Nan stood still, caught between anger and fear, her tongue frozen in her mouth. She forced it free and said between gritted teeth, “I remember.”

“Say it,” she demanded. “Come, speak it if you remember so well.”

“You commanded me never to swear fealty to you.” Nan said it through stiff lips. “Not even in my secret heart.”

“Aye, and you agreed to it. And I did say then as I say now, that I lay no claim to your life. Yet you beg me tell you what to be?” Her scorn at this was palpable, just short of sneering at such weakness, appalled at the very idea. “Very well, I tell you what I have ever told you: Be selfish. Swear fealty only to yourself.”

Nan wanted to shake her head to deny it, but it was all truth. Her lady’s stern face became a blur. She was only a smudge of yellow velvet amid the gloom of the day. It had been her guiding principle these many years in every moment of uncertainty. Be selfish. Serve no ends but her own, satisfy only her own heart’s desires.

But she could not, this time. She could not change what her Welshman was, or how the world was made.

She blinked, and could not care about the tears that splashed down her cheeks or the sob she must push the words through. “God forgive me what I want, lady. I have no right to it.”

Lady Eluned was there, crossing to her swiftly and standing before her. It was suddenly like it had been long ago, when Nan would weep as she tried to tell her story in those early days. But this time she sank to her knees, and her lady knelt with her and put her arms around her. I am old and strong and weathered as an oak, she had once said when Nan had worried she should not burden her with her own troubles. And the arms that held her as she sobbed felt just that strong and solid.

After an embarrassingly long while, she calmed herself and ended her weeping. She meant to pull away, and lament that Lady Eluned knelt on the floor and let her gown be dirtied and soaked with tears.

But instead, she kept her head on her lady’s shoulder and whispered, “Will the king kill him? Like the...” Her voice trembled and cracked, but she must ask it. The vision had been with her all night. “Like them heads that are stuck up on the great tower in London?”

“Nay,” she soothed, and she sounded so sure of it that Nan felt faint with relief. “Such ignominy is reserved for traitors, and Prince Gruffydd has only ever served the crown of England.”

“He only wanted to go home.” Nan wiped her tears and sat back on her heels. “What will happen?”