Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,7
trifling moments near Owain’s warband does well to realize how untrue it is.
But Owain sets down his mug and turns, slow and deliberate, to face his cousin. In a brittle-calm voice he says, “Tell me that you did not just have the stones to suggest in the public of my father’s hall that you of all men should even be considered to replace the likes of Llywelyn ap Ifor as the chief of my warband.”
“Come now, Owain, no disrespect intended, but it’s plain obvious you need a penteulu, and I’m the best choice.”
“He was a brother to me,” Owain says in small, sharp words, “and his body is barely cold and bleeding all over the floor of my father’s chapel and we are at a Christmas feast and I am a guest here or so help me God I would make your mother weep to look upon you.”
Madog scowls. “Christ. Just trying to lift your spirits. I thought it would ease your mind to have a good penteulu when we sack Dyfed.”
“I have not yet decided who will follow my friend as penteulu. I’m eating my meat and enjoying the company — some of it, anyway. There’ll be time enough for such things later.”
If Madog is at Owain’s right hand, organizing drills in the yard of whatever fort we’re staying in and imposing marching orders and offering counsel and sorting out disputes, I’ll see so much more of Margred. Not just on holy days and at weddings and burials, but at informal gatherings, too. We’ll be all but kin. I’ll be the voice in her ear as she’s eating with the grown-ups in the hall, handing her toys instead of rosewater and keeping her running up and down a ball court for as long as I can, and one day years and years from now, she’ll be one of the wives who’ll let me stay and sit and spin and simply be.
Madog is not my favorite of Owain’s kin, but he’s right about one thing. He is the best choice for penteulu. None of Owain’s brothers by blood are old enough, and no other male relations are ready or trustworthy. He’s got to be wrong about the other, though. They can’t be raiding Dyfed. That province is armed to the teeth and bristling with castles and crawling with Normans who’ve come from England for no other reason than to take land from men like Cadwgan ap Bleddyn. Even a ruthless warband would soon be run to ground.
“You’d best not take too much time.” Madog’s face is scarlet, and he hunches over his mug of mead. Owain doesn’t hear him, though. Cadwgan has taken his seat, and the two of them are discussing something in growls. Me sitting here, like as not, and I brace for the argument that will doubtless get mean in a hurry.
But I hear only names of people who aren’t me and places to be won or lost. It’s nothing I haven’t heard a thousand times, but with different names and different places. Cadwgan’s enemies and allies turn their cloaks one way or another depending on the day or the se’ennight or the month, depending on who ambushes whose fort and who castrates who, and he does the same to them. Someone may be an enemy now, but by Easter he may be attacking someone else on Cadwgan’s behalf. Or the other way around. Or Cadwgan may set them both on a third enemy he hasn’t even made yet.
I’ve never been happier to be overlooked. It’ll give me a chance to approach Isabel once more, since she’s taken her seat on Cadwgan’s other side. She’s chattering cheerfully to the woman next to her, pointing to her guest’s necklet and running an admiring hand down her gown sleeve. When Isabel pauses to take a sip of wine, I catch her eye and smile. I’m trying to thank her for what she did earlier, and with Owain and Cadwgan between us discussing raids, it’s the perfect chance to point out something we share. You know men — ignoring us to speak of bloodshed.
But Isabel does not return my smile. She lifts one brow and deliberately turns back to her guest, cups her hand over the woman’s ear, and begins to whisper. The nasty sow grins and darts her eyes to me before snickering like I just stepped in something.
Oh saints. I’ve misjudged all this. Badly.
Isabel is not an outsider. She never has been. She’s the wife of the king