Spindle and Dagger

by J. Anderson Coats

  Owain is very drunk when I pad back inside. Good. He’s a suggestible and happy drunk. I slide behind him and begin rubbing his shoulders. His muscles are knotted up like bad beef, and he grunts appreciation.

  “My lord?”

  “Yes, sweeting?” His voice is a low rumble, like a purring cat.

  “Is it true you won’t let the little ones play outside?”

  Owain tries to swivel to look at me, but I knead harder and he stills.

  “I heard them raising a clamor when I was coming back from the privy,” I add.

  “No comfort. If you don’t like hearing them squawk, stay away from them.”

  I lean close and whisper in his ear, “Makes me wonder what Gerald of Windsor would do, hearing this story out of turn.”

  “Out of turn how?” Owain’s voice is mellow, easy as honey. He’s humoring me.

  “Right now, all Gerald has are his own worst thoughts.” I push my thumbs along Owain’s shoulder bones, roll them up the muscles. “What if those thoughts went even darker? A few stories from his frightened children — the little ones he left to you when he fled down the privy shaft to save his own neck — well, a murderous father has even less wits than a murderous husband, wouldn’t you think?”

  “What are you saying?”

  The bench shudders, and Einion penteulu drops next to Owain. “She’s telling you to return the brats to Gerald. Just like your father told you.”

  Owain’s back turns to stone beneath my hands. Einion calmly reaches for a mug of wine. The silence grows uncomfortable. I can’t keep talking, though. Not in front of Einion penteulu. Because he’s right.

  “Oh, don’t stop on my account.” Einion’s face is hidden by the mug, but I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Saint Elen was doing what she does best.”

  “Have some more wine.” I bare a gritty smile, snatch his mug out of his hand, and pour.

  “Is that what you’re doing?” Owain asks me. “Because I told you. No comfort.”

  “I was . . .” I was about to tell him how bad it is not knowing, but how it’s a different kind of bad when you have pieces that make you think you know. Gerald would have William and his teary, wide-eyed tales of barefoot marches and his mother with soup burns over her wrists, crossing the courtyard head down behind Owain. He’d have David’s staring silence, his muttered Alice. He’d have Not Miv, who’d cry and cry.

  “She was whispering in your ear,” Einion penteulu fills in helpfully, “and rubbing your shoulders.”

  “And telling me to let them go,” Owain says, like he’s putting pieces together in his head.

  I pull my hands away from Owain’s back. “No. No, my lord. Not let them go.”

  “But?” prompts Einion, drawing the word out, tipping his mug at me.

  That mug would make a nice deep dent in the side of Einion penteulu’s wretched head.

  “I don’t think I understand,” Einion goes on in a mocking halfwit drawl. “I’m but a simple fighting man. Perhaps you should come over here and explain it in pretty whispers while rubbing my shoulders.”

  Owain slams his mug down, but Einion penteulu is already sliding away on the bench with both hands up as if in surrender.

  “Beg pardon, my lord.” Einion bows his head. “That was out of turn.”

  Owain slides an arm around my waist and pulls me against him without taking his eyes off Einion penteulu. “Yes. It was.”

  I can’t help but slice a grin at Einion, but it doesn’t matter, for he’s standing to like any of the lads in the practice yard, gaze blanked, squared up.

  After several long moments, Owain bids me pour more wine and asks if I might rub his shoulders a little longer. His voice is easy once again, and Einion penteulu retakes his seat, and before long they’re laughing at a wolfhound licking its nether parts. When their conversation devolves into whether it’s too cold for a pissing contest, I move my hands away and drift kitchenward, but I’m not two steps from the trestle when Owain pretends to collapse on the bench.

  “Thief!” He lolls across the table, flopping his wrists like fish on a riverbank. “Take away my muscles and bones, will you? Put ’em back, sweeting, or I’m of no use to anyone.”

  Then Owain tips his head enough to grin at me. Einion penteulu snickers and takes another drink. I sigh and start rubbing Owain’s shoulders again. I also keep pouring the wine, but he’s no fool. I can’t even glance at the hall door without him going limp like David and moaning about bone theft and floggings.

