Page 23

“One friend in particular. He hides it well, but from the first he has tried to find you.” Hal’s smile faded into thoughtfulness as he leaned back.

“It is slyly done, the way he seeks information of you from me. He came with the king last year on the hunt, and said to me in secret that should you ever need him, you may still count him as friend.”

It should have been a relief to hear, but he knew Will too well – and he knew the king’s court even better. Gone was the guileless boy he had first met all those years ago. In his place was a Marcher lord, and a favorite of the king. Gryff rubbed a hand over his face.

“And do you believe he can be trusted?” he asked.

His friend looked into the embers of the dwindling fire, considering. The child in his arms had fallen to sleep at last.

“You know Will. He is so cunning I cannot say with certainty. But as to my belief – aye, I think he yet loves you like a brother and would not betray you.” He looked up at Gryff.

“Never does he miss a chance to speak ill of your bastard brother. I can think of no reason for it, save that Will hates him for your sake.”

This had the effect of a simultaneously causing a wave of affection for Will and a small shock to remember Rhodri, whom he had put out of his mind almost entirely.

For five years, life had been simple, the days orderly and free of intrigue.

Now everything became complicated again, only because of the blood that ran in his veins.

It made his head ache, to consider all of the machinations, the wheels set in motion after he had run away.

He did not want to think of any of it. He only wanted one thing.

“And if I... Think you I can go home?”

He knew it was how he said the word – home – that made his friend’s hand press gently on the sleeping child, holding her closer. Gryff would have said more, but there was a sound from the stair.

It was the dog, and a moment behind it came Nan. Her hair was in its braid again, her rough dress the same she had worn for most of their journey. Still the sight of her made him catch his breath. She was like a flame that had escaped the candle.

Her gaze moved over the scene of the two of them beside the hearth, the child dozing on Hal’s chest. She had said very little all evening, yet her silence never felt rude.

Now she murmured good eve to them and inclined her head toward the rear door as though asking where it led and if she might go through it.

“The yard is empty,” said Hal, understanding her easily. “It is only bare dirt, but enough space to train the hawks to lure. You are welcome to exercise your dog there, so long as he leaves no foulness behind as token.”

She nodded, and beckoned the dog to follow her as she walked to the door.

She held a lamp, and the light glanced off the blades that were now strapped to her forearm again.

Gryff wondered if she did not trust this house, or him, or if it was only that it was a new and strange place and she felt better to be armed.

After she had gone through the door, Hal spoke with a knowing smile in his voice.

“No common lanner, I think.” Hal’s words flooded Gryff with memory, the lost frivolity of their youth.

This was how they had used to speak of ladies and maidens, long ago in that other life, comparing their looks and temperaments to birds of prey.

“I would say merlin for her size, or haps a hobby for her beauty.”

Gryff looked at the sleeping child in his friend’s arms. It was hard to believe that they had ever been so callous and carefree. “She is neither falcon nor hawk.”

“Oh?” Hal’s brows shot up, and he looked at Gryff with a new interest. “Nor is my wife, and she was the first woman of whom I ever said that. It is why I made her my wife.”

It took a moment until Gryff could laugh at the words, and the implication.

He did not know how to explain to Hal that this opinion was not born of any special feeling for Nan, but the simple fact of her.

Any man who thought he could so easily know her was a fool.

She was like the falcon who killed with a glancing force, and also like the hawk who clutched the prey close to kill it – and yet she was like neither, for she did not seek out quarry nor come to a master’s call.

She was sharp-witted and beautiful and deadly and kind, and there was no other creature like her.

From the yard where she had gone there came a faint sound, a soft thudding that repeated at intervals.

Hal heard it too and seemed just as confused by it, so Gryff went to the small window that looked out over the space.

He lifted the curtain that kept out the night air and saw only the lamp she had carried.

It was set down on the packed earth in a far corner of the yard, and neither she nor the dog were anywhere to been seen.

Then a blade landed at the edge of the circle of light, the tip buried in the dirt.

It was one of the short blades she carried on her arm, and now he saw the others that were planted in the ground.

Another landed as he watched, and he realized it landed there by design – she was aiming to make a circle, marking the ring of light around the lamp. She was practicing her art.

“What is it?” asked Hal from his place by the hearth, and Gryff did not know how to answer. He simply made a beckoning gesture and Hal slowly raised himself, the child limp against his chest, and came to the window.

Gryff had not yet told him about his time with Baudry and the thieves, nor of Nan’s part in saving him.

It had seemed too outlandish a tale to tell, seated at a table with Hal’s family while Nan ate more than he had ever seen her eat.

He thought he would be able to speak of it to Hal, and soon – but not quite yet.

Now he moved to make room for his friend to look out the window, and watched the astonishment come into his face as the blades flew out of the darkness.

When eight short blades ringed the lamplight, four more were thrown to land within an inch of the lamp itself, on four sides.

The plain eating knife that hung at her belt came first, and then the dagger from the sheath at her back.

The long dagger she carried in her boot landed on the far side of the lamp, and on the side nearest to them was a knife he had never seen – silver, small, almost dainty.

He wondered if it was the one kept in her bodice.

She came forward out of the darkness and stooped to pull the blades from the ground, intent on her work, never noticing they watched her.

Or perhaps she noticed and did not care.

She moved the lamp farther back, against the wall that enclosed the yard, laid her kerchief on the ground before it, and walked back into the darkness.

“A sparrowhawk, then.” Hal was grinning, disbelief and delight in his face as the blades began to fly through the air again. And though she was no bird, Gryff could not disagree with the assessment. Sparrowhawks were deadly on any terrain, effective and efficient and full of surprises.

