Spindle and Dagger

by J. Anderson Coats

  My mouth hangs open. Nest looks away.

  “You have to tell them you were wrong,” I whisper to Nest. “That I’m not really Owain’s wife. What if he’s furious?”

  “I’m not sure I can! I told you, I understand a lot more than I speak. Besides, how can I, now? It’ll look like I was lying. You think Owain ap Cadwgan will like that better?”

  I have no wish to find out, so I make myself smile at the girl. I take the gown like it might burn. Órlaith grins, then hustles me behind the curtain and pulls it closed. Shadows of her bare feet move along the bottom edge. She must be standing watch outside, making sure I’m not disturbed. I strip down and wash every handswidth of my filthy, sweaty body. By the time I’m done, the water is gray and murky, but I’m pink with clean, smelling faintly of soapwort and lavender.

  There’s a shift to wear with the gown. It’s made of soft linen with a tiny runner of embroidery around the collar. Órlaith brings me a pair of calfskin shoes made from leather so soft that I can’t feel a single seam, then she sits me on a stool just outside the curtain and brushes my hair while the brittle spring sun puts a shine on it.

  Mayhap it will be a good thing if the high king believes Owain is married. Then our host will see a fellow king’s son and his wife and some retainers seeking refuge from the English king’s overblown temper. Not a ragtag passel of troublemakers dodging well-deserved consequences by taking up lodging in his hall.

  Too soon, Órlaith plaits my hair and pins it and tugs me gently to my feet. My whole scalp feels tight, and it makes me stand up straight and push my chin out.

  “I get water for your cousin. I walk you in after.” She gestures to Nest, leaning against the shed corner, then dumps the basin and heads toward the well.

  Nest unwinds the tie from her plait and shakes her hair into stiff, wavy worms. “By the way, we’re cousins now. I hope you don’t mind gaining a relation.” She sighs and adds, “I must ask your pardon. For all this. I’m not mocking you. I swear.”

  “I know. It’s all right.” My hair is arranged and braided, and I’ve no need to see it to know it looks proper. I’m wearing undergarments and shoes so beautiful that Owain would have to raid the Holy Land for something finer. There’s not a hint of blood on this gown.

  It’s better than all right.

  Órlaith returns with a basin of fresh water and Nest disappears behind the curtain. Then the girl takes my hand and pulls me toward the hall. Where the other wives will be gathered, and I don’t have a word in Irish.

  “I would wait for my cousin,” I tell Órlaith, but she’s having none of it as she leads me cheerfully toward the hall door. Perhaps she doesn’t understand me. She’s clearly excited, just like Margred gets when something new is happening. Digging in my heels like a mule would make me look unfriendly, and we must make a good impression since things got bloody on that Waterford wharf. All of us, especially the newly minted wife of Owain ap Cadwgan.

  Near the hearth, two women sit on a bench with spindles paused in their laps. They have Nest’s years and round, well-fed faces. Órlaith says something to them lordly and important, her chest puffed like a warhorse on parade. I catch Owain’s name. The girl bows her head to the dark-haired woman at the end of the bench, then turns to me and says, “My lord’s daughter. This is Aoife.”

  I should have insisted on waiting for Nest. She’s a king’s daughter, too. She’d know what to do — sit down with them? Curtsy? Introduce herself? She would say this woman’s name right the first time, Eee-fa, and not stumble over the familiarity of it, calling a highborn lady she just met by her given name.

  But Aoife rises and nods politely, then puts her spinning basket on the floor and moves enough to make a place for me to sit. Her companion chatters at me in Irish like I’m a saint who just appeared in a wisp of pink smoke, her spindle forgotten across her knees. Órlaith tries to make sense of their questions in her bits and pieces of Welsh, so I’m fairly sure that Aoife and her friend are wondering where we came from and how long we’ll be staying and whether Einion penteulu has a wife — ha! — and not to mind the cat because he loves not knowing his place and how it would please them greatly if I’d spin with them.

  This was Isabel once. She’d have stood before the likes of Gwerful and Annes, smiling bravely, not sure where to sit. Not sure what to say.

