‘The princess came to me, a short while ago. She asked me to help her.’
‘Asked you?’
‘It was indeed a measure of her desperation. She … she wanted to know if she would ever give you an heir.’ He draws back a little from me now, his face glum. ‘I sought answers to her question in a vision.’
‘And what did your seeing tell you?’
I hesitate, but I must speak plainly. ‘She will never bear you a child. That part was clear…’
He keeps his voice level, but I know this is a blow for him every bit as painful as the one I have endured. ‘And the other part? You suggest there was more.’
‘I saw men, an army; they were attacking the crannog. They were chasing you. They were relentless. They drove you into the lake…’
He lets go my hand at last. He is quiet for a long time before he asks, ‘This vision foretold my death?’
‘I cannot be sure. There are other ways to read what I saw.’
He gives a mirthless laugh, standing up and pacing around the room. ‘Soldiers hunt me to a watery grave? Such a vision speaks clearly to me.’
‘Which is why you have me to interpret such seeings for you.’ I try to get up, but the pain in my head is so sharp it is as if I have been struck anew. I clutch at the wound. Brynach hurries to my side.
‘You are not yet healed. Do not trouble yourself with…’
‘With your safety?’ I gasp as he lays me back on my bed. ‘It is my purpose, my prince.’
‘And one which I pray you live to fulfill for many years, but that will not be the case if you struggle from your sickbed too soon.’ He attempts a smile. ‘Consider how grumpy that would make Hywel, after all his hard work.’
‘Very well. I would not inflict his temper on you without me to protect you. I will rest a little longer before we talk. But talk we must.’ My efforts to cease his flapping around me like a mother hen are poor. Another thought occurs to me. ‘Have you been seen coming here? Hywel says you stayed with me. Were you not missed?’
‘Seren, when I thought you were … when I feared I would lose you forever, I vowed to any gods who cared to hear me, if you lived I would have us deny each other no longer. I would not keep from you, would not continue my life without you. No matter the gossips and whispers. No matter the disapproval. And I will discover who it was who wished you dead.’
Such a declaration moves me so that I must bite my lip to staunch tears I do not wish him to see. ‘Such behavior might provoke another attack,’ I whisper.
‘You will not be unguarded.’
‘Am I to be bait, then?’
He takes my hand again. This time he lifts it and presses it to his lips. I feel the softness of his kiss and the heat of his breath against my skin. ‘My love. My love. My love,’ is all he says.
The following days and weeks pass in a heady mix of pain, indolence, and delight. Every day my prince comes to my home and sends Hywel away. For a few hours he is mine. If it is daylight we sit by the fire in my house and talk. If it is nighttime we go out and walk beneath the stars. Slowly my head heals and my strength returns. He courts me as if we were carefree youngsters, and always he is respectful, gentle and proper. He kisses my hand, but no more than this.
This evening has a special beauty about it. The snow has gone and there is a smell of spring in the air. We walk under a full moon so bright it casts sharp-edged shadows. I lead Brynach to the lake and show him the perfect double of the moon that floats upon the water on such nights as this. We sit atop a smooth rock that juts out over the lake and peer down to study our own faces, side by side, slick and darkly mirrored on the silky surface.
‘No copy of you can be as wondrous as you truly are,’ he tells me.
‘I think it is a flattering likeness,’ I disagree. ‘The years have been kinder to me in the lake than out here. But it makes you look sorrowful, my prince.’
‘I am only so when I am away from you, my prophet.’
‘You have your princely duties,’ I say, and neither of us will choose to name these.
‘Would that you could be my princess,’ he says suddenly, a bitterness to his voice that I have not heard before. I put my hand on his.
‘Let us not waste our time together wishing for what can never be. I am content.’
‘I am not!’ He throws a stone into the water and our faces are broken to pieces by the disturbance. He stands, still holding my hand, and leads me back from the shore into the cover of the woodland. An owl swoops by as we slip between the trees. Somewhere near a hedgehog snuffles, newly emerged from its winter sleep. Prince Brynach stops when he comes to the shelter of a mossy oak, pulling me to him in a swift movement, finding my mouth with his. His kisses are deep and taste of passion, of want, of longing. For a moment I do not respond, my mind forbidding me, years of trampling my own desire beneath the heavy tread of duty keeping me from expressing my own desire. But my body acts as if cut loose from my control. I feel my need for my prince’s love burning hotter than a fire of oak, and such heat melts my resistance and my reserve.