Read Chapter 7: The Merchant's Seal

The wax was the color of old blood.

Thomas knelt by the arrow cache—the third he had examined in the past hour—and pried the lump from where it had fallen between two quivers. The seal had been pressed into a letter that someone had torn open in haste and dropped. The wax had cracked along its edge, but the impression was clean: a pair of crossed keys beneath a merchant's mark he knew too well.

He turned the seal over in his fingers. The mark was a diamond divided into four quadrants, each holding a single dot. That was the sign of Jasper Voss, a Flemish trader who ran goods between Calais and the English camp like water through a sieve—selling arrows to the English one week and grain to the French the next. Everyone knew it. No one did anything about it because Voss was useful, and because he paid his bribes on time.

Thomas stood and brushed the dirt from his knees. The arrow cache sat between two supply wagons at the edge of the archers' muster line. Every company's front-line stock had been sabotaged. Every single one—but the pattern had always been the same. Someone had wanted to make certain the damage was done *before* the arrows reached the men who would carry them.

He pocketed the seal and walked toward the merchants' camp.

The merchants' quarter sprawled along the eastern edge of the English position, a makeshift town of canvas and carts that smelled of horses, wine, and unwashed money. The men here were not soldiers. They were contractors, camp followers with coin instead of loyalty, and they treated the coming battle as an inconvenience to their ledgers.

Voss's tent was easy to find. It was the largest in the row, its canvas dyed a deep blue and its entrance flap held open by iron rings. Two guards flanked the door—not soldiers but hired muscle carrying cudgels. They looked at Thomas the way men look at a stray dog before deciding whether to kick it.

Thomas didn't slow. He pulled Greyhill's signet ring from his finger and held it up as he approached. The seal caught the fading light. The guards exchanged a glance, then stepped aside.

Inside, the tent was cluttered with crates, bolts of cloth, and the smell of tallow. Jasper Voss sat behind a folding table, a ledger open before him and a quill in his hand. He was a thin man with a pointed beard and the restless eyes of a merchant who had learned that every conversation was a negotiation. He looked up when Thomas entered, and his smile did not reach his eyes.

"Archer," Voss said. "I don't do business with archers."

"You do," Thomas said. He placed the wax seal on the table between them. "You just did."

Voss's quill stopped moving. He looked at the seal, then at Thomas, and after a moment he set the quill down with deliberate care.

"That's a merchant's seal," he said. "There are a hundred in this camp."

"It's yours," Thomas said. "Jasper Voss. Crossed keys. Diamond mark. I found it near an arrow cache that someone's been tampering with."

Voss's mouth twitched. "Arrows, you say."

"Front-line stocks. Every company. The bowstrings are cut, the shafts are cracked, and the arrowheads are the wrong size." Thomas leaned forward, his palms flat on the table. "Someone has been paying good gold to see English archers march into Agincourt with nothing but empty hands. And your seal was on the paper that paid for it."

Voss laughed. It was a thin sound, like a dry leaf scraping across stone. "You think I sabotage the King's arrows? I sell arrows. Both sides. I sell to the English because the English pay. I sell to the French because the French pay. I do not care what happens to the arrows after the coin changes hands."

"Then who?"

Voss spread his hands. "Men come to me with orders. I fill them. I do not ask questions."

"Ask one now," Thomas said. "Who ordered the arrows?"

For a moment, Voss's composure flickered. His eyes darted to the tent wall, as if he expected someone to be listening. Then he wet his lips and leaned forward, dropping his voice.

"I shipped arrows from a warehouse in Calais," he said. "Someone in the English command requisitioned them. I did not ask why. I did not ask who. The order came with sealed letters and a warrant that bore the King's mark."

"The King's mark?"

Voss hesitated. Then he reached into his tunic and pulled out a folded document—a bill of lading, yellowed at the edges. He slid it across the table. "The warrant is gone. But I keep copies of everything. This is what was delivered. But it's not from Calais. That was a lie."

Thomas took the paper. "You just said it was from Calais."

"I said the order came from Calais. The arrows themselves came from elsewhere." Voss's voice dropped even lower. "Warehouse in Le Crotoy. On the French side of the river. The order was placed by a man who I have never seen, but I was told that he serves a certain patron."

"What patron?"

Voss shook his head. "If I tell you, I am dead. If I don't tell you, you will kill me now."

"I might."

"Yes." Voss laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it—only the sound of a man who had seen this exact moment and prepared for it badly. "But I will not be the one who dies. The arrows were ordered by the steward of a French nobleman. A minor title, but a wealthy house. He controls the land around the village where your King intends to fight tomorrow."

Thomas felt something cold settle in his stomach. "The Viscount of Agincourt."

Voss's eyes widened. "You know the name."

"I didn't," Thomas said. "I do now."

He looked at the bill of lading. The ink was fresh—the order had been placed only weeks ago, before the English army marched from Harfleur. The Viscount of Agincourt. A French nobleman who owned the very fields where the English were about to fight. The sabotage was not random, and it was not the warped scheme of a man like Greyhill's impostor squire.

It was French gold. French planning. The arrows had been cut and cracked not by any English deserter or traitor—but by a hand that reached across the Channel and gripped the English supply lines.

"Who in the English camp works for him?" Thomas asked. "Who distributes the arrows?"

Voss shook his head. "I don't know."

"You're lying."

"I am saving my own skin." Voss began to gather his papers. "I have told you what I know. If you want more, you will have to speak to the Viscount himself. And I do not think he will be eager to receive you."

Thomas grabbed Voss's wrist before he could pull the papers away. The merchant froze.

"This is not over," Thomas said. "If I find that you knew more than you told me, I will come back. And I will not have Greyhill's ring to protect you."

Voss's eyes flicked to the signet ring on Thomas's hand. A strange expression crossed his face—not fear, but calculation. Then he pulled his wrist free and smoothed his tunic.

"You should watch your back, archer," Voss said. "The men who paid for those arrows do not like loose ends. And you, walking in here with your questions and your ring, you are the loosest end I have seen in a long time."

Thomas left the tent without another word.

Outside, the camp was settling into the gray twilight before battle. Fires were being lit. Men were sharpening weapons that would not be used, all of them blind to the rot beneath their feet. Thomas walked past the rows of tents, the seal heavy in his pocket, the bill of lading tucked against his chest.

He had a name. The Viscount of Agincourt. He had a connection—French gold reaching through Calais into the heart of the English supply line. But he still could not see how it all connected. The limping man. Greyhill's impostor squire. The quartermaster's misdeeds. They were pieces of a larger design, and the design ran deeper than one man's hand.

He looked toward the eastern horizon. The first pale line of light was beginning to creep beneath the clouds.

Dawn was coming. And with it, the battle.

Thomas quickened his pace. He had less time than he thought.