Back in the guest house, he shared a room with the wounded knight, Sir Gerald, who was silent as Gryff curled onto his own pallet. There was a covered plate waiting for him, set on his blanket. It held a thick slice of cheese and a little bread, though the brothers had already given him his meal when he’d bathed. A kindness, this extra little portion for the starving guest. He ate it slowly and was trying to convince himself that he was safe now, when the wounded knight spoke.

“Is not her usual way, to kill.” His voice was stronger than Gryff would have expected for one who looked so near to death. “They were too many, and so intent on murder that she must kill them in all haste, that no innocents would die. More often she maims. A hand or a foot, or any wound well-placed to make a man stop fighting but not kill him – that is her way.”

Gryff wanted to ask more: how this knight knew her, if she was truly deaf and dumb, and why she had habits of maiming and killing. Above all, he wanted to know how this man or any man could be immune to her beauty. Haps he had forgotten how comely women could be, so long had he been away from them. She might be only ordinarily pretty and his eyes unaccustomed.

Ordinary or not, her beauty was all the more unnerving because it came with such a casually lethal skill. Even if it was not her usual way, she had not hesitated. Sir Gerald’s words were meant as reassurance that there was nothing to fear.

Or so he thought, until the knight spoke again.

“When next you think to look on her with lust, remember it. She’ll cool your blood by spilling it, and let you live with the shame and the scar.” He smiled a little, as though it were a pleasant thought, and looked toward Gryff. “But if truly you are no villain, there is naught to fear of her. I vow it, and you may sleep easy in that promise.”

He did sleep, but it was not easy. It never was.

1277

At first among the Normans, only Will paid him any attention to at all – and that was because he wanted to learn Welsh. Will never said that, of course, he just always greeted Gryff in the language and then fumbled for words beyond the simple greeting, obviously hoping for help.

Gryff pointedly answered in Norman French, or in English when he wanted to practice that language. He never spoke in Welsh anymore. He wanted everyone to forget he was from Wales. Not that they ever would – all they did was remind him how backward he was. Savage and poor and stupid, worthless even to his own father. Well, they never said that last part, but they didn’t have to.