“How well did you know her?” Gwen said.
Now Cadwaladr’s lips twitched. “For a maid, you are remarkably forward. I didn’t know her at all, if that’s what you’re asking. I am faithful to my wife.”
Which might even be true. From what Gwen could tell, it was the only reason Alice put up with him. That and the two beautiful sons he’d given her.
“I’ve heard you were one of the men who was to stand guard outside your brother’s room that night,” Gwen said. “What happened to you?”
“An ill son and an infant is what happened,” Cadwaladr said.
Gwen nodded. “You were gone from the room longer than it took to find a servant to help Alice.” The other ladies had been all a-flutter this week when they’d discovered that Alice was nursing her own baby herself.
Cadwaladr blew a whistle under his breath. “I went to the barracks. And stayed there a while. My son was puking up! I chose to let the women deal with it.”
“And when it was time for your watch?” Gwen said.
“The other men understood my difficulties and granted me the morning shift,” Cadwaladr said. “By the time I came to take my place, the house was in an uproar. I went back to bed.”
Hywel laughed. “You didn’t care that Enid had been murdered?”
“Why should I?” Cadwaladr said. “I didn’t know her. I knew you two would be at it again, questioning everyone in sight. It didn’t affect me one way or the other. And since it meant Owain couldn’t marry Cristina that day, it gave me a few more hours of sleep.”
Gwen just managed not to laugh too. Since she was ten, she’d been responsible for her brother, Gwalchmai. While King Owain had arranged a wet nurse for him after Gwen’s mother died, the nurse had insisted on her sleep. If Gwalchmai had cried in the night for anything other than a feeding, it was Gwen who’d cared for him.
“What about your ring?” Gwen said.
“What ring?”
“When you took me to Dublin, you wore a ring with a dragon crest. I noted it specifically,” Gwen said.
Cadwaladr blinked. “I lost it overboard on the return journey. I used to turn it over in my hand when I was thinking. Some fool Dane knocked into me and it flew out of my hand.”
“And the man found dead in the bath room?” Hywel said. “What about him?”
“You can’t pin that murder on me, either. What did I care about some servant?” Cadwaladr wanted to persuade them of his innocence, but his impatience with the necessity of it was beginning to show. “And I didn’t pay anyone to kill him either.”
Cadwaladr had an answer to everything but Gwen wasn’t buying it. She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not the one who locked myself in the chapel rather than discuss this with King Owain.”
“I tried to talk to him but he wouldn’t listen,” Cadwaladr said. “He doesn’t care about Enid anyway—it’s his own head that concerns him, not that I blame him—but I’m not going to give him the opportunity to stretch my neck for something I didn’t do.”
“Then what did you do, Uncle?”
Cadwaladr still hadn’t sheathed his sword and now he rested the blade on his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
Hywel gestured to the room at large. “This is not the act of a man with a clear conscience.”
Just for an instant, Cadwaladr’s face lost its façade of charm in favor of a murderous expression, and then his features smoothed again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hywel stood and approached to within two feet of Cadwaladr, heedless of the sword or Cadwaladr’s volatile temper. “Don’t you, Uncle?”
Cadwaladr glared again at Hywel. “I did nothing! I told you.”
Hywel snapped his fingers in Gwen’s direction. “Time to go.”
He set off for the rear door. Gwen hesitated for a moment, and then stood to follow but Cadwaladr held out a hand to stop her. “Wait.”
Gwen stayed out of arm’s reach, but didn’t leave. Hywel turned on his heel, his hands on his hips, and simply looked at his uncle.
Cadwaladr glanced from Gwen to Hywel. When Hywel didn’t look away, Cadwaladr couldn’t maintain his stare. He dropped his eyes to his feet.
“What did you do, Uncle?” Hywel kept his voice soft. “Just tell us.”
The sun had set while they’d been talking, plunging the room into darkness. The single candle left burning on the altar couldn’t penetrate the gloom. Gwen stepped around Cadwaladr and began to light the candles in their sconces that lined the walls, all the while keeping her ears pricked for Cadwaladr’s response.
