Llelo nodded again without looking into Gareth’s eyes.
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Llelo swallowed hard. “I didn’t want you to know that I was afraid to go there.”
Gareth contemplated his charge, reminding himself that Llelo had lost his father not long ago. It was a comfort to Gareth to think that those he loved weren’t really gone and existed on the other side of a thin veil, but Llelo might not yet have reached that understanding. Still not looking at him, Llelo stubbed his toe again into the dirt.
“Did you think I would be angry with you for being afraid?” Gareth said.
“I just wanted you to learn about it from someone else, and Ceri was the one to see the horse. You needed to talk to him no matter what I told you.”
Hywel put one hand on Ceri’s shoulder and the other on Llelo’s, finally getting him to look up. “I think I understand now. The hut you mean is where the witch lived, isn’t it?”
Ceri’s expression cleared. “Yes, my lord! They say it’s her ghost that haunts the house.”
Llelo nodded with equal enthusiasm. “I’ve heard her! If you get close enough, you can hear a moaning sound, and if you open the front door—”
Ceri scoffed. “Not that you’ve ever done it.”
“—the ghost rushes past in a gust of air and disturbs everything in the house,” Llelo finished, ignoring his friend’s interruption.
“Clearly I’ve missed an important rite of passage,” Gareth said. “What house are we talking about?”
“I should have known which one they meant the moment they said it was haunted.” Hywel let go of the boys and stepped back. “If Gwen were here, she would have remembered it too. When we were children, old Wena lived in a house very near to where they describe, which makes me think it might be the same place. I know now that she wasn’t any more of a witch than you or I, but we all thought she might be one when we were young.” Hywel nudged Ceri’s leg with the toe of his boot to get his attention. Now that the boys had confessed the truth, they’d been talking animatedly to one another. “When did Wena die?”
Ceri was back with the shrug. “Years ago, wasn’t it?”
“So you never knew Wena?” Gareth said. “Only that she haunts the house?”
“My mam knew her. She might know when she died.”
“Where is your mam?” Gareth said.
“In here.” Ceri pushed through the door flap.
Hywel and Gareth shared another concerned look before following Ceri inside. They’d been talking outside for too long a time for the mistress of the house not to have given them welcome and offered them food or drink. Hospitality was nearly a holy rite among the Welsh, and Hywel was a prince of Wales.
Once inside the hut, however, it was clear that a haunted house was the least of Ceri’s worries. His mother lay on a raised pallet set against the north wall of the house. A fire burned in the central fire pit, and that it flamed well and most of the smoke left through the hole in the roof was testament to how well Ceri was caring for his mother, if not the roof. Hywel sucked on his teeth, taking in the room in a glance, and then went down on one knee beside the pallet.
“You are not well, Ceri’s mother,” Hywel said as he took her hand.
“Her name’s Nan, and she took sick a week ago,” Ceri said. “She hasn’t been able to rise since yesterday.”
“But you’ve been ill longer than a week, haven’t you, Nan?” Hywel stroked Nan’s hair back from her face with such gentleness that Gareth had to swallow hard to contain his emotions. It was times like these that Gareth was reminded why he would follow Hywel anywhere, into death if need be.
“Months.” Nan’s voice cracked over the word. Finding refuge in action, Gareth picked up a pitcher of water from a small table, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, and poured the water into a wooden cup. He brought it to Hywel, who took it and, lifting Nan’s head, helped her to drink. She managed three small sips before falling back, exhausted.
“We were just speaking to your son about old Wena,” Hywel said. “Did you know her?”
Nan managed a small smile. “I knew her well.”
Hywel waited through several of Nan’s rasping breaths for her to speak again.
“She was my aunt.”
“When did she die, Nan?” Hywel said.
“A few years back, not long after your father took the throne, my lord.” Each word Nan spoke was carefully articulated. Gareth estimated that she had days to live, at most. Her body was nearly wasted, and he suspected that the water Hywel had helped her to drink was all she’d taken in today.
