Earlier in the night, a torch had lit up the little guardroom where his captors kept watch. But no light shone now. Carefully, his heart in his throat and barely able to breathe past it, Gareth pushed on the door.
It swung open.
The wooden bar lay to one side, next to a guard who slumped on a bench, his back to the wall and his eyes closed. Gareth looked around for a weapon, but none presented itself except the sword laid across the guard’s lap, its belt wrapped around the scabbard. Gareth blanched. The sword was Gareth’s own.
He couldn’t leave it. Gritting his teeth to keep his body from trembling so much that he would wake the guard, Gareth bent and gently lifted the guard’s hand. The guard was so relaxed that he didn’t shift and Gareth had his sword back, belt and all.
Within two steps, Gareth reached the exterior door. He poked his head out. His cell lay at one end of the stables, as far from the gatehouse as it was possible to get, but only a dozen yards from the postern gate. Rain had puddled in the courtyard but the rain itself had stopped and the air had turned bitterly cold. It smelled like snow would come soon. The only sound Gareth heard was the shifting of the horses in their stalls.
The door to the keep opened. The shape of a man showed in the light behind him, and then went back to shadow as the door closed. Gareth was alone in the courtyard of the castle. Knowing he couldn’t wait, he crossed the distance to the postern gate at a loping run. He braced himself to drive his sword through the guard at the postern gate, but pulled up as the man stood and pushed back his hood.
“About time,” Cadwaladr said.
“You!”
“Who did you think?” Cadwaladr’s voice was full of scorn.
Gareth didn’t answer, just pushed past Cadwaladr and opened the postern gate. He looked through it, and then back to Cadwaladr, surprised by his ambivalence. “Are you coming?”
Cadwaladr wavered in the doorway. Gareth grabbed his sleeve. “Come now or give me your cloak. It’s freezing out here.”
“Put on your own.” Cadwaladr pulled a length of cloth from the satchel in his hand, gave it to Gareth, and then shouldered the pack.
“Right.” Gareth threw the cloak around himself. Cursing at the weather, he pushed through the postern gate. “I’m glad you understood that this is the best path for you.” He stuck out his hand feeling the first flakes of snow hit his open palm. If the snow stuck, it would make them easy to track.
The men skidded down the steep incline towards the river. Gareth’s boots were caked in mud before he was half-way down. Cadwaladr puffed beside him. “I want you to tell my brother that he needs to give me back my lands in Ceredigion.”
Gareth didn’t answer. Hywel might have something to say about that.
“It’s the least he can do,” Cadwaladr said. “Rescuing you will make me a hero.” Cadwaladr was about as far from a hero as it was possible to get, but since he had freed Gareth, he could forgive him just about anything right now.
“We need to put as much distance between us and Rhuddlan as we can,” Gareth said. “We should go cross-country.”
“We need horses,” Cadwaladr said.
Gareth scoffed. “Then you should have freed them too. What were you thinking?”
Cadwaladr didn’t catch the sarcasm. “It would have called attention to us. I couldn’t risk it. I did too much as it was giving you that key.”
“Tomos will know it was you who freed me the moment he discovers your absence,” Gareth said. “Why does it matter what you did or did not do?”
“Because he might kill my men,” Cadwaladr said.
Oh. It was the first time, to Gareth’s knowledge, that Cadwaladr had expressed concern for the fate of his men. Then again, Cadwaladr didn’t have so many anymore that he could afford to lose even one. Cadwaladr had saved Gareth, and in so doing, may have knowingly traded their lives for his.
“We’ll come back with an army,” Gareth said. “Tomos isn’t stupid. If he kills your men, he has nothing to trade.”
“That is my hope,” Cadwaladr said. “But it will take time for my brother to marshal his forces.”
“I sent him a message from St. Asaph,” Gareth said. “He should already be on the move.”
They’d reached the Clwyd River. “Tomos is great friends with the Abbot there.” Cadwaladr grunted as he pulled off his boots. Because of the rain over the last week, the water was running high and fast, even at the ford. It was also very cold. “Are you sure the message was sent?”
