The Good Knight

by Sarah Woodbury

  Chapter Thirty

  Over the next few days, Godfrid didn’t mention his suggestion that Gwen stay in Dublin. Her lack of answer for him didn’t seem to interfere with the ease with which he spoke with her either. He remained attentive, even springing questions on her about her life in Wales, her family, and her music, which she’d sung to great applause—and apparent surprise—that third evening in Dublin. When she’d walked off the dais, Godfrid had looked at her as if she was a creature he’d created especially himself. It was flattering, if nothing else, but—

  She couldn’t delay talking to him about herself, and about them, if such a union would ever work, any longer. Across from him at the evening meal, she touched his hand. “I’ve thought about what you said to me. About what you asked.”

  Godfrid had been taking a sip from his cup and now set it down. She had his full attention.

  “You’ve offered me something that I’ve wanted since I became a woman: a life that includes a man who cares for me, and children,” she said. “And maybe even more than that, it seems likely you’ve offered me the freedom to be my own person.”

  “I meant it so,” Godfrid said. “Yet, I see in your eyes that you do not accept.”

  “I cannot,” Gwen said. “Please believe me when I tell you that it’s not because of you.”

  “There is another,” Godfrid said, and Gwen could see him thinking it through. “Though not Hywel.”

  “Not Hywel. In Wales—” Gwen paused again, trying to think it through herself and explain it in a way that would make sense to him, even if it meant talking around the subject first. She shrugged. “I think it’s much the same here. Your family confines and constrains you in ways you don’t even understand until you are away from them.”

  “It is thus with me and my father.” Godfrid gestured to the front of the hall where Torcall sat, holding court. Shorter and darker than his son, he projected an aura of power that Gwen couldn’t quite put her finger on or explain. It was enough that when he spoke, the hall quieted, and people walked more softly in the space around him.

  “You are a grown man and yet, you do his bidding,” Gwen said.

  Godfrid smiled softly. “That is true.” He touched her hand with one finger, mimicking what she’d done to him. “You were not speaking of my father.”

  Gwen smiled, shy now that it came to it. “My father has turned down every contract for me that has come his way. I’ve cared for him and my brother, Gwalchmai, since my mother died at Gwalchmai’s birth.”

  “He doesn’t want to let you go,” Godfrid said. “He is clever but not wise.”

  Gwen tipped her head, acknowledging the distinction. “Part of me wants what you are offering, but I cannot stay here, Godfrid. It’s possible that I could go home and then come back, but I am Welsh, and my feet are dug deeply into that soil. I can’t allow Cadwaladr—and all of you—to return to Wales without me.” She gestured to the room at large. “Your coming will not be good for my people.”

  Godfrid studied her face for a long moment and then nodded. “Cadwaladr will want my father and Ottar behind him when he faces Owain Gwynedd.”

  “And that is only one of a long list of his mistakes,” Gwen said. “Your presence will have the opposite effect of the one he inten—”

  The doors burst open at that instant, cutting Gwen’s sentence short. Cadwaladr strode through them, at the head of a crowd of Danes. A grin split Godfrid’s face and, for a moment, Gwen feared it was the sight of Cadwaladr that cheered him, but then a man walking just behind the Welsh prince lifted a hand to Godfrid, who waved back. He was a shorter, squatter version of Godfrid himself, so Gwen wasn’t surprised when Godfrid said, “My brother, Brodar, comes.”

  Cadwaladr and Brodar were followed by … Gareth.

  Gwen stared, her heart in her throat. Has he been captured too? But his hands weren’t tied, and his sword still rested at his waist. He walked ahead of some of the Danes as a not-quite-trusted equal rather than a prisoner. His head swiveled this way and that and, instinctively, she knew he was looking for her. She stood, and then found that her feet had started moving of their own accord. She ran towards him. “Gareth!”

  “Cariad.”

  Gareth caught her and buried his face in her hair. Gwen had her arms around his neck, hanging on for dear life, thankful for how solid he felt. She only had a moment of him, however, before he pulled back, remembering propriety before she could. “You’re all right? You’re not hurt?”

  “This is the one?” Godfrid loomed over them both, for though Gareth was a taller man than average, Godfrid dwarfed him.

  Gwen clutched Gareth’s hand. “Yes.” A wave of relief swept through her at the admission. Yes, he is the one.

