Alice had also crouched there one morning, retching in the dirt, not long before she took her own life. Tears on her face and bruises on her neck, fresh from Aymer’s bed.

It was a different place now, he told himself. There would be new memories made, and the old ones would die. Then he repeated it, trying to convince himself of it all the way across the hall.

Alone in his chamber, the servants dismissed, he stood before the great broad window and watched the distant sea. Only a few steps from his door was the lady’s chamber, and yet he did not cross the landing to find her in her bed.

He could not sleep here. He was sure of it. It was restlessness, but more than that. He could not say, even to himself, what it was that kept him alert. The walls felt too close, radiating a coldness that tried to reach into the center of him. He wished suddenly for his sword, to feel the heaviness of it in his hand. The longing for it was like an ache that ran from his heart down the length of his arm.

The famed combatant, the king’s favorite killer, easy arrogance and easy laughter. He knew how to be that man. He did not know how to be the lord of this place, except to look to Aymer’s example – and that he would not do.

“Is a fine view of the sea.”

He stiffened at the sound of her voice. For a moment, only a moment, he thought it must be a ghost. Never had she spoken to him with such diffidence. Her voice carried softly across the length of the room, from where she stood in the doorway. He knew without turning where she was, and waited without answering to see if she would come to him.

She did not.

“There is a great tree that hides it from view in the... the other chamber.” Her voice was a shy, wispy thing floating on the night air.

Only a sliver of moon was in the sky, but it shone brightly on the water. He fixed his eyes on that distant glittering. He would wager his sword that she had never before now so hesitated or stammered in her speech.

“Cut it down.”

He tensed in the little silence that followed his words, waiting to know how she would respond. He thought if she answered him with meekness in her voice that he might throw himself into the sea.

“I will not be so hasty,” she said finally, her voice a touch stronger now. He could hear the slight impatience in it, could see without looking that her brows drew together in that familiar scowl.

He thought of telling her that there had been two trees there, outside her window. He had cut the other down himself, years ago, because it was the one where they had found Alice swinging.