Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,36

ours.”

Cadwgan’s face goes hard. “Leverage? Merciful Christ, you brought me a liability! Now Gerald gets to go to his good friend, the English king, and play the wronged party all rumpled and sorrowful. No one is looking too hard anymore at who he sends his warband against and whose birthright he’s got his eye on. That’s your doing, son. Now men see only your one act, not all of his.”

“Da —”

“Now you’ve come to me,” Cadwgan goes on, slow, drawling, “to pull your bacon out of the fire. Me, who’s been crossing steel with Normans since before you were born. Who expanded his kingdom and held it against the English king’s efforts to put Norman lords in every district when you were still playing with toy swords.”

Owain looks ready to throw knuckles or sob, and either would be disastrous. Nest is fighting a smile.

“I’ll go to the English king’s representatives on your behalf,” Cadwgan tells Owain, “and see what terms I can manage for this dog’s breakfast. Nest and the children will go back to Gerald and you will take ship immediately for Waterford.”

My hand jerks. Hard. Take ship for what?

“I am not fleeing to Ireland like a frightened child,” Owain snaps.

Cadwgan collars Owain across the shoulders rough but fond, like he might a warbander. “Lad, this is the way it’s done. There’s no shame in it. Hell, I did it myself once upon a time.”

“Take your hand off me, Da,” Owain says, low and ominous.

I can’t tell Owain that Saint Elen said to shut his big foolish mouth and take his medicine. That if this is Cadwgan ap Bleddyn’s price, Owain is getting a bargain by half.

Cadwgan leaves his arm around Owain’s shoulder for a very long moment so the hall can see him do it, then he pulls away and turns to Nest. “I’ll have men I trust personally escort you and your children homeward, my lady. You’ll leave at first light on the morrow. I . . . realize it’s probably meaningless, but I’d have you know this was never meant to happen.”

Nest snorts quietly, then at length looks Cadwgan in the eye and says, “Thank you.”

“And you.” Cadwgan aims his meat knife at Owain. “You will sail to Ireland in the first ship that’ll take you. You will find the king of Munster — no, he’s the high king now — and with my compliments you will give him that dagger with the ruby in the hilt and that silver bird-head cloak pin. Muirchertach Ua Briain is an ally and a friend, and you will not cause him a single moment of grief. You will also not put one foot anywhere in Wales until I bid you. Clear?”

Owain nods. He’s glaring pure murder at his folded hands.

Ireland. A whole sea between us and the many warbands converging on Owain ap Cadwgan. No one to claim the price on his head. A nice long exile for people to forget Nest was ever dragged barefoot from her bed and kept in hearth corners covered in soot, her children snuffling and cold around her.

Most people, at least. Gerald of Windsor will never forget, much like Owain will not forget what was done to Llywelyn penteulu. Neither will let it lie until one of them is dead. Mayhap not even then.

Cadwgan will see Nest and the little ones safely back to Gerald of Windsor, though. He’ll do it in a way that looks generous. Magnanimous, even.

The little ones will be safe. William with his long silly stories and jokes that don’t make sense, his endlessly bouncing my ball on one knee just like Margred when she has to wait for anything. David and his square of rag, how much he loves my mother’s old stories. Not Miv, her sweet milk smell, her wispy Miv-dark hair, how she perches on my arm without holding on like it’s unthinkable I might let her fall.

They will be home with their mother and father and all the beasts in the byre. They will be a family again, just like the clatter in their dooryard never was.

Cadwgan curtly bids me gone partway through the meal and gives Owain a look that begs him to backtalk, but Owain wisely grits a smile and nods me toward the door. I head straight to the kitchen. If I’m to say farewell properly, it has to be now. There’s to be no comfort, and on the morrow something is sure to keep me from orderly cloak-tying and tucking packets