Gryff looked at her profile, at the lift of her chin and the press of her mouth, at all the things she did not say. It was her doing, all of it, learning how they had died and going to such lengths to return them home. He had never thought of her as anything more than Will’s mother – wife to a Marcher lord, clever and powerful, not to be trifled with. But now he saw she was more than that. She was Welsh. She loved, and lost. She understood it, at least this part of it.

He bowed deeply to her, in the way his father had taught him he must only bow to someone the equal of a prince, as he had only ever bowed to his king.

“My thanks to you, lady, for the honor you have shown them.” He said it in Welsh, and the formal words came more easily than he would have guessed. “For this I will ask God’s blessings on you with every breath unto my last, and hold you in my memory as dearly as my own family. Only say what you would have of me in return for the kindness you have done, and it is yours.”

She turned to him then. He could feel her gaze on the top of his bowed head for a long and thoughtful moment.

“I do not do what is right for the approbation of princes – or of kings or lords or peasants in the field,” she said. “I honor those who are deserving of my honor, be they high or low. And that is what I would ask of you, Prince Gruffydd. It will not be an easy request to grant. You will see.”

He rose, and she turned back to her window, leaving him to wonder what she saw when she looked out onto the world.

Chapter Twenty

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Nan stood in the door of the manor kitchen, watching a boy sweep ashes from the hearth. It was a small kitchen, but as warm and welcoming as any other. The bustle of the evening meal was long finished, the cleaning done and the servants scattered, and now the sun had set.

She knew, long before he appeared beside her, that Robin had found her. He had probably searched for her all day, but she had discovered a secret stair that took her to the top of the tower where she looked out across the fields for hours and hours. For the first time in their friendship, she had avoided him, because to share this moment with him or even to look at him would make it real.