The Reeve's Court at Blackthorn Hall

• Chapter 1 The Locked Solar
• Chapter 2 A Steward's Final Ledger
• Chapter 3 The Reeve’s Oath
• Chapter 4 Blood on the Tallow
• Chapter 5 The Bailiff’s Suspicion
• Chapter 6 Whispers in the Great Hall
• Chapter 7 The Miller’s Toll
• Chapter 8 Keys to the Butteries
• Chapter 9 The Alewife’s Secret
• Chapter 10 Iron and Ash
• Chapter 11 The Groom’s Omission
• Chapter 12 Shadows Over the Court Leet
• Chapter 13 The Hayward’s Discovery
• Chapter 14 A Poisoned Vintage
• Chapter 15 The Falconer’s Perch
• Chapter 16 The Scullery Girl’s Tale
• Chapter 17 The Parson’s Penance
• Chapter 18 Broken Seals
• Chapter 19 The Blacksmith’s Alibi
• Chapter 20 Beneath the Solar Floorboards
• Chapter 21 The Royal Summons
• Chapter 22 A Confession in the Barn
• Chapter 23 The Bailiff's Reckoning
• Chapter 24 The Approaching Justices
• Chapter 25 Judgment at the Manor Gate
• Chapter 26 The New Ledger

The frost on the cobbles of Blackthorn Hall had not yet melted when Thomas the Reeve found himself standing outside the heavy oak door of the steward’s solar, holding a wooden trencher of cold mutton and a tankard of small beer that was fast losing its chill. It was early November in the year of our Lord 1377, and the air inside the manor house smelled of wet wool, old tallow, and the acrid tang of woodsmoke that refused to rise through the louvers in the Great Hall.

Thomas knocked again, harder this time, using the wooden heel of his boot against the lower planking.

"Master Masterton," Thomas called out, his voice echoing down the narrow stone stairwell that led to the upper solar. "The morning bell has rung. The tenants are already gathering at the tithe barn for the barley count, and the bailiff demands the ledger for the Michaelmas tallies."

Silence returned, thick and unyielding. Master Masterton, a man whose punctuality was as sharp and unforgiving as a winter wind, had never once missed the morning bell in his twenty years of service to the late Lord de Bohun. The steward lived by the parchment and died by the inkhorn; his whole life was measured out in bushels of wheat, quarters of oats, and the exact number of fleeces shorn from the manor’s flock.

"He's likely asleep, Thomas," said Gilbert the Bailiff, appearing at the foot of the stair with his heavy iron-bound ledger tucked under one arm and his keys jingling at his belt. Gilbert was a tall, angular man with a nose like a hawk's beak and a persistent scowl born of thirty years spent squeezing arrears out of reluctant villeins. "The old fool was up past midnight arguing over the lord’s debt to the mercer in London. He was drinking that heavy red wine from Gascony."

"The door is iron-bolted from the inside, Gilbert," Thomas said softly, setting the trencher down on the top step. He leaned his ear against the gap between the oak frame and the stone lintel. "And there is a smell."

"The wine, no doubt."

"No," Thomas replied, turning his weathered face toward the bailiff. "Not wine. Tallow, burnt out to the socket. And something else. The smell of a man's belly when the breath leaves it."

Gilbert stopped his ascent, his eyes narrowing. "Do not speak such folly. If Masterton is dead without a priest, the bishop’s man will be sniffing around before the week is out. And worse—if the lord's estate is tied up in a death without cause, the King’s Escheator will seize the manor before the body is cold in the churchyard. You know the law, Thomas. A sudden death without a clear mark brings the crown's men."

"Then we had best see for ourselves," Thomas said.

He stepped back and looked at the door. It was solid English oak, three inches thick, reinforced with iron straps forged fifty years ago by the current blacksmith’s grandfather. The lock was a massive box of wrought iron, forged to keep out rowdy mercenaries during the late king's wars. More importantly, the heavy iron bolt on the inner face of the door was visible through the thin crack in the timber—thrown fully into its stone keeper.

"Fetch young Wat from the carpenter's shop," Thomas commanded. "Bring his heavy iron bar and the broadax. We aren't turning this key, Gilbert. The bolt is shot from within."

Ten minutes later, the quiet of the manor was shattered by the rhythmic, splintering crunch of iron against seasoned oak. Wat, a broad-shouldered lad whose father was the manor's chief carpenter, sweated into his linen tunic as he levered the crowbar between the door jamb and the frame. Wood groaned, iron straps shrieked, and with a final, violent crack that sent splinters flying across the stone landing, the heavy door sagged inward, hanging by a single twisted hinge.

