Walter was still speaking when Thomas forced his attention back to the matter at hand.
“Order matters, my lord. Ashcombe has little enough standing as it is. We are watched. The king’s men do not forget who rode behind Montfort, dead earl or no. A baron under suspicion cannot afford disorder beneath his own roof.”
“I know what I can afford,” Thomas said, sharper than he intended. “I can afford grain in the barn, rents paid at Michaelmas, and enough people left by winter that Ashcombe does not become a pile of stones. I cannot afford pride.”
Walter cleared his throat. “What would you have done, Mistress?”
Amelia blinked as if she had not expected to be asked. Then she looked at the table again, and the uncertainty left her. Thomas had seen men put on mail with less purpose.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin with the actual harvest,” she said.
Walter’s mouth twitched, as if this proved every dark suspicion he had entertained since she walked through the door.
Thomas frowned. “You just said?—”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I’m not saying I know how to cut grain or stack it or judge the weather better than people who have lived with these fields all their lives. I don’t. I would be spectacularly useless with a scythe. I’m short, easily distracted by bugs, and I have no desire to lose a foot.”
Hob, who had come to lean in the doorway unnoticed, made a rough sound that might have been a laugh.
Amelia pointed at the table. “But this? This I understand. Too many moving pieces. Not enough time. Not enough people. Everyone doing what they have always done because there has been no time to stop and ask if it still works.”
Walter’s brows drew together.
She touched the nearest tally stick. “The problem isn’t only that you have too few hands. It’s that you don’t know where the hands are most needed until the day has already started. So people wait, walk back and forth, ask the same question of three different people. Or they do a task because it is customary, not because it is the best use of that person’s time and strength.”
Walter looked offended, but not as offended as Thomas expected.
That meant she had struck near enough the truth to bruise it.
“I organize things,” she said, looking from Walter to Thomas. “That is what I did. Where I come from, my work was making sure people, supplies, food, messages, rooms, wagons—” She stopped, glanced at Thomas. “The point is, I made certain the right thing reached the right place at the right time, before everyone started shouting.”
“That is stewardship,” Walter said.
“No,” Amelia said. “It’s panic prevention.”
Hob barked a laugh.
Thomas did not, though it was a near thing.
Amelia looked down at the wax tablet and began scratching marks into it. “I need Walter’s knowledge, the reeve’s, andwhoever knows the fields. I need whoever knows who can work hard, who can only work half a day, who has a bad back, who is good with animals, who can count, who can carry water, and who will wander off if no one watches.”
“Hugh Miller,” Hob said.
Walter sighed. “Aye. Hugh Miller.”
Amelia pointed the stylus at Hob without looking up. “See? Useful.”
Hob looked absurdly pleased.
She continued making marks. “Then we make a list. Not tomorrow after everyone has already scattered. Tonight. Who cuts. Who binds. Who carries. Who watches children so stronger hands can work. Who brings food and drink to the fields so no one loses half the day walking back to the hall. Who checks the barns and counts what comes in. Who tells Thomas before a small problem becomes a giant flaming disaster.”
Thomas stared. “A flaming disaster?”
“Worse than a normal disaster.”
“I see.” He resisted the urge to smile.
Walter leaned closer despite himself. “You would have food carried out?”
