“The roads made by kings are not the only paths a man may follow.”

He considered that. It seemed to him every step he had taken in his life was determined by the king. If not for Edward, he would never have left Wales, nor fled into the wilds. Nor would he have come to Lincoln, where dwelled the one friend he could trust with his life.

“And you?” he asked the darkness. “Will you stay with your sister, now you have found her?”

The darkness did not answer him. He could almost feel her thinking, deciding what words to give him. She was so self-contained, the boundaries around her person and her spirit so sharply drawn, never giving more of herself than she wanted. But he thought he could feel a thread of her come free, a tendril of her closely guarded self wending its way toward him through the dark night.

“I am no whore. Nor do I wish to be made one.”

Her voice was soft, her words deliberate. He turned his eyes to the hearth, the curl of shame spiraling through him, and looked a long time at the embers and the ashes. The words he wanted were not to be found there, or anywhere. Tomorrow she would walk out of his life, and he would likely never see her again.

Her dog moved under his hand, going to the stair, following her out of the room. It loosened his tongue at last.

“Never can I repay my debt to you, for saving my life.” He stared hard at the dim glow. His wretched life. “That I returned your goodness and charity with dishonor – I will repent it to my grave.”

It seemed forever that he lay there with nothing but the vivid memory of her hands peeling a turnip, her voice telling him how a serving girl was treated by powerful men. So few words had she ever spoken to him, and he had disregarded them when it mattered most.

She did not seek to reassure him, or grant him absolution. But her quiet voice reached out to him through the night to say, “There is no debt between us. Sleep easy, Welshman. Gruffydd.”

Then she was gone, and he was left in the dark with the sound of his name in her mouth.

Chapter Ten

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In the morning she told the kind falconer there was no need to hurry, that she would wait while he attended his duties. In truth she need not wait for him at all, now that she knew where to find her sister. She told herself that she was weary from an almost sleepless night, that she preferred to have the falconer with her – a man of consequence, thoroughly respected and respectable – when she walked into her sister’s world.