It was impossible to refrain from talking with the Welsh whom she met when she crossed into Aderinyth. They opened their homes to her, and shared what little they had, and refused to take any kind of payment. It was their duty, they said over and over again, to welcome guests warmly and never leave them wanting if they could help it. All they ever seemed to expect in return was her company.

So she talked when they expected it, answering their questions and asking her own. The old man who served as her guide had brought her in four days to the heart of Aderinyth, taking her along hidden ways through the mountains, away from towns and villages. He was so hale that she was ashamed at how much more easily he climbed the hills while she struggled to keep up.

“I have heard as he does not like to be called a prince,” said the old man. “He tells us the king in England is our true leader now, and we must remember Prince Gruffydd bows to him always. But no other man the king has sent has been so good, and the prince is one of us for all his Norman ways.”

A young girl had joined them in this last leg of the journey, having business near the village they sought. She was daughter to a falconer, and said she had met the prince many times.

“There are some bards who like him not, and some of the falconers, too,” she said now as they climbed the last hill. “In truth, their hate is only for King Edward. And their bitterness counts as naught against the many who do love our prince well. He has made a way for us to trade with the towns more easily. It will save many from hunger when the snows come. He’ll not let it be like last winter, he said.”

There was a reverence in the girl’s voice, the kind of bone-deep gratitude that Nan recognized easily. The king had ordered castles built throughout Wales, and new towns founded for the English to settle. It was forbidden for the Welsh to live in the towns, one of many laws that seemed to Nan to impose an impossible hardship. But their lord had spent the summer in hearing their complaints and doing everything in his power to ease the pain caused by the new laws.

“Here it is,” said the old man as they crested the hill.

A little village lay below, no more than a dozen small homes. In the distance she could see a keep – a single tower on a hill, the beginnings of a new castle. There was movement everywhere, builders moving stone and earth, visible even from this distance. Nan fixed her eyes on a figure standing at a wide window, just a tiny speck from here. It might be him.

This was his home. It fit him perfectly.