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

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