Chapter 63: The River’s Bargain

The man in black robes studied the seal for a long moment, his eyes moving from the wax to Tom’s face and back again. The river lapped against the barge’s hull, and somewhere behind them a kingfisher cried. Then the man inclined his head, just enough to show respect, and gestured to his halberdiers to stand down.

“The King’s business travels fast these days,” he said. “We were told to expect a heretic fleeing north. Not a royal messenger bearing the Chancery seal.”

Tom kept his hand steady on the leather tube. “The Church hears many things. Most of them are lies.”

The man’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing. He stepped back onto the mudbank, and the barge’s poleman pushed off with a grunt. The current caught them, and the river widened, carrying Tom and Joan past the bishop’s men and into the gray morning light.

Joan exhaled slowly. Her hand was still on the knife at her belt, and she did not let go until the men had shrunk to specks on the shore.

“That was well done,” she said quietly.

“It was a gamble,” Tom said. “The seal could have been questioned.”

“It was not.” She turned to face him, and the wind pulled strands of dark hair across her face. “Because you spoke like a man who had the right to be obeyed. The Church understands nothing else.”

Tom pocketed the leather tube and sat down on the barge’s wooden bench. The crate beside him held the last of their supplies—a few loaves, a wheel of hard cheese, and the satchel with the King’s commission. He could feel its weight against his hip, heavier than the parchment warranted.

“The King’s commission makes me useful,” he said. “But the bishop’s men will not stop because of one seal on one riverbank. They will find another way.”

“Then we will find another way to counter them.” Joan sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. “You have done this before. You will do it again.”

Tom looked at the river ahead. The frost was breaking, as the King had said. Chunks of ice still floated in the shallows, but the main channel ran clear and dark, carrying them south toward Wykeham and whatever waited there.

“The warehouse battery is dying,” he said. “When it fails, the lights go out. The seed stays viable—it’s sealed—but the tools and the books will be useless if we cannot see them. And the lime kiln is still hidden in the woods. I do not know if Wat found it before we left.”

Joan was silent for a moment. “Wat is a good man. He will have done what he could.”

“And Hugh de Lacy is riding south with a company of men-at-arms. He will arrive at Wykeham before us, unless we find horses on the road.”

“He will arrive at Wykeham to find the King’s men waiting for him,” Joan said. “Edward promised you that.”

“Edward promised me that if I was useful.” Tom rubbed his face with both hands. “I am useful now. But the war is ending. The King will not need my grain and my ploughshares forever. And when he does not need me, what is to stop him from giving me to the bishop as a peace offering?”

Joan did not answer. She stared at the water, and Tom watched the thoughts move behind her eyes—sharp and quick as the birds that skimmed the surface for insects.

“Then we must make sure you are always useful,” she said finally. “Not for one season, or two. For as long as the King lives, and beyond, if we can manage it.”

“That is a long time to be useful.”

“Better than a short time to be dead.” She looked at him, and her hand found his on the bench. “You saved my village, Tom Ashwick. You saved my son. I will not watch you burn.”

Tom turned his hand over and held hers. The gesture was becoming familiar now, and he did not know whether that comforted him or frightened him more.

“We go home,” he said. “We see what is left. And we plan from there.”

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The barge reached the landing at Wykeham village in the late afternoon. The sky had cleared to a pale, watery blue, and the fields lay bare and brown under the weak sun. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the village, thin and gray, and Tom counted them as the barge bumped against the wooden dock.

Twenty-three houses. Fifteen chimneys smoking.

Joan stepped onto the dock first, and Tom followed, carrying the satchel with the King’s commission. The village was quiet. Too quiet. At this hour, the men should have been in the fields, and the women at the well, and the children running through the mud.

A dog barked somewhere, then fell silent.

Tom caught Joan’s eye. She nodded, and they walked together up the path from the river, past the mill and the smithy, toward the manor house.

The door of the smithy opened, and a man stepped out. He was tall and gaunt, with soot on his face and a hammer in his hand. It took Tom a moment to recognize Wat.

“Master Ashwick,” Wat said. His voice was flat. “You came back.”

“I did.” Tom stopped a few paces from him. “What happened here?”

Wat looked at Joan, then back at Tom. He set the hammer down on the anvil behind him.

“Sir Hugh came through three days ago,” he said. “He took the grain from the tithe barn and the cattle from the home pasture. He left a dozen men to hold the manor, and he rode on toward the coast to meet with the French envoy.”

Tom went very still. “The French envoy.”

“Aye.” Wat’s jaw tightened. “He said the King’s war was ending, and there was still money to be made before the peace was signed. He means to sell the last of the harvest to the enemy, and then he means to burn the village behind him so there is no evidence of what he has done.”

Joan made a sound low in her throat. “He would burn his own people’s homes?”

“He would burn his own mother’s grave if it would line his purse,” Wat said. “The men he left are in the manor house now, drinking his wine and waiting for his return. They do not know we have been watching them.”

Tom looked up at the manor house on the hill. Smoke rose from its chimneys, and he could see the glint of lamplight in the windows.

“The King’s men are coming south,” he said. “They will arrest Hugh when he returns. But if he burns the village before they arrive, the proof of his treason goes up in smoke with it.”

“Then we stop him before he returns,” Joan said.

Tom turned to her. “There are a dozen armed men in that house.”

“And there are five-and-twenty men in this village who have been pushed too far,” Wat said. He picked up his hammer again. “We have been waiting for a sign, Master Ashwick. Are you it?”