  Aoife’s friend is called Gormlaith. I must repeat it three times before I get it right: Gor-em-lee. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. I take the spindle she offers and try to answer their questions. I’m fairly sure Órlaith makes things up when she cannot understand my answers. They keep smiling, though. Big and open, as if they’re truly glad I’m here.

  Soon, Órlaith bobs her head to Aoife and says to me, “I bring her.” She bounces out the rear door, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s checking on Nest in the bathing shed. I brace for the silence to be strained, but Aoife merely offers her basket of wool and gestures for me to take a handful. Gormlaith nudges me playfully and holds out a skein for me to admire. The cat climbs into her sewing basket, and Aoife rubs his ears. We run our spindles down our legs with the same practiced motion, and I smile at each of them in turn, like a proper wife might.

  I don’t see Owain till just before supper, when he trudges into the hall in the company of a cheerful young man who has years enough to be in a warband but clearly sees little of the practice yard. Owain is wearing a clean tunic with his hair damp and curly to his collarbones, but he’s got a stiff, pained look about him, the look he wore at his father’s wedding.

  “Aoife says that lad is Niall, her foster brother,” Nest whispers. “Apparently he loves visitors. Something about needing attention.”

  Owain hopefully mimics drinking, thumb to mouth and smallest finger jostling, but Niall is too excited to notice. He’s already across the hall and beckoning Owain toward a group of well-dressed young men with nice posture gathered who look like they spend a lot of time indoors. Owain fights a scowl, but at length he sighs and joins Niall’s friends. He’s all charm as he greets them, but he fidgets with the elaborate Irish brooch pin at his shoulder like it’s a millstone. When Niall finally does put a mug in his hands, Owain drinks the lot in four swallows, thrusts the mug back at Niall, and sighs like he’s being made to sit through mass twice.

  Aoife pats my knee and says something. Nest murmurs, “She hopes Niall will be a good companion for your, ah, husband while he’s here.”

  I can think of no better company for Owain than a lad who appreciates relics and puts a polish rag to his boots now and then. Hopefully Aoife’s foster brother likes hunting and hawking so Owain can spend his exile running down deer instead of helpless crofters and burning nothing but turf in a late-night fire and not thinking on why he’s here in the first place.

  At supper we are presented to our host, the king of Munster and high king of Ireland. Muirchertach Ua Briain is lean like a blade and has the look of a stable groom, but there is no question he is master of this hall.

  When Owain kneels before him, Muirchertach grins and says in rusty Welsh, “Cadwgan ap Bleddyn!”

  Owain flinches so slightly as he rises that I’m likely the only one who sees it. They do look alike, Owain and his father, and it must be both strange and wondrous to see so much of an old friend in his son. Owain presents the gifts, Nest at his elbow dredging up syllables and trying to look pleasant. I’m behind them, between Rhys and Einion penteulu. They’re both clean-scrubbed and standing to, and even Einion is smiling in a way that doesn’t make me want to slap him raw.

  “Welcome!” Muirchertach gestures to an empty trestle opposite the high table.

  Owain bows his head and says “Uh vwar vwugh” once more like he means it, but he moves past all of us, intent in that blank-eyed warband way. He throws himself down on the bench and seizes a haunch of mutton and a slab of eel pie as if this were Llyssun or Aberaeron. I look to Nest, but her eyes are on the ground and she’s scurrying after Einion penteulu and Rhys as they make a m
ore measured way toward the table.

  Sadb is frowning and Muirchertach looks puzzled, like he missed something. We must make a better showing than this. So I furl my skirts like I once saw Isabel do and walk steady and proper toward the empty place at Owain’s right hand. More than one man watches me cross, and I even catch Rhys staring until he shakes hair over his eyes and studies the table grain.

  Owain ap Cadwgan glances me up and down, then nods.

  I pile some goose and turnips onto my plate, then add a steaming wedge of that pie. A servant pours me a mug of wine. I sit up straight and savor every flaky, salty mouthful. Whatever this is, it’s definitely better than all right.

  I daresay it might be what ordinary is supposed to look like.

  We’re given a bed. It’s in a chamber across the yard set aside for guests, and it’s stuffed with fresh straw and made up with a pile of furs and woolens. There’s a thick curtain that shuffs on wooden rings when you draw it.

