. “He has been selling men-at-arms to the King’s commissioners for the wars in France. He takes coin for their service, but he sends old men and boys. The good men he keeps for himself, to guard his estates. If the King learns of this, Hugh will be attainted.”

Tom felt the pieces click together like a lock. “And if I threaten to expose him, he’ll have me killed.”

“He will have you killed regardless,” Agnes said. “But he cannot afford to do it openly, not now. The bishop’s steward is sniffing around. Hugh fears the Church more than he fears you. The Church can seize his lands. You are only a man.”

Joan set down the mortar. “Then we have something he wants. Silence.”

“We have something he fears,” Tom said slowly. “The same thing the bishop’s steward fears. Truth.”

Agnes shook her head. “Truth is a candle in a storm. The Church does not fear truth. It fears proof that cannot be burned.”

Tom looked at her. “What do you mean?”

She reached into the folds of her shift and drew out a small leather pouch, tied with a cord. Her fingers trembled as she held it out. “I was servant to the steward of the bishop’s court, before the plague took my mistress. I heard things. I saw things. This is a letter from the bishop’s own scribe, sent to the archdeacon. It speaks of Sir Hugh’s dealings—the false musters, the hidden gold. It names the merchant in Flanders who holds Hugh’s bond. If the King sees this, Hugh is finished.”

Tom took the pouch. It was warm from her body. He did not open it.

“Why do you have this?” he asked.

“Because I stole it,” Agnes said, without shame. “The bishop’s steward was going to burn it. He is not investigating Hugh. He is protecting him. They are kin—Hugh’s mother was the steward’s cousin. The bishop wants no scandal. But the King’s commissioners, if they saw this…” She trailed off, coughing again.

Joan gave her water. Tom turned the pouch over in his hands. It was a weapon, yes. But a weapon required a hand to wield it, and a moment to strike. He was a warehouse manager from another age, a man who had never held a sword, who had never spoken to a king.

“London,” he said quietly. “I have to go to London.”

Joan looked up sharply. “The roads are already snowing. You will die before you reach the first market town.”

“Then I will die trying,” Tom said. “Hugh will not wait for spring. If the bishop’s steward is protecting him, the Church is not my ally. But the King’s commissioners are another matter. Edward needs money for the war. If I can show him the truth—if I can trade this letter for protection, for a charter, for anything—then I can save this manor, and maybe more.”

Agnes watched him with those flint-grey eyes. “You are a fool,” she said. “But you are a useful fool. The King is at Westminster, they say. He comes back from France in the spring. If you go now, you will find the courts empty and the roads full of wolves. But if you wait, and go when the first thaw comes, you may find a king who is listening.”

Tom looked at the pouch. The weight of it felt like the whole world.

“Then I wait,” he said. “And I prepare. But Hugh will not wait. He will squeeze us dry before the thaw.”

“Then we must make him think we are already dry,” Joan said. “Hide the grain. Hide the seed. Make the manor look poorer than it is. Let Hugh believe there is nothing left to take.”

Tom almost smiled. “You are suggesting we lie to our lord.”

“I am suggesting we survive him,” Joan said. “There is a difference.”

The wind howled. Agnes closed her eyes, exhausted. Tom rose, the pouch tucked inside his tunic beside the inventory and the letters. He had pieces of a weapon, yes. But he was beginning to understand that the weapon was not the letter, or the inventory, or even the knowledge in his warehouse.

It was the trust of people who had nothing left to lose.

He stepped out into the snow, and found Catesby standing in the yard, watching him with cold patience.

“The lord wants you,” Catesby said. “Now. He has questions about the harvest.”

Tom met his gaze. “And I have answers.”

But as he walked toward the hall, he felt the pouch against his chest, and he knew that the answers he would give were only the beginning of a much longer lie.