“We’re just guessing, since we haven’t spoken to Lord Tomos and he is the only one of the conspirators left alive, but I imagine it was Ieaun who perpetrated whatever mischief Tomos wanted done inside Aber,” Gwen said. “And because Lord Tomos wanted no visible connection between him and Enid, he gave the poppy juice he’d brought from Rhuddlan to the servant, who gave it to Enid. She met Ieuan in the stables during your speech.”
“His death was a matter of Tomos cutting his losses and tying up loose ends,” Gareth said.
King Owain thought about that, and then slapped his thigh. “Well, we have a loose end to tie ourselves. I will hang him.” King Owain rocked forward on the balls of his toes. “He’ll know that.”
King Owain studied his trio of detectives. “You should be lying down, Gareth.”
“I hurt no matter what I do,” Gareth said.
“You are resolved, then, to see this through?” King Owain said.
“Yes, Sire.”
King Owain nodded and turned to Rhun. “Have the scouts returned?”
“Not yet,” Rhun said.
“Get everyone ready. Madoc’s men should be in place around Rhuddlan by now, and we cannot allow Tomos to escape our net.”
“Yes, Father.” Rhun bowed and left the fire circle.
Gwen helped Gareth towards her horse, his arm across her shoulders and his cloak wrapped around her body along with his. “Do you think once we’re married we could spend some time together?” Gwen said.
Gareth started to laugh but then stopped himself, his hand to his ribs. “I will speak to Hywel. I don’t care who murders whom after our wedding. We are going to Anglesey. I haven’t visited my manor since July.”
“Do you have a steward too?” Gwen said.
Gareth nodded.
“Not one recommended by Tomos, I hope?”
Air burst from Gareth’s lips and he bent slightly at the waist, his hands reaching for his knees though he couldn’t quite make it. “Stop making me laugh!”
“I like making you laugh. You don’t laugh nearly enough.”
Gareth straightened, wobbling on his feet because Gwen didn’t make a very good crutch and she was afraid to hold him tightly. He turned her toward him. She slipped her arms around his neck and lifted her chin.
“I promise to laugh every day, just for you.” Gareth bent his head and kissed her.
Gwen pulled him tighter and felt the “Ow!” rising in him before he broke away. She gasped. “Sorry! Sorry!”
Gareth pulled her to him again and this time really did laugh. “Sweet Gwen, I need you with me.”
“Always.” Gwen smiled again. “And especially right now.”
“What do you mean?” They’d continued walking until they reached her horse, a medium-sized stallion everyone called ‘Bun’ for no reason that Gwen could discern.
“How are you going to ride him without me behind you, holding you up?”
“Ah,” Gareth said. “That was my devilish plan all along.”
Hywel had come up behind them and overheard. He laughed and then clasped his hands together as a platform for Gareth’s boot, to give him a leg up.
“Dear God, that hurt,” Gareth said, as he pulled himself to a sitting position.
“Having second thoughts, my friend?” Hywel said from Gareth’s stirrup.
Gareth looked down at Gwen. “I will make it. Come up here, girl. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
The snow had come and gone, but it had gotten steadily colder instead of warmer as the morning wore on. Evan had given Gareth his own gloves, and a second man had silently handed Gwen an extra large blanket that could go around them both. They had just turned onto the road that led north to Rhuddlan from St. Asaph when a rider appeared out of the mist in front of them.
His shout carried through the still air. “My lord!”
King Owain held up a hand and the company of forty men (plus Gwen) slowed as the rider approached. “What is it?”
“Lord Tomos holds Rhuddlan against us!” The man reined in, breathing hard.
“Did Madoc speak with him?” King Owain said.
“Lord Tomos raised a white flag and Madoc rode to the gatehouse with several of his men. As he neared, archers appeared on the battlements and loosed their arrows.” The man swallowed. “Sir Madoc is injured, nearly to death.”
Gareth growled but King Owain didn’t reply. He just waved a hand and the company surged forward. They rode the last two miles as quickly as the horses could travel that distance, Gwen clutching Gareth around the waist the whole time. It had to hurt, but he gave no sign of it. Gwen recognized an intensity in him—in all the men. It was better not to interrupt it.
