By the time Master Pickering entered, Ashcombe had arranged itself into a picture.
Not a rich one. No one would believe that. The hall still bore its scars, patched stone and smoke-dark beams and rushes that had been turned rather than replaced too often. The east wall had a damp seam no fire could fully chase away. The trestle tables were clean but old, and one bench leaned, dumping anyone on their backside that sat on the left end.
But it looked alive. A fire burned bright in the hearth, smelling of oak and ash. Fresh rushes lay near the high table, sweetened with rosemary Edith must have stolen from her own kitchen stores while grumbling about the waste. Bread cooled beneath linen cloths. A pot of pottage sent up steam rich with onions, barley, and the last of the garden herbs. The dogs had been banished, which meant one of them sat just beyond the door, sighing with theatrical suffering.
Walter stood at the ready with the rolls.
Thomas stood with his shoulders squared and his face carved into that stern blankness that could have intimidated Ares himself.
Amelia sat where Walter had told her to sit, near enough to hear and far enough away to look unimportant, a mending basket in her lap and needle in hand.
She had never felt less unimportant in her life.
Master Pickering was a small, precise man in his middle years with a face like a careful document. Clean, organized, and expressing nothing it had not first approved. His cloak was good wool, dark green, travel-stained at the hem but well kept. A narrow fur edging marked him as prosperous without being foolish enough to flaunt it in a hall where men had gone hungry in the spring. His boots were muddy, his belt plain, his gloves neatly folded in one hand.
He bowed to Thomas.
“My lord Ashcombe.”
“Master Pickering.”
Pickering’s eyes moved across the hall. Hearth. Rushes. Servants. Benches. Patched wall. Candles. Walter. The rolls. Her mending basket. Amelia herself.
His gaze lingered only a moment.
Amelia lowered her eyes and set one small stitch into Edith’s apron. Modest, she thought, and hoped her face was behaving. Her face rarely attended the same meetings she did.
“Your steward,” Pickering said.
“Walter has served Ashcombe longer than I have breathed,” Thomas said.
Walter inclined his head. “Master Pickering.”
“And the bailiff?”
“Dead at Evesham,” Thomas said.
Pickering’s quill paused. There it was. The small scratch of history against parchment. Evesham. Montfort. Defeat. Suspicion. Men dead in the mud. Lands balanced on the edge of a king’s displeasure.
“And his successor?” Pickering asked.
“Not yet named,” Thomas said. “Until he is, Walter keeps the rolls. I answer for them.”
Walter’s mouth tightened at the bluntness, but he didn’t dare contradict his lord.
Pickering’s clerks laid out their things at the table. Good ink. Sharpened quills. A little knife for scraping errors from parchment. Amelia eyed that knife and decided at once she didn’t like it. There was something indecent about a blade that existed only to make mistakes disappear.
“The harvest,” Pickering said, settling onto the bench as if he’d been born judging other men’s grain. “Better than last year?”
Walter opened the first roll.
“Better than we feared,” he said. “Less than a fat year. Enough for rents, seed, and winter bread if we are not fools with it.”
One of the clerks blinked. Apparently royal men preferred numbers to honesty.
Pickering didn’t blink. “Show me.”
Walter showed him.