“Brychan is the archer,” Gruffydd said.
“I don’t believe you.” Hywel released Dewi and closed in on Gruffydd. “I think you murdered Bran too.”
Gruffydd didn’t answer, a sneer contorting his features. “I admit to nothing.”
“It is as I suspected,” Hywel said. “Brychan was the one with the courage, not you.”
Gruffydd spat on the ground. “Brychan went only where I pointed.”
There was a silence as Gruffydd seemed to realize what he’d said. He clenched his jaw. Gwen stood stunned. She’d spoken with Brychan at length and believed what he’d told her. If he’d murdered Bran, then he’d lied to her face. She felt like a fool to have been so trusting.
“What’s the penalty for conspiracy to murder the Lord of Rhos?” Gareth said as if asking Hywel about the weather on Anglesey.
“You can’t pin Bran’s death on me.” Gruffydd’s features were twisted with hate.
“But you did murder Brychan,” Gareth said.
Gareth had Gruffydd’s cheek pressed to the wall. Gruffydd’s mouth worked, and Gareth spoke in his ear. “We have the loose thread now. All we have to do is pull at it and your entire world will unravel. Better to confess to what you did do and only owe galanas to Brychan’s family, than refuse to talk and be accused of Lord Bran’s murder as well as Brychan’s. Think of Sioned.”
“I am thinking of Sioned. I didn’t murder Bran.” Gruffydd seemed to think that if he repeated the phrase often enough, someone would believe him.
Gareth flipped Gruffydd around to face his audience and gazed at him, unbending. Gruffydd’s eyes flicked to Hywel. And it was only then that at last he nodded. “Brychan demanded that I give him money so he could leave Gwynedd forever. He told me that he feared you were getting too close. We fought. That he’s dead was an accident.”
“What—you accidently stabbed him through the heart with your boot knife?” Hywel said.
“It was an accident,” Gruffydd said again.
Gwen felt even sicker inside.
“What about Dewi, here?” Evan said.
“The penalty for murder by poison is a hanging,” Gareth said. “You’re lucky he’s alive. You’d better hope he stays that way.”
“Dewi was at the hut the night Tegwen died,” Gruffydd said. “Brychan told me Dewi was there when Bran killed my granddaughter.” And like Brychan before him, it was as if Gruffydd broke in half. He bent forward, choking on grief as fresh today as it had been five years ago when Tegwen disappeared. “Bran didn’t deserve the title of lord.”
Gruffydd lifted his chin, tears streaming down his cheeks, and raised his voice. Gwen turned, confused as to whom he was speaking, and saw that the courtyard behind her had filled with onlookers. “Brychan came to me a few years after Tegwen’s disappearance with what little proof he had that Bran might be responsible. That he might have killed her. I found more.”
“You questioned the nuns at the convent near Bryn Euryn,” Gareth said.
“Them among others. The moment I saw you speaking with the nuns, I knew it was over.” Gruffydd’s next words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush now that his long held secrets had become known. “Bran received no punishment for his crime, while Sioned and I suffered, never to know where she’d come to rest, never able to visit her grave. In order even to see Tegwen’s children, we had to pretend to Bran that we suspected nothing.” He paused, and the hatred that rose in Gruffydd’s eyes had Gwen retreating a pace. “It was intolerable.”
“You murderous bastard!”
While Gwen had stepped back at Gruffydd’s confession, Dewi had moved closer. With a cry of pain and anguish, he plucked the knife that Evan had been twirling between his fingers and launched himself at Gruffydd.
Gareth saw him coming and pulled Gruffydd sideways, falling with him to the ground as Dewi’s knife descended. The blade missed Gruffydd’s heart, instead sliding along his right ribcage. Dewi ended up straddling Gruffydd with Gareth sprawled underneath them both. It all happened so fast that nobody else was able to intervene until Dewi’s arm came up for another thrust, at which point Hywel caught him with both arms around his torso and, with Evan’s belated help, hauled him away.