  When Owain says no comfort, he does not act in half measures.

  I BLINK AWAKE WHEN OWAIN SHIFTS QUICK AND sudden, and I scrabble hard when Einion penteulu’s face appears above the bed.

  “He’s on us,” Einion says grimly. “Get up. Arm yourself.”

  Owain squints at him, the bedclothes tumbling to his waist. “Who?”

  “Your whoreson cousin Madog, rot his soul! Bought and paid for by Gerald of Windsor and that bastard English king!”

  “Goddamn it!” Owain rolls out of bed, cursing as he puts on his tunic — dawn raid that son of a — but my hands are trembling as I slide into my gown and grab my rucksack. Madog ap Rhirid who thought to be Owain’s penteulu. Who Owain humiliated in the public of his father’s hall and again in the yard in front of all the warbands. Whose sister is a child of eleven and the only one of Owain’s entire volatile family who looks forward to seeing me.

  Gerald did not come hellbent. Nor did he come with a big Norman army. He chose more thorough means.

  The hall is in chaos. The lads are stumbling over one another, grappling with weapons and cursing whorebegotten Madog ap Rhirid and all his kin to eight generations. In the corner, at Nest’s feet, William is trying to fasten his hose and keeps fumbling the ties. I start toward him, but Owain pulls me up short.

  “You’re with me,” he says. “Einion will see to Nest and Gerald’s brats.”

  I struggle, but Owain’s grip tightens. “There won’t be a fight. This is an ambush. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “Alice! Alice! Alice!” David thrashes in Nest’s arms, red-faced, small hands grabbing, but Owain tows me stumbling toward the door.

  Outside, the sky is a harsh screaming pink, and it’s bone-chill freezing. Armed men are flooding around both corners of the hall and through the trees, and I paw the air to my left and panic when Rhael isn’t there gripping and regripping the butcher knife. There’s nothing in my hand, when only a moment ago she shoved the fire iron at me and told me not to be afraid. Miv is not crying oh Christ they got to her already Rhael said they would not care about —

  — a heavy weight falls on my arm and I jerk into unsteady motion and something catches my sleeve but it’s Owain pulling me along I recognize his coppery curls it’s not —

  — Llywelyn penteulu who moves toward me in the steading’s dim light slow like a snake I clutch the fire iron it slips in my sweaty hand a man who looks like him hulks forward too fast grabs me by the wrist and I bring down the fire iron and there’s —

  — blood everywhere men shouting fleeing headlong Owain ahead of me blood down one arm —

  — there on the floor of the steading with Rhael’s knife buried to the hilt under his arm he looks dead already but I said I could save him and that’s why Einion ap Tewdwr made them let me up and I kneel beside him aching and shaken and bellysick skin crawling Christ now what do I do —

  — I follow that’s what I do because they burned my house they burned everything in the vale and they killed them both and seized all the beasts and now I follow because there is nothing else and there is nothing else because of Owain ap Cadwgan who I follow —

  IT’S LONG PAST FULL DARK WHEN OWAIN STOPS MOVing. My wrist hurts from where he kept hold of me, and there’s a blurry bloodsmear where his grip was. Owain stops moving because he collapses against a tree and slides down the trunk till he’s slumped among the roots. He’s muttering something, and I hear my name.

  The dawn raid scattered the
warband, and the greenwood is empty but for us. I’m crouching into a hedge. I’m cold. I should say something. Go to him. This morning I was safe in a hunting lodge. Now I’m in the wilderness. Madog ap Rhirid swept down with fire and sword and would have kicked in the door were it not for Owain ap Cadwgan.

  Then I realize Owain is thanking Saint Elen for keeping him. I lay my cheek on my knees.

  There’s a measure of forest stillness, then Owain draws a long breath, lets it out in a whistle, and smiles at me halfway. “Well then. That was much closer than I like. You keep pace like a warbander. Like you were born in the field.”

  There was no clatter in the dooryard. Madog came swift and silent and single-minded, his own vengeance at hand as much as Gerald’s, and I have Einion ap Tewdwr to thank once more for helping to pull me clear.

