“No,” Amelia said.
“But you said it.”
“I’m an adult.”
Wat looked skeptical. “Are you?”
“More or less.”
Alyson frowned. “What is pole?”
“No one answer that,” Amelia said quickly.
Hob’s shoulders shook.
They gave her others, because once men discovered an audience, restraint went the way of clean rushes.
Some were ordinary enough. Witless dolt, goat-brained lout, hedge-born fool. Some involved bodily functions described with enthusiasm and alarming poetry. Several were in French, which Osbern delivered with the solemnity of a courtly troubadour andwhich Amelia repeated badly enough to make every man within earshot howl.
“Put your tongue behind your teeth,” Osbern instructed.
“I am trying.”
“Nay, you’re murdering it.”
“My limited French is doing its best.”
Thomas, returning from speaking with Walter near the stables, stopped dead.
“What,” he said, “is happening?”
Every man at the rail immediately acquired the blank, virtuous expression of boys caught near a broken window.
Amelia held the wax tablet against her chest. “Language lessons.”
His eyes narrowed.
“In French,” she added.
Osbern coughed.
Thomas looked at Hob. “What kind of French?”
Hob scratched his beard. “Useful French.”
“For trade,” Martin said.
“For diplomacy,” Osbern said.
“For when one meets a Frenchman,” Wat supplied, too eager and too guilty.
Thomas’s gaze moved slowly to Amelia.
She smiled brightly. “Bonjour.”
The corner of his mouth twitched despite his obvious effort to look forbidding. “That is not all they taught you.”
“No.”
