“I’m leaving on the morrow.” Nest speaks low. “I’d still have you come with me. My children love you, and that makes you part of my family. Just like you were blood.”
I told them to stay together. I told them I’d be back, that I’d always come back. David clung to my cloak-end and William pulled it from his grip, clear and confident and steady, and told him not to be afraid.
“All right,” I whisper, and under the covers Nest takes my hand and holds it tight.
It’s not like you didn’t come out of it well.
A clatter in the dooryard. Rhael and me shoulder to shoulder, her breath fast and shallow.
After Nest returns to the maidens’ quarters, I reach between the pallet and the wall and pull out Owain’s rucksack. I paw through his tunics and underclothes till I find his dagger with the hammered bronze sheath. I take it, as well as the silver torc that Owain was to give to Cadwgan upon his return, a gift from his old brother in arms. Then I pull out the heavy gold ring that was Owain’s grandfather’s and the plain leather purse that’s heavy with coin.
Four-and-ten-year-old me slowly unwinding the last bandage from Owain’s healed wound. Wrung out from nightmares. Perched stiff on the edge of the bed and reminding herself that this is what she asked for. This is a thing she can somehow do.
It’s not like you didn’t come out of it well.
Once I asked Saint Elen for my life and she gave it to me, but when someone gives you something, it does not really become yours. The giver still decides when and why and how. And a gift can always be taken back.
I bundle the knife, the ring, the torc, and the purse into my own rucksack, tight so they don’t clank and betray themselves valuable. Then I drink a whole wineskin of thrice-brewed ale, undress, and crawl under the bedclothes.
When you take something with your own hands, that’s when it becomes yours.
It’s the darkest part of night when I wake up needing a piss. Owain beside me lies asleep. Naked, sprawled, taking up most of the bed and all the bedclothes. Snoring like an elderly hound. Smelling faintly of spirits.
I think of the dagger. For many long moments.
I slip out of bed and dress, then sling my kitful of plunder over one shoulder. I leave my spindle, though. I’ve spun enough falsehoods to last all my life.
IT’S NOT MORNING YET FOR ANYONE BUT THE POOR scullions kindling the day’s first fires — and a single scarred graybeard pretending to fish leaves out of the common trough. Nest emerges from the maidens’ quarters, hooded like a leper, and heads toward the graybeard like she’s got nothing to hide. I pull up my own hood and fall into step beside her. Our feet pad in steady unison like a team of horses.
The graybeard squints at me, then Nest. He says something to her, measured, something about silver, and Nest pours out a string of syllables that ends in Gerald of Windsor. The graybeard sighs, low and long-suffering, but nods us toward the gate and mutters for us to keep our faces in shadow. As the sentries slide the heavy bar out of the notches, Einion penteulu stumbles out of the yard privy, staggers, and leans hard against the building like someone poured him there.
I face away. Too fast. Too sudden. I’ve drawn his attention. I can feel it.
There’s no way I can go back. No way to replace all the things I took exactly where I found them. Owain will notice. He’ll want to know why. He will come to conclusions that will be absolutely and unmistakably correct.
“What is it?” Nest’s voice is a calming murmur. A mother’s voice. I will not think of my mother.
“Einion ap Tewdwr. He saw us. He’ll tell Owain.”
“Shh. He saw nothing. It’s early. He’s tired and probably drunk.” Nest looks over her shoulder, though.
The gate creaks open enough to step through, and we’re outside and moving toward Waterford at a walk too fast to be seemly.
Barely a threemonth. I was still counting the days. At not-quite-dawn, I slid past a dozing sentry and fled in no direction. Just away. I stumbled through the dark until I fell over something and my ankle twisted wrong and I couldn’t stand up true for anything. Einion ap Tewdwr came upon me where I lay curled among the roots of a massive oak. I braced for the grab, hard to the ground can’t struggle, but he merely leaned down and whispered in my ear.
We killed them both and seized all the beasts.
It was enough. The bulk of him, the creak of leather armor and the faint whiff of sweat on sweat. It was enough to break me, and I followed him back without a word, hobbling hard because I would not take his arm.
Einion had not made the brutes let me up for my own sake while Owain lay bleeding, but a fighting man should have realized how saving someone’s life binds you together in a way that goes deeper than blood.
Mayhap he did not think. Mayhap he only acted.
The sky is almost pink when we arrive at the Waterford wharves. The graybeard brings Nest and me to a ship, and the three of us board and move to the rear. All that’s left is to wait for the tide.
Around us, the sailors prepare for the voyage. Slowly it occurs to me that this is really happening. We are getting clear. Soon I’ll see the little ones again. They will be safe and whole. There’ll be games of border raids. Whole afternoons to play at ball. Cozy evenings perfect for my mother’s stories. William and David and Not Miv were never supposed to love me, but they do.
This is how you make a place. This and no other way.
We’ve just cast off when there’s a clamor on the wharves and the sailors stop their sail hauling and oar wrangling to shout at the gangers who are flagging them down. After a scuffle with ropes and a scrape and a thud, another passenger climbs aboard, appearing over the side of the ship hand over hand.
Oh, Jesus wept. It’s Rhys.
I pull my hood sharp across my face and watch him sidelong as he scans the deck. He’s come to bring us back. Einion penteulu wasn’t as drunk as Nest thought. Owain must know everything, including the fact that his rucksack has been emptied of valuables and there can be but one culprit.
Nest nudges me and mutters in a gruff boyish voice, “Eyes down.”
The ship takes on that drop-sway feeling that only comes from being on water with nothing below but a few planks of wood and the breath of the saints. The wharf creeps past in slow, maddening handswidths.
Hurry. For God’s sake.
A sailor approaches Rhys and gestures to the back of the ship. Rhys shakes his head and steps around the sailor toward some piled cargo. The sailor shoves him toward the rear, and Rhys staggers, then falls into a fighting crouch and garbles something in bad Norse-Irish about a king’s son and missing girls.
The oars plash beneath us.
Faster. Please.
Two more sailors appear. I will Rhys to stand down. To rethink what he means to do. He’s here at Owain’s bidding, but that doesn’t mean I want to watch this crew beat the stuffing out of him, even if it takes long enough for wind and tide and oars to put some water between the ship and the wharf.
The captain approaches and speaks to Rhys in broken Welsh. “Passengers to the stern.”
“Two girls,” Rhys says impatiently. “Are they on board? If they are, you’ll have to turn around. It’s life and death.”
The captain laughs and gestures to Nest and me and the graybeard. Nest squeezes my hand. Her face is stone. The graybeard frowns at the commotion but makes no move.