I finish my wine in one bitter swallow. Rhys was right, and Owain was right to believe it. Cadwgan has been pulling strings this whole time to make all the puppets dance, and he comes out of it getting everything he wants. His kingdom and province back. His Norman enemies denied a foothold anywhere in his lands. The English king foiled and befuddled.
His son broken to bridle, brought to heel.
“Cadwgan ap Bleddyn had better live forever,” I say quietly, “for none of his schemes will survive him.”
“Can I ask you something?” says Rhael.
I’m lying on my back, my hair loose from its pins and streaming every which way. My half-full mug dangles from my fingers over the edge of the bed. I’ve lost count how many I’ve had. “All right.”
“What are you doing here?”
I roll my head so I’m lying on my ear. Rhael sprawls beside me. She looks nothing like herself, but I’m beyond caring. “I’m here ’cause you invited me.”
“No. No. I mean, what are you doing here when Owain isn’t here? Don’t you do that . . . saint thing . . . for him?”
I’m about to say something I know I shouldn’t, but I have to say it because Rhael always knows when I lie. Even as the words are happening, I wish I could have them back, but I am full of honeybees, warm and dizzy and liquid inside. “I’m here when he isn’t because I won’t be seeing him again.”
Rhael frowns, and Isabel starts to shade through till I close my eyes to keep my sister here.
“But . . . he’s coming back from Ireland, isn’t he?”
“I won’t be here. I’ll be in Dyfed.”
“Why?” She’s definitely Isabel now, whether my eyes are open or not.
I hoist myself up and empty my mug. “Nest’s little ones love me. I will be their nurse. Not their pet.”
“What about Owain? Won’t he want his saint back? Won’t he need her back?”
“What about him?” I roll the purple dregs across the pewter mug bottom. My whole belly is sour and churny. “What do you care, anyway? Didn’t you just say that he did all this on purpose so the Normans would take baby Henry and roast him on a spit when Cadwgan puts one foot out of line? And I do mean when. Not if.”
Isabel hardens. All of her. Shoulders. Jaw. Eyes. She holds out an insistent hand for my empty mug. “More wine. Whatever we can’t drink, we’ll give to the pigs.”
I’m dead. That’s what this is.
Only the dead don’t need to piss.
I’m sprawled crosswise over a bed, fully dressed. My mouth is sawdust, and I’ll heave my guts if I move anything, and yet I’ll be worse than dead if I piss a bed belonging to the king of Powys. So I slide off one side. Crunch onto my knees. Reach around, forehead pressed to the side of the pallet, until I find a bowl. For a brief moment I’m glad for the bedcurtains, but I’ve pissed behind my cloak on the decks of merchant ships while a dozen Norse-Irish sailors muttered at my turned back like I was a mystery play. Worthen might as well be a chapel.
Isabel is retching on the floor, hanging her head over the other side of the bed. When she’s done, she curls up on the bare pallet like a dead insect and grinds the heels of her hands into her eyes. I leave the bowlful of piss on the floor and crawl back onto the bed beside her. Because my head. Is throbbing. Like an anvil. And I. Am dying.
If I’m dead, it won’t matter if I sleep.
It’s later when I peel my eyes open to a wool-scratchy tongue and a tiny piercing pain deep behind my forehead. The sun’s in a different place, slanting through the open front door. There’s a flagon of small ale by the bed, and I’m so thirsty I down every drop without taking a breath. Beside me, Isabel winces as she stretches. She doesn’t look nearly as wrung out as I feel. Mayhap this is not the first time she’s had so much wine at once.
“It was foolish of me to make them wash the linens.” Isabel grins at me, sly and mischievous. “That was possibly the worst night’s sleep I’ve ever had. I blame you-know-who. The bastard.”
I’m struggling for words, and the swimmy fog in my head doesn’t help. Servants are setting up the trestle table for breakfast, and Isabel rolls off the bed and pulls me toward them. There’s bread that’s been toasted, and porridge, and lots more small ale.
“How were we not friends before?” Isabel asks cheerfully between bites of porridge. “I should have known you-know-who was wrong about you. He’s wrong about most everything else.”
I smile and gesture at my full mouth as a reason I can’t reply, but there’s no malice to her. It’s like she’s forgotten Aberaeron ever happened. Like we’ve always been arm-link sisters, sharing wine and secrets in the dark. This means I can do one better than rob the house. My new friend is going to develop an overwhelming urge to send me to Dyfed and the little ones with a full rucksack and a guide. On Cadwgan’s coin.
After breakfast, Isabel gives me two of her old gowns. She chatters about color and cut, then calls for a basin of water and pushes me toward the bedcurtains. I’ve got one eye on the door, though. For all Isabel’s bold talk, if Cadwgan shows up here, they’re not going to keep him out.
Behind the bedcurtains, I fumble with the basin and spill water on myself. I’m still a little blurry from the wine. The hall feels muffled in here, like it’s under a blanket of snow. The shuffle of servants sweeping and tidying, the creak of the well windlass, the clatter of wood and crockery. I half expect to push apart the heavy woolen folds and greet Gormlaith and Aoife, to have servants nodding to me because I’m Owain’s wife.
It’s not always enough to know ordinary if you see it. Sometimes you must touch it to believe it’s possible, and Owain’s wife had that chance in Ireland. But this is Worthen, and I’m scheming a way to pull the wool over Isabel’s eyes. I’m looking over both shoulders for Cadwgan. All the shoes and undershifts in the kingdoms of Wales can’t make me something the house of Bleddyn will look at and not through.
Once I hoped Isabel could carve me out a place in this family. She can’t, though. She never could and neither can I, because in truth, there is no place for me here.
Ordinary is waiting for me in Dyfed.
I find Isabel spinning in the dooryard on one of the hall benches. I join her in the birdsong and sunlight, and I snap off a long stem of grass. Somewhere to the south, William and David are playing ball. Not Miv may be taking her first steps, and I have not yet come back.
“I wonder how long till Owain returns,” I muse.
“I hope he never returns. I hope his ship sinks and he dies in terror.” Isabel peers at me sidelong. “It can now, yes? Since you’re not with him?”
I want badly to turn my eyes Heavenward and beg Saint Elen that it not be from Isabel’s lips to God’s ears. Instead I toy with the stem and say, “If I’m in Dyfed looking after Nest’s children, I’ll never be near Owain again. Gerald of Windsor will make very certain of that. It’s a long way from here, though. I’m not sure I know the way. Once Owain’s back, he’ll never let me out of his sight again.”
Isabel jumbles her spinning in her lap. “What if I send one of my swordsmen with you? Give you food for the journey? I can do that. You-know-who can’t stop me.”