“The Book of Kells, do you think?” Gwen said.
Hywel shrugged. “I couldn’t say. We should show Brychan’s face to Godfrid. Maybe he knows him. Maybe Brychan spent time in Dublin too.”
“Brychan knew his murderer,” Gwen said. “I can say that for sure. They were talking before he was stabbed. Their faces were inches apart.”
“As I said, one thrust and Brychan was done. He wouldn’t have seen it coming,” Gareth said. “A weaker man could kill a stronger one that way, simply because of the surprise.”
Hywel had released Mari to crouch by the body again, and Gwen wondered if he was thinking of the way he’d murdered King Anarawd. Hywel had been able to approach him because he’d known him, and Anarawd had let his guard down. In that case, Anarawd’s armor had slowed but not stopped the blade. Brychan hadn’t even had that protection.
Mari was standing a few feet from the body, facing towards the postern gate. “Hywel, regardless of who did this, we can’t let everyone know that Brychan was murdered in the woods. The people might panic.”
Hywel groaned. “Why does it have to be Hallowmas?”
“We have to do something with the body,” Gwen said. “We can’t leave him here.”
Mari was gathering herself after her shock. “You two put the body in the firewood shed behind the house,” she said to Hywel and Gareth. “Gwen and I will act as lookouts.”
At Hywel’s assent, Mari ran ahead to blow out the candles on the pathway and plunge the manor into greater darkness. A few candles still flickered on the back steps to the house, and she put those out too. Gwen, meanwhile, stood sentry halfway between the woods and the house, and when it seemed all was clear, she waved the men forward. Gareth and Hywel carried the body out of the woods, but when they passed Gwen, she realized they were leaving a trail of blood on the ground behind them.
While Gareth stacked enough wood to last the household inhabitants through the night and divert them from entering the woodshed, and Mari kept watch at the corner of the house, Gwen grabbed a rake from its hook on the wall. Scraping the ground with broad sweeping motions, she worked her way back to the woods with it, churning the soil, grass, and leaves to bury as much blood as she could. Nobody would notice the blood in the dark, but it might be noticeable in the morning and, at the very least, attract wild animals in the night.
When she reached the spot where Brychan had died, she stopped, listening to the distant calls and laughter from the castle. As Gwen’s eyes grew used to the darkness under the trees, the world outside the woods grew brighter—or maybe it was the sweep of stars that had appeared from behind a cloud. Gareth and Hywel disappeared inside the woodshed, and Mari now stood on the top steps to the back door, which was open, her silhouette clearly visible against the backdrop of candles she’d relit behind her.
Gwen shivered and looked away. She’d been so focused on her task that she hadn’t had time to be afraid of the dark. Now she glanced towards the castle and caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone was lurking at the base of the wall, sidling towards the postern gate. Gwen stared at the figure for two heartbeats and then started back towards the manor. She opened her mouth to shout for Gareth, not fool enough to confront a murderer on her own. But before she could catch his attention, a great burst of laughter came from the revelers by the gate. A half-dozen drunken men spilled from it.
Unlike the guards who remained in the courtyard, these men had drunk more than enough mead. They milled around on the pathway leading to the manor house.
“Gareth!” Gwen started to run just as the cloaked figure slipped among them and through them.
Gareth and Hywel didn’t appear, but Mari hurried down the steps towards her. “What’s happening?”
“I saw him!” Gwen pointed towards the revelers.
“I’ll get Hywel,” Mari said.
“Gwen!” A drunken man stepped from the pack of men, his arms wide as if he wanted to embrace her. “Where is your husband? He has been far too serious of late, and we mean to make him join us!”
Gwen slowed and then stopped, looking past the man, whose name was Iago. “Did you see who it was who passed by here just now? He wore a cloak and came from over there.” Gwen pointed to the wall to the south of the gate.
Iago spun on his heel and waved a hand at his fellows. “It’s just us here, right boys? I didn’t see anything.”
Gareth and Hywel hurried up. “Is everything all right?” Gareth said.
