Chapter 11
THOMAS
Trouble rode in on a gray gelding with silver on its bridle, making Thomas dislike the rider before the man had spoken a single word.
To be fair, Thomas had disliked Sir Roger Belmaine for years. The feeling had merely ripened with age, like cheese left too long in the sun.
The last of the barley had been brought in yestereve, and for the first time in too many days the yard did not look as if the whole manor waited for the sky to fall.
Men moved with less weight on their shoulders.
Women called to one another as they crossed from kitchen to well, and their voices carried laughter instead of worry.
Even the weather had repented. The morning shone clean and blue, with a light wind off the Avon stirring the dust and ruffling the hens, who complained as if the Lord had made the breeze for the sole purpose of vexing poultry.
Thomas stood near the east wall with Hob, both of them pretending an argument over stonework wasn’t an excellent way to spend a morning.
“It will hold,” Hob said, squinting at the wall.
“It leans.”
“So do I, and I’m still here.”
“You creak more than the wall.”
“Aye, but no one has asked me to keep the pigs out.”
“They might, if the wall falls.”
Hob scratched his beard, considering. “I’d do better than some.”
Thomas had almost smiled when the watch called from the gate.
“Riders!”
The word moved through the yard like a bucket of cold water thrown over a sleeping man.
Wat froze with a pail in both hands, water slopping over his shoes.
Alyson peered from behind Edith’s skirts, her eyes round as apples.
Walter, crossing the yard with a roll tucked beneath one arm, stopped so abruptly that a chicken ran into his shoe and squawked as if he’d done it on purpose.
Six men rode up the track. Good cloaks. Better horses, with steel at their sides. At the head of them came Sir Roger Belmaine.
Of course he smiled. Men like Belmaine always smiled when they thought they smelled weakness.
Thomas remembered that smile. Belmaine had not been at Blackmere, no matter how freely he spoke of battle in halls where the wine flowed and no man’s boots sank into the blood and the muck.
He had listened to the tales afterward with bright eyes and a soft belly, eager for the breach, the bodies, the desperate stand, and the knight who had walked out of it when so many better men had not.
Everyone liked a tale until they met the man inside it.
Belmaine held land east of the Avon and had backed the king’s side, which meant he had chosen well, prospered better, and bled little.
While Thomas had come home to a gutted manor, thin stores, and suspicion following him like smoke, Belmaine had come home to favor, grants, and coffers that seemed to fatten every season.
He was two score, smooth-faced and broad through the belly, soft in the way of a man who paid others to do his killing. His dark cloak was trimmed in fur, though the morning was warm. A silver clasp flashed at his shoulder. His gloves were fine leather, and his boots looked new.
The gelding beneath him was sleek and overfed. Thomas disliked the horse on principle.
Belmaine swung down without waiting for invitation and handed the reins to one of his own men rather than to an Ashcombe lad, which was a small insult and therefore the sort most difficult to answer.
“Ashcombe,” Belmaine called, arms wide, warmth spilling from him like watered ale. “God’s truth, it gladdens me to see you whole.”
Thomas crossed the yard because a man did not greet a neighbor from a distance unless he meant open insult, and Thomas could not afford open insult.
Not yet.
Belmaine clasped Thomas’s hand in both of his. For the briefest moment, something flickered behind Belmaine’s smile. Memory, mayhap. Belmaine had seen him after Blackmere, mud to the knees, blood to the elbows, half blind from the cut above his eye, and still carrying his sword.
Then the smile returned, smooth as cream.
“We heard such things,” Belmaine said. “Such things. I told my steward, I said, Thomas Ashcombe is far too stubborn to die in a field, and here you stand, proving me right.”
“Disappointing many, no doubt.”
Hob made a rough sound behind him.
Belmaine laughed. “Still the same tongue. I’m relieved. A lesser man might have lost his humor after Evesham.”
The yard quieted.
Belmaine let his gaze travel over the place. He looked at the half-mended wall, the new timber stacked near the carpenter’s trestle, the thatch waiting, the patched stable door, and the barn whose fullness had cost Ashcombe several days of backbreaking labor and the last of Thomas’s patience.
Belmaine’s face settled into sorrow so practiced Thomas almost admired it.
“It grieves me to see the castle so hard used,” he said. “After everything. A loyal house brought so low.”
Loyal. There was a word with a dagger in its sleeve.
“We manage,” Thomas said.
“Of course. Of course you do.” Belmaine patted his arm, and Thomas briefly entertained breaking the man’s fingers.
