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     “After the battle before Caer Fawr, my father asked if you would fight with him.” Peada paused to study Cade’s face. For the first time in Cade’s acquaintance, his look showed no superiority. Instead he appeared apprehensive. “What you may not know is that Oswin’s new army is even larger than the one he threw against us after Caer Fawr. We barely held them off that time. We won’t be able to do it again.”
    Cade took a chair from beside the fire and sat, his eyes never leaving Peada’s face. “After Caer Fawr, your father wouldn’t have held them off at all if not for the stomach sickness that swept through Northumbria. Oswin himself nearly died.”
    Peada made a dismissive motion with his hand, not denying the obvious truth, but not interested in discussing the past. “My father has sent me to ask you again to aid him, even to beg.”
    The last word came out of Peada’s mouth a little unsteadily, as if the very idea of begging was an anathema to him. It would have been to Cade too, so he didn’t begrudge Peada’s reluctance to speak as he had.
    What Peada didn’t know was that Taliesin had told Cade, in one of his rare moments of candor when he gave real advice instead of cryptic warnings, that there was nothing Cade could do for Penda except die among his army. The King of Mercia was doomed, if not this week or this month, then by the end of the year. So was Peada, but not as soon and for a different reason: shortly after the defeat at Caer Fawr, he had married Oswin’s own daughter, and it would be by her hand that he would eventually be brought down.
    Oswin wanted the whole of Saxon England, and he had no qualms whatsoever about doing what he deemed necessary to take it. In fact, he viewed the gift of his daughter to Peada as a sign that Peada was now his servant. In Oswin’s eyes, Mercia was an extension of Northumbria now, and he was marching to war not as one king challenging another, but to bring Peada and Penda to heel.
    In turn, for Cade, refusing to aid Penda wasn’t without consequences: if Cade let Mercia fall to Northumbria, Wales could be next. Of course, if Taliesin was right—and in this Cade would not question him—it was only a matter of time before Mercia fell no matter what Cade did. And if Cade and his men fought and died for a lost cause, there would be nobody left to defend Wales.
    “My father asks, at the very least, if you would be willing to meet with him, uncle to nephew and king to king,” Peada said. “In fact, it would be our preference that you came with me tonight.”
    Cade didn’t actually scoff out loud, but he was unable to keep his disbelief from his voice. “Tonight? You want me to ride with you tonight? To where?”
    “Chester.”
    Chester was a city that had long been a seat of power—first for the ancient Britons; then for the Romans, who’d made it their capitol in the north of Britain; then for the rulers of Rheged during the time of Arthur; and now for the Mercians. Set within the curve of the River Dee on its eastern bank, Chester protected Mercia from incursions across the border from Gwynedd. Cadfael, Rhiann’s father, had coveted the city, but like the men who’d ruled Gwynedd before him, he had never taken it.
    “You want me to ride to Chester only four days from my crowning?”
    Peada’s begging aside, this request alone was enough to show Cade how desperate Penda had become.
    “What better time? Meet him in the morning, and you can ride south to Caer Fawr immediately afterwards.” Peada spoke reasonably enough, but then he followed up his earnest request with a sneer and a scoff. “I know why you chose to accept the crown of the Britons there, but it’s hardly subtle.”
    “It wasn’t meant to be.” His elbow on the arm of his chair and a finger tapping his lips, Cade studied his cousin through a count of five. “It is bold of your father to ask me to walk into the lion’s den.”
    Peada’s face paled. “You know