“And when last did you send word to this Brother Anselm?” Her mother asked sharply. The priest’s eyes swiveled gratefully toward her.

“Only last month, my lady, near two weeks past.”

A look passed between Eluned and Ranulf, which Gwenllian could not read. She felt slow and thick-headed, as though she had lost all her wits. One thing penetrated the fog of her mind: this, then, was the traitor in their midst, and he seemed not even to grasp it. The priest had seemed too oblivious to cause them any alarm, and indeed he was as unaware as they had believed him. Still, he had written to others of who came and went here, who spoke with her mother and how cordial were their words. That, along with other telling whispers, would travel a winding but swift path to Edward’s ear.

Ranulf stepped back now, a less menacing distance from the nervous priest. “Soon I will hear rumors from the court, no doubt, of how I could not long endure without my wife’s embrace, and so fled to her side. But I beg that you will go now to hear the confession of the boy who accompanied me on my journey. He is in sore distress.”

The priest looked at him, bewildered. “My lord? It is my glad duty to give counsel to Lady Gwenllian and make her mindful that marriage is a holy sacrament–”

“I shall remind my daughter of her duty.” Lady Eluned’s voice cut across him, strong and sharp. It caused an anxious twisting in Gwenllian’s belly to hear it, a sudden childlike fear of a parent’s reprimand. “Go you now and hear the boy’s confession. Soon I will find you in the chapel, to give you my own.”

The priest, so neatly dismissed, did not pause in his exit from the hall. He left behind him only a ringing silence. Gwenllian stood on the dais, rooted to the spot, wishing Ranulf would look at her, and dreading it. She did not know what she felt, but thought that if only he would look at her again, she might discover what lay in her own heart. She waited, everything in her suspended in silent anticipation of what might happen next.

But he did not turn his face to her, nor even his eyes. He stood in the middle of the hall, far enough that her mother must raise her voice slightly to make him hear her clearly.

“How knew you it was the priest?”

Ranulf gave a slight shrug. “Is no hard task to find such men, when one knows where to look. You can be sure Edward will know yet more, from such eyes as he has in the households of those men who have plotted with you.”