Spindle and Dagger

by J. Anderson Coats

“I hate him,” the boy mutters. “My papa will kill him when he comes to save us.”

  Fled down the privy shaft. Deep in Dyfed by now, cowering behind sturdy walls. I wonder if there’s any truth to it or if it’s spun of pure falsehoods. Gerald of Windsor is still alive, though, and by no means is it mischance. Nest said she helped him escape, but if Owain wants a man dead, he’s soon dead. Gerald has no doubt as to who raided his house. Knowing whose warband has unmanned you is meant to linger like a bad smell. By now Gerald has learned what befell his wife and children, and it won’t be long before he hears how Nest is anything but a hostage here. All because he ran like a rabbit to save his own skin.

  We pushed Miv’s cradle against the wall. We wanted her out of sight, so even if they did care about her, perhaps they would not see her.

  “I wish Papa was here right now.” William’s voice is barely a whisper.

  “I-I’m here,” I reply quietly, because I am pushing down echoes one by one.

  “He’ll kill us, too.” William’s eyes are huge and staring in the dying firelight. “Me and David and Angharad. He’ll kill us all dead.”

  This poor child believes it like gospel. He has no reason not to. And I have no reason to doubt Owain’s willingness to leave each of them hanging from trees like a trail of breadcrumbs for Gerald of Windsor to follow.

  “Hey.” I gently move William’s head so he’s looking at me. “I know you’re scared. I’m sorry for it. But you must keep your wits. All right? You can come out of a lot of things if you steady yourself.”

  William bites his lip. “You sound like Alice. Are you our new Alice?”

  “I . . . I’m Elen.”

  “Mama said Alice had to stay behind,” he goes on quietly, “but she wasn’t moving when they made us leave.”

  I will not think how Einion penteulu bragged at supper about a baby nurse and how she wept and pleaded, the color Nest turned, how the others snickered as she fought to keep from being sick. I will not think of the door to the maidens’ quarters, how it wouldn’t withstand a single boot to the cross braces.

  Instead I say to William, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  He nods but makes no move, so I help him peel off his piss-soaked hose and give him a damp cloth to wash his legs. After a few half-hearted swipes, he drops the rag and wriggles back against me without a word. I collect David under my other arm. He lies against me like a toy stuffed with sawdust, and William reaches across my lap to push hair from his brother’s eyes.

  That leaves Not Miv. She’s playing with a set of metal rings that I’ve seen the steward’s grandson with.

  The last time I held my baby sister, I had her on my hip as I slung the leather bucket dripping and heavy up the creekward path for what felt like the hundredth time that day. It did not occur to me to look over my shoulder or I might have seen the thin whispers of black smoke hovering over the next vale. I merely set the bucket by the fire and put Miv in her cradle with a wooden spoon to gnaw. I turned away from her, rubbing my sore arm and thinking how glad I was that it would be Rhael’s turn to carry her next time.

  I grab Not Miv under the armpits, tuck her into the crook of my leg, then whip my hands away. My palms are sweaty. My heart racing. But she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t judge me, cold and silent. All she does is drool and bang one ring on another with her little unburned hands.

  I close my eyes. I told William I was here, and here’s where I’m going to stay.

  WHEN I AWAKEN, NEST IS STANDING OVER ME WEARing a servant’s linsey gown. I startle and try to get up, but William is fused to my side with both arms around my waist. David is curled next to me, and Not Miv lies across my lap.

  Nest will be seeing the mongrel dog off its tether. Near her children.

  But she sways on her feet. Her hair is loose and stringy, and all she does is hold out her arms like she’s waited an age to do it. I lift Not Miv off my lap, and Nest takes her quick and hugs her hard, one hand on the baby’s head like she’s newly born.

  I gently peel William’s arms away and slide out from under both him and David. My sleeve is wet from where Not Miv pissed on me sometime in the night.

  “They’re all right?” Nest does not look away from her sons sleeping in a pile, like puppies.

  I nod. I roll my aching shoulders and rub my neck.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I sat with them all night.”

  Nest lets out the longest breath and slides down the wall in small, painful movements.

