Chapter 1

The Bodies

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I t all ended in cold flesh. This prince, the war, and every life: it ended in cold flesh, no matter how hot the blood that had once pounded through it. She had always known this, of course. But there is knowing a thing, and then there is feeling the truth of it cut you open and close around your heart.

Eluned had come to London when winter still held, before the thaw rendered the sight more gruesome, to behold the face of her own defeat. She wanted to look upon it before there was nothing but a skull on a spike above the city. But it was too high to see much and the flesh was discolored, his features obscured by his tangled hair. Even still it almost made her wish she could weep, to see this bloodied scrap of Llewellyn, last true Prince of Wales.

It took only a moment to close her eyes in a brief prayer of thanksgiving that God had taken Llewellyn's beloved wife first. King Edward was the kind of man who might have forced that poor girl to look at this ugly trophy. Behold, he would say. This is the end that awaits my enemies.

Eluned pulled her hood closer around her face, staring up at the lifeless eyes. This might have been her own end. It might have been her daughter's.

"Better we are gone from here before any remark how long you look at him, my lady." It was Tegwarad who spoke low, his eyes scanning the half-empty street while his hand rested carefully near his dagger. He was one of her guard. He was Welsh, but smart enough not to speak it here.

"Do any stare at me in wonder?" she asked, still looking up at the face she had come to see. "Do they whisper their suspicion of the lady who seems to pay homage to the rebel?"

"Nay, my lady," came the answer. "Not yet."

"You will tell me when they do, and then shall I be gone from here. Not a minute before."

She kept her voice mild. At least she thought she did. Many times in the month since she had learned of Llewellyn's death, she had found that her perception did not match reality. Always in small ways, like this. It should worry her. Certainly she had not shouted, she reasoned, as she memorized the precise curl of Llewellyn's hair where it fell on his forehead. Had there been anger in her voice? Impatience? She could not say for certain, and Llewellyn did not provide an opinion.

Tomorrow she would be forty, and today she spoke in her head to a dead man, asking if her voice had been too sharp. A frail mind and a hard heart, is that what age did to her? She had thought she might wail at this sight, this evidence that all her hopes were ended. Yet she did not wail or weep, nor even feel despair. She only felt empty, and tired.

"I am told it was the Mortimers who betrayed him, that they did lay a trap."

She heard Tegwarad's grunt of mild interest beside her. He waited, but when she did not speak again he moved from her side to give her privacy. She did not follow to tell him that she believed there was more betrayal in store for those who continued fighting. Now the Welsh nobles would turn on each other. The war went on, with some Welsh still fighting despite the death of their prince, under the banner of Llewellyn's brother Dafydd. She knew they would not succeed, even were there not betrayal in store. It did not need skill in the art of war, nor knowledge of the enemy's plan, to see that without Llewellyn they were lost.

"Truly, I had thought of that," she whispered now. It was not an apology. She was not penitent. She had known that Dafydd would never unite the Welsh. She had known that if Llewellyn fell, there must be another to take his place in command of their hearts. She, and only she, had planned for that. "It was a sound plan. But it failed. I failed."

The only answer was a winter wind that stung her eyes. It didn't matter anymore. There would be more fighting and dying, more cruelty and destruction. She must watch all of it come to ruin despite her foresight, despite a lifetime of effort. Now the only thing to do was to sit very still in the safe place she had fashioned for herself, and wait for it to be over.

For soon it would be over. This was the beginning of the end, and all ended in cold flesh. Be it scattered on the ground after battle, or leering down from a spike high above London, or shivering beneath the cloak of a hopeless Welshwoman, it all ended in cold, cold flesh.