  Godfrid stuck out his hand to Gareth. “She’s in one piece. Keep a better eye on her next time. Don’t let her be fair game for murderers and Danes.”

  Gareth eyed Godfrid, and then to Gwen’s relief, clasped Godfrid’s offered forearm. “Your brother, Brodar, invited me to your hall, over the objections of Prince Cadwaladr. I am Gareth ap Rhys, a knight in Hywel ap Owain Gwynedd’s company.”

  “Welcome,” Godfrid said.

  Gwen didn’t even detect a hint of a growl in his throat, which later might be disappointing, but now was pure relief that she wasn’t going to be caught between these two men.

  “We must sit and drink,” Godfrid said. “I sense that my father and Ottar will speak to everyone after they’ve conferred.”

  “Ottar’s here too?” Gwen said as she and Gareth followed Godfrid back to their table. Gareth’s arm remained firmly around her waist as he steered her across the room.

  Godfrid canted his head towards his father’s chair. Cadwaladr had found a seat on Torcall’s left, with Ottar on the right, and the three huddled together, deep in conversation.

  “Long odds that this conference bodes well for my king,” Gareth said.

  Gwen almost cried aloud, so glad was she to hear that subtle mockery again. The only person with whom she’d been able to converse had been Godfrid, but his Welsh wasn’t sophisticated, though perhaps in his own language he was just as clever as Gareth.

  Godfrid, for his part, still had other things on his mind. “How is it that Cadwaladr was able to abduct Gwen?” He accompanied his query with a belligerent set to his chin.

  “I can’t answer that.” Gareth eyed Gwen. “I still don’t know exactly what happened because I’ve not had a chance to speak to her since he took her from Aber.”

  “Wasn’t your fort protected?” Godfrid said, not yet backing down. “Don’t you look after your women?”

  Gwen put a hand on Gareth’s arm in hopes it would stop him from throttling Godfrid in frustration and turned to the big Dane. “Cadwaladr’s men-at-arms threw Gareth in prison, and Owain Gwynedd allowed it. King Cadell, Anarawd’s brother, had false information pointing to Gareth as the killer of Anarawd, instead of Cadwaladr. Prince Cadwaladr, of course, supported him.”

  Godfrid’s eyes flashed to Gareth, who still glared at him, and then he barked a laugh, the sound coming from that constant well of amusement inside him. “That sounds so much like Cadwaladr, it’s a wonder you didn’t see it coming yourselves. I had to put up with him for years in my father’s hall when he lived in Dublin. Still, coupled with the other things you’ve told me, it is clear he has become more devious since he returned to Wales. That, I wouldn’t have expected.”

  “Nor I, to tell the truth,” Gareth said.

  “How is it that you got free?” Godfrid waved his hand to encompass the space Gareth took up. “You are not imprisoned now. You stood with Prince Hywel at Aberffraw when he confronted Cadwaladr.”

  “Prince Hywel released me from my confinement, once it became clear that Gwen was missing,” Gareth said. “Owain Gwynedd had instructed Hywel to track down Gwen—along with Cadwaladr if indeed it was he who had taken her—and my lord deemed me necessary to the task.”

  Godfrid’s eyes lit again at that. “I
see. And here you are in Dublin, and you have my brother to thank for it.” He gestured towards Brodar who broke away from another table to come to theirs.

  “That is true,” Gareth said.

  Godfrid wasn’t listening anymore, having stood so he and his brother could clasp hands and slap each other on the back. “How is it that you are here?” He still spoke in Welsh, even though both men would have been more comfortable in Danish.

  “Ahh,” Brodar said. “He hasn’t told you yet? Prince Hywel came to Aberystwyth and burned us out.”

  Gwen turned to Gareth. “Is that true?”

  Gareth nodded. “King Owain stood before the nobles of Wales and disowned Cadwaladr for acts beyond forgiveness.”

  “So what happens next?” Gwen said.

  Gareth nodded towards the three lords at the front of the hall. “Cadwaladr plans to return to Gwynedd at the front of a horde of Danes.”

  “Horde?” Godfrid caught the derogatory term.

  Gareth held out a hand. “Company. Army. Contingent. I spoke without thinking.”

  “But it is what King Owain will be thinking, Godfrid,” Gwen said. “You must know this. Your people raided our shores for centuries before Gwynedd and Dublin made peace. King Owain’s father sought asylum with you, much as Cadwaladr has, but his was a rightful claim to the throne of Gwynedd, not the shameful retreat of a man disgraced and honorless.”