Gareth managed to scoot out from under Gruffydd, who lay in a helpless ball in the dirt, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands still tied behind his back. Blood soaked his left side, but he was alive. Hywel kicked away the knife that Evan had knocked from Dewi’s hand and stood above both men, his hands on his hips, glaring down at them.
Then a women’s voice came from behind Gwen. “Don’t hurt him, please.” Sioned rushed past Gwen to throw herself over Gruffydd’s prone form. “He never killed anyone. He’s only telling you that he did to protect me.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Hywel
“Come here, Godfrid. We have a present for you.” Gwen was practically hopping up and down in her glee as the big Dane made his way towards where she, Hywel, and Gareth had gathered at the far end of one of the long tables near the dais.
Godfrid halted two paces away, his gaze taking in each of them and then the wrapped package on the table. Disbelief and hope warred together in his expression. “That’s not—”
Gwen clasped her hands together and went up on her toes. “It is!”
Hywel reached out and carefully unfolded the wrappings that had kept the Book of Kells safe on its long journey.
Godfrid moved forward, dropping a hand onto Gareth’s shoulder as he stopped beside him. “You are a miracle worker.”
“It wasn’t my doing,” Gareth said.
“That’s not true, Gareth,” Gwen said. “Prioress Nest sought you out because she trusts you.”
Godfrid growled. “You’re starting the story at the ending again.”
Gareth grinned.
In addition to not witnessing Gareth’s encounter with Prioress Nest, Godfrid had also missed all but the very end of the drama with Gruffydd and Sioned. Once the Book of Kells was stowed safely in Aber’s treasury until such a time as the winds turned favorable and Godfrid had concocted a strategy for its return, he demanded they tell him that story from the beginning too. Many of the guests had already departed for their homes, the story of Tegwen’s death and its resolution on their lips, and everyone left in the great hall was well into a mellow mood. Feeling charitable towards all, Hywel sprawled in his seat, his ankles crossed in front of him and his arm across the rail of Mari’s chair.
“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” Godfrid said. “According to Dewi, Tegwen died after Bran struck her and she fell against the corner of a table. Bran, Dewi, and Erik left her in Wena’s hut—I must see this place before I leave, Gareth—and put out that she ran off with a Dane.”
“Yes,” Gwen said.
“I am offended that Bran blamed one of my own for the loss of his wife,” Godfrid said. “But then, we Danes are the stuff of legends.”
Gwen smacked Godfrid’s shoulder, but his look of self-satisfaction didn’t leave his face. Gareth couldn’t blame the big Dane for his contentment. His quest had ended in success, barring the loss of Erik, who had yet to be caught.
“Three years later,” Gareth said, “Dewi tells Brychan a tiny piece of the story. Brychan turns to Gruffydd, who begins asking questions he hadn’t known to ask before and learns more about her disappearance. Both Brychan and Gruffydd believe absolutely that Bran killed Tegwen and concoct the plan to murder him.”
“By ambush.” Godfrid nodded. “Brychan, who loosed the arrow, gets away clean.”
“Moving to the present day, once Tegwen’s body is found and our investigation moves into full swing, Sioned, who knows the full story even if she wasn’t a participant in the ambush of Bran, panics. She’s afraid that we are close to uncovering the truth about her husband’s role in Bran’s death and convinces Brychan to take a shot at me.” Hywel straightened in his seat at the memory. “Having failed, Brychan returns to Sioned and demands payment to keep quiet.
She slips a knife between his ribs instead.”
“Why would Brychan be so foolish as to listen to her in the first place?” Godfrid said.
“She threatened to expose him as Bran’s killer if he didn’t help deflect the investigation,” Gareth said.
“What about Dewi?” Gwen said.
“Dewi told Brychan of his involvement in Tegwen’s death, and Brychan told Sioned. So Sioned poisoned Dewi,” Gareth said. “If Erik wasn’t still at large, he would have been in danger too.”
“And the fire?” Godfrid said.
“Sioned saw Gareth and me move Brychan’s body,” Hywel said, “but she didn’t know that we’d recognized it in the darkness nor that Brychan had talked to Gwen at length about his relationship with Tegwen. That conversation, if not the one with Dewi, Brychan had kept to himself.”
