She dreamt of him. She dreamt of his breath hot on her breast, the hard length of him inside her, his body touching all along her skin from neck to toe, in the moments before he dropped to sleep. When she woke, she could feel the weight of his hand in hers as on their wedding night, the surprisingly sweet security of knowing that he was at her side. Always at her side, his hand ever there to steady hers in moments of doubt.

But no one held her hand as she lay on the hard ground miles from Morency. It was only a memory. All of it would be a memory now, of a life that was not hers. That should never have been hers.

In the full morning light, she turned her head and saw a myrtle shrub. She stared at the leaves, wondering at the heaviness in her head, how long and deeply she had slept.

The truth of it came to her slowly, her mind gradually admitting the things she had dared not think before this moment. As she realized, all the reasons that had driven her to this point were dismissed, one after the other. Her mother’s weeping did not matter. Her men were as safe with Madog as with herself. She was not running to her rightful destiny. In truth, she was only running away.

She sat up, staring at the plant. Bog-myrtle leaves, boiled in a strong brew with rue, sipped carefully at the first sign your courses would not come.

Her hands spread across her middle. For the first time since girlhood, she could not think past a simple refrain of, Do not weep, you must not weep. But the tears came, because there was no way to run from this.

Edric commented on the fine day as he readied his horse, no hint of complaint that she had slept through the night and half the morning too. He began describing the roads from here to Hereford, conjecturing on the speed of their travel as she clutched her mail-clad belly.

The clarity of who she was and what she must do, the certainty that had guided her since Madog’s letter had arrived, was shattered. In its place grew a new and different certainty. She must choose, yes. But it was not a choice between her husband and her mother. Not a choice of where her loyalty would lie, or which place she would live and die. It was deeper and more fundamental than any of that.

It was an absolute division, no way to keep pieces of each. It must be one and not the other. A mother, or a soldier. A woman, or not.

She stared at the leaves until Edric fell silent, until she could see nothing but a glossy green blur. She thought her heart might rip in two, even as she sat there.