“When we were in Ireland, you wanted nothing more than to retake Powys from your cousin Madog.” I’m talking to Owain and only Owain. “Now you can. Now you should.”
“Says who?” he asks.
I open my mouth to tell him. Your father. Cadwgan ap Bleddyn. But all he’ll hear is shut up and go plunder something.
“Saint Elen.” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it.
Owain squints at nothing for a long moment. “She’s mistaken. I will ask her myself.”
“I – I don’t think saints are ever mistaken, my lord.”
“This time she is,” he says in a too-quiet voice.
The whole clearing goes blurry as it catches up to me, what this is. What it’s been becoming these last se’ennights. I’d much rather listen to a saint.
This is his playact now.
“The Normans are going to raid Ceredigion,” Owain says into the silence. “Since I’m still in Ireland, my father will lead a warband to drive them back into Dyfed. There’ll be an ambush. No survivors. Very tragic.”
No. I want badly to say it. Cadwgan ap Bleddyn just wanted me gone. He could have cut my throat. Instead he opened his hand.
But it’ll be chaos. No one notices girls in the shadows. No one thinks they will do anything but what they’re told.
I said I could save Owain’s life. Not Saint Elen. Me. Saint Elen came later, once I realized he’d make light of the saving and turn me out once the fever was a memory and the wound just one more tale to tell around a fire. I knelt at his side as his color drained around the hilt of the butcher knife beneath his arm, and when I gripped the handle to pull it free, every teeming thought in my head screamed twist it twist it twist it.
This time I know enough to think. This time I must take what I want with my own hands.
There’s cold meat for supper. I can’t get near enough the fire. I’m still trembling. Rhys puts himself next to me, but I won’t reply to any of his polite attempts at conversation. My head is throbbing. My arms, where Morgan held me. Rhys’s fault, all of it. He’s the sole reason I’m not under a pile of squealing, happy children right now.
He runs a thumb over his forearm and doesn’t move from my side.
The lads of the warband look at me differently now. There’s no more reverence. No more cautious, courteous distance. They’ve heard two stories about me, and even though Owain is a king’s son and they dare not cross him, Einion is their penteulu. He is a man they listen to.
Owain and Einion are a ways distant deciding where the sentries will be posted, where the trip lines will go. It’ll be dark soon, and Owain will come over here. He’ll tuck an arm around me and slide a hand up my leg and I — I can’t.
“I’m not going to tell him,” Rhys says quietly. “Where you meant to go. What you meant to do.”
“He wouldn’t believe you anyway,” I murmur, and Rhys rubs his upper arms and winces.
“Just . . . why?” Rhys peers at me sidelong. “You . . . share a bed with him. Don’t you care what happens to him?”
When Owain kicked in my door, Rhys was a boy dropping worms in his sister’s hair and tying thread to spiders to make pets of them. To him, Owain and I must seem as good as married. He has always seen us as ordinary.
“What about me?” I say it so quiet that Rhys must not hear. But I say it.
“I mean, all right, Owain was a bit of a bastard to you in Ireland,” Rhys goes on. “He owes you an apology. But if you’re not with him, he can die.”
I pull my cloak tighter across my shoulders. Owain ap Cadwgan owes me a lot of things, but I owe him, too. Things went bad enough for me after he kicked in my door, cold everywhere can’t struggle, and they could have gone worse, but instead I spent three years kept by a king’s son when no one but him would have had it so. There was a price, but there was no screaming or dragging. It’s not because we shared a bed that I care what happens to Owain ap Cadwgan, and it’s sure as anything not going to keep me here a moment longer than it must.
“Up you get, pisser.” Einion penteulu appears out of the shadows and holds out a fistful of tiny sticks at Rhys. “Time to draw your lot.”
Owain is a step behind him and cheerfully points at one of the sticks. “Not that one. It’s the short lot. You don’t want first pull, do you?”
“I don’t know much about short lots, my lord,” Rhys says, “and as for pulling, you’d have to ask Einion here.”
There’s a moment — openmouthed, staring — and then Owain cackles and claps Rhys on the back hard enough to send him staggering. “There he is. We’ll make a warbander of you yet.”
Einion penteulu is grinning, too, as he nudges Rhys’s shoulder with his fistful of lots. Rhys chooses a stick that’s long enough that he’ll get a decent night’s sleep, but when Owain drops to the ground at my side, Rhys clears off without a word.
It was easy to be done with Owain in the darkness of the maidens’ quarters. Easy to say it to Nest, who Owain wronged all over again every day she woke up sore and scared and away from her children. Especially easy in those early hours after he turned his back on me in the courtyard at Rathmore. It was even easy to say it to Cadwgan ap Bleddyn. I meant it every time.
But now he’s here. It’s the middle of nowhere and he’s spent too many days listening to Einion penteulu suggest time and again that he is better than fine without me. Owain might be listening to a saint on his own terms now, but there are other things he gets out of keeping me safe and near him. Sure enough, he hooks a palm over my hip and pulls me against him. He has that hungry look to him like he does when he comes back from a raid, days away from me, se’ennights. Impatient and intent. He leans his face into my hair and breathes in deep.
“Owain.” I try to pull free, but his other arm slides around my waist and holds me close. “Wait. Stop.”
He rumbles a slow groan and doesn’t move away, but his hands go still where they are.
I could tell him it’s my monthlies. I could tell him that my head hurts from when his men slammed me into a tree. I could tell him Saint Elen says to lay himself down anywhere else but with me. Now is the time to say everything I’ve always bitten back. Instead tears slide down my face and I swipe at them.
Owain doesn’t know what to do with me when I cry. It means he must speculate.
“Oh, aye, stop,” Einion penteulu says, and there’s a curious edge to it. “You didn’t draw your lot.”
He’s back from the other side of camp and Owain cuts a glare up at him, but Einion merely holds out the lots. Even a king’s son must have a turn at standing watch. He jerks a stick out of Einion’s fist. A short one. Owain curses aloud and snaps it in half.
“First pull, eh?” Einion penteulu almost smiles. “Bad luck.”
“Sorry,” Owain mutters into my hair, and then he’s up and across the clearing.
When he’s gone, Einion kneels and opens his hand. There are no long sticks. Only short ones. In the time it takes me to work out what it means, he’s scattered the lots and risen.
Both of us watch Owain disappear into the greenwood. Einion ap Tewdwr has no intention of leaving me alone with Owain any longer than he must. He won’t just let me walk out of here, though. If I run, plan or not, he won’t bring me back this time. He’ll tell Owain it was wolves. Or any of the dozens of men who would smile to see him dead.