“Plus, a fire is always a good distraction,” Gareth said, “with the added benefit of murdering us if she got lucky.”
“If not for Dai and Llelo, she might have succeeded,” Gwen said.
Gareth shot Gwen a questioning look. “Did we ever find out where those scalawags had been and why they were still awake?”
Gwen laughed. “Dearest husband, I think we don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
“Sioned then confessed all to Gruffydd,” Hywel said, continuing the story, “and when Gruffydd saw Prioress Nest in the hall with Gareth, he panicked. Once caught, he chose to take all of the blame.”
“The fact that Sioned had killed Brychan with Gruffydd’s knife made his confession much more credible,” Gareth said, “not that I would have ever suspected her of any of this.”
“Sioned did what she did because she wanted to protect her husband,” Gwen said. “She loves him.”
“And Gruffydd loves her,” Hywel said, “which is why he did what he did.”
“It is astonishing that she attempted so much in so short a time,” Godfrid said, “but I can see how as a woman and the grieving grandmother, she was above suspicion. Who would question her movements or her absence from the hall in her time of grief?”
“Last night, Sioned asked her husband and maid to leave her alone in the chapel, when what she was really doing was meeting Brychan in the woods and murdering him,” Gwen said. “Who would gainsay her request to be left alone during the revelry? No one.”
“What is to become of Sioned and Gruffydd?” Godfrid said.
“Payment for their crimes will pauper them. They will lose everything,” Gareth said. “But for the fate of Tegwen’s daughters, I suspect neither would care.”
Hywel tapped a finger to his lips. “I will speak to Ifon. He will take the girls in.”
“I think your father, my lord, would have preferred not to have learned any of this,” Gwen said. “But I’m sure he’s happy to know that Cadwaladr was not at the heart of it.”
“This time,” Hywel said darkly. He still couldn’t decide if that fact was a relief or a disappointment.
“That’s the problem with secrets,” Godfrid said. “Given time, they fester.”
Gwen nodded. “The core of their lives was rotten, and it proved their undoing.”
“There’s a lesson there for us all,” Godfrid said.
At Godfrid’s last words, Hywel straightened in his seat. A lesson. A lesson for us all. He stood abruptly. “I have to see my father.”
Hywel felt Mari’s curious look, but he simply kissed the top of her head and left the room. Certainty had taken hold of him. He’d been struggling for weeks with his burdens, worrying continually about the two lords he’d left in charge of Ceredigion. They had been deposed from their lands by Normans and regained them only at Hywel’s hand, so their commitment to Hywel was absolute. Or so he hoped.
But a kingdom wasn’t won or maintained on hope.
He found his father going over the kingdom’s finances with Taran, discussing the cost of rebuilding the manor house and what tithes might come in from the upcoming slaughter of sheep and cattle in each cantref. Hywel stood in the doorway for a moment without them seeing him.
He knew he was hesitating and cleared his throat to get their attention. “Father.”
King Owain had been bending over the table, reading the papers in front of Taran, who was seated. The king straightened to his full height and looked at Hywel. “Son.”
Hywel took a step into the room. “I have been a coward and a fool, Father.”
Owain jerked his head at Taran. The steward rose hastily to his feet and departed, though not before resting his hand on Hywel’s shoulder as he passed by him on his way into the corridor.
Hywel’s father remained standing where he was, waiting.
Hywel spoke again. “I have told you of our gains in Ceredigion, and of the sacking of Cardigan, but what I haven’t told you is what I have failed to do. What I am failing to do.” And then like when Gruffydd had confessed his crimes, Hywel found his next words tumbling out of his mouth: his decisions, many of them wrong; the forces arrayed against him, which the attack on Cardigan Castle was unlikely to stem; the losses of men and horses that he had avoided elucidating clearly to his father for months; and his stark awareness of his own inexperience.
“If you remove me from my position because of my failures, it would be far better than for me to lose Ceredigion for you entirely,” Hywel concluded. “My hope is that it hasn’t quite come to that and that you can forgive me for coming to you for help. Or rather, not coming to you for help sooner.”
