“How know you he cannot suspect your strength already?” Gwenllian burst out. Her voice echoed in the empty hall. A reckless anger gripped her, prompting her to shout. “Think you that the king does not already know all, that my husband has failed to tell him?”

She should not have mentioned him. Already her breath came short, her lungs full of air she could not seem to expel.

In the weeks since she had come to her mother, they had discussed everything but him. Just to think of it brought too many questions to mind, all of which she had fought to ignore. Would he tell Edward that she herself was involved, or would he name only her mother as conspirator? Would he plead for his wife’s life, if it came to that? Or would he bear the shame of her betrayal, and welcome the chance to be truly rid of her? There was no way to know, and to think of it sent a pain so sharp through her that she thought she might never recover.

“Your husband will not tell Edward.” Eluned’s voice was certain. “Not yet.”

“He will, is certain. He will not risk Morency.”

“I saw well how he looked at you, Gwenllian. I think him more likely to risk Morency than your life.”

Eluned wore the same look as when she mused on her endless political maneuverings – thoughtful, shrewd, calculating – and it was this more than anything that stopped the protest that came to Gwenllian’s lips.

She stared at her mother in silence, unsure of what to say, until Eluned looked slightly less certain and said, “As well did I see how you looked at him, and yet here you are.”

Gwenllian dropped her eyes. She wanted to ask how her mother could see so much in her brief a time at Morency, yet could not see how dangerous was King Edward. But her mother’s words had brought his face to mind – his face as he looked at her nakedness in the firelight, his laugh as they shared wine – and her breath came scarce again. To banish the picture of him, all smiling eyes and gentle mouth, she moved the conversation to safer ground.

“It needs nothing more than a spy for Edward here among us, to let the king and all his court know your allies and your plans.”

Eluned gave a very faint sigh and looked down at the table in deep thought. Her fingers smoothed over the apple that Gwenllian had dropped, as though trying to read some message there.

“We have agreed we must suspect them all equally. Think you any of them may have seen more than we intend them to see?”

Gwenllian shrugged. Long before her arrival, from the moment he had suspected an informer in their midst, Madog had worked to keep the extent of her mother’s plans a closely held secret.