Chapter 19
THOMAS
Thomas should have sent Hob to the market. That was the plain truth of it, and he knew it even as he stood in the stable yard after dawn, tightening Cygnet’s girth and telling himself, in a voice he didn’t believe for one moment, that the matter was sensible.
It was sensible for the lord to go himself, because the coin in the coffer was thin enough to show bone, and every measure of salt, iron nail, barley, lamp oil, and winter cloth had to be bought with the kind of care usually reserved for negotiating ransoms.
It was sensible for Amelia to come with him, because she kept the accounts and had a way of turning three coins and a goat into a plan.
She should see what coin bought in the market, he had said.
She should understand the prices, the weights, the quality, the ways merchants smiled while picking a man’s purse through his own pride.
It was sensible, therefore, that she ride behind him, because there was no second mount to spare.
Hob needed one horse to check the lower fields, Walter had sent a boy with the mule to fetch timber pegs, and Galahad was too much horse for a woman still learning that animals did not come with handles.
Where was she from that she didn’t know how to ride? He dismissed the thought.
The air smelled of wet straw, horse, woodsmoke, and the sharp bite of autumn. Chickens scratched near the wall with the lawless certainty of thieves. Somewhere in the kitchen yard Edith was scolding a boy for dropping onions, and from the hall came the faint clatter of bowls being stacked.
Amelia came out of the hall, wearing the green gown, the one that made her skin look like fresh milk, smooth and without blemish or scar.
Over it she had a brown wool cloak clasped at the throat with a plain pin, and her veil had been arranged properly for once, covering most of her hair.
Most. A curl had already escaped near her ear.
It rested against her cheek in defiance of every law of God, man, and Edith.
She carried a small leather satchel against her hip. Walter had lent it to her only after making her swear not to put the market accounts in the same compartment as bread, cheese, or anything damp.
Walter’s trust, like Ashcombe’s coin, came in small amounts and under strict conditions.
Amelia crossed the yard carefully, lifting her hem away from the worst of the mud.
“Your road is mostly mud,” she said when she reached him.
“My road?”
“You’re the lord. I assume you’re responsible for everything unpleasant within the walls.”
“That explains much.”
“I’ve been making a list.”
“I feared so.”
Her eyes warmed at that, green and lively despite the grey morning. Thomas looked away too late.
Cygnet shifted beneath his hand. She was a bay mare with a small white star on her forehead and more sense than half the men in Ashcombe, though less patience. She flicked an ear toward Amelia, then gave Thomas a look that clearly said she knew exactly what nonsense he was about to attempt.
Hob came out of the stable with a rolled blanket under one arm and an expression far too pleased for so early an hour.
“Set this behind the saddle, my lord. The lady will sit easier.”
Amelia brightened. “A cushion? Hob, you angel.”
Hob stopped dead. “I have been called many things, mistress. That is a first.”
“Enjoy it.”
Thomas took the blanket from him. “Do you have work?”
“Aye.”
“Then go to it.”
“I am doing it. Ensuring Mistress Amelia does not fall off your horse and break the clever part of her head.”
“My head has many clever parts,” Amelia said.
Hob looked her over gravely. “Best protect the whole of it, then.”
Thomas secured the folded blanket behind the saddle, aware that Hob was still standing there wearing the expression of a man prepared to be entertained at someone else’s expense.
“Leave,” Thomas said.
Hob scratched his beard. “Of course.”
He didn’t leave.
Edith appeared in the hall doorway with a wrapped bundle in one hand. “Bread, cheese, two apples, and a flask of small beer. And water for Mistress Amelia, since she insists on living dangerously.”
“I like water,” Amelia said.
Edith crossed the yard and tucked the bundle into Amelia’s satchel, then stepped back and looked from her to Thomas, eyes narrowed.
“Mind your veil in town,” Edith said.
Amelia touched the linen at her head. “Is it already falling down?”
“It’s fine now. It will not remain fine, because your hair has no Christian discipline.”
“My hair and I are working through some things.”
“Work faster.”
Hob made a sound suspiciously close to laughter.
Edith looked at Thomas. “And you. Don’t let her wander alone.”
“She is standing right here.”
“I know where she is now. ’Tis the market that worries me. Folk there have been wanting to catch a glimpse of the Ashcombe Faery.”
Edith’s gaze sharpened, and for a moment the yard, the horse, the mist, all of it seemed to fall away beneath the force of that older woman’s stare.
“I have a title now?” Amelia shook her head. “That can’t be good.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened. A strange woman was safer inside Ashcombe’s walls, where his people had grown used to her odd words, her lists, her clean-hands tyranny, and the way she asked questions as if she’d come from some far away land.
