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After a long moment he said, in a voice quiet and even: "You say truth, and you do well to remind me. I am the eldest son of this house at liberty, and I will do my duty as its head. Have I your leave to go and set about it?"
      "That is better," she said grimly, and dismissed him with no greater mark of forgiveness than that, for she was much disturbed, and still angry. Nor did he ask any. He went out as abruptly as he had come, and the back view of him as he passed from dark to bright in the doorway did not look to me either tamed or penitent.

    I saw him again towards dusk, when we brought in the stock. For all must go forward as usual and seem innocent after we were gone. He had chosen a horse for himself with care, and tried its paces about the courtyard, and professing himself but half satisfied, rode it out and round the llys to make certain of his choice. I had been sent out to bring down a flock from the hill grazing, north of Neigwl, and I came out of a fold of the track close to where the road swung away to the north, towards Carnarvon and Aber.
      He was walking his horse up the slope over the grass, away from Neigwl and the sea, and when he came to the road he halted a moment and looked back, motionless in the saddle. Thus, his back being turned to me, he did not see me until the first yearling lambs came down into the corner of his vision, and made him look round. He knew then that I was from the llys. Perhaps he did not know whether I was in the secret, or perhaps he did not care. He looked at me calmly, and did not recognise me, but he knew that he was known, and that I, whoever I might be, was reading his mind.
      That was a strange moment, I cannot forget it. He sat his horse, solitary and grave, examining me with eyes the colour of peat pools in the sun. He had brought away with him nothing at all but the horse, and a cloak slung loosely over his linen tunic. Whatever else was his he had left behind, to be taken or abandoned as others decided, for valuables are valuables, and we were going where we might soon be either in need or living on English bounty. He wheeled his horse and walked it forward deliberately some few paces along the road northwards, his eyes never leaving mine, and suddenly he was satisfied, for he smiled. And I smiled also at being read and blessed, for his confidence was as open and wide as the sky over us.
      He said to me: "You have seen nothing." Confirming not ordering.
      "Nothing," I said.
      "And I know nothing," he said. That, too, I understood. The Lady Senena could
    never be told, nor perhaps would she believe it if any tried to tell her, that the son who would not go with her to England would not send out an alarm after her, either, or betray her intent in any way, having made his own decision yet still allowing her hers. No, it was for me he said it, that I might be satisfied as he was satisfied, and feel no guilt in keeping his secret, as he felt none in keeping hers. And that was no easy way to take, alone, for a boy twelve years old.
      He shook the reins, and dug his heels into the horse's flanks, and was away from me at a canter along the track towards the north. He had ridden much, and rode well, erect and easy, as I would have liked to ride. I watched him until he breasted the next rise and vanished into the dip beyond, and then I took the lambs down to Neigwl, and said never a word to any of that meeting.
      So when the dusk was low enough, and the hour came for our departure, when the sumpter horses were loaded and sent ahead, and the litters for the lady and her children stood ready, and the horses were being led out saddled from the stables, there was great counting of all the heads, and the word began to go round: "Where is Prince Llewelyn? Has anyone seen him?" No one had, since he took out his chosen horse to try its paces. We waited for him more than an hour, and men hunted in every possible and impossible place about the maenol, while the Lady