Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,70

well. In another year he’ll be someone else. A fighting man I’d hardly recognize.

Today, though, we’re walking at elbows toward Dyfed, and every now and then he carelessly runs a thumb down his forearm. For today, he is still Rhys.

Pull back this branch. Not much longer and William will run at me squealing. Move past that stone. Nest will hug me, and I will hold out my arms for the baby.

Step into a clearing, and a dozen fighting men crouch around a cold meal. I scrabble for a fire iron I don’t have, and one of them stands and it’s Morgan. Morgan from Owain’s warband. There’s Llywarch and Gwilym and —

“Give her something to eat, will you?” Rhys says to them. “I can likely still catch a ship today if I keep moving.”

“Don’t bother,” Morgan replies. “He’s already here.”

Morgan tips his head toward a stand of brush and my mouth falls open, but Rhys merely huffs a sigh, mutters something like of course he is, and gestures for me to follow.

I edge a step back. “Owain’s in Ireland! Cadwgan said you’d not yet gone to fetch him!”

“I never said Owain wouldn’t come back of his own choosing.”

“You told Cadwgan —”

“I told my king I’d return you where you needed to be. That’s what I’m doing. You need to be with Owain, and now you are.”

I’ve been given a task and I’m going to see it through. Only not the one Cadwgan gave him.

Owain must have told Rhys where the warband would assemble, and Rhys had the wit to turn up in this place before boarding a ship just in case. Or — saints, mayhap Owain hinted it would be wise for him to do just that.

I fall still. I cannot be here. There’s no place for me. “Rhys, please don’t do this. You heard Cadwgan. He will end me if I stay with Owain. Nest will reward you. Whatever you want. She’ll give it to you.”

“That’s for Owain and his lord father to sort out.” Rhys glares at me. “How can you still believe I’d betray Owain for thirty pieces of Norman silver?”

I’m counting days now. If Owain’s here, he must have sailed from Ireland soon after we did. Long before his father gave him leave to do it. Nest and me escaping must have given Owain all the excuse he needed.

The brush shifts and Owain appears, blade in hand. Blade in hand in his own camp. He peers at me like he’s not sure I’m real. He’s somehow put his hands on new leather armor, and there’s a grubby band of cloth tied around his upper arm.

Rhys is saying something about his task. Bowing his head. Owain wordlessly spins the dagger front to back, front to back.

I force my eyes off the blade. I draw a deep, shaky breath and say the only true thing in my head. “I’m glad to see you safe, my lord.”

“Oh, aye,” drawls Einion penteulu as he stations himself at Owain’s elbow. “You wanted so much to see to his safety that you robbed him and abandoned him in a foreign kingdom.”

Owain’s face goes hard and he regrips his knife.

“That . . .” I can’t pull in a whole breath. “Saint Elen, she . . .”

Einion penteulu smiles. “Seems to me that Owain spent all this time untouched without you. Mayhap Saint Elen will look to him anyway.”

When Owain pets the smudgy cloth above his elbow, it flutters enough that I recognize the edging of embroidery. It’s a strip of linen torn from a shift I left drying on an Irish clothesline. He’s turned my undergarments into a relic of me, like I’m a saint, too.

“The boy did as you told him,” Einion penteulu says to Owain in a smooth, treacherous voice, “but things have changed. He couldn’t know. I’ll attend to it, my lord.”

Rhys is still standing next to me, but in two clean, sharp motions, Einion shoves him clear and swivels me away from Owain. Morgan steps closer, then Llywarch. One by one they gather, the lads of Owain’s teulu, quiet and hulking like dogs waiting to set to.

“What the hell is this?” Rhys comes after us, but Einion, still smiling, pushes him hard at Gwilym, who holds him fast.

“Einion.” I struggle to pry his fingers loose because I am against the steading wall and Rhael isn’t here and I am very, very afraid. “This isn’t what you think. If you’d just —”

“It’s exactly what I think. Shut up or I’ll shut