“He never spoke of it.” Hal’s hand covered the little girl’s back, gently patting, urging her to sleep. “Never did he breathe a word of your flight, nor did he betray that he knew aught of where you had gone. Not even when Lancaster questioned him. In his last hour he whispered to me that you were safe, but no more than that.”

Moris had died a year ago, a fact that came out as they had sat down for a meal with Hal’s wife and children. The rare letters sent to Brother Clement were the source of the few precious scraps of information that had come to Gryff over the years in hiding, and the last had said that Hal’s father was ailing. It struck him that the letter was turned to ashes now. So was the one that had informed him that Hal had gone to Lincoln, and the one that announced his own father was dead, and his brothers. The letter that described the execution of the last Welsh rebel Dafydd and the imprisonment of his sons – that too had been eaten by flame.

Hal glanced toward the stairs. His wife had disappeared there with the baby, saying she would return to see to their comfort as soon as the boy was fed and sleeping. But Hal said she was like to fall asleep herself, tired and overworked since they had found no replacement for the maidservant who had recently left them. Nan was upstairs too, obviously astounded she would be given a bed and an entire room all to herself for the night.

Now that he and Hal were alone, they could speak more freely.

“He feared for you, Hal, else I would have bid you farewell ere I ran away.” He looked at Hal’s thumb brushing against his daughter’s curls. “If I have brought danger to you by coming here, he will haunt me.”

“Nay,” said Hal. “Never would he fault you for coming to me. Nor do I believe you put me in peril.”

“Think you there is no danger to me from the king?” The question came out of him as half-challenge, half-hope.

“I know little of the king except which birds he cares to fly when he comes to Lincoln. But I have heard of no reward offered for you, and that has been some little comfort. You did well to come here now, when the season is done and the birds put up for the moult.”

They both knew Gryff must decide what to do before the season began again. Hal was as excellent a falconer as his father had been, and kept a mews favored by the king himself. But a falconer was a servant, not a confidant, and so Gryff could not expect his friend to know all the tidings of court and king.

“Have you seen aught of Will these five years past?”