He found he could not say more. There was too much to explain and a kind of creeping fear was coming over him in the calm. He watched the girl as she went among the bodies. He kept expecting another one to rise up when her back was turned, and come for him this time. It seemed impossible that Baudry and his men and all their torment were finished, in only a few short minutes.

But they were dead. She was pulling free the weapons that had killed them. They were strange short knives with no hilt, the blade a few inches long with only a flat circle of metal where the handle should be. Instead of a handle there was a small hole where she inserted something like a nail to pull the blade free. It was the only way to get enough grip, he saw, especially when the blade was slick red and buried deep.

“I am Alfred Brant,” said the man at his side, and looked at him expectantly.

Names. This was conversation. This was how people spoke to one another when they met. He remembered it. It shouldn’t be so hard to do.

“Gruffydd,” he said without thinking, swallowing the ab Iorwerth in time. But it was too late. His name was enough.

“You are Welsh?”

It was no crime only to be Welsh. Not here, anyway. So he said, “Aye, born of a Welshman. I’m called Gryff. Just Gryff.”

“Well met, Gryff, and God give you good morrow. There is a priory ahead, not two miles. They’ll bury our dead and care for Sir Gerald,” he said with a nod toward the injured knight. “And for you, do you come with us.”

Alfred had a kindly face, as though that meant anything. Gryff looked at it for too long without speaking. He knew it was too long, but he could not help it. Words seemed almost as foreign as the idea that he might be able to move among decent people again, and have food to eat and not fear he would be killed in his sleep.

“Better you share the road with us than journey alone,” Alfred advised with a patient look, and Gryff finally nodded. It was better. Safer. And he did not know where else to go. He did not even know where exactly he was.

“First I must... There’s something,” he said, gesturing to the trees behind him. “It wants only a moment. Not far. If you will cut me free of this rope.”

“There are more of your company?” asked Alfred, his kindly face turned hard. “They wait for you?”