Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,79

moment there! I thought I was a dead man, but Saint Elen saw me through yet again.”

I blink. Not sure I heard true.

He’s playing with my blade, rolling it down his hand and catching it midfall, balancing it tip-down on his finger. Like a toy I might hand to Margred.

I snatch it back and grip it tight enough to sting.

Owain frowns, then reaches an arm toward my waist. I step away from him. His good cheer falters, and he asks, “What is this?”

Einion penteulu looks up sharp, then draws Rhys aside and mutters in his ear. Rhys shakes his head, but when Einion stabs a finger and makes the perimeter field gesture, Rhys reluctantly slips away, looking over his shoulder every third pace.

“Saint Elen brought me to a Norman enemy,” Owain goes on warily, “and she gave me victory and kept me from harm like she always has. Did she not?”

The patter rises to save me. It tells me to put away the dagger. Smile big, spin out the falsehoods, let him slide an arm around my hips and plant a noisy kiss on my cheek. Wear my spoils, put on my show, spread my legs. Be part and parcel of whatever full measure of vengeance he thinks to carry out. Follow after like a good little pet. See to it that I’m doing all the things he’s decided make a place for me with him so no one pays much attention to what he’s doing.

“No,” I say, quiet but steady. “No, she didn’t.”

Einion penteulu moves to Owain’s shoulder. Gestures to the other lads to step back and stand ready.

“I beg your pardon?” Owain asks in a low voice.

The patter wants to save me, but there’ll be no saving myself that way. Nest will save me. The little ones, their giggles and chatter. A family will save me. One I’ve made myself, with my own hands. I clear my throat and repeat, “No, Saint Elen did nothing.”

“You — you were lying to Clare.” Owain’s voice takes on an edge I’ve never heard. “So Saint Elen could get us clear enough to burn the castle and escape.”

I grip my knife. I lift my chin. This will save me. This and nothing else. “No. I wasn’t lying to Clare. I’ve been lying to you. Saint Elen. All of it. I made it up. There’s never been —”

Owain moves so quick he’s in front of me while I’m still speaking, and he belts me hard across the face and I go down. He’s roaring something, hollering, animal cries, fierce, wordless, hulking above me and primed for murder.

I brace for it. The first blow. The final one.

But Owain does not kill me.

Owain doesn’t kill me because Einion penteulu has him in a choke hold, one forearm across his neck and the other grappling his swinging free fist behind his back, up, up, between his shoulder blades.

My face hurts. My cheek, my nose leaking — oh Christ, blood.

“Get the hell out of here!” Einion shouts at me, harsh, over Owain’s bellowing.

Somehow I’m walking through the greenwood. My feet catch on blurs of stone and branch. I wipe away tears. Blood as well.

Owain is cursing me now. Words grate through his hollering, threats and oaths that would ordinarily make me shiver because they’d be directed at someone he wants to hurt badly in very full measures.

Only now that someone is me.

His noise does not fade for a long while. I don’t stop moving even when it does. Einion penteulu has to let him loose sometime. Even Dyfed and strong walls and Gerald of Windsor might not be enough to keep me safe.

IT’S DAYS BEFORE MY CHEEK AND JAW STOP throbbing. I’ve been among the lads long enough to know that one side of my face looks like spoiled meat. Little wonder cottagers point me toward landmarks and tell me which streams to follow, and their wives offer me oatcakes and buttermilk and hearths to sleep beside. Little wonder a steely-eyed girl of twelve summers gives me a sturdy cudgel and a blessing.

There’s a fort called Caeriw where they think Nest might be. At the very least it’s held for Gerald of Windsor. I will stand before him for real this time. I will not take no for an answer.

But my feet are aching. My shoulders. My heart, because I promised the little ones I’d be back, and they may have forgotten me already. It’s been so many months since last I saw them, and children’s minds