Cadwaladr grunted and finally sheathed his sword. He sat down on the steps that separated the chancel from the nave, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “It’s not—it’s not anything my brother needs to worry about.”
“What isn’t?” Hywel said.
Gwen almost didn’t hear him speak, the words were so quiet. She moved closer so she could see their faces, but didn’t take her seat again, not wanting to interrupt the tenuous exchange.
“My broth—” Cadwaladr stopped and tried again. “Your father has given you my lands in Ceredigion.”
In the past, when Cadwaladr had referred to Ceredigion as my lands, the words had been accompanied by fury. Now he seemed resigned.
Hywel nodded.
“All he has left to me is the rule of Aberffraw and the surrounding estates, plus a small claim in Meirionydd,” Cadwaladr said.
“That is what I understood.” A look of comprehension crossed Hywel’s face. “But you want more.”
“Of course I want more!” The fire was back, but Cadwaladr quickly banked it. He had to realize that this was a delicate moment. He needed to clarify the difference between whatever he’d done to try to gain more power and land, and the plot to murder his brother. Cadwaladr scrubbed at his hair with both hands. He was the younger of the two brothers, but his hair had more gray in the blonde than King Owain’s. “I’ve been speaking to Ranulf, the Earl of Chester.”
Gwen’s heart sank. This was exactly what King Owain had feared Cadwaladr might do. It was why he’d appeased his brother after the events of the summer. He’d forced Cadwaladr to pay the Danes to leave Wales and stripped him of his lands in Ceredigion, but he hadn’t done worse.
King Owain could have kept Cadwaladr in a cell. Even Rhun had argued strongly for it. And yet, King Owain had made peace with his brother. In so doing, he’d opened the door for the very resentment he’d worked so hard to avoid. He’d feared that punishing Cadwaladr even a little more would push him into the arms of an enemy.
But that is exactly what had happened. Chafing at the new restrictions upon him, Cadwaladr had opened negotiations with a Norman baron—at best, to gain more land for himself, or at worst, to overthrow King Owain. Cadwaladr hadn’t conspired to murder his brother, just to take his place as King of Gwynedd.
Hywel eased forward and found the bench on which he’d sat earlier. He straightened his legs, one at a time. “Is that so?”
Cadwaladr nodded.
“How far have your discussions progressed?” Hywel said.
“Not far at all! Not at all!” Cadwaladr threw out an arm, pointing towards the front door of the chapel, behind which he’d find King Owain. “But I knew if my brother heard of it, he would immediately jump to the wrong conclusion.”
“You mean there’s a right conclusion?” Hywel said. “One in which you didn’t betray him?”
“I didn’t—”
“You hoped—with Norman backing—to unseat him,” Hywel said.
“Ranulf has chafed under the rod of Empress Maud, whom he supports against King Stephen. But Stephen has him hemmed in, too. Since Ranulf lost control of his lands to the north, he was looking west …” Cadwaladr’s voice trailed off.
Hywel didn’t glare at him. Rather, he studied his uncle as if he were a caged bear at a village fair. Having finally explained his plot out loud, did Cadwaladr realize only now how treasonously he’d behaved
?
“Ranulf has been at peace with my father, who supports neither claimant to the throne of England,” Hywel said. “You know that.”
King Stephen and Empress Maud had been fighting each other for the crown since King Henry died in 1135. Maud was Henry’s daughter, but Stephen was his nephew, a grandson of William the Bastard, the first Norman king of England. Both claimants were essentially French, spoke French, had lived much of their lives in France, and knew little about the English—or rather, the Saxons, as the Welsh called them—they governed. It almost made Gwen feel sorry for the English, since the Norman treatment of them was so familiar. That was how the Normans treated the Welsh too.
Upon Henry’s death, Stephen had moved more quickly than Maud to claim the throne. He’d also had the support of the majority of the Norman barons and was far more personable than Empress Maud. Two years earlier, the Londoners had refused to crown her and barred her from their city.
“I don’t know which is worse,” Hywel said. “Trying to have my father killed, or that you negotiated with a Norman. What did you promise him for unseating my father? How much of Gwynedd would become his?”
