Chapter 16 #2
Halverton sat at the head of the table, shoulders rigid, eyes shadowed. He looked… older. Drawn. As though the night had carved hollows beneath his eyes.
He didn’t greet her when she entered.
He didn’t look at her at all.
Aoife took a seat at the place laid out for her at the other end of the table, relieved they would not have a repeat of last night.
The scrape of cutlery filled the silence between them.
Halverton moved mechanically, as though the world around him were an unpleasant dream he’d prefer not to acknowledge.
When he finished, he pushed back his chair abruptly and rang the bell.
“Have my things ready,” Halverton ordered as soon as Alton stepped into the room. “Tell the stable master I’ll need my horse.”
Halverton swept from the dining room without once looking her way.
Aoife ate her fill, pleased that, with Halverton gone, she would not have to overeat.
How long would he be gone? How long to reach the horses, to saddle up? She knew nothing about tending horses. Five minutes? Ten? Maybe more.
However long it took, this was a chance that might not come again for a while. Last night had shown her she could not rely on changing Halverton. He was unlikely to be swayed. She needed to take matters into her own hands.
She laid her cutlery down and listened. After a few minutes Halverton’s voice reached her, muffled by the door, as he spoke to Alton. The front door opened with a creak and closed with a thud, echoing in the vast entrance hall.
She rose from her chair, thanked Kit and James, and left the breakfast room.
In the entrance hall, she watched as Alton vanished around the far corner.
She crossed the room, trying to appear nonchalant, and entered the corridor that led to Halverton’s study.
Every step was too loud to her ears, though the carpets muffled her movements.
None of the servants should be wandering about in this area of the house, but she checked over her shoulder in case.
When she reached his study, she cast one last quick glance up and down the corridor before slipping inside.
She approached the desk slowly, acutely aware that she stood inside the heart of his power. Papers sat in neat stacks.
Her fingers hovered over the letters. Seals of imperial red, the double crest of crown and sword, stood out on every sheet.
She opened one.
A polite salutation. Praise for his continued diligence. A paragraph acknowledging “the difficulties of the present climate.”
The closing line, ‘Nevertheless, quotas must be met.’
Aoife’s jaw tightened.
She set that letter aside and scanned another.
It contained the same message, different wording. Careful pressure applied to the prefects to keep them in line.
Two large leather books were open on the table. She quickly identified the first as a ledger. Dates, quantities, and destinations were all carefully detailed. Her father kept something similar, though it was a lot less neat.
She opened the second ledger. It was nearly identical: the same dates, the same quantities, the same destinations. Why keep two ledgers of the same information?
She leaned closer.
The numbers weren’t the same.
Seven barrels of feldgrain in the first ledger. Nine in the second.
Four crates of apples were listed in the first. Six in the second.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
One for the empire. One for himself.
She stared at the ledgers until the ink blurred. Halverton claimed he was barely meeting quotas, that he could not spare more grain, and that the Empire demanded too much.
But he was sending less than he claimed.
And keeping the difference.
She pressed her lips together, thinking. He’d argued with the other lords about keeping food back for the farmers. Had she judged him too harshly? Was he holding back more than he was supposed to?
It didn’t seem likely. He’d made his ambitions clear to her on the first day; he intended to be Viceroy. He wouldn’t jeopardise that for ‘a few insignificant peasants.’ So what was he playing at? Aoife couldn’t quite put the pieces together.
She forced herself to focus. Her eyes snapped to the open ledger.
Nine barrels of feldgrain recorded in storage at the outhouse.
It was a small, squat building on the property.
She’d asked the gardener about it, and he’d told her it used to be used for garden tools, but Lord Halverton had them empty it out when he moved in. Now it was used for overflow storage.
Nine barrels of grain.
If she changed it would he even notice?
Aoife dipped the pen.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Aoife’s breath hitched.
He couldn’t have returned already.