Three hundred yards from the hill upon which Rhuddlan perched, the company pulled up. Madoc, true to his word, had spread his men thin, but made sure they circled all the way around the perimeter. Gwen had never been to Rhuddlan before and gazed up at the castle.
“It’s wooden, not stone,” she said.
Gareth nodded. “It will burn.”
From beside them, Hywel nodded too, knowingly, and with a touch of malice. “Just like at Aberystwyth. Tomos can fight and die, or surrender. My father will countenance no other choice.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“How is Madoc?” Gareth said.
“The healer from St. Asaph is with him.” Gwen wore a blanket over her cloak against the cold and her nose was red.
Gareth leaned in and kissed it. “Good.”
Gwen put a hand on his arm. “He might not fight again.”
Gareth took in a deep breath. For Madoc to be felled through treachery, and lose his livelihood in the process, burned in his gut.
“Has Tomos finally surrendered?” Gwen said.
“In a matter of speaking,” Gareth said.
Tomos had put up the white flag again as soon as he saw King Owain’s banner, but the king had refused to talk to him. The king’s archers hadn’t arrived yet, so he’d put his teulu to work with the same hastily arranged fire arrows that Hywel had used to burn Aberystwyth. Every Welshman learned to shoot, even if cavalry shot less well than men dedicated to the art. Gareth’s ribs wouldn’t allow him to bend a bow, but he’d insisted on standing with his fellows, his sword at the ready. And thankfully, the arrows had done their work and he hadn’t needed to use it. Within an hour of his arrival, the king was well on his way to burning his own castle to the ground.
After half the day had passed, and Gareth couldn’t see how the defenders had any hope of saving their situation, the gates finally opened. Men belonging to both Tomos and Cadwaladr spilled out the front gate. Tomos was the last to come, riding his horse, his back straight and his chin high. To Gareth’s mind, he rode as if his head were already in a noose. It was an ignominious end to an elaborate scheme. King Owain’s men had brought him to the encampment and sequestered him in a tent.
“Have you seen Tomos?” Gwen said. And then added more perceptively, “Will it bother you to see him?”
“I spent a night with Cadwaladr, even befriended him,” Gareth said. “I can deal with Tomos. He is a doomed man. What can he say that can hurt me?”
“We will deal with Tomos together.” Hywel approached the pair, having just exited the king’s tent. “Just be prepared to hear things you won’t like. It will be his way.”
Hywel nodded at the men guarding Tomos’ tent and stalked past them. Gareth didn’t stalk. He’d found that it was better to walk very stiffly and slowly, sitting down only occasionally because bending at the waist hurt more than walking. Lying down would have been best, but he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone.
Tomos sat in a chair at a three-legged table rescued from Rhuddlan, perhaps the same table and chair in which Cadwaladr had eaten his meal in front of Gareth and mocked him with it. Tomos waved the leg of mutton he held. “Come in! Come in! I’d offer to have you join me but …”
“We would have declined in any case.” Hywel folded his arms across his
chest and gazed at Tomos, who continued to eat, openly unconcerned. It was his last meal before his appointment with the gallows in the morning. King Owain’s men were building it right now.
Gareth gingerly leaned against the tent post. It couldn’t hold his whole weight, but it was enough to aid him in staying upright. If he didn’t move, he had less trouble breathing.
“So you’ve come to look upon a doomed man, is that it?” Tomos said.
“If you are doomed, it is your own doing,” Hywel said.
Tomos gave a derisive laugh. “It is your father’s doing. All of it.”
“My father did not kill Enid and Ieuan,” Hywel said.
Tomos shrugged. “I suppose not. In any case, if he hadn’t interfered where he wasn’t wanted, I wouldn’t have had to do what I did.”
“Why don’t you tell us all about it,” Gareth said.
Tomos glanced to Gareth and then back to Hywel. “You allow him to speak, do you?”
“Just answer him,” Hywel said.
“I was forced to take certain measures,” Tomos said. “I did what I had to do.”
