“What in Saint Mildred’s blistered left foot have you lot done now?”
Silence fell as Amelia turned slowly.
Hob closed his eyes as if receiving a blessing. “There,” he said softly. “That is scholarship.”
Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose.
Alyson whispered, awed, “Blistered left foot.”
“No,” Amelia, Edith, Wat, and Thomas said together.
Edith looked at the men, at Thomas, at Wat’s guilty face, and finally at Amelia as she set the basket on the rail and lifted the cloth. The smell of warm barley cakes drifted out, buttery and faintly sweet with honey. Every man in the yard leaned closer.
Edith slapped Martin’s hand without looking. “Wash first.”
Amelia beamed.
The men groaned.
Thomas looked at her. She looked back. Neither of them said a word, which somehow made it worse.
One by one the men went to the bucket, grumbling in a chorus that quickly turned comic. Osbern scrubbed as if removing sin. Martin declared his hands were now too pure forhonest work. Hob washed last and held up both enormous paws for inspection.
“Well?” he demanded.
Amelia took her role seriously. “Better. But I’m concerned about the left thumb.”
“My left thumb has seen war, mistress.”
“My condolences to the thumb. Wash it again.”
The garrison loved that.
Apparently, all it took to win over armed men in 1265 was accusing one of their strongest warriors of insufficient thumb maintenance.
When the cakes had been distributed and Alyson had fallen into a blissful silence with honey on both cheeks, Hob nodded toward the lists. “Tell us, Mistress Amelia, do women fight where you come from?”
The question was casual. Too casual.
Amelia felt Thomas’s attention sharpen from several feet away.
She should have answered carefully. Women do not generally take the field, or some other vague and period-appropriate evasion. She had been getting better at not telling the truth sideways. Most days.
But she was warm, tired, sticky with honey, and beginning to feel dangerously safe.
“Some do,” she said.
Martin laughed. “With what? Kitchen knives?”
“Sometimes.”
That only delighted them more.
Osbern leaned on the rail. “Do they ride to battle in your land?”
“Not usually.”
“How then?”
