— 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.