“And what about the boy you corrupted?” Gareth said. “Pedr.”
Tomos waved a hand. “I admit that sending him to Aber was a long shot, but I felt it worth it, once my earlier attempts to redirect the king failed.”
“Redirect?” Hywel said. “You tried to kill my father.”
Tomos smirked. “If I’d really tried, he would be dead.”
“You did just want to stop the wedding,” Gareth said.
Tomos shook his head. “Only delay, only delay. I needed more time to set Rhuddlan’s affairs in order. I had several interests that were coming due … I would have given up the estate, just not quite yet.”
So far Gareth had kept his face expressionless, but he couldn’t let this last comment stand. “You say you weren’t trying to kill anyone, but you did kill.”
Tomos took a bite of bread and spoke around it. “Regrettable, but necessary.”
“For how long did you steal from my father?” Hywel said.
“Why should I tell you?” Tomos said.
“Lord Taran is going over your accounts now,” Hywel said. “They didn’t burn in the fire. You don’t have to answer, but we’ll know the truth soon.”
“Eleven years.”
“Eleven years,” Gareth said. “That sounds very specific.”
Hywel leaned in to Tomos. “Why?”
That was the question they’d all wondered, from before they knew who the murderer was, and even more now that they had captured Tomos. King Owain was used to treachery from Cadwaladr, but from Tomos? He had been counted a good friend.
Hywel and Tomos stared at each other with an intensity that had Gareth’s hackles rising. He was missing something here.
“Why should I tell you?” Tomos said.
“Why shouldn’t you?” Hywel said.
Again the long gaze and then Tomos leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Your father isn’t hanging me in the morning because I murdered Enid. He’s silencing me because I know the truth about his brother’s death. As you may recall, Cadwallon died eleven years ago this week.”
Gareth straightened, no longer needing the post for support. With Tomos’ words, the earth had shifted beneath his feet. Hywel, however, just studied Tomos. “Tell me.”
“My cousin was married to Marc ap Iefan. Pedr is a nephew of a sort.”
Ah.
“When you burned his manor upon your father’s orders, Marc lost everything of value he owned—”
“—except his family,” Hywel said.
Tomos shrugged. “Be that as it may, he died a few months later, leaving my cousin a widow and the boy fatherless. I didn’t hear of your actions until after they’d left Gwynedd. It took me some time to track Owena down. By then, she was near death herself—she’d been living off charity and was caring more for the boy than for herself. I took them in.”
“And you blamed my father,” Hywel said. “But why? Marc was a traitor.”
“Was he?” Tomos said. “Is that what your father told you?”
Silence.
“Why do you say he wasn’t?” Hywel said.
“Because of what Marc told me. Eleven years ago, your uncle Cadwallon was murdered,” Tomos said.
“Cadwallon died in battle, in fighting to the east in Powys,” Hywel said.
“Your uncle died, all right,” Tomos said. “But not of his wounds, though he bore them. Marc suffocated Cadwallon in his sleep, on your father’s orders.”
The only sound in the tent was Tomos’ chewing, as Gareth and Hywel thought about that for a moment.
Then Hywel scoffed. “I don’t believe it.”
Tomos shrugged. “Marc told me. And when the guilt began to eat Marc up, threatening to come out and expose him, King Owain sent you to resolve matters.”
“I wasn’t ordered to kill Marc,” Hywel said.
“But were you told not to?” Tomos said. “I imagine your father assumed that you would.”
Hywel’s renewed silence told Gareth that he was reviewing what his father had said to him those many years ago—to the fourteen year old boy that he’d been. He’d been anxious to please his father and prove his worth. But perhaps he hadn’t done quite as well as he’d thought.
“It is a damning story, my lord.” Gareth took the liberty of putting a hand on Hywel’s shoulder. Hywel started and glanced at Gareth, though his eyes were unseeing. Tomos wore a self-satisfied smile. “But is it true? Or are these the words of a condemned man who seeks revenge on the man he betrayed, and desires to wreak havoc among those who accuse him?”