O ver the next months , the losses came regularly. First came word that Dinwen, the stronghold that in her childhood she had called home, had fallen to the English. Her brother, who had once eaten so many apples that he had been sick all over her best shoes – that impetuous boy had become a man who had ruled the place and died in the assault. His son and heir was taken to Edward, where he would swear fealty and beg the king's pardon. He was a small enough fish that mercy was like to be given, in exchange for all his lands and wealth. Thus would end centuries of her family's rule in Wales, though their bards could sing a history of twenty-two generations in power. The lands they had held when Romans claimed this island as their own – all of it would now be called England.

She sat in her solar and wondered how long until they were forgotten. Her family would be dead history, covered over by time, nothing but a vague and faceless group labelled "savage Welsh" to be dismissed by the English who usurped their place. Long ago she had tried to close her heart to it. By giving her in marriage to a Norman lord, her family made her more Norman than Welsh. It was tradition that a wife take on her husband's nationality.

And so she told herself as she sat, decades after the wedding that had made her a Norman lady, in the room where she had birthed Norman children to a Norman lord. It was there that word came to her from an abbess, telling her of the burning of the church at St. Anian and the murder of the monks there. Among those slaughtered was Adda, who had served as her father's personal cleric and had fed her wild strawberries and who told her, when her mother died, about the glories of Heaven. The news of it sent a pain through her heart, and she knelt for hours in the chapel to pray for his sweet soul. She prayed too for the many other innocents who were murdered by looting soldiers, only because Edward's forces knew there would be no reprisal. The king would claim the scorched land as his own, build a new castle over the bones of the dead, and call it good.

"Prince Dafydd is captured, my lady," said a voice that came to her sometime in the summer, as she sat in her solar in the keep of Ruardean.

She looked up to see Edmund, physician of the keep and old advisor to her husband's family. It was strange this news should come from him, but when she looked about her she saw others watching her warily. They knew, then, how this mattered to her, and had decided Edmund should be the one to voice it.

Eluned forced herself to inhabit the present fully, to listen to these words that she had known would be spoken. It was almost over. Llewellyn was fallen; his brother Dafydd had carried on but now was captured.

"Then it is done," she said. "Does he live?"

"He lives and is taken to King Edward, my lady," replied Edmund. "There is also word of a bloody skirmish near to us here at Ruardean, just west. Even now they fight."

Now she saw the man next to him – only a boy, really, with a scanty beard on his cheek and so covered in mud and weariness that she wondered he was still upright. She took the cup of wine that one of her ladies held out to her and came forward to thrust it under his nose.

"Drink," she commanded him, and he obeyed. She drew a long and steady breath, feeling the air trickle slow and heavy into her chest, pressing it all out again before she was ready to speak. "What news do you bring me of this fighting so near to us?"

"Only a half-day's ride from this keep, my lady. I am sent to you by Rhys ab Owain, who begs you will send whatever aid you are able."

Rhys ab Owain. Her uncle. He who was more like a father to her than her own father had been. He had danced at her wedding, and pinched her cheek and declared her to possess the keenest wits in the family. She made herself stand still and look at the boy squarely, though all of her wanted to turn her face away.

"Does Rhys know that Dafydd is taken, that the larger host is fallen into English hands?"

The boy nodded. "He has heard rumors of it, but was not certain of their truth."

Of long habit, her mind immediately set to calculating. Whence the news of Dafydd's capture, and what was the likelihood it was true? How much time might they have, how many men might be needed, against whom did Rhys fight and with what numbers?

But in less time than it took to think these thoughts, she had already dismissed them. None of it mattered. All had been lost when Llewellyn's head had been cut from his shoulders, months ago. There was no aid she could send now to change the course of things, and no careful scheming would save them.

Now would come the blood-soaked details that followed decisive victory. She must endure it.

"Tomorrow we will ride out," she announced, "to ask my uncle in God's name to lay down arms and submit himself to the king's mercy. Master Edmund, you will send him this message today and then prepare such remedies as may be needed to tend the wounded tomorrow."

The messenger boy looked caught between a sob and a shout of protest. "In a day there will be no wounded, only dead!"

