Creative Writing

Dear jounral,

I’m having more fun writing Woodgate than I’ve had with any creative project in recent memory—maybe ever.

This is the first time I’ve tried to write something like this: not just a story, but a world. A long-form, serialized narrative with its own characters, currency, sacred relics, feasts, and ghosts. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I do. And truthfully, I didn’t know I had it in me. Each act, each episode, feels like both an excavation and an invention. I find myself somewhere between historian and dreamer, hammering iron and breathing life into what was once only the barest sketch in my mind.

What’s been surprising is how alive the process feels. Writing Woodgate is not like writing an essay or even a short story. It’s like walking into a dark forest with a lantern and discovering, one step at a time, that the path is already there—it’s just been waiting for someone to walk it. And in that way, I’ve found myself unexpectedly in conversation with a long tradition of serialized storytelling, stretching back to the 19th century.

Writers like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Wilkie Collins didn’t publish novels in bound volumes. They wrote in installments, printing chapters in journals and newspapers, sometimes week by week, sometimes monthly. Readers devoured them as they were released, writing letters, discussing plot twists, and waiting eagerly for the next issue. As Robert Patten notes in Charles Dickens and His Publishers, “Dickens revolutionized the novel by taking it off the shelf and putting it into the street. He made the novel a public event.” His David Copperfield, perhaps my favorite of his works, wasn’t just a book—it was a living serial, a shared experience.

There’s something profoundly human about that model. The story unfolds at the pace of real life. And as a writer, I’ve come to appreciate what that pacing does to the process: it allows you to live with the work, to reflect, revise, and slowly build momentum. Serialization invites a different kind of patience. It teaches you to value rhythm over rush.

And so, in that spirit, I’ve decided to slow my own process. Going forward, I’ll be posting just one new installment of Woodgate each week. Not because I’m losing energy—if anything, I’m brimming with ideas—but because I want this story to grow organically, the way Dickens or Hardy might have let theirs grow. There is a satisfaction in returning to the bench, the gatehouse, the forest, again and again. I want to savor this.

This kind of creative writing is entirely new to me. I’ve written reflections, essays, even poetry, but never a serialized historical fiction, never something that might span a hundred episodes or more. And yet, each time I return to Woodgate, I find more than I expected—more character, more plot, more meaning. It’s teaching me as much as I am shaping it.

Eudora Welty once wrote, “Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable, if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else.” That’s what Woodgate feels like to me—something rooted in place, in tone, in time. I know these woods. I know the stone chapel. I can hear the distant cries at the city gate. And though it’s fiction, it feels inhabited.

So I’ll keep writing. Slowly. Faithfully. One post at a time.

Always,

Dave

Currently Reading: Blaze

The Lonely Tree (1822)

There was a time, early on, when I believed teaching would be the work that saved me. Not in some grand, salvific sense, but in the quiet way a rhythm or ritual can root a person to the world. It gave me something to hold onto—a calling, a structure, a reason to wake early and stay late. I imagined myself as a young tree in a sunlit grove, surrounded by others just as eager, just as green, all of us reaching upward in hope and purpose. We would grow together, I thought. We would change the landscape.

Now, as I approach the close of my eighteenth year in the classroom, I look around and realize how few of us are still standing. The grove has thinned. Some have moved on, some have burned out, some were quietly cut down by forces they couldn’t resist—policy, burnout, illness, despair. I no longer see a forest. I see scattered silhouettes. I see myself.

And in Caspar David Friedrich’s The Lonely Tree, I see a mirror.

The oak at the center of his canvas rises from the earth like a monument to persistence. Its crown is broken. Its upper limbs are bare and jagged, reaching into a gray sky that neither threatens nor comforts. The landscape stretches out around it—fertile, yes, but indifferent. The tree is not celebrated; it is endured. And yet, look closer—its lower branches still bear leaves. Life remains, quietly defiant.

That is where I find myself now. A veteran of classrooms and corridors. Of assemblies and parent meetings. Of tests and retests and policies that come like storms and vanish like morning mist. I have become the old oak.

As Albert Camus once wrote, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” I have needed that truth. Because there are winters in this profession—long ones. Moments when you question if you are doing more harm than good by staying. Moments when the temptation to uproot yourself becomes nearly unbearable. But still, I remain.

The early years were about growth. Now, I see my role differently. I am no longer stretching upward—I am holding the line. I am the one who remembers. The one who warns. The one who steadies. I do not bloom as often, but I carry seeds. I offer shelter in small ways. A quiet word. A hand on a shoulder. A look that says, I see you—and I know.