Thomas was the first to step across the threshold, stepping carefully over the ruined door frame. Gilbert followed closely behind, his hand resting on the pommel of his small hunting dagger, while Wat lingered at the door, wiping his brow with a greasy sleeve.

,The solar was small, cold, and lit only by the pale morning light filtering through two narrow, leaded windowpanes. The room was sealed tight against the autumn chill; both window shutters were pegged securely from the inside with oak pins. The hearth was cold, containing only a heap of gray ash and the charred remnants of a single willow log.

Master Masterton sat upright in his high-backed oak chair behind his writing desk.

His head was thrown back at an unnatural angle, his throat exposed, and his lips drawn back from his yellow teeth in a silent mask of agony. His skin was a dull, mottling gray, blotched with dark purple along his neck and jaw. His right hand still clutched a goose-quill pen so tightly that the shaft had snapped between his stiff fingers. On the desk before him lay a heavy, brass-bound ledger, its pages open to the accounts for the winter fold, splashed with a dark, dried drop of black ink that had bled through the calfskin parchment.

"Sweet Mother of God," whispered Gilbert, crossing himself hastily. "Is it the pestilence?"

"No," Thomas said, advancing slowly to the desk. He was a practical man, a reeve chosen by his fellow villeins and confirmed by the lord because he noticed things others missed—the rot in a hay-rick, the slight turn of an ox’s hoof, or the missing dozen eggs in a tenant’s rent basket. He did not touch the body, but he leaned close enough to see the details. "There are no buboes under his jaw, nor on his neck. Look at his eyes, Gilbert. The whites are flecked with red, like broken thread."

"He choked," Wat offered from the doorway, his voice trembling. "On a bit of salt pork, maybe?"

"There is no meat here," Thomas noted. He pointed to the small side table. A pewter pitcher sat beside a single silver goblet. The goblet was overturned, its contents dried into a dark, sticky ring on the polished wood. "He had his night-cup. Gascon wine, as you said."

Gilbert moved toward the desk, reaching out a long arm toward the brass-bound ledger. "If he is gone, I must take charge of the rolls. The accounts—"

"Touch nothing!" Thomas barked, his voice carrying an authority that made the taller bailiff freeze in his tracks. "Look at the door we just broke, Gilbert. Look at the windows."

Gilbert blinked, looking around the room as if seeing it for the first time. "The pins are in the shutters. The inner bolt was shot. Wat had to split three inches of heart-oak to move it."

"Exactly," Thomas said. He walked to the windows, testing each shutter with his thumb. The wooden pegs were firmly wedged into the stone frames, gray with cobwebs that had not been disturbed for months. "No man could have left this room through these windows without dropping forty feet into the moat, and no man could have pegged these shutters from the outside. The chimney is barely wide enough for a rat, and the hearth is cold."

"Then how did he die?" Gilbert asked, his face pale. "A stroke of the judgment of God?"

"Perhaps," Thomas said quietly, though his eyes lingered on the overturned goblet and the faint, bitter smell that lingered in the cold room—a sharp, almond-like scent that fought against the odor of tallow and dead flesh. "Or perhaps someone gave God a helping hand."

"Do not speak such treasons," Gilbert snapped, though he pulled his hand back from the desk entirely. "If this is murder, it is a felony. A felony in a locked room means the entire vill will be fined by the itinerant justices. The manor's liberties will be suspended! Lord de Bohun is away in France with the King's army, and his son is a soft lad in London who knows more about silk doublets than court rolls. If the King’s Sheriff gets word of this before we have an answer, he will place Blackthorn Hall under wardship. He'll strip the barns clean to pay for his inquiry."

Thomas looked down at the dead steward. Masterton had been a hard man, unloved by the villeins, distrusted by the gentry, and feared by the manor servants. He had recalculated the labor services three years ago, forcing the cottars to work an extra day a week during the harvest. He had audited the miller’s toll down to the quarter-ounce and had threatened old Agnes the alewife with the cucking-stool for diluting her brew. There was not a soul within three miles of Blackthorn Hall who had not wished the man dead at least once during the last frost.

"The justices are at Rochester," Thomas said softly, calculating the days in his head. "They move to the hundred court at Sevenoaks by Saint Martin's Day. That gives us less than a fortnight before the Sheriff’s men ride through our gates."

