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.
Nan 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.
Nan and Rosy carried the bathing tub and stool up to the room where she had slept on her last visit. There was a cake of good, soft soap in her bag, and she bade Rosy to wash the younger girl clean with it, using the water on hand while Nan went to the well to gather more. She left to find another bucket, the sound of Rosy’s voice following her. “There, Cissy,” she soothed the overeager child. “It will take no time at all and your new mistress will have you clean before you’re sleeping by her fire.”
The Welshman had retreated to the mews, which meant his eyes did not follow Nan as she moved silently through the house. She was conscious of his regard every moment, as though it mattered more than any of the other things pressing on her heart. It was because he had been with her at Aunt Mary’s, she decided. He had glimpsed these bits of her life that were unfathomable to anyone else who knew her. That was the only reason she felt the urge to lean into his warmth. She should return to Morency, where she might find comfort in her friends.
But the thought of it filled her with a horrible, unexpected dread. She carried the heavy buckets up the stair, dropped the heated stones into the water, and tried not to think of it as she lathered Rosy’s coppery hair. All of Morency knew she had left in search of her sister. They all awaited her news, and what could she tell them?
She poured the water to rinse Rosy’s hair just as they were called to come to table. Downstairs, she looked at the two girls with damp hair and freshly scrubbed skin, at the babies delighted with the new faces in their midst, at the steaming bowls of pottage – and she could not bear to sit among them. Though it was a lie, she said she was not hungry and then avoided the Welshman’s gaze as she went to gather more water.
In the little room, she set Fuss to watch the door and stripped to her skin as the hot stones gave their warmth to the water. There was only the dagger over her heart left on her, hanging between her meager breasts on the worn leather thong. She scoured every inch of herself, removing every last trace of her sister’s foul world. Her hose and linen undertunic were plunged into the water, and she searched out the harsher soap in the depths of her bag so that she could make it all come perfectly clean.
Sitting naked on the stool in the tub, dirty water to her ankles, arms and shoulders aching from the work, she made herself imagine returning to Morency. She tried to speak it aloud as she must say it to her friends.
“My sister lives. She is a bawd.” That was easy enough. It was harder to say, “I will have naught to do with her,” but not impossible. And then: “She sees no evil in forcing a child to whore.”
Her mouth pressed hard against her arm on the last words. It was the truth, and it felt like poison on her lips. It was the worst part of all, that Bea saw no wrong in it; the way she had looked at Nan as though she were being prudish and unreasonable. She don’t want redemption, Aunt Mary had said, but it was worse than that: she saw nothing that need be redeemed.
Nan looked at the wet linen draped over the edge of the tub. It should be set in front of the fire to dry, but she could not make herself rise to do it. She could only sit and shiver, and wonder what to do with herself. Morency had been her home these four years, a comfort and a haven. All her time there had been spent in study – in making herself better, safer, stronger – always in anticipation of finding her sister. Always with the aim of giving them both a better life than the one they had been born to.
And this was what it had come to. All that preparation and planning, to end like this. The thought of returning to the place where all her hopes had lived... It was unbearable.
She might go to her Aunt Mary instead, and perhaps it was her duty to do so. But the idea made her clutch her arms about herself in misery. She did not belong there. Her aunt had all but said it with her extreme humility, the same thing that Bea had flung at her as accusation – better than.
It did not matter that Nan did not think herself better. Aunt Mary did, and she would forever put a distance between them, a buffer of admiration that only made Nan feel shut out, a stranger to her own family.
Long ago, when she had been so hurt and hopeless, the only place she felt she would ever belong was in the kitchen at her lady’s manor. And then in her lady’s solar, where quiet words passed between them and every shameful thing was accepted with compassion.
What she would not give to be there now. It was so far away that it almost felt like part of a fable, impossible to reach, the whole breadth of England between this place and that one. She imagined it – the manor at Dinwen, the wide hearth in the kitchen and the peace of the lord and lady’s chamber. The ground would be covered in bluebells now, the kitchen garden newly planted, perhaps even a tree chosen to become the May pole already. And her lady would be there, full of wisdom and comfort and silent understanding.
It was far, but so was Morency. And what did distance matter? There was nowhere else she could imagine herself, and nowhere else she wanted to be. She would go.