  “I know it.” Godfrid glanced over his shoulder at Cadwaladr, laughing now beside Torcall. “Anarawd was to be King Owain’s son-in-law?”

  “Yes,” Gwen said.

  Brodar took a drink. “Cadwaladr has got us all in a right mess this time, hasn’t he?”

  Nobody could argue with that.

  Gwen leaned close to Gareth. “What did Cadwaladr say when he saw you?”

  “He went for his sword, but Brodar told him to put up, since I’d come to Dublin as his guest.” Then Gareth grinned. “He cast aspersions on my antecedents.”

  “And you—” Gwen was almost afraid to ask.

  “I am a better man than he,” Gareth said. “He’ll get his comeuppance soon enough.”

  Those in the hall ate and drank in merriment and, as the meal came to an end, Torcall stood to silence the crowd and speak to his people. Gwen didn’t understand his words, but Godfrid leaned in and translated quietly underneath his father’s speech: “I have spoken with my friends, Cadwaladr of Gwynedd, and my fellow ruler of Dublin, Ottar. They tell me that Cadwaladr has been dispossessed of his lands in Wales.”

  “How do we know this to be true?” This came from one of the men near the front.

  Torcall looked to Brodar, who raised a hand. “I saw it myself.”

  Torcall continued: “Prince Cadwaladr has informed me that he will pay us two thousand marks to come with him to Gwynedd and persuade—” here, Torcall paused, allowing for general laughter around the room, “—his brother to reinstate him.”

  Cadwaladr nodded sagely, still seated at the table on the dais.

  “I say we go!” Ottar raised a fist into the air.

  “So say I,” Torcall said, in a more level voice. “We leave in two days’ time.”

  Two days. Gwen glanced at Cadwaladr, expecting him to look expansive and satisfied as before, but now he glared at their table. He wasn’t looking at her, however, so much as at Gareth, who was talking to Godfrid and Brodar and didn’t notice. Still not looking at her, Cadwaladr stood, excused himself from the two kings, and strode towards Gwen’s table. All three men looked up at his approach, and all three rose to their feet.

  “The girl stays with me,” Cadwaladr said. “Now that we are returning to Wales, I insist upon it.”

  “You gutless bastar—” began Gareth, but Godfrid had already stepped in front of Gwen, his hand to Cadwaladr’s chest.

  “You will not touch her,” he said, all amusement gone.

  Cadwaladr snorted. “What would I want with her? She’s Hywel’s whore, not mine.”

  Before the debate grew even more heated, Torcall and Ottar appeared on either side of Cadwaladr. Torcall edged between Cadwaladr and Godfrid, his eyes on his sons. “We agree with Cadwaladr that she was part of his protection,” Torcall said, and then added something in Danish that Gwen didn’t understand. Godfrid, at least, eased away from both his father and Cadwaladr, who reached forward to grasp Gwen’s arm.

  “Let go of me!” Gwen jerked her arm, trying to twist it out of Cadwaladr’s grip.

  Gareth had his arm around her waist again, looking daggers at Cadwaladr.

  Cadwaladr put his hands up. “Torcall. See to this bitch.”

  Gareth’s hand went to the hilt of his sword but before he could draw it, Godfrid had his forearm in a tight grip while Brodar tugged at the back of Gareth’s hair.

  “She goes with him,” Torcall said, not looking at Gwen but at his sons and Gareth.

  “You’re going to let her go? Just like that?” Gareth said to Godfrid.

  Godfrid, for his part, let go of Gareth in order to grab Gwen’s chin, so he could look into her eyes. “My father assures me that you will be safe.”

  Gwen shook them all off. While some part of her couldn’t be unhappy that men were fighting over her, it would only get Gareth in trouble. “All right; all right. Heaven forbid that any of you come to grief because of me. I will go.” Her stomach roiled at the thought of leaving Gareth so soon after reuniting with him, but Cadwaladr had proven to be a fearsome, yet fickle, foe. If her going could protect Gareth, she could bear his presence for a while longer.

  “Gwen—”

  Gwen grasped the edges of Gareth’s cloak. “Stand down.” And then softened her words by going up on her toes and pecking Gareth on the cheek. “I’ll be fine.”

  Torcall tugged her away from Gareth. With a last glance back at the three men, all of whom looked murderous, she allowed Cadwaladr to lead her out of the hall.