They fell to the floor on the other side of the table and landed hard, Gareth on top and the would-be assassin beneath. The impact knocked all the air from Gareth’s lungs but also flung the youth’s arm upward with such force that he released the knife. It sailed across the room and skittered under the table near where Gwen had been standing.
Gareth lay as he’d fallen for a moment, sprawled at a diagonal across the body of the boy, with his forehead resting on the smooth planks of the floor. He coughed. Then he pushed to his knees so he straddled the youth’s midsection and punched a fist to his own chest, trying to get his breath back. The assassin moaned and tried to twist away but Gareth held him down. His head lifted and fell back, his eyes opening once and then closing.
The instant Gareth had seen the knife aimed at King Owain’s back, his ears had closed to the hubbub in the hall. Now the crescendo of sound overwhelmed his senses. People around him shouted and screamed their shock, but their words made no sense to Gareth. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Lifting his eyes from the youth’s face, Gareth found Gwen a few feet away, her hands to her mouth and her eyes wide. His shoulders sagged in relief to see her unhurt.
The diners at the high table had pushed back their chairs and risen to their feet. Of the small circle of onlookers, Hywel was the first to speak. He dropped a hand to Gareth’s shoulder. “Praise be to God. You saved the king.”
King Owain’s eyes tracked from Gareth, to the man on the ground, to Gareth again.
Gareth cleared his throat. “He tried to kill you, my lord.”
“I see that.”
Gareth allowed himself a deep breath. For one heartbeat—only one but it had felt like a lifetime—he’d feared King Owain might misunderstand what had just occurred and think the youth had merely been bringing him a knife for his meal. It would have been so easy for Gareth to have misread the situation and been in the wrong again.
But no. Gareth hadn’t been wrong. He had acted on instinct because the expression on the youth’s face—and the upraised knife in his hand—had been impossible to misinterpret.
A man-at-arms stooped to pick up the assassin’s knife where it had lodged under the serving table. He brought it to Hywel who took it and then held it out to his father, the blade flat against his palm. Despite the earlier tone of dry amusement in the King’s voice, color had yet to return to his face. But he took the knife, and then passed it to his steward, Taran. “Keep this safe for me, will you?”
Taran nodded. Like everyone else, his eyes were too wide and the lines at the corners of his mouth were accentuated as he gazed down at the youth from beside the king. “This is my fault—”
Cristina pushed past her father to reach King Owain. He saw her coming and put out his arm to draw her to him. “I’m all right, my dear.”
She seemed genuinely distraught and pressed her face to his chest. The cynical part of Gareth believed she was upset because someone had tried to kill the king before he married her. If he’d died, she would never have become the Queen of Gwynedd. “How-how-how could this happen?”
“That is something we will have to find out,” King Owain said, his eyes on Hywel.
The uproar in the hall was ongoing. Ten people had been seated at the high table, but the dais had fifty on it now. Even Prince Cadwaladr appeared shaken, with a pinched look to his eyes and mouth. He held his arm around Alice, his wife, who like King Owain, seemed to have forgiven him his past misdeeds. Or rather, she had chosen to ignore them.
Lord Tomos had risen and come closer to support the king. He reached for Cristina, whom King Owain gratefully passed off to him. “My dear, let me get you away from all this.”
Cristina pressed Tomos’ hand and even managed a small smile. “Thank you, my lord.”
Lord Goronwy, Cristina’s father, still sat in his chair to the left of the king’s, a stunned expression on his face, incapable of aiding his daughter. Gareth found it curious the different ways in which people responded to unexpected events. Some, like Tomos, seemed to recover smoothly no matter what happened. It didn’t look to Gareth as if Goronwy was a good man in a crisis.
“There’s blood on your shirt, Father.” Rhun pointed to a blotch of red on his father’s otherwise spotlessly white shirt. King Owain had forgone his customary mail vest in favor of finery in honor of the occasion. The assassin must have known that would happen and taken his only chance to bring Owain Gwynedd down.
