The Fourth Horseman (34 page)

Hywel was glad it was dark because his jaw
had dropped at Prior Rhys’s audacity. Hywel would do well to take
lessons on intrigue from this man.

Prior Rhys went on: “Before Amaury led you
through the tunnel, he ordered my archer to the woods outside the
abandoned chapel, in the hopes that Alard would put in an
appearance. The site was remote enough, and exposed enough, to be
the perfect place for an ambush.”

“
Had you suggested that he
shoot Amaury instead?” Hywel was incredulous, near laughter at the
outrageousness of it.

“
Certainly not! That was on
his own initiative. Still—may the Lord forgive me—once it was done,
I was not sorry,” said Rhys. “While I had no evidence against
Amaury beyond instinct, I was curious to see if the action stopped
when he did.”

“
But it didn’t,” Hywel
said.

“
It was too little, too
late,” said Rhys, “though I didn’t realize it at the time. I
absolved Amaury of any wrongdoing, other than overzealousness in
the pursuit of a man his master had declared a traitor and lying
about his loyalties to Gareth. You and Mari almost lost your lives
because of my failure.”

“
Too bad for the archer
that he ended up dead,” Hywel said.

Prior Rhys bit his lip, suppressing a smile.
“Oh … he’s not dead.”

Hywel’s eyes narrowed. “What about the dead
archer Gareth found?”

“
Oddly, Philippe was
half-right about that man not being the archer. The dead man Gareth
found was some poor soldier, one of Philippe’s men, whom the real
archer brought along as a spotter. He killed him to throw you off
his scent.”

Hywel growled deep in his throat as
understanding rose in him. “Your archer is the man we picked up on
our way home as we entered Wales. You vouched for him, and I let
him join our company.”

“
Cadoc is a very good
shot,” said Rhys.

“
You should have told me
more of this at the time,” Hywel said.

“
Old habits die hard,
keeping secrets being one of the last to go. I had revealed myself
to you as a horseman by then, but I didn’t want you asking
questions of me, not before it was safe.”

“
You didn’t want Gareth
asking questions, you mean,” Hywel said.

“
You do realize what you
have in him, and Gwen too, don’t you?” said Rhys, as usual
diverting Hywel from something he didn’t want to answer with a
question of his own.

“
Believe me, I do.” Hywel
gave a mocking laugh. “You’d be surprised what they know and what
they have been willing to forgive.”

Prior Rhys studied Hywel. “You are speaking
from experience.”

Hywel wasn’t going to respond to that. It
was his turn to ask the questions. “Why did you leave the empress’s
service? And don’t tell me it was because your commission sickened
you. It has to be more than that.”

Rhys looked away. His eyes followed the line
of the orchard wall, just visible in the moonlight, and he began
walking again. Hywel came with him, and when they reached a bench
set against the wall of the orchard, Rhys lowered himself onto it.
It faced south, and on days when the sun peeked through the cloud
cover would provide the gardeners a warm place to sit. “I spoke the
truth.”

“
But not all of it.” Hywel
sat beside the prior and leaned back against the wall.

“
Why do you want to know?”
said Rhys.

“
You know why. Because
without it, I am missing a piece of the puzzle.”

“
And that’s important to
you?”

“
The past informs the
present,” Hywel said. “If I know
this
, then it might help me someday
with
that
.”

“
I don’t know why I’m even
talking to you. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I know
that you are good at keeping secrets.” Prior Rhys eyed Hywel again.
Even in the moonlight, Hywel had the sense that the prior could see
right through him. “This tale isn’t really about me at all but
about Ralph.”

“
Ah.” Hywel smiled,
satisfaction coursing through him. He had been right to
come.

“
Yes.” Prior Rhys glanced
at Hywel again in that way he had, assessing. “Your new
father-in-law has more secrets than I do. What he told Mari about
leaving her to spy for the empress in King Stephen’s court was true
as far as it goes.”

