“The first group has water. The second group needs bread in half an hour. Hob said the men near the hedge are moving too slowly because Hugh Miller keeps stopping to complain about his knee, his back, the sun, the rye, and one cloud that looked at him in an unfriendly manner.”
“Hugh Miller would complain if he woke in heaven and found the angels singing in the wrong key.”
“I’m beginning to realize that.”
Edith handed Amelia a small wedge of cheese. “Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat.”
Amelia ate. The cheese was sharp enough to make her eyes water, the bread coarse and a little gritty from the millstone, andyet she had to admit her stomach was happy enough as if Edith had handed her room service on a silver tray.
Edith nodded. “Good. Take these to the binders near the low ground. And keep Wat from trying to lift the heavy jug again. He thinks because he has bones sticking every which way that he’s half-grown.”
Amelia took the basket and started across the field. Walking through a working harvest in a long dress required a level of concentration Amelia believed deserved its own certification. The hem caught on stubble. Her shoes found every clod of earth. Her veil warmed her head until she understood why medieval women were always being described as fainting. It had probably been the headwear. That, and the lack of iced beverages.
By midmorning, her arms ached from carrying baskets and jugs, her back made her feel like she was sixty, and the inside of one shoe had developed a personal grudge against her left heel.
Still, the system was working.
Not perfectly. Nothing worked perfectly except in the deranged imagination of people who wrote project timelines. But better.
Walter, who had begun the morning looking like a man forced to share a bed with a hedgehog, now moved between the rise and the field with his tablet in hand and a grudging light in his eyes.
At one point, she saw him pause beside Osbern and say something while pointing to Amelia’s list.
Osbern nodded. Walter looked deeply annoyed by the usefulness of it all. That alone might sustain her until supper.
“Mistress Amelia!”
Alyson came toward her with a cup, braid half undone, face flushed and glowing.
“No running,” Amelia called.
Alyson slowed into a very exaggerated walk, lifting each foot with solemn care.
“Better?”
“Beautifully done. You are the picture of restraint.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Neither do most adults.”
Alyson beamed and held out the cup. “For my lord.”
Amelia looked toward the line of cutters. Thomas was still working, steady and tireless, though she had seen him rub at his shoulder twice when he thought no one was looking.
“Why are you giving it to me?”
Alyson leaned closer, whispering loudly enough to be heard in France. “Because he won’t stop if I tell him.”
That sounded entirely likely.
“And you think he’ll stop if I tell him?”
Alyson gave her a look of such innocent confidence that Amelia had no idea what to do with it.