“Do I?” King Owain twisted to look at his shoulder, but the place where the point of the knife had gone in was too far down his back and near his spine for him to see it. “I didn’t even feel it.”
“It would have entered your heart, but for Gareth.” Hywel held out his hand to Gareth who clasped it and used Hywel’s strength to haul himself to his feet. His knees trembled at the effort of staying upright but he locked them so as not to sway. Hywel’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t comment or make Gareth find a chair.
The youth remained as he’d fallen, arms and legs akimbo, still unconscious. Or was he feigning it? Now that the initial shock had passed, Gareth’s heart began to slow and instead of his muscles, his brain, with its investigative instincts, began to function. He wanted to know who this boy was and whether this act had been his own idea or if he was working for someone else. Why would a peasant boy want to murder the King of Gwynedd? From the threadbare state of his breeches and shirt, he didn’t come from money, and that made it more likely that the boy hadn’t conceived the idea to kill the king on his own, but that someone had hired him.
In point of fact, the boy was lucky to be alive at all. Silently, Gareth ran through what had happened: seeing the knife come out of its sheath, the youth raise it high, and advance towards King Owain. Gareth had only noticed the boy’s actions because he’d been watching Gwen, not the King. The bulk of Owain’s body would have blocked the youth from the view of most of the people in the hall until it was too late.
If the youth hadn’t tried to murder the king in the middle of the great hall, the king’s men might have already put a sword through his belly to finish what Gareth had started. Hywel, whose mind often ran on similar paths to Gareth’s, put a not-so-subtle boot on the boy’s chest, just in case he chose that moment to awaken and try to get away.
“You’re not bleeding under all that armor, are you, Gareth?” Gwen ran her finger along a wicked slice in the leather of his left bracer.
“I don’t think I am.” When Gareth had hit the assassin, the knife must have driven into Gareth instead of the king’s back, though Gareth hadn’t felt it at the time.
Gwen wrapped her arms around Gareth’s waist and rested her head on his chest. Gareth responded to her touch, pressing his cheek onto the top of her head. Her hair smelled of apple blossoms.
Hywel touched his father’s sleeve. “No one should leave the castle without your permission, Father.”
Rhun nodded. “We don’t know if the boy was working alone or with another. I agree—”
Owain held up his hand to stop his sons from speaking further. “Get this man out of here. We will talk after you learn what you can from him.”
“Yes, Father,” Hywel said. The king’s words were meant more for him than for Rhun.
Two of King Owain’s men grasped the would-be assassin by the arms and hauled him to his feet, his arms wrenched behind his back. He’d done a good job of feigning unconsciousness all this time, but Gareth’s first instincts were correct. The boy couldn’t maintain the ruse once on his feet. He stood before them, shaking and blinking rapidly. He did weave, however, and the two soldiers who held him tightened their grip in order to keep him upright.
Hywel jerked his head towards the rear of the hall and the guardsmen responded by dragging the boy through the doorway to the side corridor and its less public exit. Gareth still held Gwen’s waist. He bent his head to speak to her but she put a finger to his lips. “I know what you want. You don’t even have to say it.”
Gareth did anyway. “Hywel and I will
question him. I don’t want you there for it.”
Gwen nodded, for once subdued (which Gareth tried not to read too much into). “I will stay here and keep an eye on the king—and his guests.” She threaded her fingers through Gareth’s.
“Start asking questions of those in the hall, the best you can,” Hywel said. “So close to the incident, we might get some unguarded responses.”
Gareth kissed Gwen’s forehead and released her. Without looking back, he and Hywel followed the guards into the corridor, past Hywel’s office, and then out the side door. It was a way to reach Aber’s courtyard without having to walk the length of the great hall. Rhun, as the elding and Owain’s right hand man, stayed behind to support the king.
Once outside, the wind whipped Gareth’s cloak from his body and brought a wash of rain to his face. It revived him after the warmth and close confines of the hall. At the same time, the cold air stiffened his overworked muscles. He rubbed at his shoulders and neck with one hand to loosen them.
