The Fallen Princess

by Sarah Woodbury

  “I can’t see or hear anything but the rain.” Hywel peered southwest, searching for anything or anyone out of place in the sodden landscape.

  Even frowned and put out a hand to Hywel. “Wait—”

  But at that instant, the man to the left of Hywel grunted and faltered, an arrow jutting from his shoulder. Hywel had time to rein in sharply before a second arrow flashed between his horse’s head and his own and landed in the ditch to the north of the road.

  “Get down!” Evan launched himself at Hywel and dived with him for cover.

  Hywel’s men were well trained and flung themselves off their horses at Evan’s shout. Hywel rolled into the tall grasses to the right of the road while others found refuge to the left. Evan threw himself on his stomach beside Hywel, both of them on a downslope, trying to see through the vegetation growing on the rise to the south of the road from where the arrows had come.

  “How many arrows has he loosed?” Hywel said.

  “At least three,” Evan said. “Two horses are down, and Dafydd was hit in the shoulder.”

  “The archer had to take him down first to get to me,” Hywel said.

  Evan nodded. “He rushed it.”

  “You saved my life, Evan,” Hywel said.

  Evan swept his eyes downward. “I did my duty, my lord.”

  Hywel grunted under his breath at Evan’s modesty, which truth be told was no less than he expected. Evan went back to scanning the hills to the south. Nothing moved on the road but the constant rain, and Hywel’s ten men lay still.

  “Let me try something, my lord.” Evan raised one hand high above his head. No arrow shot through it.

  “Get them!”

  Hywel didn’t immediately recognize the voice of the man who’d spoken, but at the shout, Hywel’s men surged from their hiding positions on both sides of the road. Evan pressed a hand onto Hywel’s shoulder, keeping him down until he determined the source of the threat. Within a few breaths, three of Hywel’s men had a fourth struggling on the ground beneath them. Brushing off Evan’s hand with a sour look, Hywel pushed to his feet.

  “As I said, no more than my duty, my lord,” Evan said.

  “You’re as bad as Gareth,” Hywel said.

  Evan bowed his head. “You honor me.”

  Hywel cracked a smile that he tried not to let Evan see and strode the twenty yards along the road to where the man his company had captured lay. “Get him up.”

  The man had given up fighting. His hands were tied behind his back, and he’d landed in a puddle, so he was even wetter than Hywel. Hywel’s men lifted him from the ground.

  “Dewi?” Hywel stared at the man-at-arms, flabbergasted. “Why did you shoot at me?”

  “I didn’t shoot—I didn’t shoot at you. I didn’t shoot at anybody!” Dewi eyes went wide in panic at the accusation. “You can see I have no bow!”

  “You could have thrown your bow away,” one of Hywel’s men said.

  Evan approached Hywel from behind and spoke low in his ear. “The other man with Dewi got away, my lord. I have sent six of the men to scouring the countryside to the south, but I am not optimistic we’ll find the archer. He could have been three hundred yards away when he shot at us. If I were he, I would have loosed my three arrows and run. I don’t know why Dewi is here, but I don’t think the ambush is his doing.”

  “Who was the other fellow with you?” Hywel said to Dewi.

  Dewi chewed on the inside of his cheek.

  “You might as well tell me,” Hywel said. “If you’re missing from your post, this other fellow is too. Who was it?”

  Dewi was used to following orders and, in Hywel’s opinion, had never been a great thinker. Hywel waited him out, flicking a hand at several of his men, who shifted with impatience. Hywel didn’t like waiting, but he could do it if he had to.

  Dewi licked his lips. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  Hywel didn’t allow himself to smile at Dewi’s capitulation. “Why don’t you tell me whose idea it was? We can clear this all up in time for the feast tonight.”

  “I didn’t want to get involved,” Dewi said. “Erik said—”

  Hywel held up a hand. “Did you say Erik?”

  Dewi nodded.

  Hywel shook his head at the name. It couldn’t be a coincidence. “Go on.”

  “Erik said—”

  Dewi cut himself off for a second time as hoof beats sounded on the road. They all looked west, even Dewi, though his arms were held in a tight grip by one of Hywel’s men.