Cadwaladr spread his hands wide. “Really, it has come to nothing—”
Hywel cut him off. “You want me to tell my father this? That you didn’t murder Enid but you sought to betray him in other ways?”
“It wasn’t betrayal—”
“How can you think that I will defend you to him?” Hywel said.
Cadwaladr didn’t seem to be listening. “Please, Nephew. Speak to your father. You know I didn’t hire that boy to murder him. I am not guilty of what I’ve been accused of doing.”
Hywel folded his arms across his chest. “I will have to tell him of your plotting.”
Cadwaladr looked at his feet, contrite again. “I know.”
“I don’t know what he’ll say,” Hywel said.
Gwen did. King Owain was going to be as angry as he’d ever been. Maybe more angry than he was last summer (which was saying something), if only because it was a new betrayal, coming hard on the heels of the old.
Cadwaladr nodded.
Hywel pointed to the priest’s chair which Gwen had vacated earlier. “Sit there and wait for me to return.”
Hywel tipped his head to indicate that Gwen should come with him to the front door. He strode down the nave, his shoulders stiff and his chin raised. He was angry too. Hywel unbarred the door and pulled it open. Torches lit the courtyard as if it were day. For her part, Gwen wasn’t angry, merely resigned. Should they really have expected anything different from Cadwaladr?
Her stomach growled, wanting her dinner. She wasn’t sure she was going to get it quite yet. Although the crowd clamored for information, Hywel made a shooing motion with his hand. “All is well. Go about your business.”
King Owain lifted his chin. “You heard my son. It’s over.” To aid in the decision to vacate the courtyard, the smell of roasting meat wafted from the open door to the great hall. People turned toward it, though Meilyr paused on the front step for a long look at Gwen. She raised her hand to him. She hoped he understood that all was well, at least for her.
King Owain brought her attention back to him and Hywel. “Talk to me.”
“Not here, Father.” Hywel rubbed his hands together, warming them, as several more men brushed past them. The courtyard emptied. Only those who should be there remained: the men of the garrison who had this watch at the gatehouse or on the battlements.
King Owain pointed at two members of the garrison who hovered near the steps to the chapel. “Guard the Prince. Make sure he doesn’t leave.”
“Yes, my lord.” They took up positions on either side of the door.
Gwen glanced through the open doorway. Cadwaladr sat where they’d left him, in the priest’s chair, gazing at his feet. He turned her stomach. It was a relief to follow the king to the side door that led to Hywel’s office. This was where he and King Owain always conducted business, rather than in King Owain’s own suite. Perhaps it was because King Owain didn’t want Cadwaladr’s deceit trickling into his domain.
Not that he could stop it.
King Owain paced in front of the desk. Hywel’s window faced west and was just high enough so that in the daytime, he could see above the curtain wall to the mountains. This evening, the darkness pressed into the room and Hywel closed the shutter before he turned to his father.
“What did my brother say?” King Owain said.
In a few short sentences, Hywel related the gist of the conversation with Cadwaladr. King Owain’s pace didn’t falter, but blood suffused his face as he listened. Then, he gained control of himself. This was a King Owain that Gwen didn’t often see—cold rather than hot—and she wished that Cadwaladr was there to see him too. Then again, Cadwaladr would probably misconstrue King Owain’s silence as acceptance, rather than wrath.
“Ranulf has always been protective of his own power, but he and I have had an amicable relationship,” King Owain said.
Gwynedd’s domains had ebbed and flowed over the years. At times, the Normans had maintained a presence as far east as Rhuddlan, or even to the Conwy River. King Owain, and his father before him, had spread his hand over all of the north, up to the great Dyke just west of the city of Chester.
“It was Uncle Cadwaladr who led the Welsh vanguard against King Stephen and in support of Earl Ranulf and Empress Maud two years ago,” Hywel said.
“Indeed,” Owain said. “And I sent him east for that purpose. But he was also part of the rout at Winchester that left Robert of Gloucester captive and Ranulf fleeing for his life. That’s when Ranulf should have found out what kind of man my brother really is.”
