Chapter 62: The River’s Debt

The barge cut through the pewter water, its single sail slack against the grey sky. Tom leaned on the rail, watching the drowned fields slide past—brown furrows waiting for seed that would never come, not for the poor who had no lord to protect them. The thaw had been cruel, as thaws always were, revealing what the snow had hidden: dead cattle, broken carts, the smeared remains of a winter that had taken its tithe from every soul.

Joan stood beside him, her cloak drawn tight against the river wind. She had not spoken for an hour, and Tom had learned to read her silences the way a pilot reads the water—by the small shifts, the currents beneath the surface.

“You think he will keep his word,” she said finally. It was not a question.

“The King?” Tom watched a heron lift from the reeds, slow and heavy. “He will keep his word as long as I am useful.”

“And when you are not?”

Tom turned to face her. The wind had brought colour to her cheeks, and there was something in her eyes that had not been there when they first fled Wykeham—not fear, not hope, but something between the two. A reckoning.

“Then I will have to make sure I am always useful.”

“That is not a plan, Tom. That is a leash.”

The barge master called out from the tiller, his voice rough with river phlegm. “Mistress, master—there’s a toll point ahead. The Bishop of Winchester’s men hold the bank at the next bend.”

Tom felt the cold settle in his gut. They had chosen the river to avoid the roads, believing the water would be free of the bishop’s reach. But the Church held the riverbanks like it held the land itself, its fingers reaching into every current.

“Can we pass?” Joan asked.

The barge master spat over the side. “If we pay. If they let us. They’ve been stopping all craft since yesterday—looking for something, or someone.” He looked at Tom with a slow, measuring gaze. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Tom’s hand moved instinctively to his belt, where the King’s commission rested in a leather tube, sealed with the royal signet. He had not shown it to the barge master. He had not shown it to anyone. The King’s promise was a blade that cut both ways—it could open doors, or it could paint a target on his back.

“We’re merchants,” Tom said. “Bound for Wykeham with seed and tools.”

The barge master’s eyes narrowed. “Merchants don’t usually travel with a lady and no goods to show for it.”

Joan stepped forward, her voice sharp as winter ice. “We carry letters of credit. My husband’s business is conducted by word and bond, not by the weight of his cart. If you doubt us, you may search our persons and find nothing but what honest folk carry.”

The barge master looked at her for a long moment, then shrugged. “Your coin, then. The toll is four pence a head.”

Tom reached into his purse and counted out the silver, watching the bend ahead. Through the bare willows, he could see the shape of the toll house—a squat stone building with a wisp of smoke rising from its chimney. A boat was pulled up on the mudbank, its hull stove in, its cargo scattered across the shore like the bones of a feast.

“What happened there?” Tom asked.

The barge master followed his gaze. “That’s what they’re looking for. A boat came down from London two days ago carrying wool for the Flemish markets. It never reached the coast. The bishop’s men found it here, broken and empty.” He paused. “They say the wool was sold to the French. They say the men who did it are still on the river.”

Tom’s blood chilled. He thought of Hugh de Lacy, riding south with his men-at-arms, his treason laid bare before the King. But Hugh was not the only one who had sold to the enemy. The bishop’s steward had spoken of a network, a chain of men who profited from the war’s long hunger. If the bishop’s men were searching the river for traitors, they would find Tom and Joan—and the King’s commission would not protect them from a rope and a tree branch.

“We turn back,” Tom said.

The barge master laughed, a harsh sound like a crow’s cry. “Turn back? The current’s against us, and the wind’s died. We’d be rowing against both. And even if we did, they’d catch us at the next bend—they have eyes all along this stretch.”

Joan touched Tom’s arm, her fingers cold through his sleeve. “We could go ashore. Walk the rest of the way.”

“Through the marshes?” Tom shook his head. “We’d be bogged down before nightfall. And the roads are worse—the bishop’s men will have them watched.”

“Then we go through,” Joan said. “We show them the King’s commission. We tell them who we are.”

Tom looked at her, at the fire in her eyes that he had come to know so well. She was not afraid. She had seen too much to be afraid of a toll gate and a few armed men. But Tom had seen what the bishop’s men did to those who carried inconvenient truths. He had seen the woman hanged from the oak, her body swinging in the grey dawn.

“The commission names me as the King’s agent,” Tom said slowly. “It does not name you.”

“I am your wife,” Joan said. “Your partner. Your—” She hesitated, and the word hung between them, unspoken. “Your ally.”

The barge was rounding the bend now, the toll house growing larger, its stone walls dark with river damp. Two men stood on the bank, their halberds gleaming dully in the weak light. A third man emerged from the building, his robes black against the grey sky.

Tom felt the weight of the commission in his belt, the weight of the King’s promise, the weight of everything he had bargained away to keep his small miracle alive. He thought of the warehouse, sitting in darkness, its battery fading. He thought of the seed that could feed England, the tools that could break the ancient soil, the books that could save a thousand lives.

He thought of the river, turning beneath him, carrying him toward a reckoning he had not chosen.

“We go through,” Tom said. “And we pray the King’s seal is worth more than the bishop’s wrath.”

Joan squeezed his arm, and for a moment, her hand was warm in his. Then the barge bumped against the mudbank, and the men with halberds stepped forward, and the world narrowed to the space between one breath and the next.

The man in black robes raised his hand. “In the name of the Bishop of Winchester, I require you to state your names and your business on this river.”

Tom reached into his belt and drew out the leather tube. The seal caught the light, red and bright as a wound. He held it up, and the man’s eyes widened.

“In the name of Edward, King of England,” Tom said, his voice steady, “I am here on the King’s business. And I will not be delayed.”