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“To the pass?” Rhys shrugged. “I would hope to arrive before—”

A commotion amongst the men to his right caught his attention. With a frown, he stopped. Someone had knocked a full quiver of arrows to the ground, and rather than pick them up, he had continued forward, barreling through the milling men and horses toward Rhys and Gwilym. A few of the men standing near the spill called him back, but he ignored them, and Rhys felt his exasperation mount. What was the blunderer thinking? They couldn’t afford to lose arrows beneath the hooves of all these horses.

“Master Rhys.” Panting, the man bent low to catch his breath.

Rhys reached forward and tossed back the man’s wet hood, exposing his red hair. “Alun.” Quite apart from the fact that the young guide was supposed to be in Llanrwst, Rhys was shocked that someone who had been so helpful to him in the past would show such discourtesy to the other men. “What was the meaning of that disrespectful behavior?”

Chagrin colored Alun’s cheeks. “Forgive me, Marshal. I meant no disrespect. The . . . the woman told me it was imperative that I find you before you left.”

“The woman? What woman?”

“The one who came to the chapel asking for you, sir.” He pointed back toward the longhouse. “She’s waiting over there.”

Rhys stared at him in incredulity. “You brought a woman to the camp?”

Alun swallowed hard and took a small step back. “Yes, sir, Marshal Rhys. She . . . she said it was a matter of life and death. That she had information for you about King Henry.”

“Did she give you a name?” Gwilym asked.

“No, Marshal Gwilym. Only that she was come from Beaumaris and is a friend to Marshal Rhys.”

Catrin. Rhys’s gaze instantly shifted to the longhouse. Surely she would not dare come here herself. But who else could it be?

Gwilym glanced at him, his face grim. “How would she know to come here?”

Rhys ignored him. “This woman,” he said, his chest starting to pound uncomfortably. “How is she dressed?”

Alun shrugged. “She wears a black wool cloak. Her gown and shoes seem fine enough, but they are so wet ’tis hard to tell.”

“What of her hair?”

The young guide shifted his feet awkwardly. “I have not seen it, Marshal. She came to me in the darkness of the chapel, and I had her don the black head covering before leading her outside. Her hair has been hidden this whole time.”

“Where is she now?” Gwilym asked.

“I . . . I took her inside the longhouse,” Alun said, his eyes darting anxiously from Gwilym’s stony expression to Rhys’s stunned one. “Nerys is watching her. It seemed better to have her away from the men and their preparations.”

Gwilym muttered something under his breath, but Rhys did not wait long enough to process it. He made straight for the longhouse. The gathering men parted as he marched through them, but he did not spare any of them a single glance.

______________________________

Catrin could not control her shaking. The chill she’d experienced wearing seawater-soaked shoes and a rain-sodden cloak during her ride to Llanrwst had turned to a numbing cold as her guide had led her higher into the mountains. The relentless rain had saturated every layer of her clothing, and with each step the mare had taken upward, the temperature had seemed to lower. No amount of hunching over in the saddle had helped assuage the effects of the brutal storm, and even now, standing inside a structure of some sort and mercifully out of the elements, her shivering continued.

Perhaps it would have helped if she could have moved closer to a fire or taken off the sopping wet hood that covered her head, but her guide had given her strict instructions. She was not to move from the spot where she now stood, and until he had spoken to his superiors, removing the black head covering was out of the question. To ensure her compliance while he was gone, he’d placed someone else to stand watch over her. Catrin did not know who it was, but the occasional shuffle of a foot and shift of a wooden bench told her that her guard remained nearby.

With the hood completely blinding her on their journey, she’d been unable to anticipate the movement of the horse, and as she’d swayed helplessly back and forth over the uneven ground, the nausea initially brought on by the foul-smelling fabric had intensified. She longed to take a deep breath of fresh air almost as much as she wished to be free of the cold, wet cloth against her face.

She’d heard the sound of men’s voices, the clatter of hooves, and the jingle of bridles several minutes before her guide had halted her horse and removed her to this building. It seemed that the gathering outside was large, and Catrin guessed that the Welshmen were on the move. She could only hope she had arrived in time to deliver her warning. If not, her decision to come to this camp had likely put her own life in as much danger as the Tudors would soon face.

A door banged open, and Catrin jumped. Footsteps moved toward her, and she fought to keep herself standing tall. They were a man’s steps, and they stopped immediately before her.

“Remove the hood.” His voice was stern, and she could not be sure she recognized it.

With trembling hands, Catrin took the edge of the black fabric and peeled it off before tossing it to the ground. She blinked against the sudden light, struggling to focus on the face of the man before her. It was Rhys. He was here, and he was whole. Tears of relief pricked her eyes, and her quaking legs wavered. She staggered sideways, and he closed the space between them, placing a steading hand at her elbow.

“Put a chair beside the fire,” he barked at a young woman who was hovering nearby. “And fetch a blanket.”

She ran to do his bidding, dragging a wooden chair from its place in the corner to a position in front of the fire burning in the center of the room, before hurrying away again.