The Good Knight

by Sarah Woodbury

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hywel and Rhun returned to Aber with Cadwaladr’s men—without Cadwaladr and Gwen, of course—and King Owain accepted all with glittering eyes. Cold, for now, not hot. The king assigned one loyal man-at-arms to each of Cadwaladr’s wayward men, with the express intent of getting them drunk and hearing each man’s story. King Owain, like Hywel, might have preferred to kill them all, but somehow Rhun’s earnest objections persuaded him to defer that fate. As Hywel remarked to Gareth later, it would be easy enough to kill them later, if the need arose.

  To Gareth’s surprise, King Owain appointed him as one of the trusted knights, although his assignment was the poor boy, Tudur, who’d been the first to fall to his knees outside Aberffraw. Gareth watched him drink, not even trying to keep up with his consumption of mead after the first two flagons, which the boy downed before touching his meat. Once he got started, he just kept going, talking through his turnips and onions and roast chicken about how his father had died and he’d inherited his station.

  “I was so proud to serve a prince of Wales,” Tudur said.

  “Even this one?” Gareth said.

  Tudur tried to shake and nod his head at the same time, and almost fell out of his seat. “Who was I to know the man he was? I’d seen the times my father had come home not willing to talk about what he’d been doing, but—”

  Gareth studied the boy, waiting, knowing as only he could what was coming next.

  “—the reality of service was something entirely different.”

  Gareth couldn’t mistake the anguish in the boy’s voice.

  “We sacked a village, you see,” Tudur said.

  As Tudur went on at length about how the peasants had screamed, Gareth’s confusion grew. Raping and pillaging were part and parcel of the internecine warfare that predominated in Wales, though he couldn’t think of a particular lord with whom Cadwaladr had been at war at that time. Then, as Tudur talked more, it dawned on Gareth what Tudur was saying. Gareth put a hand on his arm to stop him talking and grasped his chin with the other hand. “You pillaged one of Prince Cadwaladr’s own villages?”

  Tudur nodded, so drunk now he didn’t even try to stop his tears from falling. “In Ceredigion.”

  “Why?”

  Tudur just blubbered. Money? Disobedience? What could possibly be the reason a lord would murder his own villagers who were the source of his income, whatever their crimes? Cadwaladr’s rationale might not have been clear to Tudur either. Or at least he couldn’t articulate it after five cups of mead.

  Gareth looked around for someone else who was still sober, but as he observed his friends at the other tables, he realized that they were drinking as steadily as their counterparts. He glanced towards the fire where Hywel sat, still as a stone, his chair pushed back and the sole of one boot planted on the edge of the table. Hywel caught his eye, held it, and then looked away again. Gareth went cold. Hywel already knew.

  By now, Tudur was sobbing into his drink. Gareth rose, patted him on the shoulder, and crossed the hall to where his lord waited.

  “Sit.” Hywel kicked at the chair next to him so it skidded out from under the table.

  Gareth took the chair and sat. He gripped his knees as he thought of what to say.

  But Hywel spoke first. “Gareth, tell me when a man’s actions require redress from his lord?”

  “When they endanger the alliances of his sovereign,” Gareth said, “or threaten the stability of the realm.”

  Hywel nodded. “I am aware of the stories these men are telling. Until Cadwaladr ordered the death of Anarawd, he had not crossed the threshold from reckless to treason.” Hywel nodded towards the men in the hall. “Cadwaladr is a royal brother. He could do what he liked with his own lands.”

  “And if your father took him to task or brought him up short, it might send Cadwaladr into the arms of an enemy, someone who would look the other way,” Gareth said. “Even the King of England.”

  “How many Welshmen would die if Cadwaladr brought an English army into Wales?” Hywel said.

  Gareth knew his face held a stony look. He could admit that Hywel’s assessment of the political situation was accurate, even if he didn’t like it, but he couldn’t accept it. Still, he answered Hywel. “Far more than a little village in Ceredigion.”

  “When a king is trying to preserve his country, he doesn’t have the luxury of worrying about the small things.”

  The small things. Not for the first time, Gareth was glad he wasn’t a prince of Wales, continually forced to choose between two unacceptable alternatives. He took leave of his prince and was just leaving the hall when Meilyr stopped him on the steps, Gwalchmai a pace behind.

  “You saw her?” Meilyr spoke around a clenched jaw and hands so tightly fisted it was a wonder his nails didn’t draw blood.

  “I did,” Gareth said.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Not much more than King Owain already has,” Gareth said. “She left Aberffraw by boat, Cadwaladr’s captive.”

  “If he harms her—”

  “He thinks she carries Hywel’s child,” Gareth said. Meilyr’s already red face turned purple. Before he expired on the spot, Gareth put a hand on his arm. “Cadwaladr has been misled. But for now, it keeps her safe from him or any man.”

  “How dare you patronize me—”

  “I love your daughter, Meilyr,” Gareth said. “I would have her hand if you will give it, when we get her back and if she agrees.”

  Meilyr’s mouth opened and closed like a landed fish, and then he snapped it shut. “Find her. Return her safely to me, and we will see.” He brushed past Gareth and into the hall. Gareth wondered if Meilyr would be able to speak civilly to Hywel and hoped for his sake that he could.

  Gareth looked at Gwalchmai, who’d remained behind, and rested a hand on his shoulder. It looked to Gareth like he was close to crying. “I won’t tell you not to worry, but this is a long way from over. We’ll find her. I swear it.”