The Good Knight

by Sarah Woodbury

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gareth could only stare, horrified, as the fog and distance obscured Gwen’s boat from his view. He slowed Braith, allowing the others to catch up to him. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that Cadwaladr would flee so precipitously, and in that direction? It should have. He’d seen the ships. But for him to have left his entire Welsh garrison behind, along with all of their horses, was wholly unexpected. Gareth, Hywel, and Rhun had wasted precious time in front of the gate, dithering, waiting for Cadwaladr to return or for more information, before they’d realized that he wasn’t coming back.

  Hywel pulled up beside Gareth. For a moment, Gareth couldn’t look at him—couldn’t bear to look at him—and then he couldn’t contain the rage any longer. The blood thrummed in his ears. Even so, he managed to control his voice. “We must know where they’re going.”

  Hywel nodded. “If that ship is bound for Dublin, there’s nothing we can do for her. You know that.”

  “I know it,” Gareth said.

  “Either way, Cadwaladr’s lands in Ceredigion are forfeit,” Hywel said. “If we get there and she’s there, we’ll roust him out. If not—”

  “If not, she’s in the hands of the Danes, for as long as they wish to keep her.” Gareth gazed out to sea for a long count of three and then turned his head to face his lord. “You haven’t denied it.”

  “You know so little of me that I have to?”

  “Yes.” The word hissed through Gareth’s teeth.

  Hywel put a hand on Gareth’s arm, and Gareth just managed not to twitch away and brush him off. “I swear to you I’ve never touched her. I think of her as a sister.”

  Gareth’s jaw was so tight he wondered that he hadn’t ground his teeth to the nubs. Then his shoulders fell. He’d known it, but it was better that Hywel had said it. “As far as I know, Cadwaladr has it completely wrong. She belongs to no one and isn’t carrying any man’s child.”

  “She’s smart enough not to admit it to Cadwaladr—or to anyone,” Hywel said. “She has time before they discover the deception. Weeks maybe. They’ll be back before then.”

  “Why do you say that?” Gareth said.

  Hywel tipped his head to one side. “So many years in Cadwaladr’s company, and mine, and that’s not clear to you either?”

  Gareth felt like the words could have been mocking, but they weren’t. Hywel was merely curious. “Tell me.”

  “Cadwaladr is a child in a man’s body,” Hywel said. “He was thinking only of himself when he gave the order to murder King Anarawd—certainly not of the consequences were he caught—and that’s all he’s still thinking about. He cannot put himself in another’s shoes long enough to understand how seriously my father will take this betrayal.”

  Gareth nodded as this piece of Cadwaladr’s character slid into place. “You think he’ll come back just as soon as he can. That he honestly doesn’t believe your father is angry and will punish him as he deserves.”

  “He deserves hanging,” Hywel said. “But Cadwaladr has calculated correctly in this at least. My father’s bark is usually worse than his bite.”

  Gareth nodded again. He’d viewed Cadwaladr as a bully, which he was, but he was more like a five-year-old searching for attention—and any kind of attention was better than none. “That doesn’t mean we can condone what he’s done.”

  “Of course not,” Hywel said. “Cadwaladr isn’t a child but a middle-aged prince of Gwynedd. He might excuse his own actions, rationalize them away, but the rest of us can’t. Not even my father will be able to, this time.”

  This time. Hywel had recounted to Gareth his confrontation with his father when he broached the subject of Cadwaladr’s potential treachery. But King Owain had claimed that Cadwaladr had been loyal up until now. Hywel hadn’t contradicted his father but that didn’t mean that what the king said was true. Perhaps Cadwaladr wasn’t the only one who’d been lying to himself. For Gareth’s part, this time he was even more of a pessimist than Hywel. King Owain would do what he pleased as it suited him. Far from hanging Cadwaladr, he might pardon his brother’s crimes, no matter how heinous, if he had a good reason.

