“I’m not going back to Owain.” I repeat it clear and sure, even as Rhys behind him looks half raging and half bellysick.
“Where are you going, then?”
“She’s going to Dyfed,” Isabel puts in before I can spin out a convincing lie. “To be nurse to Gerald of Windsor’s children.”
Cadwgan was clearly expecting a different answer, for he draws back with a wide-eyed frown that takes him several long moments to master.
I press it, my only advantage. “We’re of one mind, my lord. You’ll never see me again.”
“I’ll take her.” Rhys steps forward. “I’ll see her safe to where she needs to be.”
Cadwgan squints, first at me and then at Rhys. “Do you swear it? You may follow a warband led by my son, but this is your king you speak to.”
“I swear it.”
“My lord, don’t send me with him.” I grip my skirts with both hands. “He won’t bring me to Nest. We’ll go straight to Owain.”
“I take a man at his word,” Cadwgan replies. “Besides, Owain’s still in Ireland. Even my son wouldn’t be so great a fool as to defy me.”
I gape at Rhys. “But you were going to fetch him!”
“He will,” Cadwgan says, “now that I know where you are, and where you’re going.”
Rhys looks away, and I cough a quiet, bitter laugh at how deeply mistaken I was, thinking I could hide anything from Cadwgan ap Bleddyn.
“Don’t blame this lad,” Cadwgan goes on. “If it makes you feel any better, he tried hard to keep your whereabouts to himself. Hear me now, though. You have my leave to go to Nest. I owe her that much after what Owain did to her, and may you both know peace. But if I ever see you again, I will kill you myself, come what may. Saint Elen might protect my son. I can’t expect to know the will of God Almighty, and Heaven knows it would explain a lot. You’re the one whispering in his ear, though, and you sure as blazes aren’t doing it for his benefit. So it ends now. It ends for good. Am I clear?”
If there was ever a time for Isabel to fly into a hellcat rage, to demand she have her way and shove me out the door behind a swordsman of her choosing, it’s now.
But she’s gone. Isabel de Say has left me here to burn.
I lift my chin. I look Cadwgan in the eye. “Very clear.”
“Right then.” Cadwgan hooks Rhys across the shoulders and pulls him several paces from me, mutters in his ear, then claps his back in a way I’ve seen Owain do a thousand times. It means that Rhys is dismissed and the matter is closed.
I’m trembling. Still clutching the spare gown Isabel gave me that I was going to pretend to embroider. I will walk out of Worthen alive, even after facing down a man who has waited years for a chance like this.
Cadwgan steps away toward the hearth, where Isabel is sulking. He doesn’t wait for me to thank him. He doesn’t care whether I’m grateful. He just wants me gone. Owain would have run me through where I stand.
All at once I wonder how Owain will ever be a king.
I’m carrying a wineskin filled with small ale, and bundled beneath my arm is meat and cheese wrapped in my spare gown. It’s been quiet too long, so I clear my throat and say, “So. Ah. How much further to Dyfed, do you reckon?”
Rhys holds back a tree limb so I can pass, then moves so we walk side by side.
“At least there’ll be silver in it for you,” I say into the silence. “Handfuls and handfuls. A fine horse, mayhap. I know you have no liking for this, but when you stand before Owain, you can tell him his father bade you. Your king gave you no choice.”
Rhys grunts, but whether he’s agreeing or simply responding I can’t tell.
I check the sky once more to be sure we’re heading southwest toward Dyfed and not north to Powys. “You shouldn’t feel foolish. That Cadwgan worked out I’d come with you. That he got you to tell him I was at Worthen. I’m not upset. Honestly.”
“I don’t feel foolish. Whether I have any liking for this doesn’t matter. I’ve been given a task, and I’m going to see it through.”
The sun’s still in the right place. We’re going south and west. Whatever he promised Owain, whatever Owain promised him, Rhys is carrying out this task because it takes a rare man to look Cadwgan ap Bleddyn in the face and lie. A rarer man to defy him openly. Rhys is not that man.
When he was beaten into Owain’s teulu last autumn, Rhys and I stood at eye level. Now I barely come up to his shoulder. He’s broader now and his voice deeper, like a half-dug well. In another year he’ll be someone else. A fighting man I’d hardly recognize.
Today, though, we’re walking at elbows toward Dyfed, and every now and then he carelessly runs a thumb down his forearm. For today, he is still Rhys.
Pull back this branch. Not much longer and William will run at me squealing. Move past that stone. Nest will hug me, and I will hold out my arms for the baby.
Step into a clearing, and a dozen fighting men crouch around a cold meal. I scrabble for a fire iron I don’t have, and one of them stands and it’s Morgan. Morgan from Owain’s warband. There’s Llywarch and Gwilym and —
“Give her something to eat, will you?” Rhys says to them. “I can likely still catch a ship today if I keep moving.”
“Don’t bother,” Morgan replies. “He’s already here.”
Morgan tips his head toward a stand of brush and my mouth falls open, but Rhys merely huffs a sigh, mutters something like of course he is, and gestures for me to follow.
I edge a step back. “Owain’s in Ireland! Cadwgan said you’d not yet gone to fetch him!”
“I never said Owain wouldn’t come back of his own choosing.”
“You told Cadwgan —”
“I told my king I’d return you where you needed to be. That’s what I’m doing. You need to be with Owain, and now you are.”
I’ve been given a task and I’m going to see it through. Only not the one Cadwgan gave him.
Owain must have told Rhys where the warband would assemble, and Rhys had the wit to turn up in this place before boarding a ship just in case. Or — saints, mayhap Owain hinted it would be wise for him to do just that.
I fall still. I cannot be here. There’s no place for me. “Rhys, please don’t do this. You heard Cadwgan. He will end me if I stay with Owain. Nest will reward you. Whatever you want. She’ll give it to you.”
“That’s for Owain and his lord father to sort out.” Rhys glares at me. “How can you still believe I’d betray Owain for thirty pieces of Norman silver?”
I’m counting days now. If Owain’s here, he must have sailed from Ireland soon after we did. Long before his father gave him leave to do it. Nest and me escaping must have given Owain all the excuse he needed.
The brush shifts and Owain appears, blade in hand. Blade in hand in his own camp. He peers at me like he’s not sure I’m real. He’s somehow put his hands on new leather armor, and there’s a grubby band of cloth tied around his upper arm.
Rhys is saying something about his task. Bowing his head. Owain wordlessly spins the dagger front to back, front to back.
I force my eyes off the blade. I draw a deep, shaky breath and say the only true thing in my head. “I’m glad to see you safe, my lord.”