Spindle and Dagger

by J. Anderson Coats

  I open my mouth to ask Owain how long we’ll be stuck here and if there’ll be gingerbread and whether he minds if I spend the morrow with Margred and the cousins, but before I can, he wraps his other arm around me and into my hair he murmurs, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  I can’t say how much I glory in Llywelyn penteulu soon to be food for worms six feet beneath God’s green earth. I dare not speak ill of a single one of Owain’s brothers, living or dead.

  The patter rises to save me, smooth and well-trodden like a path I’ve walked a thousand times. “Saint Elen kept you from harm, just as she always does.”

  “Not an armslength from me,” he whispers. “I turned . . . and the blade was already falling, and I . . . shouted, but . . .”

  Owain slides a finger along the scar beneath his arm. It’s a slim, wine-colored line of flesh that runs about the length of my finger. It looks like nothing. Mayhap a ridge worn into his skin from too-tight leather armor or a scratch by a stray fingernail during bedsport.

  He almost bled out from that wound, though. Owain ap Cadwgan would have died that day, were it not for me.

  “Saint Elen looks to you always,” I repeat.

  He lets out a long, trembling breath and tightens his arms around me, but I don’t snuggle against him this time because now I’m looking at that scar and thinking how in two motions I could kill Owain ap Cadwgan.

  One motion to seize the knife.

  The other to cut his throat.

  The dagger is within easy reach beneath a pile of clothing. I could kill him and he’d be dead. I close my eyes against a clatter in the yard. The fire iron cold in my hand as he kicked in the door. Miv crying. Blood everywhere. I begged Saint Elen for my life that day, and she gave it to me.

  “When are we leaving?” I finally ask.

  Owain sighs deep. “Epiphany. Would it was sooner. I’ll not be good company for man or beast. My father may send us out early just to be rid of us.”

  Rid of me, he must mean. “Where are we going? The hunting lodge at Llyssun?”

  “You are.”

  “Where are you — oh.”

  He and the lads will disappear into the hills and later sweep down with fire and sword on dwellings and goods belonging to some enemy of Cadwgan. They’ll kill anyone who fights back and burn everything that stands and smash anything that won’t burn and plunder everything of value and drive off whatever lows or grunts or bleats. They will wreck and pillage again and again until the tenants of Cadwgan’s enemy have nothing but postholes and cinders and corpses, so it’s known to every man that their lord is helpless to defend them.

  Raids are done with steel and terror, quick like the snap of a neck. In the best of them, no one sees you coming and everyone returns alive and weighed down with plunder. In the worst, you carry a friend home wrapped in canvas and pray for his soul and drink his memory till you can barely stand.

  My little playact clings to those odds.

  “The northern provinces again?” I keep my eyes off that scar.

  “Dyfed.”

  I push myself up on one elbow. “What? No. You — what?”

  “The English king wants to conquer all the kingdoms of Wales. He can’t simply invade, though.” Owain smiles faintly. “The last time a king of theirs tried, he tripped over himself limping home with his nose well-bloodied.”

  Cadwgan’s knuckles were first among those that did the bloodying. I wait for Owain to say as much, to tell the stories he must have grown up on, but instead he growls, “The English king refuses to risk himself, so he sends lackeys like Gerald of Windsor to take and hold what they can, and now Gerald governs Dyfed. Which means that patch of dirt on our southern border is a sword leveled at my father’s throat. Mine, too. Which means Gerald of Windsor needs himself a humbling. So I’ll give him one.”

  Owain is playing with a strand of my hair and completely underestimating Normans with their walls to withdraw behind and trained fighting men in coats of mail and big two-handed broadswords that can cut someone in half. Who killed Llywelyn penteulu even with armed brothers around him like two dozen sharp palisades.

  “Once the lads and I burn every handswidth and carry away the plunder, I’ll hunt down Gerald of bloody Windsor like the dog he is, and with my own hand cut him into small pieces and piss on every last one of them.”

  I peer into Owain’s face, waiting for that smirk or eyebrow that’ll let me in on the jest. He’s staring straight ahead, eyes narrow. He’s nowhere near here.