This time she used the kerchief as target, surrounding it on all sides.

Hal asked him if she had learned the skill from Morency himself and Gryff answered that he did not know, nor did he care to ask.

The lord of Morency was a favorite of the king, and the lady of Morency was Will’s sister.

It was easy to say too much to Nan, to reveal enough of himself to her that she might learn who he was, and one day speak of him to those she served.

They were members of a world that might yet seek to imprison or kill him, so he did not speak to her of them.

When she emerged from the darkness again to pull her knives from the ground, Hal called out softly to her. She stiffened, but did not startle. She must have known they watched.

“You need not throw only into the dirt. That wooden post there, and the lintel. You may throw where you like.” She looked doubtful, timid, her eyes roaming around the yard. “In faith, there is naught you can damage. Come, I will be glad of the diversion.”

She seemed to take it to heart, and spent the next hour in a display of such skill that it amazed him anew.

She threw the knives into the post, a straight line from top to bottom, then a double line along the side, then whatever pattern Hal suggested.

She threw the nails, too, from the bag she carried, filling in the spaces between the blades and never striking metal upon metal.

When they asked if she could hit a target unseen she brought the lamp to her corner of the yard, leaving the post in darkness, and threw.

It was a sight to behold. The dog at her feet, she looked ahead into the blackness and drew her knives, one after the other, methodical and sure.

Some she threw with her left hand and some with her right, some by the handle and others by the tip of the blade.

Every one of them landed with a thump, so it was not a surprise when she went forward with the lamp to reveal the post full of knives – but it was a surprise to see the short blades in a circle, the longer blades arranged in a square within it, and one nail at the center.

“She must have learned from Morency,” he said to Hal, observing the tiny prideful smile she was trying to suppress. “If not the skill, then the taste for spectacle.”

Hal smiled. “Is a vanity well earned.” He hefted the child up on his chest and said, “My arms will take no more, and the morning will come soon enough. I’ll bid you good night.”

He called softly out to Nan to thank her for the show and retreated up the stairs with his own lamp, leaving Gryff with only the soft glow from the grate in the hearth. He stayed at the window for a time, watching her throw blades into the post, wondering if she would ever tire of it.

Eventually it began to feel wrong, as though it were too intimate an act to watch her in silence from afar. He retreated to the broad bench by the hearth that was to be his bed for the night, pulled his cloak over himself, and tried to fall asleep to the sound of the knives hitting the wood.

But he kept hearing the wounded knight at the priory, warning him not to look at her in lust – a warning she had silently echoed, and still he had not heeded.

All he could see when he closed his eyes was her shrinking from his touch, blade in hand.

All he could feel was the curl of shame it brought him, mingled in with the memory of her mouth open to his, the feel of his knee parting her thighs, the raw pleasure of thrusting against her.

The only indication that she had finished her practice was the silence that came from the yard. He thought he heard her step inside, but could not be sure – she had extinguished the lamp and all was darkness. The night settled around him, and it was not as unfriendly as it had been only a week ago.

“Will you stay in Lincoln?”

She whispered it, low enough that it would not wake him if he slept. He opened his eyes to the gentle glow in the hearth, knowing she could see at least the outline of him. It was the first time she had asked him anything of his life.

“Nor have I decided what I will do.” He could not stay with Hal forever, much as he might like to. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Your home,” she said, switching to Welsh, surprising him. “Will you not return there, to ease the hiraeth in you?”

He closed his eyes against the word. It was like one of her blades, thrown with casual precision straight to his heart. “What know you of hiraeth?”

He expected the silence that followed, because it was so often her response to his questions. But after a moment, she spoke again.

“I know how you spoke of that place. I know hiraeth is what fills the distance between where you stand and where lives your heart.”

Her dog came to him out of the darkness, pushing at his hand, asking to be caressed. He moved his fingers across the soft fur as the ache spread through him. She made it sound so simple. “To return there now... Is a perilous thing, for a Welshman to travel roads made by an English king.”

“The roads made by kings are not the only paths a man may follow.”

He considered that. It seemed to him every step he had taken in his life was determined by the king. If not for Edward, he would never have left Wales, nor fled into the wilds. Nor would he have come to Lincoln, where dwelled the one friend he could trust with his life.

“And you?” he asked the darkness. “Will you stay with your sister, now you have found her?”

The darkness did not answer him. He could almost feel her thinking, deciding what words to give him.

She was so self-contained, the boundaries around her person and her spirit so sharply drawn, never giving more of herself than she wanted.

But he thought he could feel a thread of her come free, a tendril of her closely guarded self wending its way toward him through the dark night.

“I am no whore. Nor do I wish to be made one.”

Her voice was soft, her words deliberate.

He turned his eyes to the hearth, the curl of shame spiraling through him, and looked a long time at the embers and the ashes.

The words he wanted were not to be found there, or anywhere.

Tomorrow she would walk out of his life, and he would likely never see her again.

Her dog moved under his hand, going to the stair, following her out of the room. It loosened his tongue at last.

“Never can I repay my debt to you, for saving my life.” He stared hard at the dim glow. His wretched life. “That I returned your goodness and charity with dishonor – I will repent it to my grave.”

It seemed forever that he lay there with nothing but the vivid memory of her hands peeling a turnip, her voice telling him how a serving girl was treated by powerful men. So few words had she ever spoken to him, and he had disregarded them when it mattered most.

She did not seek to reassure him, or grant him absolution. But her quiet voice reached out to him through the night to say, “There is no debt between us. Sleep easy, Welshman. Gruffydd.”

Then she was gone, and he was left in the dark with the sound of his name in her mouth.