"Two weeks?" Gilbert sneered. "Two weeks to explain how a man dies behind a bolted oak door with no mark of steel upon him? We are reeve and bailiff, Thomas, not sorcerers."

"We are the men who run this manor," Thomas corrected him, leaning down to inspect the floorboards around the desk. They were heavy planks of pine, tight-fitting and swept clean of dust. "And if we do not find the truth of this before the crown's men arrive, the Sheriff will hang two or three of our boys just to clear his docket, and the estate will be ruined by royal fines."

He stood up, his knees popping in the quiet room. He looked at Wat, who was still hovering by the splintered doorway.

"Wat," Thomas said firmly. "Go to the kitchen. Tell the cook that Master Masterton has taken ill with a heavy congestion of the lungs and is not to be disturbed. Tell no one—not your father, not your sister, not the scullery maids—that we broke this door."

"And the door, Thomas?" Wat asked, pointing his thick thumb at the ruined timber.

"You will stay here," Thomas instructed. "Bring your tools up under the cover of a sack. You will repair the frame from the inside as best you can, so that it looks whole to anyone walking down the corridor. But do not touch anything on that desk. If a single sheet of parchment moves, I will have you in the stocks before vespers."

Wat nodded hastily, eager to be off, and hurried down the winding stairs.

Left alone with the corpse and the bailiff, Thomas walked slowly around the writing table. Masterton’s cloak hung on a wooden peg near the wall, heavy wool lined with squirrel fur—a luxury far above his station, though no one had dared question where the coin came from. Beside it sat his travel boots, polished with fat and dried mud from his trip to the parish church three days ago.

"Look here," Thomas said, pointing with his chin toward the waste-basket beside the desk.

Gilbert leaned over, squinting. Inside the woven wicker basket lay several scraps of shaved parchment and three discarded quill feathertips. But beneath them was a small piece of red sealing wax, crushed flat as if someone had stepped on it with a heavy boot.

"He was opening a letter," Gilbert observed. "Or sealing one."

"The lord's seal is blue," Thomas noted plainly. "The steward's own seal is green, with the mark of the sheaves. This wax is red."

"The mercer in London uses red wax," Gilbert said quickly. "I told you, they were arguing over debts."

"The mercer's wax is cheap rosin," Thomas said, reaching down with a clean linen cloth from his pocket to pick up the fragment without touching it with his fingers. He held it up to the dim light from the leaded window. "This is fine Spanish wax, mixed with vermilion. It belongs to someone who can afford to spend five shillings on an ounce of gum. Not a merchant trying to collect twelve pence for coarse cloth."

"You are looking for shadows in the dark, Thomas," Gilbert grumbled, though his eyes followed the red scrap with obvious unease. "The man had a fit. His blood rose, his heart burst, he fell upon his desk and knocked his wine over. It happens to old men who drink too much and eat too much salt beef."

"And the bit of almond in the air?" Thomas asked, turning his gray eyes onto the bailiff. "Does salt beef smell of crushed plum-stones, Gilbert?"

The bailiff did not answer. Down in the courtyard below, the manor bell began to toll again—not the sharp morning alarm, but the steady, dull rhythm that called the demesne laborers to their fields. The day’s work was beginning, regardless of the dead man sitting in the solar above.

"We have to clear the Great Hall," Thomas said, setting the linen-wrapped piece of wax on the windowsill. "The court leet was summoned for tomorrow noon. If Masterton isn't there to hear the tenant defaults, people will ask questions. We must hold the court ourselves."

"You and I?" Gilbert looked aghast. "The bailiff and the reeve? Without the steward to confirm the fines?"

"If we wait for the Sheriff to confirm them, we won't have a manor left to manage," Thomas said grimly. He turned back toward the corpse, staring at the stiffened fingers clutching the broken quill. "Masterton kept everything in his head or in his ledgers. If his ledger is here, then the truth of why he died is in this room with him. We just need to learn how to read it."

"And the body?" Gilbert asked, gesturing nervously toward the chair. "We cannot leave him here to rot while Wat mends the hinges. By tomorrow he will stink out the whole upper floor."

Thomas looked around the cold, tight room. "The cellar beneath the buttery is cold enough to keep mutton fresh for a fortnight. Tonight, when the hall is empty and the fires are out, you and I will carry him down. We will lay him in the ice-pit behind the beer casks. If anyone asks, the steward is riding the western bounds to check on the sheep-dip."

