Chapter 16 #2
A narrow man with a stooped back came forward, cap in hand, mud on his hem.
His wife hovered behind him with a bundle of linen and a wary expression.
He owed coin rent for a small holding near the lower meadow and three days’ labor not yet given, according to Wexford’s old roll.
According to Amelia’s new one, he owed coin, yes, but only one day’s labor.
Two had been given during the ditching and marked by Hugh Tanner before Evesham.
Thomas watched Amelia work. He had meant to watch the tenants, to listen for lies, to note who looked too thin, who had held back payment, who might need seed, who might break by Christmas if pressed too hard.
He did all those things because he must, but again and again his attention returned to her.
Amelia did not merely read the names. She knew them.
Not all. Not yet. But she had spent the last fortnight asking questions until even Walter had begun answering out of sheer exhaustion.
She knew that John atte Ford’s wife had a bad wrist but could spin.
She knew the reeve’s eldest son had a gift for numbers and a talent for avoiding work unless watched.
She knew Widow Maud had paid two hens already, no matter what Wexford’s mark claimed, because Alyson had chased one of them beneath the buttery table and still spoke of the incident with reverence.
“John atte Ford,” Amelia said, her quill poised. “Coin rent, two shillings and sixpence owed. Two shillings paid today?”
The man swallowed. “Aye, mistress. Sixpence at Martinmas, if my lord allows.”
Thomas looked at Walter.
Walter looked at the roll. “The lower meadow flooded twice.”
Amelia didn’t speak. She merely turned to Thomas and waited.
He nodded. “Sixpence at Martinmas. One day labor still owed, to be given on the south fence before All Saints.”
John bowed so low his cap nearly brushed the floor. “My thanks, my lord.”
Amelia made the mark. The wife stepped forward, setting the linen bundle on the table. “For the stores, mistress. ’Tis not much.”
Amelia opened it. Strips of mended linen, neat and strong, washed until they smelled faintly of lye and cold air.
Her face softened. “This is exactly what Edith asked for. Thank you, Agnes.”
The woman blinked, startled by the use of her name. Then she smiled. It was small, gone almost at once. But Thomas saw it, and something in him shifted uneasily.
Seen, Amelia made people feel seen. He had watched it happen for weeks in little ways.
A word to the boy hauling water. A question for the dairymaid.
A remembered ache, a corrected count, a bit of honey saved for Alyson, a warning to Wat that he could not say clotpole in front of Friar Huck even if Hob had done so first.
Ashcombe was beginning to lean toward her like plants toward sun.
He was doing it too.
The morning lengthened. The rents came in through cold drafts and the mutter of waiting folk.
Coin clinked into the coffer, not enough of it, never enough, but more than Thomas had hoped.
Payment in kind piled along the side table under Edith’s sharp eye.
Two geese, loud and furious in a wicker crate, were received from a tenant who looked as though he would rather part with a finger.
A sack of beans came from the widow at Nether Cote.
Three wax cakes from Friar Huck, smelling of honey and smoke along with a jar of honey.
A small round of hard cheese from a family with too many children and not enough cow.
A measure of oats. A promise of labor. A disputed tally.
A lamb owed but not yet ready, its delivery marked for Martinmas if the beast did not die, which Walter recorded with the weary suspicion of a man who knew lambs did many things to avoid becoming payment.
At midmorning, Edith sent watered wine, bread, and a dish of salted fish to the high table, because Thomas had forgotten food existed and Amelia had not. She pressed a heel of bread into his hand without looking up from the roll.
“Eat.”
He looked at it. “I am speaking with Walter.”
“You can chew and listen.”
Walter’s mouth pinched.
Thomas ate.
The bread was coarse and a little stale. The fish was too salty. The wine sour enough to make him regret every choice that had led to the cup. It was still food, and after three bites he discovered he was hungry.
Amelia slid a small piece of cheese toward him. “Also that.”
“Do you intend to feed me like a child all morning?”
“No. Children are better at knowing when they’re hungry.”
Across the table, Walter made another sound. This one might have been agreement.
Thomas scowled at him as Walter suddenly found the rolls fascinating.
Just before Sext, Widow Maud came forward.
Maud had buried a son after Evesham, though not on the field.
Fever took him a week later, after a wound festered black.
Her husband had died three winters before, crushed beneath a cart he shouldn’t have been pulling alone.
She was thin as a candle, her back bent but not broken, with hands so knotted they looked carved from root.
Her wimple was clean and carefully pinned.
Pride, Thomas had learned, often wore its best linen when poverty came to court.
The old roll said she owed three hens and a coin rent she couldn’t pay.
Amelia’s roll told another tale. The hens had been marked paid once, then owed again. The coin rent had been deferred by Thomas’s father after the cart accident, then somehow brought forward by Wexford as if mercy could be misplaced by ink.
Walter had been silent for a long time when they found that entry.
Now Maud stood before the table and set down two eggs from her basket. Not hens. Eggs. Two brown eggs, one with a bit of straw clinging to it.
A few men shifted. Someone near the door muttered. Maud’s chin rose, fierce and fragile.
“My lord,” she said, “I have not the hens. Fox took one. The other two are poor layers, but I brought what they gave.”
Thomas looked at the eggs. Two eggs against a debt Wexford had invented twice over.
He felt anger rise, not hot, but cold and clean. There was nowhere to put it. Wexford was dead. The field had taken him and left Thomas to reckon with the small cruelties he had scratched into Ashcombe’s bones.
Walter began to speak, then stopped.
Amelia’s quill rested above the parchment. She didn’t look at Thomas this time. She looked at Maud. Then she turned the roll so Thomas could see the line she had marked three nights before.
Paid. The word stood there in her clear hand.
Thomas felt the hall waiting. “Widow Maud,” he said, “you owe no hens.”
The old woman stared at him.
“You owe no coin rent this quarter,” he continued. “It was forgiven by my father after your husband died and should have remained so. Walter will strike it from the false roll.”
Walter inclined his head once. “Aye, my lord.”
Maud’s mouth worked.
Thomas looked at the eggs. “As for these, Edith will take them for the kitchen, and you will eat in the hall before you go home.”
“My lord, I cannot—”
“You can.” His voice gentled despite himself. “And you will.”
The old woman’s eyes filled.
Amelia looked down quickly, but not before Thomas saw her blink too hard.
Damn her for bringing him face to face with the sort of lord he should have been before desperation forced him to learn.