“It’s not how you meant it to happen,” I tell her, “but the little ones are away from Owain. Cadwgan has every reason to return them to their father now, and he’ll move Heaven and earth to do it.”
“My babies,” she whispers. “They’ll be so frightened. All alone.”
“You’ll be back with them before you know it,” I say, but Nest merely lowers her head onto her knees, the wineskin dangling from her fingers.
They are safe. They’re together. They’re going home.
I take the wineskin from Nest and drink deep. Even though I did not leave them to save my own skin, even though I left them to save theirs, to them it will only matter that I didn’t come back.
I’VE SEEN SHIPS AT WHARF AND SHIPS UNDER SAIL, but I have never been close enough to mark the green sludge crusting the waterline, the splintery, graying wood, the low and ominous creaks leaking from somewhere within like an old man’s windy guts.
“A pity Saint Elen will not tell Owain he’ll die at sea,” mutters Einion penteulu, and for once I agree with him even as I wish he’d keep his mouth shut.
“Say that a little louder,” I reply under my breath. “Owain’s quite in the humor to hear it.”
We both study Owain, standing on the wharf-end with his back to us watching a rowboat approach. He’s long since traded his leather armor for a night’s lodging and now wears a drover’s coarseweave tunic, but I’d wager real drovers don’t constantly complain of the itching. In addition to Gerald’s bounty, the English king has put a price of ten shillings on Owain’s head. Owain brags it should be twenty, but he always sits facing the door and hasn’t been cold sober since we arrived in this little harbor town.
Einion penteulu nods toward Nest where she slumps, washrag-limp, against a nearby post. “You mind your tasks. I’ll mind mine.”
I should be grateful Nest isn’t plotting ways to steal a dagger and stab Owain repeatedly in the vitals, but I know the look about her all too well. It comes on you when Einion ap Tewdwr whispers grim in your ear that they killed them both and seized all the beasts, and in that moment you realize that you will never again have a home unless you make one yourself by hook and by crook, by warp and by weft.
The rowboat pulls up to the wharf, and the sailor at the oars nods to Owain. The boat seems small and manageable, but I can’t look away from the dark water beneath. I can’t swim. Neither can Owain. Einion penteulu and Rhys climb into the boat, but Nest hesitates, clinging to the brine-damp post.
“Be quick about it,” Owain grumbles.
“Be easy!” I snap. “You could have let her go home with her children. You didn’t have to drag her along with us.”
“What, I was just going to give her back? Like my father wanted?” Owain makes a flighty gesture and simpers, “Oh, here you are, Gerald of bloody Windsor who killed my penteulu in cold blood, please take your beautiful wife back. I’ll just admit defeat now and go cower in Ireland under another man’s sword-arm.” His voice goes hard again. “Sorry, sweeting, but I hope to Christ you know that’s never going to happen.”
Nest closes her eyes.
The rowboat sways under us as the sailor works the oars. Soon we’re alongside the merchant cog, and a rope ladder tumbles down till it dangles above the rowboat’s flank. The sailor at the oars nods us toward it while he keeps the boat close to the ship in the choppy water. Rhys climbs first, rung by agonizing rung as the cog dips and groans in the swells, until he disappears over the side. Then Einion penteulu nudges me. I put on my miracle face and climb. When I reach the top, a sailor helps me over the side of the ship with one meaty hand on my forearm and the other on my backside. He says something to his fellows that’s a slurry of liquid sounds, but it makes them cackle like jackdaws.
This has the look of a teulu at sea, and we are far from anywhere Owain might have sway.
I make a show of putting myself near Rhys even though he clutches the ship rail and looks the worst kind of greensick. Rhys is coltish, but he towers over many men by at least a handswidth, and when he shifts closer to me and touches his forearm, the sailors go back to their rope hauling and crate stacking even as they size him up sidelong.
Einion penteulu appears at the top of the ladder, then Nest, and finally Owain. A sailor directs us with stabs of his finger to the back of the ship, so I get a good view of the sailors busying themselves with ropes and canvas and oars, calling to one another in that strange tongue I can’t follow. Nest curls up beside a crate while Einion joins Rhys and Owain at the rail.
I hang back. I want to know how long the crossing will be, how Owain will know where to find the high king, what we’ll do if Cadwgan’s old brother in arms has no welcome for us. But after we traded the horses Owain “obtained” from his father to pay our passage, Einion penteulu tried asking how long we’d be away, and Owain told him to shut his gob or draw his blade.
So now we all leave Owain be and let him growl about what a bastard his father is, how ill his cousin Madog ap Rhirid served him, how the English king and Gerald of Windsor could do very improbable things to each other. It’s safer that way, even though betimes it’s hard not to remind Owain that he’d be raiding and plundering quite merrily had he not abducted the wife of the lord of Dyfed for pure vengeance, or had he given her back when offered the chance.
THE SEA IS GRAY AND JAGGEDY. IT’S LOVELY IN THE way of bleak things. The sails rattle overhead, and the wind tugs at my cloak. Everything smells so clean and wind-raked, nothing like the stale harbor behind us or the worrisome damp of brackish wood beneath.
Owain, Rhys, and Einion penteulu spend most of their time at the rail studying the water as if they know a damn thing about it. Nest stays folded in a hollow between two crates of something pungent. Her hood falls heavy over her forehead and her body curls itself into shadows. All I can see of her is a slant of pale cheek slashed by a loose strand of hair.
The day passes slow, but when it’s getting toward evening, I put together some cheese and meat for us all from our rucksack of stale provisions. Owain, Rhys, and Einion penteulu take theirs with muttered thanks. I’ve saved the best portion, even though I don’t expect Nest to eat it. I kneel at her side and touch her shoulder. Her hood shudders and there’s a muffled sob. I slip the food in my apron, edge myself into the hollow beside her, and draw her close like she’s one of the children. Nest sobs again, chokes, presses both hands against her eyes.
“Damn him,” she mutters. “This was the one thing. I wasn’t going to give him this, too.”
“You’re not. Owain’s clear over there. I won’t tell.” I squeeze her shoulders in a way I mean to be playful and reassuring, but Nest goes still and tense under my arm.
“I should . . . thank you. While I can. For everything you’ve done for my children. I was . . . not at my best. You just did for them. Now they love you.”
I told them I’d be back. William must worry that the enemy got me. Not Miv will peek under blankets like a game of where-is-baby. David may never be better again.
“There’s just one thing I need to know.” Nest picks at her fraying sleeve. “Did you really enjoy their company? Or were you just doing as he told you?”