He heard the quiet sleepy breathing of Gwenllian reach him in the dark, and spent the dawn hours pondering which truth was more astonishing: that she could fight the king’s battles as well most men could, or that she had trusted him well enough to have slept in the night.

In the end he had decided it wasn’t trust, but simple fatigue. As the sun was rising, he watched her jerk awake, an alarmed look quickly followed by dismay and then faint confusion when she saw he lay harmlessly a few feet away. He was glad she said nothing, only shared her water and offered him another oatcake to break his fast.

At mid-morning, she led the way into a thick copse of trees and to his surprise, there was a pool there, small and deep and clear. It was fed by a thin stream that wound its way through the brush to collect its waters here in the shade before moving on again to the east. Everything was covered in moss, cool and moist, the canopy overhead shielding them from the harshest rays of the sun.

“You know this place?” he asked her, startled by how sure she was. It was as if this was her own land.

“No,” she answered. That was all.

Gone was the easy conversation of yesterday. Something in what he had said yesterday, or in the quiet camaraderie of last night had replaced her suspicion of him with her reserve, and it did not rest well with him. She said no more about Aymer, nor asked further about his motives. He wished he did not wonder what she thought, what she hid behind silver eyes and silence. He wished more that, even in this unfamiliar place, she was not so clearly the mistress of the situation.

Sweat trickled down his neck and itched along his spine. Without thinking, he stripped off his leathern armor until he wore only linen undertunic and hose and walked to the edge of the pool. He knelt and plunged his head into the water up to his shoulders. It was not cold, but it was cool enough to refresh, and more pleasant than he expected to clean the sweat from him.

He sat back and pulled off his shoes before wading in, soaking his filthy hose and tunic as he called behind him. “Is pleasing cool, the water. Wash the dust from you, Gwenllian of Ruardean.”

Moments later, he looked up from watching the sand and mud suck at his toes beneath the clear water, to see her doing just that. She had pulled the hose from her legs and sat not far from him in only her shirt of mail. It came just to the tops of her thighs, and the tunic beneath reached almost to her knees. She had waded out to a large rock that jutted into the pool where she now sat, her legs stretched out in the water.