  The hall is dim and still. No trestles being set up for a meal. The fire confined and austere. The steward is telling Owain not so subtly that he’ll no longer find this fort comfortable, which means we’re leaving and soon.

  The door is open, though, probably left that way by Nest, and outside, Owain moves past in his leather armor, swearing and calling for Einion penteulu to make sure the lads are ready to leave before sunup.

  William shifts in his sleep, one hand flailing until it falls on David. He curls close to his brother, his arm across the younger boy’s shoulders. I kneel to retuck his cloak around them like I would for Margred, but Nest makes a fierce little noise in her throat. I pull my hand back. She says nothing else, only fixes me with a steady, narrow-eyed stare.

  I am out the door. I don’t even close it behind me.

  In the yard, I soak the sleeve of my gown in the horse trough to be rid of the piss smell. The shock of cold water wakes me up right and proper, enough to reckon how much my belly hurts. It’s good that the warband will spend the day on the march. I’m not sure I can be around Owain ap Cadwgan today.

  Nest, either.

  This won’t be the first time we’ve left somewhere in a rush with no breakfast, but when I turn up at the back door of the kitchen, the steward fills my apron with oatcakes and cheese. I nod when he says I’d best make sure it gets to the right people. I don’t know how to tell him Nest wouldn’t take the keys to Heaven from my rotting corpse.

  Outside, under the kitchen’s overhang, I shiver and fidget in the biting wind. My rucksack is in the hall. Where Nest is. Where the little ones are. But I’ve got to pack. I know better than to slow the warband down.

  The children will drag the pace, though. They can’t help it.

  I’m rushing across the yard and dodging patches of muddy ice and worrying about the little ones when I almost collide with Owain, blocking the hall door. His back is to me, and he’s leaning on the frame and shaking his head in an overdone way at whatever’s going on inside. I duck under his arm and my stomach clenches.

  In the corner, Nest is trying to get David to stay on his feet, but Not Miv on her shoulder keeps pushing and struggling to reach the ring toy lying nearby. William tugs her cloak and whines that he’s hungry and he needs to piss and his feet hurt. Some of the lads are here — Rhys, and Morgan and Llywarch, and Einion penteulu, all eating cold oatcakes and hulking like wolves and watching the show.

  Nest does not want my help. She has little reason to trust me and less reason to want my company. Owain made very sure of that.

  “Look at them all,” Owain muses, “Gerald’s three little bratlets, clamoring like pigs at a trough. They all have the misfortune to take after him, too. Every time I look at them, I see their whoreson coward father.”

  Nest straightens and knuckles tears out of her eyes. “Whatever this is, I’ll not go along with any of it. So kill us, damn you. Kill us and be done with it.”

  William freezes. I can’t stop myself from moving a few paces so I’m nearer to him, and he grapples a handful of my cloak like it’ll save him somehow.

  Owain shrugs elaborately. “Had I planned to kill you, you’d be dead now, but I can be done with you if that’s what you want. You’re welcome to stay here in my father’s fort with all his men. Gerald’s brats, though? They’ll come with me.”

  “You son of a —” Nest bites it back. “No. You wouldn’t dare.”

  Owain gestures, and Einion penteulu wrenches William clear of me s
o hard and sudden that a scrap of my cloak tears away in his hand. William lets out a pig-slaughter shriek and goes limp under Einion’s grip. I leap toward David, scooping him up and pressing his face into my neck. The little boy is gasping silent, shuddery sobs, and when Einion penteulu reaches his free hand toward David, I bare my teeth at him, and he stops where he stands.

  Nest stumbles back, clutching the baby, but Morgan seizes her shoulder and waist and holds her fast. Jostled, Not Miv begins to howl. Owain watches without expression as Nest wrenches and twists and swears like a fighting man; then he gestures to Rhys.

  When Rhys grapples Not Miv around the middle, Nest screeches, “Stop! Stop this right now, damn you! Just stop it!”

  David is heavy in my arms. William still clings to the raggedy strip of my cloak like it anchors him to shore, whimpering with every unsteady breath he draws.

  “You’re ready to behave, then?” Owain asks Nest. “Both you and Gerald’s brats? Best decide now. It’s not a chance you’ll have twice.”

