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S he knew the hills to the northwest were Aderinyth, and she felt a nervous fluttering under her skin every moment as she rode past them.

She did not look in their direction, keeping her eyes fixed on the spot between the mule’s ears and trying not to hear the other travelers talk about it – how the terrain made attack so difficult that it had protected the place for years, how it was famed for the falcons and hawks that nested there, how its prince was newly returned.

It took a full day of travel until the hills began to fade from sight.

Suddenly panicked at the thought that she would otherwise never see it, she turned at the last moment.

There were too many shades of green to count, and the evening light fell on shifting mists that clung to the high peaks.

She looked for a glimmer of water high in the hills, remembering the lake where he had gone with his brothers to find the fairy queen, but saw only a falcon that soared out of the mists.

Her heart gave a painful throb at the sight.

Even in that one glance, it was easy to see why he had longed for this place so deeply, and for so long. It was easy to see why he would do anything to return.

When there was no more to be seen, she turned her attention back to the road.

She was not truly needed to guard this party.

The men who did this work regularly for Lord Robert were more experienced and knew the road and its dangers far better than she ever could.

They were efficient and courteous and – after a man twice her size had put a hand low on her back and she cut off half his mustache with a flick of her wrist – they left her alone.

Fortunately that was the most trouble there had been on this journey.

At Whitting she had gone to Lord Robert, not even questioning why, only knowing that it would be a comfort just to be near him.

He was looking out at the site where they were building a storage place for the wine, and she watched the progress with him.

She thought of the time when he had wiped her tears and soothed her by telling her how a good wine was made.

His was the only idle talk that she ever welcomed, because his voice was so warm and kind.

But he did not speak idly that day. He had asked if she would return to Morency.

He and Lady Eluned would go to their own home at Dinwen, and though she knew she was welcome there, it caused a searing pain to imagine herself in Wales. Yet the thought of going back to Morency made her want to weep, for no reason she could name.

“I know not where to go,” she had answered. “If it would please my lord, I could stay here at Whitting.” She could bide here through days and nights without number, just as he had asked her. She could haunt the place, useless and silent and solitary.

But Lord Robert knew her well enough to say, “It would please me to give you a task that I would trust to no other.”

He told her that the wine was arrived from his lands in France and would be delivered to the buyers, who were in many places throughout England.

In Lincoln, the carts would be emptied of casks and filled with wool to be taken to Burgundy.

They would also carry Elias ben Joseph and his family, did they choose to come.

Lord Robert trusted his men with wine and wool, but to guard and care for a family was different.

“I know you will see them safe out of Lincoln,” he said.

Could he know how she dreaded that place?

Had he sent here there deliberately, to force her out of her listlessness?

She would never know. Her only certainty was that she could not refuse him any request, no matter how difficult, so she agreed to it.

He said she could even accompany the party all the way to Basel, if she wished.

It was not necessary, but perhaps she would like to see more of the world.

As she turned to go and prepare herself for the journey, he said, “With time it will fade, Nan. The heartache. It will become more bearable.”

She stared at his profile, her breath short. “My heart does not ache,” she lied, because he had no right to speak of it. Because he could not know what it was like.

“Your pardon,” he murmured. She had not thought it was possible to feel worse, but his kindness made her wretched. “When I was young I loved a lady who was far above me. My heart did ache to lose her. I have thought it is much the same for you.”

She looked at the lines around his eyes, evidence of a thousand smiles, and tried to imagine him heartbroken for any woman who was not Lady Eluned. It seemed impossible. Yet he had married her only six years ago, which meant he must have spent many years in heartbreak.

“Was there no comfort for you?” she asked him.

“Only the knowledge that if she had abandoned all to be with me, many more were like to have suffered.” He had looked at her then, kind eyes and a sad smile.

“In truth, I cared naught for any suffering but my own, for that is the nature of heartbreak. Yet did it comfort me to know it was not lack of love that kept us apart.”

She wanted to ask him how long it would be until the pain was bearable.

Or how he knew the lady had truly loved him, if she had given him up.

Or if he had felt a terrible anger, as she did, to be left behind.

But she only looked at him and kept the words locked up inside of her, where they would burn for the rest of her days.

“It was my idea to send you to Morency, you know.” She blinked at him, startled.

“I told you once, that I did think my lady wife wished you to be a true friend, and not her servant. I knew if you did not leave her side and make your own way, you might never let yourself be her equal. And because she thought it best for you, she put aside her sorrow and bade you go.”

Nan knew she could never bring herself to call Lady Eluned her friend, though she was that and more. Friend and mother and savior, her protector and her confidante. “Never could I be equal to so great a lady,” she said.

He smiled fondly at her. “Already are you her equal. You have only to believe it, and you will be as great as she.”

Perhaps it was true. But it could not make her a lady.

Soon after, she had left to meet the baggage train, ignoring Robin’s request to accompany him first to Morency and then go on to Lincoln from there.

She was too eager to be among people who had not known the Welshman, to have a purpose to her days again, to spend her time on the alert with a knife in hand, ready for something.

Anything. So she had passed the summer guarding carts of wine barrels from one town to another.

It felt strange to use the main roads, after so many months of disregarding them, but she grew accustomed.

They must pass some days in Lincoln, so she went to Wragby to see how Aunt Mary fared.

She spent a day in cleaning again, and cooking, and refusing to take the mule back with her.

“I have no use for him, Aunt Mary,” she insisted.

She endured the questions about her fine Welshman – where was he, and was it true he beat a man at the market?

Nan said only that he had gone home, and then ignored the questions about her sister.

She made sure to avoid the southern road, and Bargate.

Even to think of the woman who had once been her sister hurt, but she found she was accustomed to hurt.

In Lincoln she tried to avoid the falconer’s home entirely.

But she must be sure little Cecilia was well.

She braced herself when she went to the door, but the falconer and his wife were not at home.

The girl was thriving, so happy and smiling that she seemed a different person entirely.

When she offered a plate of stew to Nan, proud that she had made it herself, her face shining, Nan shocked herself by bursting into tears.

Poor Cecilia – no, her name was Erma now, it had always been Erma.

The girl could not know that it was little Bea that had appeared in Nan’s mind.

Bea as she might have been. Bea as she never would be, because wishes were nothing against the cruel realities of the world.

There was no trouble for Elias and his family when they left.

They brought little with them, having sold nearly everything.

Nan had to turn away from the sight of him as they left the house that his grandfather’s grandfather had built.

The look on him was one of such grief that it felt wrong to witness it.

It had been his home, his children’s home, his father’s home – and he must leave it, knowing he would likely never see it again. This was hiraeth being born.

Every night since, she had lain awake and thought of it.

It made her understand the choice the Welshman had made, and took the sharpest edge off her anger.

She had never had a home, not truly. As a child, her family had moved from place to place with the seasons, rarely the same village twice.

There was no place she could call her own, and there never had been.

Her heart dwelled in the people she loved.

And if she had been forced to choose between keeping them safe and being with him, would she have chosen any differently than he had?

As the mountains surrounding Aderinyth diminished into the distance, she made herself imagine him not as her Welshman, but as their prince.

Like the mountains that protected his land, he was the only thing that stood between the people, powerless and vulnerable, and the might of Norman lords who would take all that they could.

He had been starving with a well-fed falcon on his wrist, because the great were not ruled – could not be ruled – by their own selfish desires.

He had always been a great lord. She had wanted him to be less than he was, only so she could have him.