Gareth’s heart sank. What if Prior Rhys had lied to him? “I saw the rider leave.”
“Uh huh.” Another grunt from Cadwaladr as he waded into the river. “But didn’t you meet Tomos soon after you left St. Asaph? Tomos could have encountered the rider in the middle of the night. Perhaps he suspected treachery and waylaid him.”
Gareth gritted his teeth as he waded thigh-deep into the river, his boots and sword clutched to his chest. The initial strength that had flooded him at the sight of the key, and that had gotten him out of his cell and out of Rhuddlan, was fading. By the time they came out of the river on the western side, he felt little but his own misery. His legs were numb from cold. His ribs ached more than ever, even as he set a fast pace away from Rhuddlan, with Cadwaladr struggling to keep up.
“Why aren’t we taking the main road?” Cadwaladr said through gasping breaths.
“Tomos will expect us to go that way,” Gareth said. “The snow isn’t sticking, but as soon as it does, our tracks will show. We need to get as far away from here as we can, as quickly as we can.”
Cadwaladr didn’t answer and Gareth focused on his breathing. The further they got from Rhuddlan, the more (rather than less) sure Gareth was that they’d be caught out here by Tomos’ men, run down from behind, and thrown into a marsh. But he and Cadwaladr ran doggedly on, while the wind whipped icy flakes under their hoods and into their faces.
Despite Gareth’s injuries, Cadwaladr was in worse shape than he. Cadwaladr was fifteen years older for a start, and these last months, he had spent more time sitting in his hall and less on the back of a horse than Gareth. The fighting in Ceredigion—fighting the last of Cadwaladr’s men—had been wearisome and endless, but it had kept Gareth fit.
“I need to rest.” Cadwaladr moved off the path and placed his hand against a tree. He bent over, breathing hard.
“If I stop, I’ll never start again,” Gareth said.
The snow had started to stick to the grass beside the road and Gareth hauled Cadwaladr back into the dirty middle of the trail. “How far to Caerhun?” Cadwaladr said.
“Twenty miles, give or take,” Gareth said.
“Twenty?” Cadwaladr let out a deep laugh. Then he thunked Gareth on the back. “Who would have believed that you and I would be scurrying around together in the dark, eh?”
Gareth couldn’t laugh. “Certainly not I … Come on. We must keep moving.”
“How can you even see where we’re going?” Cadwaladr said a bit later.
“The snow helps,” Gareth said. And it did, with a luminescence that to Gareth’s eyes showed a pathway before them, fading into the west. “Besides, it’s getting lighter already. Can’t you tell?”
“Dear God,” Cadwaladr said, after another hour of half-running, half-walking through the frozen landscape. “We’ll never make it.”
“We have to.” Gareth slowed and tipped back his head to allow a few snowflakes to drop into his mouth.
Cadwaladr had stopped altogether, bending at the waist and holding his side. “I cannot go another step.”
“Do you have food in that pack?” Gareth said.
“A bit.” Cadwaladr took the bag from his shoulder, opened it, and removed a hunk of bread—fresh this time—and a flask. “Wine.”
Gareth needed both. “Thanks.” He had just enough will power to rip the bread in half and share it with Cadwaladr, rather than diving into it face first. “We need to keep moving.”
They set out again, this time at a wa
lk. During their brief pause, the sky had lightened further. Snow covered everything in a wash of white. Gareth looked behind them. Their tracks stretched east into the distance.
Damn.
Dawn, such as it was, came and went, and still Gareth and Cadwaladr trudged on. Another hour passed, and then another. Gareth began to feel lightheaded, and though he was loath to admit it, he had reached a point where he was watching his feet and willing them to move. He began to weave—he knew it but couldn’t help himself—but when he glanced at Cadwaladr to ask for assistance, he saw that Cadwaladr was weaving too.
Gareth rubbed both cheeks with his hands and drank more of the wine. The snow still fell from the sky, but as the day grew brighter, it lessened and finally stopped. “Cadwaladr,” Gareth said. “We need to run.”
Cadwaladr glanced at Gareth. “What?”
“I feel horses. I can’t tell from where, but they’re getting closer. We’ve left a trail miles long for Tomos’ men to track.”
