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He knew such joy could not last forever, but he never expected it to falter before nightfall, nor shatter within a day.
They did not journey far from Chesterfield, but found a place off the southern road long before night fell. At his request, she showed him how to throw his eating knife. He had asked mostly because he wanted to hear her voice more, and thought she must speak to instruct him. He was right.
“My wrist,” she said, as his hand moved slowly down her forearm. He stood behind her as she took aim at a tree only a few paces away. “It’s my wrist you’re to feel as I throw, not the rest of me.”
She was half-amused, half-exasperated. She took the study seriously and expected the same of him. He put his fingers lightly around her wrist and felt it as she threw – a sharp snap, very contained, that he thought would take a thousand hours of study to learn.
Three times she threw, instructing him to watch not the knife but her arm and how it moved. It was not a graceful movement, nor was it graceless. It was powerful and swift and smooth. It was as beautiful as she was.
When she brought the knife back from where it had landed in the tree, she gave it to him and stood behind him. She put her hand on his so she could guide it in its aim and stood on her toes, her breath against his ear.
“The feel of it as it leaves your hand – take note of it,” she said. “You’ll know if you’ve done right by how it feels.”
He threw. It didn’t feel like anything as it left his hand, but obviously he’d done it wrong. It hit the tree far off center and fell to the ground. She kissed the back of his neck lightly, causing a flare in his groin as she went to retrieve the knife. He was suddenly far less interested in his aim.
She had just handed the knife to him, looking at him with invitation in her eyes when Fuss came bursting through the tall grass between the rocks that hid them from the main road. The dog was barking frantically, but Nan did not seem alarmed. She stood still, her own dagger drawn in reflex, looking slightly disbelieving while Fuss ran a circle around her and then bounded back through the grass, barking all the while.
“Nan?” he asked, gripping the knife.
When a tall youth strode into the clearing, Nan rushed at him. The dagger fell to the ground as she jumped up to embrace him. Her arms were around him, and he hugged her tight, swung her around as a smile brighter than any Gryff had ever seen lit up her face. He blinked at it, adjusting to the plain fact that there was no danger here.
“What fortune is this?” cried the youth. Not truly a boy, but only barely a man. He was tall and fair and full of joy. He planted an exuberant kiss on her cheek, and then another and another. Gryff waited for her to pull a blade and gut him, but she only kept hold of him and, incredibly, buried her face in his neck.
“Who journeys with you, Nan, or will I have to discover his name myself?”
His voice matched his clothes: wealthy and noble. He could have come straight from the king’s court, this handsome boy who was allowed to squeeze her tight in his arms and pick her up without warning. She did not shy from his touch, or stiffen, or require any careful approach.
Gryff felt his heart shrivel with envy. Then he heard her reply, a soft murmur against the stranger’s cheek.
“He’s my Welshman.”
She pulled back, and the boy put her down but did not let go. She turned to Gryff, smiling shyly now.
“This is Robin,” she said. “Robin Manton.”
Gryff thought most men would find it difficult to dislike Robin Manton. He was warm and courteous, never brash or boastful, and eager to please. Fuss adored him as much as Nan clearly did, which spoke well to his character and made Gryff exceptionally churlish.
Robin’s horse, a fat and docile rouncey, was brought behind the tall stones that hid them from the road. Robin was coming from a tournament and had stopped in Chesterfield this afternoon, planning to carry on his journey after a good meal. “But a man at the market did say the fairest maid he had ever seen paid for her supper with her knives, only yesterday.” He smiled broadly. “In faith, I knew it must be you even before he told me you split a reed at forty paces.”
He had ridden south, reasoning she was headed for Morency and wondering why she was so far from Lincoln. Fuss, who had been keeping guard over their hiding spot, saw Robin on the road below, ran to greet him, and now they must share their evening with this boy who sat so close to Nan that their knees touched. Gryff attempted to glare his disapproval at the dog for this betrayal, but Fuss was too busy staring worshipfully at the newcomer.
“But wherefore do you wander so far from Lincoln?” Robin asked her, with a sidelong glance toward Gryff. “What of your travels to Wragby and your business there? And where is Sir Gerald?”
“Injured by knaves who attacked halfway to Lincoln, and I must leave him to heal at a priory.”
