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I n the morning she told the kind falconer there was no need to hurry, that she would wait while he attended his duties.

In truth she need not wait for him at all, now that she knew where to find her sister.

She told herself that she was weary from an almost sleepless night, that she preferred to have the falconer with her – a man of consequence, thoroughly respected and respectable – when she walked into her sister’s world.

She told herself many things, and none were the truth. It was not the rain that made her pause, nor the pleasurable sight of the Welshman in the yard training one of the falconer’s birds to a lure. It was dread at what she might find.

Never would she have believed that she would pause at this last step toward her sister.

It was not that she was a whore – many times she had thought Bea might have been forced to prostitute herself.

In some ways, it was the best she could have hoped for, the least evil of many fates that could befall a girl of her station.

Not starving or dead, just a common whore.

Now she could see that she had always imagined saving her sister.

That’s what had been in her mind, that she would find Bea and carry her away somewhere safe.

It’s why she had gone looking for her in the first place.

But if what Aunt Mary said was true, then Bea did not need to be saved. There was no great urgency in the task.

So Nan hesitated, agreeing to wait until morning, delaying departure, nervous of what she might find. Afraid there was no more of her little Bea, and she must learn to love this Bargate Bettie. But no matter her fears, the day would not wait.

It was midmorning when they crossed the bridge amid a crowd of people and carts and animals.

The falconer had said there was a small market just beyond the bridge, near to where her sister could be found, and he had some business there.

The Welshman came too, and she felt the tug of his attention with every step.

It had been her constant companion these many days, from the moment he had first seen her, and she would be free of it soon.

It should make her glad. It should be a relief.

At least she need not be burdened with worry for him, so changed was he in the presence of his friend.

It seemed to her as if he had found a lost piece of himself in the moment his friend had said his name.

If he had regained his confidence as they left Wragby, now he had found his full ease and comfort.

He had come back to himself. As they passed through this market, among all these people and their noise, he did not flinch or stare or shrink. He was well. He would be well.

At the edge of the crowd she paused to look at the few buildings ahead, along this road that stretched from Lincoln to London.

It had the look of the sort of place where common whores did their trade, where she was like to find her sister.

Suddenly she was remembering their mother.

Her thin face rose up in Nan’s mind, how she looked in those last hours.

Care for your sister and brother, she had said. Oh, how Nan had failed at that.

A sharp tug at her arm caused her blood to race, her hand to jerk out the knife and brandish it too quickly.

It had been years since she had last been taken by surprise, and in a crowd at that.

She wheeled around to find the shocked face of a young woman peering at her.

Ruddy cheeks and yellow hair and wide-set, bright blue eyes that looked a little wild.

“Nan?”

She felt a tickle of recognition. Her body seemed to know before her mind did, her fingers going slack and her knife falling to the ground. Then all at once she was flooded with certainty.

“Bea.” She blinked up at her. Up. At her little sister. “Little Bea.”

She watched her sister shake her head in disbelief. “Nan. You’re Nan.”

She nodded. All of her felt numb. She thought she might never move from this spot.

But even as she thought it they were embracing, a fierce and desperate clinging to one another.

There was nothing else left in the world but her arms wrapped tight around her sister.

Her sister who should be dead. Her sister who was tall and sturdy and grown to womanhood against all odds.

“Look at you.” Bea pulled back a little to look into her face, knocking Nan’s hood down, touching her hair. “You’re the spit of her, but in full health. God forgive me but I forgot her face until I seen you.”

Nan grasped her sister’s shoulders, frantically looking her up and down. Arms and legs, her body whole and sound, no illness or injury evident. She felt the hot rush of tears tumbling down her face.

“Look at the flesh on you.” She was sobbing now.

Anyone would think it a tragedy, the way she wept, when it was the best thing she had ever seen.

She gripped Bea’s arms, strong and healthy and perfect.

“You’re not starved. I prayed for it.” There was no stopping the tears, no hope of speaking sensibly. “I prayed and prayed.”

Bea shook her head, her face screwing up in that way she had when she did not want to weep.

Nan thought her heart might burst at the sight of it, so familiar and so heartbreaking.

She dragged a sleeve across her own face to wipe the tears away even as more tumbled down, then wrapped her arms around her sister again.

They were a spectacle in the street and her knees might fail her at any moment and leave her in the dirt – and she did not care at all.

“I’m here now, Little Bea.” She spoke into her sister’s ear, fierce and certain. “I’m here, and there’s no one can take me away from you, not never again.”

T hey were in the common room that served as kitchen when she began to understand that the uncomplicated joy would be a fleeting thing, never to return. Still, she was content with her journey’s end as she sat in this house that Bea managed.

Not Bea, she reminded herself over and over again – it was Bargate Bettie who ran this place. And she was struggling to understand Nan’s life.

“I serve the lord and the lady, however they should need me,” Nan explained. Some of the women who lived here had come for their meal, and Nan did not like to speak of the business of Morency where they could hear it.

Bea gave a knowing grin.

“We’ve been known to serve lords too, but never their ladies. Is he a kind one, then? He must be, to let you leave his bed and come here. But for all that you look well, I see more bone than flesh on you.”

She pushed another of the small loaves across the table to Nan, who was mortified by this assumption – less for herself than for Morency.

Nan’s place there was strange enough, even without her humble birth, and defied simple explanation.

She should not have tried to tell it so soon without considering her words.

Her sister had never served in castle or manor, nor had she much knowledge of great lords and ladies, so she was only guessing the best she knew how.

That didn’t save Nan from feeling the affront.

“Morency is ruled well by Lord Ranulf. He’s a good knight and true. Nor would he never dishonor his lady, and there are few enough lords I can say that about.”

She would have said more but she was distracted by a young girl who stood at her elbow, trying to get her attention without interrupting.

It reminded Nan of herself when she was that age – perhaps ten years or so, the same age as when her father traded her to the weaver for a handful of coins.

But this girl, with her black hair and eagerness to please, was not starved or dirty.

She held out Nan’s knife, the one that had dropped to the ground when she saw Bea.

Nan took it and thanked the girl, but the knife prompted more questions from her sister.

She spent the rest of the afternoon explaining that she had learned the knives for defense, never saying it was Lady Gwenllian who had taught her.

Instead, she told how she served Gwenllian in the herb-house, and with needle and thread, and many other household duties.

Those women who stayed and listened seemed as overly impressed as Aunt Mary had been.

But Bea only seemed a little amused.

“It’s no astonishment to me, making yourself the favorite of a great lady.” She laughed in a way that was a little mocking, the barbed tease of a true sibling. “You always did love to be a good girl.”

Nan looked down at her hands where they were folded neatly in her lap, withstanding the wave of memory.

She had not forgotten all their sisterly bickering when they were girls, but she had forgotten that this was ever the chief complaint.

She hadn’t understood her sister’s resentment then, and she didn’t understand it now. Why should she not want to be good?

“And you loved to take all the butter, and then pretend I ate your share.”

For the barest instant it was like they were children again – she saw the angry denial rising up in Bea’s face, and felt her own protest forming. But then Bea’s face softened and her mouth quirked up. In a blink it was gone and they were grown again, looking back on that life together.

“It was rare enough there was butter to fight over, nor even bread to put it on. It’s no wonder you’re a little thing, and all bones.”

“Not for lack of eating.” Nan smiled. “Lady Gwenllian, she says I’ll never eat enough to make up for the years my belly was empty, but I may as well try.”