Cadwaladr turned around. “I don’t see anything.”
“I tell you, they’re coming.”
“We can’t run. Let’s get off the road and find a place to hide.”
“Our tracks will lead them straight to us,” Gareth said. “Besides, if I lie down, I will not rise again. You would have to continue by yourself.”
Cadwaladr blinked, opened his mouth to argue, but then without further protest, broke into a staggering run, one arm pressed against his rib cage. Gareth joined him, his own ribs aching with the effort. They ran a hundred yards, and then two hundred, and then their trail turned north and opened onto the main road that would take them west to Caerhun.
“I hoped we were close,” Gareth said.
Cadwaladr took the opportunity to stop again. He bent over, his hands on his knees. “You are a hard task-master.”
“I want to live,” Gareth said. It really was that simple.
They started down the main road, but had gone no more than fifty yards when two horsemen appeared at the top of the rise ahead of them.
“Oh no,” Cadwaladr said.
A moan began in Gareth’s gut and rose through his body. One of the horsemen pointed at Gareth, who fell to his knees. He couldn’t go another step.
“Come on!” Cadwaladr grasped Gareth’s arm, trying to get him to move, but no matter how much Gareth wanted to see Gwen again, he couldn’t rise. Instead, he began to crawl towards the side of the road. Cadwaladr staggered and gasped beside him. Anything to give themselves a last chance to live.
Then the horsemen were upon them. They circled the exhausted men. “What have we here?”
Gareth looked up. Hywel had thrown back his hood and was gazing down at them, both joy and pity in his face.
“I’m glad you’re here, my lord.” Gareth hung his head. “I have much to tell you and Gwen.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I was only doing what was right!” Prince Cadwaladr said. “I told you that.”
Gwen stood at Gareth’s left side, one hand on his shoulder to make sure he stayed upright on the old stump a farmer hadn’t taken out of his field. The healers had bandaged him and Gwen had fed him, but she still didn’t think he should be anywhere but some place to lie down. By rights, Hywel should have sent him back to Caerhun. So far Gareth had refused to go.
When King Owain had seen Hywel returning to the main body of his fighting force with Gareth seated on his horse behind him, barely hanging on, he’d called a halt in a field only seven miles from St. Asaph. His cavalry, comprising the bulk of his and his sons’ men, had left Caerhun before dawn, letting those on foot and the baggage carts follow as they could.
The king paced back and forth in front of a small fire pit. His presence was imposing, even out here in the open instead of in his great hall. “Gareth could have died!” Owain said, sounding rather like Cristina. He threw out a hand towards Cadwaladr who rested cross-legged on a blanket near Gareth. “Did you think of that before you let Tomos half-kill him?”
Gareth had told Hywel and Gwen privately that Cadwaladr himself was responsible for many of his wounds. Gareth had allowed Cadwaladr his pride, however, because it seemed prudent to have a secret hold over him rather than to expose all of his lies to King Owain at once.
Thanks to Tomos and Cadwaladr, Gareth had two broken ribs and a bruised abdomen that would take a long time to heal. He was also suffering from hunger and dehydration. The healers agreed, however, that he would live, and he could make the return journey to Rhuddlan, provided he didn’t fall off his horse. For Gareth’s part, he insisted that he was fine, thus his presence at this conference with Cadwaladr.
“When Tomos said that you suspected me of trying to murder you,” Cadwaladr said to his brother, “I grew suspicious of him. It seemed to me that he was sowing dissension instead of helping me. And I was right.”
King Owain’s brow furrowed. “Are you saying that you didn’t flee Aber?”
“I was trying to find the killer, just like they were.” Cadwaladr gestured to Gwen, Gareth, and Hywel, though Gwen noted that he was careful not to meet anyone’s eyes.
“And you suspected Tomos of the murders when nobody else did?” King Owain said.
“I knew I was innocent, didn’t I?” Cadwaladr continued to sip a cup of heated wine.
“Why didn’t you come to me with your suspicions?” King Owain said.
