She had slept all afternoon, so late that they must stay the night 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.