Chapter 32 #3
Thomas rounded on him. “A woman has been taken to Belmaine’s house.”
Aymon’s expression shifted, sharpening through the pain. “The red-haired one?”
The world seemed to pause.
Thomas took one step closer. “You know her?”
“I know of her.” Aymon winced as he tried to brace one hand against the road.
“A message reached the queen’s lady. A strange woman at Ashcombe.
A false husband. A lord under suspicion who did not yield her.
Lady Eleanor thought it either scandal, treason, romance, or all three. She dislikes dull correspondence.”
Hob muttered, “I like her already.”
Thomas’s heart kicked hard against his ribs.
Amelia’s plan. Of course. Quiet messages, roads, royal ladies, proof gathered like beads on a string.
He had thought her merely sorting rolls, smiling at children, making Walter grind his teeth, and asking too many questions about why men drank small beer when the well ran sweet.
All the while, she had been building a bridge over the pit in front of them.
Aymon reached for the packet.
“If Belmaine holds her and the other letters, then you need Pickering and witnesses more than you need speed.”
Thomas hated him a little for being right.
“I go with you,” Hob said.
“You take Aymon to Pickering.”
“Nay.”
Thomas’s voice hardened. “That is an order.”
“And this is me using the sense God gave a damp turnip. You ride into Belmaine’s yard with no witness but your temper and your horse, and by nightfall they’ll have you named butcher, abductor, traitor, and whatever else Belmaine can fit into his mouth. You need me.”
“I need those letters safe.”
Hob jerked his chin toward the road behind them. “Then send Simon and Mark. They’re close enough to hear the shouting if I bellow.”
Thomas blinked, then turned.
Hob gave him a look of deep pity. “You rode with six men, my lord. You remember, six? More than two, less than a proper army.”
From behind the bend came the hurried sound of horses and men trying to look as if they had not been scrambling to catch up to their lord for the past mile.
Simon arrived first, rain dripping from his cap, eyes going wide at the sight of three bound men, one wounded knight, Hob’s muddy axe, and Thomas standing in the road with murder still very much wearing its boots.
“Saints,” Simon said.
Mark drew up behind him. “Did we miss it?”
Hob looked pleased. “Most of it.”
Thomas pointed to Aymon. “You and Mark take Sir Aymon to Master Pickering. You take the packet. You take those two alive.”
“The third?” Simon asked.
The man with the broken mouth moaned.
Thomas looked at him. “Especially the third.”
Simon swallowed. “Aye, my lord.”
Aymon’s pride made one last, valiant attempt to stand upright. “I can ride.”
Hob squinted at him. “You can sit on a horse and complain. Different thing.”
Aymon gave him a look that would have withered a lesser man.
Thomas placed the sealed packet in Aymon’s hand, then closed the man’s fingers around it. “You’ll tell Pickering what happened here.”
“I will.”
“You’ll tell him Belmaine has the other packet.”
“I will.”
“You’ll tell him Ashcombe saved your life.”
Aymon looked up at him through rain, blood, and a great deal of inconvenient intelligence.
“I will tell him Lord Ashcombe stopped on the road when he had every reason not to.”
Aymon’s expression softened by the smallest degree. “The queen does not forget debts.”
“I didn’t do it for the queen.”
“Nay.” Aymon’s mouth curved. “That is why she will value it.”
Thomas did not have room in him for that. Not now. Not with Belmaine’s house ahead and Amelia somewhere inside it.
Hob caught Galahad’s bridle as Thomas mounted. For one breath, the old soldier’s hand was firm against the grey’s rain-slick leather. His face was grim beneath his hood, his scarred mouth drawn tight.
“Thomas.”
The use of his name cut through the rain.
Thomas looked down.
“We bring her home,” Hob said.
Thomas looked toward Belmaine’s road. For years he had believed surviving Evesham was a punishment, a debt to be paid piece by piece until there was nothing left of him but duty, bone, and the names of dead men.
Then Amelia Quinn had fallen into his stables in a gown the color of the summer sky, talking of dentists, canned wine, and wearing the most ridiculous shoes.
She had brought lists to his ruin, order to his fields, laughter to his hall, and warmth to places in him he had not known were frozen.
She had made him want tomorrow.
Aymon’s voice came from behind him, dry despite the pain. “If this is wooing, I begin to understand why poets drink.”
Hob barked a laugh.
Thomas almost smiled. Almost. Then he touched his heels to Galahad’s sides as the horse surged forward, powerful and eager beneath him, and Thomas rode south with Hob at his side, rain in his eyes, blood on his sleeve, the queen’s debt behind him, and no more patience.
Belmaine had taken Amelia from Ashcombe. From him. Now Thomas had the law, the proof, and the road beneath him.
The sword was merely for what came after.