Wendell Berry once said, “The teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” I understand that now. The fruit of my labor is not seen in applause or acknowledgment. It is in the way a student later faces the world—how they write, how they speak, how they choose to keep going when it would be easier to quit. That is the unseen forest I help grow.

And still, I remain.

Friedrich’s oak is not majestic in the classical sense. It is not symmetrical or lush. But it holds the history of wind. It knows the weight of years. It is a place where sheep gather for shade. It is a fixed point in a landscape that is always shifting. In that, there is sacredness.

Thomas Merton once wrote, “There is in all visible things… a hidden wholeness.” The veteran oak may be scarred, but it is whole. So, too, am I. I carry my wounds with me—years when students left midyear without warning, funerals I attended for boys not old enough to shave, battles with bureaucracy that left me exhausted and unseen. And still—I show up. I open the door. I teach.

Because maybe now it’s not about becoming something. Maybe it’s about being—being someone others can trust, someone who remains rooted when everything else feels transient. Maybe the goal is not to thrive, but to endure with grace.

I may no longer be the forest’s pride, but I am its memory. Its persistence. Its whisper of continuity.

Let the winds blow. Let the storms come. The oak still stands.

So do I.

I:III:II: The Winter Mass

II: The Midnight Mass

Snow had fallen twice since Martinmas, but not yet with conviction. It clung stubbornly in hollows and along the shaded eaves of the gatehouse, white as ash but thin as a monk’s worn robe. The air on Christmas Eve was damp and sharp, heavy with the scent of cold pine and distant hearthfires. Smoke drifted low across the fields like a pilgrim's prayer, caught between earth and sky. From the high watch at the gatehouse, Halward surveyed the scene with a soldier's detachment.

Carpenters from Nottingham labored under the bleached gray sky, their cheeks raw from the wind, their hands cracked despite rough woolen gloves. Timber groaned as beams were hoisted into place. Ropes strained against pulleys. The steady rhythm of hammers filled the morning, each strike reverberating off stone walls like the slow toll of a monastery bell. It was the most life Woodgate had seen in years.

For the first time in many seasons, the barracks roof gleamed with new thatch. The kitchen door no longer hung crooked on one hinge, and even the goat shed boasted a new crossbeam. All of it paid for by the new tolls — a tax not only on goods but on movement itself. Names were written down, papers inspected, tolls collected. Travelers without writs were turned back into the forest. Those without coin vanished into the mist. The gate, once a silent witness to passage and prayer, had become a sieve.

Halward noted each repair with a careful, spare hand in the ledger. He said little to the workers, though he heard their muttered conversations: about rising levies, about coins weighed thinner each year, about forest shadows that grew heavier with each season. One carpenter joked that Woodgate looked more like a grave marker than a fort. Another said it was a place that seemed to watch the past more keenly than the road ahead. Halward made no reply. Let them talk. The work was sound.

Wilmot, for his part, threw himself into the day’s labors with boyish enthusiasm. His boots, too large and poorly laced, were soon soaked and caked with mud. Flour from the morning’s bread still powdered his cheeks, and his hair stuck out at impossible angles. Yet there was a grace in his energy, an unpolished devotion. He fetched hammers, hoisted pails of nails, and tripped only twice. Arrow, the raven, flitted after him from rafter to post, the healed wing permitting short, uncertain flights. In the thin light, Arrow’s black feathers shimmered like ink stirred through water.

By midday, Oswin emerged from Saint Hubert’s Chapel, his mantle pulled close against the biting wind. His beard was frosted at the edges, and his walking stick thudded softly against the packed earth. He surveyed the bustle with a wry eye.

"That ladder," he said, pointing to a crooked scaffold lashed against the stable, "is more liability than aid. You’ll have a monk’s back before you’re thirty, boy."

Wilmot grinned through chattering teeth. "I’m stronger than I look, Os."

"Then learn to lift with your legs, not your pride."

Halward, hearing the exchange, closed the ledger with a decisive snap. "Enough," he called. "It’s Christmas Eve. The work is done."

One of the carpenters, a bald man with blue-stained fingers, leaned against his mallet and squinted at him. "You’ll hold Mass here?"

"If a priest crosses our path," Halward said. "And if Providence is kind."