Gareth’s cold assessment had Hywel’s eyes clearing. He glared at Tomos. “If your story is true, I will discover the truth. And if it’s not …”
“I will be dead in either case.” Tomos raised his cup to Hywel and drank.
As he set down the cup, his pupils became pinpricks. Gareth surged forward and knocked the cup from Tomos’s grasp. It sprayed a tiny measure of wine on the flattened grass beneath his feet, but that was all. Tomos had drunk the rest, along with whatever he’d put into it.
Tomos smiled, reached into an inner pocket of his coat, and drew out a vial which he set onto the table. “Too late.”
A spasm wracked his body, and then he slowly toppled off his chair to the ground.
In the ensuing chaos of accusation and regret, the removal of the body and the renewed anger of King Owain, Hywel remained completely silent. He stood by Gareth at one of the camp fires, watching the flap to Tomos’ tent open and close as people went in and out.
King Owain spied them and came to a stop in front of his son. “Did you get anything useful from him before he killed himself?”
“He was cheating you,” Hywel said.
King Owain snorted under his breath. “I know that.”
Gareth’s brow furrowed as a new thought occurred to him. “Did you know before this that he was cheating you? Is that one of the reasons you chose to remove Rhuddlan from his purview and give it to Cristina?”
“That’s why we keep you around, eh? You ask questions others won’t.” King Owain grasped Gareth’s shoulder and barked a laugh. “But no. I didn’t know.”
An unwanted moan of pain hissed through Gareth’s teeth.
“Sorry!” King Owain released him, still laughing. “My grandfather ruled in this region and I thought it fitting to return Rhuddlan to Cristina’s side of the family.” King Owain rubbed his hands together. “Which is now my side of the family too.”
King Owain turned on his heel. Hywel watched him go, and then jerked his head to indicate that Gareth should follow him. They found a spot under a tree. It had begun to snow again and the flakes sifted down from an entirely gray sky.
“You are not to tell anyone what Tomos said. Anyone!” Hywel said.
“I won’t,” Gareth said.
“Not even Gwen!”
“My lord, you would be wise to consult h
er, you know that,” Gareth said. “She’s good at keeping your secrets.”
Hywel bit his lip. “Only Gwen then.” He kicked at the frozen grass at his feet. “I find myself so angry at Tomos. And at my father, if what Tomos said is true.”
Gareth made an instant decision. “It isn’t, my lord.”
Hywel turned on him. “And how do you know that?”
“I was there when Prince Cadwallon died.”
“What—what? You were there? Why didn’t I know that?”
Gareth shrugged, though even that hurt. “My uncle died at the same time as your Uncle Cadwallon. They shared a tent, lying side by side on their deathbeds. I stayed with my uncle until the end. He died of his wounds the same night Cadwallon did. I will never forget the sound of them breathing together, straining with every heartbeat to keep breathing. They died within moments of each other.”
Hywel had stopped scuffing the ground and was now gazing at Gareth intently. “I never knew this.”
“I hid in a far corner of the tent,” Gareth said. “I don’t know that anyone knew I spent the night with them. A healer found me the next morning, curled into a ball, my hands over my ears.”
Hywel’s shoulders sagged, with relief rather than despair.
“But even had I not been there,” Gareth said, “I find it very hard to believe that Marc told only Tomos and nobody else what he’d done, especially given King Owain’s treatment of his family. You know how rumors spread, especially when they involve murder and treachery.”
Hywel nodded.
“What better way to bring shame and retribution onto King Owain than to accuse him of murdering his beloved older brother? Tomos went to all this trouble to stop the wedding, and didn’t think to use the most powerful tool at his disposal?”
“You hearten me, my friend.” He clapped a hand on Gareth’s shoulder, more gently than his father had, out of respect for Gareth’s injuries. “I can close this investigation with a lighter heart.” He stepped a pace away, prepared to re-enter the snow, but Gareth put out a hand to stop him.
“I wouldn’t mention any of this to your father,” Gareth said. “It would only awaken bad memories and create the dissent and disunity Tomos wanted.”
The Uninvited Guest Page 25