Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,40
where to find the high king, what we’ll do if Cadwgan’s old brother in arms has no welcome for us. But after we traded the horses Owain “obtained” from his father to pay our passage, Einion penteulu tried asking how long we’d be away, and Owain told him to shut his gob or draw his blade.
So now we all leave Owain be and let him growl about what a bastard his father is, how ill his cousin Madog ap Rhirid served him, how the English king and Gerald of Windsor could do very improbable things to each other. It’s safer that way, even though betimes it’s hard not to remind Owain that he’d be raiding and plundering quite merrily had he not abducted the wife of the lord of Dyfed for pure vengeance, or had he given her back when offered the chance.
THE SEA IS GRAY AND JAGGEDY. IT’S LOVELY IN THE way of bleak things. The sails rattle overhead, and the wind tugs at my cloak. Everything smells so clean and wind-raked, nothing like the stale harbor behind us or the worrisome damp of brackish wood beneath.
Owain, Rhys, and Einion penteulu spend most of their time at the rail studying the water as if they know a damn thing about it. Nest stays folded in a hollow between two crates of something pungent. Her hood falls heavy over her forehead and her body curls itself into shadows. All I can see of her is a slant of pale cheek slashed by a loose strand of hair.
The day passes slow, but when it’s getting toward evening, I put together some cheese and meat for us all from our rucksack of stale provisions. Owain, Rhys, and Einion penteulu take theirs with muttered thanks. I’ve saved the best portion, even though I don’t expect Nest to eat it. I kneel at her side and touch her shoulder. Her hood shudders and there’s a muffled sob. I slip the food in my apron, edge myself into the hollow beside her, and draw her close like she’s one of the children. Nest sobs again, chokes, presses both hands against her eyes.
“Damn him,” she mutters. “This was the one thing. I wasn’t going to give him this, too.”
“You’re not. Owain’s clear over there. I won’t tell.” I squeeze her shoulders in a way I mean to be playful and reassuring, but Nest goes still and tense under my arm.
“I should . . . thank you. While I can. For everything you’ve done for my children. I was . . . not at my best. You just did for them. Now they love you.”
I told them I’d be back. William must worry that the enemy got me. Not Miv will peek under blankets like a game of where-is-baby. David may never be better again.
“There’s just one thing I need to know.” Nest picks at her fraying sleeve. “Did you really enjoy their company? Or were you just doing as he told you?”
I stiffen. “Saints, that you can even ask me that.”
“That first day. When we . . . arrived. The look on your face.”
Little hands. That milk smell. I couldn’t. But Owain turned away like there was no chance I’d do anything else. Left them to me so he could sort out the rest of the plunder. The little weh-weh-weh was a tiny sound in the chaos of the courtyard and yet louder than anything else. Nest cringing whenever he spoke, wrung out like a rag but with her baby safe against her heart and not left in a cradle in some corner to burn.
“I didn’t want to love them,” I reply to my hands, “but I do.”
Nest leans close. “Who’s Miv?”
I choke. No one has said her name in — in —
“Your . . . baby?” Nest whispers, and her eyes go to the rail, to the back of Owain ap Cadwgan cut harsh against the endless sky.
It’s been three summers now. There was a time when I lived in terror of the thought of a baby and another when I was sure it would solve everything, but both were times when I actually believed it possible.
“Elen?”
Owain doesn’t think on it at all.
“That day in the kitchen you asked me what I wanted. She’s what I want.” I scrub at my tears. “I want my sister back. Both my sisters. I want it all back and it’s never coming back. Not my home. Not my parents. Not anything.”
Nest pulls me under her arm and I