  Gareth appeared over the rise with Godfrid (of all people) and another ten men, coming from Aber. Two dogs ran in front of them, making a beeline for Dewi, their tongues lolling out. At a whistle from one of their handlers, the dogs halted. They were within two paces from Dewi by then, and they twitched in anticipation of bringing him down if only they were allowed to.

  Moving forward to greet Gareth, Hywel congratulated himself that the two of them had ended up in the same place, though he hoped Gareth knew more about what was going on with Dewi than he did. The company reined in, and the two dog handlers quickly leashed their charges. The animals would be well rewarded tonight.

  “My lord.” Gareth dismounted, glancing past Hywel to where Dewi stood out of earshot. “Thank you for catching him.”

  “I’m delighted to have been of service,” Hywel said. “What has Dewi done?”

  “He and one of Godfrid’s men, a man named Erik, fled Aber this morning after subduing one of the sentries,” Gareth said.

  Godfrid had dismounted too and held out his arms to Hywel, who embraced him gladly. “You should know that someone took a shot at me a moment ago,” Hywel said as the two men stepped back from each other.

  “What?” Gareth examined the terrain to the south. “Just now?”

  “Whether it was Dewi, this Erik both of us are also seeking, or an as-yet-unidentified third man, we haven’t yet determined,” Hywel said.

  “We spotted Dewi and Erik half a mile up the road,” Godfrid said. “I don’t recall seeing either with a bow or arrows.”

  “Erik was your man?” Hywel said to Godfrid.

  “And a traitor, apparently,” Godfrid said. “I wish we were meeting again under better circumstances, but you need to know that Erik served in Rhos before he entered my father’s service.”

  “Your father tells me that Dewi served in Rhos too,” Gareth said.

  Hywel looked upon Dewi with new eyes, and then said to Gareth, “You’d better tell me what you’ve discovered in my absence.”

  Heedless of the rain, which continued to fall, Gareth quickly set forth the events of the past day from his end. Then Hywel gave Godfrid and Gareth a summary of his investigations, including the fact that he’d been contemplating a journey to Dublin in search of Erik.

  “How fortunate that I brought him to you.” Godfrid coughed. “Sort of.”

  They walked back to where Dewi stood with his captors.

  “We’ll see if we can get something out of our prisoner.” Hywel stepped in front of Dewi and took a moment to examine him. Dewi kept his eyes downcast, refusing to look up. “A few miles isn’t much ground to cover since this morning. What did you hang around for?”

  “It was Erik’s idea to go to ground until tonight,” Dewi said, selling out his companion. “He knew of an empty hut not far from Aber, and we stayed there until we heard the dogs.” Dewi cast a resentful look in Gareth’s direction. “Better to run than be caught like a rabbit in a trap.”

  “Why did you run from Aber in the first place?” Hywel said.

  Dewi didn’t answer immediately, and the way he stared at his feet, digging the toe of his boot into the loose soil of the road, reminded Hywel of when he and Gareth had questioned Ceri and Llelo.

  Hywel continued to wait, his eyes on Dewi’s downturned head, and Gareth and Godfrid had the sense not to step in. Most men didn’t like silence and instinctively would fill it.

  Then Dewi’s head came up, and he looked at Hywel, his face
contorted. For a moment Hywel thought he was going to cry. “I knew I was in trouble the moment I saw her body on the beach.”

  “You speak of Tegwen’s body?” Hywel said.

  “Lord Bran swore that nobody would ever find her!” Dewi choked up, his words coming out as a strangled wail.

  Hywel rocked back on his heels. “What do you know about my cousin’s death?”

  “It was an accident! I swear it! Bran backhanded her across the face, and she fell and hit her head on the corner of a table.”

  The entire company of men, both Hywel’s and Gareth’s, had been listening with breath held, but at Dewi’s outburst, Hywel felt that breath ease out in a quiet sigh as they settled themselves. At long last, they were hearing the truth or something close to it.

  “You saw it happen?” Hywel said.

  Dewi had gone back to staring at his feet, misery in every line of his body. “I heard it. And then I helped Bran conceal her death.”

