“Guard your left, you witless oaf!” Miles, the captain of the guard, bellowed across the yard at a younger soldier. “My grandmother—God rest her—could have run you through twice by now!”
“Your grandmother was meaner than any Scotsman, sir!” the young man shouted back, parrying clumsily.
“Aye, and she’d have won her spurs before you at this rate!”
The men roared with laughter. Elodie found herself grinning despite herself. The easy camaraderie of the training yard had surprised her at first—she’d expected grim, silent warriors, all dour expressions and brutal efficiency. Instead, she’d found men who insulted each other with creative enthusiasm and laughed at their own failures.
“’Tis a womanly preoccupation, watching the men train,” a voice said beside her.
Elodie turned to find Bertram, the elderly steward, leaning against the wall with a grunt. His white hair caught the morning light, and his sharp eyes—eyes that missed nothing—crinkled with amusement.
“I’m studying medieval combat techniques,” she said primly. “Academic interest.”
“Ah.” Bertram nodded sagely. “And does your academic interest explain why you only appear when Lord Gareth is in the lists?”
Elodie felt heat climb her cheeks. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
The old man chuckled. “Of course, my lady. Of course.”
In the yard, Gareth disarmed his opponent with a twist of his wrist that shouldn’t have been possible. The practice sword went spinning through the air, landing point-first in the mud. Thedefeated soldier—Thomas’s older brother, Elodie had learned—raised both hands in surrender.
“’Tis not fair, my lord!” he called out, though he was grinning. “You’ve got the devil’s own luck with a blade!”
Gareth inclined his head in acknowledgment, something almost like amusement flickering across his features. Then his eyes found Elodie across the yard.
She raised her hand in a small wave.
He nodded once—just once—but she’d learned to read volumes in his silences. That nod meantI see you. I know you’re there. Good.
“He asked about you, you know,” Bertram said quietly. “After that first night when he made me put questions to you while you were still half-mad with shock.”
Elodie winced at the memory. Those first days remained blurry—a jumble of terror and confusion, of babbling explanations that made no sense even to her own ears. She’d told them... what? That she was a scholar who’d been traveling and had somehow become separated from her party. She didn’t know how she’d come to be in the forest alone, dressed in gossamer and flowers.
Lies, mostly. But lies wrapped around a kernel of truth. She was lost, frightened, and had nowhere else to go.
“But that wasn’t enough for him, was it?” she asked.
Bertram’s eyebrows rose. “You noticed.”
“Hard not to.” She’d felt Gareth’s gaze on her constantly those first days—watchful, assessing. And then the questions had begun. Not through Bertram, but directly, in their early sign lessons.Where is your family? Why do you travel alone? Where is your husband? What lord claims your allegiance?Each one delivered with that unreadable expression, his grey eyes tracking her face for any flicker of deception.
He’d tested her in other ways too. Leaving a purse of coins visible in the solar, watching to see if she’d touch it. Mentioning Alaric’s name casually to see if she flinched with recognition. Having Miles follow her when she walked the castle grounds.
“He could have turned me out,” she said.
“Aye, he could have.” Bertram’s gaze drifted to where Gareth was directing his men through another set of exercises. “Another lord might have. A strange woman appearing from nowhere, dressed like the faerie queen herself, speaking in an accent no one’s ever heard? With a story full of holes you could drive a cart through?”
He shook his head. “But Lord Gareth... he’s watched you for a fortnight now. Watched you teach the servants. Watched you panic when you think no one sees, then pull yourself together again. And watched you be kind to Thomas and patient with Father Aldric and honest even when a lie would serve you better.”
Elodie’s throat tightened. She hadn’t realised how closely she’d been observed. Or how much it mattered.
“He knows something of being lost,” Bertram continued quietly. “Of finding yourself somewhere you never expected to be. And I think... I think he’s decided you’re not a threat. Just a woman who’s been through something terrible and can’t quite bring herself to speak of it.”
Which was, Elodie reflected, closer to the truth than any story she could have invented.
“He’s a good man,” she said softly.
Bertram smiled. “Aye, my lady. He is.”
