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“Five years then, at the least, that you have lived away from there.”

It was a simple statement of fact that answered the nagging question: five years since Wales had fallen. Five years since he had run in fear of his life.

“What task sends you and your party to Lincoln?” Gryff asked, to turn the conversation away from himself.

“Alfred journeys only as far as Godmanchester, for the market. My business in Lincoln is at my Lord Morency’s command.” He looked ruefully at his injured leg. “Now it falls to Nan alone.”

Gryff fought against the urge to repeat her name aloud, to feel the simplicity of it on his tongue. It was such a humble name. Nan. Achingly beautiful Nan. Deadly Nan, who could guarantee safety from any dangers on the road.

“If she journeys on to Lincoln, I would join the party,” he said between bites of the sop. “The goshawk I will sell, but the falcon I keep for my own. I would take her to a man I know in Lincoln.”

A friend who might tell him everything he wanted to know: if anyone still searched for him, if it was safe to go home to Wales, if there was anything left to go home to.

Sir Gerald would likely know these things too, but unless the world had changed very much in five years, it would be the gravest mistake to trust a Norman knight who served the king’s bosom friend.

“Nan goes first to a village near to Lincoln, and then on to the town as it please her.” The knight leaned his head against the wall, overcome with weariness.

“She has her own business and will not wait for a party to gather, so impatient is she. And she needs her no companions to keep her safe from harm.”

“I will be glad to leave this place even today. This minute, if I must.” A stop on the way to Lincoln was no hardship. “I will pay her if she requires it, to act as guard on the journey. The hawk will fetch a good price.”

The thick mustache twitched a little, a quick smile. “She goes where she will and as she likes. Nor will she travel with you if she does not wish it. Your coin will not change that.”

Gryff did not reply to this, privately musing that a woman who went where she would and as she liked could decide for herself whose coin she would or would not take.

There seemed to be nothing ordinary about her.

“Strange though it be, I can believe she is as much protection against rogues as any king’s guard.

How comes it that a lady has such a skill? ”

This produced a short grunt of a laugh. “She is no lady, but servant to Morency. It is a rare villain who will come through his lands, for they have learned it is well guarded. Few know it is a woman who is most like to be their reckoning.”

All these words spoken, and still he had not answered the question. But to learn she was servant and not lady was a relief. Little chance, then, that she would know anyone from his old life.

Gryff looked over to find that the dog had gone – slipped away to find his mistress, no doubt, or another bit of pork pie. The guarded tone in the knight’s voice told him it was pointless to ask why Morency sent a woman more lethal than a band of thieves to Lincoln with a dog in tow.

“She was trained by Lord Morency’s own hand?” he asked. She must be. There was no one else in all of England with both the skill and the disregard for what anyone might think of the strangeness of it.

But Sir Gerald had put his head back against the wall and drifted to sleep that quickly, exhausted by the effort of eating.

Gryff poked at the sodden bread with his spoon.

His belly would not stand more, but he could not make himself loosen his grip on the bowl.

He would want it later; he must just keep it near until he could swallow more.

Another reason to curse Baudry and his men, that they had made him worse than a dog with a juicy bone – or a bit of pork pie – jealously hoarding every morsel.

Within the hour, he managed it, then made himself rise and go to the hawk-house.

He found Tiffin sunning herself outside, her feathers spread out in the sunlight while Ned looked on from a perch.

Gryff had flown them both two days ago, and they were in as good health as he could hope for.

The monk who kept birds for the priory informed him that the market at Godmanchester would be a likely place to sell the goshawk.

He should sell the falcon too. He knew it.

It was a miracle he had kept both birds alive and well, that they had not flown away and abandoned him the many times he had struggled to keep them fed.

He knew it was foolish to think he could keep it up with Tiffin, especially while he journeyed to Lincoln and even more when he could not guess what the future would bring.

But she was like a piece of home. She had calmed and comforted him through these months of despair.

He could not bear to part with her unless he might give her into the hands of a friend.

“We leave at first light,” said Alfred, who was waiting for him back in the guest house some hours later.

The girl Nan was there, too, kneeling over Sir Gerald to carefully put some kind of salve on his wound.

She did not look up when he entered, but her dog immediately began to bark.

It did not stop until she made that noise again, the quick huffing hiss of a sound that reduced the barking to little more than a canine grumble.

“Godmanchester is but a day’s journey on the old north road,” Alfred said when he could be heard again. He held out a length of rough wool. “You will find finer cloth there, but this I give you gladly to keep off the chill of morning, until you may purchase better.”

Gryff took it and thanked him. He supposed this meant that Nan had agreed to let him accompany her to Lincoln.

She did not look up at him, though. She only went about her business, sharing out a portion of the unguent into a smaller jar.

Gryff looked away from the sight of her smoothing the knight’s hair from his brow, the fond look she gave him, and turned to his own pallet.

Alfred talked on – about the road, the market, the need to bathe here as the inn at Godmanchester never seemed able to provide any but the filthiest water.

Gryff sat, exhausted at the thought of walking for a full day tomorrow.

He had taken his evening meal of porridge outside, after an afternoon of exercising the goshawk had left him too tired to make his way back here.

The dog appeared at his feet just as Alfred was bidding them goodnight.

“Will you sleep with me again, Bran?” He whispered it, ashamed of how much he wanted it.

Embarrassing enough to crave the comfort and warmth of it, but he knew what he wanted most was the security in knowing the dog would act as guard and wake him if anyone entered while he slept.

Just for now, he promised himself. Soon he would be himself again.

Bran stayed where he was and it was a long time until Gryff realized the girl had left without his noticing, as silent as ever. He looked to find a small sack of almonds waiting for him in the place where he would lay his head.

“None for you, little Bran,” he said, and turned his attention to eating all that he could while there was still food to be had. Then he slept.

In the hour before dawn he woke with a jerk of alarm and struck out at the figure that hovered over him.

It was instinct, and a bad one – if he were still tied to a tree among the thieves, they would have beaten him bloody for lashing out.

But he was not among the thieves, nor tied by rope. It was the girl again. Nan.

He had not touched her. She was too quick, and had leapt away before his fist could land.

Now she stood over him, a lamp in her hand, her startling blue eyes locked on his until his breathing began to calm.

Then she blinked and gave a small, apologetic nod of her head before looking down at his pallet, just a few inches from his head.

He followed her eyes to the spot and found a strip of dried meat there, and a bit of bread.

It took a moment for him to realize that she had put it there – that she, and not the monks, had left all the other little gifts of food. It took longer for him to realize that she had already slipped away before he could find words to thank her.