  Nest nods fierce and knobby, like it hurts her neck to do it and she can’t trust her voice with it. “You’ll be sorry before this is over, Owain ap Cadwgan.”

  “I doubt that.” Owain nods to Morgan and he lets her go. Then Owain aims a knuckle at Nest and says, “Get Gerald’s brats into the yard. We’ve a lot of ground to cover.”

  Nest sinks against the wall, patting Not Miv absently. She’s still panting like a hound in August, breath after shuddering breath. Einion penteulu looses William, and the boy stumbles into me. I expect him to push past and flee to his mother, but instead he presses his snotty face into my side, hiccoughing and shaking. I put an arm over his shoulders and hold him close.

  “Mayhap Saint Elen will whisper in their little ears,” Einion says in a silky voice that makes me want to kick him where it counts, “and get them to behave the way she says to.”

  “Owain wants the little ones ready to travel,” I reply, “and after that spectacle, it’ll go easier if none of you lot are here.”

  Einion penteulu snorts, but he gestures to the others and follows Owain into the yard, where the lads will be gathering. Nest and I are left looking at each other in the empty hall. In the silence, I shift David to my other hip, then pull a broken piece of oatcake out of my apron and hand it to Not Miv. She gnaws it around whimpering cries.

  I wait for Nest to square up and coldly tell me to go away, but instead she asks quietly, “What are you?”

  The patter rises to save me, but the well-trod line that I’m Owain’s protector and bring him the blessing of a saint won’t impress this woman. In fact, it’s more likely to make her start planning how she might cut my throat and use my corpse as a stepstool, the more easily to cut Owain’s as well.

  So I flail. I stammer. I pet David’s hair and cast about for something to tell her.

  “She’s Elen,” William says to his mother, “and she found me new hose to wear even though they’re too big and she found Angharad a spoon to chew ’cause of her toothing. And mayhap she can be our new Alice since the old one —”

  “Hsst.” Nest scrubs her free hand over her upper arm where Morgan held her. Her lips keep moving though she makes no sound.

  I shift David again. He’s heavy, but I make no move to put him down. Nest wanted none of this. It won’t take much more for her to fall apart completely. I can hold her mistrust against her, or I can hold out a hand.

  I know very well which Owain ap Cadwgan would prefer.

  “I could help you with them.” I say it gentle and comforting, like when Margred was upset after one of the cousins called her a baby because her ears weren’t pierced. “On the walk. If you want me to.”

  “On the walk,” Nest echoes softly, and she looks down at her linen-wrapped feet and the tipped-over benches.

  “But we need to go.” I nod toward the hall door.

  Nest opens her mouth to say she can’t. Not another step, not on fitful rest and without a crumb of breakfast.

  That’s when William seizes his mother’s hand and pulls her stumbling over to me. Then he takes my hand too, smiling bravely up at each of us in turn.

  WE WALK NORTHWARD IN SILENCE, ME WITH DAVID on my back, Nest with Not Miv in the sling, and William at my side or trailing behind. Owain is moving deeper into the kingdom of Powys, and if Gerald of Windsor thinks to follow, he’ll look over both shoulders with every step.

  Near midmorning, Nest clears her throat and leans close so William can’t overhear. “Tell me truly. What does he plan to do with my children? Please just say it plain. Even if it’s bad. I must ready myself. I’ll not give him that, too.”

  “Depends.” I kick a rock and add softly, “Depends on you.”

  “Does that mean they’re safe, then? As long as I do as I’m bidden?” Nest’s voice goes cold. “Because if they’re dead either way, there’s no profit in me behaving.”

  No one notices women in the shadows. No one believes they will bring down the dagger.

  I tread carefully. “You heard Owain. If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not a liar.”

  “Killing me gets Owain ap Cadwgan his precious vengeance once. Keeping me alive means he can take his vengeance at his will, before all the Norman border lords and Welsh kings. My husband, too.” Nest curls her lip. “I’m worth something to him, at least. That means my children are as well.”

  I nod. Being worth something to Owain ap Cadwgan is how you stay alive around him.

  “All right, then,” Nest murmurs. “I’ll do as I’m told. For them. Until my husband negotiates our release, or kills that wretch and takes us back.”

