Ranulf turned again to the window and found the glimmers of the sea by staring hard at the growing spaces where leaves had begun to fall from the branches. “There is naught for me to do, but to tell the king.”

He must consider his course well. Tell Edward now and she was like to be more easily defeated and captured, but he himself would be safe from Edward’s wrath. Wait too long to say it and he would be traitor to his king – but she would have time to better plan her battles, and see success. Or at least escape.

“Soon or late, Davydd, the king will know. Bring me more ale and then leave me to decide it.”

He stayed frozen in indecision for three weeks. The wind grew colder and the days shorter, but no word did he send to Edward. He waited each day for the walls of the castle to close in on him, to drive him away as they always had, but it did not happen. No longer did he see ghosts in every corner. There was work to be done, which filled his days and made him more a part of this place than ever he had been. It was easy to forget that he must betray her. And so he did not.

Only for a moment, at the end of the day, did he feel her absence keenly and remember that he must tell Edward of the brewing rebellion. In the morning he woke to remember she was gone, then felt the rage rise up in him and swore that today he would write to the king. Yet somehow, he never did.

Then a messenger came, not from Edward but from his most trusted advisor Robert Burnell. Buried amid the mundane business of scutage, justices of the forest, and the movement of the royal court, was a brief mention of a man who served in Lady Eluned’s household. Burnell understood that Lady Eluned had departed from Morency months ago in anger, and that there was no correspondence between mother and daughter. Further, how much it pleased Edward’s most trusted advisor to assure Ranulf that the king remained well-informed of Lady Eluned’s actions.

Ranulf’s blood ran cold, his hands gripping the letter. His mind raced back to the messenger that Madog had sent. He’d been a careful man, cautious in communication. Burnell would have written a very different letter if he knew Lady Eluned’s true plans, or that Gwenllian was party to them. This was not gloating or warning, but intended as a brief and reassuring note about a trivial matter.

But how long until this man sent to watch Eluned closely learned her plans? What might he think to see a woman in armor among her party? And if the spy had been at court and recognized her as Lady of Morency?