Mairi said I changed beyond all recognition. I knew she prided herself on that, thinking that her decision to separate me from Rhys and him from me forged a new woman from the child I was. She praised my new dignity, the care I took for my appearance and the attention I gave to our people, listening to their disputes and mediating with the druids and our boundary neighbours.
Even Dafydd, whose turn to religion in the autumn of his life tended to blind him to earthly concerns, claimed I had matured into a worthy Lady for Dwyfor.
I no longer chose to run wild in the fort boundaries, dressed in a boy's breeks and stained jerkin. Instead I wore gowns - practical, working women's dresses from homespun wool for everyday, rich linen dyed a hundred jewel tones for meetings with other princes. I grew my hair long, until it brushed the low curve of my back but I did not let it tangle and matt about my head like a bush. Instead I washed it and brushed it and smoothed it carefully with scented oils until it glistened like a river against the saffron of my dress.
Jewels had always delighted me, from Mairi's bracelet of carved and polished bone to the amethyst cross that was my first undoing. As soon as I left behind my boy's clothes, I was never without some ornament about my person. A carved comb in my hair, pretty stones dangling at my ears.
But of all the jewels, I prized none so much as my mother's green girdle, studded with bronze and copper sigils.
Dafydd gave it into my keeping on the eve of my sixteenth birthday. The distinction was twofold. First, most simply, it marked my coming-of-age. No longer was I a child, under the guardianship of Anglesey. Now I was a woman grown, the Lady of Dwyfor without qualification or restraint.
More than that, much more, was the symbol it conferred upon me. The girdle was more than a simple piece of jewellery. The sigils, crafted in the great Age of Heroes, a thousand years before our time, were sources of powerful magic.
An outsider, wearing the girdle, would have immeasurable strength. He would not tire, no matter how long he went without sleep. No blade could pierce his skin nor could any element be used kill him.
Clasped around the waist of a child of Modron, the girdle ran like a seam of gold through our veins. Within the boundaries of Dwyfor, our magic amplified tenfold. We could manipulate the harvests to bring prosperity to our people, turn the winter storms away from our lands. No stranger with any knowledge of the old ways would dare to threaten our lands while the girdle remained within our green hills.
Walking through our great hall, riding through Dwyfor's hills with the girdle clasped about my waist, I felt closer to our long-dead mother than ever before.
I even felt a match for my brother.
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