“If we can identify that place,” Lydia said, “we may find people everyone else has been told are dead.” The room fell silent as each person considered the scale of what remained unknown.

Chapter 28: The Tollkeeper’s Books

Rebecca and Miriam reached Benjamin Hale’s bridge near midday.

The tollkeeper was old enough that he needed both hands to lift the ledger from its iron box.

His wife, Hannah, recognized Miriam immediately and welcomed them into the small house beside the road.

Rebecca introduced herself as Lydia Vale’s cousin, and Hale stopped smiling.

“That name brought trouble here once,” he said.

Miriam answered, “It brought trouble because some men didn’t want the truth written down.” Hale looked toward the bridge where a wagon was waiting for the gate to rise.

They explained that people had been transported under false papers and that records of wagons might help locate them.

Hale said he had never inspected the cargo of paying travelers.

Rebecca did not accuse him of knowing every crime committed on the road.

She asked only whether the ledgers could show dates and wagon owners.

Hale hesitated.

He remembered certain nights when Fane’s men paid double to cross without delay.

He had written their names because the amounts did not match ordinary tolls.

“I kept the books in case they accused me of stealing from the collection,” he said.

“I didn’t know what was under the canvas.” Miriam answered that knowing now gave him a choice about what the records could do.

Hannah brought the older ledgers from a chest beneath the bed.

They were wrapped in oilcloth and organized by year.

Rebecca found Fane’s company symbol beside entries that corresponded exactly to the transfer dates in Lydia’s ledger.

The tollkeeper had also noted descriptions of drivers, including Captain Briggs and a man with a silver tooth.

One margin recorded a wagon carrying a woman’s shawl caught in its side board.

Hale had written the detail because the cloth blew against the toll post as the driver hurried through.

Lydia later recognized the description as the night she was moved from one holding house to another.

Hale asked whether he would be punished for accepting the tolls.

Rebecca said she could not promise otherwise.

Miriam told him that concealment would leave the people in the wagons without another witness.

Hale spent a long minute looking at his wife’s hands, then agreed to copy the relevant pages.

He kept the original books because he feared that losing them would expose his family to accusations he could not answer.