Owain pulls me onto the bench at his right hand, harsh and sudden, and grins at Nest, all teeth. She blinks rapidly. I know exactly what she sees. What he’d have her see. His hand on my arm and me all but on his lap. I dare not shake him off or shift away, but I cannot look at her, either.
Nest takes her time hefting David onto one hip while settling Not Miv on the other, and she herds a whimpering, limping William in front of her toward the hall door.
There are hostages at royal residences all the time, sons and brothers of men Cadwgan can’t quite bring himself to trust. They’re given the best lodging the place affords, and they sit at table and go to mass with the rest of us. All that’s denied them is freedom to come and go. Anything less, and Cadwgan’s sons and brothers, and those of his allies, will get the same at someone else’s hands.
The lads take their places at the trestle table, crowding the benches and elbowing one another. They’re recounting the raid on Gerald of Windsor’s home. How they went over the wall in the darkest part of night. How you could see the burning wreckage from leagues away till dawn and then some. What each of them took. Who each of them killed. Just like any ordinary raid. Only it’s not.
At length — at long length — Nest shuffles into the hall with an earthenware bowl of something steaming. The lads chortle and laugh and hoot, and color swarms up her neck as she brings the bowl toward the king’s chair and Owain, who’s leaning his chin on one fist and regarding her with a faint taunting smirk.
Somewhere outside, Not Miv is wailing.
Nest places the bowl before Owain. Her eyes are steady but absolutely violent, and her hand trembles as if she’d like nothing better than to dump it in his lap. But she steps away. Bows her head.
“And the lads?” Owain asks in a loud voice.
Nest makes an incredulous gesture at them all, arrayed like a small army along the benches.
“It’s a great honor, Gerald’s wife, to serve such company at table.” Owain smiles again, and I think of the knife, how there have been times I could have killed him in two simple moves. How he shouldn’t even be alive, but he’s alive because of me.
“I’ll help her,” I say quietly, and Nest is suddenly hopeful, all the way pleading even though I know what it must cost her to plead in this place, before them, even with me. I move to rise, but Owain grabs my arm hard enough to hurt and yanks me down with a rump-bruising thud.
“You will not.”
Nest waits, pausing heartbeat after heartbeat, but I cannot pull free and swear that Saint Elen will turn her back on him for such deeds. That there will be no miracles if this is what he does with her blessing.
I have not hated Owain ap Cadwgan for a long time, but I hate him now.
Nest snorts and shakes her head slow like I’m a bag of flour weighted false with stones. She turns on her heel and trudges out of the hall.
“Your coward husband ran a lot faster than that!” Owain calls after her, and the lads laugh like madmen.
After a while Nest reappears, bringing more portions. The proper servants crowd the doorway for a peek at a highborn lady being made to do their work. The steward is among them, stiff and frowning, apparently convinced that silent fatherly disapproval will mean something to Owain. The lads snicker and jeer as Nest moves among them. More than one has himself been a hostage, yet they pull her hair and slap her backside and step on her hem to trip her up. Hot stew slops over her wrists, leaving angry red welts and spattering her cloak and nightgown. The lads knew from the moment this meal began that something was different.
Mayhap they knew from the moment Owain kicked in her door.
I push a spoon through my stew. Spoons are not sharp, but I could make one so. At my elbow, Owain takes his supper and drinks his ale and presides over the goings-on with a smug, triumphant smile.
It’s well past supper. The trestle planks have been stacked against the wall, and the lads have grown bored and tired, departing one by one out to their lodgings and bedrolls. Nest hasn’t returned from the kitchen.
Owain catches Rhys on his way out. “Go fetch her.”
At supper Rhys carried on with the rest, but now he drags out the hall door like he’s made of lead.
It’s a freezing walk across the yard to the king’s chamber. I’m pulling up my hood and wrapping my hands, hoping someone remembered to leave a hot brick to warm the bedclothes, when I realize Owain’s not doing the same. He’s leaning against the wall, arms folded, patient.
I have no liking for this.
Rhys swings the door open and Nest all but falls inside, Not Miv tucked in the sling at her middle. William stumps behind his mother, bent over from carrying David on his back. Nest heads right for the corner but freezes when she spots Owain waiting there. Then she backs to the nearest wall, pulling her sons with her.
“Will I want to post a guard?” Owain asks her.
Nest shakes her head once, curtly. “I’m no fool. I’m not going anywhere.”
I tried it once. Not a threemonth after being marched away. I didn’t pack anything. I didn’t make a plan. I waited until the lot of them were asleep, then I got dressed and fled. I hadn’t made it five arrowshots when Einion ap Tewdwr found me, and it wasn’t even full dawn.
Owain dismisses Rhys with a single gesture. Rhys is out the door before Owain’s hand falls still, and the latch snicks closed like a stone in a washtub. Then Owain rocks away from the wall. I move to his elbow, but he does not look at me.
“Your every act against me will come back to you.” Nest lowers Not Miv to the floor and steps in front of her. “You’ll pay a steep enough price for all you did at my home. Mercy serves you better now.”
“I do not show mercy to Normans,” Owain replies, “nor do I expect it from them.”
“I am not Norman!” She flings a hand. An empty hand. “My father was once king of Deheubarth. My mother was kin to the king of Gwynedd. Two of the kingdoms of Wales. Two! I am one of your own. I am not your enemy!”
“No,” Owain agrees quietly. “You are not my enemy.”
I put a hand on Owain’s arm. He shakes me off like a wet dog and reaches for Nest’s wrist, and I am shoulder-to-shoulder with Rhael and my sister is about to die.
William plows toward Owain, a little blur of fists and cursing in two languages. Owain swivels and snares him by the hood, hoisting him off the ground so he dangles like a cat by the scruff. A dark stain spreads down the boy’s hose. Nest is between them in an instant, throwing her weight on Owain’s outstretched arm, worming both hands into Owain’s grip on William’s hood.
“Don’t you dare hurt my children,” she growls, but her voice breaks and she rasps, “Please, oh God, please, if there’s any mercy in you!”
Owain looses William not quite gently and the boy staggers away several paces. He’s choking on big quiet sobs, his hands over his head like the sky is falling. Nest moves toward her son, but Owain leans close to her ear and mutters something. I only catch in front of your children.
Nest blinks and blinks, presses a hand to her forehead. “All right, you bastard. If that’s how it’s going to be. All right.”
When Owain gestures toward the hall door, toward the king’s chamber beyond, she walks ahead of him without a word.