“Ugh, I cannot even stand to look at you!”
“Sweeting, be reas —”
But she’s gone, turned on her heel and stomping toward the stable while wrenching her veil over her ears. I crouch farther around the corner as Isabel moves through the doorway, muttering a low stream of bad words in French. At the hall door, Cadwgan hands Rhys a purse, aims him toward the kitchen, then disappears inside.
The moment Cadwgan is gone, Isabel storms out of the stable, towing a horse by the bridle. She bellows a name, and a burly warbander rises wearily from an upturned bucket. Still cursing, Isabel flings the reins at the warbander and tries to haul herself onto the horse’s back without the mounting block.
“We’re leaving?” the warbander asks. “What about your things, my lady?”
“I have everything I need at Worthen,” Isabel snaps. “Hurry up. Let’s see how that filthy wretch likes someone leaving without the benefit of a farewell.”
I haven’t had a decent meal since Ireland. My last mouthful of travel bread was yesterday night, and my feet haven’t blister-keened this much since fleeing ahead of Madog ap Rhirid’s warband all those months ago. Now that Rhys has passage money, we’ll be on our way to the coast this very day. I’ll be standing before Owain, who I robbed and left saintless, before a fortnight is out.
Isabel is growling away from Cadwgan instead of feasting in the hall at his right hand. If Nest could bring herself to trust me, I must take a chance on Isabel de Say. I step into the yard and call, “My lady, wait!”
A flicker of disgust passes over her face, but it’s fleeting, like she doesn’t even have the will to hate me. “What? What do you want?”
Isabel looks hagridden, cheeks flushed and plaits tatty beneath her hood. She is nowhere near the girl with the jewel-blue eyes and cold hands who dislodged Cadwgan’s grip from my arm at Aberaeron.
“I heard,” I reply quietly. “About Henry. I’m sorry. It was a right bastard thing for Cadwgan to do. You must be wrecked.”
“What do you know of it?”
I cough a bitter laugh. “If you’re looking for a way to get back at him, I’ve got one.”
In an instant she’s attentive, like a dog when you show it meat.
“You’re going to your hunting lodge, are you not? Worthen? Let me come with you as your guest. Once Cadwgan learns of it, he’ll be wroth as ten baited bears, but there’ll be nothing he can do. Not when you’re at Worthen.”
Isabel squints at me. I hold my breath. Sway on my feet.
Then she smiles, hard and catlike. “Yes. He wants you nowhere near me. He’d hate it. So by all means yes. You are most welcome.”
Worthen this time of year will be filling up with new onions and leeks from the garden and big round cheeses and likely some mutton. Isabel can’t watch my every move. I’ll pass a day there. Perhaps two. When she no longer finds it amusing to have me around, I will be rested and healthy. I’ll raid her larder and head straight for Dyfed where Nest and the little ones are waiting.
“May I say farewell?” I gesture at Rhys standing in the shadow of the hall door, poking through a shine of silver in his palm.
Isabel nods absently as she fusses with a bulky parcel that a servant is strapping behind her saddle. As I near, Rhys is miserably dragging a finger through the coins.
“It’s not enough for us both,” he murmurs.
Betimes Rhys is a warbander, lean and fierce and capable. Other times he’s a wide-eyed boy of four and ten. “Cadwgan means for you to go alone. I’m to go to Worthen with Isabel. I’ll be safer there. Away from all those sailors.”
Rhys shudders. He glances at Isabel and her burly warbander. He bites his lip.
“Saint Elen looks to Owain,” I go on softly. “Why else would Isabel of all people invite me into her home?”
“Very well.” Rhys closes a fist around the silver and tight-wraps it into the purse. “Please be careful. Owain can’t lose you.”
I nod. Rhys hovers a hand to clap me on the back warband-style, but ducks his head and follows the steward who’s been standing by. The steward speaks of ale and bread as he leads Rhys inside.
Isabel is waiting by the gate, glancing impatiently at the hall door every other moment. We’re soon into a greenwood full of birdsong and wind-rustle and fresh dewy undergrowth. I’m not fooled, though. Terms or not, chances are good there are still warbands on the prowl who’d love to put their hands on anything worth something to Owain ap Cadwgan.
I’ll ask at steadings till I fumble my way to Dyfed. From there, finding Nest should be as simple as pleading an audience at the first thing with a high, sturdy wall. I’ll beg what I can and steal what I have to. By the time Owain’s in Wales once more, I’ll be in a place he’ll want to think twice and thrice about raiding to get me back.
Besides, he’ll have a kingdom to retake.
I close my eyes and think to pray to Saint Elen, but instead I’m whispering my promise aloud to the birds and sunshine, to the little ones wherever they are.
I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.
ORDINARY LADIES WOULD SIT THEMSELVES ON THE hearth bench when they got home, or ask for a mug of ale, or change into clean clothes, or hug a favorite servant or pet a joyful dog.
Isabel orders the linens stripped off the bed and burned.
She stands before the gathered servants with her boots still muddy from the journey, two steps past Worthen’s threshold and stabbing her finger at them like a firebrand. The servants trade wide-eyed looks. As two of them edge toward the bed, Isabel demands that every last thing Cadwgan might have touched be scrubbed with lye, from the armrests of the big chair at the high table down to the supper spoons. She hollers at the steward when he refuses to burn the linens, and she’s only barely swayed by the argument that it’s the only set in the house.
Worthen is Isabel’s, part of her dower share. Owain explained the Norman custom to me once while telling me he didn’t want his hellcat stepmother’s patch of border dirt anyway. When Cadwgan dies, Worthen will not pass with the rest of his lands to his sons. It will always belong to Isabel. It was her father’s, and now it’s hers and only hers.
“Very well. Fine. But scrub those linens with lye like the rest.” Isabel drags a wrist over her eyes. “I don’t care if they won’t be dry by sundown! I’d rather sleep on the floor! And I want to know if he dares set foot in the courtyard.”
The steward looks pained, but mumbles, “Yes, m’lady,” and departs.
“I’ll burn something of his,” Isabel mutters. “Come.”
She drags me across the hall to a curtained alcove. Servants are carrying away the linens and piling the bedclothes on a rack for airing. Isabel marches to a coffer and swears when she can’t pry the lock. She kicks it and staggers back clutching her toe, cursing like a dockside ganger. Then she slumps on her heels, wiping her eyes, trembling.
That first year, I was never far from vengeance. I thought of the knife nearly every day. I could do it. It wasn’t like I’d never killed a man.
“What else does he love?” I ask. “That’s not locked up?”
Isabel shields her face with her elbow. “Don’t look at me.”