I find myself thinking, while writing this, that I do not know what to call you in a letter. We have not properly agreed on what we are.
Until we do, I will sign as instructed by your father.
— Lady Harper of Thames
I stared at the last paragraph for nearly a full minute after finishing it.
Then, because cowardice occasionally arrives disguised as practicality, I sanded the ink, sealed the parchment before I could rewrite it, and handed it to the Baron’s morning courier at dawn.
He looked at the seal with the expression of a man who recognized a private matter and intended to be discreet for additional coin.
I gave him the coin as the Baron had started providing me with an allowance for small things. Then the household swallowed me whole again.
* * *
A courier from the north reached Thames a day before Aldwin did.
The Baron read the message during supper beside a platter of roasted trout and new peas drowning in butter. Candlelight caught the frown lines beside his mouth as he finished the page.
“He is being sent home for consultation,” he said at last. “The northern command refuses to trust certain matters to parchment.”
“Is he injured?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“How long?”
“Two days.” He tapped his fingers against the table.
“Only two?”
“He arrives tomorrow. Leaves the morning after.”
“That is brutal riding.”
“He will manage.”
* * *
Aldwin arrived near dusk beneath a sky the color of hammered pewter.
I was in the gallery above the great hall when Maud hurried up the stairs with the unmistakable expression of someone carrying either scandal or catastrophe.
“He’s here.”
I crossed to the window in time to see him ride through the gatehouse. The horse beneath him was foam-dark along the neck and trembling with exhaustion. Aldwin swung down before the stable boys properly reached him, moving with the stiff economy of a man who had spent too many days in the saddle.
Rain silvered the shoulders of his cloak. Mud darkened the hem nearly black. One leather glove had split across the knuckles. His dark hair had grown longer since I last saw him, damp curls brushing the collar of his tunic, and a fading bruise yellowed one side of his jaw beneath several days’ worth of stubble.
The horse he had ridden out on was gone. He must have changed mounts twice and abandoned the second without hesitation.
Not handsome like Geoffrey.
Harder than that. Like a castle wall after a siege.
He handed the reins to a stable boy without ceremony and glanced once toward the hall windows before disappearing inside to find his father.