Chapter 35 #2
Amelia’s hands landed against Thomas’s shoulders. “I can walk.”
“Aye.”
“That means put me down.”
“Nay.”
She narrowed tired eyes at him. “Lord Ashcombe.”
“Mistress Quinn.”
“People are watching.”
“They’ve been watching since you appeared in my stable and frightened the boys into shrieking like geese.”
He carried her toward the settle near the hearth, where Edith had already arranged a dry blanket, a basin of clean water, strips of linen, and a small pot of something that smelled sharply of herbs.
The fire snapped and hissed, sending sparks up the chimney.
Someone pressed a cup of hot spiced ale into Thomas’s hand, though he had no memory of accepting it.
Someone else brought a trencher with bread, cheese, and a slice of cold pork.
Amelia eyed the food. “Is that for me?”
“For you,” Edith said. “And if you say you’re not hungry, I’ll take offense.”
“I’m starving.”
Thomas set Amelia down on the settle as carefully as if she were glass, though he knew very well she was not. Glass did not throw men into mud, face down liars, or argue with lords while bruised and shivering.
Edith dipped a linen strip into warm water and tended to Amelia’s cheek.
Thomas stayed where he was.
Edith lifted one brow. “Are you planning to hover over my shoulder like a storm cloud in mail?”
“Aye.”
“Fine. Try not to drip on our lady.”
Across the hall, Pickering continued his work.
Belmaine had been moved to the lower end beneath guard, his expression carved from hatred and calculation.
Crale bent over a table, naming names under the watchful misery of two clerks and Hob’s cheerful attention.
Dame Margaret sat near the fire, hands wrapped around a cup, with Joan beside her and Father Martin murmuring softly to both of them.
People moved around one another with blankets, ale, water, and dry blankets. The smell of rain and mud gave way slowly to hearth smoke, hot ale, beeswax candles, wet leather, and the onion pottage Mald had tended so it wouldn’t burn.
Alyson climbed onto the settle beside Amelia and leaned into her. “Did you truly throw him?”
“One of them.”
“Was he very big?”
“Huge.”
Wat’s eyes shone. “Bigger than Hob?”
“Don’t insult me,” Hob called from across the hall without looking up.
Amelia considered. “Not bigger than Hob. Less handsome, though.”
Hob slapped a hand over his heart. “Mistress, you restore my faith in justice.”
Thomas growled.
Alyson looked up at Amelia with grim admiration. “Will you teach me?”
“No,” Thomas, Edith, Walter, and Father Martin said at once.
Alyson scowled. “Everyone says no.”
Amelia bit the inside of her cheek. “When you’re older.”
“How much older?”
“Old enough not to throw Wat into a trough just because he breathed near your honey cake.”
Wat looked offended. “I wouldn’t.”
“You would,” Alyson said.
“I might.”
Edith dabbed at Amelia’s cheek. Amelia hissed once, and Thomas’s hand curled into a fist.
Amelia reached up and touched his wrist. “I’m all right.”
He looked at the bruise, then at her. “No,” he said softly. “You’re not.”
Amelia’s fingers tightened around his wrist. “No. But I’m here.”
The same words from the orchard. This time, in the warmth of his hall, with the people of Ashcombe around them and Belmaine bound below the dais, they struck him differently.
Alyson watched their joined hands with great interest. Wat did as well.
Walter made a noise somewhere between a cough and a dying hinge.
Edith sighed. “Saints spare me from men and their delicate nerves.”
Pickering, without looking up from his papers, said, “For the record, I have seen nothing improper.”
Hob choked.
Friar Huck lifted his cup. “The law has eyes when it needs them and mercy when it doesn’t. A marvel.”
Pickering looked at him. “Friar.”
“What? I was complimenting you.”
“You were interfering.”
“With grace.”
“With persistence.”
“Grace is persistent.”
Amelia started laughing again, though this time it wobbled at the edges. Thomas sat beside her , his wet mail creaking, his shoulder brushing hers.
Rain hammered the roof. Firelight moved over stone.
Clerks scratched at parchment. Hob murmured threats at Crale in a tone so pleasant it would have unsettled stronger men.
Walter argued quietly with one clerk over the proper spelling of a field boundary that had been mistaken for a witness.
Huck distributed honey cakes from a suspiciously deep sleeve.
Edith bullied everyone into warmth, food, and obedience.
Amelia ate two bites of pork, half the bread, and one honey cake. Then she leaned into Thomas, just enough that no one could call it a swoon and everyone could see she was no longer holding herself up by will alone.
Thomas put his arm around her.
No one said a word, not even Walter.
After a time, Pickering rose.
The hall quieted by degrees, like a pond settling after stones had been thrown.
“The prisoners will be held under guard until morning,” he said.
“Sir Roger Belmaine will be removed under royal authority. Edmund Crale will remain secured separately, as will Osric and the named men. Father Martin’s testimony, Dame Margaret’s, Joan’s testimony, Sir Aymon’s statement, and the corrected accounts will travel with me. ”
Walter made a small noise at the accounts.
Pickering looked at him. “Copies, Walter.”
Walter relaxed only slightly. “Good.”
“Lord Ashcombe,” Pickering continued, “no formal ruling is made tonight regarding any larger matter of tenure. I am not king, nor council, nor miracle worker.”
Huck muttered, “We can pray.”
Pickering ignored him. “But I will report that Ashcombe has rendered aid to the queen’s household, preserved royal correspondence, exposed fraud, and submitted witnesses in good order.”
Thomas almost looked around to see whether Pickering meant some other hall.
Amelia, under his arm, whispered, “Don’t ruin it by looking surprised.”
His mouth twitched. “I wasn’t.”
“You absolutely were.”
Pickering’s gaze moved to her. “Mistress Amelia.”
She straightened as much as she could. “Master Pickering.”
“Until this matter is settled, no man may claim you by that false attestation. If Edmund Crale repeats the claim, he perjures himself further. If Sir Roger’s men repeat it, they join him.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Pickering gave a curt nod. “Try not to throw anyone else before morning.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“See that you do.”
Hob raised one hand. “Does that apply to all of us or only Mistress Amelia?”
Pickering looked at him for a long moment. “Especially you.”
At last the hall began to break apart. Guards took Belmaine toward the old storeroom that would serve as a holding chamber. He went stiff-backed, still trying to wear nobility like armor. But his cloak was wet, his wrists were bound, and every eye in Ashcombe watched him go.
At the doorway, he turned. “This is not finished.”
Amelia stood before Thomas could stop her.
She was pale. Bruised. Wrapped in a shawl over a damp gown, with her hair coming down in fiery, half-tamed curls and one child’s sticky handprint on her skirt from a honey cake.
She looked like a woman dragged through hell and thoroughly annoyed by the inconvenience.
“No,” she said. “But you are.”