The Fallen Princess (29 page)

Gareth came to a dead halt in the middle of
the road. “You boys are going to be the death of me. How do you
know that?”

“I saw him.” Dai hadn’t registered Gareth’s
glare of disapproval.

Gwen put a hand on Gareth’s arm and gave him
a quelling look. “What did the man Cadwaladr met look like? Could
you see?”

“He was large, with yellow hair.” Dai
gestured to Godfrid, who was fighting the current of people, coming
towards them from wherever he’d been. “Like him.”

Once Godfrid reached them, Gareth steered
the five of them to the edge of the road, out of the way of any
passer-by.

“It’s my fault,” Llelo said. “I told Dai
about going to the hut, and he insisted that
he
wouldn’t be
scared. Gwalchmai and Iorwerth came too.”

Gareth studied Llelo’s downturned head. Like
at Ceri’s hut, Llelo was refusing to look at him.

Gwen stepped in. “Let’s start again. The
four of you followed Cadwaladr to Wena’s hut and saw him meet with
a Dane there?”

“No,” Dai said, cheerfully oblivious to
Gareth’s displeasure. “We didn’t follow him. He was already there
when we arrived. The door was propped open and a lantern lit in the
house. We sneaked up to see who had got there first and saw them
talking.”

“Did they see you?” Gwen said.

Dai shook his head, though for the first
time he looked uncertain.

“No, they didn’t,” Llelo said. “I’m sure of
it. They were intent on each other.”

“Did you hear what they were talking about?”
Gwen said.

“Something about a book,” Llelo said.

The three adults exchanged a quick glance.
By now, everyone had passed them to return to the castle except for
Godfrid’s Danes. With a wave of his hand, Godfrid dispersed his men
in a defensive perimeter along the road. “What else did they say?”
Godfrid said to Llelo.

“Nothing else. Prince Cadwaladr asked if the
man had news of ‘the book’ and reminded him how important it was
that he find it.”

“Did you recognize the man as one of
Godfrid’s?” Gwen said. “We have been looking all day for one named
Erik, who is half Welsh.”

Both boys shook their heads uncertainly.

“Without catching him, we won’t know if it
was Erik,” Godfrid said. “It could have been one of Thorfin’s
men.”

“Why would Cadwaladr want the Book of
Kells?” Gwen said.

“For the same reason Thorfin did,” Gareth
said. “The Earl of Pembroke would make a powerful ally. Thorfin
wanted to use it to bring Gilbert de Clare to Ireland. What if
Cadwaladr wants Clare’s help in gaining power?”

“In Ceredigion?” Gwen said.

“In Gwynedd,” Gareth said.

Gareth was really only thinking out loud,
but as he spoke the words, a possible plot took shape in his head.
There was nothing Cadwaladr wouldn’t do to advance his own position
and no person he wouldn’t betray.

Godfrid put a hand on Llelo’s shoulder. The
boy had been following the adults’ conversation with wary eyes.
“What happened next?”

“Cadwaladr rode away, back to Aber, and the
big man went off in the opposite direction. We didn’t want to get
caught, and as it was very late, we returned to Aber too.”

Dai was bouncing up and down, as if anxious
to speak. Gareth put a hand on top of his head to stop him from
moving. “What is it?”

“There was one more thing,” he said. “I
don’t think either of them knew where this book was.”

“Why do you say that?” Godfrid said.

“There was a great deal of cursing and
kicking furniture,” Dai said. “It’s how King Owain behaves when he
is angry.”

Godfrid growled low in his throat. “If
you’re right, that would be the best news I’ve heard all day.”

Gwen

H
allowmas was upon
them, and even with the intrigue swirling around Tegwen’s death,
Gwen was having a difficult time thinking about anything but what
the poor girl had looked like when Gwen had first seen her on the
beach. Most years, Gwen looked forward to Hallowmas, the dancing
and singing in particular, but tonight she felt distant from
it.

The feasting was continuing in the great
hall, but Gwen, who’d excused herself to use the latrine, didn’t
return to it, standing instead in the shadow of the stone
battlement. The air was damp with the threat of more rain, but she
breathed deeply, glad to be away from the hall and the press of
people. She was already tired of the smell of sweat and damp wool,
and winter hadn’t even started.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of candles lit the
courtyard of the castle. Some of Aber’s villagers had started to
trickle away down the hill. Hallowmas was both a serious time and
one of joyful celebration. Before midnight, the villagers would
light a bonfire from which the hearth fires of every household
would be relit. Sharing food was a way to welcome the souls of
family members who’d died, so revelers would leave food on the
doorsteps of every house.

