“Don’t forget thumb inspections.”
“Never.”
The faintest smile touched his mouth.
Behind them, Martin nudged Osbern and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like sweet words of wooing, which earned him an elbow to the ribs from Hob and a look from Thomas that should have turned him to salt.
Amelia pretended not to hear, which was becoming one of her most valuable medieval skills.
The sun slid higher. The men returned to drill. Walter finally lured Thomas into a conversation about stores, routes, and who could be spared to help mend the south fence before the next rain. Edith took Alyson back toward the kitchens with promises of more honey if she stopped sticking her fingers in the crock.Wat stayed with Amelia, sitting on the rail and swinging his legs, watching the men with the solemn hunger of a boy who wanted to become every brave thing he saw.
“Will you learn to fight?” Amelia asked him softly.
He shrugged, but his eyes never left Thomas. “Hob says I’m too small.”
“You’ll grow.”
“Hob says not soon enough.”
“Hob is a cheerful soul.”
Wat glanced at her. “I want to be like him.”
“Hob?”
“Lord Thomas.”
Amelia followed his gaze.
Thomas had taken a blade again, this time correcting a younger man’s grip. He stood behind the soldier, adjusting his arm, patient in the way people were when the lesson mattered. His voice carried, low and rough.
“Your wrist here. If you hold too tight, the blade owns you. Hold too loose, and you lose it. Again.”
The young man tried. Failed. Tried again.
Thomas didn’t mock him or shout. Merely corrected, demonstrated, stepped back, and let the man find the motion.
Amelia’s throat tightened.
“I can understand that,” she said.
Wat looked down at his hands. “He saved us.”
“I know.”
“After Blackmere.” The boy’s voice went small and flat, the way children’s voices did when they spoke of something too large and painful. “Alyson doesn’t remember all of it.”
Amelia kept her face neutral.
“He gave us his cloak,” Wat said. “It smelled of blood and horse. I had a knife. I thought he would take it, but he told me to keep it if it comforted me.”
Amelia blinked hard.
Across the yard, Thomas turned the young man’s blade aside and nodded in approval. The soldier grinned as if he had been knighted.
Wat swallowed. “I didn’t stick Hob with it.”
“That was considerate.”
