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"Can you reach him by dark?" Guy asked.

"I can."

"Good."

Guy turned to Merry. "The council correspondence needs to go south. Somewhere it can be placed before a member of the royal household without passing through anyone loyal to Fitzwalter."

Merry considered that. "I know three people who could arrange it."

"Choose the one who owes you a favor."

"That narrows it to two."

I smiled despite myself and Guy looked at me.

"Crane's statement stays with you. So does your father's letter."

"I wasn't going to argue."

"No?"

"The man wrote my name on that cylinder, Guy."

I took the statement and tucked it inside my shirt beside the letter. "Nobody's taking either of these from me while I'm alive."

"That's reassuring."

"I'm extremely difficult to kill."

"I've noticed."

We moved farther up the ridge, where we could see the western road without being spotted.

The mounted soldiers passed beneath us.

Forty men, perhaps more, with Fitzwalter's martlets displayed on the lead banner.

Not one of them looked toward our hiding place.

Beyond the road stood Locksley.

The burned wing of the house was still open to the weather. Thistles covered the western pasture, and the old fences lay where they'd fallen.

I stared at it for a while.

"You lost your position because of me," I said.

Guy shook his head. "I lost my position because I refused to serve a corrupt man."

"And because you mated me."

"That part was entirely my choice."

I turned toward him. His coat was soaked with blood along one side, and he looked exhausted. He'd given up his position, his home, and everything he'd spent twenty years building.

All because he'd decided to help me.

"Do you regret it?"