GWIRION WAS SENT back to Cymaron, and the rest of the circuit was a blur to Isabel, a rushing bustle of public audiences in strange manor houses interspersed with private moments with her husband. Each time they were alone together she was certain he would finally confront her. He never did—but he adopted, at least in her imagination, an air of constant private amusement and she was certain he was gloating over her unease. He remained affectionate in bed, which confused her more than reassured her, although at Huw and Branwyn’s he flauntingly spent each night in their hostess’s bedchamber. His wife, too frightened to object, remained demurely silent. He needs me, she reminded herself with growing anxiety, he needs me to secure English aid against Llewelyn. In this corner of the kingdom, it seemed unlikely that anyone but the English would assist him to deflect the prince of Gwynedd: Huw was not the only baron to insinuate that it was solely Noble’s pride hindering the bounty of Llewelyn’s generosity. Noble needed his Mortimer wife. That was her security.
Gwirion, returning home directly from Owain’s, retreated at once to his French primer with a sense of furious impotence. Without Noble’s presence demanding his humor or Isabel’s inspiring it, he was, he knew, a disappointment to the villagers. The days extended and the Easter feast passed without the usual antics of Cymaron’s favorite comedian. The whole of the village and castle climbed up the high slope to the east of the castle, to breathlessly salute the sun with spiced bragawd cider at dawn on Easter Monday. Except for Gwirion. This was more than his usual mental hibernation; it was spiritual retreat.
When the royal party’s return was trumpeted through the bailey, when the usual hustle began to fly the flag and strew the roads with daffodils, Gwirion simply disappeared.
He had not been discovered by the time the royal party made its celebratory entrance through the barbican. The castle and all the village turned out to cheer home their handsome king and his beloved bride. Noble was on his grey charger and Isabel behind him on a bulkier but smaller dun palfrey, her face veiled up to the eyes behind a linen travel kerchief. Even with the cold dust of the road on it, the king’s garnet-studded circlet, the crown he wore for all but the most important state occasions, gleamed. His famous blue eyes blazed with a fatherly affection for his audience, barely masking ragged exhaustion. After their retinue had ridden entirely into the bailey and children had thrown flowers at the palfrey’s feet, and finally the cheers had subsided, Noble relaxed in his saddle and asked for Gwirion. “I don’t know where he is, sire,” Gwilym said. “We summoned him an hour ago and I’ve had Marged’s Dafydd looking for him.”
As if on cue, the boy popped out of the stables, darting comfortably between the tired horses that stood waiting to be freed of their riders. He bowed hastily to the king and turned to Gwilym. “I can’t find him, sir, but the pony he rides is missing as well, and all her gear.”
The crowd murmured as Noble’s eyes, and the queen’s behind him, widened. Looking automatically back to the gatehouse, he saw the herald up on the wall walk start slightly at something just outside the bailey, something apparently on the road up to the barbican. The king reined his grey charger around to face the gate, and the crowd shifted with him. The trumpeter, after gaping at whatever had startled him, slowly brought the instrument to his lips again and sounded a few hesitating notes of fanfare.
Through the gateway, up into the courtyard, and straight to Noble’s charger trotted Gwirion’s little mount, with her rider standing upright on the saddle, bobbing with her gait and gripping the leather with his callused unshod toes, his arms held out to the crowd in mimicry of Noble’s public greeting. This alone would have been a mild but risible gesture of mockery. But Gwirion had done something that changed the timbre of it dramatically: He had spirited himself into the king’s coffers and was wearing the heavy crown that Noble saved for solemn ceremonial events. He’d also donned one of the king’s red silk outfits, identical to the riding costume the king himself now wore. He looked absurd, the clothing too big and fine for him and far too regal for anyone to wear while standing on a pony.
“Thank you, my loyal subjects!” he crowed. “How kind of you to lay down your useful labor to spend an hour feeding my pride. You’ll each receive a chicken for Christmas.” There was a nervous titter from the crowd. Noble was thrown for a moment, then decided he liked the cheekiness of it.
“You do know that impersonating the king is a treasonous offense, don’t you?” he said.
“Then you’d do well to stop it before I decide to have your head!” Gwirion said in a menacing voice. Although the charger was hands higher than the pony, Gwirion standing up found his head above the king’s.
Noble gave him a droll look. “You’re the real king, are you?”
“Of course I am,” Gwirion announced loftily. “I have the bigger crown. And my head is higher.”
“Your head will be a lot higher if you don’t watch yourself,” said Noble, straight-faced. He pointed beyond the curtain wall to the exalted keep tower. “Up there. On a pike.”
“But may I keep my crown?” Gwirion said with sudden childlike eagerness. He took it off to admire it. “I would sooner have my head on a pike than give up my crown.”
Worried anger flashed across the royal face and Gwirion realized his mistake: To the king’s wary ears, it had sounded like veiled criticism, a suggestion that his insistence on retaining his kingship would make his kingdom suffer. Even Gwirion understood that was not for joking, and tried to change the tenor of the comment. “And why must it be my head?” he asked, loudly. “Impale me through the arse, milord, that would at least give your people something prettier to look at.”
“What an excellent idea,” the king said. Relaxing, he finally granted his friend a small grin. For Gwirion, the impromptu jest was over. He was about to dismount when Noble’s grin mutated into a grimace. “Is that all?” he demanded. “Gwirion, you’re hardly up to form. Spin it out a little longer, won’t you? Perhaps do something with the queen.”
“Pardon?” Gwirion said lightly.
“If you’ve stolen my crown you may as well abduct my wife,” Noble said in a reasonable tone of voice. And smiled again.
The crowd guffawed in its unsuspecting, collective personality as a huge unseen hand squeezed Gwirion’s guts and he blanched. He reached down to the pony’s neck for balance and slid into the saddle, willing himself not to look at Isabel.
“I…” He brightened, relieved by the rare chance to be honest. “I already have! The day before you left! You had to bring her family all the way from England to rescue her, remember? Please don’t press me to do it again, it truly was a chore.”
Noble laughed. “Very well, never mind, then. Cadwgan!” He dismounted and turned his attention easily to other matters, and the invisible hand relaxed its grip on Gwirion’s guts.
THE queen was somehow spirited through the hall and into her room before he even caught an indoor glance of her. Desperate for contact, he brought wine up to her solar. The door was closed as he approached carrying the small clay flagon, and the phlegmatic Llwyd stood to bar his way.