  Hywel gathered the other men who’d ridden to the beach and led the way back to Aberffraw’s main gate. They arrived to find Rhun confronting two rows of Cadwaladr’s men, all of whom were men-at-arms. Behind them, Aberffraw’s garrison stood sentry, preventing their retreat into the castle. Tellingly, Cadwaladr hadn’t chosen any knights to accompany him to Anglesey.

  Though not peasants, these men had achieved a similar station to that which Gareth had held before Cadwaladr dismissed him. A knight, especially an older one, wouldn’t have lost his reputation, along with his position, for opposing Cadwaladr as Gareth had with his small act of defiance. Unlike knights, who had their own lands and authority, these men were dependent on their lord for their living. This was, of course, why Cadwaladr had chosen them to assist him in his treachery.

  His hands behind his back, Rhun paced in front. “You have all served Cadwaladr for long enough to recognize the truth about my uncle.”

  At this preamble, Hywel dismounted and waved the rest of the men off their horses. While Rhun continued speaking, enumerating Cadwaladr’s crimes, Hywel tapped Gareth’s shoulder and signaled him closer. “I wonder how many of them wish they’d followed your example.”

  “Honor is lost a day at a time—a year at a time—not all at once. Rarely is the moment for defiance as clear as it was for me,” Gareth said. “Cadwaladr chips away at you until it’s hard to remember what it was like when you stood on your own two feet.”

  “And yet,” Hywel said, “honor, even once lost, can be regained. There is hope for these men.”

  “And for me?” Gareth said, not quite looking at his prince.

  Hywel shot Gareth a rare smile instead of a smirk. “Oh yes.”

  “That’s the fine line, isn’t it?” Gareth said. “It’s easy to say I did what I had to do but there are lines a man shouldn’t cross—shouldn’t be asked to cross—even if we’ve all done it more times than we can count.”

  “I’m not worried about you,” Hywel said. “You are not your milk-brother.”

  Gareth turned his attention back to Rhun’s lecture, Hywel’s confident ‘oh yes’ still echoing in his ears. Such was the basis of loyalty; Gareth would die to protect his lord and at times like these, he believed Hywel might do the same for him. That trust and loyalty were not the same thing was something Cadwaladr had never understood.

  A few of Cadwaladr’s men appeared unmoved by Rhun’s speech.

  “The one on the far left,” Gareth said. “Maredudd.”

  Hywel nodded. “I noticed. You know him?”

  “He’s stood with Cadwaladr for thirty years,” Gareth said. “He’s seen it all. He could be Madog, if Madog would have served Cadwaladr.”

  “Which he wouldn’t,” Hywel said.

  Rhun was as aware as they of the effect—of lack of effect—of his words on Cadwaladr’s men. He glanced at Hywel, who flicked his finger one, two, three in their mutual code. Three men. Hywel shifted, glanced at Gareth, who nodded his understanding. Then Hywel tipped his head at two of his archers.

  Without seeming to move, all of Hywel’s men eased into more ready stances. Rhun gave each of Cadwaladr’s men a long look and then stepped close to Maredudd, who’d found a position at the end of the first row of men.

  “Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Rhun said.

  “All of it, my lord.” Maredudd looked straight ahead, over Rhun’s left shoulder.

  “To whom do you owe your allegiance?”

  “To Prince Cadwaladr, my lord.”

  “Do you understand that he is foresworn? That he will be stripped of his lands? That he has abandoned you?”

  Maredudd’s lips tightened. “I pledged my allegiance to him the day I became a man. I have never broken my vows.” His eyes flicked to Gareth and then away again.

  And then, in a move Gareth had
been expecting but for which he still wasn’t entirely prepared, Maredudd coiled and leapt at Rhun. He barreled into the prince, knocking him over, and then raced past him, heading towards the woods to the north of the castle. Hywel pointed, and the archers released their arrows at the same instant. Two found their mark, and Maredudd fell forward, dead, both arrows sticking straight up in the air from his back.