Hywel’s father rubbed at his chin as he thought about his answer. Hywel shifted from one foot to another. His stomach had fallen into his boots when he’d entered his father’s office initially, but Hywel had meant what he’d said. Finally admitting that he didn’t know what to do or how to do it had lifted a huge weight from his shoulders.
Then his father came around the desk, and to Hywel’s astonishment, he came right up to Hywel and embraced him. Then, taking a step back, he said, “It takes a brave man to admit to his own ignorance. You are neither a coward nor a fool, son. To say that I am proud of you would be to understate the case.”
Hywel gaped at his father for a heartbeat, and then cold relief flooded through him. Suddenly, he could breathe again.
“Now, why don’t you get Taran back in here, and between the three of us, we can solve our little problem of Ceredigion.”
Hywel had hoped that a return to Aber would provide him with a respite from his troubles. As he pulled up a chair opposite his father and Taran, he decided that he’d been looking at this journey the wrong way round. Trouble wasn’t something he could run from or to. It followed him everywhere he went. It hadn’t been a respite from trouble that he’d needed, or that he’d come to Aber to find.
It was clarity.
And it was a rare man who could find that all by himself.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Gareth
Gareth paced back and forth at the end of the corridor. Queen Cristina, herself delivered of a healthy son named Dafydd shortly after Calan Gaeaf, had given up her room for Gwen’s lying in. Gwen had woken at dawn with pains, endured a full day of laboring, and now it was past midnight and still their child hadn’t been delivered.
Sometime around sunset the pains had closed in around Gwen, and the midwives had whisked her away to Cristina’s room. Gareth had started drinking then, stopped a few hours later, and had been pacing back and forth in front of the fire in the great hall ever since. Other residents of Aber waited with him, occasionally shooting glances in his direction, but otherwise had the sense to leave him alone.
“She is well, Gareth.” Seeing the way things were going, Hywel had brought a chair to the end of the closest table and reclined in it, his ankles crossed and his boots on the table top. He sipped at his cup of mead. “They would have told you if she wasn’t.”
“It’s gone on so long!” Gareth stopped his pacing and gazed at the empty doorway. He couldn’t hear anything that was happening upstairs from here.
“God isn’t going to take her from you now, not when He and Gwen have conspired so perfectly to keep you here for the birth,” Hywel said.
Gareth glanced at his lord, worried that this comment had been accompanied by discontent, but Hywel was smiling.
Hywel and his men, Gareth among them, had intended to begin the journey to Ceredigion after Epiphany. That was nine days ago. Although the weather had stayed mild through December, it had turned to winter in January and here it was, the middle of the month, and the snow fell as heavily today as it had fallen a week ago, making the roads impassable and ensuring Gareth’s presence for the birth of his child.
“Laboring this long is normal.” Hywel dropped his feet to the floor and joined Gareth for a circuit around the hall. “When Eira died, they told me hours earlier that it wasn’t going well. Gwen’s mother too.”
“If she’s going to die, I can’t be out here and her in there.”
“She’s not going to die.”
“You don’t know that!” Gareth shook Hywel off. He’d reached the breaking point and was going to start throwing chairs like King Owain. Before he had to choose a chair to throw, however, one of the midwives appeared in the doorway and canted her head. Gareth bounded towards her.
“If you would come with me, my lord, your wife would see you now.”
Gareth’s breath caught in his throat. In later years, he would say that he had no memory of the journey from the great hall to Cristina’s door, which the midwife opened for him. A second midwife, a woman twice Gareth’s age, turned as he entered. Gareth drank in the sight of the child in her arms and then looked past her to Gwen, who rested in the bed. She lifted her head to smile at him, tears fresh on her cheeks.
“It’s a girl, Gareth,” she said.
The midwife adjusted the baby’s blanket and placed her in Gareth’s arms. Wiping away sudden tears of his own, he sat beside Gwen on the bed and put his forehead to hers, finding himself unable to speak.
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