  I must tell Owain what Nest said. It must be now, before he learns of it in some uncomfortable, damaging way, but he’s shucking his fine new clothes hither-thither and growling how Niall should shut up about that pet magpie or he’ll roast the damn thing in butter and eat it in the public of the courtyard.

  So I unpin my hair, slide my thumb down each plait one by one, and shake them loose and ripply.

  I’ve got Owain’s attention.

  Before long he’s spent, and we’re lying in tumbled bedclothes and he’s playing with the ends of my hair while making an idle jest about the rumor of his sudden marriage sending Cadwgan to an early grave. I run my thumb over Owain’s knuckles and spin out how useful it’ll be for Muirchertach to believe him married. He’ll seem steady, kingly even, and he doesn’t need to lie, just not correct anyone and let the language bog do its work. By the time I draw the covers tight around my neck, Owain is repeating the notion as if he himself came up with it, down to using words like kingly.

  ON MY FIRST DAY OF EXILE, I AWAKEN TO A BASIN OF fresh water by the bed and Órlaith scratching at the curtain and whispering, “I can help with your hair and dress?”

  The hem of my gown has been scraped clean of mud and spot-scrubbed so it’s bluer than ever, and someone hung it on the garment rod so nothing chewed it up during the night.

  “You’ll be all right, sweeting?” Owain is struggling into his tunic. “I’m off to find Einion and Rhys, for I cannot bear to spend — rot it to hell.”

  Niall stands outside the door that opens to the courtyard, trying not to look in too purposefully or intently. I gather he’s been waiting on Owain, that there’s a new water mill nearby he’s keen to show off. It’s half a day’s ride just to get there, and there’s a lovely monastery on the way where they keep annals. Niall chatters brightly and draws curlicue shapes in the air, mimicking illumination, and Owain bares that warband smile this lad doesn’t know to fear.

  “I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “Off you go. We mustn’t be rude.”

  Owain muffles a groan but kisses me farewell. Niall looks away, pinkening, so Owain takes his sweet time and paws me up and down for good measure. When they finally do clatter out, I shoulder my rucksack, put on my new shoes, admire the stitching and the color and the dyework, then head to the maidens’ quarters, where Nest has been given a bed.

  No one answers my knock, so I let myself in. There are two rows of pallets with an aisle between them, and all are neatly made up and empty but for one near the door where Nest lies still and silent beneath a pile of blankets.

  I hurry to her side. “Saints, are you all right?”

  “Just tired.” Nest doesn’t turn to look at me, only pulls the covers more tightly around her neck.

  Tired. My mother said that all the time when she was expecting Miv. “Ah . . . can I bring you something?”

  “No. Thank you. I just want to rest. I’m sure it’s merely the journey catching up with me. I’ll be fine on the morrow.”

  “Very well.” I wait, though. A moment, then another, in case she wants to say more. In case she wants to change her mind, because if she doesn’t, I’ll be without the one person who can help me be here.

  But Nest stays still, eerily so, and at length I leave and shut the door firmly behind me. Outside, I lean against the wall of the maidens’ quarters and press both hands over my eyes. I do not often trouble Saint Elen with prayers. Asking for more than I’ve been given is as bad as putting words in her mouth. Mostly what I do is thank her. This prayer’s not for me, though. This one she is sure to look on kindly.

  Please keep Nest from harm. All harm. Especially this harm.

  I rock wearily away from the wall. Aoife and Gormlaith will be expecting me to pass the day with them. Nest being at my elbow would help, but they are waiting for the wife of Owain ap Cadwgan, not her. I smooth my skirts and make my way across the yard.

  Aoife and Gormlaith are spinning when I edge close to the hearth. There’s already a space on the bench for me. They look genuinely sorry when I tell them with gestures that Nest isn’t feeling well, but they smile when I sit down with my rucksack. While we work, they teach me to say things in Irish. They giggle when I get words wrong, but not in a cruel way, and they squeal and clap when I say things properly, so I enjoy the learning as much as the knowing.

  The cat saunters around my feet all morning, but by late afternoon, he perches imperiously on my lap with paws and tail tucked under so he looks like a loaf of fur. I start working on Margred’s toy dog instead of spinning so I don’t disturb his careful pose. If you bother this cat in any way, he sinks hidden claws into your leg, but he won’t jump down till he’s good and ready.