“Gareth!” Iago clapped a hand on Gareth’s shoulder. “You’re not drinking!”
“And you, Iago, have drunk far too much.” Gareth shook him off and guided Gwen through the crowd to the postern gate. “Mari said you saw the killer. Where did he go?”
“Through here, I’m sure of it,” Gwen said. “Iago and his friends are too drunk to notice anything but their own amusement.”
Two men stood sentry on either side of the doorway. One of them, thankfully, was Rhodri. He’d been on the beach the day before with Gwen. It was his son who’d discovered Cadwaladr’s coin pendant.
“A man, hooded and cloaked, came through here just now,” Gareth said. “Did you see him?”
“We’ve seen dozens, my lord, both in and out since you passed this way earlier.” Rhodri’s brows came together. “I haven’t noticed anyone who shouldn’t be here, but I don’t know the names of everyone at Aber tonight either.”
Gareth cursed under his breath. “He belongs here; he must.” He gazed around the courtyard, his hands on his hips.
The bonfire had been piled to the height of a man, with the flames shooting higher than that. At least a hundred people were gathered around it, with more on the margins by the craft halls and barracks. Gwen tried to see individual faces instead of the firelight. Then she noticed a cloth bundle by the corner of the stables.
“What’s this?” She held up a cloak, thin and brown with blotchy stains in places that someone had wadded up and discarded. Looking at it ruefully, she handed it to Gareth, who cursed again. The cloak was damp, but in the firelight Gwen couldn’t tell if the moisture was blood or merely water from the puddle it had been lying in.
“It’s rough and cheap,” Gwen said.
“It could belong to anyone—from the killer to a villager too drunk to notice how cold he now is.” Gareth pounded a fist on one of the posts that held up the stable’s roof. “What is going on here?”
“Did Brychan have anything on him that helps us?” Gwen said.
Gareth shrugged. “It’s always awkward to go through a dead man’s clothes like a petty thief, but Hywel and I did the best we could in the dim light and found nothing of interest. What Brychan knew was in his head.”
“And here I thought Hywel was going to be the one in danger tonight,” Gwen said.
“I’m concerned now for you and Mari.” Gareth tossed the cloak onto a towering stack of wood beside the blacksmith forge. “He knows you saw him, but he got away, and in this crowd, the only way we’re going to discover his name is by sheer luck.”
“We’re getting close,” Gwen said, trying to be reassuring. “He’s slipped up and killed someone else. He’ll know that we’ve grabbed the end of the thread and only need to tug at it for his world to unravel.”
“I won’t say you’re wrong,” Gareth said. “Isn’t that always the way of it? As time goes by and more people become involved, the killer’s plan gets away from him and spirals out of control.”
“There you are!” Godfrid detached himself from some onlookers standing near the gatehouse and strode up to them, grinning. At the sight of their serious faces, however, he faltered.
“What’s happened?”
“We have another murder, and we don’t know why,” Gwen said. “Brychan, Tegwen’s lover, is dead.”
Godfrid’s expression darkened. “My men and I will aid you in any way we can.”
“We’ll have to ask the same questions we’ve been asking all over again: if anyone saw anything unusual; if anyone
hasn’t been where they’re supposed to be,” Gareth said.
Godfrid snorted. “It’s Hallowmas. Nobody is where he’s supposed to be.”
“We’d better get started, then,” Gwen said.
“Not you, though.” Gwen found herself being spun around by her husband and directed towards the manor house. “You are for bed.”
Gwen didn’t dig in her heels, but she didn’t come willingly either. It was very unlike Gareth to tell her what to do so determinedly. “You can’t think I’m going to sleep? I just saw a man murdered, and you’ve hidden his body in the woodshed.”
“I know, Gwen.” Gareth’s voice came low in her ear. “But you could try. Mari needs you. And I need you safe. We have a killer running loose inside Aber. I would feel better knowing you were safe outside the walls.”
Gwen swallowed down her protest. She liked being involved, and she liked knowing what was happening, but she could just as well skip asking those same questions over again to the drunken inhabitants of Aber Castle. She allowed Gareth to escort her to their room. Hywel met them at the front door, a look of relief crossing his face at the sight of Gwen. He practically pushed her through the doorway to their room. Mari was leaning over the basin in the corner.
