“I have been blind, Addis, although she was so clever that perhaps I can be excused. I wondered if she sent messages in them, but saw only images that had no special meaning. Look at what is scraped beneath the image, however.” He handed Addis the design, and lifted the candle behind it.

“Latin. What does it say?”

“Everything of importance. It also demands that her ally move.” He paused, hesitating to share the truth, even with these two men whom he trusted above all others. “She writes that it is imperative for them to cross the border at once. The northern border.”

Marcus had rarely seen Addis surprised before, but he did now. “Are you saying that she has an alliance with the Scots?”

“I am convinced of it. Nesta sold one to David de Abyndon, when he was leaving Anglesmore. She knew he headed north, not west into Wales. She spoke of a merchant in Carlisle who would buy it. I assumed at the time that if it carried a message, it would make its way back from there.”

Other details came to him. Insignificant ones, that now loomed large and obvious. “She had told him of another merchant who would buy them too. One in Edinburgh. The merchants must know how to pass them on. She has probably been sending her messages on these parchments since Llygad died, negotiating the alliance even while she lived in the convent.”

“Then Genith’s intended husband was not a marcher lord, as you suspected, but a Scot,” Addis said, holding the candle so that he could read the message. “Who?”

Suddenly the significance of another memory grew. “Genith spoke once of marriage to royalty.”

“Well, it won’t be someone of the Baillol family. Since Edward has recognized their claim to the Scottish crown, they have little argument with him,” Paul said bluntly. “Most likely a man of the Bruce, then, since most Scots support their claim to the throne.”

“And their lands are in western Scotland, not far north from Carlisle,” Marcus said.

Addis snapped his fingers against the parchment. “You are reading in this evidence of a combined action of the Scots and Welsh?”

“One to the north, one to the west. They would make a powerful army aimed against a common foe. It has been tried before. Didn’t Robert the Bruce try to negotiate such a plan less than twenty years ago, during Lancaster’s uprising against the last king? Llygad ap Madoc would have known about that, and most likely was involved.”

“It could work,” Paul said with a note of admiration. “With Edward out of the realm, along with most of his lords …”

Addis’s brow furrowed. The scarred side of his face suddenly looked very harsh, although the good side showed more worry than anger. He lifted the parchment meaningfully. “You cannot risk that she gets another such message through.”