She glanced towards the postern gate, which
was open, providing easy passage to and from the house in which she
and Gareth were staying. Several soldiers stood guarding the door,
though they were drinking and eating, so she wasn’t sure how much
attention they were paying to the people who came and went. With
Tegwen laid to rest and her murderer known, King Owain had relaxed
the discipline among the men for the evening.

“It makes me uncomfortable too,” Gareth
whispered in her ear. “Especially since Evan reports that Wena’s
hut is empty. He saw no sign that either Erik or Cadwaladr were
ever there.”

Gwen turned to look up at him, her heart
lifting as it always did when he was near. “What about the archer
who shot at Hywel? A man was wounded and Hywel could have been
killed! It’s as if the king doesn’t care.” She gestured to the
crowd of people who were surging from the hall, laughing and
talking with one another.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Gareth said, “but he
prefers to blame masterless men for that act.”

“What masterless men?” Gwen said. “We don’t
have masterless men this close to Aber.”

“Keep your voice down, Gwen.”

Gwen turned at Hywel’s command. He had Mari
on his arm, and in the light of the torches, her face was the least
pale Gwen had seen it in days. It looked as though she had forgiven
Hywel for leaving without saying goodbye.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Gwen said. “I’m
worried.”

Hywel tipped his head to indicate the
guards. “Dearest Gwen, this inattention is by design. Those men are
drinking well-watered mead.”

Gwen’s expression cleared. “That’s a
relief.”

“We want to lull our murderer into a false
sense of security,” Hywel said.

Gareth’s brow furrowed. “What are you
planning, my lord?”

But Gwen understood. “You’re using yourself
as bait! How on earth did you convince your father to let you do
it?”

Hywel grinned. “He saw the wisdom of
catching this murderer sooner rather than later.”

“I’ve already told him I don’t like it.”
Mari squeezed Hywel around the waist with both arms. “I almost lost
him already today.”

“I’ll be fine.” Hywel patted her arm,
laughing over her head at Gareth and Gwen.

“It would be tempting fate to put yourself
in harm’s way again,” Gwen said.

“I am no more at risk than I would be riding
among my guard,” Hywel said. “We will have watchers through the
night. Most of the villagers won’t sleep anyway, so they will think
nothing of the activity of our men.”

Mari didn’t look convinced, but she released
Hywel’s arm to take Gwen’s. “My husband was escorting me to bed,
Gwen. Will you retire with me so we don’t have to be a party to
their stupidity?”

“Of course.” If the revelers weren’t so loud
and raucous, Gwen would have been asleep already.

Mari shot a glare over her shoulder. “He’s
lucky he almost lost his life today or he’d be sleeping in the
stables tonight.”

Hywel blew his wife a kiss.

Gwen nudged Mari’s shoulder. “He meant well,
not waking you.”

“He won’t make that mistake again,” Mari
said.

Gwen and Mari passed through the postern
gate while Gareth and Hywel stopped to speak to those who guarded
the door.

“Gareth will look after him,” Gwen said.

“He really is most incorrigible,” Mari
said.

“That’s why you love him.”

Mari smiled, unable to stay angry. Gwen was
glad to see her friend in a better mood and was about to say so
when her attention was caught by a movement at the edge of the
trees to the south of the castle. Two figures were standing
face-to-face a hundred yards away. Both wore cloaks and were hard
to see, since they were well out of the range of the torchlight and
only stars shone down tonight.

Gwen watched them for a moment. It looked
like they were arguing, but she couldn’t hear what they were
saying. Then one of the figures went down on one knee before
falling to the ground. Gwen let out an involuntary gasp of air,
causing Mari to swing around and look where Gwen was looking. Mari
squeaked, and although she cut off the sound the moment she
released it, the standing figure raised his head and looked towards
Mari and Gwen.

Aber’s bonfire had just been lit in the
courtyard, and its light, combined with the candle-filled turnips
that lit the pathway to the house, meant that whoever it was could
see the women more easily than they could see him.

