Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,51

apron, and presses something round and shiny against the graybeard’s fingers. He flips it, squints at it, then bites it. A coin.

Nest just gave silver to a fighting man.

“Yes. About that.” There’s no wavery choke in her voice now. No weak sighing. Her skin is fresh and ruddy. Not sickbed pale. “It’s time you knew.”

“Wait. Wait. You were ill. All these se’ennights. You were . . .” I hold my arms out over my belly, and Nest makes a face like I pissed in her porridge.

“Guh. I know. I’m sorry. I had to let you think it, though. If you didn’t believe, none of the others would.”

My mouth is slowly falling open. She’s been planning this. All those picked-at trays of food. Keeping the bedcovers over her face. Her one complaint — so tired — something no one could challenge her on. Little wonder the court physician could find nothing wrong. Because there is nothing wrong. There never has been.

Now Nest has given money to a man who’s clearly fought in more than one warband, and there’s but one reason she’d do it.

She means to have Owain killed.

There’s nothing to stop her now. Her children are safe. She’s far from anyone who might rescue her. If she hires an assassin, chances are good she’ll be successful. She can kill him and he’ll be dead.

I glance at the hall where Aoife and Gormlaith are likely wondering what’s keeping me, then I gesture for Nest to come behind the kitchen into a patch of ill-smelling shade. I’m too relieved to be angry she lied. I’m more worried about that graybeard and the big knife at his side, how he’s on his home ground and Owain is far from his teulu.

When Nest hesitates, I grab her arm again. My hand closes around something metal. I shove her sleeve up, and there’s the bracelet Owain gave me. The one that was Nest’s, from her father.

“You stole that from me!” I never wanted the bracelet at all, but she went through my things. The few things that are mine.

“I only borrowed it. I was going to give it back.”

“How?” I square up like one of the lads. “That’s not how these things work, you know. Once you pay a man to do a job, he tends to keep what you give him.”

“Lower your voice!” she hisses. “It’s not what you think.”

“Look. Surely we’ll be back in Wales soon.” I’m fighting for calm. “Cadwgan is sure to send for Owain any day, either to move against Madog or because this whole thing has been settled. Then Cadwgan will see to it that you’re back with your little ones like he promised. They’ve got to be missing you to bits.”

Nest’s face goes hard. “Owain ap Cadwgan is never going to let me go. You know that, don’t you?”

There was no reason to bring Nest with us into exile. No reason but one: Cadwgan demanded that Owain release her to Gerald. In public. In front of everyone. That moment alone would have been enough, but Owain still has one eye to vengeance that can’t be had without her. I nod miserably.

“God knows my husband can do little for me while I’m in Ireland. He might not even know where I am, or if I’m alive.” Nest sighs, long and shuddery. “That means I must look to myself if I want to get clear of Owain ap Cadwgan.”

“Get clear of — you’re not planning to have him killed?”

Nest cracks a grim smile. “Tempting. But no. Too risky, and it won’t get me what I want.”

“Your babies,” I whisper, and she chokes on a buried sob.

“That graybeard with the scar? He fought for my father in one of his hired armies. He agreed to see me home out of respect for my father’s memory and for a big reward of silver that my husband will trip over himself to provide. That’s why I had need of your bracelet. As proof of my blood. But here.”

Nest fumbles it off her wrist, and I will not think of my father, who never in his whole life had two coins to rub together, as I push it back into her hands. “Just don’t let Owain see it.”

She drops it into her apron and holds a hand against it. “I’d get you clear, too. I’d have you come with me. Mayhap you can’t have back what Owain ap Cadwgan and his lot took from you, but you can have a family — mine. It