“What has become of her hut, then?” Hywel said. “Whose land is it?”
“Same as it’s always been. Wena’s house and the paddock belong to Prince Cadwaladr.”
Hywel turned to look up at Gareth, who raised his eyebrows, equally confused. “I didn’t know he held lands so close to Aber,” Gareth said.
“Nor I,” Hywel said. “If true, it is something I should have known.”
Nan lifted a hand and then dropped it to the bedcovers. “I don’t remember how he came by it. Some legacy of your grandmother’s that she left to him, I think. Cadwaladr was always her favorite, you know.”
“That I did know,” Hywel said.
And that fact explained a great deal to Gareth about how Cadwaladr, the youngest of three sons, petted and spoiled for much of his life, had grown to be a man who thought only of himself.
“Wena helped your grandmother deliver him, you see,” Nan said. “Wena was an old woman even then, and your grandmother wanted to reward her with something for her long years of service. The hut was hers for the length of her life and then reverted to Cadwaladr on her death.”
“Who cares for it now?” Gareth said. “I can’t imagine it’s Prince Cadwaladr himself.”
“Oh no,” Nan said. “That would be old Wynn. I heard you speaking to Ceri about a cart and a horse. They’re old Wynn’s, and he stables them there; he lives in the village with his daughter. She keeps an eye on him since his wife died.”
Hywel rose to his feet. “Thank you for seeing us, Nan. I will send someone to help Ceri fix your cottage and make sure you have enough food. You should have let us know sooner of your needs.”
“My neighbors take care of us.” Nan smiled at Ceri. “And Ceri is a good boy.”
“We can do better.” Hywel gave Nan a respectful nod and then headed for the door. Once outside, he tipped back his head and breathed deeply. “Christ, I hate to see that.”
“From the looks, she suffers from a wasting disease,” Gareth said.
“I would say you’re right,” Hywel said.
“Upon our return to Aber, I will direct workmen from the castle to come here. It shouldn’t take long to fix the roof and make the house more secure,” Gareth said. “Winter is coming.”
“Winter is getting closer with every breath,” Hywel said, referring to the celebration of Calan Gaeaf, which marked the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, even if cold weather didn’t always show itself exactly on that day. Hywel slapped his gloves into his palm. “At least we have some answers.”
Gareth snorted. “And thus more questions than we did before.”
Hywel’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “We wouldn’t want it any other way, would we? Shall we find this haunted house?”
Llelo had followed them outside, and now his eyes grew large; Gareth dropped a hand onto the top of his head. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
Llelo shook his head. “I’m not afraid.”
Gareth just managed not to smile at such a transparently untrue statement. He gave the boy credit for attempting to work through his fear, however. While their Saxon and Norman neighbors might view Welshmen as embarrassingly emotional, a man learned to hide from the world what he didn’t want it to see.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, boy.” Hywel swung himself into the saddle. “No more than Wen
a was a witch.”
Llelo grabbed at Gareth’s arm before he could mount too. “Could be the ghost isn’t of Wena but of Tegwen.”
Gareth looked up at Hywel, hoping Llelo hadn’t offended the prince, but Hywel misread the look, because he said, “Don’t tell me Hallowmas is getting to you too, Sir Gareth?”
“Of course not. Even if Tegwen does haunt us, she didn’t leave her own body on the beach,” Gareth said. “A man did that.”
Hywel nodded. “You and I will assume a mortal is at the heart of any wrongdoing until proven otherwise. Men cause quite enough trouble without bringing the world of the spirits into it.”
Llelo mumbled from beside Gareth, “It could be her.”
Gareth grasped his chin and forced Llelo to look at him. “I have seen enough death to know that it leaves a mark, sometimes on the place the person died but more often on the soul of the man who kills. That is our only concern today.” His expression softened. “Tegwen can’t hurt you, son.”
Hywel chewed on his lower lip as he contemplated the path they would be taking. “Five years ago, a boy such as Llelo could have overheard Tegwen’s murder if it happened at the house or near to it. That would have been enough to turn any boy’s blood cold and make him and his friends warn others to stay clear ever since. The people need little more than that to start a rumor that Wena’s hut is haunted.”