  “Sweeting? You’re not hurt, are you? Come here.”

  He beckons and I cannot go. He’s the one who grabbed Rhael. He’s the one who came to my vale to burn, to unman whatever lord held the ground beneath my steading. He beckons me to the curtained bed when the scar beneath his arm is finally healed. Saint Elen turns her back because this is what I asked her for. I begged for my life and she granted it.

  I stumble over to him. Just as I did then. I let him put an arm around me. Just as I did then. I curl against him because he’s warm. Because he’s always kept me safe and close to him. Because I made him this way with effort, with will, with intent. As the months became years, I held my breath a little less with each raid.

  What Owain did to Gerald of Windsor was not a raid, though. The moment Nest put one bloodied bare foot into the courtyard, the war Cadwgan planned became something else entirely.

  Something my playact was never intended to cope with.

  Owain says we should start moving once more, but I can’t take more than three steps before my muscles turn to water and I sink. So he sets trip lines, then gathers me under his arm and pulls his cloak over us both. I lay my head on his shoulder and close my eyes so I don’t have to see darkness seeping through bony winter trees in and down and toward us.

  He’s talking. His voice murmurs like a stream over rocks and rumbles against my ear. Something something northward something something Gerald of Windsor. Low and calm and confident. Even now. The voice of a man with a saint over his shoulder, unquestioning.

  When Owain shifts into something something Nest something something Einion penteulu, I can’t bring myself to listen any longer because he might be talking about William and David and Not Miv, how Einion was to look to them, how Einion will not hesitate to kill the children and their mother if it means keeping Madog from recapturing them and returning them to Gerald of Windsor.

  I can’t tell Owain that Saint Elen said Gerald has more than paid whatever blood debt he owes to Owain’s warband. That every man the length and breadth of the kingdoms of Wales and the border too has received his message grim and clear. I can’t tell him that Nest asked me what I wanted like she would give it to me.

  Saint Elen would likely say all these things and more, but I will not say them for her. I dare not. She is the saint, not me. So I stay silent. I wrap my arms tight around him, but not before I run my thumb over the place where armor hides his scar.

  EVERY FORT WE SIGHT OR PASS WHERE WE MIGHT take refuge is a burned-out husk. We find the charred timbers of what used to be steadings, and the holy houses are clearly being watched with an eye to ambush. Owain moves a little quicker. His temper gets shorter. He curses his cousin again and again as if this is Madog’s fault alone. Neither of us sleeps.

  Then we come across a fort that’s untouched but already half-abandoned. As people stream out, hauling whatever they can carry, the steward meets us in the courtyard and tells Owain that none of Cadwgan’s allies have so much as lifted a finger against Madog’s warband, and Owain’s mouth falls open.

  “None of them? They’re our kinsmen! They’ve sworn their swords to us!”

  The steward nods sadly. “You should be grateful none are leading a warband against you. Madog ap Rhirid has had no trouble finding men to join him who have an ax to grind.”

  “Son of a bastard . . .”

  “The English king is making it very worth their while, too,” the steward says. “He’s promised Powys to whoever can take it from your father, be he Welsh or Norman.”

  Owain grunts. “Like it’s his to promise.”

  “And”— the steward squints at the horizon — “Gerald of Windsor has put a price on your head. The word is Madog ap Rhirid is going around saying it’s as good as spent.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten silver pennies to the man who brings him your head. Fifty for you still alive.”

  Owain mimics frigging off and cackles insolently. I turn my eyes Heavenward even as I want to slap him hard, because that kind of carrot’s going to drive a lot of donkeys.

  “God Almighty, I hope he gets close enough to try.” Owain glances around the emptying courtyard. “Any of my warband here?”

  The steward shakes his head. “Fighting men are gathering at the fort by the river. Where your lord father is, and where you ought to go right away.”

  Owain surveys the sky, frowning. He holds nothing that’s his alone. Powys and everything in it belongs to his father. The province of Ceredigion, too. Most of the time he’s welcome at every fort in the kingdom, but right now, turning up anywhere but where Cadwgan is will have the look of treason. Like he’s joining Madog and the English king.

