Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,57

should he think you mean us harm.”

“I’m more than willing to leave you to him.” Rhys matches Nest’s pleasant tone. “She’s the one I was sent to fetch back.” He twitches his fingers at me. Like he might to a reluctant hound.

I link arms with Nest.

“Oh, Christ Jesus. You cannot be here willingly. No.” Rhys’s voice goes faint. “I didn’t believe him. Einion penteulu thinks very little of you. I was sure someone meant Owain harm. Make him vulnerable, then . . .”

I cough a quiet laugh. Right. God forbid I go missing and Owain’s the one to worry about.

“Your loyalty speaks well of you,” Nest says to Rhys, “but you’d best steel your guts to stand before Owain ap Cadwgan with the word that he’ll have to do without a saint now.”

“Oh no, I’ll not.” Rhys replies, but he only speaks to me. “You’re going back to Owain. He will not die because of you. I will not have it.”

Nest folds her arms. “I don’t give half a damn what you’ll have. I do give half a damn what Elen will have. So know this. When we land, my husband will be waiting. Elen and I will go with him. You will cheerfully bid us good health, or I swear before every last one of the saints you will not live to draw your next ten breaths, much less return to Owain ap Cadwgan with this news.”

“We’ll see,” Rhys says quietly, and he nods to the graybeard and takes a seat opposite us. The graybeard grunts and makes a show of toying with his weapon. He’s taking no chances, and I’m glad for it.

Rhys catches my eye and makes the field gesture for betrayed, then stabs a finger toward Ireland growing small and dark in the distance. I look away, not from shame like he’d have it, but to his arm that I healed, and I grit my teeth against tears that make no sense. Betrayed. Rhys has been nearly a year in Owain’s warband. More than enough time to watch and learn, to listen to men he’s desperate to earn a place among. To take in the playact as I spun it out. Of course he thinks I’ve betrayed Owain. It’s that simple to him.

My hands want to make betrayed back at Rhys, but I didn’t heal his wound so he’d owe me something. I hoped for belief and I got it. Expecting anything else from the lads will leave me disappointed every time. Even one so young he has no need of a razor, who’s been given the chance to win his spurs by fetching me back.

Even one who still has the use of both arms because of me.

I hope for fair winds to speed us home. Once we land, I will only ever face forward. If Saint Elen truly has been looking to Owain all these years, she might keep at it for reasons beyond my understanding. If she hasn’t, he’s no worse off than he was the moment ere he kicked in my door.

I gesture stand down, and Rhys snorts and turns away. One of us is going to be left high and dry at the end of this voyage, and I’ve come too far for it to be me.

RHYS STAYS CLOSE. THE SHIP IS THIRTY PACES LONG, and he can hardly sit elsewhere, but it’s clear he does not mean to return to Owain empty-handed. Rhys is broader now, less stringy, but he must know he alone is no match for whatever force Gerald of Windsor will bring to the wharf.

That means he has a different plan.

We awaken one morning to find the ship riding the wind toward a smudge of town, pushed by the morning tide. The cog anchors when it’s still a ways offshore, and sailors ready the rowboat. Nest starts toward it, but the graybeard tells her to wait. She fidgets and stands at the rail as sailors lower the boat and the oarsman rows it toward town.

Nest shades her eyes with one hand, but nothing’s out of the ordinary on the wharves. Just seabirds and masts and gangers at their labor.

Then a crowd beings to gather. Men and horses. Enough to make a warband.

After a long while, the rowboat pulls back across the harbor. The sailor hauls himself on board, tells the captain that everything is in order, and hands the graybeard a heavy leather purse. The graybeard peers inside, then throws three handfuls of silver pennies into a strongbox