Spindle and Dagger - J. Anderson Coats Page 0,1

not asking because any of this is new to him. He’s been told that Saint Elen keeps Owain safe in and out of the field, and he certainly believes a saint is capable of such things. He’s just not sure why. It’s not every day that Almighty God sees fit to lay a special blessing on the likes of Owain ap Cadwgan through the intercession of one of His saints.

“So you’ll see her packed and ready, then? Good.” Owain claps Rhys on the shoulder and turns to leave.

“This little pisser thinks he’s above the task,” Llywelyn penteulu says. “He has better things to do. He thinks that little of your safety.”

Owain stops midstride. “Beg pardon. What was that?”

I fight down the urge to speak for Rhys. It’s hard to begrudge him uncertainty, but it’s too dangerous for him to keep it.

Rhys shuffles. “My lord . . . it’s not . . .”

“Not what?” Owain leans close to Rhys, eyes in slits. “You think this is rubbish? You don’t believe a saint protects me?”

Llywelyn penteulu steps to Owain’s shoulder, and together they’re a shield wall as they glower down at Rhys. I edge backward, slow, slow, till I’m clear.

“Draw your blade, then,” Owain says to Rhys in a low, dangerous voice, “and let’s see if it’s true.”

“My lord, I never said — no, of course it’s true.” Rhys tries to square up. “It’s just that Einion ap Tewdwr told me so, and anything he says is usually worth its weight in shit.”

I can’t help but smirk. At least Rhys has learned that lesson well.

“All those bastard Normans out there, every last one would give his right nut to cut me to pieces, and none of them can. Saint Elen will not let that happen. No man in all the kingdoms of Wales can say the same.” Owain drops his fighting stance and bares his teeth into a smile. “Likely no little pisser, either, for that matter.”

Llywelyn penteulu pulls Rhys close with a fistful of cloak. “Are we clear, boy?”

Rhys nods without looking up. His breath comes unsteady. Teulu means both warband and family. A warband is like a family. More than a family. Brothers in arms over brothers in blood.

“Good. Then look to Elen.” Owain adjusts his sword-belt. “We’d best be off soon. It won’t do to be late to the feast. Not when my stepmother will supposedly grace us with her presence.”

He says it mocking, but I stop where I stand. Owain has told me exactly three things about his stepmother: she’s the daughter of a Norman knight, she’d tempt a saint to sin, and she’s younger than he is. Isabel de Say has been two years wed to Owain’s father, and finding her place in her new husband’s kingdom can’t have been easy. Strange tongue, strange customs, sharing a bed with someone who’s spent his entire adult life and a good portion of his youth killing Normans like her who were trying to seize his lands. If there was ever another girl in search of ordinary, it has to be her.

Isabel and I have never been properly introduced, not even at their wedding, but she’s sure to look at me and see herself. A girl out of place and in need of allies and sympathy.

Owain’s kin look through me and past me, but Isabel’s someone who might meet my eye across the room and nod, like she sees me and doesn’t care who knows. Someone who might be able to carve me out a place in this turbulent family and leave me to occupy it in peace. I won’t come with empty hands, either. There must be things she still struggles with. Words she can’t say right. Or mayhap no one has invited her to play at ball.

At this year’s Christmas feast, I may not dance caroles or get rosy with ale, but I will steer Owain away from trouble and find a way to make his stepmother a friend, for Owain ap Cadwgan is the closest thing I have to a family.

Not by blood. Not by marriage.

Because of Saint Elen.

THE LADS TRAVEL PRECISE AND DELIBERATE IN TWO columns of nine with a spear-length between men, Owain heading one column and Llywelyn penteulu the other. I follow at the end at elbows with Rhys. Every now and then he’ll smile sidelong to prove he’s not bothered minding me.

There’s a soft snick of brush, and in the next heartbeat men are on us with short swords, a dozen men who