The ink trembled only slightly at the tip. With one careful stroke, she turned the nine into an eight.
A single line.
A tiny rebellion.
The footsteps drew nearer.
She wiped the nib on the cloth, set the pen exactly where she’d found it, and crossed the room in two quiet steps.
She pressed herself into the shadowed corner behind the door as it creaked open.
The light tread of a servant crossed the soft carpet.
Aoife recognised Alton, his back to her as he placed something on the desk.
Aoife pulled the door open a fraction more; if he turned to his left, he would see her.
She waited with bated breath as he wrote something on a sheet of paper.
He stood, put down the pen, and turned to his right.
The door closed again, and Aoife let out the breath she’d been holding.
Only when she could hear no more footsteps in the corridor did she slip out, easing the door shut with her fingertips and barely a whisper.
She walked away with steady steps, though her heart rattled like loose iron inside her chest.
She had changed a single number.
Not much.
One more barrel of grain. That was more than enough to make a difference.
Or to start something she could not yet fathom.
Outside, the world still smelled of yesterday’s storm: wet earth, soaked bark, and the ghost of lightning in the air.
Aoife followed the long route between the hedges, staying out of sight of the windows.
Every few steps she paused, checking behind her, the length of the lawn, the shadows beneath the trees.
Fear made her careful. Purpose made her bold.
The outhouse stood alone at the treeline, its low roof dripping, the latch hanging crooked where the wind had battered it. She pulled the door open and slipped inside.
The dim space smelled of dry grain and old wood.
Barrels crowded the walls. More than nine.
Far more. She walked up the line; the barrels had symbols scratched into the wood.
She was certain most of these were alcohol.
But at one end she found them: nine barrels carved with a primitive drawing of grain.
She placed a hand on the nearest one, fingers tracing the cool curve of the wood. The barrel was heavy, absurdly heavy. Enough to feed a household for weeks.
Aoife braced her shoulder against it and tried to lift.
It didn’t budge.
She grimaced, shifted her stance, and rocked it instead. The barrel shuddered and groaned before rolling a fraction. She gritted her teeth and did it again.
Come on.
It moved slowly at first, leaning gently as she strained against it. When it reached the tipping point, Aoife grabbed for it, trying to prevent it falling too hard. It slipped through her fingers, and the thud as it landed echoed in the tight space. She froze, listening.
Silence.
Aoife exhaled, heart pounding.
Rolling it was far easier than lifting it. She nudged it forward on a wobbly path toward the door. The wooden staves scraped against the threshold.
The open stretch between the outhouse and the woods lay ahead, fifty yards of open ground. Too much space. Too many windows looking out over it.
Aoife crouched low, scanning the manor.
There was no movement. No figures at the windows.
She pushed.
The barrel lurched forward, rolling over the wet grass with a deep, muffled thud. She half-ran after it, half-steered it, trying to keep her body between it and any watching eyes. The barrel veered sharply, and she had to throw her weight against it to keep it on a path towards the woods.
But she made it to the treeline.
The canopy swallowed her at once. Damp leaves brushed her shoulders. She let out a breath.
Too soon.
The ground dropped unexpectedly, steeper than she could manage. The barrel jerked out of her hands, and with a sickening roll, tumbled downhill.
“No, no—!” Aoife stumbled after it, branches whipping her face.
The barrel crashed through the undergrowth, scattering birds in a furious explosion of wings. She slid down the slope, heart hammering. It hit a boulder with a hollow crack.
Aoife reached it seconds later, breathless. A split had opened along one stave, a thin spill of pale grain leaking onto the moss.
“Curse the crows,” she muttered.
She scanned the forest floor, spotted a clump of ground ivy, tore off a handful and chewed it quickly into a sticky pulp, the bitter taste flooding her tongue.
She pressed the paste into the crack. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even good. But it held.
She was wiping her fingers on the moss when she heard them.
Voices.
Men’s voices.
Close and growing closer still.