“Her Majesty has not asked to see you,” he intoned.
“I haven’t asked to see her either,” Gwirion retorted. “I’m only here as wine bearer, under orders from the kitchen.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. He had been standing in the kitchen when he gave himself the order.
“Wait a moment, then,” the man growled, and opened the door slightly. There was an indistinct exchange of voices and Gwirion blushed just hearing the muffled intonation of her accent. Finally Llwyd pulled his head back out and gestured lethargically for Gwirion to enter.
Gwirion stepped into the room, pulling the door closed behind him. Isabel had her back to him and was looking out the window over the russet hills, her hands clasped around her rosary. Gwirion, after a nervous pause, set down the flagon near her bed and went to her. She turned at his approach but did not move toward him; she looked startled, almost frightened, like a cornered deer. Gwirion pulled from his belt the silly, meager gift he’d made: a braid of oat stalks. Sheepishly, he took her left hand and placed the little token in it.
“The great god Llew and I have missed you very much,” he said. In French.
She smiled hearing it, especially the way he mangled all the vowels. Then she burst into tears.
They were frightened tears and he hugged his arms around her to steady her and calm the sudden shuddering of his own heart. Her anxiety surely wasn’t for their safety: Not even Noble could have affected such levity in the courtyard if he knew about them. He kissed her ear, brushed the side of his thumb across her lips, wished a primer for a prepubescent boy might have included even a single word of romantic endearment.
When she had calmed enough to speak, she nestled herself deeper into his embrace and said in a fatalistic voice, “He knows.”
“No,” he said reflexively. “I’d be able to tell.”
“You haven’t been near him for over a fortnight.”
“Exactly, so there’s been nothing to reveal us.”
She looked up at him. “He knows you were the one who attacked him, Gwirion, he’d have to be an idiot not to know why.”
He enveloped her in his arms again, gave her a reassuring squeeze, and smiled. “No, no, thwarting rape is in my bag of tricks. He doesn’t question why I did that. In fact he was relying on my doing it.”
“Yes, because he knows about us!” she insisted impatiently.
“No, because he knows about me. I hardly knew that stable boy, but I went to his defense, remember?” He tilted her head up to look straight at him, and said with quiet confidence, “I was just a pawn in his game against Owain. So were you. Please trust me. Every time his behavior makes you think he knows, I promise you, there’s something else at play. Owain’s was a perfect example. You don’t appreciate his subtlety, you think he’s playing one very simple game with us, when there are half a dozen games he’s playing all at once with the world at large. Like marrying into Llewelyn’s family—”
“That was a bluff to test us,” she said firmly.
He shook his head. “No it wasn’t, there was much more going on. And in the end, he cemented your popularity—he wouldn’t have done that if he wanted to get rid of you.”
She shook her head. “He did that for a reason and the reason isn’t working. Even his most faithful are intrigued by Llewelyn now.”
“You’re still an asset and he won’t squander that. Doesn’t he need you for that repulsive scheme of his, to fight in league with the devil—I mean your uncle?” He gave her a tentative peck on the tip of her nose, wishing he could will away the little crease between her brows.
“I’m scared of him, Gwirion.”
“Everyone’s scared of him, he’s the king.”
“He’s not acting like a king, he’s acting like a tyrant. Roger Mortimer looks benign in comparison. I shudder to think of what he’s become capable of.”
With every atom of his being resisting it, he offered, “I’ll stop coming to you if it would—”
She clamped her hand over his mouth, looking miserable. “I know I should say yes, but I hate that you can even make that offer.” She removed her hand and kissed him impulsively, slipped her arms around him, almost clinging to him. He was heady with the rareness of this, the simple act of standing up together fully clothed in daylight hours, embracing. Noble was an idiot, he thought bitterly, an utter imbecile, for estranging the woman whom he had a right to enjoy this way.
There was one loud rap on the door and they leapt away from each other, Gwirion frantically trying to remember his excuse for being here. He scuttled for the flagon just as the door opened and the king entered the room.
“Sire,” they both said at once, sounding hollow. Gwirion stood upright, holding the vessel before him to make sure Noble understood the reason for his presence. Noble nodded to his wife, then crossed his arms and gazed at Gwirion with his head tilted to one side. “That was witty, what you did in the courtyard earlier,” he began. “And you know that I would never curb your wit. But, Gwirion.” He hesitated. “These are difficult days. It’s fine for you to mock my office as long as everybody else understands that they mustn’t. This is not the time for that.”
“You’re censoring me?” Gwirion asked, incredulous.
Noble looked very annoyed. “I’ve just told you I’m having trouble holding on to my kingdom and that is your response?”
He was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, sire, but I don’t see you having trouble. What you did at Owain’s—”
“What I did at Owain’s would never have been necessary if I were secure,” Noble interrupted. “You have a wide array of targets, Gwirion, I’m requesting you choose one other than me for now. Content yourself with something safe, like fornication.” He left the room.
The queen shot Gwirion a troubled look, but he waved his hand dismissively. “That was just a passing comment. Is that the sort of thing you take as evidence he knows? That’s so…” He risked an impish grin. “So French. The preoccupation with romantic distress and all that. Think like the Welsh, milady. We’re ferocious and verbose, but we’re always very practical.”
BY day Noble became more and more insistent on the company of each of them, and they were both diligent in attending him. But the hours they gave themselves alone were what they lived for now, and for a week they were together every night. Isabel was still cautious and often troubled; she grew daily more convinced that Noble was aware of them, daily more adept at reading double meanings into his expressions—and yet daily more needful of her time with Gwirion to calm her. It was frightening, ironic, that she felt safe only in the arms of the one person whose proximity was dangerous. Their silent lovemaking was as intense as ever, but her craving for his nearness was almost independent of that—there was something soothing in his presence. When close to Gwirion, she felt more known than even God could know her.
She tried to believe his insistence that the king’s behavior toward her had not changed. Certainly in bed Noble was as affectionate as ever, a detail she did not share with her lover. And during the day, he continued to encourage her popularity at court, among the local population, and at the abbey. Perhaps Gwirion’s argument was sensible; perhaps her worries were all a trick of a guilty imagination. Perhaps, she fretted, but likely not.
