Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,72
once more. This is not what he wants to hear, and a playact only works when Owain ap Cadwgan wants it to. My eyes go to the blade gripped loose in his hand. He could kill me in two motions. Owain is not used to Saint Elen working against him in any way. He is not used to hearing no.
Einion penteulu steps closer. “I’ll be honest, my lord. I had my doubts about your battle banner and how you came by it, but I take it all back. At least a saint will not rob you. She will not change her tune when she’s held to account.”
“Your father didn’t kidnap us, and he certainly didn’t send a man to rob you.” I edge near enough to touch a fold of Owain’s tunic. I need him off this idea. That a saint might guide his hand. I need him to hear me. “None of this is what it seems.”
“Then what is it?” Einion asks, soft and cutting, and he is at Owain’s shoulder and they are a shield wall just as they always have been. “I’m a simple fighting man, but even I know when a girl thinks to lead me by something that’s definitely not my hand. Perhaps men have been whispering in your ear these days, hmm?”
That’s got to be out of turn. But Owain does not raise a fist. He doesn’t even bristle. All he does is wind a finger around his underwear charm like these shadowy doubts are commonplace. Like it’s not impossible there’s something to them.
“When we were in Ireland, you wanted nothing more than to retake Powys from your cousin Madog.” I’m talking to Owain and only Owain. “Now you can. Now you should.”
“Says who?” he asks.
I open my mouth to tell him. Your father. Cadwgan ap Bleddyn. But all he’ll hear is shut up and go plunder something.
“Saint Elen.” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it.
Owain squints at nothing for a long moment. “She’s mistaken. I will ask her myself.”
“I – I don’t think saints are ever mistaken, my lord.”
“This time she is,” he says in a too-quiet voice.
The whole clearing goes blurry as it catches up to me, what this is. What it’s been becoming these last se’ennights. I’d much rather listen to a saint.
This is his playact now.
“The Normans are going to raid Ceredigion,” Owain says into the silence. “Since I’m still in Ireland, my father will lead a warband to drive them back into Dyfed. There’ll be an ambush. No survivors. Very tragic.”
No. I want badly to say it. Cadwgan ap Bleddyn just wanted me gone. He could have cut my throat. Instead he opened his hand.
But it’ll be chaos. No one notices girls in the shadows. No one thinks they will do anything but what they’re told.
I said I could save Owain’s life. Not Saint Elen. Me. Saint Elen came later, once I realized he’d make light of the saving and turn me out once the fever was a memory and the wound just one more tale to tell around a fire. I knelt at his side as his color drained around the hilt of the butcher knife beneath his arm, and when I gripped the handle to pull it free, every teeming thought in my head screamed twist it twist it twist it.
This time I know enough to think. This time I must take what I want with my own hands.
There’s cold meat for supper. I can’t get near enough the fire. I’m still trembling. Rhys puts himself next to me, but I won’t reply to any of his polite attempts at conversation. My head is throbbing. My arms, where Morgan held me. Rhys’s fault, all of it. He’s the sole reason I’m not under a pile of squealing, happy children right now.
He runs a thumb over his forearm and doesn’t move from my side.
The lads of the warband look at me differently now. There’s no more reverence. No more cautious, courteous distance. They’ve heard two stories about me, and even though Owain is a king’s son and they dare not cross him, Einion is their penteulu. He is a man they listen to.
Owain and Einion are a ways distant deciding where the sentries will be posted, where the trip lines will go. It’ll be dark soon, and Owain will come over here. He’ll tuck an arm around me and slide a hand up my leg and I — I can’t.
“I’m not going to tell him,”