The shame brought him to his senses, and he concentrated on forcing the memory of Baudry away. It was quickly done; he knew how to forget better than he knew anything. He let himself think only of the road ahead, the little dog, the freedom he finally had for the first time in his life. He would not squander it in fear.

“I’ll have you walk ahead or beside me, if you please, and not behind.”

For a long moment, he thought it was the mule that had spoken and that he was going mad. When he finally comprehended that it was Nan, he could do nothing but blink in astonishment. She only picked up the rope that served as the mule’s rein from where it had fallen, and began wiping the mud from it.

“You can speak.” It was a witless thing to say, but he seemed incapable of anything else.

She paused only slightly in her work, glancing up at him and giving a brief nod to acknowledge it – but no more words. He struggled to find any himself.

“But...wherefore have you played at being mute these many days?”

She looked disconcerted at the question. “It is not play.” When he only blinked at her, she said simply, “When words are needed, I speak them.”

With that, she gave a little jerk of her chin that asked him to take a place beside the mule so that they could begin walking again.

He would have refused to move until she explained more fully, but the sound of her voice still echoed in his head. The fact of her speaking was easier to accustom himself to than the manner in which she spoke. Even in so few words he could hear that her voice was unrefined, with none of the polished tones of Norman nobility. It matched the way she had tucked up her skirt and gutted the birds with no squeamishness, and how she was busily braiding her own hair with quick, efficient moves.

A servant. Her speech matched exactly what she was, but her face had made him forget it.

“Do you think to pretend a higher station, and so hide your speech?”

The look of affront that crept over her was more eloquent than any words she might have spoken.

“Your pardon,” he said hastily. “I mean you no insult. I thought...”

He had thought of his own pretending, how he had spent so many years trying to hide the Welsh in his voice. But he didn’t say so. He just walked with her in silence until he could stand it no more.

“Where do we travel? What village?”

She made no answer, nor acknowledged the question. It was as though he had not spoken at all.

“What business have you there?” he tried.

But it seemed she thought words were not needed on the subject, and she only walked ahead without speaking again.