“If only the murderer had known we were hours from closing the investigation,” Gareth said. “Instead, Dewi and Erik flee Aber, someone shoots at Hywel, Brychan is murdered, Dewi is poisoned, and the manor house set afire, all within the space of a single day. Now we have more questions than when I awoke yesterday morning. If we already know Bran killed Tegwen, who is behind these other incidents?”
“We’ll solve this case like we solve every other. By asking questions, like you and Hywel have been doing.” Gwen canted her head. “And hopefully, with a bit more luck than we’ve had so far.”
“Brychan didn’t have any luck,” Gareth said.
“You are sour this morning,” Gwen said.
Gareth grumbled under his breath. “A killer is walking free. I can’t breathe easy.”
They stood on the top step to the keep, and Gareth felt Gwen take a deep breath beside him. The air was moist and warm. More rain would come soon, but thankfully, it had held off during the worship service for All Saints’ Day, since the chapel hadn’t been large enough to hold everyone, and the residents of Aber had overflowed into the courtyard. Gareth and Gwen had found places inside, but looking at Gwen’s pale face, Gareth wished he’d paid more attention to her and had found a better place to pray, or perhaps skipped the service entirely.
He took her arm, and they headed away from the hall, looking for a quiet place to be together.
“I keep seeing that man with Brychan, watching him fall,” Gwen said. “People are saying that Aber is haunted by all the deaths, but someone real started that fire and someone real poisoned Dewi.” She sighed.
Gareth had already talked to Hywel about taking Gwen home to Anglesey tomorrow. Hywel had said that he would bring Mari and leave her there with Gwen, before the two men set out to help Godfrid with his quest. Hywel, it seemed, intended to come along on that adventure too.
Evan appeared in the doorway to the stables. “Dewi’s awake, my lord.”
“Sir Gareth!”
Gareth turned at the shout. The drunken soldier from the previous night, Iago, stood underneath the gatehouse, waving his arm above his head urgently. Torn between two duties, Gareth gave Gwen a quizzical look.
She released his arm. “Go. I’ll talk to Dewi with Evan.”
“I’ll find you after I see what Iago wants,” Gareth said.
Gwen and Evan disappeared into the darkness of the stables, and Gareth loped towards the gatehouse, anxious to clear up whatever this was so he could get back to Gwen. Then Gareth saw who was beside Iago and pulled up ten yards from the gatehouse, his mouth dropping open in surprise.
“Hello, Sir Gareth.” The woman before him smiled. “I see you have been keeping well.”
“Prioress Nest!” Gareth caught the arms of his old mentor, who was standing with a young companion, also a nun. Both wore the heavy undyed robes and head coverings of their vocation. “What are you doing here?”
“I fear the community you so lovingly protected is no longer, my friend,” she said. “We came to grief, finally, last year. Those of us who survived found refuge with a community of women at Conwy.”
Gareth’s stomach clenched with a momentary guilt that he hadn’t been there to protect them. Nest gave him a compassionate look. “Gareth.”
He shook himself. “You’ve been so close all this time? Why haven’t you contacted me before?”
Nest narrowed her eyes at him. “We are pledged to a life of quiet contemplation. I would never have come to Aber at all if it wasn’t so urgent.” Then she frowned. “Where are your manners, sir?”
“Of course, of course!” Gareth accepted his chastisement with bowed head, pleased that she was here at all. He gestured towards the great hall. “Come inside. There is plenty of food for everyone. King Owain has not scrimped on the feast, despite the difficulties of the last few days.”
Nest indicated the girl next to her. “This is Bronwen, a novice.”
Bronwen was carrying a large, heavy package in her arms. Gareth looked at it curiously but didn’t ask its purpose, just held out his arms to take it from her. Nest shook her head and grasped it instead. “Patience.”
She seemed intent on having her own way and strode up the steps to the keep in front of Gareth. Once inside, she went directly to the end of a nearby table where there was enough space for them to sit. Iago had come with them, and Gareth held up a hand to indicate that he should wait by the door in case he was needed.
