It was a simple statement of fact that answered the nagging question: five years since Wales had fallen. Five years since he had run in fear of his life.

“What task sends you and your party to Lincoln?” Gryff asked, to turn the conversation away from himself.

“Alfred journeys only as far as Godmanchester, for the market. My business in Lincoln is at my Lord Morency’s command.” He looked ruefully at his injured leg. “Now it falls to Nan alone.”

Gryff fought against the urge to repeat her name aloud, to feel the simplicity of it on his tongue. It was such a humble name. Nan. Achingly beautiful Nan. Deadly Nan, who could guarantee safety from any dangers on the road.

“If she journeys on to Lincoln, I would join the party,” he said between bites of the sop. “The goshawk I will sell, but the falcon I keep for my own. I would take her to a man I know in Lincoln.”

A friend who might tell him everything he wanted to know: if anyone still searched for him, if it was safe to go home to Wales, if there was anything left to go home to. Sir Gerald would likely know these things too, but unless the world had changed very much in five years, it would be the gravest mistake to trust a Norman knight who served the king’s bosom friend.

“Nan goes first to a village near to Lincoln, and then on to the town as it please her.” The knight leaned his head against the wall, overcome with weariness. “She has her own business and will not wait for a party to gather, so impatient is she. And she needs her no companions to keep her safe from harm.”

“I will be glad to leave this place even today. This minute, if I must.” A stop on the way to Lincoln was no hardship. “I will pay her if she requires it, to act as guard on the journey. The hawk will fetch a good price.”

The thick mustache twitched a little, a quick smile. “She goes where she will and as she likes. Nor will she travel with you if she does not wish it. Your coin will not change that.”

Gryff did not reply to this, privately musing that a woman who went where she would and as she liked could decide for herself whose coin she would or would not take. There seemed to be nothing ordinary about her. “Strange though it be, I can believe she is as much protection against rogues as any king’s guard. How comes it that a lady has such a skill?”

This produced a short grunt of a laugh. “She is no lady, but servant to Morency. It is a rare villain who will come through his lands, for they have learned it is well guarded. Few know it is a woman who is most like to be their reckoning.”