She shakes her head. "There is no insult you can offer them worse than what I did and have done. I can only say I recognize the impulse to give up. If what I had found had been different..."

She looks down.

"They were gone. And I had to rule Drearburh, alone. I knew if word got out, I'd be married off to some son of the Third or daughter of the Fifth and in a generation... there would be no Ninth."