“By God’s grace there is no fever, and you will mend in good time,” the brother was saying to Sir Gerald. “But to journey ahead to Lincoln or back to Morency would be foolhardy.”
Morency. Lincoln. Gryff gripped the bowl, assailed by memories that he could not seem to sort fast enough. They were somewhere on the road between Morency and Lincoln. He should avoid Morency; he might have a friend in Lincoln.
“I am told you are Welsh.” Sir Gerald had managed to sit upright and now held his own bowl of sop. The monk was exiting, leaving them alone.
“I was,” Gryff answered, taking as much of the Welsh out of his voice as he could. He had not realized how much of it had crept back in. “I have not dwelt there since I was a boy. I called Monmouth my home these many years.”
It wasn’t true, but it was close enough. Monmouth was near to Lancaster’s keep, and he had visited enough times to know it well. It was something he must remember, now, another little lie to commit to memory: he came from Monmouth.
In the next minute, he wished he had chosen anywhere else.
“Monmouth is near to Ruardean, whence comes the lady of Morency. Do you know that place? Her brother rules Ruardean now. Lord William, I think his name is.”
William, whom he had taught to fly a hawk. Will, who had been so amazed when his beloved sister had married Morency. Little Will was a Marcher lord now. His father must have finally died.
“In those days, it was not a William who ruled,” was his only reply.
“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.
1280
Before 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.
Chapter Four
1288
When he closed his eyes, night or day, the gold of her hair lingered in his vision. It was like a beam of searing sunlight that had left an indelible mark across his eyes, and he was not sure he wanted it ever to fade. It was better than every other thing that waited for him in the dark.
For three silent days he had walked behind her on narrow paths and byways, avoiding the main road after they had left Godmanchester and the merchant Alfred behind. Three days of waking to find another little offering of food had been left next to him as he slept. Three days of staring too much at the braid that fell down her back and between her shoulder blades, shining like a thin river of gold flowing through a forbidden landscape. After two days of silence and staring he had finally looked beyond the tip of that braid and noticed that the thickening at one side of her leather belt was not poor craftsmanship, but rather the hilt of a knife. The belt was also a kind of sheath, the weapon parallel to her waist and the grip made of the same leather as the belt, very cleverly hidden in plain view.
She wore leather braces buckled to her forearms, thin and supple, fashioned to fit closely beneath the split sleeves of her dress. In the braces were eight of the strange, short blades with no grip – four on each arm. These were in addition to the simple eating knife that hung from her belt and another concealed in her boot.
Five years without a woman, and the first one God put in his path was beautiful enough to tempt angels to sin – and covered in weapons.
Now she came dripping from the river where she had stopped to wash th
e mud from her dress – his fault, because the falcon’s dive to the lure this morning had caused the dog to run between her ankles and her to slip in the mud. Wading into the water, she had pulled the filthy gown off and left only her linen undertunic to cover her as she scrubbed. For shame, he had turned away from the sight of her bathing. She might only be a servant, but he was mannered enough for the king’s court, not an uncouth lout.
When she came out of the water, holding the wet gown modestly before her linen-clad form, he looked and saw another knife between her breasts. He turned away again to allow her to put on a fresh gown and wondered where else there might be blades hidden beneath her clothes, tucked against skin that was as golden and glowing as her hair.
She was silent – she never made a sound except for that odd hissing noise she employed to call or quiet the dog – but he knew she was dressed again when she led the mule ahead on the path. Unlike the gown she had dirtied, the one she wore now was made of rough material, the kind of garment only the meanest peasant would wear. She had tucked the skirt of it up into her belt, to let the linen beneath dry as they walked. He had seen servant women tuck their skirts up like that, to scrub floors.
The splatters of mud had been washed from her hair, too, and now it hung loose to dry. It spread across her shoulders, a veil of sunlight on this gray day.
“Come ahead little Bran,” he called, though there was no need. The dog was well trained to keep up with its mistress. It was only that Gryff grew weary of the silence, and had taken to speaking to the animals only to hear words again.
He had become aware at some point that though Nan might be mute, she was not deaf. Once he had realized that she could hear, he spoke his nonsense only in Welsh – and no matter how hard he tried it was memories of his childhood that came out. He found himself talking idly of walks with his brothers in the hills, claiming the hawks and eagles that wheeled against the sky as their own, arguing over it, searching for the lake where a fairy was supposed to live. Pointless reminiscing. A world that was gone. It meant nothing to anyone, these memories of a lost life. Fitting, then, to talk to a dog, a mule, a falcon about it.
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