As if summoned by the jest, a lone rider crested the bend beyond the gate. His pace was steady, neither hurried nor hesitant. His cloak was monastic black, dulled by road-dust and ash, the hem frayed from countless miles. A battered staff was slung across his back, and a satchel hung at his side. The hood was drawn low, shadowing his face against the gathering gloom. Yet the gate swung inward of its own accord, slow and solemn, as though recognizing the weight of his purpose.

Halward descended from the watch and approached the traveler with measured steps.

"Name and business?" he asked.

"Aelered," the man replied, voice low and calm. "Benedictine. From Rufford, by way of Blyth Priory. I seek passage to Nottingham."

Oswin came forward, studying the man with narrowed eyes. "You carry the road’s dust and something more."

The monk lowered his hood, revealing a face weathered by the long road but suffused with a quiet certainty. "I had a dream," he said simply. "A gate flanked by ash trees and crowned in frost. Beyond it, a chapel lit by the breath of a stag."

At those words, Oswin’s face changed. He stepped forward, arms open in solemn welcome. "Then you have found the place you sought. This is Woodgate. And there," he nodded toward the chapel half veiled by mist, "stands the house you saw."

Father Aelered inclined his head, humility plain. "Then Providence has led me rightly."

"Will you stay?" Oswin asked.

"If there is need, and if I am welcome," the monk answered.

"You are both," Oswin said, the words carrying the weight of ceremony. "And if your strength allows, will you celebrate the Mass tonight? Christmas Mass."

The corners of Aelered’s mouth lifted in a smile—not broad, but luminous with quiet joy. "Gladly."

Oswin turned to the assembled workers. "The day is done. Your hands have honored the season well. Go home now to your hearths and families."

The carpenters gathered their tools with murmured thanks and disappeared down the forest road, their breath steaming like incense in the cold air. Snow began to fall—not a blizzard, but a steady sifting, fine as sifted flour, covering the tracks of men and beast alike.

Wilmot swept the path to the chapel clean twice over, though the snow reclaimed it almost immediately. Arrow perched atop the lantern post near the gate, his head tucked beneath one wing, dreaming perhaps of farther skies.

Halward stood at the threshold of the gatehouse, hands clasped behind his back, watching the final preparations unfold. The world seemed to hold its breath, balanced on the edge of something unseen. In the gathering dusk, Woodgate was cloaked anew, not in decay or duty, but in expectancy—as if it too awaited the arrival of something sacred.

By the time the last nail was hammered, the last broom set aside, and the last shadow stretched long against the stone, all was ready.

***

The snow had ceased by the ninth hour, and by midnight, the sky had opened above Sherwood with a clarity rare even in the dead of winter. Stars glittered like spilled salt on dark velvet, and the air held a sacred stillness, a silence so profound it seemed that the whole earth held its breath. The trees stood as frozen sentinels, their limbs crusted in hoarfrost, and between them glimmered the faint, welcoming light of Saint Hubert’s Chapel, its humble windows casting fractured halos upon the packed snow.

Inside, Oswin moved with solemn purpose, lighting each taper with a flame borne from a single enduring coal saved from the chapel hearth. Each candle he touched sprang to life with a breath of golden light, a quiet testimony against the vast and creeping darkness. The mingled scents of beeswax, pine resin, and rosemary steeped the air until the chapel seemed less a place of stone and timber than a living prayer.

Father Aelered stood before the altar, arranging the sacred vessels with a careful, almost reverent precision—the paten, the chalice, the folded linen. His whispered prayers, half-heard, braided Latin invocations with the deeper silence, weaving an unseen tapestry of hope. He wore a plain black cloak beneath his vestments, the mark of a Benedictine brother who had walked many hard miles to arrive here.

Outside, Halward made his slow, deliberate rounds. His boots left shallow prints in the snow, and his breath rose in measured clouds. His hand rested near the hilt of his sword, though more in devotion than in readiness; here, the watch was not against men, but against despair. He moved with the ritualized grace of a guardian between worlds.

Wilmot, wrapped in a patched cloak two sizes too large, swept the last stubborn dustings of snow from the chapel’s threshold. Each breath he exhaled shimmered and vanished, as fleeting as a whispered Amen. Above him, Arrow perched in the crook of the chapel arch, a black sentinel against the stars, his dark eyes gleaming with strange intelligence, as if already sensing the holiness gathering around them.

And then they came.