“After last summer, I didn’t see how you could believe me,” Cadwaladr said. “I knew you would think I was trying to divert attention from myself, the same as Tomos.”
King Owain had stopped pacing entirely and now stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking down at his brother. Cadwaladr shifted under his gaze and swept a hand through his hair, less finely coifed than was normal for him.
“I didn’t hang you in August, even if hanging might have been deserved,” the king said. “We’ve broken bread together many times since. Why wouldn’t you think I’d listen, especially if you had good reason for suspecting Tomos.”
Cadwaladr shook his head. “If you don’t speak to me, I can’t know your mind. I feared for my life.”
“So you went to Rhuddlan, rather than warn me of Tomos’ potential treachery,” King Owain said.
“I went to find proof!” Cadwaladr said.
“And did you?”
Gwen silently scoffed. Cadwaladr was making this up as he went along. She wished she could step in and make him tell the truth. Neither Gareth nor Hywel showed any signs of countering Cadwaladr’s version of events, however, so she subsided in the hope that one of them had a plan they hadn’t yet shared with her.
“I saved Gareth, didn’t I?” Cadwaladr said, diverting King Owain’s question. “He couldn’t have escaped without me.”
“True.” Gareth put a hand to his ribs and straightened his spine.
Hywel, who stood on Gareth’s other side, bent his head. “You should be in bed, at Caerhun.”
“It’s over ten miles to Caerhun,” Gareth said.
“And ten miles to Rhuddlan,” Hywel said.
“Better to go on,” Gareth said. “I will lie down when Tomos is in a cell.”
“Tonight,” Hywel said. “Or tomorrow.”
It could happen, but it would depend on what faced them when they arrived at Rhuddlan.
King Owain turned to Gareth. “Your message was cryptic, but enough to get me moving. Tell me what you discovered.”
“He discovered that Lord Tomos is a traitor!” Cadwaladr was in his element, now that it appeared that his brother had accepted his story. He was probably envisioning himself restored to his lands and seated on the king’s right hand.
King Owain’s mouth turned down at the corners. “When Tomos left Rhuddlan before my wedding, we knew what he was, though not why.” The King studied Gareth, who nodded.
“I followed the boy, Pedr ap Marc, to Chester,” Gareth said. “Linking Enid’s death to the assassination attempt had troubled me from the start because Pedr was a feeble
choice for assassin. He came at you boldly and without subterfuge, completely unlike the murders.”
King’s Owain face had frozen into a mask at the mention of Pedr’s name. “You said his name was Pedr ap Marc—”
“Yes, my lord. He is the son of Marc ap Iefan—”
“Who was my man,” King Owain said. “A knight in my teulu.”
“Marc died, but his son has born a grudge against you for ten years. At some point, he ended up at Rhuddlan.” Gareth had begun to hold himself even more stiffly. He eased to his feet and stood, balanced evenly on each leg. Gwen stood close to him, her arm around his waist. “Tomos pointed him in your direction. That is all.”
“And Enid?” King Owain said.
“Having conferred with Gareth, I believe I can speak to that now.” Hywel stepped forward.
“You had a relationship with Enid many years ago and he used that,” Hywel said. “He paid her to slip poppy juice into Lord Goronwy’s drink so that she could enter your room unnoticed. Lord Tomos’ plan was to discover you in bed with Enid when it was his turn to stand watch. He may have convinced Enid that you would then marry her, since he believed that once Cristina found out about your liaison, she would refuse to marry you.”
“More likely she’d have had Enid murdered herself,” King Owain said, to the general amusement of those present. “But I threw Enid out of my room.” King Owain’s brow furrowed. “Nobody saw her leave.”
“Lord Tomos was otherwise occupied, moving Lord Goronwy to his room,” Gareth said. “By the time he got back upstairs, Enid had left.”
“The linen closet in which she was found, as you may recall,” Gwen said, “is in the opposite wing. That’s where Enid went and where he killed her. Perhaps they’d arranged to meet there if all didn’t go well.”
“My guess is she tried to blackmail him,” Hywel said.
“So he dumped her in the trunk in the linen closet,” King Owain said. “What about the dead servant in the bath room?”
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