Davydd’s head came up swiftly, his eyes looking at him steadily for a quiet moment before nodding. The simple knowledge that she wore her mail sent a trickle of relief through him, at the same time he wanted to thrash the boy for having anything to do with her schemes.

“She rode west, my lord. Nor did she tell me where, nor why, nor when she would return. But it was west she went.”

“And would you tell me where, if you knew?” he asked.

All at once, Davydd abandoned his deferent pose and looked at Ranulf squarely, a challenge in his stance.

“Never would I betray her trust, as well my lord knows. But is no betrayal to tell you she rode west.” His voice was insistent, as though he was sharing news of great import.

“Aye, to Wales. You think me simpleminded?”

Still Davydd looked at him expectantly, and he began to wish for more ale. A great deal of ale. He thought he might spend his evening in the undercroft among the barrels of it, drinking himself blind. It seemed a fine idea. At least it was safer than the only other appealing activity, which involved his sword and a mace and a great deal of bellowing and broken bones.

“Not simpleminded, my lord, but if winter comes hard and soon, it will be a slower journey for you.” When Ranulf did not respond, the boy’s face reddened slightly, his eyes lowered. “If my lord will so journey.”

He imagined the coming winter, the long hours of darkness, the cold seeping through stone walls. If Edward learned of her rebellion, the ground would be frozen when they spilled her blood on it. If they found her. If they could take her. Or they would drag her to wherever Edward bid, and she would spend the cold dark months as prisoner – a prospect she evidently preferred to passing the time here, with him. He could understand that, little though it pleased him to know it.

What he could not understand, nor less forgive, was something deeper, something truer. He had thought she would ever stand next to him. He had believed it in his heart, in his bones, in places he had thought dead and in a way that he had never questioned.

Fool, he thought, and wished for something far stronger than ale.

Davydd still looked at him. The boy thought Ranulf would journey to find her, to follow her and make her return to Morency. It should be something to laugh at, but still he did not laugh. He simply asked the obvious.

“Think you she can be convinced to go where she does not wish to go, nor do what she does not wish to do?”

“Nay, my lord, but–”

“Think you she rides west in hopes I will follow and plead with her to return?”

Davydd lowered his head, his shoulders slumping.

“Nay, my lord.”