  “But not before I string him up in his own dooryard,” Owain goes on, “and while he hangs there writhing, I will carve the name of Llywelyn ap Ifor who he butchered without regard ten thousand times into his flesh, till his hide falls off in ribbons.”

  I like to think Saint Elen understands why I told Owain she’ll protect him, that she pitied me for being in a place where that playact was necessary, that she tolerates it still for compassion’s sake. But there is a world of difference between protection and counsel. One is standing by while Saint Elen does as she sees fit, and the other is deciding for her what she should do and say. If I dare to put words in her mouth, to make myself the saint, she will turn her back on me for sure.

  So I can’t tell Owain that Saint Elen said not to kill the English king’s right hand in Dyfed in cold blood because no man can ignore such an act. Instead I say, carefully, “Won’t the English king see that sort of killing as a personal insult? Gerald owes him everything he has. Seeking the downfall of someone so loyal does not seem wise.”

  “I don’t seek the downfall of Gerald of bloody Windsor.” Owain’s voice is eerily calm, and I edge away from him bit by bit, pulling the blankets with me because I’m shivering now, and not just from the cold. “Bad enough he’s lurking to the south with his eyes on my birthright. Now that he’s raided my very dooryard? Now that he’s killed my friend and warband chief, slaughtered him right in front of me? Oh, I will not merely kill Gerald of bloody Windsor now. I will preside over his complete humiliation and destruction first.”

  I can’t tell him Saint Elen said to raid quick and fierce and leave vengeance to the Almighty, no matter how much I want to.

  Owain blinks hard and scrubs a wrist over his eyes. There’s a very real chance he’ll sober up on the morrow and this whole thing with Gerald of Windsor will be a dull ache in the back of his throat. A ghost of something noble yet foolish and therefore forgettable. He’ll name another penteulu — please let it be Madog — and he’ll raid Dyfed properly, fire and sword and plunder, just like the last raid and the raid before that one.

  “Betimes I think my father is jealous.” Owain slides closer to me, snakes a hand around my waist, nuzzles my neck. “My stepmother may turn heads, but all he got for his pains is a patch of Norman border dirt and a worthless alliance and a nagging voice in his ear. I’ve a saint at my back, and all I must do to please her is keep her namesake safe from all harm and near me always.”

  It rolls off his tongue so easily. You’d never know that Saint Elen and her promises were straws I grasped at while I was still changing the dressings on the wound beneath his arm, when the fever that nearly put him before his Maker still muddied his thoughts enough for him to take it as gospel. He should have died that day at my sister’s hands on the floor of our steading in a pool of his own blood.

  I nod, though, because he’s done what I told him Saint Elen required. I’m safe from all harm and near him always. I was just not careful what I asked for. Because I got it.

  THE CHAPEL IS A STONE’S THROW FROM THE HALL. It’s empty this time of day, no priests around. There’s no proper door so it’s cold within, a skiff of crunchy snow pushed along the threshold. Before the altar lies the body, shrouded in linen and dim. I mean to go further, to look upon Llywelyn penteulu well dead, but even now I cannot.

  Even this close, my throat turns to sand. My mouth goes sour. And I am up against the steading wall and Miv is crying and there’s a body at my feet fire iron through the ne
ck and Llywelyn penteulu is roaring in my face. Hard to the floor cold everywhere can’t struggle.

  Torn to pieces. Skin to skin. The smell.

  There were others after him, but he was the first. Until they let me up.

  There’s a scuffle at the chapel doorway, and Einion ap Tewdwr appears, holding a pale, swaying Rhys by one arm.

  We killed them both and seized all the beasts. Einion said it like he’d killed them himself. Mayhap he had. My father would have struggled. My mother, too, but they’d have been no match for a warband.

  “Miracle girl.” Einion points with his knuckle. “Out here. Now.”

  The lads know better than to speak roughly to me. Mostly they don’t speak to me at all unless it’s to ask something trivial, like will I mend a tear in a tunic or refill a mug of mead. I’m too wrung out to challenge Einion on it, though, and Owain is definitely not in a humor to dress down one of his own in his father’s hall while Llywelyn penteulu’s body is barely cold, so I step into the bright outdoors, blinking against it.