“My father lives every day with the threat of death.” Hywel stalked towards the stables, his chin out. “He has a food taster who samples every dish before it is brought to the high table, a steward who makes it his business to know everyone who enters Aber, and guards to watch over him night and day. How could this happen?”
“Because for all that, it’s impossible to keep anyone completely safe,” Gareth said. “He has to see his people and to be seen among them. He can’t do that from behind a wall any higher than Aber’s. Besides, it’s his wedding day tomorrow. He has to show the world that he believes in what he is doing, which means inviting everyone around to witness it.”
“Damn priests,” Hywel said. “They should keep their noses out of private business.”
“Not all of them are bad,” Gareth said. “You can be grateful their reach extends only so far. Cristina is your father’s cousin and thus forbidden to him in their eyes. But they can’t prevent him from marrying her. They have more power over the King of England than they do over the King of Gwynedd.”
“So I’m to be grateful for small mercies, is that it?” Hywel shot Gareth a twisted grin. “What my father really should do is get rid of my uncle Cadwaladr.”
“And yet he’s done exactly the opposite,” Gareth said. “He might be regretting that, just now.”
Hywel caught Gareth’s arm and pulled him closer. “What are the odds that my uncle is behind this?”
Gareth chewed on his lip. “I’m not the one to ask and you know it. But even objectively, he’s a likely candidate. He planned the murder of King Anarawd only last summer. He brought an army of Danes to Gwynedd. Is it a stretch to think that he could plot to murder his own brother? I assure you, we will not be the only ones to think it either.”
“Everyone in the hall should be thinking it right now,” Hywel said.
“What will the king do?” Gareth said.
“Nothing, not without proof. Don’t think my father hasn’t regretted saving his brother from the gallows. He and I discussed Cadwaladr’s continued existence before I rode to Ceredigion.” Hywel lowered his voice. “It is no small matter to kill a prince. Or have him killed.”
Gareth couldn’t keep his disgust out of his voice. “Ask Anarawd about that.” He gestured to the guards just entering the stables. “Or our assassin.”
Hywel shook his head. “Even keeping Cadwaladr imprisoned all these months hasn’t been easy. Cadwaladr has his supporters, as you well know, men who are loyal because they can’t imagine being anything else. My father can’t win them to his side overnight. And certainly not with Cadwaladr dying an unexpected death in his prison cell.”
“Is that why your father let him out?” Gareth said.
Hywel blew out a breath. “It was politically expedient.” This was a significant admission on Hywel’s part, and showed his confidence in Gareth’s discretion. Gareth was pleased that Hywel trusted him enough to speak what was on his mind.
Hywel had continued to grip Gareth’s arm as they walked, but now released him. “If Cadwaladr hired this man, you and I—and Gwen (can’t forget her)—must find it out. Then my father will have no choice but to hang him.”
“I will do my best, my lord,” Gareth said.
Hywel clapped Gareth on the shoulder. “I know you will. For now, we deal with what is in front of us.”
Chapter Three
They entered the stables. The guards had dumped the youth in the cell that took up the right rear of the building. Gareth had spent far too many hours in it last summer. He couldn’t help but be glad it wasn’t his bruised body in there tonight.
Two guards blocked the doorway but moved aside as Gareth and Hywel approached. “Stay here,” Hywel said to them. “I don’t want anyone entering who doesn’t belong.”
“Yes, my lord,” both men said.
Two more men stood over the would-be assassin, and at a wave from Hywel, they bowed and left the cell, leaving Gareth and Hywel alone with the youth. If his odd pose on the dirt floor of the cell was an indication, he hadn’t moved since the soldiers had dumped him there. Gareth closed the door behind him but didn’t lock it since the boy wasn’t in any condition to escape. Hywel gazed down at the prisoner for a count of ten, but he still didn’t move, so Gareth prodded him with the toe of his boot. “Wake up.”
“I don’t know that he can.” Hywel stood with his hands on his hips, his lips pursed, studying the boy.