Gareth mounted his horse, bringing him level with Hywel. He leaned close and lowered his voice so Llelo, who was occupied with clambering onto the horse’s back behind Gareth, couldn’t hear. “If Cadwaladr killed Tegwen in that house—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it,” Hywel said. “I know we have his pendant, but as much as I despise my uncle, more treachery from him—another murder by his hand or at his order—will rip Gwynedd and my father apart. I don’t want to see that happen today.”
Gareth gave way, and they left the road a few hundred yards west of Ceri’s house, taking a narrow path that was barely wide enough for a cart. “I didn’t even know there was a farmhouse back here or I might have rested in it last winter after Tomos hit me on the head,” Gareth said.
Hywel shot him an amused glance. “You were making for Aber and Gwen; you wouldn’t have stopped for anything or anyone.”
Gareth gave a half-laugh. “You’re probably right. Besides, the last thing we needed that day was to find another body, if Tegwen’s body was there to be found.”
Sooner than Gareth expected, though still well back from the road to Penrhyn, they reached the house in question. It was set back in a hollow, protected from the elements on three sides by hills that stretched north out of the mountains of Snowdonia. Hywel halted at the paddock fence and dismounted, winding his horse’s reins around a rail. An old cart horse ambled over to greet him, and Hywel stroked his forehead. “Hey, old fellow.” He looked at Gareth. “This looks like the one. What do you think, Llelo?”
Llelo slid off Gareth’s horse. “I have been here before, though the horse is usually in the paddock over there.” He waved a hand, indicating a fence line that began a hundred feet away, across the clearing to the east of where they were standing.
Gareth dismounted and walked to the rickety barn to their left. He peered inside. It was just big enough for a cart and a single horse stall. For all that it was a lean-to, the roof was well maintained—better than Ceri’s house—and the horse’s stall had been cleaned recently. Everything smelled of new hay. The old horse had the opportunity to come in out of the rain if he wanted, and judging from the gloss in his coat, somebody obviously groomed him often. Hywel had remained by the horse, and Gareth waved a hand to get his attention. “This fellow has a nice life.”
“That’s our cart, then?” Hywel peered into the darkness of the barn. “Let’s have it out.”
Llelo had wandered after Hywel, and now he and Gareth helped Hywel roll the cart out of the lean-to and into the sunshine. With four-foot wheels and a plank bench seat, it was constructed exactly the same as a thousand carts found all over Wales. One such cart had carried Tegwen from the beach only this morning. Scraps of straw lay in the bed, and since the loft above the stall was full of hay, it was easy to guess where they’d come from. The cart contained nothing else.
Hywel clambered up onto the bed and crouched close to the planks, his nose practically to the wood, inspecting each one in turn. Then he spun slowly on the ball of his foot, shaking his head. “Just our luck. Give me a scrap of cloth caught on a nail. Give me something!”
His adamancy caught Gareth by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. Guilt and frustration were a potent mix, and Hywel had to be feeling both—and probably had been since he identified the body as Tegwen’s. After another full rotation, Hywel jumped down from the cart bed. “We’ll do a circuit of the steading later. For now, let’s see what the house has to offer us.”
Gareth looked across the paddock. From Ceri’s brief description, he had expected nothing other than a standard peasant’s hut: wattle and daub construction, thatched roof, no windows, with a hole in the roof to let out the smoke and let in the only light when the door was closed, which wouldn’t be often.
That wasn’t what faced them. The house, built in a mix of stone and wood with a substantial, whole roof, sat on a small rise at the foot of an overhanging cliff. The cliff face formed the back wall of the house and was an outpost of the range from which the Aber River sprang. If Gareth listened hard, he thought he could hear Aber Falls cascading out of sight beyond the eastern ridge. The house faced northeast so was further protected from the weather, which usually blew in from the southwest, and the overhang of the cliff was such that Gareth would have been surprised if a raindrop had ever touched the roof.
