Chapter 5, Part 3

The Seemingly Intractable

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Duncan’s cell was small even by monastic standards. A narrow bed occupied one wall. A wooden desk sat beneath a single window, where pale afternoon light spilled across parchment and ink. The room contained little else.

Duncan sat hunched over the desk, carefully transcribing a passage of scripture. His brow furrowed as he worked. Not only did the Vulgate’s Latin itself pose some difficulties for him, the hours of copying had a way of turning letters into stubborn adversaries.

A soft knock interrupted his concentration.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Arthur stepped inside carrying a small leather pouch. Duncan’s expression brightened immediately. Arthur glanced toward the desk.

“Am I interrupting anything important?”

“Translation,” Duncan said, setting down his quill. “I need more practice.”

Arthur’s face lit up with genuine interest. “Old Testament? New Testament? Which book?”

“Saint Luke.”

Arthur snapped his fingers. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.”

Duncan blinked.

“Luke sixteen ...” Arthur frowned briefly. “... something-or-another.”

Duncan simply stared at him.

“Here. I brought you something.” He crossed to the desk and set down a pouch that landed with a heavy clink. Coins.

“Arthur, you don’t need to do this anymore.”

Arthur leaned against the edge of the desk. “I stand by what I pledged.” A hint of mischief entered his smile. “And Wynstan believes it’s for a good cause.”

“Oh?”

“His salvation.”

Duncan rolled his eyes. “This is a monastery, not a parish. We’re not priests.”

“Fewer souls to answer for, so to speak.”

Duncan gave him a look. “Besides, that’s not how salvation works.”

Arthur nodded solemnly. “You and my friend Martin Luther would get along very well.”

Duncan frowned. “Who?”

“Never mind.”

The silence that followed was comfortable. The sort of silence that only existed between people who genuinely enjoyed one another’s company.

Arthur’s smile faded slightly. He shifted his weight. “I know how you can repay me.”

Duncan immediately became suspicious. That was never a promising sentence. “How?”

Arthur folded his arms. “You know the Court.”

Duncan said nothing.

“Help me understand the Lord Chancellor.”

That earned a sigh. “I think I prefer translation.”

Arthur did not laugh.

The absence of humor told Duncan the question mattered. After a moment, Duncan leaned back in his chair. “I don’t believe the Lord Chancellor is a cruel man.” Arthur’s expression suggested disagreement. “Or an unkind one,” Duncan continued.

“I might challenge that conclusion.”

“Perhaps.” Duncan looked toward the window. “Or perhaps I simply have the advantage of not being a threat to him.”

Arthur frowned. “How am I a threat?”

“You’re not.” Duncan chose his next words carefully. “But he feels responsible for things that cannot be allowed to fail.” The statement hung between them. “And that changes how a man sees the world.”

Arthur considered that. “Go on.”

Duncan rested his forearms on the desk. “Men like him do not fear strangers.” Arthur waited. “They fear fracture.”

The answer clearly made sense to Duncan and almost no sense to Arthur. He held his hands open in surrender.

“So I should ...” He trailed off.

Duncan allowed himself a faint smile. “Convince him you’re not the problem.”

Arthur nodded slowly. That, at least, he understood.

“Or ...”

The pause drew Arthur’s attention back. “Or what?”

Duncan folded his hands. “Help him solve his real problem.”

Arthur opened his mouth to respond, then stopped. “His real problem?” He caught himself. “Goodness, I sound exactly like Saras.”

“You could do worse.”

Arthur accepted that with a nod. Then his expression grew thoughtful again. “And what is his real problem?”

This time Duncan did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked out the narrow window toward the monastery grounds beyond. “When people stop believing they belong to the same thing,” he said at last, “kingdoms come apart.” Arthur remained silent. Duncan turned back to him. “The Lord Chancellor’s task is reminding them that they do.”

Arthur thought about that. Then he asked quietly, “Reminding?” A small pause followed. “Or convincing?”

Duncan offered no answer. The silence itself felt like one.

Arthur stood there for another moment, turning the Duncan’s words over in his mind. He nodded once then left, so occupied with the thought that he forgot even a parting farewell. The door closing softly behind him, as Duncan watched him leave.

