Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,38

go to Cadwgan if need be.

The yard is mostly empty, growing dark and freezing besides, and I’m halfway across when Rhys falls into step beside me, hooded and dressed for weather. He gestures to a handful of horses standing saddled near the well. Owain appears at the stable door with a groom. They speak briefly, and Owain passes him something round and silver while glancing over his shoulder at the hall.

“Hurry,” mutters Rhys, and he nudges me forward with the arm I healed.

I do as I’m told. Madog and his warband must be closer than anyone thought for us to take horse right now when we should be looking toward supper and bed. Cadwgan will be scrambling too, to set Nest up with an escort home. It’ll go hard for him if he’s not the one to give her and the little ones back to Gerald.

The little ones I just lied to. I’ll not be coming back. Not ever. I could have said farewell. Given them each one last hug.

Owain grins when he sees me and plants a kiss on my forehead. He holds out my rucksack, and I shoulder it as Einion penteulu appears like a ghost, holding the elbow of a cloaked figure I can tell at a glance is Nest just by the way she carries herself.

Surely Cadwgan is not fool enough to bid Owain return Nest and the little ones to Gerald. Even were that so, the children are still in the kitchen and not ready to travel. The rest of the lads are nowhere in sight, and Owain would ride in full force on such an errand. The horses are Cadwgan’s, though. I’d know that bridle tooling anywhere.

“Right then.” Owain steadies the stirrup of a bay mare and smiles at Nest, cold and dangerous. “Up you go.”

“Where are my children?” she asks.

Einion cuts his eyes to Owain and makes the warband field gesture for deception behind Nest’s back. Nest looks from me to Owain, then she buries an elbow in Einion penteulu’s ribs and tries to break away, but Einion has two handfuls of her cloak and she’s pulled up hard, choking, gasping. Owain seizes her wrist and waist, pinning her against him while Rhys draws steel and blocks the view from the hall with his turned back.

“Listen closely,” Owain growls in her ear, “and don’t you dare make a sound. Your brats will be fine. My father will see them returned to your whoreson coward husband, but you are coming with us to Ireland, and I swear before God Almighty and all the saints that I am prepared to make your captivity up to this point seem like paradise should you decide to make trouble.”

I cannot look at Nest. I should have known. I should have at least suspected.

Nest’s indrawn breaths are loud and shaky. At length she nods. A small motion. Small and helpless.

“Now get on that horse,” Owain says, “and be quick about it.”

Nest hoists herself into the saddle all in shudders like a puppet on strings. She takes the reins, and they slide limp like ribbons through her fingers. She doesn’t even flinch when Einion penteulu pulls her hood sharp across her face.

“We’re leaving here easy and slow,” Owain goes on, pulling his own horse about. “No notice. No alarm. No trouble.”

We do. We ride one after another through the yard, out the gate, and into the frigid twilight, and no one pays us any mind. We ride later than we should, till Owain is smacked in the face by low branches once too often and bids us halt and scratch out a camp. While Owain and Einion penteulu whisper-argue about security and visibility and Rhys stands by resigned, waiting to get the worst watch, I guide Nest into a stand of brush and push a field wineskin into her hands. She holds it but doesn’t drink.

“It’s not how you meant it to happen,” I tell her, “but the little ones are away from Owain. Cadwgan has every reason to return them to their father now, and he’ll move Heaven and earth to do it.”

“My babies,” she whispers. “They’ll be so frightened. All alone.”

“You’ll be back with them before you know it,” I say, but Nest merely lowers her head onto her knees, the wineskin dangling from her fingers.

They are safe. They’re together. They’re going home.

I take the wineskin from Nest and drink deep. Even though I did not leave them to save my own skin, even though I left them