Gwirion himself felt almost reborn, impervious and undyingly grateful to the God he’d never before taken heed of. That there could be no future, no development, in what they had together meant nothing; they had it now and now was all. They learned that they could speak in silence by mouthing words against the other’s ear. One night they didn’t even make love but simply lay together looking at each other in the candlelight, bashfully seeking expressions of regard. They knew better than to arrange another tryst out of her room, and reestablished their many silent ways of making love.
At least, they hoped their ways were silent.
THEN one rainy evening, Angharad was relieving Gwirion at the harp; the queen reclined alone on a pelt rug before the fire, pretending to do needlework and waiting for Noble to join her for the evening entertainment.
Madrun very awkwardly approached her. “Your Majesty,” she stammered, “we have a request and are uncertain whom to petition.”
“A request for what?”
Madrun gave her a sheepish smile. As the only member of the sewing bevy with a lover, she had been deemed the most apt to discuss these things, but she was also the youngest and most easily flustered. “We would like to hang a second set of tapestries around our beds.”
“Is it too cold? Shall I have the chandler build a larger fire?” she asked, giving up on the embroidery.
“No, milady it’s for…” She lowered her voice and blushed. “It’s for the noise.”
The queen started. “The harp?” she said hopefully.
Madrun shook her head. “After the harp, milady. When…” The girl lowered her voice. “When His Majesty comes to you at night.”
She could breathe again. That had been close but safely avoided. And it was to her own advantage to grant the request, as long as she didn’t have to explain it to Noble—whom she suddenly realized was standing right over them.
Seeing them in huddled, conspiratorial conversation, he instantly dropped down to his knees to join in. “Good evening,” he said, and grinned at Madrun’s blush. “I was coming over to talk politics with my wife, but apparently I’ve interrupted something far more interesting.” He examined the girl’s embarrassed face with avuncular amusement. “Is this the talk of women? Is the fair Madrun suffering an ill-mannered love?”
“No,” the young woman said, smiling shyly. “Just an ill-insulated sleeping chamber.”
“I’m seeing to it, Noble,” Isabel said firmly, holding her hand out. He gave her a funny look.
“This is a secret? How very intriguing.”
“It’s not a discussion for mixed company,” Isabel insisted, desperately adopting the air of being Madrun’s protector.
But Noble only smiled more broadly. “Then I insist upon hearing it.” He grabbed a nearby wooden stool and perched on it, so that his head hovered very close above theirs.
“Madrun, you’re excused,” the queen said with a look at her husband. “I will explain the situation.”
The girl bowed her head and began to rise, but Noble grabbed her arm and held her in place. “Oh, no, no, no.” He grinned. “Half the fun is in watching her squirm. She’s adorable.” He looked beyond their heads at the figure who had been eyeing them from a careful distance, and beckoned. “Gwirion, you bore, come here and enjoy this with me.”
The queen’s hand moved instinctively to her rosary, and she had to fight the impulse to pray aloud as Gwirion joined them with a forced smile of anticipation. “Yes, sire?” he said, settling onto the rug across from Noble, a woman to either side. He nodded politely to the queen. As he lowered his eyes he noticed her hand fidgeting nervously with the rosary beads and he looked up quickly, examined all three faces. “What’s going on?”
Madrun was by now that particular shade of scarlet achieved only by redheads. “Have you ever seen anything like that?” Noble asked, delighted, as if she were an exotic animal. “She knows a secret and my wife doesn’t want her to tell us what it is. Go on, Madrun.”
Gwirion hesitated for a moment, trying to grasp at once all the possible calamities that could arise from this encounter, to determine if his presence or his absence would be preferable. His hesitation cost him the choice, as Madrun began to speak, haltingly, cheeks flaming with embarrassment.
“We only wondered if you might like more privacy when you come to the queen’s bed late at night, sire.”
Noble started violently.
Then by turn he looked alarmed, enraged—and terrifyingly controlled. “Ah,” he said shortly. “I see. We’re making too much noise, are we?” He looked sharply at the queen. The queen looked down at the rosary in her lap.
Gwirion had to choose between fainting and scheming and almost made the wrong choice. But he pulled himself together enough to utter one short sentence. “What exactly do you hear, Madrun?” He had no idea if he sounded panicked, amused, or merely curious. The fact that he could speak at all was a miracle.
“Those…those sounds. Hard breathing. The bed moving.” She was bright red again.
“Oh, that,” Gwirion said with what he hoped sounded like a dismissive laugh. He brushed his hand in the air to show how blasé they should really be about the issue. “And maybe sometimes stifled groans with it, no doubt.” She nodded, wide-eyed. “That happens all the time when I play for her. First she can’t sleep and then when she does she has nightmares.” He turned to Noble. “That’s all it is. No offense, milady, but it’s rather unbecoming, to be honest. I’d wake you but that would be presumptuous of me.” He laughed nervously. “Perhaps the problem is my playing.”
Noble looked narrowly first at Gwirion and then at Isabel. “You’ve never had a nightmare in my bed,” he said.
She forced herself to meet his eye, and then harder yet made herself say, “That’s true, sire. I wonder if you might allow me the pleasure of staying the entire night with you from now on.”
Good girl, Gwirion thought, even as it wrenched him. Noble, still looking hard at her, nodded very slowly. His face relaxed gradually, shifting from anger to calm to something strangely vulnerable. He looked touched by her request and reached out to grasp the hand that had been fingering the rosary. With a small smile, he brought her fingers to his lips and brushed them with a kiss.
“I would like that,” he said softly. “My apologies for thinking—” But she graciously waved it away.
“Well, thank the saints,” Gwirion said after a brief pause, in a voice that managed to sound lively. “Maybe now I’ll catch up on my sleep and capacitate my wit again.”
“I hope a little sleep is all it takes,” Noble said dryly. “Or I’ll have to put you out to pasture.”
“I always did like sheep,” Gwirion said agreeably, feeling himself die inside.
“Is it sheep now? I thought you had a predilection for your pony—what is her name?”
“Jenny,” Gwirion echoed, sounding wistful. “I once had a mare named Jenny, she was worth a pretty penny. But then, I met a ewe named Annie, and she had quite a darling fanny.”
Madrun giggled, turned bright red again, and covered her face. Noble chuckled. “I hope you appreciate how quick his wit is, madam, however lame,” he said pleasantly to his wife, and then back to Gwirion, “Keep going.”
“I don’t actually have a close acquaintance with much livestock, sire,” Gwirion fumbled. He could see how shaken Isabel was by the king’s comment, how clearly it seemed to have a double meaning to her. But he knew those looks: Now the king was in a purely impish mode. He wished that he could reassure her.