She said nothing about having met Gryff, nothing about her aunt or her sister, nothing about why she was here instead of on the road between Lincoln and Morency. Instead of pressing for answers, a perplexed Robin only looked at her intently, observing her stillness and her downcast eyes for a long moment. Gryff held his breath and prayed the boy would not ask what had happened at Lincoln. Anyone could see she did not want to speak of it. All the sweet contentment that had been in her for days was draining away as she sat silent in the face of his curiosity.
Gryff opened his mouth, prepared to say anything to deflect the questions, but Robin moved. He simply touched the back of Nan’s hand, barely a brush of his fingertip, to draw her attention. When she met his eyes, he gave the ghost of a nod. His voice was light as he asked, “You have sent word to Morency that you will be delayed in your return?”
This casual change of subject endeared him to Gryff. He would think of what it meant later, that this boy could understand her silence and communicate without words. Right now he was only relieved to see the tension leave Nan.
“Aye, I asked the prioress at Broadholme to send word.” She looked at Gryff, a faint smile briefly chasing across her face. “But now I’ll be going another place, and should send a new message.”
Gryff smiled back at her, vaguely wondering how it was that a servant had such freedom in where she may go and how long she may be away from her duties. He might have asked, but Robin burst into a fresh grin of delight and said, “You must come to the manor at Whitting with me, then! Is but a few hours from here on foot, a message can be sent from there.”
“Whitting?” Gryff asked sharply. “Whose manor is that?”
“It is one of Uncle Rob’s holdings,” the boy said to Nan, who looked delighted at this news. He explained to Gryff, “My uncle is Robert de Lascaux, the lord of Darian.”
He kept explaining, saying it wasn’t truly his uncle but a friend of his father’s who was dear enough to be family, while Gryff ran the names through his memory. He could not recall a lordship of Darian at all, which meant it must be a small place and a very minor lord. The name de Lascaux meant little to him, unless this uncle was related to the man who commanded a force in the Aquitaine – and if he was, Gryff could not remember ever meeting that man or anyone of that family. He was sure he had never heard of Whitting.
“You must come! There will be soft beds for you both, and a hot bath,” Robin said, his eyes dancing with excitement. “And if the time is right I think me there may be something even better than all that. Better even than pork pies,” he assured Nan. “Though I know you will say there is naught can be better than a good pork pie.”
To Gryff’s intense gratification, Nan looked at him briefly before blushing prettily and saying perhaps they would go to Whitting tomorrow, but for now they should eat something. She busied herself in searching through the basket for the best offerings, while Gryff felt the boy’s curious eyes on him.
As the evening wore on, it became plain that these two knew each other from Morency, that Robin was squire to its lord. Gryff would have asked him more, including why a squire went to tourney without his lord, but he was afraid of saying too much and revealing his familiarity with that world. Instead they spoke of hawking, a subject about which Robin was almost as passionate as the sword. It was a safe topic, except for the moment when the boy said his father had once owned a peregrine of Aderinyth, the best-trained bird he’d ever seen.
Gryff could feel Nan look at him when the word was spoken. When Gryff only replied that it was well known that the best falcons and falconers came from Aderinyth, she no doubt took it as modesty. Perhaps he need not hide it. There was nothing wrong with being a common man from Aderinyth, after all, and this boy would only know him as that.
The light was failing, and Robin was saying he must stay awake and keep guard because of the horse. Nan insisted they must take it in turns, that he would take the first watch and must wake her halfway through the night so she may take the second.
“How easily you command me! You peck at me as a wife pecks at her husband,” Robin teased her with a laugh. He turned to Gryff like it was a fine jest. “She could be my wife, you know. I asked her years ago and she refused me. My heart yet bears the wound.” He turned back to Nan with a wide grin. “You may still say yes, Nan, never will I disclaim the offer.”
“You were a boy. And I know my place, even do you not know your own.” She was cleaning the mud from her boots, and did not look up from her task. She did not laugh. “You’ll find a good lady soon enough, worthy of your name and estate.”
After that, he bid Gryff good night and went to keep watch by his horse. Nan went with him, and Gryff could hear their whispering at the edge of the clearing for what felt like hours. He could make out no words, but it was her voice as much as his. It seemed to go on and on, more than she had ever spoken to Gryff. He tried not to think of the dagger she wore over her heart, and how the symbol on it looked very much like the letter R.
