Chapter 69: The Fire-Thrower’s Shadow

The dawn came grey and cold, the kind of light that seemed to bleed from the sky rather than break through it. Tom stood on the frozen cart track that led to Wykeham village, watching the eastern horizon as though he could will the sun to stay down.

Joan came up beside him, her breath pluming in the still air. She carried a leather cup of small ale and pressed it into his hands.

“You have not slept,” she said.

“Neither have you.”

“I was watching the river.” She nodded toward the water, where a thin mist clung to the banks. “A boat passed an hour ago. River folk. They said the roads are full of armed men moving east.”

Tom drank the ale. It was bitter and thin, but it warmed him. “Hugh is not subtle. Two hundred men cannot hide.”

“He does not mean to hide,” Joan said. “He means to burn.”

They walked back to the barn together. The false wall stood open, and inside the warehouse the lanterns cast their strange, steady glow. The battery was dying—Tom had seen it in the dimming of the lights, the way they flickered when he drew too much power. The seed, the ploughshares, the books, all sat in their crates, waiting for a miracle that might never come.

Baldric was already there, his scarred face grim in the half-light. He had ridden in from the village an hour before, his horse caked with mud.

“The reeve has moved the women and children into the church,” he said. “The men are digging a ditch across the eastern approach. It will not stop two hundred horsemen, but it will slow them.”

“How long until they are slowed?” Tom asked.

“An hour. Maybe less.” Baldric spat into the straw. “Hugh knows this land. He was born here. He will not come up the main road like a fool. He will cross the ford at the mill and come at us from the south.”

Tom turned to the warehouse. The steel ploughshares gleamed in the lantern light. The turnip seed sat in its canvas sacks, innocent and patient.

“We cannot fight two hundred men,” he said.

“No,” Baldric agreed. “But we do not have to fight them. We have to slow them until the King’s men arrive.”

“And if the King’s men do not arrive?”

Baldric said nothing.

Joan moved past them, into the warehouse. She ran her hand along the crates, her fingers tracing the strange, smooth surfaces of the modern world.

“What do we have that will burn?” she asked.

Tom frowned. “Everything.”

“No,” she said. “What do we have that will burn *slowly*? That will make smoke. That will blind them and choke them and turn the ford into a wall of fire?”

Tom looked at the crates. His mind, trained in logistics, began to work.

“The willow-bark tinctures,” he said slowly. “The alcohol base. It will burn fast, but it will make a hot flame. The seed sacks—canvas, dry. They will smoulder and smoke.”

“And the books?” Baldric asked.

Tom felt a stab of pain. “The books are paper and leather. They will burn, but they will also produce thick, dark smoke. The kind that stings the eyes and clings to the throat.”

Joan nodded. “Then we make a pyre at the ford. Not to stop them, but to blind them. To make them slow down, to make them fear what waits on the other side.”

“And while they fear,” Tom said, “we move the seed.”

Baldric looked at him sharply. “Move it where?”

“The lime kiln,” Tom said. “The one hidden in the copse, half a mile east. It is dry, it is hidden, and it is not on any map Hugh will have.”

Baldric’s eyes widened. “The kiln is old. It has not been used in years.”

“It does not need to be used,” Tom said. “It needs to be a hole in the ground where we can hide what matters.”

Joan was already moving, pulling the canvas sacks from their stacks. “Then we work quickly. The frost has broken, but the ground is still hard. We will need carts, oxen, and men who can keep their mouths shut.”

Tom turned to Baldric. “How many men in the village can we trust?”

“Trust with what?”

“With everything.”

Baldric was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Six. Maybe seven. The rest will talk, or they will run, or they will pray and hope the fire passes over them.”

“Then we take the six,” Tom said. “And we pray that the fire passes over us as well.”

They worked through the morning, moving crates and sacks to the hidden kiln. The oxen strained against the carts, their breath steaming in the cold air. Tom’s hands were raw by the time the sun climbed above the treeline, and his back ached with a deep, familiar pain.

Joan worked beside him, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, her face streaked with dirt. She did not complain, did not falter. She simply moved, crate by crate, sack by sack, until the warehouse was nearly empty.

By noon, the last of the seed was hidden. Tom stood at the mouth of the kiln, looking at the stacks of canvas and wood and steel that represented everything he had brought with him.

“We should burn the empty shelves,” he said quietly. “Make it look like we fled in panic, left everything behind.”

Baldric nodded. “And the barn?”

“Burn it too,” Tom said. “But not the false wall. Let them find it. Let them think they have won.”

Joan looked at him sharply. “And then?”

Tom turned to the east. The sky was clear now, a pale winter blue, and somewhere beyond the horizon, Hugh de Lacy was riding toward them with fire in his heart.

“And then,” Tom said, “we wait.”

They did not wait long.

The first sign was smoke, rising from the far side of the river. Then came the sound of hooves, a distant thunder that grew and grew until the ground itself seemed to shake.

Tom stood at the edge of the copse, watching the ford. The men of the village were hidden in the trees behind him, their faces pale, their hands clutching whatever weapons they had managed to find.

Hugh de Lacy came first, his banner snapping in the wind. He rode a black destrier, his armor gleaming dully in the winter light. Behind him came the men-at-arms, two hundred strong, their spears bristling like a moving forest.

At the ford, Hugh reined in. He looked at the barn, at the thin smoke rising from its roof, and he smiled.

“He burns his own works,” he called to his men. “The coward knows he cannot stand against us.”

Tom watched from the shadows. His heart was pounding, but his hands were steady.

Joan was beside him, her hand finding his.

“Now,” she whispered.

Tom nodded. He raised his hand, and a single torch dipped toward the ground.

The ford exploded into flame.

The willow-bark tinctures caught first, sending a sheet of blue-white fire across the water. The canvas sacks followed, thick black smoke rising in a column that blotted out the sun. The horses screamed and reared, and the men-at-arms broke rank, cursing and shouting as the smoke stung their eyes.

Hugh de Lacy’s voice rose above the chaos, sharp and furious.

“Forward! Ride through it!”

But his horse would not move. The animal reared and twisted, and Hugh was thrown from the saddle, landing hard in the mud.

Tom turned to Baldric. “Now. While they are blind.”

Baldric grinned, a savage, scarred grin.

“For Wykeham,” he said.

And the men of the village charged.

Tom did not join them. He stood at the edge of the copse, watching the chaos unfold, watching Hugh de Lacy struggle to his feet in the mud. And then, from the east, he heard a new sound.

Hooves. Many hooves. The thunder of a full company riding hard.

He turned, and there, on the ridge above the river, he saw the golden banner of Edward III unfurling in the wind.

The King’s men had arrived.

Tom looked back at the ford, where Hugh de Lacy was shouting orders through the smoke, and he felt a cold certainty settle in his chest.

The lord was not going to burn the barn.

He was going to burn England.

And Tom Ashwick was the only man who could stop him.