She sat down to her embroidery again, a cool dismissal. She put in stitches that later she would have to pluck out, so disordered were they, and spoke to the nearest servant. "Bring this boy to the kitchens and give him his fill of meat and drink."

It was as her fingers traced over the green ivy, embroidered at the cloth's edge, that she had a thought that stopped her. Vines and leaves curled at the border and made her think of quiet forests where her daughter had camped with the fighting men of Ruardean. It had ever pleased her, to think of that. To know how safe her child had been under the open sky with faithful companions by her side.

"Stop," she called too loudly. The boy turned to face her again. "Are there other of my kinsmen who fight with my Uncle Rhys?"

"His son," came the answer, and she was standing, the embroidery frame clattering at her feet as she stared at him.

Every person in the room stared back at her as the sound echoed. For a moment she had no command of her tongue. It seemed to her that her skin grew tight, that it could not contain her, that she would split open and everything inside her would spill out before their eyes. And what use would that be? What use was she at all, anymore?

She slid a look to Master Edmund, who seemed a decade older than he had been a moment ago.

"We go now," she said in a voice like a whip, and watched the flurry of activity as they hastened to obey her. Vincent came forward, who commanded the knights of Ruardean. "A mission of mercy only," she told him with a hard edge in her voice. "Any man who would dare to enter the fight, whether for England or for Wales, I will see him hanged ere the next rising of the sun."

"Aye, my lady. But it will go hard, if he calls on them to aid him."

She looked at him, her eyes scanning his face to find signs that he was loyal to her. It was not loyalty that mattered most now, though. He was sworn to Ruardean and so would obey her as far as he was able, she was sure of it. But his heart did not belong to her.

"You will tell them what I tell you now," she said, her voice low and clear. "All that I do in these dark days has but one purpose: to safeguard the lives and fortunes of my children. This course was chosen by my daughter, who commanded you to serve me. If you would honor her command, if you would keep her safe, you will not draw steel for any reason."

He nodded once, his face grim as he went to gather the men.

It was nearing nightfall when they came on the place where the fighting now was ended. From the rise above the valley, they could see how the swarm of English soldiers had won swiftly and decisively over the handful of doomed Welsh. The victors would have cut the throats of many Welsh survivors had Eluned not hastened to stop them. She used the advantage she had as a highborn lady, wife to a Marcher lord, whose vast lands lay but a mile from where these Welshmen lay dying. "I am the lady of Ruardean, and it is my wish," she said in a voice that would cause emperors to hesitate, and soon the priests she had brought with her were permitted to go among them and administer last rites.

She had not even asked her uncle's fate yet, when he was brought to her. Two of her men had found Rhys amid the carnage, and carried him across the field to lay him at her feet. She bade them raise the pavilion around her, a simple structure meant for quick shelter during travel, three sides and a roof. All the while she stood looking down at the chest that did not move with indrawn breath, the killing arrow that lodged behind an ear. Only when the canvas was raised around them did she kneel beside him.

"You lived to be an old man, Uncle Rhys. I am glad of it," she whispered to him. She had last seen him nearly ten years ago. Now every hair was gray, every inch of his face wrinkled. An old lion, who had guarded her in her childhood with a ferocity she had taken for granted. "I am sorry. I am sorry." For staying safe in her fortress while he died in a field. For all her miscalculations. For failing. "I am sorry."

The sun sank low in the sky and she had them bring a torch, and water so that she might wash him. The English commander, whose name she could not keep in her head, made noises about treason and the threat of excommunication until she told him that unless the Pope himself came to prevent it, her uncle would be anointed and buried in consecrated ground. As this English nobody could not boast a personal correspondence with the Holy Father – and she could – the matter was quickly settled.

The blood was barely washed from his face when she heard the men shout, struggling to bring in another body. Eluned did not turn, knowing who they had found and not wanting to see his corpse. Not yet. But then came Master Edmund's voice, calling urgently for mead and light, telling them to be gentle as they carried him under the shelter. It was no corpse.