He lay awake and reminded himself that they had made no promises to each other, spoken no vows. They had barely spoken at all, and it had not seemed to matter until now. But it did matter – of course it did – that before he had ever met her, she had had a life and a purpose, people she cared for. So many things she must leave behind if she were to come with him to Wales. For himself, he left little behind but danger. And there was little that would greet him – no family, no lands, no name he could claim.
She came to him finally, a quiet and careful step, and knelt beside him.
“I must go with Robin to the manor tomorrow,” she said low. “Will you come? We need not stay the night there.” She spoke Welsh, but he did not answer. Her hand brushed against his shoulder and rested there. “I know you wake, Welshman.”
He tried to imagine watching her walk away with the handsome, smiling Robin, disappearing into a manor while he waited sullenly to see if she returned to him.
“I will go whither you go,” he said at last. “If you do truly want me with you.”
Her hand moved to cup his throat, her thumb stroking his jaw for a long moment of silence.
“Robin is my bosom friend, since he was a child. He is like a brother to me. You need not fear I have any secret desire for him.”
He wanted to pull her down onto him, to feel her hair spill free between their naked bodies and kiss her, make her gasp with pleasure until she forgot everything but him. He hated that he could not.
“And if he has a secret desire for you?”
“He does not.” There was laughter behind her words, as though she found the idea absurd. But she sensed his doubt. She spread her fingers over his cheek as she leaned over him and said, “Think you I would not if know he lusted me? Think you I could be easy with him if he did? Have sense, Welshman.”
Like a fog lifting, the doubt left him. Never would she be so free with Robin – embracing him, allowing his nearness, smiling as he greeted her with kisses – if there was even the chance he felt more than brotherly toward her. She whispered a good night and brushed her lips softly against Gryff’s before retreating to sleep a short distance from him.
Somehow he slept, and in the morning they walked to Whitting. It was only two hours, and Gryff might have forgotten to worry about what awaited them there if not for Robin, whose every manner suggested anticipation of a great surprise. Something even better than pork pie, he had said last night, and Gryff could not fathom what it might be.
Nan had obviously told Robin last night, as part of their whispering, that Gryff came from Aderinyth. When Robin asked why he had not said so, Gryff only shrugged and said he had been a boy when last he had seen the place. They spoke of falconry in yet more detail for the short journey, and Gryff felt his dislike for Robin Manton dissolve almost completely.
They reached the manor long before midday. It was not a large place, but very well kept with a good number of buildings in excellent repair. The prosperous manor of an inconsequential lord, he thought, until he saw the dovecote, and the very fine palfreys in the stables. Gryff pulled his hood up, wary.
“Good fortune is with us again, Nan.”
Robin was smiling at her as he handed his rouncey over to a boy who had run from the stables. Nan raised her eyebrows at him in question as they walked toward the hall. Just as they reached it, a man stepped out, his face full of surprise and pleasure. Fuss immediately ran to him, yelping happily.
Robin cried, “Uncle Rob!” and threw his arms around him in greeting.
This, apparently, was the surprise. Gryff felt only relief that he did not recognize the man. He was older, with gray hair at his temples and deep lines of laughter around his eyes. He and Robin were alike in their warm and cheerful demeanor, obvious at a glance.
“There’s our Nan,” said Lord Robert with gentle satisfaction, when he broke free of Robin’s embrace.
He looked down at her where she had sunk into a deep courtesy before him, her head bowed. There was a fond smile on his face as he stepped close and gave her a chuck under the chin. It was a fatherly gesture, far too familiar to be an ordinary exchange between lord and servant girl. Gryff’s confusion at it changed to amazement when Nan raised her face. She flushed with pleasure and looked at Lord Robert with a shy kind of delight, as though she not only did not mind that he touched her uninvited, but hoped he might do it again.
“You’ve been to Lincoln?” he asked her, and she nodded. “The message?”
“I have delivered it, my lord.” She glanced quickly in Robin’s direction, and then at Gryff, clearly indicating she had more to say when they might be more private.
“There will be time enough for tales after I greet your guest,” he said.
He turned to Gryff, who realized belatedly that he should bow. It was far more restrained than Nan’s show of deference, and in any case Lord Robert disregarded it in favor of an outthrust arm, a firm shake of his hand when Robin gave his name and said he was Welsh.