“You are a very bad man,” Gwen said.
Hywel smirked. “Get her to sleep if you can; try to sleep yourself.”
“We won’t be long, Gwen,” Gareth said. “It is less than two hours to midnight, after which everyone will be even more drunk and incapable of answering our questions.”
Hywel scoffed. “In another hour, we’re going to be the only ones standing.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Hywel
He was a coward. He knew it. And Gwen was a saint. Hywel had no trouble accepting their opposite natures and refused to feel guilty about the look Gwen shot him as he closed the door to the corridor and left the manor house with Gareth. Someone had already relit the candles along the walkway, and the light led them back into Aber.
Godfrid met them inside the gate. “The women are safe?”
That question had Hywel spinning on one heel, grabbing Rhodri’s arm, and marching back down the pathway with him. “I need you to stand guard at the manor house.”
“My post—” Rhodri didn’t exactly stutter, but he was looking at Hywel with a concerned expression.
“Too much has happened during the last two days for me to allow Gwen and Mari to stay in the house without a guard. I need you to stand watch until Gareth and I return.”
“Of course,” Rhodri said, no longer protesting. “It will be my pleasure.”
Hywel returned to where Gareth and Godfrid waited, listening to the tail end of Gareth’s description of Brychan’s death. Godfrid was staring at him with bemused horror. “Nothing like this ever happens in Dublin.”
Hywel had to laugh. “I very much doubt that.”
Gareth then found another sentry to replace Rhodri, one of the few who wasn’t completely drunk. Meanwhile, King Owain’s man, Adda, appeared, hovering in the entrance to the stables, his eyes searching. When he saw Hywel, he hurried over. “My lord—” He cleared his throat. “We have a problem.”
Godfrid’s look of continued disbelief was priceless, but Hywel ignored it. “Tell me.”
“It’s Dewi, the man you captured this afternoon. He won’t wake,” Adda said.
“No.” Two dead men within a single hour was more than Hywel could take.
Gareth stepped in. “Show us.”
Adda ushered them towards the back of the stables to a rear room that doubled as Aber’s prison when needed. The room hadn’t changed since Gareth had spent time in it last year: ten feet on a side with hay scattered across the floor and smelling potently of manure and horse.
Dewi lay facing the wall on a pallet, an improvement from when Gareth had been incarcerated here. With the feeling of having been here before, Hywel put his hand to Dewi’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed as if in sleep. Gareth put his fingers to Dewi’s neck. Hywel expected him to shake his head, but then Gareth grabbed both sides of Dewi’s head and rocked him back and forth. “Wake up!”
“He’s alive?” Godfrid said from behind them.
“Barely!” Gareth threw a look over his shoulder at Adda. “Get the healer in here.”
“I’ll get a bucket of water,” Godfrid said.
Gareth slapped Dewi’s cheeks, and when Dewi moaned, Hywel helped Gareth move him into a sitting position. Godfrid reappeared with a full bucket of water and an empty one as well, and then Adda returned with the healer. Daff wasn’t Wena, but Hywel knew him to be capable. Fortunately, Daff also wasn’t a man to overdrink.
“What happened to him, my lord?” Daff said.
“I don’t know,” Hywel said. “He won’t wake.”
Daff sniffed near Dewi’s mouth, as Hywel had done to the guard Madog, mumbled under his breath, and then sprinkled herbs into the cup of water Godfrid handed him. Daff gestured to Dewi’s food tray. “Is that what he ate and drank?”
“We think so,” Gareth said.
“I’ll check it after we get him awake. I’m going to guess that someone tampered with his food, which means we’ll need him to puke it up.” Daff eyed the prince. “You might want to step back.”
Hywel didn’t wait to be told twice. He’d been present when a similar treatment had been given to Gareth after Cadwaladr had poisoned him. Daff gestured to Gareth. “Hold his mouth open.”
