Chapter 40: The Toll at the River's Gate

The inn stood three storeys high, its timber frame black with age, and its sign—a painted swan with a chipped beak—swung groaning in the wind off the river. Tom paid the ostler double to keep the horses saddled and ready in the stable, and he took a room with a window that looked out over the bridge and the tollgate beyond it.

Joan sat on the edge of the bed, unwinding the linen from her hands. She had not spoken since they entered the town, and her silence had a weight to it, like a stone held under water.

“You think the seal will open the gate,” she said, not looking at him.

“I think it will open *a* gate,” Tom said. He stood at the window, watching the torches gutter on the bridge. “Whether it opens the right one is another matter.”

“And if the toll-keeper knows the bishop’s seal? If he asks why a steward of Wykeham travels with a woman and no retinue, at the edge of winter, toward London?”

Tom turned from the window. The seal lay in his palm, a disc of wax the colour of dried blood, pressed with the bishop’s ring—a mitre and a crozier, and a motto he could not read. Margery had given it to him before she vanished, and she had told him it would buy passage past men who asked too many questions.

“I will tell him we are on the bishop’s business,” Tom said. “That the bishop’s steward sent us with a message for the King’s clerks at Westminster.”

“The bishop’s steward hates you,” Joan said flatly. “You stole his records. You humiliated him at Michaelmas. If he hears you have used his master’s seal to cross a tollgate, he will have you hanged before the snow melts.”

“He will have me hanged anyway,” Tom said. “The only question is whether I am hanged before I reach London or after.”

Joan looked at him then, and her eyes were hard and bright, like river ice in the dark. “You have a gift for making hope sound like a death sentence.”

“It’s the only kind of hope I have left.”

She stood, and came to the window, and stood beside him. The river ran below, black and swollen with the autumn rains, and the bridge’s arches groaned under the weight of the water. On the far bank, the tollgate stood—a timber barrier across the road, with a guardhouse beside it, and a fire burning in a brazier that threw long shadows across the cobbles.

“The woman in the linen,” Joan said quietly. “She told you Hugh was selling grain to the French.”

“Yes.”

“And you believe her.”

“I do.”

“Then why are we riding to London to beg the King for protection? If Hugh is a traitor, the King will hang him. You could simply write a letter.”

Tom shook his head. “A letter can be lost. A letter can be burned. And a letter from a man who appeared from nowhere, with no lineage and no lord, accusing his own master of treason—that letter would be read as the desperate lie of a thief who stole his lord’s grain. The King’s clerks would throw it in the fire and throw me in the stocks.”

“So you will tell him in person.”

“I will tell him in person,” Tom said. “And I will bring him something he wants more than a accusation.”

“What?”

Tom reached into his pouch and drew out the folded parchment—the copy he had made of the merchant’s letter, the one that named the ships and the harbours and the gold that changed hands for English grain. He had stolen it from Hugh’s study while the lord was drunk on French wine, and he had hidden it in the lining of his boot for three days before he had trusted it to the pouch.

“This,” he said. “The names of the merchants who buy Hugh’s grain. The ports where the ships dock. The amounts paid and the dates of the crossings. If the King wants to know who in his realm is feeding his enemies, this is the map.”

Joan took the parchment and read it by the light of the candle. Her lips moved as she traced the lines, and when she looked up, her face was pale.

“This is enough to hang a dozen lords,” she said.

“It is enough to hang one,” Tom said. “If the King believes it.”

“And if he does not?”

“Then I will be the one who hangs.”

She folded the parchment carefully and handed it back to him. Her fingers brushed his, and for a moment she did not pull away.

“The tollgate,” she said. “We should cross before the guard changes. The night watch is easier to bribe than the day watch, and the bishop’s seal will carry more weight in the dark.”

Tom nodded, and he tucked the parchment back into his pouch, and he put the seal around his neck beneath his tunic, where it lay cold against his chest.

They went down the stairs together, and the innkeeper barely looked up from his ledger as they passed. The ostler had the horses ready, and their breath steamed in the cold air as Tom helped Joan into the saddle.

They rode through the empty streets toward the bridge, and the sound of the river grew louder as they approached. The tollgate loomed ahead, and beyond it the road ran straight and dark into the heart of England, toward London, toward the King, toward a reckoning that would either save them or destroy them.

The guard came out of the guardhouse as they reined in before the barrier. He was a fat man with a scarred nose and a spear that looked older than he was, and he squinted at them through the torchlight.

“Toll’s four pence a horse,” he said. “And the woman pays her own.”

Tom reached into his pouch and drew out the seal. He held it up so the firelight caught it, and the wax gleamed like blood.

“The bishop’s business,” he said. “Bound for Westminster.”

The guard’s eyes widened, and he took a step back.

“The bishop’s—you’re his man?”

“I am.”

The guard looked at Joan, and then at the seal again, and then at the road beyond the gate. He licked his lips.

“You’ll want to move fast,” he said. “There’s word from the south. The King’s taken a wound at the siege of Calais, and there’s talk of a truce. The roads are full of men coming home with nothing but their swords and their grudges.”

Tom felt the words land like a blow to the chest. A truce. The war was ending.

And if the war was ending, then the King would have no need for the names of grain merchants who had fed the French. He would have no need for Tom Ashwick at all.

The guard raised the barrier, and Tom urged his horse forward, and as he passed through the gate he heard the guard call after him:

“God speed, master. You’ll need it.”

The road opened before them, dark and endless, and Tom rode toward it with the seal burning against his chest and the taste of ash in his mouth.