Chapter One: The Wren

The first guard heard the window latch lift. The second heard the rain. By the time either man thought to look up, I was already inside the granary.

I kept low beneath the rafters, one hand on the sack at my shoulder and the other pressed to the brick wall. The storm had covered the sound of the horses, but not the smoke from their lamps. Two guards stood beneath the loading doors. A third paced the yard with a musket tucked under his arm. They had been told to protect Lord Markham’s grain from thieves. No one had told them to protect the people who had harvested it.

I had seen the ledgers at St Agnes. Markham’s steward had taken half the winter stores from three villages and sold the rest to a merchant bound for France. The poor had been left with flour that smelt of dampness and medicine watered until it was useless. I had watched a mother scrape the last blackened crust from a pot for her children. The next morning, I had put on a mask and come here.

The Wren, the papers, called me. A bird small enough to slip through a crack. They never asked why she flew into a locked granary.

A narrow hatch opened above the carts. I eased the sack through it and lowered it with a rope. Below, Mrs Bell waited in the alley with her boy, Kit, and a borrowed handcart. They would take the grain to the old chapel, where Ned could divide it among the families before dawn. I needed only four more sacks.

A coughing fit broke from somewhere inside the building.

I froze. A boy stepped from behind a stack of barrels, his face pale in the lantern light. He could not have been more than twelve. One sleeve was dark with blood.

“Don’t shout,” I whispered.

His eyes moved to the mask, then to my knife. He pressed a hand over his mouth, but another cough shook him. A red stain appeared between his fingers.

I crossed the floor before I could talk myself out of it. “Let me see.”

He flinched when I reached for his arm.

“If I meant to hurt you, I wouldn’t have waited for permission.”

His mouth tightened, but he let me lift the torn sleeve. A shallow cut ran along his forearm. It needed cleaning, not a physician. I took a strip of linen from my pocket, wiped the blood away, and tied it snugly.

A boot scraped outside.

The boy’s grip closed around my wrist. “They’ll hang you.”

“Then you should let go before they hang you too.” I pulled free and pushed the last sack toward the hatch.

The boy gave me a look that said he had heard every grown-up promise in London and believed none of them. I understood. “What’s your name?”

“Kit.”

“Kit, can you walk?”

He nodded too quickly. I glanced at the blood running into his palm. “Then walk to the hatch. There’s a woman outside with a cart. Tell her Eleanor sent you.”

“Who’s Eleanor?”

“The person who is about to get you out of here.”

He didn’t move. The cough came again, worse this time. I reached for the little tin in my pocket, but the sound of the guards crossing the yard sharpened every second. I had one clean strip of linen left and a vial of willow tincture. I gave him the tincture first. The poor had taught me that medicine was worth nothing if its owner was dead before it could be used.

“Only a little,” I warned. “It will settle the pain.”

He swallowed, eyes fixed on the door. “Are you a thief?”

“I’m a woman borrowing what was stolen from you.”

“That’s still stealing.”

“Then you can report me when you’re older.”

I lifted the sack. It was heavier than it looked. My shoulder complained, and the old scar beneath my collarbone pulled tight. I had learnt to count the cost of every choice: a loaf taken meant a beating for a servant, a medicine bottle meant a warrant, and a name discovered meant a noose. I had also learned what happened when I did nothing. That cost lasted longer.

We made it to the hatch. I lowered the sack, then helped Kit climb onto the barrels. His injured arm shook. I steadied him by the waist, careful not to startle him. He had the thin, sharp face of a child who had learned to save his fear for when it mattered. He reached the hatch, then turned back and put himself between me and the door.

The loading doors burst open. Men flooded the yard with lanterns raised. One of them carried a silver-headed cane. Lord Markham had come to watch his own grain.

“Search every room!” he shouted. “The thief is here.”

I took the chance he gave me. I climbed the stacked barrels, caught the hatch with one hand, and hauled myself up. A musket cracked. The shot struck the beam beside my shoulder. Splinters cut my cheek.

I dropped onto the roof, slid on the wet tiles, and caught the gutter before I fell into the yard. When I reached the alley, Mrs Bell’s cart was gone. Good. That meant the boy had made it out.

I tore the mask from my face only after I reached the infirmary’s back lane. The blood on my cheek was mine. I washed it away with rainwater and tucked the mask beneath my coat.

At sunrise, I would be Eleanor Hartwell, apothecary’s assistant, daughter of a ruined earl. Tonight I was the Wren, and I had taken enough grain to feed twenty families.

What I had not taken was the small brass token I found on the granary floor. It bore the royal crest. Someone from the palace had been there before me.