Pickering looked down at the copy. “They do read clearly.”
Walter gave a single, stiff nod, as if he had personally permitted the compliment to exist.
Pickering then asked about the east wall, so Thomas took him to see the patched section where new timber met old stone and limewash fought a losing battle against damp. He asked about village roofs, so Hob led the clerks down the lane to see the cottages that had been mended before the October wind turned sharp. He asked about the mill, and Thomas answered himself, because a lord with time for mill wheels was apparently a curiosity Pickering wished to observe in the wild.
All the while, she remained in the hall with the mending, Walter, and a stomach that seemed to have tied itself into a sailor’s knot.
When Pickering returned near dusk, his boots were muddy, his cloak smelled of rain, and there was no satisfaction on his face.
That, Amelia thought, was the problem. A man who came to find rot and found repair did not always feel relieved. Sometimes he felt cheated.
Supper was served because hospitality was owed, even to men who might take your home apart with ink and royal seal. Edith produced pottage, bread, roasted turnips, cheese, and a small honey cake that had been cut into pieces so thin they were nearly symbolic. There was wine for Pickering, small beerfor the clerks, and a great deal of careful conversation about the weather, roads, and the price of salt.
Pickering’s quieter clerk laughed into his cup when Hob told him the east field goose had once chased a tax collector to the river.
“The goose has sound judgment,” Walter said.
Pickering drank plenty of wine, Thomas ate little, and she ate even less, hoping her stomach would stop doing somersaults.
By the time supper ended, Pickering retired to the guest chamber that had been aired for two days and strewn with dried lavender from the stores. Edith had surrendered the lavender with the expression of a woman being asked to donate a limb, but she had surrendered it.
The clerks bedded down in the hall. The household settled into that false quiet that comes after a storm has passed close enough to rattle the shutters but not close enough to break them.
Amelia waited until the hall had gone soft with sleep and firelight before she went back to the account room.
Walter was already there. The old steward sat hunched over the narrow linen-wrapped roll she had shown him that morning, one candle burning at his elbow, his long fingers resting on the parchment as if he might force it to confess by disapproval alone.
Belmaine. The name seemed to sit in the room with them, rich, polished, and smiling with too many teeth.
“You were right not to put this before Pickering,” Walter said without looking up. “You were wrong not to bring it to me sooner.”
“I know that.”
He glanced at her. “That is a deeply unsettling amount of agreement from you.”
“I’m tired. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Hmph.”
Amelia sank onto the bench across from him. The account room smelled of vellum, candle wax, damp wool, and the ghost of ink. Her shoulders ached from sitting too still. Her fingers bore three needle pricks from pretending not to know exactly which roll Walter needed before he asked for it. Her heart, that traitorous little medieval convert, still had not recovered from Thomas looking at her across the hall as if the kiss had been both wound and medicine.
Walter tapped the roll. “Belmaine’s coffers are too full,” he said.
“Yes.”
“His cousin in Pershore is spending coin like he has plenty to spare.”
“Yes.”
“Messenger out of Pershore after Michaelmas.”
“That’s what Hob’s man heard.”
“And this name.” Walter tapped one line. “Gilbert atte Wode.”
“You know him?”
“I know of him. He serves men who wish not to be seen giving orders.”
