Chapter 45: The Hoofbeats in the Falling Snow

The sound came out of the darkness like a drumbeat of doom, muffled by the falling snow but unmistakable—hooves, many of them, pounding the frozen road from the west. Tom was on his feet before he knew he had moved, his hand finding the knife at his belt, his heart slamming against his ribs.

Joan was already at the stable door, peering through a crack in the warped timber. “Riders,” she whispered. “Six, maybe seven. Torches.”

Tom cursed under his breath. The bishop’s men. It had to be. They had pushed hard from Wykeham, driven the horses past sense, slept in ditches when the inns grew too dangerous—and still, they had been caught.

“The cart,” he said. “The seal. We can’t let them find it.”

Joan turned, her face pale in the lantern light. “We can’t outrun them. The horses are spent.”

“We don’t need to outrun them. We need to hide.”

He moved to the cart, throwing back the sacking that covered the steel ploughshares. Beneath them, wrapped in oiled cloth, lay the iron-bound chest that held the bishop’s seal—the forged instrument of his salvation, and his damnation if it were found in his possession. He lifted it, the weight familiar now, and looked around the stable.

There was a loft above, half-filled with hay. A water trough. A pile of broken barrels in the corner.

“Help me,” he said, and together they dragged the chest to the corner, burying it beneath the barrels and a layer of straw that Joan scraped from the floor. It was not a good hiding place. It was barely a hiding place at all. But it was all they had.

The hoofbeats grew louder, then stopped. Voices called out—harsh, commanding—and Tom heard the creak of saddles, the jingle of bridles. He pressed himself against the wall, knife in hand, and watched the door.

It burst open.

A man stood there, tall and broad-shouldered, snow crusting his cloak and beard. He was not a bishop’s man. He wore no livery, no cross, no badge of office. He wore the rough wool of a common soldier, and at his hip hung a sword that had seen hard use.

“You,” he said, pointing at Tom. “You’re the one they call the steward.”

Tom did not answer. He could feel Joan’s hand on his arm, steadying him, and he forced himself to breathe.

“I am a free man,” he said. “A merchant, bound for London. I have no quarrel with you.”

The man laughed—a harsh, barking sound. “No quarrel? You’ve got a price on your head, friend. The Bishop of Salisbury wants you burned. Sir Hugh de Lacy wants you hanged. And there’s a woman in Wykeham who’s been asking about you, a woman who was burned for heresy three years ago, and who seems to think you’re worth saving.”

Tom’s blood ran cold. Margery. The woman from the burnt village, who had come to him in the night with warnings and vanished into the dark. She had told him the bishop’s steward was sending traps, not threats. She had told him truth was a weapon.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The man stepped into the stable, shaking snow from his cloak. “My name is Robert of Ashford. I served at Crécy, under the Earl of Warwick. I’ve seen men die in the mud for a king who doesn’t know their names. And I’ve heard of you—the man who appeared from nowhere, who heals the sick and makes the fields bear double. The man who steals tithe records and rides to London with a bishop’s seal in his cart.”

Tom’s hand tightened on his knife. “You’ve been following me.”

“Since Salisbury,” Robert said. “You’re not hard to track. A cart full of steel, a woman with a sharp tongue, and a man who looks at the world like it’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “The bishop’s men are a day behind you. They’ll be here by morning. And when they find you, they’ll take you to Salisbury, and they’ll burn you in the square, and no one will remember your name.”

Joan stepped forward. “And what do you want, Robert of Ashford?”

He looked at her, and for a moment, something flickered in his eyes—respect, perhaps, or recognition. “I want what he wants,” he said, nodding at Tom. “I want the King to hear the truth. About Sir Hugh. About the grain he’s been selling to the French. About the men who’ve died because of it.”

Tom stared at him. “You know about the grain.”

“I was there,” Robert said. “I saw the carts leaving Wykeham at night, headed for the coast. I saw the gold change hands. I tried to stop it, and they branded me a thief and threw me out of the manor.” He pulled back his cloak, revealing a scar that ran from his shoulder to his wrist, ugly and puckered. “They left me for dead. But I didn’t die. And I’ve been waiting for someone who could help me prove it.”

The stable was silent save for the wind outside. Tom looked at Joan, and she looked back at him, and in her eyes he saw the same question he was asking himself: could they trust this man?

“We’re four days from London,” Tom said. “If the weather holds.”

Robert nodded. “Then we ride tonight. The bishop’s men won’t expect you to move in this snow. And if we reach the city before they do, you’ll have your audience with the King.”

Tom glanced at the corner where the chest lay hidden, beneath the barrels and the straw. Four days. Four days to reach London, to find Edward III, to trade Hugh’s treason for his own safety. Four days, with the bishop’s men behind them and the snow falling thick and the road growing harder with every mile.

“We ride,” he said.

Robert nodded, and turned to the door. But as he reached for the latch, he paused. “One more thing,” he said. “The woman who burned—Margery. She’s in London. She said to tell you that the King already knows about Hugh. He’s been waiting for proof. And if you bring it to him, he’ll make you a lord.”

Tom felt the ground shift beneath him. A lord. Edward III, rewarding a man who had appeared from nowhere with steel and medicine and knowledge of a future that had not yet come to pass.

“How does she know?” he asked.

Robert smiled, and it was a cold smile, a smile that knew too much. “Because she’s the one who told him.”