The Cathedral loomed like a giant’s tomb, its towering spire clawing at the storm-laden sky. Inside, Walter sat on the cold, splintering pew, his head bowed in mock piety. Around him, a sea of peasants huddled, their breath fogging the frigid air. From the pulpit, Father Anselm’s voice droned in harsh, alien Latin: _“Dominus dixit: servite dominis vestris sicut me.”_ Serve your lords as you would serve God.

Walter understood none of it. Nor did anyone else. The words rumbled like a distant storm, incomprehensible and absolute. But their meaning was clear. Obey. Kneel. Toil. Die.

The priest’s voice echoed off the soaring stone arches, trapping them like cattle within the cathedral’s cavernous belly. Walter’s calloused fingers gripped his cap as he glanced at his son, William, thin and pale with hunger. Beside him, his wife Margaret clutched baby Agnes, her face shadowed by exhaustion. This wasn’t life. It was a slow drowning, a cycle of servitude handed down through generations, as eternal as the cathedral’s cold walls.

As the congregation shuffled out, Walter’s stomach twisted. The Church was not saving them; it was strangling them. The Bible, locked in Latin, was a weapon wielded by priests. Truth was hidden, words distorted, their ignorance chained to their backs like a yoke. Walter looked at the cathedral’s high, unbroken windows and felt a creeping rage. Those windows weren’t for people like him—they were for God, and for the men who claimed to speak for Him.

That night, in the flickering light of their hearth, Walter stared at the damp walls of their cottage. Smoke choked the air, mingling with the faint cries of Agnes. Margaret sat across from him, silent as she spun wool. The fire’s glow deepened the lines of weariness carved into her face.

“We can’t stay here,” Walter said, breaking the silence. His voice was low, rough. “This life—there’s nothing for us. Not for us. Not for the children.”

Margaret looked up sharply. “What are you saying?”

“There’s a place,” he said, his words slow and heavy. “Across the sea. A place where no lord owns the land. Where we could be free.”

Margaret’s eyes narrowed with fear. “And how do we get there? We’ve nothing, Walter. Less than nothing.”

He leaned forward, the firelight catching the deep shadows beneath his eyes. “I’ll find a way. But we have to go, Margaret. Before we’re swallowed whole.”

Two weeks later, Walter sat in the dark corner of a smoke-choked tavern, listening to the rasping voice of a sailor named Hugh. The man’s eyes gleamed like flint, his breath sour with ale.

“A ship’s leaving from Bristol,” Hugh said, leaning in close. “She’s bound for the New World. Dangerous, though. Many don’t make it. The sea doesn’t care if you live or die.”

“I’ll take the risk,” Walter said. He slid a small bundle of coins across the table, the last remnants of their meager savings. Hugh’s hand darted out like a snake and snatched the money.

“Bring your family to the docks before dawn,” he said. “And keep quiet. If anyone finds out you’re fleeing, you’ll be strung up like a thief.”

The journey to Bristol was a waking nightmare. They traveled by night, sleeping in ditches and under hedgerows, the children shivering with cold. Walter sold Margaret’s spinning wheel for a few scraps of bread, watching her face twist with pain as the merchant walked away with the last thing she owned. Hunger gnawed at them like rats, but they pressed on, driven by the promise of freedom—or the fear of being caught.

When they finally reached the port, the smell of brine and rotting fish hung heavy in the air. The ship loomed before them, a hulking shadow against the dawn. Its masts were skeletal, the hull blackened and scarred from storms. Hugh was waiting at the dock, his face grim.

“You’ll work your passage,” he said. “And pray the sea doesn’t take you.”

Walter helped Margaret and the children onto the ship, his heart a knot of dread. As the vessel creaked and groaned, the city vanished into the mist. He felt no sorrow leaving it behind. Only a heavy, uncertain hope.

The crossing was hell. Waves slammed against the ship, their icy spray soaking Walter to the bone as he hauled ropes and scrubbed the decks under the cruel eyes of the crew. Below, Margaret and the children huddled in the suffocating hold, the air thick with the stench of sweat and sickness. William’s cough grew worse by the day, his thin chest rattling like a broken bellows.

One night, as the ship pitched violently in a storm, Walter climbed down to the hold and found Margaret cradling Agnes, her face pale as death. “She’s burning,” Margaret whispered, her voice cracking. Walter touched the baby’s forehead and recoiled. The fever had taken hold. He pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. He didn’t pray. What god would hear him now?

The next morning, the storm passed, but Agnes was gone. They buried her at sea, the crew casting her tiny, shrouded body into the endless grey waves. Margaret made no sound as the water swallowed their daughter, her grief etched into her hollow eyes. Walter’s hands clenched the rail until his knuckles turned white. Freedom, he thought bitterly. This is the price.

Months later, when the coastline of the New World finally rose on the horizon, Walter stood on the deck, staring at the faint outline of land. His clothes hung loose on his wasted frame, his face hollowed by hunger and loss. Behind him, Margaret clutched William, who was no longer coughing but had grown gaunt and silent.

The ship groaned as it docked, the crew shouting orders as they tied it to the rough-hewn pier. Walter helped Margaret and William onto the soil of the New World, the earth dry and cracked beneath their feet. The air was heavy with the scent of pine and salt. It was a hard land, wild and raw, but it was theirs now.

Walter turned to Margaret, his voice hoarse. “We’ll make it. Somehow.”

She looked at him, her face unreadable, then nodded. Behind them, the ship was already preparing to leave, its crew shouting and cursing. Walter didn’t look back. There was nothing to see.

Ahead lay only uncertainty—but it was a life they could claim for themselves. The chains of the cathedral, of the land, of the lord—they had been broken. What remained was freedom, raw and unyielding as the sea they had crossed.