The year turned, and with it, the mood of the countryside. Where once the talk at market had been of harvests and marriages, now whispers of unrest grew louder. I would ride into the village of Bramwell, its cobbled streets usually alive with cheer, and find instead that voices lowered when I approached. Men huddled in corners, women clutched their baskets tighter. The age of order was fraying, thread by thread.
Reports came from the north: highwaymen ambushing coaches, barns set ablaze in the night. I had long thought such violence belonged to distant wars, tales carried by sailors from the colonies. Yet here it was, seeping into Essex, creeping ever closer to Dalewick.
I remember one morning, standing in the study, my steward William laying ledgers before me. He cleared his throat nervously. "Sir, another tenant has failed to deliver rent. Claims his cattle were driven off in the night."
I frowned, tracing the neat columns of figures with my finger. "Another? That makes three this month."
William nodded. "They say it was done by strangers, but…" He hesitated.
"But what?"
He lowered his eyes. "Some claim the thieves had help from within. Neighbors who knew where the beasts were kept."
Betrayal. The word unsettled me more than loss. A barn could be rebuilt, a herd replenished, but treachery was a rot that spread unseen.
That evening, I shared these concerns with Elira. She listened patiently, her embroidery paused in her lap. Candlelight warmed her face, but her voice was cool. "You worry too much, Alaric. Every generation speaks of decline, of chaos at the door. Yet still the sun rises."
I smiled, though without conviction. "Perhaps. Yet when I walk the orchards, I feel as though I am tending glass, beautiful, but fragile. One stone thrown, and all shatters."
She reached for my hand. "Then do not let fear steal the joy of what you have."
But fear, once named, grows teeth.
It was around this time that Edric Vale, a magistrate of grim countenance, paid a visit. He was older than I, his hair powdered to hide the streaks of grey, his manner stiff as the oak cane he carried. We dined together, and I confessed my unease.
"The countryside has always known trouble," he said curtly. "But law will prevail. Men fear punishment more than poverty."
I laughed bitterly. "Do they? Hunger does not wait for the gallows."
His sharp eyes narrowed. "You speak as though Providence has abandoned us."
I hesitated, the fire popping in the grate. "I speak only what I see. Trouble grows. Men suffer. And yet the skies remain silent."
He frowned, as though I had uttered blasphemy. "Providence is not silent, Merrow. It is we who fail to listen."
Later that night, when all the guests had gone, I lingered by the window, staring out at the darkened moors. Silence pressed against the glass, broken only by the distant howl of wind. I whispered to myself, "Why, where did it all go wrong?" and half-feared the shadows might answer.
Days passed. More troubling tales arrived. A farmer to the east found his fields salted; a brewer's wagon was overturned and looted. And then, the worst of the whispers, that some men of station, men once trusted, had begun to profit from the ruin of others. Property was cheap in those days, desperation forcing sales. For every estate brought low, another hand reached out to claim the spoils.
One name surfaced more than once: Corven Hale.
I did not want to believe it. He had been my companion since youth, my confidant in both revelry and grief. We had shared wine, secrets, and laughter. Yet merchants lived by profit, and profit made men hungry. Had he looked upon Dalewick with covetous eyes? I pushed the thought aside. To suspect him was to betray our years of fellowship.
But suspicion, once planted, does not easily die.
One evening, I caught him studying the manor with a peculiar gaze, his lips pressed thin as though weighing it like goods upon a scale. When he noticed my eyes upon him, he smiled too quickly.
I told myself it was nothing. That I was seeing ghosts where none existed. Yet even as I reassured myself, unease settled deeper into my bones.
It was in those days that I began to keep a journal, not this record, but a private one, a ledger of anxieties and whispered fears. I wrote of the rumors, of Corven's glances, of the silence in Heaven. Each page grew heavier, as though words themselves added weight to the air.
Still, Dalewick thrived, outwardly untouched. The orchards yielded, the tenants worked, my children played. To a visitor, it would have seemed a paradise. And yet beneath it all, I felt it, the thin ice beneath the pond, the hush before the storm.
Looking back, I know that was the last season of peace. I should have read the signs more carefully, should have trusted the dread coiled in my heart. Instead, I told myself what all men tell themselves in such hours: It cannot happen here.
But it did. And soon.