Chapter 67: The Lanterns at Wykeham Gate

The hoofbeats grew louder, a rhythm of iron and desperation against the frozen mud. Tom grabbed Joan’s arm and pulled her into the shadow of the barn’s lee wall, pressing her against the splintered timber. The air smelled of woodsmoke and damp thatch, and the lights from the manor house painted long, wavering fingers across the yard.

“How many?” Joan whispered, her breath fogging.

Tom peered around the corner. Five riders came up the lane, their horses lathered dark with sweat, cloaks heavy with mud. They were not Hugh’s men—no livery, no pennons. But they rode with purpose, and at their head was a man Tom recognized with a chill that had nothing to do with the frost.

Father Ambrose. The bishop’s confessor.

“Christ’s bones,” Tom muttered. “They beat us here.”

Joan’s hand found his, squeezing hard. “The barn. The false wall. If they find the warehouse—”

“They won’t.” Tom’s mind raced through the dark, cataloguing every crate, every sack, every steel ploughshare that lay hidden behind the stacked hay. The battery was dying—he’d known that for weeks now. The lights in the warehouse had grown dimmer with each visit, the air warmer, the magic in the walls fading like a candle guttering in a draft. But the seed, the tools, the books—those were still there. Those were still his.

Father Ambrose reined in before the manor door, and a serving boy ran out to take his horse. Tom watched the priest dismount stiffly, his black robes heavy with the damp, and glance once toward the barn. Toward where Tom and Joan stood frozen in the shadows.

For a long moment, Father Ambrose’s gaze held the darkness where they hid. Tom felt the weight of it like a stone on his chest. Then the priest turned and vanished through the manor door, and the lanterns inside the hall flared brighter.

“He knows,” Tom said. “He’s looking for us.”

“Then we don’t let him find us.” Joan’s voice was steel. “The warehouse. We move what we can, now, before he brings his men to search.”

Tom shook his head. “Move it where? The village is starving, the fields are fallow, and Hugh’s men could arrive at any hour. We need time.”

“Time is the one thing we don’t have.”

From the manor house, a door slammed. Footsteps crunched across the yard, and a voice called out—not Father Ambrose’s, but younger, sharper. Tom recognized it with a jolt: Wat, the village boy he’d taught to read ledgers, the lad who’d carried messages between the warehouse and the fields.

“Master Ashwick!” Wat’s voice cracked with urgency. “Master Ashwick, if you’re out here, you must come now! The priest has a warrant from the bishop—he says you’re to be taken to London for trial. And Sir Hugh, he’s been sighted on the Norwich road, half a day’s ride at most. He’s brought forty men.”

Tom closed his eyes. The King’s promise to hang Hugh for treason meant nothing if the bishop’s men took him first. And Hugh, desperate and cornered, would burn the barn to the ground to destroy the evidence.

“Wat,” Tom called softly. “Over here.”

The boy darted across the yard, his thin face pale with fear. “Master Ashwick, there’s more. The priest—he’s got the reeve. Baldric. He’s locked him in the tithe barn and says he’ll hang him for heresy if you don’t surrender by dawn.”

Joan’s breath caught. “Baldric. He was loyal to us.”

“He’s loyal to the land,” Tom said. “That’s why they’ll kill him.”

He looked at the barn behind him, at the false wall that hid a miracle—and a curse. The seed could feed a kingdom. The ploughshares could break the stubborn English soil. The books could mend the sick and heal the wounded. But none of it would matter if he was dead, and Baldric with him, and Joan hunted through the marshes like a witch.

“We need the King’s men,” Tom said. “We need proof that the royal commission is real, that Edward himself sent us.”

“We have the writ,” Joan said. “In your satchel. The one with the King’s seal.”

Tom’s hand went to his belt. The satchel was still there, heavy with wax and parchment, the King’s golden seal gleaming dully in the firelight from the manor. He had carried it across half of England, through snow and flood and the bishop’s traps. It had been his shield against the Church, his promise of home.

But a writ was only paper. And Father Ambrose had a rope.

“Wat,” Tom said, his voice low and urgent. “Can you get to the village? Find the smith, find the miller—any man who still owes his life to the seed we planted last autumn. Tell them the King has made me his steward. Tell them I have a writ with the royal seal. And tell them that if they want to eat this winter, they’ll stand with me against the priest.”

Wat’s eyes went wide. “Against the bishop? Master Ashwick, they’ll burn us all.”

“They’ll burn us anyway,” Tom said. “The bishop doesn’t care about heresy. He cares about the grain we grow without his blessing, the cattle we heal without his saints, the tithes we stop paying to his coffers. If we cower, we die. If we stand, we might live.”

Joan stepped forward, her hand on Tom’s arm. “And Hugh? He’ll be here by noon.”

Tom looked past the manor, past the bare fields, to the dark line of the horizon where the Norwich road ran. Somewhere out there, Sir Hugh de Lacy was riding with forty men, burning with the fury of a man who had lost everything to a warehouse clerk and a widow.

“Then we’ll have a reckoning before noon,” Tom said. “One way or another.”

He turned to the barn, to the false wall, to the dying lights within. The battery had hours left, maybe less. But the seed, the tools, the books—those were his arsenal. And he would spend them all, every last grain, every last page, before he let the Church or the lord take what he had built.

“Wat,” he said. “Go. Bring the village. And tell them to bring their torches.”

The boy hesitated, then nodded and vanished into the dark.

Tom looked at Joan. “We have one night. Maybe less.”

“Then we use it,” she said.

She took his hand, and together they walked toward the barn, toward the false wall, toward the miracle that had brought them here—and might yet save them all.