A ray of sunlight shot from between the clouds and shone on the nearby neglected garden, which an untamed blackberry bramble had taken over. Though the same sun shone on Llelo’s shoulders, he shivered and wrapped his cloak closer around himself. “Are you going to go inside?”
This was a new side of Llelo. When they’d first met at the monastery in England, Llelo had been the less assertive of the two brothers, albeit the elder. He’d felt himself responsible for Dai, though, and as the eldest son, he’d forged a path for them, caring for his younger brother when they were orphaned and reining in Dai’s more outrageous exploits. What Gareth hadn’t ever seen in Llelo, however, was fear.
“We have to.” Gareth gestured to the house. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”
Llelo’s expression told Gareth he doubted the truth of that statement, but he managed a nod and allowed Gareth to urge him towards the door.
“It’s just as I remembered when Wena lived in it.” Hywel tapped out the rhythm to an inner song with three fingers on his pant leg as he examined the house. “Serene. Just like Wena.”
“Leave it to you to become friends with a witch,” Gareth said. “Did Gwen visit her with you?”
“From whom do you think Gwen first learned of herbs and healing?” Hywel said. “This was before her mother died birthing Gwalchmai, mind you. Her girlhood ended that day. After Gwen left Aber with her father, I ceased my visits too. My father was determined that I take my place at his side with Rhun. I had no more time for wandering.” Hywel’s tone revealed a remembered loneliness. Since Gareth couldn’t live without Gwen, he didn’t question the effect of her loss on Hywel.
“Someone has maintained the house since Wena died, if not the garden,” Hywel said. “Probably old Wynn.”
“I wonder why Cadwaladr didn’t let the house to someone else,” Gareth said.
“Nobody lives here because the house is haunted.” Llelo held his shoulders stiff and braced for flight.
“Come along, Llelo.” Gareth motioned his young charge forward. “Time to face your fear and see it for what it is.”
“A fancy, nothing more.” Hywel went to the closed wooden door and unhooked the latch with a flick of his finger. The door swung wide on squeaking hinges.
Llelo started at
the sound, his already finely tuned senses telling him to run. “Da—” At least he had the courage to stay put and hadn’t actually screamed.
Prince Hywel raised his eyebrows. “By such means are legends made.”
“Remember the forest surrounding the farmhouse that belonged to Empress Maud’s spies?” Gareth said. “They kept everyone away with wind chimes in the trees. No ghosts walked there any more than they do here.”
“Or if they do, they are those of our own making,” Hywel said.
Stiff-legged and wary, Llelo kept close to Gareth’s side. Being watchful wasn’t necessarily a bad thing when walking into an unknown situation, and Gareth reminded himself again that death was very real to the boy. Llelo rarely talked about his parents and certainly hadn’t ever said he feared their ghosts. But this would be the first Hallowmas since his father died, and perhaps Tegwen’s death was bringing his own loss a little too close for comfort.
Once inside the door, the three companions stood listening to the wind in the trees on the edge of the clearing and the shifting of the horses outside. The house, on the other hand, was completely silent. ‘Gravelike’, Gareth might have said, if the thought wouldn’t have sent Llelo fleeing for the road.
The back wall and the floor were composed of packed earth, and it was dark inside, with the only light coming through the open door. A half-burnt candle sat in a dish on the table. Gareth went to it and lit it with the tools he carried in his scrip. The candle flared, casting their shadows against the wall, and then a sudden gust of wind blew through the room. The candle went out at the same moment that the door slammed shut.
Llelo shrieked into the darkness and scrabbled for the door latch. Gareth found the boy by sound alone and grabbed him around the waist with his left arm. “Hush, Llelo.” Feeling for the door with his free hand, Gareth lifted the latch. He pushed the door open, and light streamed into the room once again. Gareth set Llelo on the other side of the threshold. “Stay here and prop the door open with your shoulder.”
The Fallen Princess Page 9