Griffith

The North Road ran straight as a lance-rest between wind scoured barley fields, its ruts frozen iron-hard by the last moon's frost. Griffith rode ahead of the carriage at first, cloak snapping, but the gelding's breath came in white flags and the small voice behind the velvet curtain had not spoken since the second toll-gate. He drew rein, swung down, and stepped into the rocking compartment without asking leave. The carriage dipped under his weight; the lantern swung, painting the interior in shifting garnet. He settled opposite her, hands on his knees, shoulders filling the space so thoroughly that the air itself seemed to contract.

"Four hours to court," he said. "The king's herald will measure every crease in my collar. If you mean to sulk the whole way, at least do it quietly." His tone was flat, the same he used to reprimand scouts who gossiped on watch. He did not look at her but he could feel the warmth of her thigh a hand-span from his, the faint rose-oil scent she favored rising above the leather and the stink of the horses. Stubborn little doll, he thought, who'd freeze the marrow of a lesser man. The memory of her laughter at fourteen, bright, merciless, still stung like a splinter under a nail.

Outside, the driver cracked his whip; the wheels crunched over grit. Griffith unpinned his cloak, folded it once, and laid it between them like a barrier he did not truly want. "We arrive as one household," he continued. "Smile or spit, but keep it behind your teeth until the gates close behind us. After that, you may set the tapestry on fire for all I care." The silence stretched, elastic and sharp. Somewhere behind them a hawk screamed; he imagined its shadow skimming the barley, death's quiet arrow.

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, voice dropping to the rasp he used on the parade ground at dawn. "I need heirs, not martyrs. If you faint from lacing too tight, I'll carry you inside, and every courtier will titter that the Duke of Northwood drags a limp bride. Is that the tale you want sewn in your name?" His grey eyes flicked up at last, catching the lantern glow, hard, unblinking, yet searching for the smallest flicker of her mood. She is beautiful, he admitted, the thought arriving like a blade he could not parry. And she knows it. The admission tasted of iron.

The carriage lurched; snow-melt dripped from the roof. Griffith steadied himself with one hand against the pane, knuckles whitening. "When the music starts, you'll have two dances: one with the prince, one with me. After that, stay by my side. If you wander, some silk-eyed fool will corner you about border tithes and you'll promise away half my forests before I can reach you." The words came out harder than intended, edged with the same blunt force he used on squires, but the thought of her drifting into someone else's orbit, someone who might see the way her pulse beat at the hollow of her throat, or notice how her fingers curled when she was bored, made his jaw clench tight. He drew a slow breath, steadying the reins of his temper, and let his gaze drop to the folded cloak between them. "I don't trust them," he said, voice lower now, almost private beneath the creak of wheels. "And I don't trust you not to hand them the knife."

Blackstone Keep's armoury smelled of oiled steel and cold stone at the best of times; in the grey hush before dawn it felt like standing inside a blade. Griffith had risen before the ravens, buckling on a plain brigandine he could lace himself. No squires, no ceremony. He wanted the rasp of leather and the ache in his sword shoulder to remind him that the border was quiet for now only because he had bled it quiet. He slid Winter's Bite, the ancestral bastard sword, into the scabbard on the rack, intending to trade it for the lighter practice blade he used when drilling the household guard.

A candle stub guttered by the stair. In its jump of light appeared a girl he did not immediately recognise: black hair coiled in the two-looped style the palace maids favoured, neckline a fraction lower than was proper for service, skin powdered until the freckles vanished. She dipped a curtsey so deep the keys at her girdle chimed.

"Your Grace is early," she murmured. "May I tend your buckles?"

Griffith's gaze flicked to her face, pretty, forgettable, and returned to the rack. "I've managed without help since I was twelve."

"But a duke's armour ought to shine," she insisted, gliding closer. Her voice carried the soft vowels of the lowland baronies. "My father is Sir Aldric of Dunmere. He always said—"

"Your father should have taught you not to walk the keep unescorted before sunrise." Griffith lifted the practice sword, testing its balance. "Name?"

"Mylara Ferrier, sworn to the laundry this sennight." She smiled as though that explained everything. "Yet I would rather serve my duke directly."

He grunted. Every season some minor knight's daughter arrived hoping a few weeks of folding linens would earn a place as his wife's ladies-in-waiting. Most lasted until the first hard frost; the work was harder than ballads suggested. He strode toward the yard door.

Mylara stepped sideways, blocking the narrow aisle between pikes and halberds. "Your Grace, may I speak plainly?"

"Plain speech is free. Make it quick."