Nest didn’t take a trencher for herself or for Bronwen but swept the remains of the previous diners’ meals aside with one arm. Then she set the package on the table between them. “I heard you were looking for this.”
Gareth stared at the wrapped package and then up at Nest.
“We learned of the arrival of three Danish ships at Aber almost before they landed on your shore,” Nest said. “My contacts assured me the Danes had been welcomed into Aber Castle, so I knew it was time to find you.”
“I don’t understand.” Gareth’s head felt thick and slow, like it was stuffed with day-old porridge.
“A man brought it to us.” Nest pinched her lips together as if fighting back amusement. “Not that bringing it to us or leaving it with us came about of his own volition. A fisherman found him at the bottom of his longboat, the only survivor of a storm.”
“When was this?” Gareth said.
“The end of September,” Nest said. “The storm was a bad one.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Gareth said. “I was in Ceredigion with Prince Hywel.”
“I don’t know what happened to the rest of the men who sailed with him, but the man was alone with few possessions.” Nest put her hand gently on the package. “This was clutched to his chest, wrapped in many layers of oilskin and sealed tight. The fisherman brought it and him to us. Unfortunately, the man himself never woke.”
“You’re telling me that this is the Book of Kells?” Gareth said, still disbelieving. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that,” Nest said reprovingly. “I was waiting for a sign that would direct me towards the proper course of action.”
Gareth rubbed at his chin. “And you found that sign now?”
“The man who stole it was a Dane, and Danes have come to Aber looking for it. It is not mine to keep, and I cannot return it to Kells. But you can.”
“The Dane who came to Aber wants to return it too,” Gareth said. “He is a good man.”
“He is a Dane.” Nest’s voice hardened. “Too many houses such as mine have been sacked by Danes for me to ever rejoice when I see their sails on the water. We learned to run and hide a long time ago.” Then she shot Gareth a thoughtful look. “Though there have been times when fighting seems to have been the proper course of action.”
“I will introduce you to Godfrid, and perhaps you will feel differently.” Gareth smiled at Nest’s icy and skeptical expression. “Allow me at the very least to introduce you to King Owain. This is news we can all celebrate.” He rose to his feet, his heart lighter than it had been in days. It was one mystery solved, and he hadn’t even had to leave Aber to do it.
“Wait.” Nest caught Gareth’s wrist. “There’s one more thing I must speak to you about. I understand that you buried Tegwen ferch Cadwallon yesterday.”
Gareth sank slowly back down to his bench. “Yes, we did. Did you know her?”
“Not I,” Nest said, “but our order had dealings with her.”
Gareth’s mind had been full of his good news and its consequences. The finding of the Book of Kells coupled with Thorfin’s death was going to rock Dublin to its very foundation. But now he focused again on Nest. “How so?”
“A few days before she disappeared, she came to us. Our convent lies near Bryn Euryn. She asked about joining our community.”
“Tegwen wanted to become a nun?” Gareth said. That seemed the least likely thing he’d heard about her.
Nest gave him a sad smile. “She said she did. I
thought you ought to know.”
“Thank you for telling us,” Gareth said. “Though I suppose the investigation is over now. We have a witness who attests that her husband killed her.”
“She loved her husband.” Bronwen spoke for the first time, and from her wide-eyed look, seemed shocked to have spoken at all. “But she was afraid of him too.”
“Do you know that for certain?” Gareth said.
Bronwen nodded. “She told me so when she visited. We were of an age, so I was allowed to show her around the convent. She claimed to know a great secret about him but wouldn’t speak of it to me—” Bronwen glanced at Nest, who nodded reassuringly for her to continue. “The leader of our order would have taken her in right then and there, but she insisted she had to go back. We never saw her again …”
“I’m sure she was grateful to have had someone to talk to,” Nest said soothingly.
Bronwen nodded. “That’s what I said to the other man who came around asking about her.”
Gareth took in an audible breath of surprise. “What other man?”
“It was after she disappeared,” Bronwen said, clearly surprised at his surprise. “Long after.”