“What about girls, then? I can think of many girls you’ve known.” Noble smiled. “Let’s see—I think there was a Breila—”
“I once knew a girl named Breila…it was great fun to defile her.”
“That was rotten,” Noble said, making a face. “Yes, you do need sleep.”
Madrun’s face lit up: Young Ednyfed her lover, the marshal’s son, had entered the hall. She rose tentatively. “Sire, do you require my presence any longer?”
Noble followed her gaze, saw what fueled her glow, and smiled approvingly. “No, run along. But, Madrun”—he held her back with his voice, and gestured for her to lean in so that he could speak softly to her—“you will not mention your mistress’s nightmares to a soul, do you understand me? I don’t want her embarrassed for it. Tell Angharad and Generys, and then do not discuss it even among yourselves again.” His expression was unnervingly serious. Finally she realized she was expected to nod, so she did so, earnestly, and departed. He turned back to Gwirion and Isabel. The queen was the color of plaster.
“Gwladys,” Noble said in a conversational tone.
“I once knew a girl named Gwladys,” Gwirion tried shakily, “Whose…buttocks were loved by all the laddies.”
“That’s dreadful,” Noble declared. “Go along to bed, then. I expect a full recovery by morning.” He kissed his wife on her ashen cheek. “From both of you.”
Gwirion was standing first. “Good night, then, Your Majesties,” he said. He bowed and left as quickly as he could without actually fleeing.
“Isabel, are you ill? You’re pale as fog.” She stared at him, her fear too raw to hide or even control. She wanted to confess, it would be less terrifying than his toying with her like this. With a silent prayer for deliverance, she opened her mouth, and found she could not speak. “Isabel? For the love of God, what’s wrong? Shall I call Madrun back?” She was about to faint. He took both of her hands in his, looking very concerned. “Let me take you up to the room. Can you walk?” She nodded, spastically, but had to lean against him to keep from falling over.
IN his room, Noble finally stopped asking about her health. Ignoring her peculiar fevered stare, he gently helped her out of her kirtle, which was already wet just from crossing through the rain-drenched courtyard. He slipped in beside her under the blankets. For actual sleep he usually wore shirt and breeches, like any Welsh warrior trained to be forever at the ready, but tonight he stripped entirely and wrapped himself around her gently as she lay facing him, without pressing further intimacy. The gesture was physically soothing, almost mothering, and finally, as he seemed about to fall asleep himself, she began to relax.
Isabel draped an arm over his torso as they lay facing each other, and her fingertips rested against the sleekness of his back. “Your skin is smooth,” she murmured, grateful to have something natural to say. He had to know, it was too obvious for him not to know. But for some reason he was electing to be gentle with her now, and even if he was setting her up for a harder fall later, at this moment his behavior was genuinely comforting and she was in need of comfort. He made a purring sound of contentment and pulled her closer to him, tucking her head under his chin. The skin of his neck had the warm scent that had nearly drugged her with lust the first few weeks of marriage. That attraction had never truly diminished, it had just become dwarfed by all of the other things between them. She pulled back to look at him. In the candlelight she ran her eyes across the wide span of his shoulders, his beautiful broad lion’s face, the well-muscled chest. He was a magnificent creature in a way that Gwirion wasn’t, but Gwirion’s touch incited something in her Noble’s never had, something more personal than lust.
“Do you know,” he muttered sleepily, as if they had been in the middle of a conversation, “how Gwirion saved my life?” He went on in a rambling tone as if he were talking in his sleep. “He distracted your uncle. Long enough for me to hide safely in the bracken. Then Mortimer tried to draw me out…” He paused so long she thought he had fallen asleep. She was about to pull away to roll over to her other side when he took a breath and went on, “…by hurting Gwirion quite a lot.”
She stiffened. “Are you accusing Roger of torture?”
“Judging by the wounds,” he continued, eyes still closed, voice still muffled and rambling, “they used everything they happened to have with them—he had been cut, and lashed, and burned, and beaten. And other things.” The recitation was so casual he might have been discussing crop rotations. “He still has scars from it, old now, faded. But there’s one spot that was lacerated badly, the skin was torn away, it was such a mess they couldn’t sew it up quite right, and there’s still scar tissue dense enough to feel. It’s in the spot you’re touching,” he finished placidly. “You would feel it if you brushed your fingers over his back exactly as you’re doing now to mine.”
She stopped breathing and her hand despite itself pulled away from his skin. He said nothing, and she forced herself to return the hand, forced herself to draw a gentle breath, and waited for the next move in the game, to see in what droll manner he would finally confront her. She wished Gwirion were here for the unmasking, then was glad he wasn’t. But she wished that she could warn him.
She turned her attention back to her husband in anticipation of the worst, and found that he had fallen asleep.
GWIRION feared that the king and queen actually sleeping together would bond them in a way that would make him redundant—not to the king, as he had feared nearly a year earlier, but to the queen. Since her return from circuit, the hours with her had been thrilling and sweet, and he relished recent memories all through that first night of many that he would no longer be called to her room. It was the innocent moments that nagged at his attention, not what made them lovers but what made them fond: the tilt of her head in the candlelight, the rosewater scent of her hair, her nervous amusement when he tried to stifle a sneeze, all the foolish little things he used to mock lovers for. He ached for them, but there could be no nighttime trysts now, and privacy in daylight hours was impossible.
The next morning, awake but still curled up in his blankets, he steeled himself for what would be the hardest thing now: that although he could not touch her he would be forced to be around her all the time because Noble wanted them both near him almost constantly. Gwirion cringed. It would be torture. He pondered morbidly on the new state of things. If they would never make love, never spend time alone together, never show affection or share intimacy in any way, then by definition, it would seem, they were no longer lovers. He felt unexpectedly disoriented by this revelation; he couldn’t rest with it.
The king and queen were crossing to the high table to break bread after mass, casually acknowledging the morning bows of servants, when Isabel saw Gwirion from the corner of her eye and almost started crying on her husband’s arm. The only sane thing for him to do was to dismiss her; she promised herself not to blame him for whatever coldness he had to show her. She gave Noble and their congregation a vague smile as the royal couple neared their chairs.
Noble released her arm, moving around the table to his seat, and Isabel blinked, stared at her own seat, then sat beside him carefully. She leaned back against the object that had caught her attention, hiding it from view: a single oat stalk, no bigger than a straw, had been placed neatly on her cushion. Gwirion did not otherwise acknowledge her, but she glowed with a private smile all through breakfast, and later wound the stalk gently around her rosary.