As soon as her mind settled on it, a great exhaustion washed over her. Now she could sleep. She did not even care that it was daylight, and she had never in full health been idle while the sun was in the sky. She pulled the dress over her head, almost welcoming the scratch of the coarse wool against her naked skin. She fastened the belt over it so that she would have her blades at hand. She ignored common sense, leaving her linen dripping on the tub and her hair wet, and lay down on the bed under her cloak.
Fuss came to sit just below where she lay her head, wanting to be near her but knowing better than to jump onto the mattress.
“You will like Wales, Fuss,” she mumbled as she allowed herself to drift to sleep.
Long after the sun had set and the household was settled to sleep, Gryff found her in the yard where only a few nights ago she had entertained them with her skill. It was the silence that had called him to her, for there was no sound of blades landing. She stood in the night, illuminated by the lamp set midway between her and the post. There was a dagger in her hand but she only held it indifferently as she stared at the post with a blank look.
“Nan,” he said, but she made no acknowledgement of him. Not even a glance in his direction.
She had slept all afternoon, so late that they must stay the nigh
t and go to the priory in the morning. The girl called Rosy fretted Nan would make herself ill by sleeping with wet hair and refusing her supper. Both girls treated her with a telling mixture of awe and affection. When asked while she slept of what had happened at the brothel, they said only that they had wished to leave, and Nan had sworn she would carry them safely away. The tanner was drunk and deserved what he got – that was all they would say when pressed for the story.
Still, Hal had thought it best to be cautious. If the man had died, or even were the injury grave enough, it might mean death for whoever had done it.
Now Gryff gave the news to her silent profile.
“The boy who works in the mews here.” It came out in Welsh, and he did not question why. “He was sent to the market at Bargate today. There he learned the story of a tanner who drank so much that he did nearly cut his own leg from his body.”
Her head angled slightly in his direction, her eyes on the ground.
“Verily he must be drunk still, to tell such an outlandish tale.”
It surprised him anew, to hear how refined was her voice when she spoke in Welsh.
“Nay, he does not tell it. It is Bargate Bettie who has said she saw it herself. She has given the constable the names of witnesses who have sworn the same. There will be no search, for there has been no crime.”
She was so completely still that he almost believed time had stopped. Not a breath, not a twitch, nothing but the statue of a woman who possessed every feature praised in countless ballads. How many times had he heard troubadours sing of this ideal beauty – the long golden hair, the sparkling blue eyes, the fair face and delicate form? And the silence, of course. The songs never hinted that there could be more, that there were entire worlds within her that went unsung, that the look of her was the least of her.
At last she blinked, and turned her face up to the night sky. He could not tell if it pleased her or pained her, this news that Bettie lied to keep her safe. But he remembered her joy and relief when she was reunited with her sister, and there was none of that in her now.
The sound of the blade hitting the wood startled a gasp from him. She was so fast that he had not seen her move, and had barely registered the passing flash of metal in the lamplight. The dagger was at a steep upward angle, the tip buried lightly at the edge of the post. It dangled for an instant before falling to the ground.
She looked at the splinter in the wood caused by her imperfect throw. Now there was fury in her, together with grief. It seemed to him that she was spilling free, the strict boundary he had perceived around her spirit dissolved, all the feeling within her suffusing the night air.
“You spoke of your brothers.” Her voice was tattered, raw. “The boyhood you shared with them, the games you played, the hills and the...” She trailed off for a moment, and he tried in vain to remember all the things he had said. “Were you all so like unto each other? Did you never feel as a stranger set down in your family – or that one of them was the stranger, and so different that you must disavow him?”
He could almost feel his father’s eyes on him in the dark. Gryff had always been the one who was different, preferring Norman ways, content to call Edward his king. But he had never been disavowed.
“My father had a bastard son,” he said to her. “I called him brother until he tried to kill me.”
She looked at him then, a tender pity in her face amidst the shock. How strange it was, to be reminded that a murderous brother was not an ordinary thing. He lifted his shoulder a little, and the corner of his mouth, an apology for the inadequacy of his answer.
“Greed makes monsters of men. And of women too.”
He felt her look move over his face like a touch. It caused the edges of his scar to prickle in awareness, the patch of burnt skin that would never let him forget. Her gaze fell away and she nodded, almost to herself.
She walked forward to pick up the knife, and he set a loaf on the bench before turning to go back into the house. When her voice came again, he stiffened in surprise.
“I journey to Wales,” she said. “On the morrow I will deliver the girl to the priory, and then take the road west.”
She waited for him to say something, but he could not. Only Hal knew his intention. There was no way she could have known he had planned to go, to try to find his way home.
