They remained shut inside the study for more than an hour while rain rattled against the narrow windows and servants hurried through the corridors carrying trenchers, blankets, wine, fresh candles.
When Aldwin finally came to find me, I was sitting in the great hall pretending to review household accounts.
He dropped heavily into the chair across from me without speaking.
Up close he smelled of horse, wet wool, smoke, and cold rain. Salt marked the shoulders of his tunic where sweat had dried and dried again over days of riding.
“You diverted,” I said.
One corner of his mouth moved faintly. “How did you know?”
“You’re late.”
“That could mean anything.”
“With Geoffrey, yes. With you, no.”
That earned me the ghost of an actual smile before it disappeared again.
“The text?” I asked quietly. “Was it the same?”
“Similar.” He reached for the wine jug beside my elbow and poured himself a cup. “The inscription was similar. I spent two days with it.”
“And?”
“It did not respond.”
He said it flatly without bitterness. Somehow that sounded worse.
“I’m sorry.”
He pressed the heel of his hand once against the table. Then again. The first restless gesture I had ever seen him make.
I studied him for a long moment. The man sitting across from me had crossed half of England chasing the possibility of undoing the past.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Tired men rarely stop you.”
I ignored that. “If it had worked,” I said carefully. “If you had gone back and saved Elise. What then?”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“The next morning,” I continued. “What would your life have been? What would hers?”
Aldwin stared down into his wine. Finally he said, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t mean it as a clever question.”
“I know.”
“I mean… you change the past. Fine. Then what?”
Silence stretched between us. At last he leaned back in the chair.
“I want her alive.”
“I know.”