She turned from his father to him. His chest labored to bring in air, his gray eyes unfocused. "Madog," she said, and clasped his hand to her breast.

His swift look told her everything, the wild hope in it as he rolled his eyes toward her and the keen disappointment when he saw she was not her daughter. Then came the twitch at the corner of his mouth that was almost a smile, to acknowledge that he had been foolish to hope it. She felt her own face mirror the expression. No, she was not her daughter. But they would make do nonetheless.

"Eluned," he rasped in a voice much diminished. "God curse you if you have dared to aid us in battle."

"Nay," she answered, and did not trust her voice to say more. For here was her daughter's greatest friend, ally and companion, who even in this moment thought only of her daughter's survival and not his own. Eluned looked at the pale face and the hard gray eyes above the tangle of beard, but saw an awkward boy on the cusp of manhood who had sworn to her in all his grave solemnity that his life was her daughter's to command. In all the years that had covered his smooth cheek with wiry beard, never had he sworn fealty to any other.

His hand in hers gave a hard squeeze, demanding that she speak.

"Gwenllian is safe, far from here. Nor is there any danger to her from my actions this day or any other day, by Mary do I swear it."

It was true. She would not dishonor him with lies in any case, but in this she would bend all her will to reassuring him. King Edward might once have suspected Ruardean's loyalty to the crown – and the loyalty of Gwenllian's husband, and Gwenllian herself – but the king could not doubt now that the Welsh rebellion had nothing to do with any of them. Eluned's scheme to join the uprising had been thwarted years ago, and she had let it die. After so many months of watching the fight from afar, she would not rush in now at the moment when all was lost.

She broke his gaze to look at Master Edmund. The old man had stopped his examination of Madog, on whose body there was no sign of serious injury. His leg, perhaps – it was at an odd angle. She opened her mouth to ask what remedies they might have need of, only to feel a sick twist in her gut when Edmund gave a faint shake of his head. She knew better than to question the physician's knowledge of unseen wounds.

"Will you take mead, Madog ap Rhys?" Master Edmund asked, and the question left no doubt.

"Aye, and I will hope it is your best brew. I would have that taste in my mouth at my last hour."

They sat him up only a little, resting against Edmund's knees, so that he could drink it. The men of Ruardean came by, one after another, to clasp his hand and bid him farewell. When they stood lined up beside him he turned his head, Eluned's hand still in his grasp, and saw his father Rhys lying there.

"I came to fight by his side because I knew she would scorn to see me idle. Eluned–" A weak and wheezing cough broke off his words. His hand grasped hers tighter, pulling her face close to his. "I fought where she could not."

"As you ever did," she affirmed.

"It...is a good death," he said, his eyes turning in his father's direction again.

She did not contradict him. There was no use in saying that she had come to believe there was no such thing as a good death. There was only death, and it was always foul, and served no purpose but to clear way for new souls who would die in their turn. She could find no worthy purpose in any of it, until Madog looked at her and spoke again.

"God has blessed me, to send you here in my last hour. Your eyes are her eyes." His voice was fading to almost nothing now. She was sure his pain was great, but he did not break her gaze.

"Would you have me tell her aught, Madog?" she asked him.

A look of amusement passed over his features. "Nay. There is no more to say but that we have been true friends. I only regret my death is not in service to her. For I would–" He drew a sharp breath, swallowed. "Happily would I have died for her."

"I know it. Is certain she knows it too." She felt his eyes searching hers. It was a look so filled with affection that she knew it was not meant for her, and it caused a new thought to come to her. It was so unlikely, but she had learned that it was impossible to predict everything, to see all. So she asked it. "Did you love her, Madog?"

She saw that he knew the kind of love she meant. Amusement came over his face again. He opened his mouth to draw breath and speak. But as she watched, the life left his eyes. He died with his mouth open and half-smiling, gazing into her eyes.

