The Wicked and the Just (29 page)

Nicholas is coming.

I don't sleep, exactly. Betimes I close my eyes, then blink awake to Gwinny shoving the leather bucket into my hands and barking something in Welsh. The hempen handle digs into my palms so hard that I don't think about how the rope must have roughed up his neck as they shoved him toward the window. I close my eyes and picture the market on a bright blue day. I'm meeting Mistress Sandys at the well, letting her lanky half-grown son draw my water. Trading Mistress Glover a handful of thyme for a length of thread.

I'll startle awake when Gwinny piles my hands with slimy privy rags and growls more commands I cannot understand. When I'm wringing the rags out in water so cold it reddens my knuckles, I don't think about crisp autumn air against his bare flesh, the terrible weightless instant ere the drop. I'm walking home from Mass in my best kirtle, holding one of Nessy Glover's hands while Emmaline holds the other, and betimes we swing her, squealing, high in the air.

Nicholas will come. I know he will.

Gwinny piles on task after task, then watches me like she might a limping horse. Or mayhap a colt in the breaking pasture, mouthing the bit.

But every bucket of water I haul is one less whiff of soot, one less flash of steel to wake me gasping. Every armload of wood I gather is one less reason for Gwinny to put me out of her house and leave me at the mercy of men who will not be trifled with.

That's a lesson I've no need to study.

Get out, he said.

This is the only way out.

 

 

I'
M
in the yard picking tiny rocks out of a bucket of barley when there's a crunch of brush and Dafydd angles out of the greenwood. Gruffydd slings the leather tunic he's working over his shoulder and nods a greeting.

“Give me another day or two,” Gruffydd says, holding up a corner of the garment. “They're heading east, so they should be easy to find.”

Dafydd shakes his head. “I came to tell you to go ahead of me. I've some things I must do ere I join Madog's lads.”

My mouth falls open. “You? Joining the revolt?”

“If this is the only way to get the king's attention, so be it.” Dafydd must mark my disbelief, for he smiles and adds, “I'm not afraid to fight, Gwenhwyfar. It just has to be the right fight.”

There's a tiny flicker of motion just inside the doorway. The brat, disappearing into the shadows. She's still convinced I'm going to beat her senseless or Gruffydd's going to have his way with her. She regards us as if we're capable of anything.

“Who's that?” Dafydd asks.

“She's the heiress to your townhouse.” I smile, blade-sharp. “It would be a shame should anything befall her. Shall I turn my back?”

Dafydd shrugs. “Should anything befall her, they'll just give the house to another Englishman. This doesn't work if we profit at their expense. It only works if we're granted what they already have—and the Crown enforces it.”

Gruffydd busies himself with his tunic, the coward, so I face Dafydd steady on and reply, “I want no part of what they have.”

“I do,” he says. “I would be a subject. Not one of a subject people.”

This is why, Dafydd. Because you're so damn sure it's even possible.

“And you believe that rising in revolt against their king is the way to gain that?”

“The king will be wroth, true enough,” Dafydd replies, “but not just at us. He'll demand a reckoning from Havering and Whetenhale and it'll all come out. How they weren't governing according to the king's laws, but for their own profit. How their abuses were what turned us to such extremes. Once the king learns all this, he'll be forced to act.”

I swallow. “And how do you know that the result won't be ten times worse than it was ere this?”

Dafydd smiles sadly. “I don't. One way or another, though, Caernarvon will never be the same.”

“And given all this, you'd still see us married?”

“Tomorrow. If not sooner.”

“Why?” I fling a hand. “It would change nothing!”

Dafydd meets my eyes and whispers, “It would change
everything
.”

I don't reply. And don't reply. And don't dare look at him again.

Know not when Dafydd leaves. Too blurry. Only know when I look beyond the bucket and his feet are no longer there.

 

 

A
FAINT LIGHT
filters through the doorway. It's not yet dawn but the curtain is pulled back. Gwinny and Griffith stand in the doorway, murmuring intensely in Welsh. Griffith wears one of Gwinny's plundered cloaks and shoulders a weathered spear.

He's leaving. I catch enough words in Welsh to realize Griffith is going somewhere. Somewhere dangerous.

I catch words in Welsh.

They embrace, fiercely. Then Griffith pulls away and disappears. Gwinny snaps the curtain shut and slumps against the wall. In the stillness, her tiny sobs fill every corner.

It's blood and fire and they're all dead and I cannot keep the tears down.

Gwinny turns on me like a Fury and snaps in English, “Shut up! Don't you dare weep or by God I'll put you out of my house this moment!”

