Ranulf could see, as anyone could see, that Madog would do as Gwenllian wished. They spoke together in Welsh, but still he kept himself a respectful distance from them to allow them the privacy of their goodbye. The other men stood yet further, a cluster of familiar faces that watched and murmured among themselves. He would miss them, he thought, though of course not as she would. He would miss seeing her among them, the easy way she commanded. She had told him yesterday, as she put off her armor, that it had never been easy, that it was constant effort and relentless doubt, a wearying way to live.

“You will not have to work so hard, to make men love you,” she had said. “Only do the things that were poison for me: show mercy, and that you can bleed as red as any man.”

For the first time he believed it might be possible, with her to advise him.

He had bid her wear her armor while they traveled, if she wished. Over her gown and under her cloak, awkward as it was, it eased his mind to think of her wearing it. Almost like a talisman, a protection that was hers and was not his. He did not know why it should please him so, to think of it, but it did.

She would not wear it as she took leave of the men, and her mother. “I must leave them as Lady of Morency,” she had said, and he was filled with equal parts dread and delight to hear her say it.

“Will you go to the king, ere you take the road to Morency?” Eluned had appeared at his side, wrapped in a thick cloak, arms clutched about her and looking not at him, but at her daughter.

“Is there a need for it?” he asked, and watched the pinch form in her lips.

“Only you may say how much the crown may doubt your loyalty.”

He inclined his head to acknowledge it, then spoke the more important truth. “Suspicions fall harder on you, my lady.” If she had played the game with the priest well enough, attention would be diverted to another in the court. It would be enough to save them from the king’s fury, so long as she returned to Ruardean and meddled no more in games of war.

Her chin lifted higher by an inch. “I have wit enough to keep such suspicions from crushing me. And it is as you have said,” she murmured, turning a bland look to him. “Our lives and fortunes are as one now.”

“They are.” He watched her steadily and entertained thoughts of bloody retribution, until she seemed to shrink a little from him, daunted. “If you would risk your daughter’s life for your rebellion again, lady, such a swift and bloody reckoning awaits you that you will wish it came from Edward’s hand and not my own.”