The Tolls of Death

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There were two happy men that day in Cardinham in the summer of 1323, and one who was fearful.

Serlo the miller had every right to be concerned. Although he feared ruin, he was about to be murdered, for reasons he could not begin to comprehend, and at the hands of one whom he would never have suspected.

Nicholas of Cardinham sat on his palfrey, eyeing the villeins at work in the castle’s fields with a profound sense of satisfaction.

From here, high on the edge of the moors leading up towards Bodmin in the Earldom of Cornwall, he could see for many miles in the bright sunshine. The golden, drooping heads of the oats in the fields bobbed in the wind like ladies moving to an unheard tune. Wonderful! It was a sight to make a man give thanks to God, and Nicholas, a religious man, did so gladly.

Although the calls of the sweating peasants were loud, he could still hear the larks trilling high overhead. With every breeze the leaves of gorse rattled dryly, their yellow flowers dancing. To this was added the mechanical hiss of the reapers. With every sweep of their scythes, dust was thrown upwards in clouds of fine mist. The music of men rehoning their blades with long stones sang in the air. Others were collecting the sheaves of oats, two to every man, stacking them in stooks while their womenfolk and children plucked gleanings from the ground and placed them in their aprons or cloths tied about their waists with thongs. They were welcome to their meagre harvest; Nicholas had already seen to his lord’s profit, God be praised!

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