“I need not travel the roads made by an English king, Welshman,” she offered. “Will you come?”
He swallowed, an exhilaration gripping his heart.
“I will.”
He left her, but went to the small window to look out. He watched her discover the bread he had left, her expression softening at the sight of it. She lifted it to her face, inhaling deeply. The sound of her barely whispered thanks reached out to find him, curling around him in the night.
Chapter Fifteen
There was a texture to silence, different qualities and sensations to it, uses for it he would never have guessed if he did not put his own reactions aside and consider, instead, why she so rarely spoke. He had begun to understand it as they were preparing to leave Lincoln. She had stood before Hal with a small purse of coins in her hand and asked how she might have it safely conveyed to Bargate Bettie.
“I will see that it is done,” said Hal.
She nodded, satisfied, and handed over the coins. “I would have her told this is payment for the debt owed to her, so there’s no need to come looking for them that owed it.”
“Is there no other message you would send?” asked Hal, who had seen her embrace Bettie and weep with happiness to find her. His voice held a faint concern, an incredulity that she intended such a cold exchange as her parting with her sister.
Instead of shaking her head, or answering no, Nan only let her silence speak. There was something in it, in the way she stood still and did not raise her eyes to Hal, that was a clear rebuke. It was a silence calculated to silence him, to make him understand that whatever was between the sisters was not his to question, that she would not have any words put in her mouth or forced from her lips. She had nothing more to say to her sister, and his judgment on that was not welcome.
She would never say these things aloud, because she was too aware of her station in relation to Hal and too grateful to him for his hospitality. But she achieved the same thing by saying nothing at all for exactly the right length of time, before thanking him most humbly for his aid.
Moments later, as Gryff said his farewell to his friend, she seemed to disappear entirely. It was only later that he reflected on how she had cloaked herself in silence to give the illusion she was not there at all. In fact she had been near enough to hear his promise to send word from Aderinyth when he was settled there, so that Hal might send Tiffin to him. Nan had stood in plain sight, but the quality of her silence made him forget she was there, and so he had said the name of his home. He had not meant to let her hear it until she must.
At the priory, he watched her carefully put words and silence together in just the right way to gain an audience with the prioress. The sister who had greeted them looked severely at her and the redheaded girl, instructing them to apply to the almoner after the nones prayer, like they were common beggars. Gryff had stepped forward, prepared to use a less humble approach so that they would be heard, but there was no need. A meek Nan said, “We will gladly do as you say, if the prioress wants us to wait.” She pulled a folded piece of parchment from the wallet at her belt and waited in silence while the sister glanced at it, sucked in her breath, and ushered them inside.
It must be something that showed she was from Morency, to have commanded such immediate respect. And yet Nan had not said the name, nor seemed at all boastful or proud of her connection. She was a mute supplicant who let the paper speak for her, and it was an attitude that served her well. The prioress granted her a private meeting, accepted the girl into the priory, and sent Nan on her way with provisions and wishes for a safe journey.
Now as they made their way west he let the silence grow b
etween them, acquiescing to it every day, feeling himself bound to her more and more because they shared it together. He did not try to fill it, as he had felt compelled to do when they journeyed before.
Instead he decided to ask her one thing every day, one carefully chosen query. He passed the hours in stealing glances at her, trying to forget the feel of her breath against his lips, and deciding what question he would put to her.
“Where in Wales do you go?” he had asked at the end of the first day.
“Well north of Aderinyth,” she answered, after only a little pause.
He waited, watching her, resisting the urge to press for a more specific answer. This was the more common use of silence, more familiar to him – to allow the weight of it to force a response. No matter how reluctant to talk, the natural aversion to silence could so easily coax words from anyone. Maybe even her.
He could feel the tension rise in her, see the way her jaw clenched against saying more as she avoided his eyes. It was a relief to know she was not immune. But then she looked up, and that was the end of his relief.
Her gaze landed on his mouth, at first by chance and then resting there too long to be accidental. Her own lips parted as she stared at his, and fire shot through his veins. It seemed to last forever, long enough for him to wonder if she did it intentionally – to hope against hope it was intentional – as his blood pounded and his mouth remembered the feel of hers, hot and pliant, delicious.
And then she blinked, ending it. She turned her face down to search through her bag, but could not hide the delicate pink that suffused her cheeks or the way her hands fumbled, unusually clumsy as she set out the food. The knowledge that it affected her sent lust coursing through him.
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