"That is a dangerous lie, Thomas," Gilbert warned, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "If the parson finds out we are keeping an unburied Christian in a cold-cellar, he'll excommunicate the pair of us."

"The parson owes three years of back-tithes on his glebe land," Thomas replied dryly, walking toward the damaged doorway. "He won't ask too many questions so long as we don't audit his oats. Now, come along, Gilbert. We have two hundred head of sheep to count at the lower fold, and I intend to make sure every one of them is marked before nightfall."

They stepped out onto the narrow stairwell, leaving the dead steward sitting alone in his locked room, surrounded by his tallies, his parchment, and the cold shadow of a secret that had sealed his door from within.

The tithe barn smelled of dry husks, damp straw, and the sour tang of thirty men crowded together in wool turned heavy by autumn mist. Outside, the rain had begun—a miserable, needle-sharp drizzle that turned the track between the lower fold and the Great Hall into a gutter of liquid clay.

Thomas sat on an overturned grain measure, a thick oak plank balanced across his knees to serve as a makeshift desk. Beside him, Gilbert paced back and forth, his long leather scabbard slapping rhythmically against his thigh. On the far side of the barn floor, three villeins lifted heavy hemp sacks of barley onto the beam-scales, while the manor's sworn sworn-men called out the weights.

"Twelve bushels for Martin of the Mill," roared Hugh the Hayward, wiping his greasy red nose on his sleeve. "Two lost to smut, half a bushel taken for the lord's multure."

Thomas dipped his quill into a horn of lampblack and nut-gall ink, his calloused fingers clumsy with the cold. He made a neat, square mark beside Martin’s name on the sheepskin parchment he had taken from the solar’s outer chest. It was routine work, the kind of labor Masterton had overseen with a cruel, mathematical joy for two decades. But Masterton was currently stiffening in his high-backed chair forty yards away, behind a splintered oak door that young Wat was presently trying to glue and wedge back into respectability.

"You're making the tallies too light, Thomas," Gilbert hissed, stopping behind the reeve’s shoulder. He lowered his voice so the threshers couldn't hear. "Masterton had Martin down for fifteen bushels arrears from the summer boon-work. If you let him off with twelve, the total won't match the summary roll."

"Martin’s second son died of the sweating sickness in August," Thomas said without looking up from the parchment. "He lost three weeks of labor on the demesne because he was digging graves. Masterton knew it, but he put the fifteen bushels down anyway to make his Michaelmas balance look clean for the lord's receiver."

"The lord's receiver doesn't care about dead boys, Thomas. He cares about bushels."

"The lord's receiver isn't here," Thomas said dryly. "The barley is."

He waved the next tenant forward—a lean, stooped man named Sim who farmed half a virgate of poor stone-croft on the western edge of the parish. Sim dragged a single, half-empty sack across the floor. His boots were wrapped in greasy strips of linen instead of leather, and his tunic was patched with three different shades of coarse russet.

"What is this, Sim?" Gilbert demanded, stepping forward and prodding the sack with the toe of his boot. "This isn't four bushels. It isn't even two."

"The frost got the late sowing, Master Bailiff," Sim stammered, pulling his felt cap off and clutching it to his chest with knotty, ink-stained fingers. "And the rot took the pit behind the cottage. Master Masterton said—he said if I brought what I had, he'd let the rest lie over till the Martinmas fair."

Gilbert snorted. "Masterton never let a debt lie over in his life. He would have taken your iron kettle and your wife's brass ring before he let you leave this barn short by a single peck."

"He did!" Sim insisted, his voice rising into a cracked whine that drew the eyes of the other threshers. "I was in his solar two nights ago! I brought him the two silver pennies I earned from the blacksmith for charcoal-burning, and he wrote it down! He locked the tally in his little box!"

Thomas paused, his quill hovering a thumb’s breadth above the vellum. "Two nights ago? At what hour, Sim?"

"Past the bell for compline, Master Reeve. The rain was coming down just like now. I saw the light in his window, so I came up the outer stair. He was angry—he's always angry—but he took the two pennies. He dropped them into the small iron chest he keeps under the window-seat."

"Was he alone?" Thomas asked softly.

Sim looked around nervously, catching the sharp glint in Gilbert's eye. "He... he was, when I went in. But there was someone waiting on the stair landing when I came down. In the dark, near the turn."