“Ashcombe men have always been hardy. Ill-advised at times, but hardy.”
Hob shifted behind him.
Thomas didn’t look back. If he looked, Hob might take it as permission, and what Hob would do would be satisfying for three breaths and disastrous for the next three years.
“Hob,” Thomas said. “See Sir Roger’s men are given ale.”
Ale, not wine. Thomas had not yet been driven so low as to pretend this visit was welcome.
Hob’s mouth twitched. “Aye, my lord.”
Belmaine noticed. Men like him saw every crumb on a board, every crack in a wall, and every cup not filled from the better jug.
“You are kind,” Belmaine said. “Though I have not come to drain your stores. I know how dear they must be.”
Walter made a small strangled sound.
Thomas wished to make one as well, preferably with both hands around Belmaine’s throat.
“We’re hospitable enough,” Thomas said.
“One would expect no less.”
Belmaine’s gaze drifted past him and stopped.
Amelia had come out onto the steps of the hall, her head tilted up to the sun, with a tally stick in one hand and a smear of ink along her jaw. She took a step back when she noticed the strangers in the yard.
The wind caught a curl that had escaped her wimple.
That glorious copper red with hints of gold.
The plain navy gown Edith had found for her should have made her unremarkable, but nothing dimmed her beauty.
The wool made her skin look fairer, her green eyes brighter, and the freckles across her nose stand out enough to trouble a man’s peace.
The ink at her jaw looked as if she had gone to battle with the accounts and come away victorious.
She must have missed it when she washed. Thomas found it absurdly distracting.
Belmaine looked at her the way a horse trader looked at teeth, with interest, calculation, and the faint pleasure of seeing something that might yet be his.
Thomas’s hand tightened at his side. The urge to step between them came so fast that for one breath he did not move at all. Movement might have become murder, and there were too many witnesses for that.
“Well now,” Belmaine said softly. “I had not heard Ashcombe kept such company.”
Amelia lifted her chin.
Thomas knew that look. It was the look she wore when some man had underestimated her and she had decided, privately, to make him regret it.
He spoke before she could.
“A kinswoman,” Thomas said. “Widowed. Under my protection.”
The lie came too easily.
Mayhap it was not entirely a lie. Protection, at least, was true.
“A widow.” Belmaine’s smile did not move, but something behind it sharpened. “How fortunate she is to have so honorable a kinsman.”
Amelia came down one step.
Thomas willed her to stop, even knowing she would not.
“My lord,” she said, inclining her head with the grace that Edith had clearly drilled her. Likely under threat. “Welcome to Ashcombe.”
Belmaine bowed, though not deeply. Men like him measured respect in inches and spent none where they could save it.
“Mistress...?”
“Quinn,” Thomas said.
“Mistress Quinn,” Belmaine said, tasting it. “A pleasure. A rare one, if I may say so.”
“You may say whatever you like,” Amelia said pleasantly. “Most men do.”
Hob coughed into his fist.
Walter closed his eyes.
Against all sense and safety, Thomas felt a spark of pride.
Belmaine’s brows lifted, then his smile widened. “A sharp wit. Ashcombe has grown livelier than I was led to believe.”
“Harvest does that,” Amelia said.
“Does it?” His gaze flicked to the tally stick in her hand. “And do you assist with the harvest accounts?”
Amelia looked down at the tally as if surprised to find it there. “I carry things.”
“She carries trouble,” Edith muttered from the doorway.
Belmaine’s eyes moved to Edith, dismissed her, and returned to Amelia.
“A household always wants a woman’s hand,” Belmaine said. “Especially one so unexpected.”
“Edith,” he said. “Mistress Quinn was helping you.”
Edith understood at once. “Aye, she was.”
Amelia looked as if she might argue.
Thomas gave her a look.
She gave him one back.
For a moment they had an entire quarrel without a word, which seemed to interest Belmaine far too much.
At last Amelia dipped her head. “If you will excuse me.”
Belmaine bowed over her hand before Thomas could prevent it.
Amelia froze.
So did Thomas.
Belmaine did not kiss her fingers, which proved the man had some wish to leave Ashcombe with his teeth still in his head. He merely held her hand half a heartbeat too long, his thumb resting over her knuckles.
“A pleasure,” he said again.
Amelia pulled her hand back with a smile so polite Thomas knew she wanted to wipe her fingers on her gown.
She went inside with Edith, shoulders straight.
Only when she had vanished into the hall did Thomas remember there were other men in the yard and that he was not permitted to challenge a guest to single combat for holding a woman’s hand too long.
The rule seemed poorly made.