But that explained the look on her now, the way she did not look at him direct. There was more to it than just a name, but she would not say it. Instead, she lifted a shoulder and said, “My mother called it a fine Welsh notion, to make a woman fit for battle. She believes that if our bards sing of it, it cannot be a sin. Besides, I had little else to do after my husband was murdered.”

He felt the ale warming his belly and loosening his bones. She looked wistful and sad, which made him feel old. “You mourn for what you do not know. You had – what, only ten years? You can be forgiven your ignorance of childhood, but be not so empty-headed now. I did you a favor, Gwenllian of Ruardean.”

“Was a favor? To take my protection, my future? You killed much with your blade in the night.”

This made him laugh. It felt good here in the solitude of the forest, a flask of ale in hand and the solid roughness of the tree at his back. He wished there were enough to make him drunk.

“Unwittingly, I did more to protect you and your future with my blade in the night, than ever Aymer would have.” He took another long swallow of ale, memories coming on him like another fever. “His first wife died, you know. I lived there ten years and never heard how, or why she died. The second wife I remember, just barely. Maude, her name was. I saw him beat her.” He remembered cowering behind Alice’s skirts, hearing Maude crying. Maude, who had been so fierce when teaching him courtly manners at table. “I was too young to know her offense, but she never did learn to move quick enough. She died the next day.”

He rolled the ale over his tongue, its taste a perfect match for the bitterness in his gut; and he looked at her. She was not a lady like they had been, this wench in the armor of a man. “You are quick, though. You have speed. Did you have it then?”

He didn’t expect her to answer, but she did. “Aye,” she said softly, a faint curve to her mouth. “Was my only advantage over my cousins, speed.”

“He would have caught you, girl.”

“You did not.”

“And I am not Aymer of Morency,” he burst out, startling birds from the brush, a flurry of sound behind him as he glared at her. But the flash of anger faded quickly. Why did he tell her anything, the stupid wench. She did not hear him and it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. It was all history, over and done, and he was more bored than angered by it any more.