Eluned spoke with a finality. “You fight by my side and triumph, or die as traitor by his. Is your choice, and none other’s. Now you will say which it is, Gwenllian.”

Gwenllian could only stare at her mother’s face until her features were a blur. It was true. She must choose. Her mother or her husband. That life, or this one.

She recalled a long ago lesson in combat, when her master at arms said, Never spend good steel on unworthy combat, for your honor is the least of what you will lose. She thought of King Edward, watching her closely as she said her wedding vows, his look that missed nothing. And she thought of the first time Ranulf had said her name, urgency in his voice as he asked her if the king had aught to fear of Eluned.

She must choose, and only one path was lit with reason.

But to look at her mother was to feel the pull of a love and loyalty so deep that she could scarcely breathe.

“I will have no part in it,” she forced herself to say. “I will not. Do not ask it again.”

In that moment it was clear that her mother had never believed Gwenllian would turn away from this duty. The look on her mother’s face was unbearable. Shock and hurt, and worst of all – betrayal. Gwenllian thought she might shatter with the force of it, into countless brittle pieces scattered across the orchard.

“You consign us all to our graves.” Eluned’s voice was a whisper, a hoarse scrape that sounded nothing like the woman she had always been. “Without you, what hope have we of winning?”

Gwenllian wanted to turn away, seeing the tears that gathered in her mother’s eyes. She could not. She only stood paralyzed, waiting for the awful moment to end. Waiting to watch her mother weep.

“Never,” said Eluned, searching her daughter’s face in despair, “never did I think you would turn away from a fight.”

All of the sound reasoning, all the logic and common sense of Gwenllian’s decision were nothing to this. A coward, and weak. That was what her mother saw. It was what her men would see. It was what she herself saw, when she looked through their eyes.

“My lady Eluned, may I call you mother now?”

Ranulf leaned against a tree, arrogant smile playing on his face. So heated had been their discussion that neither had noticed his arrival. Gwenllian felt a moment’s panic, wondering what he might have heard until she realized that they had spoken in Welsh, and he could not understand.

He gave a little bow to Eluned, whose face hardened against this gentle mockery.

In the rigid silence, he strolled easily to Gwenllian and took her hand. He still looked at Eluned when he spoke. “I did not think we expected guests so soon, my sweeting.”