She stayed still, looking at him as she took a slow and careful breath. She clasped her hands before her, her face a careful blank.

“Your father played a deep game,” she said. “Is true he meant always to follow Norman ways in allowing only one son to inherit, and by custom it should be his eldest. But he knew well that the Welsh were not likely to win against Edward, and that in victory the king would give land and grant power as it pleased him.” She glanced at her son, and then at the clerk who only seemed bored by this conversation. “Did the Welsh prevail, your father meant Aiden to inherit. But did they lose, he would have a son with a Welsh heart who might yet rule as a Norman.”

It could not be true. He stared hard at her, trying to discern if this was a convenient lie, or conjecture, or a truth his father had given her directly. But she was an unyielding wall. She gave nothing away, and in the silence he began to see how it was possible.

All those years, he had so rarely heard from his father, or his brothers. The sudden distance had become unbridgeable, and now he saw that his father had planned it thus. To sever the close ties and allow Gryff to give all his undivided allegiance to the English king – and so that it might be easily believed that Gryff shared no politics with his treasonous family.

Almost he could feel his father’s satisfaction from the grave. This moment, this outcome... All of it was exactly how he had planned it, should the Welsh fail.

Except he had not planned for Gryff to run and hide. He had never considered what it would mean for his son to be caught in the middle, ignorant of any grand scheme and fearing for his life.

Gryff could not raise his eyes to Lady Eluned now, nor to Will. He could only stare into his cup and think of Philip Walch, murdered for his loyalty to a prince he believed would return any moment. How many others were there, dead and persecuted, living in fear and hunger and worse, because Gryff had abandoned his people?

“Edward does not forget how well you advised him in the Welsh campaign,” Will was saying as Lady Eluned exited. But Gryff was preoccupied with the sudden realization that this was why Rhodri had tried to kill him, and not his other brothers. He must have known or at least suspected their father’s plan. “The king wants only what is due to him,” explained Will. “You must pay homage to him publicly, swear your oath and some other arrangements as are customary – and Aderinyth is yours.”

The words made his heart speed up. Aderinyth. He could go home.