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T hey drifted westward , and she found relief in having no driving purpose beyond finding nourishment and shelter every day, wandering in the direction of Wales, and simply being with him.

No more did she resist looking at him, or standing near to him, or touching him.

No more did she resist speaking when she might normally have bitten back words.

She had felt him surrendering to her silence before, and that was wonder enough. But now he adjusted himself to it, allowed room for it without impatiently waiting for her to speak again. It was part of her, and so he did not shove it to the side or disregard its importance.

It was the same as when she touched him, or he touched her – or even when they did not touch at all.

She felt in him, always, this allowance for her desires, for what she wanted and did not want.

He accommodated her and she, who had grown accustomed to living in service of other people and other purposes, found it more pleasing than she could ever have imagined.

“How do you come to speak Welsh?” he asked her one day.

She had just given a command to Fuss in words instead of using their signals, because her hands were busy stoking the fire and stirring the soup. Fuss had been trained with Welsh, as she had been. It had seemed natural to her when he was a pup.

“Those who taught me the blades did use the Welsh language in their training at Morency,” she answered, and hoped he would not ask more.

Lady Gwenllian had been her true teacher, though others had trained with her, including Lord Ranulf, hard as it was for him to do.

But a highborn lady should not have such skills.

To say the secret to anyone – even one she trusted well – felt too much like betrayal.

So too would it feel like betrayal to deny Gwenllian and say someone else had taught her.

And to lie to him would make her feel wretched, so she hoped he would not ask.

He did not. He seemed almost to shy away from it, and she knew it was the mention of Morency that restrained him. Like her, he did not want reminders of the world. They were outside of everything here. There were no masters, no family, no duty – there was only each other.

There would be time enough for the world and all its cares when they reached the end of their journey.

Until then she would live only for the day, for the moments when she caught the soft look he gave her, or could watch as he patiently worked thistles out of Fuss’ fur while murmuring soft and soothing things, so careful and attentive that she almost could not breathe for the tenderness that swelled in her at the sight.

She lived too for the nights, for the shadows that moved across his skin until the lamp flickered out, and the delights they discovered together in the dark.

The way he touched her was a revelation – like it was a privilege, like there was no response her body could give that would ever be wrong.

Some part of her could not quite wholly believe in it and stayed always wary, a corner of her mind alert to danger, a hand that would not let go the blade.

But all that mattered was the pleasure of the moment, with no yesterday and no tomorrow.

Everything felt far away. Only he felt real.

One evening as the sun went down, it lit up the sky in shades of glowing russet and copper.

They sat and watched it together. She turned to look at the color reflected on his face, the shining patch of scarred skin turned amber by the light of sunset.

She thought of the first time she had touched him there, when he had cried out in his sleep.

In my dreams I burn and burn , he had said.

“Do you still dream of burning?” she asked, because she might never know if she did not ask him. Some things were worth putting into words.

He did not seem surprised by the question.

“Is rare now, and when I do dream it, I know it is a dream.” His eyes were on the blaze at the horizon, his voice soft. “And then I wake, and you are there.”

She bit her lips together, the now familiar tenderness swelling inside her.

She reached a hand up to the scar, a soft caress that traced it back behind his ear.

When she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the place, he slipped an arm around her and she felt it again – the same thing she had felt from him many times since she had made herself his lover.

He wanted something more, but held the urge in check while he considered if she wanted the same, assessing her body’s reaction to find an answer.

This time he wanted to pull her into his lap, and she did not want that.

She could tell this was his urge for the same reason she did not want it: because she had been pulled into the laps of countless men when she had not been fast enough to dodge their grasp.

She could not like it, no matter the man who did it.

But she did want to be nearer to him, so she squeezed his hand at her waist and kissed his lips.

Then she slipped behind him, her knees on either side of him so he could lean back on her.

They watched the sun melt from the sky as he held her hands to his chest and she felt the soft tickle of his hair against her cheek.

In moments like this, she did not ever want to reach Wales.

She never said it aloud, for fear he would think she did not care if he never went home.

In truth she wanted nothing more than that, for him to reach the place he yearned for.

If there could be some way to give him his home while keeping the world at bay, she thought she might sell her soul to know it.

But that was impossible, so she must be content with their leisurely pace on the journey.

One morning she woke to the feel of cool air on her bare skin.

Her eyes snapped open, wary of danger until she remembered that last night in the dark, he had taken off her shift.

She had wanted it, wanted the feel of his skin on hers, his body hot all along her back while she guided his hands over her and he thrust inside her.

But she had, for warmth and modesty’s sake, always put her shift back on before succumbing to sleep. Until now.

The cloak only half covered her and his eyes were fixed on the place between her breasts. The dagger that normally hung there had shifted and exposed the scar. Scars.

It was the first he was seeing it, and in the harsh morning light. The thin lines showed clearly where her flesh had been cut. Now his eyes came to hers and she only looked at him, her jaw tight, a look that told him he could satisfy his curiosity and push the cloak away from her hip. He did.

It was an uglier scar there, where she had been burned.

She knew he had felt it already, whenever his hands had grasped her hips, or caressed her in the dark.

Now he saw it, and she watched his face twist with feeling.

He looked up at her, his brows knitted together with confusion and a little anger.

It was a look that asked what had happened, why this had been done to her – for it was obvious that it had been done deliberately.

“Did you think he went away docile, after I ruined his sport and withered his cock?” she asked, her voice flat.

It angered her suddenly, irrationally, that he dared to be surprised or appalled at this.

What a luxury, to be able to believe in the honor of men.

“His anger must go somewhere. Water rolls down a hill, men’s anger falls on women. It’s the way of the world.”

Fool , she wanted to say at the end of it, but clamped her jaw against it.

She sat up. In the soft sound of his breath she could hear that infinite patience of his, steady and calm, the way he waited for the falcon in its flight.

It was not a helpless or hapless state, this patient waiting of his.

He was there within it, unmovable. He would not advance unless invited, but nor would he yield his place, or himself, only because of her mood.

“You said naught of this, when you told me what happened.” It was not so much accusation as it was bewilderment. “Yet you did teach me it must be put into words. Can you not speak of it?”

She almost scoffed. Not speak of it? She had spoken of it countless times, and she did not care to speak of it again to satisfy his curiosity about the details.

They cut her, they burned her, she lived.

It was simple enough to understand. She stood and reached for her shift, pretending it did not affect her to stand naked before him, scrawny and small and marked with ugly scars.

“I tell what I want to tell and not a word more.” She gestured to the places she was marked. “Talking won’t tell you no more than you can see with your own eyes, will it.”

She turned away and pulled her linen over her head and then her dress. Fuss sprang up from his place beside the trees that hid this tiny clearing, eager to see where the day would take them. She fastened her belt with the blades in it around her waist, and pulled on her boots without her hose.

There was the long, elegant dagger for her boot, but she did not slip it in at the ankle. She held it close like a talisman, bundled her hose and the braces of knives into her cloak, and said, “I’ll go gather more water.”

She did it every morning, but never announced it. She could feel the meaning of it fall on him, that he was not welcome to follow her. It was all she could do to remember to take the flask.

At the stream she knelt and put a hand into the water, wishing it was colder.

Cold enough to shock and numb, to freeze the hot tears that seemed ready to spill.

It was not fair. The world and all its ugliness had intruded on this soft place they had built between them.

And it was her who had carried it in, written on her flesh.