  Rhun lay sprawled where he’d fallen. None of Cadwaladr’s men, who were closer, moved to assist him, so Gareth stepped forward, his hand out. Rhun grasped it, levering himself to his feet, and brushed the dust from his clothes. Hywel hadn’t stirred, beyond that initial motion ordering his men to shoot.

  Rhun pulled out his sword and stood with it loose in his hand. “Anyone else care to follow that man’s example? Does anyone else refuse to acknowledge my father’s authority?”

  Silence.

  While Rhun was speaking, Hywel moved without haste to the back row of Cadwaladr’s men. Gareth watched, having no idea what his lord was doing, other than that it demanded a grim set to his jaw. Rhun shot a quick glance at Hywel that told Gareth he was in on it too. They’d come to some sort of agreement that needed no conversation.

  Hywel paused, as if he was counting to himself, and then stepped behind and just to one side of the second of Cadwaladr’s men he didn’t trust. The man shifted from one foot to the other, trying to see Hywel’s face out of the corner of his eye. Rhun had been speaking—more of his lecture about Cadwaladr—but cut off his words in mid-sentence, coming to a halt in front of the last man whom Hywel had pointed out. In the same instant that Hywel grasped the second man around the head and shoulders, Rhun shoved his sword through the third man’s stomach.

  Rhun’s man fell to his knees, his hands clutching his belly. Hywel, meanwhile, had wrenched his man’s neck and broken it.

  His face expressionless, Rhun pulled out his sword, reached down for the end of the man’s cloak, and wiped off the blood with it. The remaining soldiers fell as one to their knees. One shouted, “My lord!”

  “That’s better.” Hywel moved to the front of the company to stand beside his brother.

  “We should kill them all,” Rhun said, his tone matter-of-fact. “We can trust none of them.” Coming from him, the words were far more daunting to Gareth’s ear than if Hywel had spoken.

  A voice piped up from near Hywel’s fallen victim. “I will swear! I will swear allegiance to Owain Gwynedd!” The boy was probably no more than sixteen. His face was deathly pale, and his hands gripped his knees so tightly his knuckles stood out white.

  The remaining men looked left and right. One of the problems with having a ruler such as Cadwaladr, was that he didn’t take kindly to men who carried their own authority and whom he couldn’t bully. Thus, none of the men left were leaders. Without Cadwaladr and the three men-at-arms already dead, Cadwaladr’s company had no head.

  Rhun pursed his lips. “For those of you who didn’t choose your allegiance, but allied yourself with Cadwaladr through birth or circumstance, I will spare your life. For those who chose him, and when you discovered your error, could not escape his clutches, I will spare your life. But for those of you who chose to serve Cadwaladr, even when you knew what he was, I tell you now that if you ever waver in my father’s service, if I sense one moment of hesitation on your part for your changed circumstance, I will kill you myself.”

  “Do you hear my brother?” Hywel said, his voice soft but carrying over the heads of the kneeling men. “And if you hear him, do you listen?”

  “Yes, my lords,” the men murmured, all ten of them.

  The boy practically slobbered on the ground at Rhun’s feet. Gareth felt for him. It could have been him, six years ago. Gareth was just thankful that he’d escaped before something comparable had happened to him. He’d never known where the certainty had come from, but one day he’d woken up with the courage to walk away. It had already been too many years of service in which he couldn’t stomach his allegiance, but he hadn’t known how to get out. Overnight, he’d resolved not to commit one more crime, not to perform one more heinous deed, at Cadwaladr’s behest.

  Perhaps the boy, like Gareth, would survive long enough to recover the honor and courage he’d lost. Gareth was glad too, that Rhun was in charge and not Hywel. Hywel’s eyes told him that he would have killed them all—and would probably have been right to. They couldn’t trust these men, not even the boy, because unlike Gareth, none of them had had the courage to walk away.