“
But again, not the whole
truth,” Hywel said.

“
Ralph didn’t have a choice
but to leave,” said Rhys. “It would have been unsafe for him to
stay. Myself, I’m surprised the empress hasn’t had him murdered
long since.”

Hywel sat up straighter. “Go on.”

“
It was I who helped Ralph
fake his own death and then ensured my own. Mari hasn’t realized
yet that she knew me as a child. When she sat with me at Newcastle,
after Amaury sent his mercenary to incapacitate me, I was sure she
would recognize me, but she never did.” Rhys clasped his hands
together. “It was a long time ago.”

The questions spilled over
in Hywel’s mind so fast, he was at a loss to articulate even one.
Finally he managed,
“Why?”

“
Old King Henry didn’t die
from eating too many lampreys,” said Rhys. “It was
poison.”

The word
poison
echoed in Hywel’s
ears. “Ralph murdered him?”

“
For many years I assumed
so, though now I’m not so sure. If it wasn’t him, he knows who
did.”

“
Philippe,” Hywel said on
impulse, pulling the name out of nothing but a hundred impressions
and questions he hadn’t yet thought to ask.

“
Very good,” said Rhys. “If
not Ralph, that would be my guess too. Philippe and Ralph moved in
the same circles, far above mine. And as you know, Philippe
replaced Ralph as spymaster when he left.”

“
If it was Philippe, his
secret will never be safe as long as you and Ralph live,” Hywel
said. “As you wondered, why are any of you still
living?”

“
Initially, we were allowed
to live as long as we were useful, and now we are old and
discredited,” said Rhys. “Philippe and Ralph would never betray
each other; they were friends once, and among spies, friends are
few and far between.”

“
That still
doesn’t—”

“
You have to understand
what the atmosphere is like at the empress’s court, my prince. At
times, it is poisonous. She plays men off one another, encouraging
them to vie for her favor.” At Hywel’s expression, Rhys hastened to
add, “Not that kind—I’m talking about land, power, money. She
wields men like weapons, even her own against her own.”

Hywel straightened his legs in front of him.
“Knowing that, why didn’t Ralph defect to King Stephen in truth as
well as name?”

Prior Rhys canted his head as he looked at
Hywel. “You really don’t understand the Norman mind if you have to
ask that.”

“
Enlighten me.” Hywel felt
like he was ten again and being instructed by Gwen’s father in a
particularly difficult Latin conjugation.

“
To those who follow her,
the empress is the rightful heir to the English throne. Stephen is
a usurper. No matter how much they might fear her, even despair of
her as a queen who cannot bend even for a moment for the good of
her people, to follow Stephen would be to turn away from
God.”

“
Do you feel that way?”
Hywel said.

Rhys smiled. “I am Welsh and far more
practical than Ralph. Still, what did I do? I chose to leave
England and my chosen profession entirely rather than serve another
earthly master.”

“
I find it incredible that
all of you are still keeping these secrets after all these years,
even Ranulf, about whom far too little has been said so
far.”

Prior Rhys coughed a laugh. “Ranulf keeps
many secrets.”

That brought Hywel’s eyes to Rhys’s face.
“His loyalty is in question, isn’t it? Gareth brought that
information from Amaury, but the man is an excellent liar, and I
didn’t know whether or not to believe him.”

“
I have a feeling that when
my brethren write the history of King Stephen’s reign, it will
never be entirely clear as to which side, other than his own,
Ranulf was ever on during this war,” said Rhys.

Hywel stared down at his hands. From the
very beginning, the scope of this investigation had been beyond
anything he’d experienced before. “So Maud had her father
murdered.”

Prior Rhys jerked his head to look at Hywel.
“What? No. Did I say that?”

“
Didn’t you?” Hywel
said.

“
I apologize for giving you
that impression,” said Rhys, “but that isn’t it at all. Maud loved
her father. Philippe and Ralph served Geoffrey of Anjou, Maud’s
husband, before they came to England to serve her.”