  “Your cousin and his lot are only two valleys down. Stay here and you face him alone.” The steward shoulders a rucksack and pulls a burning stave out of a massive bonfire raging in the center of the yard. “Give me a hand?”

  Two valleys down. I crane my neck for curls of black smoke rising between low-slung hills, and sure enough, they’re clawing their way skyward, and this time I know them for what they are. Owain marks them, too. He mutters something vulgar, then nods. He and the steward take up firebrands and run them along the edges of lean-tos and piles of straw. They toss them into stables and into the hall. Other men join them, and soon the whole fort is ablaze.

  I move outside the gate and pull up my hood. Nothing will remain for Madog to seize or plunder, but there’ll also not be a hot meal or anything resembling a bed. Owain appears out of the smoke, coughing into his sleeve, followed by the steward and the last few men from the fort. Once outside, they scatter in different directions, bound for the hills to stand over their families as Madog’s warband moves in.

  Everything is not in hand. If it were, we’d be at Llyssun. Cozy fire. A half-decent privy. Margred would be there, too, making up stories about her toy mouse. Owain and Einion penteulu would be pleasantly drunk and playing flinches, flicking lit twigs at each other and punching whoever moves. The lads would be feeding the wolfhounds cheese to make them fart, wagering on which dog’s wind will be the loudest. Rhys would be lifting his bucket and touching that scar.

  I keep pace with Owain as we head northward. Even when the fort’s burning shell is out of sight, I can still smell smoke.

  “FOULED UP. ALL OF IT.”

  Owain speaks to his feet caked with mud and bare legs covered with scratches, to the ground sliding beneath him at a pace I struggle to match. It’s just him and me. No one to parade around full of bravado. His voice is quiet now, like we’re in some church nave that begs for a measure of stillness.

  “I thought Gerald of Windsor would come himself. Steel flashing. Warhorses snorting. I was bloody well counting on it. But why under Christ the English king has made it his concern . . .”

  I almost remind Owain how badly that king wants a Norman lord holding Cadwgan’s realm, but that will only remind him of his father, and I’ve no wish to interrupt what might be the closest thing to an apology Owain ap Cadwgan is likely to make.

  “Nest is important to him?” I offer instead, and I slant it like a question so Owain will not bristle overmuch.

  He does, a little, but then he
sighs. “Mayhap. It must be years since the English king even saw her, though. It’s been an age since their son was sent out to fosterage and she was wed to Gerald of Windsor. It makes no sense! Gerald’s difficulties should have barely made the king look up from his breakfast.”

  To Owain ap Cadwgan, this has only ever had to do with Gerald of Windsor. To Henry, king of the English, it also has to do with Nest. And Cadwgan’s kingdom.

  Cadwgan’s fealty as well.

  “I just . . .” Owain looks away. “I had it all worked out. It was going to be better than any war my father planned. It was going to gut Dyfed of its strongest defender and lay it bare to invasion. We could have seized whole districts. Mayhap the entire province! That, sweeting, should have been my final vengeance on Gerald of bloody Windsor. After having to imagine what sport I was making of his wife and what harm I might visit on his children, that he would live long enough to know that his ill-gotten lands were now occupied by the house of Bleddyn, before I wiped God’s green earth clean of him.”

  I nod. I slip my hand in his.

  “Times like this,” Owain says quietly, “I wish I had a saint’s counsel as well as her protection.”

  Times like this I’m glad he doesn’t. Times like this I thank every saint that my playact has no such promise. It’s hard enough to keep from saying aloud what both of us are thinking.

  “Now . . . God rot it, I’ll have to go to him. The smug bastard.” Owain twists up his face and mimics his father: “I’ve been killing Normans longer than you’ve been alive. Shut up and go plunder something.”

  I can’t help but smirk, but there’s truth to it. Those long-ago victories against the Normans happened across Wales when I was still in my cradle, and all of them at the hand of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn. If anyone can help Owain bring Gerald of Windsor and the English king to a standstill — by charm, by parley, by the sword — it’s Cadwgan.

  And he’ll be in a position to dictate a price.