Thomas knew the name. Not well, but enough. He was of the Queen’s household. A knight attached to men and womenwhose displeasure traveled farther than most armies. There had been whispers that the queen’s people rode through the shire gathering reports after Evesham, sorting loyalty from treachery with knives made of parchment.
“Sir Aymon de Sauveterre,” Thomas repeated.
“In service,” the man rasped, “to my lady queen.”
Hob looked at Thomas. Thomas looked at the road beyond the hollow, the road that led to Belmaine.
No.
His whole body rejected the delay. He had no time to bind wounds, chase letters, weigh seals, or curry favor with a queen who might or might not remember a muddy road in Worcestershire when Ashcombe stood beneath the axe.
Amelia was waiting. She would be frightened.
Aymon’s bound hands twitched. “Packet. Taken.”
Thomas swore, low and vicious.
Hob leaned over the ditch. “Who took it?”
“Three men. Mayhap four. One with a split ear.” Aymon coughed, grimaced, and spat blood into the mud. “One wore murrey beneath his cloak. Gold stitching. Turned inside out, as if I was blind.”
Belmaine’s colors.
The road narrowed around Thomas until there was only breath, rain, and mud.
Belmaine had not merely forged a husband for Amelia. He had put hands on a queen’s man and meant to make use of whatever he carried. Against Pickering. Against Ashcombe. And against anyone who could be shoved in the proper direction.
“There has to be another way,” Thomas had said.
And here it lay, bleeding in a ditch at his feet.
He hated it, hated that salvation had the timing of a drunk at a church door.
A twig snapped beyond the bend as Thomas rose slowly.
Hob’s grin appeared, unpleasant and brief beneath his rain-dark beard. “Company.”
“Stay with him.”
“Gladly. I’ve always wanted to meet the queen’s kin in a ditch.”
“Try not to charm him.”
“I make no promises.”
Thomas stepped back onto the road as three men came out of the trees near the broken stones of Saint Kenelm’s chapel. The chapel had been roofless since Thomas was a boy, its low walls hunched among yews and nettles, saints long gone from the empty window spaces and sheep using the nave when weather turned foul. Today the place looked less holy than watchful.
The first man carried a sword badly. That made him dangerous in the way fools with sharp things were dangerous. The second had a cudgel and a leather packet shoved beneath one arm. The third was broad through the shoulders, his left ear split from lobe to crown and healed white against the red of his skin.
They stopped when they saw Thomas in the road.
One heartbeat. Two. The man with the packet smiled.
“Ride on, friend.”
Thomas said nothing.
The smile faltered.