“Who was this?” Gareth said. “Was it her husband, Bran?”
“No, no. Not her husband, someone else,” the girl said. “Older.”
“You didn’t tell me about this.” Nest fixed her eyes on Bronwen.
“I just remembered,” Bronwen said, showing a glimmer of spine by not wilting under her superior’s glare.
“When was this?” Gareth said.
Bronwen’s chin wrinkled up as she thought. “Maybe … three years ago?”
“Did the man give you his name?” Gareth said.
Bronwen shook her head, her expression uncertain. “I’m sure he did, but I don’t remember it.” Then her face brightened. “But you can ask him yourself. He’s right there.” She pointed towards the high table. “It’s man on the end.”
Bronwen was pointing to Gruffydd, Tegwen’s grandfather. Gruffydd had been talking with Taran. Bronwen’s gesture must have caught his eye because he looked in their direction and saw Gareth staring back. Gruffydd put a hand on Taran’s shoulder, mouthing apologies, rose to his feet, and almost before Gareth could blink, had disappeared through the doorway to the kitchens at the back of the hall.
“What’s wrong, Gareth?” Nest said.
Luck had reared its reluctant head at last. “We need to raise the alarm,” Gareth said, though Nest would have no idea what he was talking about. “It was Gruffydd all along!”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Gwen
Dewi’s chin stuck out, his expression mutinous and defiant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I need to know who else you told about Tegwen’s disappearance and death,” Gwen said, “or anything about what you witnessed the night she died. Someone poisoned you last night, and I can’t believe it was for no reason.”
Evan and Goch, who had recovered from the blow to the head Dewi had given him, had dragged him out of the stables into the daylight. They set him on the same stump by the kitchen door that Gwen had sat on two days ago to talk to Gareth and Hywel. Dewi’s hands weren’t tied, but he had no weapons, and his face was drawn and white from his ordeal. According to the healer, he’d been sick until he had nothing left inside him and had lain shivering and feverish until dawn.
This time, Gwen had banished the kitchen boy to chop his wood elsewhere. The only reason they were out here at all rather than in the cell at the back of the stables was because it reeked of sickness—among other things—and Gwen’s stomach couldn’t take it.
“I didn’t tell anyone!” Dewi brushed his lank black hair out of his face. It had come undone from the tie at the base of his neck. “Do you think I’m a fool?”
Gwen did, but she tried not to let her skepticism show on her face. He’d obviously kept Bran’s secret well enough to have survived this long. “What about Erik? Could he have talked? We’re trying to figure out why someone tried to kill you.”
“Erik wouldn’t have talked,” Dewi said, “and he wouldn’t poison me either.”
“He’s long gone anyway,” Goch said.
Fugitives had been known to double back, but Erik would know that they were searching for him. He couldn’t show his face in Aber; thus, Gwen had to agree with Goch. At the very least, Erik didn’t murder Brychan and then retreat into Aber.
“Particularly in the last few days, did you mention to anyone anything about the events of that night?” Evan said. “You knew Tegwen. You could have let slip that you’d been near Aber with Bran around the time she disappeared.”
Dewi screwed up his face in a parody of thought. “No, I didn’t.”
“You could have mentioned it accidently, perhaps to impress a girl you were wooing?” Goch said.
Dewi made as if to dismiss the question, and then his brow furrowed. “Well, I talked to my half-brother, of course.”
Evan leaned in. “When was this?”
“Moreover, who is your half-brother?” Gwen said.
“The first time was years after Tegwen died,” Dewi said, answering Evan’s question first. “It can’t be important now.”
“What did you tell him?” Evan said.
“He said that he knew Tegwen before her marriage to Bran and wondered what had happened to her. I didn’t tell him that she’d died,” Dewi added hurriedly, “only that I thought there was more to the story. I might have mentioned that I saw her not long before she disappeared, but he knew I worked for Bran, so why wouldn’t I have seen her? How could this be important now?”
Gwen put her face into Dewi’s. “Who. Is. Your. Brother?”
