“You won’t kill a chicken for us,” Nan said firmly, looking abashed at this change in demeanor. “And may God strike me down in my arrogance if ever I think myself too good to sit at your table.” She put a hand atop Mary’s and spoke gently. “I am only Nan, Aunt Mary. And as for any good fortune I have had, it all started with you looking out for me.”

After that she turned briskly to business, asking Mary to tell her of her life in their years apart and instructing Gryff to bring in the packs from the mule that was tied outside. She was a whirlwind. She took over the grinding of the millet in the bowl that Mary had set aside, and had the task done even before he finished bringing in the baggage. She swept feathers from the floor and cobwebs from dark corners without pausing.

All the while Mary explained that after Nan had gone into service, she had married a widowed man and come to live here, then was widowed in turn. Now she lived with her husband’s grown son, Edmer, whom they would meet when he returned from his day of work in town. He was simple-minded, she told them, but a good boy whom she would have loved as well as her own, if ever she had had any of her own.

When Gryff brought the hooded falcon out of the cage and set up the perch just outside the only window, he almost regretted it. He must keep Tiffin near, as her value was too great to leave unwatched, but the sight of her caused Mary to become even more deferential.

“There’s a very fine bird,” she said, craning her neck through the window. “Not like them ordinary hawks I seen in town. This one is fit for a king, it is.”

Fit for a king. It’s what Baudry had said, his eyes full of greed and wonder, his hands still stained with the blood of the man he had killed. He had been reaching for Gryff and stopped when he saw the falcon.

It was not so bad, to think of that moment – to think of how he had been spared only because of the value of a bird. He could not look squarely at the moments surrounding it. Not yet. But he would do as she advised. He would try, and if she was right then perhaps for the first time in his life he would not be ruled by shame.