“Oh, aye,” drawls Einion penteulu as he stations himself at Owain’s elbow. “You wanted so much to see to his safety that you robbed him and abandoned him in a foreign kingdom.”
Owain’s face goes hard and he regrips his knife.
“That . . .” I can’t pull in a whole breath. “Saint Elen, she . . .”
Einion penteulu smiles. “Seems to me that Owain spent all this time untouched without you. Mayhap Saint Elen will look to him anyway.”
When Owain pets the smudgy cloth above his elbow, it flutters enough that I recognize the edging of embroidery. It’s a strip of linen torn from a shift I left drying on an Irish clothesline. He’s turned my undergarments into a relic of me, like I’m a saint, too.
“The boy did as you told him,” Einion penteulu says to Owain in a smooth, treacherous voice, “but things have changed. He couldn’t know. I’ll attend to it, my lord.”
Rhys is still standing next to me, but in two clean, sharp motions, Einion shoves him clear and swivels me away from Owain. Morgan steps closer, then Llywarch. One by one they gather, the lads of Owain’s teulu, quiet and hulking like dogs waiting to set to.
“What the hell is this?” Rhys comes after us, but Einion, still smiling, pushes him hard at Gwilym, who holds him fast.
“Einion.” I struggle to pry his fingers loose because I am against the steading wall and Rhael isn’t here and I am very, very afraid. “This isn’t what you think. If you’d just —”
“It’s exactly what I think. Shut up or I’ll shut you up.” Einion penteulu hands me off to Morgan and Llywarch. They haul me fighting and stumbling toward the tree line while Einion slings an arm over Owain’s shoulder, turns him bodily, and gestures to this tree and that hill while Owain fidgets with his charm, not putting a stop to this because Einion’s voice has been the only one in his ear for way too long.
Rhys is shouting, cursing like a drover and begging the others to heed him, but Gwilym is built like a boar and twice as strong. He’ll hold Rhys fast till this is over.
“You don’t want this.” I’m struggling now. Wrenching hard to catch Owain’s eye. “Saint Elen — you want — Owain!”
“Oh yes.” Einion cackles. “Keep telling a king’s son what he wants.”
“Don’t you listen to him.” My voice is raw. “Don’t you listen to the Adversary. Not when you can listen to her.”
Morgan shoves me against a tree hard enough to clatter my teeth. I brace for the ground, sobbing already, but something seizes my jaw and I force my eyes open and it’s Owain. I haven’t been this close to him in se’ennights, and I’m overwhelmed by the smell of him, the restless vigor that all but pours off him in waves.
“What was that?” he whispers.
“Be careful.” I’m trembling. Cold to the marrow. If someone’s going to end me here in the woods, by Christ may it be Owain ap Cadwgan and not one of these bastards. “Be careful who you listen to. Not everyone means you well.”
Einion groans. “My lord, really. She must think you’re a fool.”
Owain nudges Morgan, and suddenly I’m free. Somehow I stay on my feet before Owain ap Cadwgan, who’s worrying his charm like beads on a paternoster, with Einion penteulu hovering behind him, outraged and murderous. He is utterly still, not even a scowl or an eyebrow that I could reckon with. At length he whispers, “Say it again. Loud. So my penteulu can hear you.”
I lick my lips. “Wh-what?”
“That I can listen to her.” Owain’s voice carries through the clearing, and Einion’s jaw twitches although he stays silent.
The tree bark digs into my back. I pull in long, whistling breaths and let each one out as a silent curse on Rhys’s head. All he had to do was see me safe to Dyfed. All he had to do was heed his king.
“For months I was trapped in exile, and my father was the one who kept me there. I might have forgiven that. Someday.” Owain leans close, fast and smooth like a striking snake, and I flinch like I haven’t in years. “But he’s in league with Gerald of Windsor now. I know he is. It’s why he sent some bastard to kidnap you and Nest. Stole you both right out from under me just so he would have his way and I’d have nothing. Like he wants. Like he’s always wanted.”
It’s been three years. I’ve made it easy for Owain to believe, but the playact isn’t the only reason I’m still in his company.
Nest was right. He was never going to let her go.
He won’t ever let me go, either.
“So I prayed to Saint Elen. She looks to me always. I asked her what I should do. Then I found this.” Owain turns the underwear charm and runs his thumb over the embroidery. “She sent me a banner. I’m to ride to war. Saint Elen is going to help me take down my father.”
“KILL YOUR — BUT CADWGAN’S THE BACKBONE OF Powys! Ceredigion too! If you kill him —”
“What?” Owain snarls. “What will happen if my lord father isn’t around to tell me what I can plunder and when I can take a shit?”
Powys will be overrun before the season turns. Gilbert fitz Richard de Clare and his thirty land-hungry Norman knights will occupy Ceredigion in a month’s time. Cadwgan ap Bleddyn is the only thing keeping his kingdom together, keeping Welshmen and Normans alike wary and reluctant to step over any of the borders. Not a man of them crosses Cadwgan without weighing it well.
“No.” I’m trying to breathe. “No. Saint Elen does not want you to harm your father.”
“How do you know?” he asks quietly.
If I make myself the saint, she will strike me down.
If I don’t, someone in this clearing will.
“It’s just that . . .” I clutch at another true thing. “You’ll have plenty of time to be king. This is your father.”
Owain’s face is slowly going hard and blank once more. This is not what he wants to hear, and a playact only works when Owain ap Cadwgan wants it to. My eyes go to the blade gripped loose in his hand. He could kill me in two motions. Owain is not used to Saint Elen working against him in any way. He is not used to hearing no.
Einion penteulu steps closer. “I’ll be honest, my lord. I had my doubts about your battle banner and how you came by it, but I take it all back. At least a saint will not rob you. She will not change her tune when she’s held to account.”
“Your father didn’t kidnap us, and he certainly didn’t send a man to rob you.” I edge near enough to touch a fold of Owain’s tunic. I need him off this idea. That a saint might guide his hand. I need him to hear me. “None of this is what it seems.”
“Then what is it?” Einion asks, soft and cutting, and he is at Owain’s shoulder and they are a shield wall just as they always have been. “I’m a simple fighting man, but even I know when a girl thinks to lead me by something that’s definitely not my hand. Perhaps men have been whispering in your ear these days, hmm?”
That’s got to be out of turn. But Owain does not raise a fist. He doesn’t even bristle. All he does is wind a finger around his underwear charm like these shadowy doubts are commonplace. Like it’s not impossible there’s something to them.