  “Stand here,” Einion growls, and I’m not sure whether he’s talking to me or Rhys. Einion releases Rhys and storms into the chapel. In moments he’s back, and he says, “Whatever you did, there’s no sign of it.”

  “No sign of what?”

  “Marks. On the body.”

  I gape at him, and he scoffs. “Oh, come now. I don’t for a moment believe you were paying your respects. What other reason could you have for being in there?”

  I have no answer that will make sense to the likes of Einion ap Tewdwr, so instead I show him my empty hands. “I’ve no weapon.”

  “Doubtless Llywelyn penteulu’s brother thought that, too. Just before you broke his neck with a fire iron to the windpipe.”

  Rhael told me not to be afraid. We would give them the food we’d prepared. We’d give them the animals in the byre. We would give them whatever they wanted, then they would leave. She said it clear and confident, gripping and regripping the big knife, and I believed her.

  I face Einion steady on and ask, “What do you want?”

  “Show her.” Einion jostles Rhys forward with a shake of tunic.

  Rhys merely sways like a drunk. Einion sighs and pushes up the boy’s sleeve for him, revealing a deep gash the color of rancid meat. When Einion swivels Rhys’s arm, the boy sucks in a breath and a flash of bone turns like a fish’s silvery belly.

  “Is this from the raid?” I ask. “The raid from days ago?”

  When Einion nods, I groan, but I can hardly blame Rhys for not wanting to be called baby and told to grow a pair. Especially considering that worse befell one of their family that morning.

  “Why did you not bring him to the court physician?”

  “The boy needs a miracle as well as medicine.” Einion peers at me. “What does Saint Elen say?”

  I did not think. I only acted. I never used the word miracle.

  They do, though. All the lads. All but the newest saw with their own eyes what I did for Owain, how he went from bleeding out on my steading floor to burning down forts and halls instead of lying in the cold earth. There’s not a man in this warband who does not believe Owain ap Cadwgan has the protection of a saint.

  “Let’s have a look.” I turn away from the chapel. “Help me bring him to the kitchen.”

  The building is all the way across the yard, and we move at Rhys’s shambling pace. He holds his injured arm with the wound turned outward, and I can study it sidelong. It’s bad, but nowhere near as bad as the one that almost killed Owain. I’ll put the irons to it, Rhys will recover and see a miracle, God willing, and every time he’s near me he’ll touch that scar.

  The lads of Owain’s warband will see him do it, too.

  The kitchen is hot and damp and thick with smells. I poke through the scatter of cutlery and implements on the trestle board, then pick a long, thin spreader and lay its rounded end in the fire. I sit on my haunches watching it heat up. There’s a quiet creak of leather, and Einion kneels at my elbow. He’s built like a bull, all compact muscles and a whipcrack temper. I make myself stay still. He will not touch me.

  “Owain’s taking it hard.” Einion rubs a hand over his jaw. “He will not stop speaking of it.”

  He’ll be seeing the blade falling. Helpless to stop it. The blood. The gasping.

  “But Saint Elen did not save Llywelyn penteulu,” Einion says in an oh-so-quiet voice.

  “Saint Elen protects Owain.” The patter rises to save me, and I let it. “She looks to him always. The rest of us are on our own.”

  “Seems a strange way to protect a man, removing his right hand.”

  I cut my eyes to Einion, but he’s merely studying the fire, balanced toe and knee, ambush-still.

  “Then again,” he goes on, “I’m a simple fighting man. What do I know of saints and their doings? They are not motivated by our petty concerns. Like spite. And vengeance.”

  His voice is bland. Neither vicious nor sly. It’s nothing I can’t agree with, yet all my arm hairs prickle.

  “Fighting men should keep to fighting,” I reply to the fire. “Let the saints do as they will.”

  Einion clears his throat. “This boy must recover. Bad enough that Gerald of Windsor got Llywelyn penteulu. Another one lost . . . Owain just . . . cannot have it.” He leans close. “I’ve seen what you can do with those irons, and we’ll all of us pray to Saint Elen.”

