Aaron’s chest heaved. Catherine saw death cloud those dark eyes, rendering them opaque and terrifying. It was as though he were weighing the man’s life. Then something shifted in his face. A line softened, and she thought she saw a change in his eyes. His voice remained icy.
“Get out of here. Speak of me to anyone, and you’ll regret it.”
The ruffian stumbled away into the artificial darkness of the alleys, overhung with brooding buildings, welcoming shadows.Silence pressed in, for Catherine was broken only by the thundering of her heartbeat. She felt as though he stood on a precipice. A push or even a gust of wind might carry him over the edge.
Aaron turned, and in his face Catherine saw not the triumph of a battle won, but defeat.
He knew what she had seen. What she was now grappling to understand. Jeremy cleared his throat.
“I am sorry, Aaron. I spoke words I should never have spoken. You were right to be angered.”
Aaron’s gaze flickered to him, weary. “Closer to the truth than you knew,” he murmured softly. “You came here by carriage, I take it? We should go, it won’t be safe here for very long.”
They returned to the carriage in silence. Aaron showed no sign of getting in. Catherine threaded her hands around his arm, holding onto him fiercely.
“You’re going to remain here?” Benedict asked.
“I know this place,” Aaron said, looking around, “it is safe enough here now that we are out of the warrens.
“Your Grace,” Jeremy offered a hand to Catherine, “you, at least, should return to Caerleon.”
Catherine shook her head. “I stay with my husband.”
Jeremy hesitated, then bowed. Benedict said nothing. They climbed into the carriage, and it departed. Catherine looked up at Aaron, whose brow was furrowed. His eyes were hooded, denying her any hint of his emotions. Then he looked at her.
He looked haunted.
“Now you know the truth. Or the shape of it at least,” he said flatly. Exhausted.
“The shape of it. And I am still here,” she pointed out.
He nodded, unsmiling.
“So you are. Well, you might as well know the rest of it.”
He looked around as though gathering his bearings. Then he led her through a narrow mews and through a rotting gate. It led to a veritable maze of alleys, some cobbled and some dirt, churned to mud.
Eventually, Catherine spotted the sign of a coffeehouse swinging above a door. The name on the sign had been obliterated by time; she could make out the vague outline of lettering. From the door wafted the smell of bitter coffee, the tang of a peat fire, and the acrid assault of tobacco.
Aaron led her inside, where half the tables were empty. The other half pretended to be. No one met their eyes. Conversations were muttered or whispered. A lone fiddler played in a corner.
“We can talk here,” Aaron murmured, leading her across the room to a shadowed corner, “no one will disturb us.”
The gloom revealed a door, which he led her through, tossing a coin to a thickset man who perched on a stool beside it. The man nodded once and shifted his stool to block the doorway. A narrow hallway was beyond, lined with faded paintings in grimy frames. He opened another door at the end, revealing a room with low, dark rafters and a glowing brazier providing inadequate heat and light.
A table and chairs provided furniture.
“A private room,” he muttered, pulling a chair from the table and taking one for himself.
Catherine sat, her throat dry. “Tell me,” she whispered.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes shadowed.
“My father cast me out. Left me to starve. That much was true.
“I learned quickly that pity earns nothing but hunger. I tried begging until I realized that it would lead to me being either ignored or beaten. So, I stole instead. To eat. To survive. I stole,and I fought. And, I did eat. And I did survive,” his voice grew harder.
“I also became cruel, Catherine. I had to. I had to be prepared to be more terrible than the most terrible man walking the streets.”