From the winding forest paths, from hollows and ruined cottages, from camps hidden beneath ancient oaks, the folk of Sherwood gathered. They came not in great number but with great purpose: a bent widow clutching a rosary of worn wood, two soot-stained boys whose thin arms clung together in brotherhood, a tinker whose hands bore the scars of countless winters, a midwife bearing a satchel of dried herbs, a woodsman draped in a patched cloak the color of moss, a veiled woman moving with unnatural grace, a limping veteran who leaned on a staff marked with carved prayers.

And among them, unnoticed save by Wilmot’s fleeting glance, walked a tall man in a plain gray cloak, whose step stirred neither snow nor sound, whose face, when glimpsed, seemed alight with a glow not born of stars or fire.

They entered the chapel without ceremony, crossing themselves or bowing their heads, their movements whispering old, half-remembered devotions. They filled the benches and the stones before the altar, some kneeling, others simply sitting in patient expectation. It was a congregation of the poor, the broken, the forsaken—those to whom heaven still bent low to touch.

When the last had entered and settled, Oswin pulled shut the heavy chapel doors, and the night was sealed out.

Father Aelered approached the altar and raised his hands. His voice, soft yet strong, filled the space: "Dominus vobiscum."

A murmur rose in answer: "Et cum spiritu tuo."

The Kyrie followed, a ripple of entreaty among the assembled:

"Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison."

The words hung in the air, joined by the flutter of candlelight against ancient stone. Then, lifting their hearts, they sang—though many barely knew the words, though many mouths moved in silence—the Gloria:

"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te..."

The hymn rose in stumbling beauty, a patchwork of sound stitched together by longing and the deep ache for joy.

At the peak of the Gloria, as if stirred by a signal only he could hear, Arrow stirred from his perch. With a sudden lift of his dark wings, he took flight, circling once around the rafters of the chapel. His shadow passed across the faces of the gathered, and none cried out; instead, they lowered their heads, as if recognizing a blessing moving among them. The black shape of the raven cut a single, slow arc through the flickering candlelight and returned to rest above the door, silent and still.

The people exhaled together, a breathless hush falling over the chapel.

Oswin stepped forward with a worn Psalter, his voice rough but resonant as he read from the appointed psalm for the Nativity:

"Cantate Domino canticum novum; cantate Domino, omnis terra. Annuntiate de die in diem salutare eius."

The words, though many did not grasp their fullness, settled into the bones of those gathered, a lullaby as old as the stones.

Father Aelered then opened the Gospel and began to read, the Latin flowing like a slow river:

"Et pastores erant in regione eadem vigilantes et custodientes vigilias noctis super gregem suum..."

The story of the shepherds' vigil, the angel’s song, the infant in the manger, unfurled like a woven tapestry before them.

When he finished, he closed the Gospel with reverence and lifted his eyes to those before him.

"This night," Father Aelered said, his English plain and deliberate, "an angel spoke to shepherds—to men who owned little but their cloaks. To men forgotten by kings and priests alike. Yet it was to them the tidings were given: 'Fear not; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy.'"

He let the words settle.

"Christ was born not among silk and gold but in a manger, among beasts, beneath a roof of rough timber. His first breath was drawn not in a throne room, but beneath the watching eyes of ox and ass."

He swept his gaze gently across the gathered—the laborers, the widows, the forsaken.

"You who labor beneath the yoke of seasons and sorrow—you are nearer to that manger than any lord. You who know the long nights, the hunger of hope. You are the ones to whom the angels still sing."

His voice dropped, rich with feeling.

"So tonight we keep watch—not with arms, but with hearts. Not for kings, but for the Light that is come into the world. And even here, between stone and tree, the Christ is born anew."

The silence that followed was deep and whole.

Then came the Offertory.

Father Aelered lifted the paten and the chalice.

"Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam panis, sicut benedixisti quinque panes in deserto..."

He raised the bread.

"Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam vini, quam ex vite processisse dignatus es..."

He raised the wine.

The Sanctus followed, low and trembling:

"Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua."

Then came the Pater Noster.

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum..."

Few spoke it aloud, but all felt its weight.

Bread was consecrated, and wine was blessed upon the altar. As was customary in such humble gatherings, only Father Aelered partook of the Sacrament, consuming the bread and wine with solemn reverence. The gathered folk, though they did not receive, watched with yearning eyes—not out of exclusion, but out of reverence—for to see the Eucharist raised and blessed was to touch, however distantly, the mystery of the Incarnation they had come to honor.

The final blessing fell like a benediction of snow.

"Ite, missa est."

The people rose and departed, some leaving behind tokens: a sprig of holly, a carved bit of bone, a rough wooden coin.

