“It isn’t?” Wat asked.
“No.”
“Oh.” He looked up at Amelia. “You look awful in a pretty way?”
Huck crossed himself. “Saints defend us, he’s doomed.”
Edith reached Amelia and touched her face with the back of one hand, gentler than Thomas had ever seen her touch anything except dying men.
“Who struck you?”
“Belmaine.”
Edith turned.
Belmaine, who had just been pulled from his horse by two Ashcombe men, took one look at Edith’s face and stepped backward despite the ropes on his wrists.
Wise man.
Master Pickering raised a hand. “No one is to strike anyone else until I have recorded who has already done so.”
Edith did not look away from Belmaine. “Does stabbing count?”
“Yes,” Pickering said.
“Pity.”
Hob sighed. “I already asked.”
The yard, which had been holding itself too tight, released one ragged breath. Not laughter exactly. Not ease. But enough.
Thomas looked at Pickering. “Where?”
“The hall,” the escheator said. “Dry walls, witnesses, a table, and mayhap something that is not rainwater running down my neck.”
Edith snapped her fingers. “Mald, hot ale. Joan, come with me. Dame Margaret too. You both look like drowned cats.”
Dame Margaret, who had ridden in the rear beside Father Martin, stiffened. Her gown was sodden at the hem, her veil limp, but she still managed to look like a woman accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. “I am not accustomed to being ordered in another house.”
“You are in mine now,” Edith said. “Move.”
Dame Margaret looked at Amelia.
Amelia gave a faint shrug. “It’s easier if you do what she says.”
Joan hurried toward Edith at once.
Dame Margaret lasted three breaths longer, then followed.
The hall received them in heat, smoke, and the smell of wet wool. The rushes had been swept as well as could be managed, fresh ones laid near the hearth, though every boot and hemdragged in mud enough to make Edith mutter darkly under her breath. Torches burned along the walls. The trestle tables had been pulled together near the fire. Walter’s rolls, Father Martin’s wax, the false attestation, several purses, two recovered letters, and three knives taken from Belmaine’s men were laid out with grim care.
It looked less like a court than the aftermath of a market stall being struck by lightning.
Pickering took the center place at the table because men like him always found the center by instinct. His clerks flanked him, one drying tablets by the fire, one preparing fresh parchment and ink. Sir Aymon sat to Pickering’s right with a cup of mulled wine and the expression of a man determined not to admit he should have been in bed. His bandage was fresh, though blood had already seeped through one edge. Friar Huck hovered near him with honeyed wine and moral disapproval.
“You’ll drink,” Huck said.
“Are all friars so bossy?”