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“No one knows how precarious our position more than I.”

The two men fell silent, Haydn not saying what he was thinking. That his cousin continued to train with Wallace, as he’d admitted to this night, meant Galien did not really understand how precarious their position was at all.

“I am married.” He rose from his chair, reached for the tankard, and poured another ale, first for himself and then for Galien. “Married,” he repeated, sitting back down. “To the Earl of Sherfield’s daughter.”

The corners of Galien’s lips tugged upward. “I take it back.”

“As you should.” Haydn watched his cousin drink, waiting for him to, perhaps, concede to what Haydn had been saying all eve. Now was the time to regroup. To let Comyn and Bruce take up the cause. To go back to Brockburg for a spell.

Galien made a sound of disgust. “They are as like to line their pockets with English coin than help wrest Scotland from Edward’s grip.”

“And you are as like to get yourself killed than find freedom from a man who destroyed Wallace at Falkirk and itches to do it again.”

A grunt was the only response he got from Galien.

“You are your father’s son,” Haydn said.

“If there is a man more like his own father than you, I do not know him.”

“There will never be another Geoffrey Waryn,” he said, in earnest.

“There is already. He sits before me.”

Haydn looked up, thinking his cousin jesting. But he did not appear to be at all. “Then you do not truly know my father.”

“Aye, Haydn. I know him well. A protector. A fighter. A man who loves his family above all with friends who would lay down their swords for him at a moment’s notice. I am well acquainted with Uncle Geoffrey. And with his eldest son.”

“You forgot husband, his greatest achievement of all, according to him.”

“I did not forget it,” Galien said. “I merely listed the qualities you have in common with him. You are nay a husband in truth to your wife.”

Leave it to Galien to both offer the greatest praise and deepest cut in one breath. “I would be, if I could.”

“Aye?”

He took a long sip of ale. “Aye.”

“It seems to me you care deeply for a woman whose only crime was trying to protect her sister.” He’d told his cousin of his wife’s predicament.

“You sound like Holt,” he said.

“Your baby brother is wiser than he lets on,” Galien said, echoing his own thoughts. It was difficult to take Holt seriously, but more often than not, his brother was on target with his thinking. In this, however, Haydn did not trust him. Nor did he trust himself. “I refuse to let my feelings for my wife endanger our family.”

Galien leaned forward, forcing Haydn’s attention. “Nothing is without risk.” He raised his goblet. “Nothing worth having, that is.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“How many more days, do you think, until we reach Hillstone?” Weary from travel, more than prepared to bed down for the night, in a bed not made from straw, Phillipa looked up at the sign.

It was the first time they’d been in an actual town. And judging from the size of the inn, it would be her best chance to actually fulfill that very simple dream. Before marrying Haydn, she’d never attended to herself, much less slept on a mattress filled with straw. Or a bedroll as she’d done three nights now on this journey.

But she was alive, had not been abused by her new husband, and had a plan to keep Catherine safe. So Phillipa had no complaints that were of any significance. She missed her husband, despite the fact that he had abandoned her. She woke in the night attempting, unsuccessfully, to forget dreams of him that, at times, felt as if they were real.

“Less than a sennight,” Holt said.

“I will take the horses,” Isaac said as she dismounted. The sun had already set, yet townspeople still went about their business. The street was paved, cobblestones beneath their feet keeping the mud and dirt at bay. Holt had told her the town was relatively new, having just received its charter the year before. It seemed to have built up quickly in that time. Stray pigs roamed the street, merchants and servants made their way to and fro, and Phillipa even spied a group of what appeared to be noblemen at the end of the block.

When the curfew bell sounded as they walked toward the inn’s doors, an urgency could be felt that wasn’t there before. Smiths. Brewers. They would all stop their work and none would be found on the streets without lanterns soon.