The grass was already beginning to grow and thicken upon the burial mound which would soon look like her mother's grave. As if it had been there for a hundred centuries. As if there was nothing beneath the mound at all but the earth itself. She felt a tear begin to slide down her cheek and impatiently brushed it away. She had not cried at her father's demise. Tears were for weaklings, and she could not be weak like other women. Other women did not have the responsibility of a large, productive estate that must be kept safe for its boy heir. Other women did not have the liability for the safety of that little brother or three sisters.

"Father," Wynne said aloud. " 'Tis a hard task you have left me," and then she sighed deeply.

Owain ap Llywelyn had been a tall, handsome man in the prime of his life. Although he held one of the richest estates in all of Morgannwg, there was none who begrudged him it, even the king, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, his distant cousin. In warlike Wales he was regarded as a man of peace, although Owain ap Llywelyn had been known to pick up his sword when the occasion merited it. Still, he preferred his lands and his cattle; his wife and his family, above all else; and he would do nought to jeopardize those things.

For his entire life Owain ap Llywelyn had been considered fortunate in all things. At the age of twenty-two he had taken to wife a girl considered the greatest beauty in all of Wales; Margiad, called the Pearl. She had given him four daughters and a son before dying in childbirth; but even so, Owain ap Llywelyn was still thought to be a lucky man. His children were all healthy, and he could certainly marry again. He was considered a prime catch; but Owain did not remarry. He had loved his wife greatly, and mourned her loss deeply. Those who knew Owain ap Llywelyn best noticed that he did not laugh quite as easily, or as frequently after Margiad's death. He named the daughter she had died birthing Mair, which meant