Since Gareth had been housed here the previous summer, the cell had reverted back to a storage room. Filthy hay littered the floor and someone had stacked wooden crates in a precarious pile in one corner. It still smelled strongly of horse and urine.
Gareth glanced at his prince, made uneasy by Hywel’s intense focus on the boy’s face. “Do you know him?”
Hywel slowly shook his head. “No.” But his denial lacked assurance.
“I hear hesitation in your voice,” Gareth said.
His lord, though he strove to keep his face impassive, had a tell when he was eliding the truth—or lying as Gwen would more straightforwardly say. Even if he gazed straight at you as he lied, the corner of his mouth would twitch, and then when you nodded your agreement and appeared to accept his lie as truth, his eyes would skate to the left. It was only for an instant, but Gareth had learned to watch for it. Hywel had very rarely lied to him, but he lied to other men routinely.
Gareth had learned to search for similar responses in the men he questioned. Most men were honest, as it turned out, and bad liars. The men to be most concerned about were the ones who’d so convinced themselves that their lies were truths, that they felt no guilt and had no tells. Cadwaladr was such a man.
Gareth didn’t mention any of this to Hywel.
Hywel glanced at him. “Is this a way of asking if I had anything to do with this? Am I a suspect now?”
Gareth searched for a way to respond without offending. “I didn’t say so. And yet, why am I here if not to read between the lines?”
Hywel barked a laugh. “You have me there.” He crouched to brush the hair out of the boy’s face so he could see it better. “The occasion of our meeting tickles at the back of my mind, but I can’t tell you more right now. I have a feeling I’ve seen his face before.”
Gareth wondered why his lord hadn’t just said so in the first place. He crouched over the youth and began going through his clothing. The boy’s coat had three inner pockets which revealed nothing beyond lint. He had no scrip, either, nor anything to identify him beyond his face. Gareth sat back on his heels. “He’s a ghost.”
“Or rather, one who planned to become one,” Hywel said.
“Do you think he went into the hall expecting never to come out?” Gareth said.
“That makes more sense than the idea that he thought he could get away with murdering my father.”
“As we were leaving the dais,” Gareth said, “Taran told the king that the boy was one of the many extra servants hired for the wedding. When we return to the hall,
I’ll talk to him.”
Hywel looked up from studying the boy’s supine form. “Taran will blame himself.”
“That is a fact, my lord, and one that you cannot talk me out of.” Taran pushed open the door and hurried into the cell. His face was red and he was out of breath.
“You’ve had a busy week,” Gareth said. “Nobody blames you.”
“I should have been more careful,” Taran said.
“Is there something we can do for you now?” Gareth said.
“Your lord father sent me to speak to you, to tell what I know, little as that may be.”
“Do you remember the circumstances of his hiring?” Hywel said.
If possible, Taran’s face got even redder. “Yes, my lord, in the sense that I took him on when he presented himself. I remember him particularly because all he had was what he stood up in—no bedroll, no pack, nothing. He was one of a dozen men who came to offer their services in the hall and stables. The harvest is over, you see, and many men like him have no real homes …” Taran’s voice trailed off as the force of Hywel’s attention became apparent.
“But did you know him yourself?” Hywel said. “Before this week?”
Taran shook his head. He wiped the moisture from his forehead with a handkerchief, sweating even though the stables were many degrees cooler than the hall. “He was one of several who arrived at the same time as Cristina’s family. He is from Powys, I believe.”
“Does my father know he arrived with Lord Goronwy?” Hywel’s gaze was piercing. “Or at least appeared to?”
“No. I would have answered all his questions but he didn’t care to listen. I tried … but it would have meant interrupting him. He is much occupied with his guests. He sent me to you instead.”
Gareth ran a hand through his hair. “That someone tried to kill the king is bad enough without bringing the complication of Cristina’s family into it.” Cadwallon, Owain’s older brother, had led a campaign through eastern Gwynedd and Powys in 1132. His mandate had been to bring these lands, that had once belonged to Gwynedd, back into his father’s hands.
The Uninvited Guest Page 2