Read Chapter 30: An Audience with Sin

The Star Chamber was smaller than Thomas had imagined, and colder. Stone walls rose to a vaulted ceiling where the last of the afternoon light struggled through high windows, falling in pale shafts upon a long oak table. The King's council sat in a crescent of chairs behind it, men in dark wool and fur, their faces arranged in expressions of careful neutrality. Sir Robert stood at one end, his hand resting on the ledger Thomas had surrendered.

Thomas stood at the center of the floor, Emmeline at his side, Agnes behind them like a stone sentinel. The silence pressed against his ears. He had faced plague, fire, and armed men, but this—this was a different kind of exposure. Here, words were weapons, and he had no practice in their use.

The doors at the far end of the chamber opened. Two guards entered, escorting a man between them. He was tall, silver-haired, with the bearing of someone accustomed to deference. His doublet was of fine velvet, dark green, and his hands were bound before him with cord. He did not struggle. He walked as though attending a feast, his chin high, his eyes scanning the room with calm appraisal.

"Walter Ashcombe," Sir Robert announced, "Earl of Marchmont."

Thomas heard Emmeline draw a sharp breath. An earl. The lord who had funded Sir Richard's plague trade was not a merchant or a minor noble, but a peer of the realm, a man who sat at the King's own table.

Ashcombe was brought to stand before the council. He looked at Thomas then, a brief flicker of recognition passing across his features, and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.

"Let us proceed," the Lord Chancellor said from the center of the table. His voice was dry as old parchment. "We have heard the testimony of Sir Robert regarding certain documents. We now wish to hear from the physician."

Thomas stepped forward. He had rehearsed this in his mind for three days, riding through cold rain from the county of the late Sir Richard's manor. But the words felt thin now, inadequate against the weight of an earl's presence.

"Your Grace," he said, addressing the Chancellor, "I was physician to the village of Winthrope, quarantined by order of Sir Richard of that place. In the course of serving the sick, I discovered that the quarantine was not a response to plague, but a manufactured event. Sir Richard, acting on instruction from others, deliberately introduced infected materials into villages, then profited from the trade in goods and lands that followed."

"Profit," Ashcombe said mildly. "A bold accusation."

Thomas turned to face him. "I have the ledger. Names, villages, dates, payments. Forty-two villages across England, infected by design. The dead number in the thousands."

"Show me this ledger," Ashcombe said.

"The council has seen it," Sir Robert interjected. "Its authenticity has been verified by three clerks of the Exchequer, who confirm the hand of Sir Richard and the pattern of payments to accounts held in your name."

Ashcombe's expression did not change. "Clerks can be mistaken. Or bribed."

The Lord Chancellor raised a hand. "Silence. Sir Robert, you have presented additional evidence."

Sir Robert nodded. He gestured to Emmeline. "This woman bears a mark upon her back, a brand of the Ashcombe crest, used to identify shipments of carriers. Three dead travelers found along the roads in the past year bore the same mark, and all were traced to properties owned by the earl."

Emmeline stepped forward and turned, lifting the back of her dress to reveal the scarred flesh. The council members leaned forward, a murmur running among them.

Ashcombe's smile had faded. "Brands can be forged."

"This one cannot," Emmeline said, her voice steady. "I was burned with it when I was fourteen years old. I have carried it for six years. I know the men who placed it there. I know the ships I was loaded onto, and the villages I was sent to. I have walked through them, coughing in the night, spreading what I had been given. Ask me their names. I will give them."

The chamber fell silent. Ashcombe looked at her, and for the first time, something like unease crossed his features.

The Lord Chancellor spoke. "Walter Ashcombe, Earl of Marchmont, you are charged with treason against the Crown, and with the murder of uncounted subjects of the realm, through the deliberate spread of pestilence. How do you plead?"

Ashcombe drew himself up. "I do not recognize the authority of this council to judge a peer of the realm."

"The King has granted this council full authority," the Chancellor replied. "You will be held in the Tower until His Majesty returns from his campaign in France, at which point you shall answer to him directly. Guards, take him."

The guards moved forward, but Ashcombe shook them off, stepping toward Thomas. He was close enough that Thomas could smell the rosewater on his collar.

"You think you have won, physician," Ashcombe said, his voice barely above a whisper. "But I know who you are. Thomas Blackwood. Physician of the village called—" he paused, savoring the word—"Blackwood."

Thomas felt his blood turn cold.

"Yes," Ashcombe continued, softer still. "The village that died while you were its doctor. The village you abandoned. The village where your wife and child lie buried, though you did not see them buried, because you were already fleeing down the road."

Thomas's breath caught. He had not spoken of this to anyone. Not to Emmeline, not to Agnes, not in his months of wandering. How could this man know?

