Arable de Burel was always losing her own arguments. She slipped out of bed to follow them.

“Don’t do it,” tisked the younger girl from the bed below. Gunnore was probably half Arable’s age, just barely old enough to be indignant about still being called a girl. She had more brat than sense in her, but even she knew the folly of prying into Guardsmen’s secrets. But Gunny had never known anything beyond a servant’s life, so her concept of danger was limited to that which risked her daily meal. Arable had yet to succumb to the hopelessness of this life, and prayed she would not need to. Someday she’d climb up again, when it was safe. But for now her safety depended on Roger de Lacy’s generosity.

And when men gathered in the night to whisper secrets in the bottom of the castle, it usually meant trouble for someone at the top.

“Don’t follow them,” Gunny whispered again.

“I’m not! It’s my stomach!” Arable actually felt bad about the lie.

Gunny gave her a sad pout, waving her over to brush her hair back.

“You poor thing, here,” she said, tying Arable’s black curls behind her head. “In case you retch. This is the second time tonight!”

Third, Arable thought. You must have slept through one of them. Back to sleep with you now. She tucked Gunny in and stole away, careful not to wake up the other girls, sleeping row upon row above each other. If the other maids could sleep through headmistress Roana’s snoring, they’d never notice Arable leaving. But still, she made sure to walk softly, pulling up on the balls of her feet with each step, rather than plodding them down like meat the way the Guardsmen in the kitchen had.

The maids’ chambers were connected to the kitchen by only a wide foyer, since the castle was built by men. A hundred years ago, William the Conqueror wanted no time to pass between the time Arable woke each morning and the time she started cooking. She was probably the only servant in Nottingham who even thought about why things are, rather than just reacting to what things are. Arable tiptoed through the kitchen without touching anything which wasn’t very hard and came to the cut spiral steps that dug down and curled under the floor. Down the staircase to the wine cellar at the end, just like last night, but this time Arable didn’t hesitate to slip into its darkness. Last night she had been too fearful to approach the door, and then drove herself mad wondering what they’d been up to. No good, that’s what they’d been up to. Which was exactly what Roger de Lacy had asked of her, his only stipulation for keeping her surname a secret.