Chapter 29: The Lord’s Reckoning

The hall was cold despite the fire, the smoke curling against the high rafters as if it too sought escape. Sir Hugh de Lacy sat at the head of the trestle table, his scarred hands wrapped around a cup of mulled wine, his eyes fixed on Tom with the patience of a cat watching a mouse that had grown bold.

Catesby stood by the door, a shadow with a ledger in his arms.

“The harvest,” Hugh said, not a question but a summons. “Michaelmas came and went. The fields are bare. Yet my steward tells me the granaries are fuller than they were when I left for France, and the tithe-collector has not been seen in a fortnight.”

Tom met his gaze. “The harvest was good, my lord. The seed I brought—the turnips, the new ploughshares—they did their work.”

“Turnips,” Hugh repeated, tasting the word. “In my father’s day, turnips were fodder for swine. Now they fill my granaries and my steward’s ledgers with questions.” He leaned forward, and the firelight caught the old scar that ran from his temple to his jaw, a souvenir of Crécy. “I have seen steel that does not rust, seed that yields twice what my own fields have ever given, and a man who appeared from nowhere with a cartload of miracles. You will forgive me, Master Ashwick, if I am not entirely satisfied with ‘the harvest was good.’”

Tom’s hand drifted to his chest, where the pouch lay hidden beneath his tunic—Peverel’s satchel, stolen, its pages of tithe records now a weight that pressed against his ribs. He had bought this moment with a crime that could hang him, and he knew it.

“I am not a miracle worker, my lord,” he said carefully. “I am a steward, as I told you. I know methods that are… uncommon in this part of the world. But they are methods, not magic. If the Church asks, I can show them the seed, the ploughshares, the books. There is nothing in my warehouse that a learned man could not explain.”

“Learned men,” Hugh said, “are the ones who burn others for less.” He set down his cup and stood, the motion deliberate, and Tom felt the weight of the man’s presence—a soldier, a killer, a lord who had seen his world collapse and was clawing for anything that might save it. “I have debts in London, Master Ashwick. Debts that will see this manor seized by the Crown if I cannot pay them by Easter. Your turnips and your steel have bought me a season, perhaps two. But the King’s war in France is hungry, and his tax collectors are hungrier.”

He walked around the table, circling Tom like a hawk. “I have heard that the bishop’s steward has been asking questions. Questions about a stranger who appeared from nowhere, who speaks with the accent of a foreigner and keeps a storehouse of wonders. I have heard that the tithe-collector, Peverel, vanished after auditing my granaries, and that my own steward cannot find his records.”

Tom’s heart quickened, but he kept his face still. “I know nothing of Peverel’s records, my lord. As for the bishop’s steward—I am a loyal subject of the King and a faithful son of the Church. I have nothing to hide.”

Hugh stopped, close enough that Tom could smell the wine on his breath. “Nothing to hide,” he repeated. “And yet you have a storehouse of steel and seed, and a woman in your care who claims she has something to tell me. I am told she has awakened.”

Tom’s throat tightened. The woman—the fevered one he had saved, whose name he had never learned—had asked to see him, and he had not yet found the moment. Now Hugh knew of her, and that changed everything.

“She is a poor soul, my lord,” Tom said. “A traveler who fell ill on the road. My methods saved her life. She owes me nothing but gratitude.”

“Gratitude,” Hugh said, “is a poor currency. I have seen enough of it in France to know it buys nothing.” He turned away, gesturing to Catesby, who stepped forward with the ledger. “The harvest audit will be complete by the end of the week. Every bushel, every head of cattle, every working man and woman accounted for. And when it is done, you will come to me with your own accounts—of what you have given this manor, and what you have taken.”

Tom felt the trap closing around him. Hugh was not a fool; he knew Tom had stolen the records, knew the delay was deliberate. But he was also a lord desperate for coin, and Tom’s methods had filled his granaries. For now, that was enough.

“I will have my accounts ready, my lord,” Tom said.

“See that you do.” Hugh picked up his cup and drank, a dismissal. “And bring the woman to me. I would hear what she has to say.”

Tom bowed and left, the cold air hitting his face like a slap. The snow had deepened since morning, and the yard was a white silence broken only by the creak of a cart and the distant lowing of cattle. He found Joan waiting by the barn, her breath a plume of frost, her eyes sharp with worry.

“Well?” she asked.

“He knows about the woman,” Tom said. “He wants to see her.”

Joan’s face tightened. “And what will she tell him?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t know. But I need to see her first.”

They went together to the cottage where the woman lay, a small room warmed by a peat fire and the smell of herbs. She was sitting up when they entered, her face pale but alert, her eyes—dark and knowing—fixed on Tom as if she had been waiting for him.

“They told me you saved my life,” she said, her voice thin but steady. “They told me you asked no price.”

“I ask no price,” Tom said. “But I need to know what you meant to tell me about Sir Hugh.”

The woman looked at Joan, then back at Tom, and her hand moved to the blanket, clutching it like a shield.

“I was in France,” she said. “Before the sickness took me. I saw my lord de Lacy at Calais, before the siege fell. He was not a soldier then. He was a merchant—a dealer in grain and iron, selling to both sides. He made a fortune, and he lost it, and he owes a debt to a man in London who does not forgive.”

Tom felt the ground shift beneath him. Hugh’s debts were not just taxes—they were a rope around his neck, held by a creditor who could snap it at any moment.

“Who is this man?” Tom asked.

The woman’s eyes flickered. “His name is Willoughby. And he is coming to Wykeham before Christmas, to collect what is owed.”