Halward waited at the gate. As Wilmot passed, Halward touched his shoulder and handed him a leather-wrapped bundle.

Wilmot unwrapped it to find a small Book of Hours, worn by countless hands. Within the cover, Halward had written:

"Dominus custodit introitum tuum et exitum tuum."

Wilmot blinked down at the words.

"I can’t read all of it," he murmured.

"You will," Halward said. "The prayers keep watch, as we must."

Oswin called from the doorway, his voice low and sure.

"Come, lad. The fire still waits."

Arrow descended, his wings brushing the air like a whispered Amen, and settled on Wilmot’s shoulder.

Together they stepped back into the chapel's glow, bearing the fragile, burning light of hope.

And beyond them, unseen but surely present, an angel watched and kept his ancient vigil.

I:III:I: The Summons

I: The Summons

December 18, 1200

The frost still clung to the earth like a second skin when the courier reached Woodgate. His horse—a pale-coated destrier, now grey with sweat and flecks of frozen foam—stumbled to a halt with a desperate wheeze, steam pouring from its nostrils in heavy clouds. The animal looked as though it had been pushed to the brink of collapse, and perhaps beyond. The rider, swaddled in the black-and-gold livery of Nottingham, bore the lean, wary posture of a man who had ridden all morning in the cold. His cloak was torn at the hem, rimed with ice, and his gloved hands trembled slightly as he dismounted.

He did not bother to announce himself with ceremony. The city had no need for pleasantries at the forest's edge. This was Woodgate—threshold of the wild, last outpost before the trees claimed dominion. Formalities mattered little here.

Halward emerged from the gatehouse as the first light of morning began to unfurl across the sky in muted bands of ash and rose. His gait was steady, purposeful, but his face betrayed nothing—no surprise, no concern, not even curiosity. His boots pressed into the frost-bitten grass with the quiet authority of someone long accustomed to being summoned, but rarely consulted.

"For the Warden of Woodgate," the courier said, voice clipped from cold and exhaustion. He unbuckled a leather pouch from his saddle and extended it without flourish. "By command of Sir Bertram de Gorse, acting in place of the Sheriff of Nottingham."

Halward took the pouch without a word. He broke the seal—a heavy stamp of red wax, bearing the unmistakable hawk of Nottingham—with his thumb. Inside was a single parchment, neatly folded and smudged at the creases, bearing a message penned in the tight, precise hand of the Sheriff’s office:

The Sheriff has been summoned to Winchester to attend His Majesty’s Christmas Court. Effective immediately, Sir Bertram de Gorse assumes command in his absence. The Warden of Woodgate is to appear before the city council in Nottingham before the third bell. Matters of taxation, staffing, and station to be discussed. All ledgers must be presented in full.

There was no personal sign-off, no gesture of courtesy or favor. Only the hawk pressed into the wax, wings outstretched in silent judgment.

Halward read the message twice. Not because it was unclear, but because it demanded to be weighed—not just understood. He folded the parchment again with deliberate care and looked toward the chapel, where a thin trail of smoke curled from the flue, faint against the gray morning. Oswin would be inside by now, preparing the first prayers. A steady hand in an unsteady time. Wilmot, if not still abed, was likely somewhere near the stable, half-dressed and wholly behind in his chores.

Halward did not sigh. He did not frown. But something behind his eyes settled into a colder stillness.

"How long do I have?" he asked, his gaze still fixed on the horizon.

The courier, shifting to warm his gloved hands, replied, "If you leave now, you’ll arrive before the second bell. The city’s slower in winter, but Bertram keeps tight time."

Then, with a note of insolence disguised as humor: "You’ll be taking the donkey cart, I presume?"

Halward turned to face him fully. The silence that followed was sharp enough to shear the air. The courier flinched before the reply ever came, realizing too late the line he had crossed.

He cleared his throat, swung himself back into the saddle with stiff effort, and turned his mount. In another breath, he was gone—hoofbeats fading into the brittle hush of dawn.

Halward lingered in place for several minutes, alone save for the stirring wind. The trees that lined the lane beyond the chapel whispered faintly, their bare limbs creaking like old hinges. He listened—not for guidance, but for affirmation. The gate had stood long before him, and it would stand after. But while he drew breath, he would not see it pass quietly into ruin.

He turned toward the gatehouse. His breath hung briefly in the air, then vanished.

"Wilmot," he called, voice firm but low. "Fetch my travel cloak. I'm leaving for Nottingham."

