He called softly out to Nan to thank her for the show and retreated up the stairs with his own lamp, leaving Gryff with only the soft glow from the grate in the hearth. He stayed at the window for a time, watching her throw blades into the post, wondering if she would ever tire of it.

Eventually it began to feel wrong, as though it were too intimate an act to watch her in silence from afar. He retreated to the broad bench by the hearth that was to be his bed for the night, pulled his cloak over himself, and tried to fall asleep to the sound of the knives hitting the wood.

But he kept hearing the wounded knight at the priory, warning him not to look at her in lust – a warning she had silently echoed, and still he had not heeded. All he could see when he closed his eyes was her shrinking from his touch, blade in hand. All he could feel was the curl of shame it brought him, mingled in with the memory of her mouth open to his, the feel of his knee parting her thighs, the raw pleasure of thrusting against her.

The only indication that she had finished her practice was the silence that came from the yard. He thought he heard her step inside, but could not be sure – she had extinguished the lamp and all was darkness. The night settled around him, and it was not as unfriendly as it had been only a week ago.

“Will you stay in Lincoln?”

She whispered it, low enough that it would not wake him if he slept. He opened his eyes to the gentle glow in the hearth, knowing she could see at least the outline of him. It was the first time she had asked him anything of his life.

“Nor have I decided what I will do.” He could not stay with Hal forever, much as he might like to. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Your home,” she said, switching to Welsh, surprising him. “Will you not return there, to ease the hiraeth in you?”

He closed his eyes against the word. It was like one of her blades, thrown with casual precision straight to his heart. “What know you of hiraeth?”

He expected the silence that followed, because it was so often her response to his questions. But after a moment, she spoke again.

“I know how you spoke of that place. I know hiraeth is what fills the distance between where you stand and where lives your heart.”

Her dog came to him out of the darkness, pushing at his hand, asking to be caressed. He moved his fingers across the soft fur as the ache spread through him. She made it sound so simple. “To return there now... Is a perilous thing, for a Welshman to travel roads made by an English king.”