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B efore Rhodri tried to kill him, Gryff had thought they would be great friends.

“A bastard brother is still a brother,” Gryff had said to him, and to his own surprise he truly meant it. There was some Welsh still left in him, he supposed.

He had only faint memories of his half-brother, who was six years older and had been sent to foster so long ago, but they were mostly fond memories.

Then Rhodri came to Lancaster’s court to celebrate Michaelmas and immediately sought out Gryff.

They found they had a mutual admiration for many Norman ways, and a shared resentment of their father.

“Owain and Aiden still think him perfect,” Rhodri reported of their other brothers. “They do not care that he has sent us away. Two brothers instead of four – that’s half the trouble for father. And for Aiden, less than half.”

Inheritance. It all came down to that, for Rhodri.

Perhaps it was the same with his other brothers, but Gryff had never felt it so strongly from them.

It hurt to hear that they did not miss him.

It hurt even more to know that Rhodri was allowed to visit family.

Even if Gryff wanted to, he could not. His fourteenth birthday had passed last year without fanfare, making him a man in the eyes of the Welsh, but he could not go anywhere without royal permission.

Still, it had been nice to have Rhodri there.

He never spoke a word of Welsh, and he too thought Wales was a wretched country.

They were in agreement on the superiority of Norman laws and English ale, and they did not even argue over which of the serving girls in Lancaster’s hall each would flirt with.

It was only when he showed the white gyrfalcon to Rhodri that there was some little unease between them. There was anger behind the admiration in his half-brother’s eye as he said that unlike Gryff, he had never been allowed the year of falconry study that their father gave to his legitimate sons.

Perhaps Rhodri thought this confession would make Gryff sympathetic, but it only made him suspicious.

The year of study was a tradition in their family that went back generations.

It was no small thing to deny this to a son, and if their father had not allowed Rhodri to live among the falconers, there must be a very good reason for it.

That was why, when Rhodri asked him about the nesting places, he lied.

Gryff said, “Father wants only Aiden to inherit the land, and that means everything of value in it.” Then he gave Rhodri the same lie he gave to any outsider who asked: “No one person in Aderinyth knows them all. Is a secret shared among the falconers of old, and kept from all others. Even the princes were never told.”

A fleeting stab of annoyance crossed Rhodri’s face, like he knew it was not true but could not say so.

It passed, and Gryff thought no more of it until some days later when they drank together in a corner of the hall during the holiday feast. He had turned away briefly when he saw Agnes across the hall, her hair decorated with Michaelmas daisies, giving him a knowing wink.

He wondered if she would wait for him behind the bakehouse again or if there was anywhere more private she preferred to lift her skirts for him.

Then he reached for his cup as he turned back to his friends.

Hal knocked it from his hands. He pretended it was an accident, that he was clumsy with too much wine, but Gryff knew his friend.

Hal never drank so much that he was clumsy, and the look he gave Gryff was too sharp and clear-eyed to mistake for anything other than a warning.

Rhodri laughed and said he’d find more ale for them, and when he had gone Hal leaned forward to whisper in Gryff’s ear.

“Have a care with your brother. He dropped aught in your ale.”

When Gryff protested it could not be true, Hal reached down to retrieve the cup where it had fallen.

There was still a swallow left in it and Will (who of course had observed the exchange and missed nothing – he never did) said that they should feed it to a rat and see if it died or only became drunk.

The rat died. Gryff stared at it and fought down a kind of panic.

He let Will explain it to a confused Hal, all about the old Welsh laws and how this particular tradition had been the downfall of so many Welsh families of property.

“When every son inherits an equal portion,” said Will, “greed is like to strangle brotherly love. It has torn Wales apart from within, how they fight each other. It has done more damage than any English king could hope to do.”

He wondered if Rhodri had tried to kill Owain and Aiden, too. He’d have to kill all of them, to have a hope of inheriting. Gryff supposed he himself was the easiest to get at, and the least likely to be missed.

He found Rhodri the next day and dropped the dead rat before him. “It drank too much ale,” he explained, and his bastard brother only gave him a long and belligerent look, then shrugged and turned away. There was no more pretending that they were friends or loving family. They did not speak again.

It was only because Gryff could not bear to think anything might happen to his real brothers that he sent a warning in secret to them.

Will carried the message to a member of his own household, a Welsh kinsman whom he swore could be trusted with anything.

When the Welshman returned and said the warning was delivered to his brothers, he said also that Gryff’s father had given him some words to deliver in return.

It was a message for Hal, thanking him for saving Gryff’s life.