"Who?" Gilbert snapped, leaning down until his beak-like nose was inches from the tenant's face. "Speak up, man, or I'll have the hayward put you in the pillory for withholding rent."

"I don't know!" Sim squeaked, shrinking back. "It was a big man, wrapped in a gray cloak. A fine cloak, like the ones the wool-staplers wear when they ride through from Tunbridge. He had a dog with him—a long, skinny hound that didn't bark, just growled in its belly."

Thomas stared at the tenant for a long moment. There were only three men within five miles who owned a long-legged coursing hound. One was the rector, Father Anselm, whose dog was white and old enough to be blind in one eye. The second was Sir Richard of the Marsh, a knight who owed three hundred pounds to the Jews of London and spent his days hunting down his neighbors' deer. The third was Masterton himself—though his hound was a cur that spent its time sleeping by the kitchen spit.

"Did this man in the gray cloak speak to you?" Thomas asked.

"No, Master Reeve. He just stood in the shadows by the stair-head, waiting for me to pass. He smelled of horse-sweat and sweet fat. Like... like fried dough."

"Go on back to your croft, Sim," Thomas said, making a quick, light notch on a hazel tally-stick and tossing it into the collection basket. "Bring the rest of the barley by the feast of St. Jude, or Gilbert will have your kettle after all."

predictable as clockwork, Sim scuttled out of the barn into the rain, muttering blessings that sounded remarkably like curses.

Gilbert spat into the straw. "You're soft, Thomas. The whole manor knows you're soft. If Masterton were here—"

"—Masterton is sitting in a chair with his tongue black and his eyes full of blood," Thomas interrupted, rising from the grain measure and picking up his small wooden writing case. "And if he was talking to men in gray cloaks late at night, he was doing things that aren't recorded in the lord's summary rolls."

"We should check the iron box," Gilbert muttered, looking back toward the manor house. " If Sim gave him two silver pennies, they ought to be in that chest. Along with the rest of the bailiff's collection."

"The chest is in the solar," Thomas said. "And the solar is currently being mended by a boy who can't keep a secret from his own mother if she offers him a mug of cider. We wait until the yard clears for the noon meal."

They walked back toward the main house together, their heads bowed against the driven rain. Blackthorn Hall was an old building, built half of ragstone and half of ancient timber that had turned black as pitch under a century of smoke and wet winters. It sat low in the valley, hugging the earth as if trying to hide from the cold winds that blew off the Weald.

In the lower courtyard, two grooms were hauling fresh bracken into the stables, while old Maud the poultry-woman was furiously chasing a goose that had broken into the kitchen garden. Everything appeared normal, the dull, relentless machinery of a medieval estate turning over as it had done since the time of the Conqueror. Yet beneath the noise of clattering pots and squawking fowls lay a silence that pressed heavily on Thomas’s mind.

They climbed the stone stairs to the upper solar. Outside the door, Wat was sitting on a three-legged stool, his wooden mallet resting between his knees. He looked up with a start, his eyes wide with relief.

"It's done, Thomas," the boy whispered, pointing at the timber. "I set two iron oak-pins into the inner frame and filled the split with dark pitch and resin. If you don't push hard against the middle rail, it looks as stout as it did at Michaelmas."

"Good lad," Thomas said, slipping a small bronze farthing into the carpenter's palm. "Now go down to the kitchen and get your porridge. And remember—if your tongue wags, I'll see that your father gives you three days on the ditching detail."

Wat scampered off down the stairs, his heavy work-boots clicking on the damp flags.

Thomas turned the heavy iron key in the lock. The bolt slid back with a stiff, rusty groan that seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet landing. He pushed the door open just enough for him and Gilbert to slip inside, then pulled it shut behind them.

The solar had grown colder during their two hours in the tithe barn. The dead steward had not moved, though the color of his face had deepened into a dull, bruised slate. A single bluebottle fly, sluggish from the autumn chill, buzzed weakly around the pewter pitcher on the side table before settling on the dark, dried stain of wine.

Thomas went straight to the window-seat—a low oak bench built directly into the thickness of the stone wall. Beneath the hinged seat lay a small iron-bound box, about the size of a loaf of bread, fitted with two heavy padlocks.

"Masterton kept the keys on his girdle," Gilbert said, pointing to the leather belt that encircled the corpse's waist.

