Bran only stopped barking when she stamped her foot on the ground before him and made a kind of short hissing sound. “Fss,” she said, the only sound that had passed her lips in Gryff’s hearing, and then she leaned down to scratch the dog’s head. Little Bran quieted immediately, but continued to look between her and the hawks as though nothing was more imperative than that she should know they were there and they troubled him. He looked ready to break out into noise again at any second.

But she made another signal with her hand and pointed to the west side of the road, where the dog kept its attentive patrol as the party resumed its progress toward the priory. The girl herself moved to the opposite side of the road, just as watchful, her eyes scanning the trees as they made their way.

“Tell us, if you will – how came you to fall in with the knaves?” Alfred asked.

Gryff had put another bit of bread in his mouth and he chewed slowly, not just to savor it but to have time before he answered. “Months ago,” he began, and then stopped. Months ago, only three months. It felt like years. Maybe he should start it from that point years ago, when he’d fled. He almost did that, then remembered in time that it would invite questions of what he had fled, and why. Bad enough he had already given a part of his true name.

“I was at an abbey. A small place. Less than a dozen brothers. Franciscans. And me.” He heard himself, how he could not seem to say more than a few words together before pausing. It made him sound like a liar, like he was inventing it as he spoke, but he could not make it come out any other way. Men were harder to talk to than dogs or hawks.

“You are a monk?”

“Nay.” Once he would have laughed at that. Now nothing about it seemed humorous. “I kept hawks for the monks. They let me stay. For charity. It was deep in the wilds, away from all. It burned. All the buildings, just before the Epiphany, in the night. None but myself and two brothers survived.”

Alfred sucked in a deep breath of shock. “God assoil them,” he said, and waited to hear more.