“Hob said he’d be more than cross.”
“I believe him.”
Wat’s mouth twitched, but the shadow in his face remained.
Amelia wanted to put an arm around him, but she didn’t know if he would allow it, this small boy with his old eyes and grief folded up beneath ordinary hunger. So she leaned her shoulder lightly against his leg where he sat on the rail, just enough that he could move away if he wished.
After a moment, he leaned back.
Another stitch.
The drill ended near midday, when the heat had settled thick over the yard and even the flies seemed drunk with it. Men stripped off padded coats and poured water over their heads. Someone produced onions, bread, cheese, and a crock of pickled cabbage that made Amelia’s eyes water from six feet away. Small beer passed from hand to hand. Edith’s barley cakes vanished as if the basket had never existed.
Amelia inspected more hands. The garrison submitted with the weary drama of martyrs.
“Again?” Martin said.
“You just had your hands on the ground.”
“I was knocked there against my will.”
“The dirt doesn’t care.”
Osbern held up his hands. “Mine are clean.”
“There is blood on your thumb.”
“That is my blood.”
“And therefore beloved to you?”
He grinned and washed.
Thomas came last again, because Thomas apparently believed lordship required being the final person to care for himself. He stood before her in the shade of the ash tree, dust on his boots, sweat at his throat, a scrape along one knuckle that had not been there that morning.
Amelia looked at it.
He followed her gaze. “It is nothing.”
“Men have been saying that since the dawn of time.”
“It is merely a scratch.”
“It is a dirty scratch.”
“Is there another kind?”
“Yes. The kind that has been washed.”
His eyes warmed. “You are relentless.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not praise.”
“I have chosen to receive it that way.”
She took the jug and poured water over his hands. The water ran brown at first, then clear, tracing over the raised scars on his knuckles, the strong tendons, the small new cut. He rubbed his hands together with the soap and watched her, not smiling now.