Wilmot appeared moments later, rubbing sleep from his eyes, boots half-laced. Halward stood at the threshold of the gatehouse, fastening the heavy wool cloak across his shoulders with practiced efficiency. It was old but well-kept, dyed the deep gray of weathered stone.

"Not the cart?" Wil asked, glancing toward the stables.

Halward shook his head. "I’ll walk. Let the beast rest."

He adjusted the clasp beneath his chin and took up the satchel where the ledgers were kept. The frost creaked under his boots as he stepped into the morning.

"Tell Oswin to keep the gate. I’ll be back before dusk—if the council keeps their tongues short."

***

The streets of Nottingham exhaled smoke and breath as Halward stepped through the East Gate, the city rousing under a shroud of winter fog. It rolled low over the cobbles, hugging the alleys like a second skin of ash and bone. Light filtered through the milky sky, tinging the buildings with a bruised, uncertain hue. The city looked less like a seat of power and more like a creature waking slowly from its dreams of conquest.

Chimneys belched gray columns into the morning air. The smell of soot and offal mixed with the copper tang of iron and damp stone. Carts creaked under the weight of salted meats, rough sacks of barley, and kindling bundled in twine. Horses picked their way through the slush-rutted lanes while vendors shouted into the fog, their calls muffled and sharp. A beggar clanged his cup against the wall of a shuttered inn, while a fishmonger cursed the price of salt.

Halward walked with the resolve of a man who had known colder mornings than this. His cloak, worn but tightly drawn, snapped in the breeze. His breath steamed like incense from a censer. The forest had its own chill, deep and lingering, but city cold struck faster—an eager blade, not a slow grip.

As he passed through the city gate, a small crowd of idling townsfolk paused their murmuring to take note of him. A few chuckled darkly. "Forest ghost," one muttered. "Coinless keeper," another spat with a sneer. One man hawked and spat near his boots but dared not meet his eyes. Yet not all were so dismissive. An older woman at a bread stall lifted two fingers to her brow and nodded in solemn respect. A boy crouched beside a mule cart whispered to his father, who gave Halward the briefest bow.

From a food vendor's cart near the wall came an unexpected offering. A man, wrapped in patchwork wool and smelling of firewood and yeast, extended a crust of fresh bread and a small clay cup. "For the Warden," he said. His voice was rough, but there was no irony in it.

Halward paused, accepting the gifts with a nod. "Your kindness honors the gate."

He ate as he walked, the bread still warm despite the cold, the crust cracking beneath his teeth. The ale was thin, spiced with something vaguely herbal, its bitterness warming the back of his throat. It did not ease the burden of the day ahead, but it anchored him. A small ritual of grace, brief and grounding. For a moment, the sneers and mutterings at the gate faded. He walked as one remembered, if not revered.

The city grew louder as he neared the square. More boots. More shouts. A bell rang distantly, its voice swallowed by rooftops. Nottingham was not a city that welcomed the weary; it tolerated them for as long as they paid. The market buzzed with rising tension—the sort that foreshadowed tax levies, conscriptions, or worse. The air seemed thick not with frost, but with anticipation and unrest.

He reached the council hall just before the third bell. The structure loomed over the square like an old vulture perched on the spine of the city. Frost clung to its heavy stone lintels, and the red hawk of Nottingham hung limp on a banner stiff with frozen dew. Two guards stood beneath the arch, saying nothing as Halward passed. Inside, warmth and authority mingled poorly. Fires smoldered in iron grates, but their heat was thin against the stone walls. The hall smelled faintly of ink, sweat, and soot.

Five wardens sat or stood along the perimeter of the hall, each bearing the badge of their respective city gates—East, West, North, South, and Castle Gate. Their cloaks bore civic colors, their boots were caked in road mud or polished with bureaucratic sheen. Ledgers rested on knees or beneath arms, like shields made of parchment and ink. One drummed his fingers absently on a brass buckle; another whispered to a scribe standing behind him.

Halward, the only warden not of the city, stood apart. No token of civic allegiance marked his cloak, only the quiet austerity of his bearing. The others glanced at him with a mix of curiosity and dismissiveness, as though a woodsman had wandered into a council meant for order and stone. He belonged to another world, one that answered to roots and relics, not tariffs and treaties.

Some gave him a short nod; others offered only silence. No one welcomed him outright. Woodgate was not part of the city—only tolerated, barely remembered until it inconvenienced the crown. His presence served as a reminder of something older, something the others preferred to forget.

