Gravelling took a pinch of snuff from a small pouch brought out of his coat, inhaled it and offered the pouch to Hudson, who shook his head and returned his eye to the glass. “Day in and day out. Seen you up here in the night as well,” Gravelling said. “Standin’ out here in the cold and the snow fallin’ so thick it whitewashed the world. That fella Corbett must owe you a grand sum of money.”

“Thousands of pounds,” said Hudson, moving the glass to scan the far distant woods.

“Really?”

“God’s truth.”

“Well, no wonder you’re up here so often wishin’ him back. I mean, them back. I ain’t had a whole lot of … what would be the word? … assayin’ with Mr. Devane, but he don’t seem a bad sort. Keeps to himself, though. But he’ll speak back if you speak to him first.”

“A real prince, from what I know.”

“A prince? Nah, he ain’t royalty. Just an ordinary bloke.”

Hudson gave a noncommittal grunt and continued his surveillance of the empty road.

“You ain’t the only one so interested,” said Gravelling, and when Hudson looked at him with an inquiring expression Gravelling motioned with a lift of his grizzled chin toward the far realm of Y Beautiful Bedd.

Over the blackened ruins of several structures and those that were being laboriously rebuilt by the village’s workforce, Hudson saw him standing on the upper floor of his castle-like lair, his eye to his own tripod-mounted spyglass aimed to the lonely road.

“I hear tell—just a whisper of it, really—that you and him has become pals,” said Gravelling.

“Hardly.” Hudson leaned against the rampart’s wall and wished he’d thought to bring a flagon of something hot and very strong in terms of alcohol.

“I hear you supped with him.”

“That was a while back.”

“Well, maybe so, but still and all … I ain’t never seen him up close. I mean, I seen him that night in the square when we put paid to them raiders, but not up close.” Gravelling’s eyes narrowed. “There he goes inside again. Man as slight as he is, hard to bear this cold. But he’ll be out at that glass before an hour’s up, and you can mark it. Maybe one of them two owes him money?”

Hudson realized Gravelling was asking him what was going on, since the hired help—and the guards here had their own pecking order, which Gravelling was low on the peck—didn’t receive the benefit of much information. “Maybe so,” Hudson said.

“I seen ’em ride out. That Corbett fella and Mr. Devane. A mismatched pair if there ever was, if you ask me.”