Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,26
day that slips by and he can do nothing for her will make him more beast than man. So when he does come, he’ll come raging, heedless, hellbent — and we’ll be ready, the lads and I.”
Owain grins, and I go cold. Gerald of Windsor will be dead, and Nest and the little ones will still be here. Which means no ransom. Which means no rescue. Which means neither Nest nor her children will any longer be worth anything at all to Owain ap Cadwgan.
THE FEAST IS INTO ITS SECOND DAY WHEN THE HALL doors fly open loud enough to echo. The lads are none too steady on their feet after barrels of wine and mead, and Owain actually stumbles over the bench when he rises, dagger in hand. We’re not under attack, though. Attack would be considerably better than Cadwgan ap Bleddyn storming down the aisle, scattering hapless servants and shouting, “Christ Almighty, boy, tell me it’s not true!”
Owain flops back into the king’s chair and stabs up some mutton. “It’s lovely to see you too, Da. So lovely that I’ll forgive the insult of you kicking in the door and coming armed into this house.”
“First of all, it’s my house! I’m not yet dead enough for you to be claiming royal residences beyond a few nights’ lodging! Besides, I’ll be damned if I’ll hear any of your smart mouth right now. Not when you’ve just kicked a hornets’ nest.”
Cadwgan scours the hall. All I’m doing is holding a flagon of wine while David and William cling to the ends of my cloak, but even so, I keep very still. Then he spots Nest in a corner, barefoot, half-dressed in a stained servant’s gown, holding a fussing Not Miv to her shoulder. His mouth falls open and he stammers, “Christ on the Cross. It’s worse than I thought.”
Owain’s face hardens. “Gerald of Windsor pays every day for the death of Llywelyn ap Ifor.”
David tugs on my hem. He holds up his arms, eyes huge. I swing him onto my hip, and he burrows close.
“Son, Llywelyn ap Ifor was a good man, but this war was never meant to satisfy your need for vengeance. You were to leave Dyfed a smoking ruin and undermine whoresons like Gerald of Windsor!”
“I did leave Dyfed a smoking ruin.” Owain grins. “And I’ve been undermining Gerald of Windsor by much more . . . thorough means.”
“You must return Nest to her husband,” Cadwgan growls. “Send her and the children home under safe conduct this afternoon.”
Owain leans back in the massive carved chair. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”
“I think you will.” Cadwgan is fighting for calm. “This is Nest. She is the daughter of a Welsh king of an old and proud lineage. She is the wife of Gerald of Windsor, who holds a province that is right on our southern border for the English king — a man who considers Gerald a very close friend. If that wasn’t enough, she bore the English king a son, for Christ’s sake!”
“From what I hear, that’s true of half the girls in England,” Owain says with a smirk, but I suck in a breath, because if Gerald of Windsor and the English king have a common cause beyond ambitions toward Cadwgan’s realm or outrage at the burning of Dyfed — and if that common cause is a king’s honey-haired daughter both of them have lain with and have sons with — Saint Elen just may have finally lost patience with me and my foolish little playact once and for all.
“How do you think Gerald got to be a friend of the king?” Cadwgan makes a frustrated gesture. “The better Gerald keeps her, the higher the king’s opinion of him. Damn you for a fool!”
“I was overcome by her charm,” Owain replies, expressionless.
Cadwgan sighs impatiently. “If Gerald doesn’t get her back soon, the English king could use this affront as just cause for an invasion. He could force me to submit and accept him as my overlord — or worse, install some Norman freebooter on the make to govern my kingdom. Gilbert fitz Richard de Clare would very much like to be a friend of the king, and he has thirty land-hungry knights at his command who’ve all been promised a piece of your patrimony.”
Killing Gerald of Windsor would have been bad, but men die in raids, and the English king would have ranted a while before pulling another man from obscurity and giving him Dyfed