There was so much more to consider. So much more that he did not care to think about now.

“I will do whatever the king demands. I want only my life.” He dared to touch the hair that curled at her temple, freed from net and kerchief alike, arranged in the shining braid that he had followed out of hell. “And you, if you would have a simple Welshman.”

She shook her head faintly, and he watched reluctant hope and doubt chase across her face.

“You cannot be that.”

“I can. I will.”

Her fingers squeezed his painfully. He could feel the reservation in her, how some part of her did not dare to believe it. He hardly dared believe it himself, knowing that it would be as Lady Eluned had warned: he was still a pawn, and the king had all the power. But he only wanted his life, and it seemed little enough to hope for.

Nan looked at the table where the candle guttered, light flickering across the blades. These were the stories beneath the silence, the defenses that were more than weapons, all laid out for him to see. All but one.

He moved his hand in hers, turning it to touch the hard lump that lay between her breasts. It was impractical, not easily reached beneath her linen, but still a defense. A last defense, when nothing else served. He had seen it against her naked skin, or else in her hand, so many times that the letter on it seemed engraved in his mind. He put a finger to it now, feeling the shape of the R through her linen.

In the end he did not ask it. He only looked at her, and waited to see if she would give him this part of herself.

She returned his look, a steady and clear gaze, then stood and, to his surprise, pulled the dress off. It left her linen to billow slightly around her, the silhouette of her nakedness barely visible beneath it. Her hand closed over the dagger and pulled it out, still sheathed, holding it close to her chest.

“I thought to myself that I should hate men,” she said, still in Welsh. “All men, for how they have used me, and tried to use me, and how they have brought nearly all the sorrows of my life. But I do not, and it was a wonder to me until I considered why.” She looked down at the dagger, ran her thumb over the engraved letter, and smiled a little. “Lord Robert, and Lord Ranulf, and Robin. One dried my tears and treated me gentle in my worst distress. One put aside his own fears to help make me stronger, and faster, and better. And one has given me a brother’s love, and asks for naught in return but that I am his friend.”