The men did not wail. They did not bemoan his fate or curse his killers, but they wept openly. They embraced each other, a tight knot of grief and friendship at his side, apart from her.

Tomorrow she would bring the bodies to the priory for burial. She would have the monks say a thousand masses for the repose of their souls. But tonight she washed them clean of mud and blood, rubbed them with fragrant oils, and covered them in fresh herbs before laying clean linen over them. When it was done, long past midnight, she sat on the ground between them and called on her bard to sing the history of their house.

Her left hand held her uncle's hand, her right hand held Madog's, as the bard ended with verses devoted to their great heroism. She remembered her uncle's deep voice in song, his roar of laughter. She remembered the first time Madog had lost in a fight with her daughter. The memory of that look he had worn, of mingled dismay and pride and surprise, almost brought her to laughter as she held his still hand in hers. What a life he had lived, and so much of it at her bidding.

"How long does love live on, Madog, when it goes unfed?" she whispered into the empty night air. It was a stupid question, of course. Likely he had loved Gwenllian as a brother, no more. She did not know what he would have answered. She would never know. He would never speak again. "Does it ever die, or is it only hidden and starving in the dark?"

She watched sparks escape from the torch and fly up into the blackness of the night as she sat next to them and waited for dawn, holding their cold flesh next to hers.

T he letter from King Edward came when summer was ended. It was Walter, her husband, who was named in the message that said a parliament would be held at Shrewsbury. But unlike the king, who had returned from the Holy Land ten years ago, her husband still wandered half-mad among the Hospitaller knights at Acre.

"And so we are sent this message," she observed to her husband's brother, "though Edward knows Ruardean cannot send its lord to speak in this parliament. Why think you he would do such a thing?"

She knew the answer. She thought she did, but her mind was so clouded these days that she had learned not to trust it. Many times she would wonder why her commands were ignored, only to discover she had never said the words out loud. Last week she had sat down to finish the embroidery of an altar cloth but found that it had been done and gifted to the bishop the week before, though she had no memory of it.

"Is certain the king only wishes Ruardean to be informed of such a gathering," said Richard. "It is intended as a courtesy."

Richard was an idiot. Her mind truly was disordered, if she thought he might see something she did not. She must try to make him understand it.

"It is the trial of Prince Dafydd, for the crime of treason. Writs have been sent to many other earls and barons, summoning them to sit judgment." Such was the news that had reached her, and it spoke to the seriousness of Edward's intent. "This is not courtesy. It is a pointed invitation to view the spectacle. I will go to Shrewsbury."

So she did as she was sure the king wanted, though Edward himself stayed a careful distance from the events at Shrewsbury. It was clever in a way that was new in her experience of him, giving the illusion that the outcome of the trial was the will of the people and not his own. It was a smart bit of political maneuvering. At last this king's head seemed fit for its crown.

Dafydd was found guilty of treason and more, in less than a day. She watched as they brought the prisoner up to the hall to hear his sentence proclaimed, and listened as he declared himself Prince of Wales. It was foolish pride that would not save him. But then, nothing would.

His sentence was to first be dragged by a horse through the streets of Shrewsbury. For murder, he would be hanged. But he would be cut down alive so that he may be disemboweled for the crime of sacrilege. For treason, his head would be struck off. And for the benefit of any who would dare such rebellion again, his body would be cut into four pieces and sent to the corners of the realm.

She listened to the people in the hall exclaim and gasp in horror at the torture that was planned for a prince. It was barbaric. She had never heard of such a punishment, yet it did not shock her so deeply. King Edward had something to say to reluctant subjects, and he had found a way to be certain his message was heard. Oh, how cunning had this king become.

Eluned made sure she was seen in the crowd surrounding the gallows. She kept her face blank while she watched them pull the rope tight about Dafydd's neck. Wales is no more , she thought, as the executioner picked up the knife. She was careful never to look away from any part of it, so that any spies for King Edward would be able to tell him she saw it all. She could not stop the look of disgust that crossed her face when they burned his entrails before him, but at least she did not weep at all.

