Hal scoffed at this, incredulous, and Nan looked to Gryff, her eyes meeting his directly for the first time since he had kissed her. It startled him, but he did not shy from it. His friend looked at her and saw only her slight stature, her youth and her beauty. Hal did not know how much more there was to her.

“She will be safe,” said Gryff, holding her steady blue gaze. He wanted to put everything into his look, all the things he did not know how to say – apologies and thanks and hopes that they would meet again – but he was not as eloquent with his silence as she was. He only looked for as long as he could into the blue that burned him.

“It will be full dark soon, and it is far,” Hal protested. He was adamant. “Nor will Bettie have time to greet you at the hour when her trade is most brisk. Come, I beg you will have sense. In the morning I will take you to her. Never will my wife forgive me, do I let you go to such a place alone.”

A hint of doubt came into Nan’s face. She glanced over her shoulder to see the setting sun – and then down to find her dog sprawled in the dirt outside, chin on his paws, perfectly content. She seemed to consider for a long time before giving a reluctant nod.

Hal beamed. Gryff tried not to, and then turned to ask his friend when he had acquired a wife.

“Monks!” Hal had shouted with laughter at first, but by now he had settled into intermittent bursts of chuckling. If it weren’t for the child sprawled on his chest, almost asleep at last, he probably would still be howling. “Five years with monks – and you tell me they were the kind who stayed true to their vows! I am full amazed you have lived through it.”

Gryff couldn’t help laughing a little himself, largely because of the sleepy child whose face pulled into a reflexive grin, eyes still closed, in response to her father’s humor. She was barely a year old, and her brother born only two months ago. Hal had lived a very different life for these last five years than had Gryff.

“The vow of chastity they kept, it’s true, but had they kept a perfect poverty I think me I would have perished long ago. The abbot loved his hawking too well, and I thank God for it. It is how your father knew Brother Clement, and why I was taken in.”