Read Chapter 13: Confrontation at the Mill

The rope rasped against the beam as Thomas dropped from the rafters, landing hard on the packed earth between Roger and the French knight. Dust billowed. Roger’s hand flew to his sword hilt, but Thomas already had Greyhill’s knife out, the blade catching the dim lantern light.

“It’s over,” Thomas said. His voice was steadier than he felt. “I heard everything. The arrows, the gate, the signal.”

Roger’s face twisted from shock to something like amusement. He drew his sword, the steel singing from the scabbard. “You think a bowman can stop a squire of the Duke’s household?”

“I think you’re no more a squire than I’m the King of France.” Thomas circled left, keeping the mill’s grinding stone at his back. “You’re a paid liar with a dead father’s grudge. And the price of your grief is English blood.”

Roger lunged. Thomas sidestepped, caught Roger’s wrist with his free hand, and drove his heel into the man’s knee. Roger buckled with a grunt. The sword dropped. Thomas kicked it into the shadows.

Behind them, Jean moved. Thomas spun—too late. The Frenchman’s fist connected with his jaw, snapping his head sideways. Stars burst. He tasted copper. Jean was already at the door, and his eyes met Thomas’s for one cold moment before he vanished into the predawn dark.

“You let him go,” Thomas muttered, wiping blood from his lip.

Roger laughed, still on his knees. “He’ll reach the French lines before you can raise a shout. You’ve bought nothing but a shorter life, archer.”

Thomas grabbed Roger’s collar and hauled him up. “Then you’ll hang with me.”

Bootsteps thundered outside. A dozen of them.

“Too late to run,” Roger hissed.

Thomas shoved him against the wall and pressed the knife to his throat. “One word and you die before they break the door.”

Roger’s grin didn’t waver. “You won’t. You need me alive to prove your fairy tale.”

The door burst open. Captain Ashworth stood framed against the grey sky, a dozen men at his back, torches flaring. The Duke of York’s guard filled the mill with steel and heat.

Ashworth’s eyes swept the room. They passed over Thomas and settled on Roger pinned against the wall. “Drop the knife, archer. You’re under arrest.”

“Under arrest?” Thomas’s blade didn’t move. “This man is the saboteur. The French knight just fled through that door. I have a cache of spoiled arrows, a French knife, the bill of lading—I have everything you need.”

“You have nothing but a bowman’s raving.” Ashworth stepped forward, hand on his sword. “You were seen leaving the Duke’s presence in anger. Men speak of you skulking through the camp. You find excuses to abandon your post. And now you hold a knife to the throat of a household squire.”

“He’s not a squire. He’s an impostor. His name isn’t Roger—it’s something else, I don’t know what, but Greyhill’s ring—"

Roger laughed again. The sound was wet, broken. “We are not the only ones.”

Thomas went cold.

Captain Ashworth smiled. It was a thin, knowing smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He raised a hand, and his glove caught the torchlight.

Three silver threads. Stitched neat and deliberate at the wrist. The same mark Thomas had seen on Will’s pack. On the bill of lading. On the arrow shafts.

Ashworth.

“Seize him,” the captain said.

Men surged forward. Thomas moved on instinct—dropped Roger, slammed his shoulder into Ashworth’s chest, sending the captain stumbling backward into his own guard. The knife came up. He slashed wide, kept them at bay for one heartbeat, two.

Then he ran.

Not for the door—too many men blocked it. He vaulted onto the mill’s wooden hopper, caught the overhead beam, and swung. His boots kicked a torch from a guard’s hand. Embers scattered. Men shouted. The night air hit his face as he crashed through a side shutter and rolled onto the grass.

Behind him, shouts. Orders. Someone loosed an arrow—it thudded into the timber inches from his head.

Thomas ran. Not to his tent. Not to the camp. He ran east, away from the first light breaking over the treeline, toward the marsh where the pigs were penned and no soldier would think to search. His breath burned. His jaw ached where Jean had struck him. And in his chest, the cold certainty that the conspiracy ran deeper than one dead boy’s grudge.

Ashworth wore the mark. The captain of the Duke’s own guard. The man who had orchestrated everything, protected Roger, silenced witnesses.

And Thomas had shown him his face.

He crashed into the pigsty fence, fell over it, and landed in the muck. He stayed there, pressed flat against the earth. The stench of swine and rot filled his nostrils. Footsteps pounded past on the path above, but they didn’t stop. They didn’t turn.

Thomas lay in the filth until the sounds faded.

Then he looked at his hands. They were shaking. The knife was still in his fist, Greyhill’s ring beside it on his finger—the weight of it suddenly heavier. Ashworth would purge the camp. He’d hunt Thomas down before dawn. And the attack—the eastern gate—the signal—Ashworth would let it happen.

Thomas pressed his back against the sty wall and watched the first true light climb over the horizon.

The army marched within the hour.

And the man who could stop the slaughter was hiding in a pigpen.