There is no more Wales, she said to herself as they hacked his body into quarters. It was Edward's message, and it resounded through her easily, nothing left to impede its echo. Wales is no more.

She repeated it to herself as she made her way back to Ruardean. One day, perhaps, it would feel more real. Right now nothing felt real except for the cold. She was glad that winter would come soon, relieved that finally there was an end to the parade of death and loss that had marched through her life in these last months. It was over. Now she could stop anticipating the worst.

And of course that was when the last blows came.

One day she looked up from where she sat staring out the solar window, pondering where love went when it vacated a heart, to find her son standing there.

"Mother, do you not make yourself ill?" He looked with concern at the open window, where she sat with the chill air flowing over her face.

He was nearly grown to manhood now. She forced herself to count the years and realized he was sixteen years old. They had last seen each other two years ago, when she had visited him at Lancaster's court. She had given him to Lancaster's household for training, to be reared as a knight and lord in her husband's absence. This had been her husband's command. It had made her son a stranger to her. In exchange for giving her son entirely to the Norman way, she had claimed her daughter's life and destiny. It had seemed a fair enough bargain, until now. Now, when both son and daughter were lost to her.

"William," she said, rousing herself from the numbness she had gratefully sunk into for months. "I am well."

It was not a lie, nor was it truth. Nor was it an answer to the question he had asked, she realized, as he crossed to her with a look of concern on his face. She rose to meet him, and he held her shoulders as he bent to kiss her cheek. He was tall like his father, like his sister. For all the influence of Lancaster's worldly household, William seemed to grope clumsily for words. He must be thinking he should offer her comfort on the loss of her brother, her uncle, her cousin, her country. She spoke quickly to prevent it.

"Why are you come to Ruardean? You should have sent word of your coming."

"I rode to meet Brother Dominic on his journey here." At her uncertain look, he gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "I would escort my father home."

She could not ever remember being so paralyzed with amazement. It had been fourteen years since Walter had taken the cross and left for the Holy Land. The only word she ever had of him came through Brother Dominic, one of the Hospitaller knights who tolerated his ravings. For nearly half her marriage, her husband had wandered through Antioch telling anyone who would listen that he saw angels and devils. Sometimes he was lucid, more often not, and whether he was raving or calm he declared to the patient Hospitallers that he would not come home to England until men of Christ ruled Jerusalem.

She had taken this as assurance she would never suffer his presence again, and blasphemously hoped the Muslims would hold the Holy Land so long as she lived.

And they did. Yet William said he was come home.

Now she remembered the letter she had ignored. She had not wanted to hear again about her husband's madness, preferring to dwell instead on thoughts of those lost things she had loved. So she had told the cleric to leave it unopened. It still waited for her, gathering dust instead of preparing her for her husband's return.

"He is in the chapel," said William, and she went forward, avoiding his offered arm and his sympathetic look. Her son seemed to think she was frail, in body or in mind. Perhaps she would be, soon, if she must play wife to Walter once more.

When they stepped into the chapel there was only her own confessor and an unfamiliar man in a red surcoat with a white cross emblazoned on it. He was Brother Dominic, and he spoke in hushed tones about the long journey and the will of God while her eyes scanned the room. Walter was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, she noticed them all looking toward a jeweled box before the altar, and began to understand.

"Do you tell me he is dead?"

Their confusion and hesitation told her that this too was in the letter she had refused to read. Before she could stop it, a bark of laughter burst from her. "This is Walter? This is my husband come home?"

She threw off their hands and walked to the chest. It was too small for a body, and she turned to them in question.

"His bones," said Brother Dominic. And she laughed again, a reaction that seemed perfectly rational to her, yet clearly alarmed them. She must be careful or they would think his madness had transferred to her. She bit her lips together, trying to stem the hilarity that gripped her as the man explained. "My lady, he did say to lay his heart in the Holy Land, and his bones in England. But when we found him, there were only the bones to bring on the long journey here."