* * *

The passageway outside the Lord Chamberlain’s room was empty. Tuck walked along it hauling two filled water buckets, his pace steady, his expression carefully blank. A servant carrying water was the sort of thing no one noticed.

At the proper moment, he stumbled. One bucket tipped. Water splashed across the stone floor. Tuck lurched sideways as if trying to recover his balance. His elbow caught a nearby candelabra. The stand toppled with a metallic CRASH!

A second candelabra wobbled beside it. Tuck reached for it. Missed. It struck the floor with an even louder CLANG!

With a feigned “Oh, no!” he dropped to his knees at once and began mopping at the spreading puddle with a handful of rags.

The door to the Lord Chamberlain’s rooms opened. “What is the meaning of this?”

Tuck looked up. The Lord Chamberlain stood in the doorway, his irritation evident before he spoke another word.

Tuck lowered his eyes immediately. “Begging your pardon, my lord. It was an accident. I’m cleaning it now.”

The Lord Chamberlain stepped into the passage and surveyed the overturned candelabras, the water, and the boy responsible for both. “See that you do.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I shall be leaving shortly,” the Lord Chamberlain said. “I do not wish to return to disorder.”

“No, my lord.”

The older man studied him for a moment. Tuck kept his gaze lowered. After a moment, the Lord Chamberlain turned and disappeared back into his rooms.

The door closed. Tuck continued wiping the floor. Slowly. Listening.

A minute later, the latch lifted again. The Lord Chamberlain emerged wearing his cloak and strode down the passage without so much as a glance in Tuck’s direction. Tuck waited until the sound of his footsteps faded. Then he rose, abandoned the buckets, and ran.

The mood in Aelfwynn’s chamber had grown very quiet and pensive. Aelfwynn sat perched at the edge of her chair, listening for sounds from the corridor. Across the room, Saras stood near the door, every muscle poised for movement.

A rapid knock broke the silence—three quick taps. Aelfwynn quickly crossed the room and cracked open the door.

Tuck stood outside, breathing hard from the run. “He’s gone,” he whispered. “Go!”

Saras was already moving.

The door to the Lord Chamberlain’s room opened with only the faintest creak. Saras slipped in and paused just inside the threshold while Aelfwynn entered behind her and quietly closed the door. For a moment, neither woman spoke.

The room was larger than most chambers in the manor and furnished far beyond what Saras had expected. Rich fabrics hung from the bed. Fine linens were folded with meticulous care. A polished chest sat beneath the window, its brass fittings gleaming in the afternoon light. Everything appeared clean, orderly, and expensive. The Lord Chamberlain lived comfortably. Very comfortably.

Aelfwynn’s eyes wandered across the room despite herself. She brushed her fingers across the sleeve of a velvet cloak hanging from a stand near the wall and paused to examine a gold clasp worked into an intricate knot. “He lives well,” she murmured.

Saras was already moving toward the desk. “Too well.” Her gaze swept across the room once more. “And not carefully enough.”

A desk sat beneath a narrow window overlooking the courtyard. Shelves lined the wall on either side, crowded with books, scrolls, and stacks of parchment. At first glance the arrangement seemed orderly. A second glance revealed something closer to obsession. Every object had been positioned with deliberate precision.

Behind her, Aelfwynn glanced nervously toward the door. The corridor remained silent. No footsteps. No voices. Still, she found herself listening for them. “If he returns ...” she began.

“He won’t.” Saras ran her eyes across the shelves. Then she amended the statement. “Not yet.”

Her attention remained fixed on the records before her. She was not reading titles so much as studying patterns. People concealed things according to habit. The trick was identifying the habit.

A ledger used every day would be accessible. A secret ledger would also need to be accessible, but it would have to appear ordinary enough to avoid attracting notice.

Her eyes settled on two bound books resting side by side. They were nearly identical. That alone was enough to draw her attention. She removed the first volume and laid it on the desk. Then she took the second and placed it beside the first.

Aelfwynn stepped closer.

Saras opened the first ledger. Columns of figures filled the pages. Dates. Payments. Inventories. Nothing remarkable. She opened the second. More columns. More figures. At first glance the books appeared identical. Which was precisely what made them suspicious.