But as days wore on, the little crease between her brows became etched into her skin. He thought and hoped it lessened each time he was in her company. Still he worried for her; she grew paler and more withdrawn each day, bedeviled in a way that the king either did not notice or did not mind.
Noble had his own bedevilments to contend with. There was no word from Thomas yet, and rumors reached them that Mortimer, in defiance of the newly crowned King John, was gathering troops again within striking distance of the border with Maelienydd. The chaos of Powys and Deheubarth moved daily closer, and although Noble’s barons had men to reckon with it, it was a constant tax to the collective manpower of the kingdom. Anarawd wrote several times, asking after the queen’s health.
And then there was Llewelyn. The great Llewelyn, already both rebel folk hero and entitled aristocrat, Llewelyn who promised the Welsh a unified land again, entirely free of the English. All Noble need do to protect his people was to offer up his sovereignty. Gwirion wrestled no such demons; knowing that the king genuinely needed him, he unstintingly forced himself to perform his prancing wit, even when Noble listened with his wife upon his lap caressing him.
ONE chill sunset well into April, while the trestle tables were being set up for supper, Gwirion sat down at his tripod stool by the fire to play. Out of habit, he ran his fingers across the harp to remind himself what tuning it was in, but he arrested the movement as he neared the higher strings. One of them had some thin filaments wrapped and tangled around it. With a cluck of annoyance he began to unwind it—then realized he was holding several strands of Isabel’s hair. He rested his head against the shoulder of the harp, tucked toward the fire and away from the hall so nobody could see him blink back tears.
During supper that night, a courier from England was admitted to the hall bearing a scroll with Thomas’s seal. It was addressed, very formally, to Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon of Maelienydd. Noble eagerly received it in his chair by the fire as Isabel and the councilors hovered near.
He scanned it quickly and naked shock washed across his face. He read over it at least three times, the alarm in his eyes rising, then stood, flung it furiously to the floor, and stormed toward his audience room. At the door, he turned back into the hall, irritated. “Gwirion,” he said impatiently, as if Gwirion should have known to follow. The harpist leapt up with the harp and rushed after him. When the door slammed closed, the queen picked up the scroll, read her brother’s message, and nearly panicked.
In the audience chamber, Gwirion curled up near the hearth on his usual cushion and began to play the descending arpeggios that were normally so effective at calming the king’s wrath. Noble hardly seemed to hear them. Gwirion had never seen him so enraged—he stormed across the room, kicking aside the pelt rugs that lay in his path, and as he passed the settle he grabbed it and violently upended it, sending it smashing against the wall. He kicked the ornamented chest, growling, and threw himself with aggravation into his leather chair. But he couldn’t sit; in a moment he was up again, knocking the chair angrily across the room as well. “That whoreson!” he shouted, “That weasly bastard puppet!”
“What’s wrong?” Gwirion asked nervously, almost afraid to hear the answer. “Did Mortimer refuse to help against Llewelyn?”
“No,” the king spat. “He couldn’t refuse because Thomas never asked him. Thomas went straight to John.”
“And?” Gwirion prompted, not seeing the problem; surely having England’s royal army on their side against Llewelyn would be helpful.
“He proved himself a loyal and useful subject by offering his services to John, to act on John’s behalf—diplomatically—with Llewelyn, should the need arise. He explained that he was the best man for the post because he not only spoke Welsh, but he had firsthand knowledge of Welsh culture, as his sister was married to”—he was so angry he almost laughed—“his sister was married to a minor Welsh chieftain.”
“Oh Christ.” Gwirion winced. He had stopped playing, but Noble didn’t notice.
“There’s more,” Noble went on, righting his chair and trying to sit, but still too agitated. He began pacing again. “He did, generously, tell John that the minor Welsh chieftain had offered to participate in limiting Llewelyn’s progress, but,” and here he impotently oozed derision, “they discussed it further and decided it was not in England’s interest to accept the offer. They don’t feel it would be appropriate to interfere internally, they want history to take its course. In other words they want to wait until one of us has subdued all the others, then ride in and demand that the victor submit to England. Thomas has just joined the growing ranks of those who want to see Llewelyn overwhelm me. The next time he sets foot in Wales it will be not as my ally, or her brother, or even Roger’s nephew, but as King John’s lackey.” He sighed heavily and finally came to a stop. “She’s absolutely useless now.”
“What?” Gwirion asked, trying not to sound alarmed.
Noble shrugged with resignation. “I’ve done everything I can to keep her politically relevant, to squeeze some semblance of utility from the marriage. She’s lost any believable value as the potential mother of my heir, but I thought she’d have some pull getting Thomas to work with me on Mortimer.” He shook his head and settled into his chair. “That opportunity is gone—Thomas sold us to John’s vagaries and he sold his sister with us. She’s worthless.”
“Your people love her. You made her beloved.”
“That was probably a mistake,” Noble said wearily, rubbing one temple. “I wanted to secure popular sentiment for the throne, and I did that, but I’ve also taught them that an outsider deserves their good regard. If they could come to love a Norman woman, they could surely come to love another Welsh prince.” He leaned his elbow on his knee and rested his head in his hand, looking exhausted.
“They could love a Norman woman because she proved herself lovable,” Gwirion said carefully. “Llewelyn has done nothing but enrage your subjects.”
“That’s only true here at Cymaron,” the king corrected miserably.
There was a gentle rapping at the door and at Noble’s weak nod, Gwirion admitted the queen. She looked fragile. This was the closest he had been to her in days; he could smell her scent and had to take a step away to keep himself from touching her.
This situation was, she knew, as dangerous to her safety as adultery was. Seeking something to say, she finally managed to stammer, “I’ll estrange myself from Thomas—” but she stopped at an enervated gesture from her husband.
“That’s useless, it does nothing but chastise him. He’s not a boy anymore, Isabel, he doesn’t care about chastisement.” There was a long silence. “If I don’t get a child soon, Llewelyn is becoming an option by default,” he said at last, grimly.
She hurried nervously across the room and knelt on Gwirion’s cushion, near the king. “What option is that?” she challenged. “You give up your sovereignty to him so that your people are absorbed into his united front, which will be broken up by John as soon as it’s too powerful?”
“What is my alternative?” he demanded with quiet harshness.
