Chapter 60: The King's Commission

Tom folded the commission with care, the vellum crackling like frost beneath his fingers. Edward III watched him from the throne, a hawk assessing a new prey.

“Speak, then. What do you need?”

Tom’s mind raced through the warehouse inventory—the turnip seed, the ploughshares, the willow-bark tinctures, the veterinary texts. But those were things. A kingdom required more than things.

“Men, Your Grace. Not soldiers—stewards. Men who can measure a field’s yield, who can count bushels and calves and understand why the numbers matter. I cannot rebuild a shire alone.”

Edward’s brow furrowed. “Stewards. You ask for clerks when I offer you lordship?”

“Lordship builds walls, Your Grace. Stewards build harvests. And harvests build kingdoms.”

A silence stretched across the hall. Joan’s hand found Tom’s elbow beneath the table—a small pressure, a warning or encouragement, he could not tell.

The King leaned forward. “There is a man in my exchequer, one Simon of York. He has a head for numbers but no stomach for war. He has served me poorly in France because he sees ledgers, not banners. Take him. I will also grant you three sergeants-at-arms, sworn to my peace, to protect your work from those who would see it fail.”

Tom’s breath caught. “And the Church?”

Edward’s expression hardened. “The bishop of Winchester has overreached. He hanged a woman on suspicion of speaking treason, and he pursued my loyal subjects across half of England. He will be summoned to answer for his methods. But you must understand, Master Ashwick—the Church is a mast that holds this kingdom’s sail. I cannot cut it down without sinking us all.”

“I understand, Your Grace. I only ask that the bishop be restrained from burning me at his convenience.”

A grim smile crossed Edward’s face. “You will carry my seal as well as his. No one will burn you while you serve me.”

Joan stepped forward, her voice low but clear. “Your Grace—the village of Wykeham. Sir Hugh’s arrest will leave the manor without a lord. The people there—they sheltered us, fed us, hid the warehouse from the bishop’s men. They will be punished for their loyalty.”

Edward studied her for a long moment. “A widow who speaks for a village. You have courage, mistress.”

“Courage is cheap, Your Grace. Justice is dearer.”

The King laughed—a short, genuine sound that startled the courtiers at the far end of the hall. “Then you shall have justice. I will appoint a royal custodian for Wykeham until a new lord is named. Your people will not suffer for their aid to my cause.”

Tom bowed deeply. “We are grateful, Your Grace.”

“Do not be grateful yet. The war is ending, but the peace will be crueler than the fighting. My soldiers will return to fields that have gone fallow, to villages that have lost half their people. England is a wounded beast, Master Ashwick. Your warehouse is a poultice, but a poultice cannot save a creature that bleeds from a hundred wounds.”

Tom met the King’s gaze. “Then we must stop the bleeding, one wound at a time.”

Edward nodded slowly. “See that you do. You will travel with Simon of York and my sergeants to Wykeham. You will take possession of the manor in my name, and you will begin your work there. If your methods prove true, I will extend your authority to the neighboring shires. If they fail—” The King’s voice dropped, cold as winter stone. “—you will learn that kings are less forgiving than bishops.”

Tom swallowed. “I understand, Your Grace.”

“Good. Now go. The bishop’s men still wait outside the city gates, and I would prefer you reach Wykeham before they learn you have my protection.”

As Tom and Joan turned to leave, Edward called out once more. “One thing, Master Ashwick.”

Tom paused.

“The woman—Margery. She brought me word of Hugh’s treason before you arrived. She asked me to tell you something if you came.”

Tom’s heart tightened. “What did she say?”

Edward’s eyes flickered with something unreadable. “She said to remember the lime kiln, and that the dead do not stay buried when the frost breaks.”

A chill ran down Tom’s spine. The lime kiln—hidden behind the false wall in the barn, where he had hoped to burn evidence that might damn him. But what dead did Margery mean? The fevered woman the bishop’s steward had hanged? Or something else, something still buried in Wykeham’s frozen earth?

Joan’s hand found his again, her fingers cold. “We should go,” she whispered.

Tom nodded, tucking the commission into his tunic. He had won the King’s favor, but Margery’s words hung over him like a shroud.

The dead did not stay buried when the frost broke.

And somewhere in Wykeham, beneath the frost and the mud and the silence of a plague-scoured village, something waited to rise.

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The streets of London were quiet as Tom and Joan made their way to the river gate, three sergeants-at-arms trailing behind them. Simon of York, a thin, nervous man with ink-stained fingers, hurried to keep pace.

“Master Ashwick, if I may—what exactly does a steward of the King’s new commission do?”

Tom glanced at him. “We save England, Master Simon. One field at a time.”

Simon blinked. “That seems… ambitious.”

“It is. But the King believes in miracles today. Let us not prove him wrong.”

They reached the river gate as the morning fog rolled off the Thames. A barge waited, its oarsmen stamping their feet against the cold. Tom helped Joan aboard, then turned to look back at the city—the spires of churches, the smoke of ten thousand hearths, the walls that held both his enemies and his hopes.

“What is it?” Joan asked.

Tom shook his head. “I was thinking about the warehouse. The battery is dying. If it fails before we reach Wykeham, everything inside—the seed, the tools, the books—will be locked away forever.”

Joan’s eyes met his. “Then we must reach Wykeham before it does.”

Tom nodded and stepped onto the barge as the oarsmen pushed off into the current. The fog swallowed the city behind them, and the river carried them south, toward a village that did not yet know its lord was dead, its bishop humbled, and its future entrusted to a stranger from another age.

The frost was breaking. And Tom Ashwick was going home.