Thomas approached the desk with reluctance. Leaning over the dead man, he unhooked the brass ring of keys that hung from the brass buckle. The metal was cold to the touch, sticky with a faint film of sweat that had dried hours ago. As he lifted the ring, his thumb brushed against Masterton’s sleeve. The dark wool of his cuff was stiff, stained with something yellow and crusty that smelled faint and rank—like dried egg yolk mixed with vinegar.

"What is it?" Gilbert asked from the window.

"Nothing," Thomas said, though he pulled out a small iron knife from his own sheath and carefully scraped a tiny flake of the dried yellow substance off the steward’s cuff, wrapping it in a corner of his spare parchment. "Just another mark."

He walked over to the window-seat, fitted the smaller of the brass keys into the left-hand lock, and turned it. The tumbler gave a clean clack. The second lock was larger, forged from dark iron, requiring a long, thin-bit key that took three tries to align with the ward.

The lid of the chest creaked open.

Inside lay three neat stacks of silver pennies, bound in horsehair strings; four rolls of small parchment tied with greasy green string; a horn inkwell; and a small leather bag that clinked when Thomas moved it. But what caught Thomas’s eye was not the silver or the tallies.

It was a flat, wooden box made of polished walnut, sitting right at the bottom of the chest. It had no lock, only a slide-top sealed with a lump of that same red Spanish wax he had found in the wicker basket.

"Is that the mercer’s money?" Gilbert asked, crowding close and reaching into the chest with his long, thin fingers.

"No," Thomas said, striking Gilbert’s fingers away with the back of his hand. "Look at the seal."

The wax on the walnut box was whole. Pressed into the bright red surface was the impression of a ring: a shield bearing three bent bars and a small bird—a martlet—in the upper corner.

Gilbert sucked in a breath through his teeth. "That’s not the lord’s mark. And it isn’t the mercer’s."

"It's the mark of Sir John de Clares," Thomas said, his voice dropping an octave. "The King's Justice for the Eastern Hundred."

The two men stood in the freezing solar, staring at the little walnut box. Sir John was the man who would be arriving at Sevenoaks in nine days' time to preside over the royal court. He was the man whose job it was to inquire into royal forfeitures, murder fines, and the debts owed to the King’s Treasury.

"Why would Masterton have the Justice’s private seal in his box?" Gilbert whispered, his face growing even paler than it had been when they first found the body.

"He didn't have the seal," Thomas corrected him, using his thumbnail to split the red wax along the seam of the wooden slide-top. "He had a letter from the Justice. Or perhaps... he was about to send one."

He slid the walnut top open. Inside lay a single sheet of fine, white parchment—not the coarse domestic sheepskin used for local manor rolls, but calfskin vellum imported from France, smooth as cream and thin as a leaf.

The writing was in a small, cramped court hand, written in iron-gall ink that still retained a dark, purple-black lustre.

Thomas could read plain manor Latin and English well enough—he had been trained by the old monk at the chapel before the great mortality cleared out half the priory—but court Latin was full of contractions and legal jargon that turned simple sentences into webs of razor wire.

He held the parchment to the narrow window pane, squinting at the lines.

"...concerning the true value of the manor of Blackthorn..." Thomas read slowly, his tongue stumbling over the long legal words. "...and the hidden arrears of the knight's fee... wherefore the crown may enter upon the lands... by reason of fraud in the Michaelmas tallies..."

"Fraud?" Gilbert gasped. "What fraud? I've kept the tallies myself for seven years! Every sheep is counted, every bushell of wheat is marked!"

"Read the rest," Thomas said, his finger moving down the page to a list of names written at the bottom.

The names were not in court Latin. They were written in clear, heavy English script, each one accompanied by a sum of money marked in Roman numerals.

Gilbert the Bailiff — xii pounds, iv shillings. Father Anselm — viii pounds. Hugh the Hayward — iii pounds, x shillings. Thomas the Reeve — vi pounds.

Thomas stopped. He stared at his own name, written in Masterton’s precise, razor-sharp hand, with the sum of six pounds set against it.

Six pounds. It was more money than a reeve could earn in five years of honorable service. It was enough to buy a dozen oxen, or pay the fine for three virgates of land, or buy a man’s way out of a hanging.

"He was listing us," Gilbert said, his voice trembling with a sudden, ugly rage. "The bastard was making a list of debts that don't exist! He was going to give this to Sir John at the hundred court!"

