“You will tell them what I tell you now,” she said, her voice low and clear. “All that I do in these dark days has but one purpose: to safeguard the lives and fortunes of my children. This course was chosen by my daughter, who commanded you to serve me. If you would honor her command, if you would keep her safe, you will not draw steel for any reason.”

He nodded once, his face grim as he went to gather the men.

It was nearing nightfall when they came on the place where the fighting now was ended. From the rise above the valley, they could see how the swarm of English soldiers had won swiftly and decisively over the handful of doomed Welsh. The victors would have cut the throats of many Welsh survivors had Eluned not hastened to stop them. She used the advantage she had as a highborn lady, wife to a Marcher lord, whose vast lands lay but a mile from where these Welshmen lay dying. “I am the lady of Ruardean, and it is my wish,” she said in a voice that would cause emperors to hesitate, and soon the priests she had brought with her were permitted to go among them and administer last rites.

She had not even asked her uncle’s fate yet, when he was brought to her. Two of her men had found Rhys amid the carnage, and carried him across the field to lay him at her feet. She bade them raise the pavilion around her, a simple structure meant for quick shelter during travel, three sides and a roof. All the while she stood looking down at the chest that did not move with indrawn breath, the killing arrow that lodged behind an ear. Only when the canvas was raised around them did she kneel beside him.

“You lived to be an old man, Uncle Rhys. I am glad of it,” she whispered to him. She had last seen him nearly ten years ago. Now every hair was gray, every inch of his face wrinkled. An old lion, who had guarded her in her childhood with a ferocity she had taken for granted. “I am sorry. I am sorry.” For staying safe in her fortress while he died in a field. For all her miscalculations. For failing. “I am sorry.”

The sun sank low in the sky and she had them bring a torch, and water so that she might wash him. The English commander, whose name she could not keep in her head, made noises about treason and the threat of excommunication until she told him that unless the Pope himself came to prevent it, her uncle would be anointed and buried in consecrated ground. As this English nobody could not boast a personal correspondence with the Holy Father – and she could – the matter was quickly settled.