“I think this is it.”

Aelfwynn leaned over her shoulder. “They all look the same.”

“They’re meant to.”

Saras turned another page. Then another. Her eyes moved quickly now, comparing entries, tracing numbers, looking for inconsistencies. At first the differences were almost invisible. Then they began to emerge: A payment recorded in one ledger but absent from the other. A total altered by a seemingly insignificant amount. Several entries shifted just enough to redirect money without drawing attention. The discrepancies were small individually. Together, they formed a pattern.

Beside her, Aelfwynn’s expression changed. The curiosity that had accompanied their little adventure began to fade, replaced by something more serious. She looked around the room again and no longer saw wealth. She saw evidence.

“This is not right, is it?” The answer was obvious, but she asked anyway.

Saras closed both ledgers. “No.” The single word carried more certainty than any explanation could have. She gathered the books into her arms.

The Lord Chamberlain was stealing from the treasury. Whether he was acting alone remained an entirely different question.

“We don’t have time to examine this here,” said Saras.

Aelfwynn nodded immediately. Cradling the ledgers against her chest, Saras turned toward the door. Now they simply had to leave without being caught.

The door to Aelfwynn’s chamber closed behind them, and Saras crossed immediately to the table. She set the ledgers down with more force than she intended and opened the first volume before she had fully taken her seat.

Aelfwynn remained standing. The excitement that had accompanied their theft was gone now, replaced by a growing sense that they had carried something dangerous back with them. She watched as Saras began turning pages, her eyes moving rapidly across columns of figures that might as well have been written in another language.

“What are we looking at?” she asked.

Saras did not look up. She opened the second ledger beside the first and compared the entries.

“Two records,” she said. “The same accounts. Different truths.”

Aelfwynn leaned closer and squinted at the pages. Rows of numbers filled every line. Names—or what appeared to be names—were scattered throughout the columns. To Saras, the marks seemed to tell a story. To Aelfwynn, they were little more than ink.

“I can’t read this.”

“In time.”

The answer came absently. Saras was already tracing a finger down one column, following a sequence of entries. She turned several pages forward, studied another set of figures, then returned to the original page.

“Most of it matches,” she murmured. “Some of it doesn’t.”

The pages began moving more quickly. She compared one ledger against the other, searching not for individual numbers but for patterns. After several moments, she said, “The names are coded.”

“Coded?”

Aelfwynn leaned farther over the table, trying to see what Saras saw. She failed completely. The entries remained stubbornly meaningless.

Saras did not answer. Something had caught her attention. Her movements slowed. She studied a single page, then carefully turned to another. A moment later she opened the second ledger and began searching for the corresponding entry. When she found it, she stopped.

“This is it.”

Aelfwynn felt her stomach tighten. “What is it?”

“The royal treasury.” The words seemed absurd.

Aelfwynn stepped closer. “What?”

Without speaking, Saras turned both ledgers toward her and aligned the pages side by side. “This record is complete,” she said, touching the first ledger. Then she tapped the second. “This one has been drained.”

Aelfwynn stared at the columns. She still could not read the figures, but she could read Saras. The certainty in her expression was unmistakable.

Saras continued turning pages, comparing entries and confirming what she already suspected. With each new page, her expression tightened further.

“It’s nearly empty.”

Aelfwynn recoiled. “That’s not possible.”

“It is.” Saras spoke quietly, but there was no uncertainty in her voice. “And someone has been making sure no one sees it.”

Silence settled over the room. Saras looked back and forth between the ledgers one final time, as though hoping the numbers would somehow rearrange themselves into a less troubling conclusion. They did not.

The treasury was gone. Not diminished. Not strained. Gone. The realization settled heavily between them.

“Oh, my.” The words escaped Aelfwynn before she could stop them.

Only now did the full weight of what she had overheard in the corridor begin to register. An hour earlier it had sounded like gossip. Then a suspicion. Now it felt like something far more dangerous. She looked at Saras and saw that the older woman had reached the same conclusion. For the first time that afternoon, fear began to creep into Aelfwynn’s thoughts. The ledgers did not merely reveal theft. They revealed a theft large enough to threaten a kingdom.

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