The Ciphers of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood #2)(3)

“It is Tomas Morton,” he said in dismay.

“The king’s chancellor?” Elder gasped.

“Was, not any longer. He resigned his post. Crabwell is chancellor now. There he is.” He pointed. “I did not see him before, wearing the black cloak and gold stole. Do you see him?”

“He’s an ugly man,” Gates said. “Give me a sword and I will—”

“Silence!” Sanford hissed.

The crowd parted to create a path to the scaffold. That was when Sanford noticed the man in a black hood standing by the short ladder that led to the top of the scaffold. His blood went to ice in his veins. There were several members of the king’s guard gathered around who helped lift Morton from the cart. He walked, a little drunkenly, to the edge and went to the ladder, which wobbled when he tried to climb it.

“Is he . . . is he . . . ?” gasped Tobias.

Sanford stared in dumbstruck amazement. The crowd had fallen silent below as a hush settled over it.

A woman pushed through the crowd and approached Morton, her voice pitched with anger and scolding. “Sir! Sir! There were papers my husband left in your hands when you were chancellor. Please, sir! Where are they?”

The prisoner looked confused. “Good woman,” he replied, “have a little patience. Give me an hour, and the king will rid me of any care I have about lost papers. And everything else, for that matter!” He shook his head at her in disbelief and then made another attempt to climb the ladder, which rattled in place.

Sanford’s sons were silent, their eyes widening with growing terror as they took in the scene unfolding below them.

Morton turned to one of the soldiers. “Good sir, can you see me safely up the ladder? As for coming down, I daresay I will need your help again.”

The soldier helped steady the ladder and several men assisted Morton in climbing to the top of the scaffold, and a few clambered up after him. One of the soldiers who had stayed below handed up a huge block of wood with a notch cut out of it.

“By Idumea,” Sanford whispered.

Tomas Morton stood before the assembled crowd and started to speak. “I am here to face justice and the king’s will,” he said in a firm, loud voice. “I have been tried and—”

“No speeches!” shouted a man in armor astride a huge warhorse. “I am the sheriff of this Hundred. No speeches, Morton. You refused to sign the Act of Submission in a court full of witnesses. Lay your head down and suffer a traitor’s fate. If you be man enough.”

Sanford recognized the captain. His name was Trefew. He was one of the king’s new sworn men. Descended from the Naestors, he was a brutal man rumored to have no conscience at all.

“Well, then,” said Morton, his voice quavering. “I make no speeches. I am a humble servant of the king’s will. I did refuse to sign. That is true. I am a man, Captain Trefew. And I die a maston of the chaen, a faithful servant both to the Medium and to the king.” He carefully knelt in front of the block.

The man with the hood stepped behind him and loosened his tunic collar, exposing the bare flesh of his neck and the silver chaen. Sanford stopped breathing.

No, no, no!

Morton laid his head down on the block, but then held up one hand, staying the executioner as a soldier handed him an axe.

“A moment, let me put my beard aside. It committed no treason. There we are. Do your office, Master Headsman. I forgive you.”

The four sons watched in horror as the headsman lifted the axe.

There was an audible gasp from the crowd.

When it was done, Sanford pulled the window handle and shut the glass, blocking out the grim sight with his body. His sons’ eyes were wide, their cheeks pale. Mennion scurried over to a privy bucket and vomited up his breakfast.

A maston murdered in daylight before a crowd under the pretense of law. Not even in Colvin Price’s day had a king committed such an egregious act against an innocent man.

Sanford turned to his sons. “We must find a way to escape,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “Captain Trefew looked up at our window. He wanted to be sure we were watching.”





CHAPTER TWO




Binding Sigil



The dinghy glided down the river, cutting through the waters like a slick fish. The air was thick with strange smells and gnats that shimmered and glided in the waning afternoon sun. Maia felt a sheen of sweat on her brow, and her heart bubbled with anticipation as the docks loomed closer. The Holk waited back in the estuary, a massive black shadow moored alongside a wharf built against the fenlands, near a cabin made of stone blocks.

Maia hunched on the small bench, feeling anxious and excited. For so long, she had wished to go to Muirwood Abbey and become a maston. The faint buddings of hope inside her heart were so delicate and fragile, she was frightened even to breathe on them lest they be snatched away.

Jon Tayt worked the oars tirelessly. His boarhound, Argus, had settled along the bench near Maia, his muzzle resting on her lap. Next to her, clutching her arm, was her grandmother Sabine Demont, the High Seer of Pry-Ree, who gazed up at the abbey grounds with a curious smile, as if she were seeing something that Maia could not.

Muirwood was beautiful. The abbey rose above them, its steep gray walls covered in a web of scaffolding, and even from the river Maia could hear the sound of hammers striking chisels and see the ropes and pulleys strain as stones were added to the structure. There were dozens of workers around and on the abbey.