He was younger than she had thought. Probably younger than herself. She had always assumed that a man her father’s age had taken his place.

“You should not have come,” she said in a desperate whisper, even though no one was around. “If you are found—”

“If I am found, we will both hang. So let us speak quickly, for there is much to decide. Your sister’s disloyalty means the strategy must change, and we must agree on new plans now, before word of this betrayal spreads to our allies.”

A hundred thoughts crowded her mind all at once. She took a deep breath and tried to force some order on them. Genith had caused a disaster, and the alternatives racing through her head seemed poor substitutes for the straight road that her father had drawn and that she had spent two years clearing.

“Perhaps I can take her place.” She said it without enthusiasm. The very notion had a sickening sensation spilling into her stomach.

Carwyn shook his head. “The great lord that your father arranged for Genith to marry will not accept you instead. You are reputed to have lain with Edward. Aside from his pride, he will know that your past with the English king will only give Edward a personal vendetta as well as a territorial concern. It was why it was Genith and not you from the start.”

“We have no choice, then, but to explain what has occurred. Genith’s marriage was supposed to seal an important alliance for us, and we must make that alliance happen anyway. I will send the message, in my father’s name. I will find a way to bring the message myself if I have to. The marriage of my sister was only symbolic anyway. The goal still has appeal, and the plan remains sound.”

“It is not the alliance to be secured by your sister that concerns me, but those with the Welsh chieftains. That marriage might have only been symbolic, but it would have created assurances in their minds. It is the support of our own people that needs to be buttressed. You are Llygad’s daughter, and have spoken with our leaders, visited them and cajoled them in your father’s name. It is time for you to come and join with us, and do so again.”

Her mind accepted the logic of it, but something inside her, something spiritual and powerful and furious, rebelled with a tremendous onslaught of denial. Her role in this should be done now. She did not want to spend the next weeks journeying throughout Wales, exhorting men who should need no convincing that it was now or never for the dream sustained by generations to be realized.