“My master at arms,” she said as though there had been no pause in the conversation, “was my father’s baseborn brother, Gilbert. When my lord father took the cross, the keeping of Ruardean was given to his trueborn and younger brother, Richard. Without husband or father to rule me, and with the heir assured, my care was given almost entirely to my mother.” She shrugged. “I was indulged. And I was a good student to both Master Edmund and my master at arms.”

To hear her speak like this, with casual confidence and quiet warmth, made him understand as nothing else did, why her men gave their hearts and their swords. She had an easy manner, when she chose to employ it, which invited camaraderie and soothed the awkward hostility that had reigned between them. It was clear she expected return confidence from him. An exchange.

He was not used to this. Only with Edward had he felt anything similar. He was more accustomed to careful distance, or fascination. He was more accustomed to feeling apart.

For now, he held back his questions about her mother’s indulgence and the strangeness of her tale. Instead, he answered her own question more fully. “My true father was a knight who sent me to be page at Morency. Upon my natural father’s death there was none to claim me, and so Aymer of Morency called me his son. I called Aymer my father, and is Aymer I slew. That I have never denied.” Nor had he ever baldly admitted it to any save his king.

“Aye, and why?” she asked simply. “Wherefore kill the good man who called you son, if not only to steal my marriage lands?”

She sounded no more than curious, but an incredulous laugh escaped him. “Oh yes, such a good man that none mourned him then, nor do they now. Did you never wonder, lady, why his body was left to rot where it lay for near a week? Why the priest sent to bury him found not even one faithful servant attending him?” He reached forward and, too forcefully, cleared their narrow path of a low-hanging branch. “A fair amount of gold it took to convince the brothers to step foot in that place.”

He watched her face for reaction, when he wished for nothing more than to turn away. He could hear the bitterness in the echo of his voice, more than he’d wanted to show to her.

“A harsh man, and feared, I have heard this.” She looked at him, thoughtful. “What evil did he do you, that you must kill him by your own hand?”

Faces passed through his mind as her words hung in the air. Harsh, and feared. How small a thing it could be made, with those words. Terrorized and tortured, those were the faces he remembered. He may as well tell her the truth of it, and make himself yet more vile to her.