Gareth obeyed, and Daff poured in the liquid, forcing it down Dewi’s throat. The guard came awake enough to cough and sputter, and then in a rush he vomited the contents of his stomach into the empty bucket Godfrid shoved in front of him.
Stepping away while Daff administered another dose, Hywel moved to where Adda hovered in the doorway, his hands working nervously in front of him. “Have you been on duty all evening?”
“I came on after Tegwen’s funeral, but he was fine then. I’d swear to it!”
“Has he had any visitors?” Hywel said.
Adda nodded his head eagerly. “At least a dozen.”
Hywel exchanged a puzzled look with Gareth, who’d overheard. “Why?” Gareth said.
“To mock.” Adda raised his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I didn’t let any of them but Prince Cadwaladr inside.”
Hywel’s hands went to the top of his head. “When was this?”
“Right after I first came on duty,” Adda said. “Did I do wrong?”
“No, Adda,” Gareth said. “You could hardly have gainsaid a prince.”
Gareth was right, but that didn’t stop Hywel from grinding his teeth.
Godfrid had been following their conversation with a furrowed brow. “Were any of the men mine?”
“Several,” Adda said, “though I couldn’t tell you their names.”
Daff straightened from his crouch beside Dewi’s retching form. “When was he brought food?”
“After I came on,” Adda said.
“Who brought the tray?” Gareth said.
“One of the serving boys from the kitchen,” Adda said.
“His name?” Gareth said.
“I don’t know, my lord.” Adda shrugged, as Hywel knew he would. Adda was an old soldier who prided himself on his elevated station. He didn’t trouble himself with the names of his inferiors if he didn’t have to know them.
“What do you think it was, Daff?” Hywel said.
“Not poppy,” Daff said, “nor Mandrake, I don’t think. Belladonna is my best guess, which is why the emetic should work. He was very fortunate you discovered him when you did, Adda. Who would want him dead?”
“Erik,” Godfrid said instantly. “Dewi was the only one who could testify to his wrongdoing.”
“Erik would have had a difficult time moving around the castle without being recognized and stopped, even in this crowd,” Gareth said.
“Five years have passed since Tegwen’s disappearance,” Hywel said, “and while Dewi was di
screet enough not to allow word of her fate to get out, he could have talked to someone he shouldn’t have since the discovery of her body.”
“Perhaps he had other secrets,” Gareth said. “Perhaps we haven’t asked the right questions yet.”
“We certainly asked some of them if this is the result.” Hywel turned back to Adda. “Did you overhear Dewi’s conversation with my uncle?”
“No, my lord,” Adda said. “He closed the door behind him, and they spoke softly.”
Gareth and Godfrid both growled at the same time. Dewi, meanwhile, moaned and clutched his stomach.
“What do you say?” Gareth said to Daff.
“He’ll live, but it may be morning before he’s coherent,” Daff said.
“We’ll leave him until dawn.” Hywel looked at Godfrid and then at Gareth, noting the deep circles under his captain’s eyes. “Dewi isn’t going anywhere.”
“I will stay with him in case he has a relapse,” Daff said.
“Keep everyone away,” Gareth said to Adda. “Nobody is to hear of Dewi’s fate until the morning. Is that clear?”
“Yes, my lord,” Adda said.
“That includes my uncle,” Hywel said.
Adda ducked a nod.
“We’ll cover up the window in the cell so nobody can see inside either,” Gareth said.
Hywel led the way out of the stables, stopping to observe the dancing around the bonfire with detachment. “Dewi was poisoned, Brychan knifed.”
“And you were ambushed,” Gareth said. “Our murderer has many talents.”
“Or he’s panicked and tying up loose ends.” Hywel cursed. “If my uncle is involved more than we already know, I am going to kill him.”
Neither man blanched at Hywel’s invective. Instead, Gareth rested a hand on Hywel’s shoulder. “Right now, what I’m most concerned about is all of us living through the night.”
“Right.” Hywel put two fingers to his temple, thinking. “Gareth, speak to the workers in the kitchen and then come find me. My father must know what has transpired.”
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