They were waiting for Bertram. Though the summons had been issued under the guise of policy and coordination, the purpose was clear to anyone who understood power: this meeting was orchestrated for spectacle. Bertram had called the wardens not to inform, but to assert. More precisely, to remind them—and especially Halward—that with the Sheriff gone to Winchester, authority now had a new face and a sharper edge.

The presence of Halward, lone Warden of the forest threshold, served as both contrast and target. He was not one of them—not molded by ledgers or trained in the court’s etiquette. His presence among the civic wardens was an old tradition allowed to linger, and Bertram had come to shame it.

He made them wait longer.

When Bertram entered, it was not with the pomp of the Sheriff, but with something colder—efficient, unbothered, and sharpened. He moved without haste, flanked by no heralds, his boots hard against the flagstones. The black leather of his gloves creaked as he placed a ledger on the table in front of him. He did not acknowledge the others immediately, instead opening the volume and running a gloved finger down its spine.

"Sheriff de Braose rides to Winchester," he said, eyes fixed on the page. "The King expects tribute. Nottingham will meet that expectation."

He did not raise his voice, but the hall quieted further, as if the stones themselves were listening.

"Tolls shall be doubled through Epiphany. Weekly reports are now required. Every gate shall maintain a rotating patrol by the first full moon of the new year. Forest routes will be monitored, tokens verified, and all irregularities recorded."

A low murmur rippled through the men. One of the western wardens muttered something under his breath. Bertram looked up sharply, and the room fell silent once more.

Then, with the precision of a drawn blade: "All gates outside the city are to be garrisoned. Patrols will enforce forest law within the bounds of the King's Wood. Each Warden shall submit regular reports—accurate, complete, and timely."

He let the pause stretch, then added, "Tolls will be doubled. No exceptions."

Bertram's eyes settled squarely on Halward. "And at Woodgate," he said, his tone firm and deliberate, "only the King's coin shall be accepted. Tokens, barter, forest scrip—they hold no weight here. Not anymore."

The statement landed like a hammer in the hall. A quiet rumble of unease stirred again, quickly quelled. A few wardens exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

"Woodgate will remain a gate—for now. But let no one mistake it for sacred. It is an asset, and its records shall reflect that. Warden Halward, you will oversee a standing rotation of four men. Provisions will be accounted through the quartermaster. Failures of discipline—yours or theirs—will reflect poorly."

Halward stood without shifting his weight. He gave a shallow nod—neither agreement nor deference, but acknowledgment. He would not play the game, but he would show he understood the stakes.

Bertram paused, his gaze lingering on Halward longer than on any other. There was something measured in it—not malice, but calculation. Respect threaded through it, if only faintly.

"You’ve walked long enough between the trees, Warden," he said, voice quieter but no less sharp. "This hooded bandit who troubles our roads—he mocks the crown and disrupts the King’s Wood. You will find him. And you will deliver him the King's justice."

It was not a request. It was trust, weaponized. A soldier’s task, handed from one veteran to another.

Bertram closed the ledger with a clean snap of vellum and wood.

"This council is dismissed. May your gates remain shut to trouble, and open to coin."

The men began to disperse, boots echoing across stone and slush. Halward lingered a moment longer, casting one final glance at Bertram. The acting Sheriff did not look up.

Halward turned, cloak swaying behind him, and walked back into the cold.

***

Halward remained in the city longer than intended. Before departing, he entered a small shop nestled in the shadows of the cathedral quarter, where he exchanged Bertram's silver ring for a modest Book of Hours—its pages faded, but lovingly preserved. A gift for Wilmot.

As he emerged from the shop, snow beginning to feather the stones, a courier approached. The man bore the livery of Wexley and handed Halward a sealed envelope—gold wax impressed with the sigil of a wexleaf and lark.

"The Lady requests an audience," the courier said.

Halward turned the letter over in his hands. It was heavier than it looked.

"When?"

"She names the Feast of St. Thomas Becket—four days hence—as the time. Before the twenty-ninth."

Without another word, the man turned back into the fog and disappeared into the pressing white.

Halward did not open the letter. He tucked it into his coat and began the long walk back to Woodgate, the book secured beneath his arm, the weight of the seal heavier than coin.