"I made it my business to know the men who profited from my investments," Ashcombe said. "And I made it my business to know the men who might be inclined to interfere. You have been on my ledger, physician, since before you ever arrived in Winthrope."

"Lies," Thomas managed.

"Are they?" Ashcombe tilted his head. "You were the only physician in that village. The plague came. You sent no word to the authorities. You did not attempt treatment. You took the horse of the village's alderman, and you rode away before the disease had finished its work. Sound familiar?"

Thomas could not speak. The memories rose unbidden, black and suffocating. The closed doors. The acrid smell of smoke from burning homes. The face of his wife as she grew weaker, day by day. And the morning he had taken the horse—that fine, sturdy bay gelding that belonged to the alderman who was already dead—and ridden without looking back.

He had told himself it was to find help. He had told himself many things, in the years since.

Ashcombe leaned closer, his breath warm against Thomas's ear. "You are no different from me," he whispered. "You ran from death you might have stopped. You left them to rot. And now you stand here, playing the righteous man."

Thomas's fists clenched at his sides. The urge to strike the earl was overwhelming—a violent, animal impulse that he had thought he had buried along with his old life.

The guards pulled Ashcombe back. He laughed as they dragged him toward the doors, and the sound echoed off the stone.

"Enjoy your victory, Blackwood! It will be brief. When the King hears what you did, you will join me in the Tower, or worse. And I shall have a view of your cell."

The doors slammed shut behind them.

The chamber was silent. Thomas stood frozen, his heart pounding, his hands trembling. He could feel the eyes of the council upon him, assessing, calculating. The Lord Chancellor cleared his throat.

"Physician Blackwood. Is there truth to these accusations?"

Thomas opened his mouth, but no words came. He thought of the weight of the ledger in Sir Robert's keeping, the lives he had fought to save, the village of Winthrope that now stood free of Sir Richard's domination. He thought of Emmeline, standing beside him, whose back was scarred by these men. He thought of the dead.

And he thought of Blackwood. The village he had sworn to serve. The people he had left behind.

He looked at the Lord Chancellor. "I was the physician of Blackwood," he said. "I served there for eleven years."

"And did you flee?"

Thomas felt the question like a blade. He could lie. He had practiced the lie for so long that it had become nearly true, a story he told himself about going for help, about being too weakened by sickness to return, about finding the village empty of survivors when he finally came back.

But he was tired of lying.

"Yes," he said. "I fled."

The chamber erupted in murmurs. Emmeline turned to look at him, her face unreadable. The Lord Chancellor raised a hand for silence.

"This council will deliberate on this matter," he said. "Physician Blackwood, you are ordered to remain in London, under the custody of Sir Robert, until a determination is made."

Thomas nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.

The council rose and filed out, their robes rustling against the stone floor. Sir Robert approached Thomas, his expression a mixture of disappointment and concern.

"Thomas," he said quietly. "Why did you not tell me?"

"Because it is not a story I wish to tell," Thomas replied. "And I have carried it for so long that I had begun to believe I might never have to."

Sir Robert sighed. "Come. I will find you quarters. We must speak of what comes next."

They walked through the corridors of Westminster in silence, Emmeline and Agnes following a few steps behind. Thomas could feel their eyes on him, but he could not bring himself to look at them.

Ashcombe's words rang in his ears. You are no different from me.

Perhaps it was true. He had run. He had left people to die. He had carried his cowardice across England like a hidden wound, never letting anyone close enough to see it.

And yet.

He had returned. He had faced plague and fire and death. He had broken chains and freed prisoners and brought an earl to justice.

He did not know if that was enough. He did not know if it ever could be.

Sir Robert led them to a small chamber, sparsely furnished but warm. A fire crackled in the hearth.

"Stay here," Sir Robert said. "I will send word when the council reaches a decision. It may be soon, or it may take days. Do not leave Westminster without my leave."

He paused at the door. "Thomas. The truth may cost you, but it will not cost you everything. I have seen men who lied their way through worse, and it never ended well."

Thomas did not answer. Sir Robert left.

Emmeline moved to the fire, warming her hands. Agnes settled into a corner, her eyes watchful.

"Thomas," Emmeline said, not turning around. "The village you left. Blackwood."

"Yes."

"What happened to it?"

Thomas stared into the flames. "It burned," he said at last. "I burned it. I could not bear the thought of anyone else dying in that place, so I set fire to the dead and the dying alike, and I rode away."

The words hung in the air between them, heavy and black.

Emmeline was silent for a long moment. Then she crossed the room and placed her hand on his arm.

"You stayed when it mattered," she said. "That is more than most men can say."

Thomas closed his eyes. He did not have the strength to believe her. But for now, it was enough that she had said it.