  “You personally were involved in leaving Tegwen’s body in Wena’s hut?” Gareth said.

  Dewi nodded.

  “Why not bury her in the garden, or the woods, or drop her in the ocean for that matter?” Gareth said.

  “We couldn’t risk being seen, and we had no tools!” Dewi said. “The house held only a bed, a table, and a few dishes. The shed was empty. Do you know how hard it is to dig a grave with a spoon?”

  Hywel almost laughed. That was something he hadn’t ever considered, for all that he’d killed men. He’d never wanted to hide a body, though, and he could imagine the desperate search that must have ensued when Bran found his wife dead at his feet.

  “Whose idea was it to put her behind the wall?” Gareth said.

  “Bran’s,” Dewi said. “He made a shroud out of a deerskin he found in a box at the foot of the bed, and we carried her up the ladder to the loft.”

  “And left her,” Hywel said.

  “It was all Erik’s fault,” Dewi said. “He was the one who brought Tegwen to Aber. We didn’t even know she was coming until she arrived.”

  “What were you doing at Aber?” Gareth said.

  “I attended to Lord Bran.” Dewi lifted his head, a remnant of pride returning.

  “Why were you at Wena’s hut?” Hywel said. “Bran was supposed to be in Powys with my father.”

  Dewi’s face flushed, and he didn’t answer.

  Gareth’s expression turned menacing, and he stepped closer. “Both Tegwen and Bran are dead, Dewi. But you’re not. Telling us everything you know can only help you now.”

  Dewi licked his lips. They were badly chapped, even with the fall of water on his face. His eyes flicked to the side of the road.

  “You have no way out of this, Dewi,” Gareth said. “You don’t want to hang for a murder you didn’t commit.”

  Even with that empty threat, Hywel was afraid they would have to use harsher methods to compel Dewi to spit out any more information, but then he said, “It was Queen Gwladys who was supposed to come to the hut that night.”

  A whisper of unease swept among the men, and Hywel held up one hand to stop Dewi from speaking further. Gareth tipped his head to Evan, who began to disperse the men back to their horses. Hywel was still struggling to believe that the truth had been right in front of him all this time, if only Dewi had been willing to tell it.

  “Why don’t you tell us about that meeting?” Gareth said.

  Dewi sneered, realizing he’d struck a nerve. “Gwladys was Bran’s lover.”

  Hywel kept his expression blank.

  Dewi waited for a response, but when it wasn’t forthcoming, his shoulders sagged. “Oh. You already knew that.”

  “We did,” Gareth said.

  “Then why did you ask?” Dewi said.

  “To see if you did,” Gareth said.

  That seemed too complicated for Dewi, who then shrugged. “She’d broken it off with him, but Bran had begged her to talk to him one last time.”

  It was always the one last time that was the undoing of any secret. Gwladys appeared to have known that, even if Bran hadn’t.

  “But she didn’t come,” Hywel said.

  Dewi shook his head. “It was Tegwen who came. Lord Bran had sent Erik on an errand to Bryn Euryn, and somehow she convinced him to bring her to Aber.”

  “That’s a fifteen-mile ride if you don’t take the ferry,” Hywel said. “She must have been very convincing.”

  Dewi shrugged again. Hywel was growing to despise the gesture. “He would never tell me anything.”

  Gareth motioned with one hand, silently asking Hywel to step away from Dewi to confer with him and Godfrid. They put their heads together.

  “Tegwen would not be the first wife to lie with her husband after-the-fact, thinking to convince him seven months later that the child was born early,” Godfrid said.

  “When Brychan refused to run away with her, she must have been desperate,” Gareth said.

  “Nor would Erik be the first Dane to hide a soft heart behind a warrior’s countenance,” Godfrid said.

  Gareth returned to Dewi. “Why did you run?”

  “Erik said that it was only a matter of time before someone remembered that we’d both served Bran,” Dewi said. “He knew that Prince Hywel had gone to Rhos. He didn’t trust me to lie. He said that I either had to come with him, or he’d kill me.”

  “Did it occur to you that he might kill you once he got you out of Aber?” Hywel said.

