“He found them after the fighting near Blackmere, picking through the field for food, poor lambs. Wat had Alyson by the hand and a knife too dull to frighten a goose, but he stood before her as if he might hold off the whole king’s army. Lord Ashcombe brought them back wrapped in his own cloak and told Walter to find them pallets by the kitchen fire.”
The image struck Amelia with such force that she looked toward the yard as if she could see him through the stone. “He did that?”
Edith gave her a sidelong look. “He does many things and says little of them.”
Amelia looked back at Wat and Alyson. Wat was trying to balance three cups in one hand while Alyson scolded him with all the authority of a very small queen.
Her throat tightened.
Edith gave a satisfied nod. “There. You’ll do.”
Amelia had no idea whether that was high praise or merely an acknowledgment that she was dressed and unlikely to embarrass everyone immediately. Around here, it seemed wise to accept either with gratitude.
Outside, the world was still bluish and dim, the sky just beginning to pale beyond the dark shape of the roofs. Ashcombe stirred like an old creature waking. Doors opened. Men crossed the yard with scythes over their shoulders, the curved blades catching what little light there was. Women came from cottageswith baskets, babies, binding cords, and the kind of faces that suggested they had been awake long before the rooster congratulated himself for discovering morning.
The air was cool enough to raise the gooseflesh on Amelia’s arms but threaded already with the promise of heat. Smoke lifted from the cookhouse and drifted low across the yard. Somewhere a cow complained. Somewhere else a child was told, in no gentle terms, to leave the hens alone before he lost a finger.
Walter stood near the well with his wax tablet pressed to his chest and a look of deep suspicion aimed at the entire day.
Hob stood beside him, broad and scarred and still somehow resembling a boulder that had grown arms from sheer annoyance. His dark beard was shot with gray, his left shoulder sat stiff beneath his tunic, and his eyes were bright with the dangerous cheer of a man who expected to witness other people’s discomfort and enjoy it.
Thomas stood by the gate. Amelia forgot, for one stupid second, that she had feet.
He wore a plain dark tunic belted over hose and boots, the sleeves pushed up despite the morning chill to bare forearms roped with muscle and marked with old scars. His hair, black and badly in need of a trim, curled damply at the ends. Stubble shadowed his jaw, and the scar along one side caught the early light, silver against tanned skin. He had a scythe in one hand, held as easily as if it weighed nothing, and he was speaking to one of the men with his head bent, listening.
That was one of the things about him that kept getting under her skin. Thomas Ashcombe scowled, grunted, and carried himself as if he had been built for war by the old gods, but when his people spoke, he gave them his full attention. As if their words had value.
Then he looked up and saw her. His gaze moved over the veil Edith had pinned into submission, the plain gown, the apron,the pouch at her belt, and the shoes that were slightly too big. His expression didn’t change much. It rarely did. But something flickered in his eyes, there and gone.
Heat climbed her neck as he crossed the yard toward her.
Edith, traitor that she was, vanished back into the kitchen.
“You are up,” he said.
“I was promised dawn. This is a criminal interpretation of dawn.”
His mouth twitched. “The sun will rise whether you approve or not.”
“That seems arrogant of it.”
“Aye. The sun is known for that.”
Amelia stared at him.
His mouth twitched again as she narrowed her eyes. “Was that humor?”
“Nay.”
“It was.”
“Then I spoke poorly.”
“You seem to do that a lot when complimenting me or being funny.”
“I shall strive to fail less.”
Walter made a strangled sound from beside the well.