“Owain!” I hiss, and he releases me abruptly, moving toward the pack of grinning lackwits who are already withdrawing into the brush they came from.
“What?” he asks, and before I can answer he turns to the lads and makes a whipcrack noise-gesture, and they snicker and jeer like I’ve been somehow made the fool.
I point incredulously at Aoife, who’s the daughter of this house, and her foster brother has been kind enough to try to make Owain feel welcome, and all right, yes, it is a little ridiculous that Niall shrieks when he sees spiders and has an annoying habit of laughing at his own jokes, but he’s no less a king’s son for that.
Aoife repeats her question, her voice high and trembling, but when she mentions Niall, Cormac nudges Owain and mutters something that makes him cackle.
“That’s what,” I say through my teeth. “Niall told you at least three times that he thought it would be fun to —”
“How the hell should I know where that nuttering fool is?”
“Owain,” says Cormac, and the tilt of his voice stretches the familiar sounds into something otherworldly. In choppy Welsh he goes on, “We bait them, townsmen. Good laugh to it.”
Gormlaith looses a flurry of angry words that makes Aoife turn pink. Cormac laughs in her face and jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and the lads troop after him into the brush.
I snare Owain’s sleeve. My spindle still held like a knife. “Where are you going?”
“You heard Cormac. We’re going a-baiting. Mayhap I’ll bring you back a tasty merchant to cook up for my supper.”
“But — wait!”
Einion penteulu snorts. “It’s just some harmless play, miracle girl. You’re not worried something ill will befall us. Are you?”
I can’t say that Owain promised his father he wouldn’t give half a moment of grief to Muirchertach Ua Briain, who is both ally and friend, and this very much has the look of grief to it. I cannot tell him that none of this looks kingly, and I haven’t spent se’ennights building us a place here for him to kick it down with thoughtless foolery.
I open my hand and Owain pulls free.
“Don’t worry, sweeting.” Owain grins over his shoulder as he wades through the brush after Cormac, Einion penteulu and Rhys on his heels. “I’ll be back by the time a husband’s real work begins.”
I watch him go. My face feels hot. Aoife tiptoes over, puts an arm around my shoulders, and says something in a comforting tone. She can’t have followed the conversation in Welsh, so I must look as bad as I feel. Gormlaith makes a show of spitting, then hashes Cormac’s name into a tirade. She takes my spindle, tosses it, then folds my hands into a vulgar gesture and holds them up high. I can’t help but giggle. Then Gormlaith shoulder-bumps me into Aoife, who gives me a firm, fierce hug.
I may not be a wife in Powys, but with these girls for company, right now Isabel de Say ought to be envying me.
I LEARN THAT CORMAC IS THE YOUNGEST SON OF Muirchertach’s court bard. I learn he tricked Gormlaith into sharing his bed last winter by hinting that he would marry her. I learn he does not fight nor labor nor wear clerical cloth nor follow any trade that I can tell.
I learn that if I ever need to find Owain, I must simply find Cormac.
The more I learn of Cormac, the more he feels familiar, like he could be beaten into Owain’s warband on the morrow. We are far from a place Owain has sway, though, and Cormac is neither a brother in arms nor a brother in blood.
It’s not long before Owain takes to sneaking out of bed at cockcrow, leaving me to manage Niall appearing at the chamber door with horses standing saddled behind him. Niall is always earnest, fighting a look of bewildered hurt as he asks where Owain has gone so early and without taking a meal. I can’t bring myself to be truthful. Niall’s good-natured innocence makes him trust too easily, and he is trying very hard to be a good host and befriend Owain. So I tell him I don’t know where Owain has gotten to. I pretend my Irish is worse than it is. I shrug and smile, and Niall goes pink and nods and shuffles off.
In a way, though, saying I don’t know is as true as I can make it. Owain is vague as to where he and Cormac and the rest spend their days, regardless of how I ask. Besides, after Cormac and his wolves barricaded Niall in the yard privy and bellowed with laughter as he banged on the door and all but wept for help, I’m not sure Niall truly wants to know where they are.
One morning, I step into the yard and Niall is not by the door. When I get to the hall, he’s coaxing his magpie to lift its little feet to the tune a boy plays on a pipe whistle while an admiring crowd of youths oohs and aahs. Aoife cuts off my attempt at an apology by dropping the cat on my lap and insisting there’s nothing to beg pardon for. Or mayhap she’s saying the apology isn’t mine to make.
Aoife doesn’t say it coldly, but I spend the rest of the day with a tight ball of worry in my belly. Later, after Owain has rolled in long past dark and fallen into bed and pressed up close, I say, “Niall has been nothing but kind to you, and all you do is slight him. People have noticed.”
“Slight him?” Owain scoffs. “He should be glad I’m a guest here or he’d know what I really think. Hell, what kind of man takes so many baths and carries a psalter?”
One who doesn’t smell like sweaty horse and prefers not to linger in purgatory. But I bite my lip and say, “It’s not just Niall. Had you been here today, you’d know Muirchertach went to parley with the men of Waterford again because they are weary of certain bastards sowing their cargos with live mice and waving bare buttocks at their wives.”
Owain snort-cackles, like he’s remembering it fondly. “If the men of Waterford return the favor, you’ll be tempted to choose a pointy rock, but you’ll do better with a nice round one. Aim true and put your weight behind it.”
I sigh in disgust and shift away from him.
“What? No wife of mine is going to pass up a chance like that, is she?”
He’s lucky there are no rocks at hand now. “Look, tomorrow there’s to be a horse race. That could be fun, yes?”
“At Rathmore?” Owain’s good cheer is gone in a moment. “No. I can’t be here.”
“But —”
“But nothing.” He rolls over and puts his back to me. “Believe me, sweeting, it’s best for all of us if I’m anywhere else as much as possible.”
Anywhere else would be one thing, but not when it means out with Cormac stirring up hell in the Irish countryside. It would be different if they were a proper warband. Raiding has a purpose. Whatever this is will lead only to bad blood and bad ends.
After the room has gone quiet and there are no sounds but the mice in the walls, I close my eyes and whisper my old prayer to Saint Elen.
Thank you for understanding.
Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.
Please make Owain see how dangerous this foolishness is so he’ll stop —
“What was that?”
I startle and nearly fall out of bed. Owain has risen on one elbow and now he’s squinting at me in the slivers of moonlight from the half-closed window.
“N-nothing,” I stammer. “I thought you were asleep.”