“My lord,” he said. “Master Hugh says he cannot carry grain because his back is afflicted again.”
Hob groaned. “His back has more complaints than a widow at tax time.”
Walter ignored him. “And Mistress Quinn is needed in the solar if these lists of hers are to continue breeding.”
“My lists do not breed,” Amelia said.
Walter looked at the wax tablet in her hand. “There are more every time I see you.”
“They’re multiplying in a responsible manner.”
Thomas looked at her. “Can lists do that?”
“In the right conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“Neglect, confusion, and men saying they’ll remember things.”
Hob nodded as though this were wisdom from a holy text. “That will do it.”
Walter pinched the bridge of his nose.
Edith, who had been watching Amelia with narrowed eyes, suddenly said, “Let her be a moment.”
Walter blinked. “Edith?”
“She’s been running since sunrise. The rolls will not shrivel if they wait while the lass breathes.”
Amelia turned to her, surprised.
Edith didn’t look soft. Edith probably looked soft only in a dark room during a fever dream. She stood broad and solid in her brown gown, the sleeves rolled back, grey streaks in her dark hair, a smear of flour near one cheekbone. But her eyes had gone kind in that brisk, terrifying way of hers.
“You may come help me with the linen after,” Edith said. “I’ve torn sheets enough to bind an army, and if these dolts keep collecting bruises, we’ll need every strip.”
Amelia smiled.
Edith looked away first, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
There it was again. Another stitch.
Thomas stepped closer, low enough that only Amelia heard him. “You have won them.”
She looked up at him. “Who?”
He glanced toward Hob, Osbern, Martin, the children, even Walter pretending not to listen and Edith pretending not to care.
“My men.”
Something in his voice made the words more than an observation. A warning, maybe. Or wonder. Or fear. Thomas was not a man who gave pieces of himself easily, but his people were pieces of him whether he admitted it or not. To be accepted by them was to step closer to him.
Too close, perhaps.
Amelia tried for lightness because the alternative was feeling everything.
“I did it with soap and threats.”
“A fearsome combination.”