“But Llewelyn isn’t actually conquering by force,” said Gwirion with a small grunt—needing something to do with his hands, he had begun trying to right the settle. “He’s using personal persuasion. Make it clear to him you’re not one to be persuaded and send him home. It’s not as if he’s planning an armed assault, it’s not as if he poses the sort of danger Mortimer would.”
Noble looked up at Gwirion in amazement. “Your grasp of politics makes Enid sound well educated,” he announced irritably.
“What’s wrong with what I said?”
“He won’t have to use force against me because he’ll find a way to win my people to him.”
“Your people love you, they won’t break with you,” Gwirion declared, as if that ended the discussion, and dragged the bench back into the middle of the room.
Noble gave him the slow, hypnotic stare. “Won’t they?” he asked. “You would be amazed, my friend, by what seduction can achieve.”
Gwirion, afraid that Isabel would hear this as some sort of threat, hurriedly changed the subject. “Independent of my understanding politics only as well as Enid—”
“Not quite as well as Enid,” Noble corrected tonelessly. In a dry attempt at levity, he added, “But then sometimes I think women have a deeper understanding of what it means to be overtaken.”
“Noble,” Isabel interrupted from the cushion. She took his hand, looked up at him. “Let me be useful. Tell me what to do.”
He considered her for a moment, gave her a sad, paternal smile and planted a kiss on the crown of her veil, resting his chin on the top of her head. “End the treachery,” he said quietly.
Gwirion sat down very hard on the settle, certain the queen would faint. Isabel tensed and barely kept herself from leaping away from Noble. She held his large rough hands between her own petite ones and said, with frightened resignation, “Tell me how to do it and I will.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, Isabel,” he said breezily, as if she were naive. “I was being ironic. Gwirion seems to have misplaced his own ironic powers, so we are trading roles a little, he and I.”
That night it terrified her to even undress before him, but he was very natural with her, caressing her as always and holding her against him. He was the same considerate lover who had taken her virginity, who had gotten her with child, who had taught her everything about making love except what love was. His physical presence was so unthreatening that each night her internal siege alarms were calmed. If he knew, her body whispered to her mind, he would be too hurt and angry—nobody that angry could have been so gentle to vulnerable flesh.
THAT Llewelyn would finally send an emissary surprised no one. That the message would be a request for a sworn “alliance” was assumed, however odd it might be to ask it of an established ally. That it would be worded to present Llewelyn as de facto overlord was equally expected. What nobody foresaw was that the bearer of the message would be Cynan.
He arrived on a sunny morning a few days shy of May Eve, without his full teulu, only an honor guard of four swarthy mountain men. Gwilym was summoned by the porter; the steward came to the gate and discovered, to his disgust, that the baron from Gwynedd was entirely unchanged from his January infestation. He inhabited the bailey, large and jolly and this time well dressed, in an elegant blue silk tunic, red hose, and expensive leather knee boots. Those who recognized him either fled or skulked after his party in outraged disbelief. The castle children armed themselves with hoof picks, skewers, and flinty rocks, spying on him from a safe distance and earnestly believing themselves ready to spring on him to save their queen.
Poor diplomatic Gwilym envied the children the liberty to be enraged. His face an inexpressive mask, he grudgingly led Cynan into the great hall. By the hearth sat the king and queen in their high-backed, carved oak chairs, listening to Hafaidd’s and Marged’s plans for the May Day supper feast. Steward and baron made a peculiar duo as they crossed the hall: Both men were tall, but Gwilym moved with a sleek efficiency of movement in a direct line toward the hearth while Cynan, twice as large in girth, meandered energetically behind him, of a speed with Gwilym but covering far more lateral ground along the way. Hafaidd and Marged, recognizing him, took several steps back from the throne almost in unison; hall servants froze in shock.
“Milady!” he cried joyfully when they approached, before Gwilym could intercept with introductions. “You are a vision of beauty in your sweet Welsh veil!”
The queen turned an unpleasant color and her jaw dropped open. Noble, who had never seen the visitor before, glanced curiously from one to the other. Isabel closed her mouth and pointedly looked away, but she clenched her fists so tightly that her arms shook. Then Gwilym formally presented the grinning visitor and Noble closed his eyes for a moment, calculating how to handle this, enraged. He could imagine the prince of Gwynedd chuckling as he thought of it, and he wished he’d slit Llewelyn’s throat when he’d had the chance. He opened his eyes again to study Cynan—Cynan who was waiting, knowing exactly what Noble was debating and determined not to let the moment ruin his pathologically chipper mood.
“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Your Highness.” He beamed.
Isabel caught the nuance of his comment and corrected him at once. “My husband is a king, Cynan, not a prince,” she said stiffly. “You will address him as Your Majesty.”
“Of course I will.” Cynan smiled, and finally bowed. “Your Majesty.” Noble looked at him unblinking. Cynan met the gaze comfortably, unimpressed.
“You must excuse the chill reception you’re receiving,” Noble said at last. He reached out and took one of his wife’s fists from her lap, rubbed it between his palms to try making her relax it. “We have long memories in Maelienydd and your last visit left a sour taste in everybody’s mouth for introducing us to the concept of betrayal.”
Isabel shuddered. She was almost getting used to these comments, these potential threats, but she wished Gwirion had heard that one so he would understand that she wasn’t hallucinating the danger.
“If you’re worried about loyalty, Your Majesty, you might want to mind your northwest border,” Cynan suggested offhandedly. “Did you know your young Owain ap Ithel is in league with my lord Llewelyn?”
“What?” Noble demanded, stiffening, his own grip tightening around Isabel’s clenched hand.
Cynan grimaced cheerfully, reeking with mock regret. “It seems Owain was quite panicked, having some difficulty feeding troops—yours, apparently—who for some peculiar reason have been visiting a hill fort on his property. His concerned neighbor Huw ap Maredudd mentioned it in passing to my prince, and Llewelyn was pleased to lend Owain some provisions—in fact, I delivered them myself on the way here. Lovely lad, Owain. Not well stocked above the ears, if you’ll excuse me, but your soldiers are very grateful to have their bellies full again.” He smiled at the king, who had gone pale. Cynan raised his voice a little. “You see we’re prospering in Gwynedd under my lord Llewelyn, we’ve grown used to hearty meals when our bellies growl. Even after I paid the fine you levied against me for our silly little misunderstanding, my pantries and cellars were full to bursting through the winter.” He looked around the hall and boomed to all the hovering servants, “Do you like the sound of that?”