  If, I want to say. Not until. It does not do to underestimate Owain ap Cadwgan.

  But she walks beside me calmer now, steadier, like there’s a point to doing it after all, so I shuffle David higher on my back and say nothing.

  BY NIGHTFALL, WE’RE SETTLED INTO A COZY FORT near a stream, one with a steward whose opinions can be swayed with gifts. Owain feasts his warband and hands out more plunder from the raid on Gerald of Windsor’s home. He makes Nest sweat over the meal and serve them at table again, but this time she does it serenely, without a whisper of rage. Owain watches her calm, graceful movements with a faint scowl. As Nest moves past with a brimming water basin, he pushes his knife off the trestle. “Gerald’s wife, pick that up.”

  Nest sets the basin on the table. As she kneels, Owain dumps the murky water over the edge, soaking the front of her gown. The thin garment clings to her, and the lads get an eyeful. They approve. Noisily and with vulgarity that tips the scales even for them.

  I fidget in my seat at Owain’s right hand. After the laughter and hooting dies down, I mutter, “I’m not feeling well. May I leave?”

  “Supper will help,” Owain replies. “Sit and eat, sweeting.”

  “It would truly do me good to lie down.”

  “Later. I would miss your company too much.”

  My belly really does hurt. The little ones are nowhere in sight. Chances are good they’re in the kitchen with no one watching over them. Owain knows this, too. So I stay at my place. I think of the knife.

  I’m eating my way through a slab of mutton and a massive wedge of honey cake when Owain slides an ornate bracelet made of twined silver over my wrist. He grins and squeezes my hand. I smile and thank him. I will wear it for a se’ennight, then I will put it with the others at the bottom of my rucksack. I am no longer four and ten, and foolish enough to believe these gifts mean something.

  Owain calls for more wine. Nest comes by and pours, but her hand jerks, and she sloshes it over the table. Without thinking I begin to mop it up, but Owain tilts his head and tries to catch Nest’s eye. “Such a fumble-fingers.”

  “Beg pardon,” she mutters.

  “Are you in some sort of distress?” Owain draws the last word out like a taunt.

  “No, I’m fine.” Nest takes the rag from me and swipes it across the table while trying not to glance a
t my wrist.

  “This is yours,” I blurt, holding up my arm so the bracelet slides toward my elbow.

  Nest blinks rapidly and doesn’t deny it.

  “Your vile husband has a good eye for trinkets at least,” Owain says.

  “Gerald didn’t give me that,” she mumbles. “My father did.”

  I will not think of my father, how he’d bring Rhael and me armloads of flowers from the high pastures for us to weave into crowns. I strip the bracelet off my wrist and slap it into Nest’s palm.

  “Hey!” Owain grabs for the bracelet, but Nest steps away and holds it close to her heart. Then he turns on me and says, cold and level, “Do you value my gifts so little that you toss them away without a care?”

  “No.” I’m trembling. “But if you give me something, it becomes mine. Doesn’t it? Can I not give away something of my own freely?”

  Before Owain can respond, Nest slams the bracelet on the table in front of me, picks up the flagon, and moves away without a word. It’s too late, though. He got to her and they both know it.

  Owain slides the bracelet back onto my wrist. “You pity her. That’s your concern. She will get no comfort here, though. Am I clear?”

  I trace a finger over the silver twists and curves. I can’t tell him that Saint Elen said if he must hold Nest and the little ones, he should keep them as proper hostages, comfortably and courteously.

  “I have no liking for any of this,” I reply.

  “If it’s not cruel and ugly, it won’t be vengeance. I won’t beg anyone’s pardon for that.” Owain takes a drink. “I do regret it bothers you, though. I haven’t seen you smile since the Christmas feast.”

  I did smile then. I smiled when Owain taught his small swaggering cousins how to curse in French and when I bit into my slice of New Year cake and found the lucky coin. I grinned like a victorious warband chief when Margred told her mother she’d rather have her childhood nurse around another year instead of getting a proper lady’s maid.

  But I also smiled when Cadwgan floated his doubts and when Isabel crossed the yard to avoid me. I smiled when every noble in the hall drank the memory of Llywelyn penteulu and when their wives talked about me in my presence like I was a horse or a coffer.