“Is gold that is so precious to him, and not my life,” she murmured, indicating the letter in her hand. “He is promised a sum and the gift of his horse, as well a place with Madog, does he perform his duty well. To this, we add the prize of a warm bed and a full belly. Find you the kitchens now, Edric, and eat.”

He was very good. He did not protest that there was more to his message, or betray in any way that he might wish to say more. He only nodded, and bowed, and left her to her letter. And to Ranulf.

The letter was in Welsh, and brief, and carefully written to convey certain details only to Gwenllian. Madog was in Hereford “as is my habit,” he wrote – which meant he had bought fine steel and armor for many men, the only reason he had ever had for traveling to Hereford. Just so he had written of other things, in ways that told her that Edric the messenger was to be trusted as well as any of her own men, that her mother met with Welshmen of means who would happily join their forces with hers, and that her men had traveled with Eluned to one of her Welsh properties to begin the business of rebellion before the snow fell.

But it was what he wrote plainly that she stared at longest: Often does she weep for want of your counsel.

“What news?”

Ranulf’s hand hovered near the paper as though to take it from her. She felt a flare of anger, sharp and insistent, that he would so presume. But she forced it down and said, “Is in Welsh.”

“It pains you,” he said, his eyes roaming over her face. “I would know what distresses you.”

A new and terrible feeling came upon her, even as she struggled to absorb the import of the words Madog had taken such pains to send her. She looked at Ranulf and saw plainly his care for her, that he would comfort her. But she saw just as plainly that he wished to know the danger to himself and to his king, so that he might act upon it. She had a suddenly flash of memory of him, asking for a dull knife so that he might help her men build a bridge. How stupid she had felt when he had vanished. How poor her judgment of this man might be when their aims were not aligned.

And yet she could not hide the whole of it from him.

“She has removed to Wales,” was all she said.

“She leaves Ruardean undefended?”

There was a faint note of scorn in his voice. It made her grit her teeth.

“Nay, she does not take all the household with her. Is a strong garrison that defends Ruardean, and its commander a fine man.” She had trained him herself.