Hal fed the last bit to the goshawk and wiped his hands clean. He spread them out before him as he faced Gryff, as though the answer were evident.

“Ten years have I known you and called you friend, Gryff. Ever have you sworn that you have no love nor duty to that place, but the lie is in your face each time you speak of it.” He shrugged. “It is your place. They are your people. You cannot say there is naught there for you.”

There might be nothing left but the hills and the mists. All over Wales, Edward was tearing down the old and building enormous new castles. He was discarding laws and destroying customs. Gryff was afraid to know what he was doing to the people.

“Were I to go there, I could never again lay claim to my name or family, lest Edward hear of it. Better that I am thought dead or in exile forever, and I live out my days as any common Welshman.” He laughed a little, unexpectedly cheered by the thought. “I have played that game well enough these five years past, and have found it rare pleasing.”

Hal handed him a broom and invited him to begin this commoner’s life now by sweeping out the gravel. Gryff did it gladly, all the while remembering that long-ago day when he had ridden away from his home, and how he had never thought to be away for so long. How certain he had been, as a boy, that he belonged there and would return. How he had spent years trying to forget that certainty, and how right it felt to have it again.

The kitchen kept by Bargate Bettie was not used much for cooking meals. Most food was brought from the cookshop across the way and Bettie herself saw no need to hire a cook when the customers did not come here to eat. But there was a fine, broad hearth in the kitchen and Nan never could stand to be useless, so she spent her time making barley bread and pottage and other simple things that could be easily managed with little help. Today it was a fish stew.

She had always felt most at home in a kitchen. Even at Morency, where she had no business among the pots and the platters, she found reasons to visit often. Kitchens were always warm and rarely still, and they all felt familiar as no other place ever did.