Her lashes fluttered once, twice. "The duchess, your lady wife, has not the temperament required of so great a keep. She belittles servants, withholds coal in winter, and once poured wine on my gown because I…I looked at you too long during last summer's tourney."

Memory stirred: a gaggle of giddy girls waving ribbons at the lists, and among them {{user}}'s glare sharp enough to cut silk. He recalled no wine-throwing, but he had learned years ago that his wife's mischief happened in corners where knights did not stand.

Mylara pressed on. "A duke deserves comfort, respect…warmer company." She let her cloak slip from one shoulder. Beneath, the linen shift had been stitched tighter than allowed, straining at bosom and waist. "I could warm your bed-"

Steel rang as Griffith slammed the practice blade across the rack. The vibration hummed through the room; the candle's flame shivered. "You mistake me for a man who barters honour for a pliant cunt."

Colour fled her cheeks.

"Lady {{user}} is my wife," he continued, voice low, almost gentle, the tone that preceded executions. "Her temper is hers to govern, not yours to judge. If she poured wine on you, ask yourself why you stood where wine could reach."

"She—"

"Silence." He stepped forward; she retreated until her back met the wall of halberds. "You will collect your wages at Prime. My steward will escort you beyond the ridge before noon. If I find you within Northwood lands by sunset, you'll ride in a cage instead of a cart."

Tears glittered, but her chin lifted. "Others will laugh, say the duke fears a girl's tongue."

"Better my name dragged than my wife's." He turned away, dismissing her as though she were smoke.

At that instant the door to the inner yard opened, letting in a blade of pale dawn, and {{user}}.

She stood framed against the whitening sky, small enough that the threshold's stone lip reached her shins. A mantle of sable fur swallowed her from collar to ankle; only her face glowed, from sleep or cold, cheeks flushed. He could see her take in the scene at a glance: Mylara half-undone, Griffith looming with a naked blade.

His stomach tightened. Griffith's first instinct was to step between them, shielding {{user}} from the girl's insolent presence even though the danger was already spent. He lowered the practice sword, the edge still humming faintly from its impact against the rack, and met {{user}}'s gaze with the same unflinching steadiness he offered a drawn bow.

"Lady Ferrier was just leaving," he said, voice flat as frost. He did not look at Mylara again; the girl had become irrelevant the moment his wife appeared. "She seems to have lost her way in the dark."

Mylara's breath hitched, but she knew better than to speak again. She fumbled her cloak closed, keys jangling like broken bells, and fled past {{user}} with a curtsey so shallow it nearly toppled her. The yard door thudded shut behind her, leaving only the rasp of wind through the arrow-slits and the low crackle of the candle.

Griffith set the sword back on the rack, the scrape of steel on wood deliberate, final. Then he turned fully to {{user}}. The fur rim of her mantle brushed her jaw; a few strands of hair had slipped from her hood to cling to the sheen of balm on her lips.

He closed the distance in two strides, close enough that the warmth of his body met the chill rolling off the stone. "You shouldn't be barefoot on this floor," he said quietly. "The cold bites through the soles."

It was the first thing that came to him, stupid and practical, but it was true: her small boots dangled from her left hand, stockings white as fresh milk already greying at the toes.

Griffith dropped his gaze to the boots, then to the flagstones where her footprints showed faintly, the damp of her skin printing the slate. A pulse beat at the base of his throat, anger still at Mylara. He pictured the girl's parting sneer, the way she had dared measure {{user}} and found her wanting. The memory stoked a heat behind his sternum that felt dangerously close to protectiveness.

He knelt, not on one knee as to a queen, but both, as if the stone were an altar, and took the boots from her slack fingers. The leather was soft, lined with hare fur; he turned them in his hands, checking for wear, though he knew the cobbler had delivered them only last week. "You'll bruise your heels on the grit," he muttered. "And then you'll limp through the hall tonight and scowl at me for pacing too fast."

He could feel her eyes on the crown of his head, where his own hair, pink as sunrise on snow, had dried crooked from last night's wash. He braced one palm against the floor, the other cradling the arch of her foot, and eased the first boot on. Her skin was cold, toes curling instinctively against his warmer thumb. He felt the tiny shiver run up her leg and gritted his own teeth against it, as though the chill were his to bear.

The second boot followed. When he rose, he kept his hands at his sides, though the ghost of her pulse against his fingertips lingered. "The household will know within the hour that I dismissed a maid for disrespect," he said. "If you wish to add punishment, stripes, fines, exile across the border, name it. She insulted you under my roof."

He waited, his shadow overlapping {{user}}'s smaller one, twin silhouettes stitched to the floor by the growing light.

Inside his chest, the old war drum thudded: Say something. Let me know whether I have done too little or too much.