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Chapters (76)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. PART II
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. PART III
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. INTERLUDE
  35. PART IV
  36. TWENTY-SEVEN
  37. TWENTY-EIGHT
  38. TWENTY-NINE
  39. THIRTY
  40. THIRTY-ONE
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. INTERLUDE
  45. PART V
  46. THIRTY-FIVE
  47. THIRTY-SIX
  48. THIRTY-SEVEN
  49. THIRTY-EIGHT
  50. PART VI
  51. THIRTY-NINE
  52. FORTY
  53. FORTY-ONE
  54. FORTY-TWO
  55. FORTY-THREE
  56. FORTY-FOUR
  57. FORTY-FIVE
  58. INTERLUDE
  59. PART VII
  60. FORTY-SIX
  61. FORTY-SEVEN
  62. FORTY-EIGHT
  63. FORTY-NINE
  64. FIFTY
  65. FIFTY-ONE
  66. FIFTY-TWO
  67. PART VIII
  68. FIFTY-THREE
  69. FIFTY-FOUR
  70. FIFTY-FIVE
  71. FIFTY-SIX
  72. EPILOGUE
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  75. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  76. Newsletter Sign-up

Two full heads shorter than any of the men around her, but she still dwarfed them, didn’t she? Her eyes locked upward at the highest beams, and Gilbert was glad she did not notice him beneath. She would see his presence here as a betrayal. She couldn’t understand why it wasn’t, which was her shortcoming, not his. Still, that disparity scratched at him, a single fingernail. Since she had arrived, she was seldom out of her room, always guarded. Her face was pale, emptier. She looked the way Locksley Castle looked now, in woman’s form.

At a guard’s prompting she moved again, escorted away. Into the staircase upward, and the bishop as well, and Gilbert decided he’d go out to the city, didn’t he? Not a soul had the grit to stop him, if they even had wit enough to think they should. Aside from the great main gate, one postern door wound itself through the outside walls, buried amongst unimportant storage. Impossible to open from without, but perfect for slipping away.

He felt it again, scratching at his bones, the restless buzz. It had been building in the wrinkles of his mind ever since Much went. That nameless faceless threat, the only thing he truly feared. It crept down his throat into his chest where it burned and squeezed, that need. He felt it yesterday before he slit the farmers’ calves, and the blood had calmed it, but not enough.

Much had been a calming presence for Gilbert. There had been something uneasy within that boy, something that scratched at his bones, too. Not this, not likely, but something prayer could never touch. Gilbert had found some solace in helping him. But that was a then, and thens are poisons to nows.

If he had stayed, it would have been one of Marion’s men, wouldn’t it? When he couldn’t keep the buzzing at bay anymore, he would have killed one of them. Gilbert stopped midstep, curious. Perhaps that was why he had left them. But that would mean terrible things, it would mean he wanted to protect them, it would mean …

Gilbert shook it off. It didn’t matter. Out to the city, as he had once done so often, to relieve the world of one more nothing man.