The last piece of the puzzle fell into
place, and it was one that Hywel had no difficulty reconciling with
what he knew, even if it was entirely unexpected. “Geoffrey had
King Henry killed because he didn’t support Geoffrey’s territorial
ambitions in France.”

“
King Henry did not, but
Geoffrey knew that his wife would if she were on the throne,
straddling the English Channel between England and Normandy.” Prior
Rhys nodded. “Gareth—and you—were deceived from the beginning in
this.”

“
How so?”

“
The four horsemen weren’t
Maud’s men, not at the start. We were Geoffrey’s.”

Chapter
Twenty-eight

Gwen

G
areth and Gwen sat cross-legged on their bed facing each
other. They were finally in their own home, for the first time in a
month, having made the journey from Aber Castle that very day. The
last miles home, Gwen could barely keep her eyes open. Now, though
all she wanted to do was sleep, Gareth had spent the last quarter
of an hour telling her about his plans for the next few days, as
full summer had finally come. Every day would see them working from
dawn to dusk on their land. Finally Gwen leaned in and put a finger
to his lips.

Gareth stopped talking. “What is it?”

“
I have something to tell
you.”

“
Is it about Mari and
Hywel?” Gareth said. “Before they rode to Rhuddlan Castle, Hywel
swore to me that he loved Mari and would do everything in his power
to make her happy.”

“
I know he will,” Gwen
said. “This isn’t about Mari and Hywel. This is about
us.”

“
Is the upcoming journey to
Ceredigion worrying you?” Gareth said. “I don’t want to be parted
from you either, but perhaps if you kept Mari company, it would
make it easier to be separated from me? You can be sure that Hywel
will want to settle his affairs in Ceredigion quickly, either to
prepare for Mari’s arrival, or to hurry home to her before the
harvest.”

“
Gareth—”

“
I had a thought, also,
that you might enjoy having Llelo and Dai stay with you for the
summer if their uncle grants them leave,” he said. “I know you’ve
grown fond of them—”

“
We’re having a
baby.”

Gareth’s last words had overlapped hers, so
Gwen wasn’t sure at first that he’d caught what she said. Then he
gave such a whoop that she feared he might wake everyone in the
village.

“
You are with child? You’re
certain?”

“
I desperately wanted to
tell you sooner, but with everything that happened at Newcastle,
and the wedding immediately after, I thought it might be better to
wait until it was just the two of us, and I was sure. It’s been
weeks since I began to hope, and now I believe.”

First Gareth laughed, and then he threw his
arms around Gwen and rolled with her to the blankets, ending up
with her resting on top of him. She lay with her cheek on his
chest, reveling in the thudding of his heart.

“
You’re happy about it,
then?” she said.

Gwen felt the laughter bubbling up in his
chest before she heard it. “Happy? Gwen—” Gareth hugged her
tighter. “I’m terrified, of course, but how could I not be
happy?”

Gwen sighed and snuggled against him. He
released her only long enough to draw a blanket over both of
them.

“
It’s Prince Hywel who
won’t be happy,” Gareth said.

“
Why is that?”

Gareth raised his head and she lifted hers,
so they could see into each other’s eyes. “I won’t go so far as to
forbid you to be involved in any more of Prince Hywel’s
investigations, but I must tell Hywel that he’s not to call upon
his best spy for a good long while.”

Gwen patted her husband’s
chest reassuringly but didn’t reply. She tucked the blanket under
her chin, thinking but not saying, since it seemed wise to humor
her husband in this instance:
We’ll
see.

The End

Historical Note

The Fourth Horseman
is set in the time of what has come to be known
as
The Anarchy
, the
period in England’s history where the succession to the throne was
in question, fought over by Stephen of Blois, grandson of William
the Conqueror, and Maud, daughter of King Henry I of England. As
relayed in the opening excerpt from
The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
, civil war reigned
for nineteen years.