Lady Eluned’s eyes were on him instantly, a swift assessment. “Ah. She has told you her story.”  He was left to wonder what in his face could possibly have told her that, while she turned back to her plate and continued brusquely. “It was because of her service to me that she lost a husband and suffered great misfortune. I thought to pay that debt to her, though I know well it can never be paid in full. And then...” Her eyes found Nan again. “I discovered there is so much more to her than just serving girl.”

It struck him as an unwelcome truth that this woman knew more of Nan than he did. He had thought he knew her because he had heard her story and met her aunt and saw her reunion with her sister. He had watched her kill men and marvel at cathedrals. But he had known nothing of these people who were so dear to her – Robin and Lady Eluned and Lord Robert – and wondered now what else she carried hidden in her silent heart.

“Will you tell me why it is that she speaks so rare?” he asked. Even now she sat wordlessly among the chatter of gathering diners.

“Because it suits her?” Lady Eluned shrugged a little, looking out at Nan, then grew thoughtful. “But there is a greater truth behind it: that the words of a serving girl are seldom noted. And so she did find a way through silence to her voice. It was only when she stopped speaking that she was ever heard.”

This made a kind of sense that he could not deny. Nan spoke so little that all around her attended closely whenever words escaped her. She was so many things – strong and intelligent and competent at whatever she put her hand to. It was not surprising that she would be so clever as to have turned silence to her advantage in this way.

“She is no common woman,” he observed.

“Is she not?” Lady Eluned picked up her wine and let her eyes drift thoughtfully over the other people in the hall. “In faith, that was my true discovery. Now I must wonder how many others there are under my very nose, whose worth is overlooked. Mark that lesson well, my lord,” she said with a wry twist to her mouth as she lifted the cup. “I would that I had learned it sooner.”

The servants came with ewers of fragrant water then platters of food, and Gryff made himself remember courtly conversation. One of the ladies who attended Lady Eluned was seated next to him, the one who had seemed familiar. It was because he had known her sister, he realized, though he bit his tongue against saying it. He had stolen a kiss from her once under a snow-laden tree, during a hunt – but only one kiss, because she had blushed prettily and then turned painfully shy.