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T hey were in the yard training a newly arrived falcon when Hal was called to greet a visitor.

Gryff wondered whether to hide himself in the mews in case it was a courtier who might recognize him, but in the end he only pulled up his hood and retreated to a far corner of the yard.

It proved to be unnecessary, though, because Hal reappeared within moments.

“Come,” he said, and gestured Gryff to follow him the front of the house. He had beckoned his wife as well, her arms free of the children that slept every day at midmorning.

He did not know what to expect, but he would never have thought to see Nan there, her head bowed and eyes on the ground – a vision that sent happiness flooding through him.

He barely had time to register it before her dog was bounding at him, barking joyously and turning circles, jumping up to greet him.

Gryff knelt, unable to stifle the smile that took over his face as he scratched the dog’s head.

She had returned. She was not lost to him forever.

“There you are, mighty Bran,” he said, laughing. The dog whined and danced in answer. “Mighty Fuss, I mean to say. Did you miss me?”

He was waiting for Nan to silence the dog, as she ever did when it was too loud for too long.

When she did not, he looked to find her eyes on him, a bright blue shock that traveled along his spine.

Her look lingered just long enough for him to see something was different in her. Something had happened.

But then she looked away and he noticed the small figure just behind her, a very young girl with muddied feet and a threadbare dress. Nan gestured the girl forward and said, “This is Cecilia.”

“It’s Erma,” the child said with a sheepish look upward at Nan. “Bettie thought it too plain. She made me be Cecilia instead.” The stricken look on Nan’s face dismayed the girl, and she hastily said, “But I will be Cecilia, I don’t mind it.”

Gryff resisted a sudden and powerful urge to step forward and enfold Nan in an embrace.

She looked so bewildered, like a child who had discovered she was lost in a dark wood.

He bit his tongue against demanding to know what had happened, all his happiness at seeing her swallowed up in concern.

But as he watched, she seemed to come to herself again.

She looked down at the dog that had returned to her side, blinked, and shook her head slightly as though to clear it.

“Erma, then.” She turned back to Hal and his wife, adopting her most deferential manner. “She looks for work, and I did remember as how you are without a maidservant.”

The girl stepped forward at this and launched into a brief and practiced speech, detailing her experience in housework, her willingness to learn how to care for children, her prodigious skill in soapmaking, and her recently acquired but scant knowledge of cooking.

As she spoke, Gryff noticed another, older girl standing at the edge of the street as though awaiting permission to come any closer.

After establishing the child had no family and wanted no more than room and board as payment, Hal agreed to take her on – though he insisted she would have a penny every week for her work.

The girl smiled in relief, but Nan set a staying hand on her shoulder and looked to Hal’s wife.

Only when she nodded did Nan seem reassured, and spoke again, her words practiced and formal.

“I go now to the priory at Broadholme,” she said, “and it’s there I’ll ask you to send her if ever ye wish her gone from your household for any reason. I hold myself responsible for her until she is grown, and I would not have her cast into the street if she does not please you.”

When Hal assured her that, if needed, he would do as she asked, she nodded and lifted her hand from the child’s shoulder. She looked so very tired. She also looked like she was preparing to leave now, this very minute.

“Where is it?” Gryff asked. “The priory?”

“To the west, and not far,” said Hal, when Nan did not answer. “It is easily reached by nightfall, even do you stop and eat with us. Will you not share our meal, as thanks for delivering a servant so sorely needed?”

Gryff could hear the warm persuasion in his friend’s voice, learned from his father.

As hard to resist as it was, Nan did not readily agree.

She seemed to consider it a moment, glancing over her shoulder to the girl who stood in the street.

Gryff prayed for the heavy clouds to open up and make the prospect of travel more dismal.

“If you take me in your home even for an hour,” she said quietly, “you must take also a whore who travels with me, and the risk that follows me for certain troubles I have lately caused. I know you cannot welcome either of those things.”

Her face burned now, a flush along her cheeks and neck that spoke her shame as she kept her eyes downcast. Gryff did not want to look away from her even for an instant, but he made himself. He turned to Hal, only to see his friend had already decided.

“There will not come an hour when you are not welcome here, no matter who or what accompanies you,” Hal answered, just as quietly. “I thought my friend lost to me forever. And so he would be, without you.”

Her eyes came up at that, a startled look that landed on Gryff.

He had told Hal some of it – how the villains had held him and what had happened when they attacked her party on the road.

It was only the barest facts with few details, just enough to explain these last few months of his life.

He had not said a word to his friend about the depth of his gratitude to Nan. There was no need.

She turned back to Hal and seemed to consider his offer.

“I would not wish to return your welcome with misfortune.” She looked squarely at him and took a deep breath before speaking bluntly.

“I’ve done a grave injury to a man, because he would hold a girl when she wished to escape.

He may come after me – or as he cannot walk, he’ll send the sheriff after me.

And then you’ll be found to have me at your table, and a whore too.

It’s better I leave Lincoln without delay than I bring such disrepute to your good name. ”

“Was the hue and cry sent up against you?” asked Hal.

“Nay. But nor did I leave that place quietly.”

At this, the little girl spoke up. “Bettie don’t call on the watchmen, and she told us we was never to do it,” said the child, eager to explain. “The tanner will have to go himself, when he is sober and able to stand on one leg.”

While Gryff entered into wild speculation about what might have transpired, Hal only smiled at the little girl and gestured to the hooded figure who stood at the edge of the street, beckoning her to come closer. He acted as though the matter had been settled.

“You are weary, and is better you take your ease now and journey to the priory when you are refreshed.” He spoke to Nan but was already turning toward the house, indicating they should all follow. “And will you deny us the story of this tanner who cannot yet stand on one leg?”

He and his wife led the girls forward into the house, the distant wail of one of their children signaling a return to order and routine.

Gryff stood looking at Nan, waiting as expectantly as her dog.

She had that bewildered look again, softened only slightly by a vague relief.

He thought of the moment when she had turned to him among the trees, when he had been frozen in fear at the mere twitch of a hare in the brush, and she had called him to his senses with only his name and a touch.

But his touch would not calm her. He could only wait for her to see him, and then withstand the searching look she gave him.

It reached inside of him, seeking the answer to something he could not guess.

She was so skilled at communicating silently, putting whatever she wanted to convey into her expression.

But now he could not decipher what she meant to say, or what she wanted.

It was only him – everything in her intensely focused on him for an endless, heart-stopping moment.

Then she blinked, and became only a weary woman. She looked so fragile that she might blow away with the wind.

“Nan,” he said, and watched her fight off sudden tears. It was only an instant, so quickly come and gone that he would not have noticed if she had not been looking in his eyes. But it had been there, and she had let him see it.

N an said a silent prayer of thanks to the Virgin that the goodwife of this house was not unkind.

She had warned little Cecilia – little Erma, that was – that they could not be assured of a warm welcome at this or any respectable establishment, when they came from a brothel.

But the girl was so excited at the idea of working for a family, instead of living in a convent, that Nan knew she must try.

Though it left her open to the scorn of her betters, she decided she must at least begin here, in hopes that if the falconer turned the girl away he might suggest other places to look for work in town.

She had not dared to hope for this much generosity.

It was obvious to Nan that the goodwife was not happy to welcome a prostitute into her home even for the length of a meal, but she hid her distaste for Rosy and treated the little girl no differently for having served in a brothel.

If there was a slight coolness in her demeanor toward Nan it was only to be expected, and it did not prevent her from offering a private place for the girls to bathe themselves.