“If that’s true, why would he be negotiating with Cadwaladr now?” Gwen said.
King Owain growled. “Because he did find out what kind of man my brother is. Think what power Ranulf would have in Wales if I were dead and Cadwaladr sat in my place?”
“I’m not so sure about that, Father,” Hywel said. “Ranulf has to know that if he allies with Cadwaladr, he’s getting into bed with a viper.”
“You have the right of it.” King Owain threw back his head and gazed at the ceiling.
Gwen and Hywel remained silent, letting the king think. The sounds of the meal going on in the great hall filtered through the closed door. Hywel and King Owain had been so caught up in their conversation, they hadn’t requested that food and drink be brought to them. Gwen stood and went to the window to peer through the shutters. Her nose turned instantly pink at the cold air coming through it. After a quick look, she closed the shutters again and turned back to the room.
King Owain brought his head down. “Still … what shall we do about your uncle?”
“He’s never going to change, Father,” Hywel said. “You know that.”
“I do,” King Owain said. “It may even be that he decided to reveal this new crime as a way of distracting us from the attempt on my life.”
Hywel nodded. “Just because he says he didn’t conspire against you, or kill Enid, doesn’t mean he didn’t. We only have his word.”
“Which is worth nothing—” King Owain broke off at the sound of feet pounding along the corridor. They stopped outside Hywel’s door.
“No, no, no, no!” King Owain didn’t wait for the messenger to knock. He yanked on the latch so fiercely that Evan fell into the room.
“What is it, Evan?” Hywel said.
“Prince Cadwaladr has left the chapel. We don’t know where he’s gone.”
King Owain stormed from the room. Evan, who knew better than to follow any closer, let him get ahead, and then after shooting a rueful look at Gwen, pulled the door closed behind him. Hywel remained behind his desk and Gwen settled onto the bench underneath the window.
“I want to laugh,” Hywel said. “I would if it weren’t so serious.”
“Go ahead.” Gwen said. “We may not get another chance for a long time.”
But Hywel didn’t.
Instead, he fingered the papers on his desk. Gwen recognized this as a sign that he had something important to say. “This is the first time we’ve been completely alone since last August.”
“Is it?” Gwen said, though she knew it was. And she knew why. It seemed Hywel did too.
“Do you hate me that much?”
“I don’t hate you,” Gwen said.
“But you are angry with me,” Hywel said. “I’ve killed many men, you know, and few deserved it more than Anarawd did.”
“It’s that!” Gwen’s temper rose to the top of her head and through it. She stabbed a finger at Hywel. “That’s what I hate! Your smug—” She swallowed down the acid that had risen into her throat and bit her lip.
Hywel gazed at her, his expression curious, rather than hurt or angry. “Is that really what bothers you about me, Gwen? Or is it, rather, that you hate what I did but not me?”
Gwen hunched forward, her arms wrapped around her waist, trying to contain her emotions before they flooded the room. “I don’t know.”
“You have to get past this.”
“I thought I had.”
“I did something you think was bad, but Wales isn’t divided into good people and bad people.”
“Except for your uncle.” Gwen stared at the floor. “Sitting in the chapel with us, he was smug too. Sure of himself. Always with excuses as to why what he did was the right thing. How do you expect me to tell the difference between him and you?”
Hywel rubbed his lips with his fingers. “I suppose I deserve that.” He barked a laugh that came out bitter. “And yet, I’m hurt that you would compare me to my uncle who betrays us with a Norman—”
“Cadwaladr erred in public,” Gwen said. “He’s had to face the whole world with what he did. You’ve only had to face me.”
“And Gareth.” Hywel leaned forward, no longer affecting light-heartedness. “Look at me, Gwen.”
Gwen didn’t want to, but she raised her head.
“I make hard choices,” Hywel said. “I do things that I don’t like and that must remain hidden else Gwynedd be brought to her knees. The difference between Cadwaladr and me is that what I do—whether in regards to Anarawd, or rousting a wayward servant of my father—is not for me. It’s never been for me.”
The Uninvited Guest Page 18