Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,47
steps into the entrance and holds a tiny glass vessel full of yellow liquid up to the light. Inside, Sadb and Órlaith are standing over Nest’s pallet. Sadb is frowning like my mother would when Rhael or I was down with some fever, and Órlaith is holding a tray piled with meat and bread. Sadb asks the man something, and he takes a tiny sip of the liquid, frowns, swirls what’s left, then shrugs.
Órlaith spots me and approaches. She doesn’t grin and bounce, and of everything wrong in this room, that makes my heart judder. She holds up the untouched food and says, “Your cousin doesn’t eat. My lady is worried.”
Oh saints. That man is a court physician.
I move past Órlaith and hurry toward Nest. Sadb steps aside so I can kneel at her head, but Nest pulls the blanket across her face.
“All I need is one more day of rest.” Nest’s voice is muffled by the wool. “I think I’m getting better. I’m just so tired.”
You’ve been saying that for nearly a month. I bite it back. I don’t want to use words like month. Instead I try, “It’s beautiful out today. We’re going to sit in the sun a while. You should join us.”
“Next time.”
Sadb and the court physician have moved toward the door, but she keeps glancing at Nest as they talk low and urgent. Finally she murmurs something to Órlaith, and the girl dutifully goes to Nest’s side and kneels.
“My lord says . . .” Órlaith frowns thoughtfully, fishing for words. “Nothing in the piss. A woman thing, mayhap. He wouldn’t know what.”
Nest makes no reply, but my guts turn to ice. Órlaith rises with the tray and patters out behind Sadb and the court physician. Once the maidens’ quarters are quiet, I whisper, “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“I’m just tired. You should go. Aoife and Gormlaith are likely waiting.”
I stand up slow. I turn my eyes Heavenward. Then I slip out the door.
Aoife and Gormlaith have spread a blanket on the ground beneath a stand of trees within an easy walk of the fort. By the time I reach them, I’m smiling like nothing’s amiss, but my hands are shaking as I open my rucksack and pull out my spindle. Owain will find out soon. He knows Nest is ill and keeps to her bed. All that’s left is for him to put the pieces together. He will smirk as her belly grows. The icing on his vengeance cake.
“Rawwwwr!” A cloaked figure leaps from the brush and lunges.
Aoife gasps, but Gormlaith snaps something violent and the figure throws back its hood to reveal a grinning young man. His hair is the color of foxes, and it leaps unkempt against the sky like a beacon. I’ve seen him around the hall, lurking in corners, pinching serving girls’ backsides, farting at mass. Gormlaith scolds him roundly enough that I don’t need any Irish to know she’s blistering him, and the lad makes a rude gesture in a good-natured but mocking way. I catch what I’m fairly sure is a name — Cormac.
A handful of Irish lads appear out of the brush behind Cormac, all grinning like hounds. They’re wearing long tunics and raggedy parti-color trews, and none of their cloaks have ever seen the inside of a laundry tub. Owain and Einion penteulu and Rhys are among them. Judging by the way they’re jostling one another, packlike, obnoxious, they’re up to no good, and we’re their latest target.
When Gormlaith stabs a finger in Cormac’s chest, his whole face darkens. He steps close and makes a taunting kissy-face down at her. Gormlaith stumbles back, wrenching her cloak over her chest. Cormac laughs, caustic, and Owain echoes him. The others join in, but Rhys nudges his hair over his eyes as he does it.
We’re all on our feet now. My hand stings. I’m holding my spindle like a knife. Aoife folds her arms and asks something about Niall, haughty, but also the smallest bit hurt.
I frown at Owain. “Where is Niall? Did he not say —?”
“Is that any way to greet your beloved husband?” Owain palms my backside and smacks a noisy kiss on my lips.
“Owain!” I hiss, and he releases me abruptly, moving toward the pack of grinning lackwits who are already withdrawing into the brush they came from.
“What?” he asks, and before I can answer he turns to the lads and makes a whipcrack noise-gesture, and they snicker and jeer like I’ve