All these words spoken, and still he had not answered the question. But to learn she was servant and not lady was a relief. Little chance, then, that she would know anyone from his old life.

Gryff looked over to find that the dog had gone – slipped away to find his mistress, no doubt, or another bit of pork pie. The guarded tone in the knight’s voice told him it was pointless to ask why Morency sent a woman more lethal than a band of thieves to Lincoln with a dog in tow.

“She was trained by Lord Morency’s own hand?” he asked. She must be. There was no one else in all of England with both the skill and the disregard for what anyone might think of the strangeness of it.

But Sir Gerald had put his head back against the wall and drifted to sleep that quickly, exhausted by the effort of eating. Gryff poked at the sodden bread with his spoon. His belly would not stand more, but he could not make himself loosen his grip on the bowl. He would want it later; he must just keep it near until he could swallow more. Another reason to curse Baudry and his men, that they had made him worse than a dog with a juicy bone – or a bit of pork pie – jealously hoarding every morsel.

Within the hour, he managed it, then made himself rise and go to the hawk-house. He found Tiffin sunning herself outside, her feathers spread out in the sunlight while Ned looked on from a perch. Gryff had flown them both two days ago, and they were in as good health as he could hope for. The monk who kept birds for the priory informed him that the market at Godmanchester would be a likely place to sell the goshawk.

He should sell the falcon too. He knew it. It was a miracle he had kept both birds alive and well, that they had not flown away and abandoned him the many times he had struggled to keep them fed. He knew it was foolish to think he could keep it up with Tiffin, especially while he journeyed to Lincoln and even more when he could not guess what the future would bring. But she was like a piece of home. She had calmed and comforted him through these months of despair. He could not bear to part with her unless he might give her into the hands of a friend.

“We leave at first light,” said Alfred, who was waiting for him back in the guest house some hours later.