In the market, a wrong phrase or gesture, and Amelia could become a tale before they reached the road home.
Thomas swung into the saddle, settling his weight as Cygnet shifted beneath him. He reached down.
“You’ll hold on to me.”
She looked up at him with a frown. “I know how to hold on.”
“Cygnet’s smooth, but she’s quick. You fall, you’ll crack your fool head.”
“I have ridden a horse before, you know.”
She looked away.
“Once,” she added. “At a work thing in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?” He frowned. “I know none of those words.”
“That’s probably for the best. It was a terrible weekend. There was trust-building and chili.”
Hob coughed into his fist.
Thomas leaned lower. “Take my arm.”
Her hand closed around his forearm, warm through the linen of his sleeve, and Thomas hauled her up behind him. She landed with a small breathless sound, not quite a squeak, not that he would ever tell her so if he wished to keep his head attached to his shoulders.
For one heartbeat, all he felt was movement, her weight settling behind him, the press of her knee near his thigh, the rustle of wool and linen. Then her arms came carefully around his middle.
Thomas discovered that the inside of his skull, the noisy haunted inside of his skull that had not been quiet in more than a year, went abruptly, perfectly still.
Not peaceful. Peace was too large a mercy. But still.
Amelia shifted. “I’m ready.”
Her voice was muffled near his shoulder.
“I have not ridden a horse like this before.”
“I gathered.”
“There’s no seatbelt.”
“What is a seatbelt?”
Hob coughed.
“It holds you in place as you ride. Then again, why would there be a seatbelt? This is a horse, not an Uber.”
“Uber?” Hob tilted his head. “Are you certain you’re no faery, mistress?”
She huffed out a breath. “It’s like a cart.”
Satisfied, Hob nodded.
“Hold on, Amelia.”
“I’m holding. Your stomach is very hard, rather like marble.”
Hob made a strangled sound.
Thomas looked down at him. “Say one word.”
“I would not dream of it, my lord.”
Cygnet tossed her head as if bored by all of them.
Amelia’s arms tightened when the mare took her first step.
Thomas’s body, treacherous thing that it was, noticed.
Every part of him noticed. The soft weight of her against his back.
Her breath catching when Cygnet moved from a walk to a brisker pace.
The way her fingers gripped the front of his tunic, careful at first, then less careful when the mare reached the gate and the uneven ground beyond.
The scent of her, wool warmed by her skin, faint smoke from the hall, a trace of honey from breakfast, and something that was simply Amelia, bright and clean, reminding him of a summer day when he was but a boy.
They rode out beneath the gatehouse while Wat and Alyson waved from the yard. Alyson shouted something about apples. Wat shouted something about bandits. Hob told him not to give the lady ideas.
The road to the market curled through fields stubbled gold after harvest, past hedgerows flushed red with haws and hips, past damp copses where leaves clung in copper, brown, and stubborn green.
Mist lay low in the hollows and lifted slowly as the sun struggled through the clouds.
The Malvern Hills rose in the distance, blue-grey beneath the pale morning, and the Avon moved unseen beyond the lower fields, betrayed only by the glint of water between willows and the sudden cry of birds.
“Is that allowed?” she asked.
Amelia’s breath made his ear twitch, which made him think about her mouth.
“What?” He told himself to stop acting like a witless dolt.
“That sheep.”
Thomas looked. A large ewe stood in the middle of a narrow strip of field, staring at them with the bleak suspicion of a woman who had seen empires rise and found them lacking.
“It is a sheep.”
“It’s staring at me.”
“Mayhap it does not approve of your seat.”
“My seat is doing its best.”
“You are leaning left.”
“I’m avoiding leaning into you.”
“That is why you are leaning left.”
“Would you prefer I lean into you?”
No.
Yes.
Damnation.
Thomas kept his gaze on the road. “I would prefer you sit steady.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Aye.”
“Well, forgive me for not being born in the saddle.”
“I forgive many of your flaws.”
Her gasp was loud enough to startle a crow from the hedge. “My flaws?”
“You asked.”
“I did not. Also, I’m a delight.”
Cygnet flicked an ear.
“Your horse agrees with me.”
“Cygnet agrees with no one.”
“I can tell she likes me.”
“She is considering whether you have food.”
“That’s how most relationships begin.”
Despite himself, Thomas smiled. He was glad she could not see it. Or mayhap not glad. That was the difficulty. With Amelia at his back, every sensible thought became two thoughts, and the second was always the dangerous one.