***

The wind had shifted by the time Halward returned to Woodgate. It blew hard from the north now, sharp as a whetted blade, carrying the scent of snow and distant smoke. His boots crunched across frost-laced ground as he passed beneath the stone arch, his cloak stiff with cold and travel. Oswin was tending to the chapel steps, a broom in one hand, his hood drawn up against the gusts.

Halward gave a short nod as he passed. "The orders are given."

Oswin looked up, eyes narrowing beneath the hood. "Well, then? What did the city want this time?"

Halward exhaled through his nose, breath ghosting in the cold. "A doubling of the tolls. A patrol of four men stationed here by the new year. Ledgers to be submitted weekly. And no more forest tokens—only the King's coin."

Oswin leaned on the broom like a staff. "They mean to make you a clerk. Or a jailer."

"Both, perhaps," Halward said. "Or neither. They mean to make this place theirs."

"Did you speak against it?"

"What would it matter if I had? Bertram calls it obedience. I call it erosion."

Oswin grunted. "And mercy?"

Halward’s eyes turned toward the chapel. "Not among the orders."

In the yard, Wilmot and Arrow were mending the canvas cover of the cart. The boy looked up, blinking against the light, and jogged over.

"Did they say anything about—"

"Yes," Halward interrupted gently. "We’ll host a patrol come the new year. Four men. Maybe five. You and Oswin need to clear the stables. Prepare bunks in the barracks."

Wilmot opened his mouth, hesitated, then nodded. "Will they stay through winter?"

"Long enough to make themselves known."

Halward brushed past him and made his way toward the storeroom, the Book of Hours still tucked under his cloak and the sealed letter pressing like a stone against his ribs.

***

The wind clawed against the gatehouse shutters like an animal shut out in the dark. Inside, the fire had burned low. A single candle flickered atop the desk, its wax pooling against a chipped ceramic plate. Halward sat with his back to the room, the coat still drawn around his shoulders, the sealed letter resting on the table before him.

He had placed it there almost an hour ago, the wax untouched. The golden seal caught the candlelight with a soft gleam—the lark and wexleaf of Lady Aveline, unmistakable and unbroken.

Nearby, the Book of Hours sat atop a folded cloth. He had opened it once earlier in the evening, if only to read the first line aloud. The Latin still rested uneasily on his tongue, familiar but distant, like the echo of a prayer he no longer believed would be answered.

He reached for the envelope now and broke the seal.

The letter within was penned in a practiced, graceful hand:

Warden Halward,

I write not as a noblewoman, but as one who has known loss, loyalty, and duty. I have heard rumor of a summons to Nottingham, and though the details remain unclear, I fear what may be set in motion. If Bertram has taken the reins, then I suspect the meeting was not for coordination—but for command.

I believe you understand what is being shaped—and who stands to be caught beneath it.

There are murmurs from the wood. Of movement. Of signs not seen in years. Of a token found with markings long thought buried. I will not name it, but I know you have seen it. You understand what it means—or will soon enough.

I have requested this audience not to warn, but to remind. We are stewards of thresholds. The weight of that title has not diminished, even if the world pretends otherwise.

I will come to you on the Feast of Saint Thomas Becket. I wish to see the boy, and to speak with you plainly. I suspect you have seen signs—tokens of a past neither of us buried deeply enough. If what I fear is true, then our roles are not yet finished. I need your eyes on what mine cannot reach.

—Lady Aveline of Wexley

Halward read the letter twice. Then he set it down, staring at the curling edge of the parchment as if it might unfurl further, reveal some hidden postscript.

He thought of Bertram’s words, of the patrol soon to arrive. He thought of the boy asleep beside a dying fire and the book bought with a ring forged in mockery. He thought of the token buried beneath the cedar roots, and how the forest had not returned it by accident.

He did not want this. Not the politics, not the danger, not the weight of old symbols stirring in the dark. But wanting was irrelevant.

He was the Warden.

And the gate did not choose its watcher.

Halward rose, folded the letter, and placed it inside the drawer beneath his desk.

Then he stirred the fire, added one more log, and returned to his chair. The candle flickered. The wind howled.

And Halward kept his watch.

After a long moment, he reached again for the Book of Hours. The leather binding creaked softly as he opened to the night prayers—Compline. He found the familiar lines, the ones that had once steadied his breath in the far deserts beyond Acre.

His voice was low, reverent, but unwavering:

"In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum: redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritatis."

Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.

The Latin was coarse on his tongue, but the cadence returned with memory. He closed the book gently, let his hand rest on the cover.

Outside, the trees groaned softly in the wind.

Within, the Warden prayed in silence.