“You will not address my people,” Noble snapped from his throne. He released Isabel’s hand, almost throwing it away from himself, and leapt to his feet, barely in control of his mood. “You must excuse our rudeness, we have neglected to offer you proper hospitality. Hafaidd,” he said tightly, and the usher stepped toward them again. “Find someone to wash the baron’s feet. If you will excuse me, Cynan, I need a moment with my councilors.”
“Oh, certainly, Your Highness—”
“Majesty,” the queen corrected, glaring.
“Certainly, Your Majesty, but you haven’t even heard my message yet.”
“Yes I have,” the king said evenly, and gestured with his eyes to Gwilym.
For an hour the senior council met behind the heavy door of Noble’s private audience chamber. Cynan, eternally amused by circumstances, wandered comfortably about the hall affecting interest in the well-being of certain female servants he remembered. Quiet, child-faced Nest had the misfortune of being assigned to wash his feet. Watching her, Isabel was overwhelmed by an uncomfortable combination of guilt and protectiveness, and when Nest had finished her task the queen excused her, and every other female, from the hall. Cynan at once turned his effusiveness entirely on Isabel.
She had never been fond of Efan, but she wished he were out here and not locked away in the audience chamber with Noble. The penteulu was the only man at Cymaron big enough to overpower Cynan; although Cynan had never lifted a hand to her in violence, she felt terrified of him. His breezy chatting distressed her as much as any threat would have, and by the time the audience-room door opened, she was severely dyspeptic.
They filed out somberly: king, steward, penteulu, judge, chaplain. “No bard?” Cynan queried from the middle of the room, and added helpfully, “We have an excess of bards as well in Gwynedd, if you need a good one.”
Ignoring him, Noble crossed to his chair. He gave his wife’s hand a reassuring squeeze, then sat straight-backed and silent, looking abstractedly into thin air. Cynan sauntered through the hall again toward him to resume his friendly conversation, but Gwilym stepped in front of him to stop him. The steward managed to present an officious-looking smile, hardly his natural demeanor. “You will speak to me, sir, not to His Majesty,” he informed Cynan.
“Pardon?” Cynan said, surprised, but made no effort to push past him.
“His Majesty has many appointments to attend to. I will hear your petition in the receiving room and bring it to His Majesty’s attention. Should I find it worth his while.”
Cynan leaned back on one heel and crossed his arms with an appraising grin at Gwilym. “But my message is for the king,” he said.
“If your prince needs to discuss matters directly with my king, he will be welcome to Cymaron at any time. If the matter is trivial enough to send a deputy, my king appoints a deputy as well. I have the honor of that office.” The steward, without shedding his dignity, still looked uncomfortable. This was easily the longest speech he had given to an outsider in his life. “As a messenger of Llewelyn’s, you are of course a welcome guest. Castell Cymaron certainly has the resources and the spirit to embrace you—and then to send you safely back to your very distant home.”
Cynan laughed and asked over Gwilym’s shoulder, “Did you compose this for him, sire?”
Without acknowledging the question, Noble kissed his wife’s hand rather ostentatiously, rose from his chair, and walked through the hall toward the yard, Efan trailing him. “His Majesty does not have time to receive you just now,” Gwilym explained politely. “He is organizing a supply train to his baron Owain’s, now that you have been good enough to bring the message that there is need of it, for which we thank you. Will you speak with me, or would you prefer to tell your prince that my king is pleased to receive him in person?” His voice was uninflected and yet almost timorous.
“I would prefer to tell my master that your master refused to receive me.” Cynan was pleased to hear the king’s footsteps stop abruptly on the threshold at this declaration.
“I am receiving you on His Majesty’s behalf.”
“I wasn’t sent to speak to you.”
“Your posturing is childish,” Isabel said sharply from her chair. From the doorway, Noble gave her a warning look and she pursed her lips angrily but said no more.
Cynan, to nobody’s surprise, would not agree to waste his breath on one he deemed to be subordinate. Nonetheless, before beginning his journey home, he convivially invited himself to dinner, an invitation Noble graciously seconded. Isabel choked back her indignation, understanding her husband’s choice and yet resenting it. The tension of the moment was making her begin to feel genuinely ill. She took Noble aside by the kitchen screens to ask to be excused from the meal for fear of being sick in public. He would not allow it.
“We want to slight him, don’t we?” she argued. “My absence at table surely does that.”
“We want to invalidate him,” Noble corrected her. “Acknowledging that he has the slightest effect on any of us works against us now. You are the Lady of Maelienydd and you will not be cowed, enraged, or in any other way affected by a baron of Llewelyn’s.” He put his hand firmly on her arm and led her to the table.
Dinner was almost unbearable. She couldn’t count, let alone name, the blur of emotions Cynan’s presence provoked in her. Noble placed him with the lower officers at table, a subtle insult Cynan blithely refused to acknowledge. He was boisterously social with the room at large, and Noble in turn was unfailingly civil and charming to him throughout the meal. Isabel, although too shaky to mirror the king’s suavity, forced herself to participate in chitchat. This was at first more to show up her husband than the baron, but Noble’s obvious approval and appreciation calmed her spirit, if not her stomach. By the end of the meal, although she still would have preferred to be almost anywhere else, she sensed that she had carried some of her husband’s burden for him. Even given the warped circumstances, it was reassuring to know that they could work together.
When the ordeal of the repast was behind them the royal couple accompanied their unwelcome, indulged guest outside to the bailey. The silent communal alarm over Cynan’s presence was still in full force and people clustered around the courtyard, waiting for him to appear. Somebody tried to start a rumor that he would shrivel and die in direct daylight.
It was a spring day, still cool but windless and unusually dry and sunny; Isabel wished she had the presence of mind to appreciate it. The king had dismayed her by inviting Cynan to stay through the afternoon and overnight, suggesting that he might like to hear their marvelous harpist play. Cynan said, smilingly, that he was aware of the harpist’s many talents, but he was eager to return to his beautiful, fair Gwynedd and his beloved prince. That was the first moment Isabel realized Gwirion had been absent since Cynan’s arrival. She wondered if he’d heard they had a visitor.
His appearance, moments later, made it clear he hadn’t.
