“You — you were lying to Clare.” Owain’s voice takes on an edge I’ve never heard. “So Saint Elen could get us clear enough to burn the castle and escape.”
I grip my knife. I lift my chin. This will save me. This and nothing else. “No. I wasn’t lying to Clare. I’ve been lying to you. Saint Elen. All of it. I made it up. There’s never been —”
Owain moves so quick he’s in front of me while I’m still speaking, and he belts me hard across the face and I go down. He’s roaring something, hollering, animal cries, fierce, wordless, hulking above me and primed for murder.
I brace for it. The first blow. The final one.
But Owain does not kill me.
Owain doesn’t kill me because Einion penteulu has him in a choke hold, one forearm across his neck and the other grappling his swinging free fist behind his back, up, up, between his shoulder blades.
My face hurts. My cheek, my nose leaking — oh Christ, blood.
“Get the hell out of here!” Einion shouts at me, harsh, over Owain’s bellowing.
Somehow I’m walking through the greenwood. My feet catch on blurs of stone and branch. I wipe away tears. Blood as well.
Owain is cursing me now. Words grate through his hollering, threats and oaths that would ordinarily make me shiver because they’d be directed at someone he wants to hurt badly in very full measures.
Only now that someone is me.
His noise does not fade for a long while. I don’t stop moving even when it does. Einion penteulu has to let him loose sometime. Even Dyfed and strong walls and Gerald of Windsor might not be enough to keep me safe.
IT’S DAYS BEFORE MY CHEEK AND JAW STOP throbbing. I’ve been among the lads long enough to know that one side of my face looks like spoiled meat. Little wonder cottagers point me toward landmarks and tell me which streams to follow, and their wives offer me oatcakes and buttermilk and hearths to sleep beside. Little wonder a steely-eyed girl of twelve summers gives me a sturdy cudgel and a blessing.
There’s a fort called Caeriw where they think Nest might be. At the very least it’s held for Gerald of Windsor. I will stand before him for real this time. I will not take no for an answer.
But my feet are aching. My shoulders. My heart, because I promised the little ones I’d be back, and they may have forgotten me already. It’s been so many months since last I saw them, and children’s minds flit from pretty butterflies to honey cake to the stable cat’s kittens. David may already be beyond my help, and William may see nothing but betrayal.
If the children aren’t clamoring for me, Nest may decide there’s no place for me in her family anymore.
The greenwood is alive with summer. Full of the rustle of wind and the flutter of birds. But there are twig-snaps that seem out of place. Crunching that sounds too much like footsteps.
Someone is following me.
Already I’m on edge. There’s a better than likely chance that Owain will hunt me down and gut me, and send someone to do it. I have no doubt the lads would queue up for the privilege. Until I reach Caeriw, I can’t be sure of anything.
But after a whole day of it, I get fed up. The constant looking over my shoulder. Moving away from the thrash of branches and distant swish of feet. Whoever it is can just get it the hell over with. I pick up a smooth rock the size of a cat’s head, aim true, and fling it hard with my weight behind it into a stand of suspicious brush.
“Owww, God rot it!” Rhys rises from the undergrowth, clutching his shoulder. “Saints, you’ve got an arm, don’t you?”
I breathe steady against the racing of my heart. Owain taught me to throw, like he taught me to defend myself with a knife and aim my knuckles at a windpipe. Now he’s sent Rhys after me. Of course it’d be Rhys.
“Turn back,” I say quietly. “Tell Owain ap Cadwgan whatever you want. But I’m going to Caeriw. Nest is waiting for me.”
Rhys rubs a hand over his newly cropped hair. “I know. Only you’ve overshot. You should be going more southward.”
“Beg pardon. What?”
“You need to turn. That direction.” He points awkwardly, like he’s embarrassed. “I scouted it.”
“That racket in the greenwood? That was you? Trying to make me walk a certain way?”
He nods, and I go limp because perhaps Rhys isn’t here to kill me. I might not have to beat his brains in with my cudgel.
“Now that you know,” he says, “do you think I could walk with you? It’d go a lot faster.”
“I can get there myself,” I reply through my teeth, and I grip my weapon in case he doesn’t believe me.
“All right. But, ah . . . it wouldn’t be for you.”
“Who’s it for, then? You?” I scowl and mimic, “I’ll take her where she needs to be.”
Rhys has the good grace to pinken and look away.
“It’s no secret where your loyalty lies,” I add harshly.
“That was before. When I believed. When we all believed.” Rhys toys with his cuff. “Now you need to be far away from him.”
“Oh, and I’m to trust you?” I make the field gesture for betrayed, showy and mocking, and shake my head in disgust.
But Rhys runs a thumb down his forearm and murmurs, “Twice now. Once with irons. The other on the sea. Twice. Nothing in it for you either time.”
I go quiet. There was no playact in mending his wound. Definitely none in facing down a ship’s captain. “Even if Owain didn’t send you to kill me, you must be angry about Saint Elen.”
“We look like fools. Owain looks like a fool.”
“Right. Right.” I snort and fold my arms. “Once again, this is all about Owain.”
Rhys frowns, and I look up at him, up and up. The lads have all but made a warbander of him, and expecting anything else makes me the fool.
“Nest is a highborn lady. She was . . . not treated well.” His cheeks are pinker. “You were. You always were.”
I cough a laugh. Kick a rock. I want him to be wrong, but he is not wrong.
“I thought a lot about it out here. What exactly you did. What happened to you. And I . . . I don’t think I have any right to be angry.” Rhys speaks to his feet. “Not when I know well what we do. The warband. What Owain does.”
I trail to a stop. Sun dapples the path and puts a chestnut shine on Rhys’s cropped hair. He’s scanning the greenwood like he’s been taught, marking threats, always alert. He is well on his way to becoming a warbander, and he will be a good one, but if the saints are merciful, something of this boy will always remain. Rhys may be penteulu one day. Owain will listen to him. Owain will hear him.
One day, when the echoes of this fade, Owain may come to understand.
“Which way to Caeriw?” I ask, and when Rhys gestures, I fall into step behind him, but he drops back so we walk at elbows.
It’s been quiet for a while when Rhys says, “I liked knowing you were around. Something about having a girl nearby . . . it’s nice. I’m going to miss you.”
There’s a sweetness in it, an innocence, that makes me think right away of Margred. How she was all the time making promises that she had no idea would cost her someday.
“He’s coming, isn’t he?” I ask quietly. “You may not be here to kill me, but you’ll have led Owain straight here.”