  I said I could save Owain’s life. I promised it. I wept it, and it was Einion ap Tewdwr who pushed the brutes clear, who made them let me up, who hauled me staggering to Owain’s side and stood over me blade in hand to see I made good that promise. That Owain survived at all was Saint Elen’s doing as much as mine, for I could barely think — or breathe, or move — as I shuddered that knife clear. There can be no other reason I’d remember the time our best mouser limped into the steading with a gaping wound on his hindquarters, and my mother pressed a glowing-hot blade against the poor cat’s side while he yowled and thrashed.

  Rhys’s eyes are shut tight, his jaw clenched. At midsummer, this boy was still eating his mother’s oatcakes and tracking mud across her clean floor. I wrap my cloak around my hand and pull the spreader out of the fire. A faint whisper of steam curls off the blade. I nod to Einion, who secures Rhys’s shoulder and wrist.

  I have never once used the word miracle, but I can still hope for one. After all, that cat lived an age and caught mice under his big paws right up till his last days.

  IT’S CLEAR AND COLD AND DIZZYINGLY SUNNY. Margred and the cousins and I pile outside for a game, and we run up and down the courtyard kicking my ball and screeching like warbanders till our cheeks are burned pink and our feet sting from the ice. Finally, none of us can take another step, and we slump like dishrags on a bench outside the maidens’ quarters, squinting against the sun-glint diamonds on what’s left of the snow. Then the maids and nurses appear in the doorway, clucking over the girls’ red toes and sighing mightily in my direction for winding them up before they have to sit for lessons. I assure the cousins I won’t do anything fun without them, then promise to come by the maidens’ quarters before supper.

  Now I’m lurking in a dim corner of the hall, idly toying with my spindle while Owain and the lads are gathering at the door. They’re going hunting, and they’re daring one another not to wear undergarments, laughing and shoving like drunken halfwits.

  The wives and sisters and mothers from the feast have drawn the hall benches near the hearth, and now they’re chattering over their spinning and sewing in the gentle orange light. Isabel sits among them, giggling because of a knot in her yarn.

  Rhael and I always talked about how it would be. We’d marry brothers two summers apart, just like us, and we’d have steadings across the vale and be in and out of each other’s kitchens all the time.

  Owain slaps Einion ap Tewdwr upside the head, and the lads cackle and mock him. I tease out a length of leader yarn, there in the corner by myself with my secondhand spindle.


  Rhael and I each wanted two children, a son and a daughter, and they’d play together all day while we cooked and hauled and spun and laughed. Our husbands would come home from the high pastures, and we’d sing ballads and tell stories while the sun sank over the hills.

  A shadow slants across my legs. Owain stands over me, cloak aswirl at his shoulders. “You all right, sweeting?”

  I nod and show him the twist of thread around the spindle shaft.

  “Aw, you don’t want to sit on the floor all alone.” He gestures cheerfully over his shoulder at the wives clustered near the hearth. “You were looking forward to meeting my stepmother, weren’t you?”

  I touch my arm where Cadwgan seized me, where Isabel slid her cool fingers beneath his grip and pulled him clear. “My lord . . .”

  “What?” Owain’s smile drops abruptly. “Do you not want to pass the time with her?”

  No. I don’t. Not now.

  Of course I can’t say that, so I go limp and let Owain happily steer me across the hall like a sheepdog at the whistle. He pulls me to a halt at one end of their fortress of benches, nods graciously to Isabel, and drawls, “Mama. A pleasure, as always.”

  Isabel swats him playfully. “You wretch. Your mama clearly didn’t take a switch to you enough.”

  “Hmm. No wonder you and my father get along so well.” Owain nudges me forward and makes a show of kissing my cheek. “You remember Elen. She needs some company to spin with.”

  We may not be outsiders together, Isabel and I, but I can make a better showing. Especially here, among the wives. If she’s decided we’ll not be friends, at the very least I must keep her from becoming an enemy.

  But while I flail for something to say — anything — that doesn’t sound foolish or false, Isabel’s impish smile goes bland and cold. “She can’t sit here. You know what your father would say.”

  Oh saints. We would have been natural allies, but the only voice in her ear for two years has been Cadwgan’s. Little wonder Isabel and I have never met properly.