The circumstances of their meeting were so perfect for catastrophe that half the castle workers in the yard were openly choking back hilarity: Just as Noble and Isabel were escorting Cynan down the wide wooden stairs into the bailey, Gwirion, doing the huntsman a favor, was exiting the kitchen carrying a large wooden pail of bloody meat scraps for the dogs. He stopped short when he saw Cynan and even took a small step backward, gaping. Everyone watched him, fascinated to see what he would do. He did nothing. He stared at the visitor without expression but unblinking, saying nothing, doing nothing. Cynan grinned and waved. Gwirion did not respond.
“We have a visitor,” Noble called out unnecessarily. “An old friend of yours, to whom you owe your recent popularity. Why don’t you come to greet him.”
Gwirion, with difficulty, collected himself. He took a step toward them and Noble added, dryly, “Without the bucket, Gwirion.”
Gwirion’s eyes glanced from Noble to Cynan and back again. He began to lower the pail of meat slops. Then he looked between them at the queen and stopped lowering it. “Her Majesty is not well,” he said with genuine concern, barely hiding how distressed he really was by her appearance.
“Her Majesty is absolutely fine,” Noble said in a voice of deliberate offhandedness. “As are we all.” His expression explained the entire situation to Gwirion as plainly as spoken words would have—especially the fact that Gwirion was not, under any circumstances, to misbehave.
“Christ, sire,” Gwirion urged. “Let her go. She looks as if she might vomit on him.”
“You’re mistaken, Gwirion,” the king said serenely. He turned to the baron. “We have so enjoyed your appearance, however brief. Do accompany your prince when he has the leisure for a visit. Are your horses ready? Put the bucket down, Gwirion.”
Gwirion glanced briefly at the bucket as if he hadn’t realized he was holding it. “Sire, are you implying I’d dump this gore all over him, simply because he’s deserving of abuse? What do you take me for, a fool?”
“There is no license for fools today, Gwirion,” the king said in a slightly strained voice.
Gwirion mused thoughtfully. “What about avenging angels?”
What happened next seemed physically impossible, but Gwirion did it. Still holding the bucket, he continued walking toward them, then tripped so elaborately that he either flipped or turned a handless cartwheel—nobody was ever certain which—and landed on his feet much closer to the three of them, the gory contents of the pail miraculously in place. There had been a collective gasp when the trick began, and then nervous laughter when he seemed to right himself. And then, in another move nobody ever quite deciphered, Gwirion himself was suddenly, spectacularly, wearing the contents of the bucket. Fat trimmings, gristle, stringy bits of rabbit flesh, and bloody juice covered his hair, his face, his tunic, his legs, and splattered onto the paving stones around him. It was somehow not so much gruesome as farcically outrageous, and Isabel almost started laughing from sheer nervousness. Instinctively she backed away from the three men.
“Oh, dear,” Gwirion said quietly, blinking in the sunlight he’d just cartwheeled into and using a gory hand to wipe at his gory face. “I’ve made a mess of it.”
He avoided Noble’s outraged, killing glare and began, apparently, to seek something with which to wipe his face clean. The king immediately stepped in front of Cynan, but Gwirion nimbly veered around him and went straight for the long side-split skirt of Cynan’s riding tunic. Grimacing, the baron pulled away, but Gwirion held tight and kneaded the smooth blue silk with his bloodied hands, then lowered his face to wipe it clean on the skirt panel. He had not actually gotten that much gore on it, so he blew his nose into it as well. Cynan tried in startled disgust to shunt him off, but Gwirion calmly grabbed the loose hem of his sleeve and coughed into it fluidly, leaving gobs of sputum, while everybody stood watching in stunned silence. “I suppose I ought to change before this dries on me,” Gwirion said matter-of-factly, and trotted back into the kitchen dripping meat juice.
The king, using every jot of self-discipline to control his own fury, turned to Cynan with a forced smile. “You must forgive Gwirion, he’s terribly clumsy, he’s forever bumping into things.”
Cynan’s gaiety was replaced by a sour sneer. “I see.” He nodded. “That would explain why the queen’s gown was so askew after we’d shut them up alone together.”
Noble’s knife was at Cynan’s throat almost before he’d finished speaking. The king threw an arm around the larger man, a violent, mocking gesture of camaraderie, although his face was a mask of calm. “Rephrase that statement.”
Cynan glanced down at the knife, his humor instantly restored, delighted that he’d unnerved his host.
“If you don’t rephrase that statement, I will give my good friend Gwirion the pleasure of opening your well-fed midriff,” Noble informed him sternly. “You slander him and you slander the woman he risked his own welfare to protect.” Cynan said nothing, just kept grinning down at the gleaming blade. “Gwirion!” Noble called out, and several of the servants near the kitchen excitedly went in to search for him.
Cynan sighed. “The light was dim,” he said in a voice of concession. “Perhaps her gown was not askew.”
“That’s not enough,” Noble said, and pressed the knife into his flesh.
Cynan gave a grunt of pain. “Her gown was definitely not askew. Her gown has never been askew.”
Noble pulled the knife away and avoided looking at his wife, who had first blushed and then turned very pale. He shoved the blade back through his belt and slipped one arm around her shoulders with a private grimace, pulling her away from Cynan. He looked at their guest with a smile that was little more than a lifting of his upper lip. “I’m so glad we cleared up that misunderstanding,” he said in a voice lifeless with civility.
He kept his arm around her even when she was revived, offering Cynan the picture of marital and state stability. Finally, after more supercilious ceremony than Noble engaged in when he really was sorry to see a guest depart, the baron was gone.
In silence, the king led the queen back into the hall, where Gwirion, cleansed and changed into one of his other cast-off tunics, was seated calmly by the fire tuning his harp. His hair was wet, and he had managed to steal some of the queen’s rosewater so he smelled unusually floral; otherwise there was no evidence he had done anything this morning but rise from bed, get dressed, and settle into his usual routine.
The royal couple took their seats, which had been moved near the hearth across from Gwirion. There was a tension to the quiet: the deceptive, heavy calm before a storm breaks.
Gwirion nonchalantly sounded one string against its neighbor. “Is Her Majesty feeling any better?” he queried innocently.
She opened her mouth to answer him but Noble cut her off. “Yes, thank you, she’s much improved. We established the source of her unease and she is now recovering from it.”
“And what was that?” asked Gwirion, smirking into his harp. “An ugly visitor? A rude visitor? A villainous visitor?”
“Oh, no,” Noble said pleasantly. “It was much more domestic. Her gown has been askew.”