"You are satisfied it is him?" What a merry jest it would be, to think him dead when he was not. "You are sure?"

"The men who found him as he lay dying in the desert knew him. They made a cairn for him, and described the place to us so that we might find him and give him a Christian burial." He held out his hand to William, and she saw Walter's ring in it. "He was well known to many in that land, lady. There is no mistake."

She ran a hand over the garnets that studded the top of the chest.

She said, "You will leave me. All of you. I would be alone with my husband one more time."

They did, and she felt a twinge of regret at the forlorn look that came over William as the others ushered him out. But he would have time enough with these bones, more than he ever had with his father alive.

She knelt next to the chest and lifted the heavy lid. There was a square of embroidered silk to pull away and then there were his bones, a pile of thick sticks.

"I wonder what killed you in the end," she said to them. "Did you think you would join your angels at last?"

The bones of his hand lay against the rib cage. She remembered the strength of them, clasped hard on her jaw as he shouted that she must guard against Satan, compelling her to beg the Virgin to guide her soul. It was a lifetime ago, but she remembered the strength of him.

"Haps I deserved it, for the sin I committed," she said to his bones. It was so long ago. She could look back now and see the long string of consequences that came from his actions then. Not all were bad. And yet the anger in her was not dulled. The resentment still rose up in her on a great wave of bile.

She let a stream of spittle fall from her lips into the place where his eye would have been. "Forgiveness is for God," she told him. "I am but a woman."

She slid the lid back onto the chest, satisfied at the scraping sound of it, the echo it made as it closed him up alone in a dark little box.

L ater, William came and found her in her solar again, where she stared out the window into the frigid air. He spoke and she made herself attend his words. He said he was old enough and would assume his place now, as lord of Ruardean. Lancaster, the king's brother, would counsel him well. Indeed he was to marry Lancaster's little daughter, was that not happy news?

Eluned looked at him, unable to muster any care for her son's ambitions. She only heard that she would no longer rule Ruardean. It was the last thing left to her, and now it too was lost. The cold air wafted her veil as he spoke and she began to accept that she had lived too long.

"I will go and live among the sisters of Saint Anne," she said. It would suit her better than any alternative she could think of.

"Nay, you must marry again," answered her son. And he began to detail the careful plan that would bring them yet more lands and fortune, and secure an even greater place for him among Edward's nobles.

She only looked at him, distantly noting that this was the only time in her life that she did not even want to think of how this might be used to further her own aims. She had no aims to further, anymore.

How unexpected, that this son had inherited from her a talent she had not passed on to her daughter. He could calculate and scheme, see advantages and opportunities where others only saw obstacles. The world was a chess board, and he a budding master of the game. Even now, when she did not respond to these grand plans, he saw her reluctance and shrewdly adjusted his approach to leave room for her refusal. He allowed that endowing an abbey might in time bear fruit almost as plentiful as this marriage scheme, did she not wish to marry again.

"Who do you think to marry me to?" she asked.

"Robert de Lascaux."

The name was nothing to her in the moment she heard it, and then a breath later it was everything. She wanted to laugh again, she wanted to weep. Her whole world taken from her, and Robert de Lascaux offered up in its place. Eighteen years too late.

She did not need count them to know. Eighteen years.

"You will give me tonight to consider which course is best. In the morning, I will tell you my decision."

Her son was not quite yet the lord he meant to be, for he easily obeyed her unspoken command to leave her now. She went back to her chair before the window, where a servant was pulling a tapestry over the casement to block the icy wind that now flowed in.

"Stop. You will leave it open."

"But my lady Eluned," protested one of her ladies with concern. "Night falls. You will be chilled to the bone."

"Leave it," she commanded, and sat there remembering long into the night, calling up the past and examining the future, staring at the stars in the black sky until the cold reached her heart.