He carefully unrolled the little piece of linen. The rough, grey lines covering it had become blurred from the sweat of the girl’s body and his own hand. Doubting that he would be able to decipher anything, he moved closer to the fire. The joy that she had sent this was touched by an unspeakable sorrow that her last words to him had been lost.

He stared long and hard, willing the words to emerge. Finally, sadly, he gave up and accepted they never would. Only then, as his desperation faded, did the sooty scratches and smudges form patterns and letters and become a message.

I have betrayed you far worse than you know, she had written. You must repudiate me now, before it unfolds, or I will have condemned us both. When next you see me, you must be the King’s man, and I the daughter of Llygad, although my heart will always be yours. Know that I love you, even though we both must deny each other now. Think of me when you gaze up at your stars, Marcus.

He smiled, and experienced a moment of complete peace and glowing happiness. He closed his eyes and savored the exquisite sensation, holding it in his heart while he filled his mind with her.

He opened his eyes, and dropped the linen into the hearth. The flames grew to consume it. As they rose he released the little bliss, and allowed it to burn away too. In the heat made by her message, he faced what it had contained besides words of love.

She was not fleeing. She was joining Carwyn. Most likely she had already.

He had prayed she would not, but he had also known that she would.

He had counted on it.

He thought of her message, and also of the words she had spoken their last night. She assumed that all the betrayals had been hers. Soon, however, she would realize how he had permitted most of what she had done, so that he could foil her in the end.

So that he could save her.

She had never used him to achieve her ends, but he had used her.

Hopefully, when they were done with this, when they were no longer the King’s man and Llygad’s daughter, she would forgive him for that.

CHAPTER 25

There could be more,” Hubert said. Worry made his voice pitch higher than was seemly. “They could be on either side of us, for all we know. How the hell is someone supposed to fight in these mountains and forests.”

“Now you know why the King’s grandfather brought a huge army with him, and why no English king before him had managed to hold all of Wales,” Marcus said.