“They spoke before you arrived and after I looked at them.”
“Hob,” Thomas said.
“What? I looked.”
Sir Aymon lifted a hand.
“They named Sir Roger’s steward and one of his men. They were to take letters, purse, and ring, then leave me where I would not be found.”
“Lies,” Belmaine said.
Father Martin closed his eyes. “God forgive you, Roger.”
Belmaine rounded on him. “You dare?”
“Aye,” Father Martin said, and his voice shook but held. “At last.”
Pickering turned to his clerks. “Write all.”
The first clerk was already writing as if chased by demons.
Thomas stood very still. If he moved, he would kill Belmaine. The desire stood inside him, hot and clean and simple. It would be easy. Three steps. One hand. Hob would help. Half the yard would look away. Mayhap all of it.
Then Amelia looked up at him. She knew exactly where his mind had gone and sat there bruised, muddy, alive, and trusting him not to become less than what she had believed.
Thomas eased the grip on his sword. The rage did not leave, but it obeyed.
Pickering faced Belmaine.
“Sir Roger Belmaine, I take you into royal custody pending inquiry into attempted murder of a queen’s kinsman, theft of royal correspondence, false testimony, forged ecclesiastical attestation, unlawful seizure of a woman under another lord’s protection, and conspiracy to murder said woman before the claim could be tested.”
Belmaine’s face twisted. “You overreach.”
Sir Aymon lifted one brow. “No. He begins.”
Belmaine stepped forward. The guards caught him at once.
“You think the king will thank you for siding with a Montfort dog?” he spat.
“Ashcombe followed rebels. His accounts were rotten. His manor half-starved. He sheltered a woman from nowhere and let her meddle where no woman should.”
The words hit the hall like thrown stones. Thomas waited for the old fear to rise. The shame. The knowledge that Belmaine was not wrong about everything, only the things that mattered most.
Before he could speak, Walter stepped forward.
“Aye,” the old steward said.
Thomas turned.
Walter’s face was pale, his shoulders rigid, but his voice carried to every corner of the hall.
“Aye, Ashcombe’s accounts were rotten because a dead bailiff was faithless. Aye, the manor was thin because Evesham emptied our benches and fields. Aye, Mistress Amelia put her hands to the rolls. And by those hands, we found theft, saved rents, ordered harvest, fed workers in the field, and brought enough grain under cover that no child here need starve this winter.”
Amelia’s eyes widened.
Walter looked at her, stiff as a drawn bow. “She meddled very well.”
Hob whispered, “That’s love from Walter.”
