Belmaine tried one last smile. It was a poor, thin thing, the sort of smile a man used when he had misplaced the truth and hoped no one would notice the empty shelf.
“A misunderstanding,” he said. “The lady was frightened. Crale misled me. If the document proves false, I am as wronged as any man here.”
Amelia laughed. She couldn’t help it. The sound bubbled up from somewhere raw and reckless, half hysteria, half rage, all disbelief. It was either laugh or start screaming, and screaming felt like letting Belmaine choose the music.
“Sorry,” she said. “No. Try again with fewer lies.”
Belmaine’s eyes narrowed.
Amelia stepped out from behind Thomas before he could stop her. She kept the pottery shard tucked against her palm because growth was important, but stupidity was how people ended up in shallow graves under apple trees.
“You knew Father Odo was dead, or you knew not to ask too many questions. You knew Crale wasn’t my husband. You knew Thomas would come, and that was the point. You wanted him angry. You wanted him to draw steel on your land so you could cry disorder to Pickering and the crown.”
Belmaine kept his big mouth shut for once.
“Then Father Martin knew too much,” she continued. “Dame Margaret wasn’t obedient enough. Joan heard things. Crale got impatient. And you decided dead women make quieter evidence.”
Thomas’s voice dropped. “What did she say?”
Amelia looked at him. “He called me evidence.”
Thomas turned back to Belmaine.
This time, Hob stopped smiling.
Father Martin crossed himself.
Dame Margaret closed her eyes.
Belmaine’s hand moved toward the dagger at his belt.
Thomas was faster. His sword point touched Belmaine’s wrist before the dagger cleared the sheath.
“Do not,” Thomas said.
Belmaine froze.
For several heartbeats, the only sounds were rain dripping from bare branches, Osric’s strained breathing beneath Hob’s boot, and the distant restless stamp of horses beyond the wall. Somewhere in the orchard, a rotten apple gave up its last brave grip on a branch and landed in the mud with a soft, undignified plop.
Then hooves sounded again.
More riders, but not from the manor, from the road. Everyone turned as a small party came through the orchard gap, led by Sir Aymon de Sauveterre on a dark horse, pale but upright despite the bandage along one side of his face. His cloak hung wet and heavy from his shoulders, but there was nothing weakin the cold offense of his gaze as it moved over Belmaine and lingered on the armed men.
Beside him rode Master Pickering, rain glistening on his sober cloak, his sharp little eyes taking in the orchard with the chilly satisfaction of a man whose unpleasant suspicions had found a banquet and meant to taste every dish.
Behind them came Walter, grim as Judgment Day with documents wrapped beneath his cloak, and Friar Huck on a round brown horse that looked as annoyed by politics as Amelia felt. Huck’s robe was hitched indecorously high to keep it from the mud, his sandals were splashed past saving, and a small oilskin bundle sat tucked beneath one arm as if even rescue and royal law were no reason to travel without provisions.
Huck saw Amelia and crossed himself with visible relief.
Then he saw Osric in the mud and brightened.
“Well,” Huck said.
Master Pickering dismounted with care, his boots sinking into the wet grass. His gaze moved from Belmaine to Thomas, then to Amelia’s cheek, the muddy men, the priest, Dame Margaret, Joan, and finally Osric beneath Hob’s boot.
“I appear,” Pickering said, “to have arrived in the middle of a legal matter.”
Hob snorted. “Near the end, I’d say.”