"No," Thomas said, his gray eyes fixed on the ink. "Look at the paper, Gilbert. The Justice's seal was on the box, but the writing inside isn't the Justice's. It's Masterton’s hand. He was writing a confession—or an accusation. He was telling the King's men that the entire officers of this manor have been stealing from the lord’s estate."

"That’s a lie!" Gilbert shouted, then quickly caught himself, looking toward the door. "I haven't taken a farthing that wasn't my due by custom! I take my three sheaves from every acre of rye, just as my father did!"

"It doesn't matter what custom says if the King’s Escheator reads this paper," Thomas said quietly. "If the King thinks the manor is being ruined by corrupt officers while the lord is away in France, he won't wait for Lord de Bohun to return. He will seize the Hall, take all the livestock into royal custody, and put every officer into the castle dungeon at Rochester until the arrears are paid."

"And the six pounds beside your name?" Gilbert asked, his eyes narrowing into two dark slits. "Where did Masterton get that number, Thomas? Did you take six pounds from the sheep-sale at Maidstone last midsummer?"

Thomas looked at the bailiff with a cold, steady gaze that made the taller man shift his feet. "I took two shillings for my expenses and four pence for the boy who drove the flock. Every penny was written in the little book I showed you in August."

"Then Masterton was lying," Gilbert said.

"Or," Thomas said, turning the parchment over to look at the blank back, "Masterton was using this list to keep us all under his thumb. If we didn't do as he wanted, he had only to drop this box into Sir John’s hands at Sevenoaks, and every one of us would be ruined."

He looked back at the dead steward. Masterton sat there still, his chin tucked into his collar, his sightless red-flecked eyes staring down at the empty spot on his desk where the leather-bound ledger had lain.

"The main ledger," Thomas said suddenly.

"What about it?"

"It’s open to the winter fold accounts," Thomas said, moving back to the desk. "But the pages we saw this morning— look at them now."

He pointed to the large calfskin book. The heavy brass clasp was open, but the top three leaves had been cut out with a sharp blade. The inner margins showed only three thin strips of white skin, jagged and fresh, where the pages had been severed close to the spine.

Gilbert leaned over the table, his breath whistling through his nose. "Someone took the tallies for the winter fold?"

"Not just the fold," Thomas said, examining the stub of the missing leaves. "The Michaelmas summary. The main count that shows how much coin was sent to London, and how much was kept here in the manor chest."

"When were those pages cut?" Gilbert asked. "Wat broke the door open at eight of the clock. We've been in the solar or the barn ever since."

"They were cut before we broke the door," Thomas said. He pointed to a single drop of dried black ink that sat half on the parchment stub and half on the wood of the desk beneath. "The ink was wet when the knife went through. Masterton was writing his summary when someone took a blade to his book."

"While he was alive?"

"Or while he was dying," Thomas said. He set the walnut box back into the iron chest, but he did not slide the top closed. Instead, he slipped the parchment sheet from the Justice into his own inner pocket, next to the small piece of dried yellow substance he had scraped from the steward's sleeve.

"We have to get him out of here tonight," Gilbert whispered, looking nervously at the shattered oak frame of the door. "If any of the servants see those cut pages, or if the parson hears about the Justice's letter..."

"We stick to the plan," Thomas said. "At midnight, when the hall fire is down to the coals, we carry him to the buttery cellar. We put him in the ice-pit behind the ale-casks."

"And then?"

"And then," Thomas said, looking down at his own small, calloused hands, "I go down to the blacksmith’s shop. I want to know who made the iron bit for that small long-key— power that opens Sir John's walnut box."

"The blacksmith didn't make that key, Thomas," Gilbert said softly. "Old Hob hasn't forged anything finer than an ox-shoe since his eyes went cloudy three winters ago."

Thomas paused, his hand on the key ring. "Then who made it?"

"The traveler," Gilbert said. "The stranger who stayed at the alehouse three nights back. The one who claimed he was a cutler from Tonbridge, but had three different file-tools wrapped in an oiled rag in his wallet."

Thomas stood still in the cold room. The pieces were beginning to move, but they were moving in the dark, like rats beneath the threshing floor. A dead steward, a locked room, a letter bearing a royal judge's seal, and a stranger with fine tools who had vanished into the wet woods before the morning bell.

"Go back to the Hall, Gilbert," Thomas said, locking the iron chest and slipping the keys into his own belt. "Make sure the servants think Masterton is still upstairs, coughing his heart out over his tallies. I have a word to say to Agnes the alewife before the afternoon light goes out."