Dewi looked around as if expecting to see him in the courtyard. “His name is Brychan. We didn’t see each other for years while I was in Rhos and he was in Dolwyddelan and Bala, but then we reconnected by chance in Ceredigion during the wars there and then again a few years ago after he returned to Gwynedd.”
Gwen knew her mouth had fallen open. She didn’t know what to say.
“Dewi doesn’t know, Gwen,” Evan said.
Dewi glanced at Evan. “Know what?”
Gwen put her hand on Dewi’s shoulder and tried to speak as gently as she could. “Brychan was murdered last night.”
Dewi goggled at Gwen. “What? He can’t have been! Why would anyone do that?”
“Did you confess your knowledge of Tegwen’s death to Brychan after we found her body?” Gwen said.
Dewi’s face went blank.
At that moment, there was a commotion in the kitchen and Gruffydd, Dolwyddelan’s castellan, burst through the doorway. He skidded to a halt in front of Dewi, his eyes widening. “I thought you were dead!” And then he seemed to come to himself, gaping at Gwen, Evan, and Goch, who were watching him in various stages of surprise and consternation.
He stared at them for two heartbeats, and then as Gareth flung himself through the open doorway from the kitchen, Gruffydd fled, running flat out for the postern gate.
Gareth put up a hand. “Stop him!”
The guards at the gate looked at Gareth, confused expressions on their faces, and then at Gruffydd as if to say, “Stop him?”
“Out of my way!” Gruffydd made a sweeping motion with his arm.
“Yes!” Gareth was younger and a little more fit than Gruffydd, but if the sentry hadn’t pulled the postern gate closed at the last moment, Gruffydd might have escaped. Fortunately, the sentry knew an order when he heard one, and he was more comfortable taking orders from Gareth than from Gruffydd.
Goch and Evan had run after Gareth. Gwen followed at her usual slower pace. By the time she reached the postern gate, Gareth had Gruffydd pressed to the closed door and was tying his hands behind his back. With a word from Gareth, Evan removed Gruffydd’s sword from his belt and a knife from his boot.
“This is ridiculous. I have done nothing wrong,” Gruffydd said.
“Then why d
id you run?” Gareth said.
“You have misunderstood,” Gruffydd said. “I ate something that disagreed with me and was hastening outside of Aber before I humiliated myself in front of everyone.”
“You seem healthy enough to me,” Gareth said.
Gruffydd hacked and coughed, which seemed real enough to Gwen. She almost believed his story. She might still have believed it if Evan hadn’t at that moment turned Gruffydd’s knife over in his hands and, with a curious expression on his face, shown it to Gareth.
“That’s blood.” Evan traced a thin line near the hilt with his finger. Narrow with a fine point, the knife looked like it would match the wound too, if they had a wound to match.
“Don’t be absurd,” Gruffydd said.
Gareth leaned closer, keeping a hand pressed between Gruffydd’s shoulder blades and prodding his feet apart. “You’ve had a momentous few days.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gruffydd said.
Gareth tsked through his teeth. “The irony is that until you murdered Brychan, poisoned Dewi, and set fire to the manor house yesterday, you’d kept your hands clean. What made you fall apart so suddenly?”
“He murdered Brychan?” Dewi had come to a halt beside Gwen, who’d completely forgotten about him in the capture of Gruffydd.
Gareth glanced behind him. “Stay back, Dewi.”
Dewi didn’t hear him—or couldn’t hear him. “Why?” The word came out a wail.
Gwen didn’t answer Dewi because she didn’t know, and she was hoping someone was going to tell her soon.
“Murder, poisoning, and arson. Am I missing something?” Gareth said.
“And then there’s the matter of your attempted murder of me.” Hywel had come up behind Gwen and stopped at her left shoulder, between her and Dewi. Dewi had gone up on the balls of his feet and came down again only when Hywel put a heavy hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
“I didn’t shoot at the prince,” Gruffydd said. “That was Brychan.”
“Who happens to be conveniently dead and unable to gainsay you,” Gareth said.
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