Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,54

help,” I stammer, “if you’d let it.”

“My lackwit cousin is running my inheritance into ruin. My father crouches like a whipped hound before the English king. Here I am, apparently the only one who sees what must be done and has the stones to do it, expected to fill my days with useless horseshit while my birthright slips away a little more each godforsaken hour. If that’s not enough, you’re out here clutching at my hem before all these men and begrudging me a little harmless play.”

I was ready to withdraw. Smile big, kiss his cheek, let him save face in front of his foster teulu and let them watch me walk away. Instead I bark a harsh laugh. “So it’s hard, is it? Being under someone else’s roof when you’d rather be home? Expectations you don’t know what to do with? Always on tiptoe, never at ease? And never is it far from your mind that your full belly and warm back depend on the goodwill of one man?”

Owain frowns, cocks his head.

But Einion penteulu sighs like a bellows. “Christ Jesus, lass. That was years ago. Besides, it’s not like you didn’t come out of it well.”

Cormac makes the whipcrack noise-gesture, slow and taunting, and as the rest of them laugh, Owain lets go of my arm and rejoins the flickerlit circle.

“Go inside.” He puts his back to me. “There’s no place for you here.”

I go inside. There’s little else to do.

I don’t sleep, though. I lie fully clothed beneath the covers, trembling. One misplaced word from months ago and here I am, still playing house. Waiting in bed, like a proper wife.

For three years now I’ve spun falsehoods and told myself they were for Owain ap Cadwgan. I should know lies for what they are. How the most tempting of them glitter and shine. How easy it is to believe when you have every reason to want it so.

The pallet shifts like someone is leaning against it. Nest’s whisper glides through the dark. “Are you awake?”

I could say nothing. Pretend to sleep. Heaven knows Nest did enough of that in the last few months. Only I am alone, and nothing will ever be ordinary. “Yes.”

“Can I stay a while? They’ve gone . . . out.”

I throw the bedclothes back, and she slides in beside me. She presses her shoulder against mine as if we really were cousins and sharing space in the maidens’ quarters. Like Margred and I sometimes did for hours at a stretch on lazy afternoons, just like sisters, she’d say, with the cozy delight of someone who had none by birth. She’d whisper what to a child passed for secrets, and my whole heart would hurt at how innocent some girls get to be.

At last I whisper, “You were right. It is just a playact. A misspeaking. I’m a fool for thinking it anything more. It should have worked, though. With the right idea in his ear . . . but he’s no different than he is at home. If anything, he’s worse.”

“He’s no different,” Nest replies. “You are.”

Drunk or sober, Owain speaks of little now but going home. How it’ll be. His warband recalled. His cousin slain. His father shown up and proved wrong. His birthright secured and everything just as it was. Just as it should be.

Which means every holiday will look like Christmas at Aberaeron. Isabel’s cruel smile and Cadwgan’s sidelong disdain. Easter and Michaelmas, Whitsuntide and Candlemas. Every fort like the one before, only Margred will never be there. She’ll refuse to come near the man who killed her brother, even for me. She will grow up and take her place among the wives who ignore me, and in fort after fort I’ll spin quietly in some dim corner and wait alone for Owain to come back, grinning and blood-spattered and loaded down with plunder while men like Gerald of Windsor wait for him deep in the greenwood. If I’m lucky, if my playact holds, back will come Owain ap Cadwgan to wherever he’s decided there is a place for me. He’ll slip some shiny thing over my wrist, still warm from the girl it was taken from, and he’ll grin like a wolf and pass the meat and take me to bed and bloody well praise himself for what a good man he is.

“I’m leaving on the morrow.” Nest speaks low. “I’d still have you come with me. My children love you, and that makes you part of my family.