Gryff blinked at him, this man who cared for him like a father and who rarely spoke with such a dire tone. To flee was unthinkable, an irrevocable decision that would likely damn him in the king’s eyes. Before he could say so, there was a noise, the sound of someone entering at the far end of the hawk-house.

“Say nothing to Hal of this.” Moris spoke low and urgent. “He can say in truth he knew naught, do you choose to flee.”

It seemed absurd even to think it. He would have said something to Hal despite Moris’s warning, but he did not want to burden his friend with so much grim news. It was easier to curse the cold and talk about which birds should be flown on tomorrow’s hunt. It was easier to forget that no matter what he might choose, his days here were numbered.

Gryff spent every moment of that day expecting the king’s men to carry him away and, now that the seed of the idea was planted, he passed a sleepless night considering the possibility of fleeing. To France, perhaps, or further. First he would have to find a way to escape this fortress filled with men loyal to the king, and that was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

But then he realized it might not be so difficult. He had lived here for so long and was such a part of the household that he had all but forgotten, until recently, that he was a hostage. And everyone else here, including the household guard, had grown just as relaxed in their attitude toward him. Still he thought of no way it could be done. Outside these walls the only people he knew were his Welsh kin, and to go to them was certain death. He had no horse, no coin, no place to go.

In the morning, it all seemed like the most desperate kind of fantasy. He put it out of his mind and tried instead to dismiss the growing dread. He tried to tell himself that there was no noose tightening around his neck, that the king would let him live in peace and free once the war was done.

Then the message from Will came, a whisper from a courtier as he passed in the hall that very afternoon. “Be on your guard. Your bastard brother thinks the time is ripe to make himself the only living heir.”

The man was gone before Gryff could ask if this meant his trueborn brothers were dead.

In the hawk-house he told Moris that perhaps there was naught to be lost if he fled for his life. If Rhodri did not kill him, the king was like to throw him in a tower.