Blood Harvest

Chapter One: The Last Warm Day

The last warm day of the year sank over Grayridge in a red hush. The fields were high, the stooks tied tight, and the hedges ran bristling between them like old, patient animals. Smoke rose from low chimneys. Children chased each other along the footpaths, kicking brown leaves ahead like scouts. The bells from St. Anwynn’s pealed once, then settled back into the throats of rooks.

Margaret Cartwright stood at the edge of her plot and watched the light withdraw. She was small and sturdy, a widow of three years, with quick hands and a face lined before its time. Her son, Will, lugged an armful of kindling along the fence, breath steaming in short bursts.

“Enough,” she said. “That’s enough. Your feet are caked as the hogs’.”

Will glanced up toward the road to the manor, not seen but always there. “They’ll come sooner this year,” he said. “Goodman Reed says Lord Ashcombe’s men are riding out already from Wexham.”

“Goodman Reed talks when he should be counting,” Margaret said, but she felt a pinch of worry. The last collect had ended with a broken arm for the miller’s boy. She still remembered the way the boy’s eyes had shone when he bit back the scream. The steward had smiled.

At the cross by the green, the reeve, Humphrey Latchford, hammered a notice into the old oak. He was tall and thick through the middle, with hands that swallowed the handle of the mallet. A few villagers had gathered to watch. Margaret joined them, pulling her shawl tight.

Father Ambrose stood nearby in his long black coat, the wind worrying the hair near his temples. “It is nothing new,” he said, voice even. “Tithe for the Lord, tithe for God. The season chastens us all.”

Nothing new, Margaret thought bitterly. A harvest turned into coin, a winter turned into fear.

Humphrey stepped away from the notice and folded his arms. “Collect will be taken on Michaelmas,” he read aloud. “One-third of grain and hay, one quarter of root and fruit. By order of Lord Ashcombe and seal of the steward.”

A low sound moved through the small crowd. Margaret saw the miller’s wife, Edith, clutch her apron. John Hobbs, who farmed the land by the ford, spat into the dust.

“More than last,” someone said.

“And enforced,” Humphrey added, voice sharp. “God’s wounds, do you think you can hide your plenty in the hedgerows? The steward has his men watching.”

“Watching from Wexham?” John said, loudly enough to be heard. “Or watching from Grayridge?” He held Humphrey’s eye without blinking.

Humphrey’s mouth twitched, but he kept his gaze steady. “Mind your tongue, John.”

The rooks erupted and settled again. Father Ambrose cleared his throat. “We will bless the fields at dusk,” he said. “Pray for mercy upon the poor.”

“Mercy never kept a man in bread,” Margaret said softly where no one but Will could hear. “Not here.”

As she turned to go, she caught sight of a scarecrow perched in the far field beyond the vicarage. Its head was a bundle of straw bound in white sacking, its arms out like a man in doubt. Someone had looped a charm of bones about its neck, which was not Alderman Pearce’s way at all. Margaret felt the hair lift at her nape.

They had always kept to the old signs in Grayridge when the weather turned. Rowan on the door, iron at the threshold, salt in the corners. But bones in a field? It spoke of fear.

She went home before the sun was gone. She barred the door and lit the lamp, and while Will dozed by the fire, she sat at the table, counted the sacks in her head, and tried to imagine where to make them less. She thought of Father Ambrose’s words, then of the steward’s men. There were different kinds of mercy.

She was still sitting when there came a knock.

She rose and eased the door open. Edith Miller stood on the step with her shawl drawn up to her eyes. Behind her, two shadows moved—the tall shape of John Hobbs and the smaller, quick shape of Goodwife Prudence Fowler.

“Meg,” Edith whispered, nerves pulling at her mouth. “It’s time.”

Margaret looked past them toward the fields. They were dark now, and the hedges had vanished, and the rooks had grown quiet. She thought of the notice’s crisp edges, how sure it had looked when Humphrey hammered it in, as if no hand could pry it loose.

“All right,” she said. She took her shawl and her candle. “I’m coming.”