They rode in a heavy silence, and the stomp of the horse’s hooves beat out the rhythm of time that had slowed. She silently cursed the stupid flutters beating their way up from her stomach to her throat. She grew too conscious of the chest pressing her shoulder, and of the breath titillating her cheek, and of the fingers firmly resting on her waist, steadying her so she did not fall from her perch. She worried that his hand would move but also admitted dismally that a part of her was urging it to do so.

She groped for an excuse to get off the horse. “We should stop to eat soon, shouldn’t we?”

“I did not intend to for some time. Are you hungry?”

“Aye.”

His hand left her, and pulled at a leather string around his neck. A little sack emerged from under his tunic. “Open it.”

Inside the sack were small pieces of dried venison. She wasn’t really hungry, but she plucked one out anyway since she had claimed she was. “Despite a wagon and a mule packed with provisions, you wear your meal?”

“I am accustomed to wearing it.”

“You hunger easily?”

“It is a habit, that is all.” He tucked the sack away, and gestured to the terrain that they passed. “You must be glad to finally return to Wales. It has been a long time since you left.”

“Too long.” Not very long at all, actually. Did he suspect as much? He did not appear to be probing for information, but she had learned not to underestimate this man.

“It is much as you remember it, is it not?”

“Little has changed.”

Very little. The Welsh travelers they passed were a people always at a disadvantage under English law. The small towns were the domains of English merchants. The lands produced wealth that flowed to English coffers.

Her father had taught her to see all of this when, after her brother died and Llygad ap Madoc resigned himself to having no male heir, he had begun to open his elder daughter’s eyes to the realities of their world.

The view was not all bleak, however. The English, both the marcher lords of old and the new lords established after the defeat of Prince Llywelyn fifty years ago, might claim this land as theirs, but the Welsh knew differently.

The mountains and ridgeways belonged to them alone. The bards kept the history and legends alive. The chieftains still dealt with their people in ways no English overlord could ever replace. At the cymanfaoedd, the hilltop assemblies, the people renewed their true allegiances.

These western lands might be thought a part of England now, but Cymru lived on as a shadow nation, waiting to be reborn to the light.

“We should arrive at Anglesmore in two days,” Marcus said. “Your sister and I will marry soon after we get there.”