“It will be Gruffydd, then.” Lord Robert smiled at him like an old friend. “Though I will call you Gryff, do you prefer it. Well met, and my lady wife will be most glad to greet you.”
Nan gave a sharp intake of breath and looked at Lord Robert with an eager hope. “Aye,” he grinned, and Robin laughed. “You will find her in the solar above.”
He nodded to a stair, and Nan fairly ran to it, so fast was her step. They followed more slowly in her wake, with Robin telling of how he had met Nan on the road and hoped Lord Robert would be at Whitting but could not be sure, and so left it to be a surprise. Gryff knew they would ask how he and Nan had met, why he was with her, and he tried to think of some simple explanation for it. These people seemed as family to her, strangely as protective of a servant as they would be of a daughter and sister. They would not simply accept that he traveled alone with her.
They reached the solar, stepping inside just as Lord Robert was saying that his lady wife was Welsh too, and that his new lordship of Darian was in Wales – information that came too suddenly and too fast, and all at the same moment that Gryff saw the face of this lady wife. His heart stopped. Everything stopped.
Lady Eluned. Will’s mother. God help him, she would know him at a glance.
Quickly, he pulled his hood closer, letting it hang as far down as he could manage, angling his face away from her. He forced himself to breathe slowly and said a silent prayer that she would not see him, not recognize him.
He had been barely fourteen when she had come to visit her son and spent an afternoon in conversation with him and Gryff. There were as many years on his face as hers, he reasoned, and a scar, and he had the advantage of having been a forgettable boy while she was as great and formidable a lady then as she was now.
If Will’s father was dead, then she must have remarried this Lord Robert. A new lordship of Darian in Wales – he had heard this was what Edward had done with the conquered land, parceling it out to favorites. It was true to Lady Eluned’s nature, to keep herself in power and wealth by marrying a man who had been granted Welsh lands. And somehow she had come to know Nan, whose hand she clasped tight in fond greeting, a palm cupping her cheek, affectionate as a mother. She did not look in Gryff’s direction, so focused was she on Nan.
And Nan... Nan was giving her such a look that it stunned him. It reminded him of when she had seen her sister, all the joy and relief and love, but with something more. Respect and reverence. He thought of her face in the glow of firelight, a half-peeled turnip in her hands as she said, A great lady saved me.
This was the lady. Lady Eluned had saved her. Of all people, Lady Eluned.
He drifted slowly backward, praying he might inch his way out of the room before being noticed, as they conversed with perfect ease of ordinary things. Yes, Nan had been to Lincoln, and her tone forbade speaking of it any further as Gryff stole a glance at the other ladies in the room. He thought he recognized one, and pulled his hood even closer. Lady Eluned was explaining that they had journeyed out of Wales to do business at court and had only lately come to Whitting, while Gryff took a small step backward, almost stepping on Fuss.
Their voices went on, a gentle rise and fall as he prayed for a quiet and unseen escape from this pleasant lion’s den. Word had come from Morency that Sir Gerald was healing well; the prioress at Broadholme sent greetings to Lady Eluned who was a patroness of the order; they had worried for Nan when they received word of the attack that had injured Sir Gerald. All the while, Gryff kept his head down and made his way to the door, inch by slow inch.
He was at the threshold when he heard Lady Eluned raise her voice a little to say, “But now you must tell us, Nan, how it is you have found a prince in your travels.”
His stomach dropped. He froze, not even breathing, and turned his eyes up to look at Lady Eluned.
She watched him steadily, perfectly composed. She glanced at Nan’s puzzled face, and raised her eyebrows in polite surprise. “Did you not know?”
Nan blinked at her, uncomprehending, then turned to Gryff for explanation. He could say nothing. He could only wait for Eluned to say it.
“I see I must introduce you.”
They were all looking at him now, everyone in the room. He pushed his hood back, because there was no use in hiding. A feeling of unreality came over him as Eluned’s eyes fixed on him and proclaimed his name.
“This is Gruffydd ab Iorwerth ap Cynan Goch, the last Prince of Aderinyth.” Her eyes never left his, not for one syllable of it. “This is Nan,” she said to him, infinite power in the way her hand settled lightly on Nan’s shoulder. “And she is under my protection.”