  At Dewi’s wide eyes, Hywel tsked his disbelief.

  “Walk me through that night, Dewi,” Gareth said. “Erik and Tegwen arrived at the hut. Tegwen went inside, leaving you and Erik to wait outside … and then what?”

  Dewi hunched his shoulders. “I didn’t hear all that Tegwen and Bran said. They were quiet at first, and then they started shouting.” He looked down at the ground. “Erik and I stayed with the horses until Bran came to get us.”

  “That’s not all you heard, though, is it?” Gareth said.

  Hywel had noted that downcast look too, which indicated Dewi was still hiding something.

  “Nobody can be harmed by Bran now,” Gareth said. “It’s best if you tell the whole truth.”

  Dewi’s lower lip stuck out as if he were Dai’s age instead of Gareth’s. “I don’t want to hang.”

  Gareth glanced at Hywel, who answered for him, “My father will be merciful as long as you didn’t do anything wrong beyond withholding the true story.”

  Dewi ducked his head. “Tegwen told Bran that she’d kept his secrets and that he owed her.” Now Dewi lifted his eyes to Hywel’s face. “She claimed he was responsible for Marchudd’s death.” Marchudd was Bran’s older brother, the eldest son of the three, who’d died in battle in Ceredigion after Bran’s marriage to Tegwen.

  The three men stood silent absorbing that bit of news, and then Hywel reached around Dewi’s back, untied his hands, and began to retie them in front of him. “Is that when he hit her?”

  Dewi nodded.

  The rope was water-logged and stiff, and Hywel’s own hands were cold. By the time they arrived at Aber, the only way to remove the rope might be to cut it. After some frustration with trying to tie the last knot, Gareth stepped in to finish the job while Hywel put his hands to his mouth to warm them.

  “Did Tegwen truly know something about Marchudd’s death?” Gareth said. “Was Bran really responsible?”

  Dewi put his face into his bound hands. “I don’t know. It was in Ceredigion.” Then he lifted his head to look at Hywel. “You know what that war was like, that last battle in particular.”

  “Who’s to say when a man dies that his death truly came at the hands of his enemy?” Godfrid said.

  Hywel nodded. “War is chaos.” They’d all lost loved ones that day.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Gareth

  “Did I miss the funeral?” Hywel said.

  “Not yet.” Gareth rode beside his lord with Godfrid a half pace behind on the other side. “Tegwen was to be p
ut in the ground as the sun was setting. Your father hoped that the delay would give you enough time to return.”

  Gareth expected Hywel to express regret or at least grimace that he’d failed to miss the funeral. But instead he opened his mouth and sang:

  A bright fort on a shining slope stands;

  A girl, shy and beautiful, plays with the gulls.

  Though she thinks of me not,

  I will go,

  on my white horse,

  my soul full of longing;

  to seek out the girl whose laughter fills my heart,

  to speak of love,

  since it has come my way.

  “Up until this moment, I didn’t want to attend, but now I will sing that for her,” Hywel said.

  Gareth was having a hard time finding his voice. He glanced behind him and saw that several of the men had overheard Hywel’s tenor and were clearing their throats and surreptitiously wiping at the corners of their eyes.

  “Did you compose that for Tegwen?” Gareth said.

  “It has been forming in my mind since I left Aber,” Hywel said. “I wish she were still alive to hear it.”

  “She won’t be remembered because she ran away with a Dane anymore but because of your song,” Gareth said.

  “She was lost,” Hywel said simply.

  Gareth glanced at his prince. “So you believe Dewi’s story?”

  “Perhaps not every word, but in the main? Yes.”

  “Bran must have known that someday the body would come to light. He didn’t dispose of her cloak,” Godfrid said.

  “That close to Aber, everywhere else was equally fraught with peril,” Hywel said.

  “He should have burned the cloak,” Gareth said. “He could have stolen a boat and thrown her body into the sea.”

  “His wife was dead by his hand,” Hywel said. “I submit that he might not have been thinking clearly and would have been concerned primarily for his own skin. He didn’t want anyone to see him. He’d come to Aber in secret. He wanted to keep it that way.”