leave, do you? There are fleeces to roll and wool to comb. They must be ready for the Saint Margaretâs market.â
Iâm already up the greenway and almost in the street when I hear her holler for Gwinny to come take the paddle, and by then itâs too late. Sheâll never find me in the crowd.
Emmaline waits at the gate. A knot of people I donât recognize stand with her. The man has Emmalineâs flax-colored hair. The women are veiled, but one has a sharp face like a wolfhound, and she curls her lip at me and smirks.
âOh, Cecily, I hope you donât mind,â Emmaline says. âMy brother and his wife and our cousin would come with us. And our maids, of course. Itâs too nice out to keep the servants inside all day.â
The maids are elegant girls in plain wimples who stand like statues at a proper distance, hands folded, chins tucked. They hold baskets that smell faintly of bread.
âDo you not have a maid?â Emmaline asks, peering over both my shoulders. âWe can wait for her.â
âHer?â snickers the wolfhound. âA
novi
with a maid? Hardly.â
âNow, cousin, donât be unkind,â Emmaline says cheerfully to the wolfhound. âCecily cannot help it if sheâs new to the Principality. Not everyone has the good fortune to grow up here.â
I breathe deep and harness all my hating. Iâm to be pleasant to Emmaline de Coucy, and that means not taking her wretched cousin down a peg.
âAs a matter of fact, I do have a maid,â I reply, just short of haughtily. âSheâs poorly today. I bade her stay abed.â
Emmaline is all concern. âSummer chills are the worst. Weâll pray for her health. Shall we go, then?â
I nod. Best get it over with. I trudge like a penitent a pace behind them, just in front of the maids.
Without the walls, big spans of green open up. Naught but plots of summer-bright crops stretching out for leagues, all endowed to burgesses. Emmaline directs us across the mill bridge and tells us to follow the river.
Emmalineâs brother is called William, and he is tall and long-limbed with a friendly, crooked smile. He inclines his head politely and asks, âHow do you find Caernarvon?â
âWe found it same as anyone, I reckon,â I reply, a little bewildered. âThe road from Chester that runs along the water.â
The wolfhound snorts. âLackwit. Any fool knows how you
find
it. He means how do you
like
it?â
My whole face is hot and scorchy. I would give anything short of my immortal soul to reply to this viper as she deserves, but Iâm to be pleasant to Emmaline de Coucy.
I turn away from Emmalineâs wretched cousin. To William I choke, âFine. I like it fine.â
William smiles lazily and paws my shoulder like a mother cat. âDonât mind Elizabeth. Sheâs living proof that girls should never learn to read.â
Williamâs wife is called Aline. She narrows her eyes at me and then makes a show of taking Williamâs elbow. Then she glances at Cousin Evilbeth and they trade cruel smiles.
âWeâre almost there.â Emmaline points at a dark smudge ahead. âLook, where those willows are thick.â
I hurry ahead of the others. Aline says something to Evilbeth as I brush past, and they both giggle.
Let the hens cackle. I would put my feet in the water.
Itâs shady beneath the willows, dapply-cool. The river moves slowly here and murmurs over round rocks. Even the air feels lighter, and thereâs a breeze.
All at once Iâm back at Edgeley, splashing in the creek that turned the mill-wheel and held tiny silver fish that girls could catch in their handkerchiefs if they had patience enough.
Itâs just like home.
Then I see them.
Across the stream, half a dozen ragged men in homespun are gathered close like sheep in a storm, their heads bent together.
I freeze.
Theyâre deep in