So I do. Head down, knees muddy, throat choked. I pray silently to Saint Elen of the Hosts who built roads throughout the kingdoms of Wales long ago to help armies march to war. The saint whose name I share, who’s listened to me patiently since I was so small that I asked for sweets and ribbons. This prayer is one she knows chapter and verse.
Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.
Thank you for understanding.
If you did save Owain’s life today, thank you most especially for that.
This can’t be the first time Owain’s nearly met his end out here. He’s not wrong when he says that every Norman in Wales would dearly love to cut him to pieces. And more than one Welshman would hold him down. Women, too. The life of someone like Owain ap Cadwgan is a flimsy thing to hang a playact on, but in three years, he has only cuts and bruises to show from hundreds of raids and skirmishes and fights and brawls.
This is the first time I’ve seen it, though. The first time I’ve watched Normans go after him, brutal and single-minded. The first time in a very long while that I thought my playact might fall apart and I’d die at the hands of Owain’s grieving, deceived, and furious warband.
So there must be something to it. Even the smallest word from a saint would be enough to keep Owain safe should the Almighty will it so. At the very least I know Saint Elen is watching. I can’t see her, but there can be no other reason I can climb to my feet right now. No other reason I can move to where Owain is standing alone and take his trembling, blood-smeared hand.
THE SKY IS ALL BUT DARK WHEN WE REACH THE FORT of Aberaeron. I’m wrung out from tensing at every brush-twitch and trying to seem sorrowful for a man I’d see fed to pigs, but time has come, so I call up my miracle face — wise, unruffled, everlasting confident. The lads have leather armor, and I have Saint Elen.
Someone must have run ahead to alert Owain’s father we’d arrived, for Cadwgan ap Bleddyn is standing in the hall doorway in a finely cut Norman-looking tunic and shiny leather boots.
He’s by himself. Mayhap Owain was wrong about his stepmother finally coming to a family gathering.
No. Isabel must merely be busy elsewhere. Holding a Christmas feast is no small task, not when you’re wed to a king, and this family will make it no easier with their swagger and boasting and eye-blackening. I can offer to help, and then we’ll share a honey cake and she’ll invite me to spin with the wives, and before long I’ll always sit with them, even if Isabel isn’t there to beckon me over.
Cadwgan gestures to the hall door, and Owain heads inside. When I follow, Cadwgan cuts in front of me so I must trail them both like a wolfhound. In the shaft of doorway light, he extends his wrist to Owain before collaring him into a fierce, brief hug. “Christ Jesus, lad. I just heard. Men don’t come better than Llywelyn ap Ifor.”
“He’s been with me since the beginning. When I wasn’t any older than that little pisser.” Owain nods at Rhys helping to carry the body toward the chapel. “I swear I felt Saint Elen knocking that Norman blade away from me. But it . . . it struck Llywelyn instead.”
Cadwgan draws a long, patient breath. “Son, it’s Christmas. You’ve just had a gut-wrench loss. Can we leave it there? I’ve no wish to argue. Especially about something we will never see eye to eye on.”
Something is definitely not the worst thing Cadwgan has ever called me. In fact, it’s a promising sign that he’s trying to avoid a fight about Saint Elen instead of needling Owain into one.
“It was Gerald of Windsor, wasn’t it?” Cadwgan asks quietly.
Owain glares at nothing and murmurs, “He’s a dead man.”
“That Norman whoreson will kill either one of us on sight, given half a chance. He wants my kingdom in the worst way, and he won’t get it by other means.” Cadwgan shifts uncomfortably. “I . . . feared the worst when my runner said there was a body.”
“I will not fall, Da.” Owain holds out an arm dappled with Llywelyn penteulu’s blood. “It will not happen.”
“I’ve no doubt you believe that,” Cadwgan mutters. “She’s made it very easy for you.”
Owain makes a show of clutching his chest, staggering into me, and gasping, “Ooh! Da! That kind of cruelty is what’ll be the end of me!”
Cadwgan groans and shoves Owain, but not in an angry way. Owain pushes his father back, and the two of them stand together for a long moment, likely thinking of their slain friend.
I’m thinking how it’s not like Cadwgan can be rid of me, and how much easier it would be for everyone if he’d simply show a thimbleful of courtesy on occasions like this. He doesn’t even have to mean it. I’m thinking how it will be when Isabel looks forward to seeing me at gatherings like this. When it’s not just Cadwgan’s oldest son who enjoys my company, but his wife as well. Two people even a king must heed.
CADWGAN CALLS A SERVANT TO SHOW OWAIN WHERE he can clean up before the feast. He follows wearily, shrugging off his bloodstained tunic as he goes, and Cadwgan waits, arms folded, till I back out of the hall and into the freezing yard.
Across the way is the maidens’ quarters, but Cadwgan is still watching from the door, and I don’t want to bring trouble on the girl cousins. So I wander the yard until I find a blind alley behind the laundry where women wring out and hang undergarments. It’s private enough, especially as the yard fills up with guests for the feast, and sheltered from the wind, so I borrow a bucket and rag from a harried laundress, strip down, and scrub fast.
My breath comes out in puffs, and I curse December as I slosh the rag through the steaming water. I wash my arms and feet ten thousand times to scour what’s left of Llywelyn penteulu off me and be done with him forever. The water turns murky. Colder with every pass. I grind the rag harder down my legs. Across my belly. My skin starts to hurt, and it’s a long moment before I realize I’m scrubbing where I’m already clean, as if I can scour clear to the bone.
I can’t. I’ve already tried.
I’m as clean as I’m going to get and halfway to frostbite besides, so I struggle into my new gown, the red one Owain brought me just for Christmas. I adjust the cuffs and notice the dried smear of blood.
I wonder what she looked like, where she lived. I wonder how Owain came upon her and in what state he left her. Mayhap she gave the gown up willingly, just trembled a hand toward a coffer or garment rod while she cowered in a corner. Or perhaps she stood her ground and clenched her fists.
Picked up a fire iron.
I plunge the cuff into new water and scrub. I scrub so hard that fibers come loose and my fingernails ache. Then it’s clean. No traces of what came before this moment. No echoes.
After I’m dressed, I’m not ready to face the hall. Not yet. The windows are bright in the maidens’ quarters and Margred answers my knock, bouncing on her toes and swinging embroidery that’s trailing threads. She’s grown at least a handswidth, and she’s rounder through the hips, even though she’s still wearing a child’s straight-waist shift dress. Her face lights up, and she squeals and pulls me inside, even as her nurse sternly reminds her that she shouldn’t just throw open the door to any strange knocking. That nurse is not wrong, but Margred is already hugging me and rattling on about how much she missed me and did I bring my ball and mayhap there’ll be honey cake at supper, and oh saints, her carefree chatter is like a warm drink of cider. I hold up the toy mouse and she snatches it playfully, holds it to her face, and spins like a child half her age.