I picture Anglesey out my window, the silky band of green held at arm's length by the shimmering strait busy with boats. I'm in my chamber and the gulls are crying and daylight is just beginning to seep in and it's going to be a lovely brisk day.

At length I master myself, steady my breathing. Gwinny's shoulders relax bit by bit, but she still glares damnation at me. “You will not weep for my brother. I will not have it.”

I don't tell her I wasn't weeping for him. There's no way those words will come out properly.

“You've no right to even
think
his name. Should you be so bold as to utter it, I'll douse you in blood ere I turn you out.”

I don't remind her that Griffith told me that I could stay, that I shouldn't try to leave if I valued my life. He's not here to say her nay. He's not here to seize her hand.

He's gone somewhere dangerous, and he's all she's got.

I lick my lips and say, “I know that . . .”

Gwinny fixes me with a venomous look.

“I thought to . . .” That's when I hold my tongue, for Gwinny's jaw is grinding like a millwheel and what I thought to do cannot erase what I did.

“Is it true?” Her voice is gravelly. “About the timber gang?”

Mayhap she's trying to trap me, but I haven't the strength to lie. “Yes. It's true.”

Gwinny grunts. “Had I known, I would have told you where you could shove your pity.”

“Not pity. Justice.”

Gwinny draws back as if I've struck her. She repeats the word in English as though she's never heard it ere this. And she regards me so intently that I swipe up the water bucket and hurry toward the stream, trembling every step of the way.

 

 

T
HEY
come at night. I tell them that Gruffydd has already gone, and I give them the knives I plundered from Caernarvon in memory of Peredur ap Goronwy, who once stood with men like them.

They don't loot the house. Out of respect, they say. I bid them Godspeed and they disappear into a vale that's bracing for the worst.

I return to the fire, sit with Mam. She does not move. Her flesh is still warm. Her chest still rises. But she takes only tiny mouthfuls of breath. She drinks less every day.

Once they've been gone for some time, the brat creeps out of the byre where she had the good sense to hide. She's panting like a lathered hound as she edges toward the fire.

I thought they were going to kill you, she says. Right in your own house.

“The rebels are only ravaging,” I reply. “There's not much to take, so we'll be rid of them soon.”

The brat blinks rapidly, whispers, r-rebels?

“The rebels, fool. The men of Gwynedd who follow Madog ap Llywelyn to finish what they started at Caernarvon.” I even out my voice. “Men like my brother.”

The brat gapes like a fish.

I say it in English so there'll be no mistake. Rebellion. Welshmen have taken and trampled your worthless borough and even now reduce it to rubble. They'll take their spears and blades to the Perfeddwlad, where they'll run roughshod over your worthless king and with God's help send him to Hell where he belongs.

Whether any of it is true beyond the sack of Caernarvon I have no notion, but it puts such a panic on the brat that I press down.

More men gather every day. Ere long, all Wales will be in revolt and not a single English man, woman, or child will be safe. We'll be rid of you ere Christmas. Every last damn one of you. And then we'll take apart your castles and boroughs brick by cursed brick until the very land forgets you were ever here.

Rebellion, echoes the brat. But that means that Nicholas . . . mayhap he won't . . . 

I smile all teeth. “Well then, best pray hard for my continuing good health.”

He'll come, she whispers. I know he will.

The brat speaks clear and sure, a voice that does not match her slumped shoulders, her clenched jaw, her hard stare at the fire.

The same voice I use to say that Gruffydd will return alive. Clear and sure, the way Mam once spoke of Da.

 

Fanwra's baby is stillborn. I wrap half a plundered cheese and bid the brat ready herself. The brat watches the cheese disappear beneath cloth. Hunger is not a ghost she knew within the walls.

I ready Mam. Firewood, linen, a rag soaked in liquid porridge. Then I pet her hair and nod to the brat.

The brat gestures to Mam and asks, what of your mother? Who'll care for her?

“The saints. Come.”

She follows me outside while saying, any manner of man or creature could come through that flimsy curtain. How can you leave her?

“Where shall I start? The part where your lot dictates what jobs of work lads like Gruffydd can do for how much coin, or the part where they tax us so heavily that girls like me have to take up work to keep breath in body?”

The brat rakes her hair behind her ears thrice, glances over her shoulder toward what's left of Caernarvon. At length she says, I'll stay with her.

“You'll not. You'll come see the piteous creature my neighbor bore.”

The brat looks as if she'll protest, then wisely closes her mouth and nods. As we walk through the greenwood, she flakes the biggest chunks of filth from her ratty gown. The stains remain. They will never wash clean.