She paid the old man for his help in bringing her here, and watched him walk back over the hill after a lengthy farewell. The falconer’s daughter looked suspicious when Nan had no ready answer for who she was visiting. But the girl pointed to a spacious barn at the edge of the village and said it must be where Nan was going, as some other guests had been brought there recently.

“Strange how they keep to themselves,” she said. “Though always has it been a strange village. My father says the bastard’s mother lived here, and is mostly her kin that live here now.”

She bid Nan a farewell, and left her not far from the barn.

Even after days of travel, it seemed too sudden. She felt too alone – she had never done anything like this entirely alone, with no armed fellows or a careful plan. All she had was Fuss, who was like to be more trouble than not. If there were many men and much fighting, she would worry for him when she could least afford to lose attention.

“Stay,” she whispered to him, and gave him the hand signal for the same.

He dutifully sat, hidden in this little cluster of trees at the edge of the village. She remembered him as a pup, how he had curled into the crook of her neck, pinning her hair, his comical little snores in her ear. He had soothed her to sleep when nothing else could, and then had learned to be useful to her in other ways – things she had taught him only as an excuse to keep him beside her.

She thought of her Welshman – no longer starving, nor captive to villains, nor flinching in fear of his own shadow. He was well and whole, soaring as high and strong as one of his falcons. But though she had wished otherwise, he was more than just her Welshman.

A prince had many defenses. He had knights and men-at-arms, a land full of people who would die to protect him. She could alert any one of them to the danger. But a prince – a good prince – would show mercy to his enemy. He would imprison him, or banish him. He would let the viper live.

“I must keep him safe, Fuss.” She rubbed a hand over the dog’s ears. “You understand.”

The sun was beginning to set, so she took off her cloak and put down her small bag of belongings. She opened it, setting the last of the dried strips of meat before Fuss. He gave her his hopeful but suspicious look, unsure of this sudden bounty. She wished there was some way to tell him to go to the tower if she did not come back.