“What’s afoot?” she called to Davydd as she came to where they worked. He knelt on the ground, lashing one log to another as instructed by Vincent. Morency stood over him with a look of impatience and authority. Morency was not armed, nor was he restrained. Her squire shook his head forcefully at the lord, doubt-filled eyes straying to Gwenllian.

“Tell the boy to give me a knife,” came Morency’s cool command. He did not glance at her, but kept his look trained on Davydd.

It was an insult to his station to put him in irons, and nothing would compel Gwenllian to act so dishonorably. But the matter of arming him was entirely different. She had instructed all her men to give him nothing that could be used as a weapon.

“You’ll have no blade.”

His hands tightened around the rope he held. “For the logs, to notch and fix the rope. Or would you have me lash them together as this boy does, so that the ties slide and all is lost in the river?”

Davydd blushed. “He is right, Pennaeth Du. I forgot it, what Gwyn told me. The logs should be notched.”

Gwenllian took in the sight of her squire, turning purple under Morency’s cool and indifferent gaze. Normally she would not have hesitated a moment to give Davydd a sharp reprimand for not listening closely to orders, with no regard for his tender years or his obvious shame over so small a forgotten task. But now she perversely wanted to shield the boy from Morency’s scorn.

She was commander here, however, and though it galled her to allow her squire to be shamed by Morency, though she would rather give the boy a soft word of reproach and quick forgiveness, she must not give in to her soft heart. They needed this done quickly, so they could cross tonight and be to Windsor soon. Much longer on this journey and she would go mad. She could look at Ranulf Ombrier and see the same impatience in the set of his mouth, could feel his restless energy matched her own. She could not trust him, but neither did she wish to wait until nightfall for the bridge to be complete.

She craved haste, and in that craving she trusted at least to Morency’s ignorance of their location, his apparent resignation to captivity, and his eagerness to have the journey done. And, after all, it was only a knife. A small one, better suited to cutting meat than killing, or even threatening. And truly, even had it stayed in Davydd’s pocket, it would be short work enough to wrench it from him. It was naught but a farce, to pretend that anything other than her dozen well-armed men kept him from running.