Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,3

“Gerald and his bastard Normans know where we are now.”

Owain nods without looking at him. He’s still trembling. Einion pulls several of the lads aside. They dig through their rucksacks and one produces a length of canvas. Owain crouches alone beneath a nearby oak while the lads wrap the body. He looks young of a sudden. Not like a man with almost twenty summers who’s been in the field since four and ten. Not like a king’s son who’s been training with arms since he could hold a sword, always with an eye to borders that would one day be his to defend.

I should go to Owain, kneel beside him, offer something comforting. Not moments ago, there was a death in his family. His most trusted advisor. His brother in everything but blood.

I don’t trust my knees to work properly, though.

It’s one thing to know how Owain and his warband spend their days. Another thing entirely to see how easily something as simple as a journey can go wrong. Another thing besides to swear to him up and down that he has a saint’s protection when every word of it is a lie.

He can die by blade. He can die in a drunken brawl or a fall from his horse or by choking on a chicken bone. He nearly died today, right in front of me, because Saint Elen has made no promises to Owain ap Cadwgan.

None of what I tell him is true.

Three summers ago, I spun this playact out of some choice falsehoods on the thin hope that Owain might believe it worth his while to safeguard me if I had something he wanted. I should not be surprised he took to the idea like a bull to rutting. Not when he’s convinced he can do what he likes, say what he likes, rough up who he likes, take any chances he likes — all because a saint stands over his shoulder and keeps him from harm. Whether he deserves harm or not.

Mayhap Saint Elen is keeping Owain safe in spite of me, or possibly just to spite me. Or it might be that she’s merely watching, amused, to see how my playact turns out. God Almighty sent the saints to listen to us and help us, but why they do anything is a mystery. I can’t command Saint Elen or persuade her, but I can talk to her.

So I do. Head down, knees muddy, throat choked. I pray silently to Saint Elen of the Hosts who built roads throughout the kingdoms of Wales long ago to help armies march to war. The saint whose name I share, who’s listened to me patiently since I was so small that I asked for sweets and ribbons. This prayer is one she knows chapter and verse.

Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.

Thank you for understanding.

If you did save Owain’s life today, thank you most especially for that.

This can’t be the first time Owain’s nearly met his end out here. He’s not wrong when he says that every Norman in Wales would dearly love to cut him to pieces. And more than one Welshman would hold him down. Women, too. The life of someone like Owain ap Cadwgan is a flimsy thing to hang a playact on, but in three years, he has only cuts and bruises to show from hundreds of raids and skirmishes and fights and brawls.

This is the first time I’ve seen it, though. The first time I’ve watched Normans go after him, brutal and single-minded. The first time in a very long while that I thought my playact might fall apart and I’d die at the hands of Owain’s grieving, deceived, and furious warband.

So there must be something to it. Even the smallest word from a saint would be enough to keep Owain safe should the Almighty will it so. At the very least I know Saint Elen is watching. I can’t see her, but there can be no other reason I can climb to my feet right now. No other reason I can move to where Owain is standing alone and take his trembling, blood-smeared hand.

THE SKY IS ALL BUT DARK WHEN WE REACH THE FORT of Aberaeron. I’m wrung out from tensing at every brush-twitch and trying to seem sorrowful for a man I’d see fed to pigs, but time has come, so I call up my miracle face — wise, unruffled, everlasting confident. The lads have leather armor, and I have Saint Elen.

Someone