  IT’S SUNNY AFTER A SE’ENNIGHT OF DOWNPOUR. There’s no way I can spend another day indoors. Aoife and Gormlaith agree. They’ve already got baskets packed, and they point to the gate and the green countryside beyond. I wave them ahead, shouldering my rucksack. If ever there was a day sure to coax Nest from her stuffy little corner of the maidens’ quarters, it would be this one.

  The door to the maidens’ quarters is open, and as I near, a graybeard in rich robes the color of good claret steps into the entrance and holds a tiny glass vessel full of yellow liquid up to the light. Inside, Sadb and Órlaith are standing over Nest’s pallet. Sadb is frowning like my mother would when Rhael or I was down with some fever, and Órlaith is holding a tray piled with meat and bread. Sadb asks the man something, and he takes a tiny sip of the liquid, frowns, swirls what’s left, then shrugs.

  Órlaith spots me and approaches. She doesn’t grin and bounce, and of everything wrong in this room, that makes my heart judder. She holds up the untouched food and says, “Your cousin doesn’t eat. My lady is worried.”

  Oh saints. That man is a court physician.

  I move past Órlaith and hurry toward Nest. Sadb steps aside so I can kneel at her head, but Nest pulls the blanket across her face.

  “All I need is one more day of rest.” Nest’s voice is muffled by the wool. “I think I’m getting better. I’m just so tired.”

  You’ve been saying that for nearly a month. I bite it back. I don’t want to use words like month. Instead I try, “It’s beautiful out today. We’re going to sit in the sun a while. You should join us.”

  “Next time.”

  Sadb and the court physician have moved toward the door, but she keeps glancing at Nest as they talk low and urgent. Finally she murmurs something to Órlaith, and the girl dutifully goes to Nest’s side and kneels.

  “My lord says . . .” Órlaith frowns thoughtfully, fishing for words. “Nothing in the piss. A woman thing, mayhap. He wouldn’t know what.”

  Nest makes no reply, but my guts turn to ice. Órlaith rises with the tray and patters out behind Sadb and the court physician. Once the maidens’ quarters are quiet, I whisper, “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

  “I’m just tired. You should go. Aoife and Gormlaith are likely waiting.”

  I stand up slow. I turn my eyes Heavenward. Then I s
lip out the door.

  Aoife and Gormlaith have spread a blanket on the ground beneath a stand of trees within an easy walk of the fort. By the time I reach them, I’m smiling like nothing’s amiss, but my hands are shaking as I open my rucksack and pull out my spindle. Owain will find out soon. He knows Nest is ill and keeps to her bed. All that’s left is for him to put the pieces together. He will smirk as her belly grows. The icing on his vengeance cake.

  “Rawwwwr!” A cloaked figure leaps from the brush and lunges.

  Aoife gasps, but Gormlaith snaps something violent and the figure throws back its hood to reveal a grinning young man. His hair is the color of foxes, and it leaps unkempt against the sky like a beacon. I’ve seen him around the hall, lurking in corners, pinching serving girls’ backsides, farting at mass. Gormlaith scolds him roundly enough that I don’t need any Irish to know she’s blistering him, and the lad makes a rude gesture in a good-natured but mocking way. I catch what I’m fairly sure is a name — Cormac.

  A handful of Irish lads appear out of the brush behind Cormac, all grinning like hounds. They’re wearing long tunics and raggedy parti-color trews, and none of their cloaks have ever seen the inside of a laundry tub. Owain and Einion penteulu and Rhys are among them. Judging by the way they’re jostling one another, packlike, obnoxious, they’re up to no good, and we’re their latest target.

  When Gormlaith stabs a finger in Cormac’s chest, his whole face darkens. He steps close and makes a taunting kissy-face down at her. Gormlaith stumbles back, wrenching her cloak over her chest. Cormac laughs, caustic, and Owain echoes him. The others join in, but Rhys nudges his hair over his eyes as he does it.

  We’re all on our feet now. My hand stings. I’m holding my spindle like a knife. Aoife folds her arms and asks something about Niall, haughty, but also the smallest bit hurt.