The figure hesitated for a moment and then
whirled around to disappear into the darkness of the woods
beyond.

Gwen finally found her voice. “Gareth!”

Gareth and Hywel reached them in three
strides. “What is it?” Gareth took Gwen’s arms and turned her so
she had to look into his face. She wasn’t usually this frozen in
the face of danger, but it had taken hardly more three or four
breaths for the whole scene to start and finish. The man on the
ground wasn’t moving, and Gwen feared that she’d just seen him
murdered before her eyes.

Gwen didn’t have the words to explain; she
pulled away from Gareth and lifted the hem of her skirts to run
towards the fallen man.

The others ran after her, with Hywel and
Gareth passing her once they realized where she was going. The man
on the ground still hadn’t moved or made a noise, and both men were
already crouched over the body by the time Gwen came huffing up,
her hand to her belly. Mari had followed too; she leaned her
shoulder into a nearby tree before bending over, her hands on her
knees, to lose her dinner on the ground.

Gwen wiped Mari’s mouth with a cloth that
she kept folded at her waist. Gwen felt like puking herself but was
managing for the moment to control the instinct. “He’s dead?” she
said to Gareth.

Hywel held up his palm. It was covered in
blood. “He took a knife between his ribs to his heart. Did you see
where the killer went?”

Gwen gestured towards the woods. “That way.
He could be anywhere.”

Hywel peered in the direction she’d pointed.
“I can’t see a thing. He could be fifty feet away or five hundred.”
He put his hand to the hilt of his sword and scanned the darkness
under the trees.

Gareth flipped back the man’s hood, and then
Gwen really did fear that she was going to lose her dinner. The
dead man was Brychan, Tegwen’s lover.

Gareth grunted and then swept a hand across
Brychan’s eyes to close them. “I feel like this is my fault, at
least partly.”

“Gareth, no—” Gwen began.

Hywel turned to look down at Gareth. “Why is
that?”

Gareth ripped open Brychan’s shirt. He
hadn’t been wearing armor, just a coat and cloak against the night
air. “If I hadn’t allowed other cares to divert me until this
morning, we might have found him sooner, and he might still be
alive.”

Hywel discarded Gareth’s claim with a wave
of his hand. “You know as well as I do that Brychan’s death cannot
be laid at your door.”

“The blade was thin.” Gareth wiped away the
blood, which had stopped pulsing from the wound. “One thrust and he
was dead. Gwen could have managed it.”

Hywel glanced to where Gwen still stood
beside Mari, her arm across her friend’s shoulders. “Did you see
who did it?”

Gwen shook her head. “Not more than his
shape and not much of that.”

“Anything you can tell us would be helpful,”
Hywel said.

“He was of average height, within an inch of
Brychan. Slender, or at least not fat. Other than that, it was too
dark.”

Hywel’s lips twisted in dismay. “Brychan
must have seen, known, or done something that someone else feared.”
He went to Mari, who put her face into his chest, not quite sobbing
but breathing deeply to control her emotions. Gwen knew how Mari
felt, though she was trying to be as calm as the men.

“Yes, but who feared it?” Gareth said.

Hywel looked at Gwen over the top of Mari’s
head. “I thought at the time that Dewi was telling the truth about
Tegwen’s death as far as he knew it, and given the corroborating
evidence, I still believe it.” He indicated Brychan’s body with a
tip of his head. “This is about something different.”

“The Book of Kells, do you think?” Gwen
said.

Hywel shrugged. “I couldn’t say. We should
show Brychan’s face to Godfrid. Maybe he knows him. Maybe Brychan
spent time in Dublin too.”

“Brychan knew his murderer,” Gwen said. “I
can say that for sure. They were talking before he was stabbed.
Their faces were inches apart.”

“As I said, one thrust and Brychan was done.
He wouldn’t have seen it coming,” Gareth said. “A weaker man could
kill a stronger one that way, simply because of the surprise.”

Hywel had released Mari to crouch by the
body again, and Gwen wondered if he was thinking of the way he’d
murdered King Anarawd. Hywel had been able to approach him because
he’d known him, and Anarawd had let his guard down. In that case,
Anarawd’s armor had slowed but not stopped the blade. Brychan
hadn’t even had that protection.