Since neither Gareth nor Gwen had kin of their own to provide guidance for the boys, Hywel had arranged for them to fall under the care of Cynan, his twenty-three-year-old half-brother. Cynan had been fostered by King Owain’s sister, who was married to the King of Powys. Recently, King Owain had made Cynan custodian of Denbigh Castle, north of Rhuddlan. From there, he and his two younger brothers, Cadell and Madoc, protected eastern Gwynedd for their father. Dai and Llelo had been welcomed into the garrison, and Gareth was confident that there they would learn to be knights.
It had been two months since she’d seen them, and Gwen missed her sons. She planned to visit Denbigh upon her return to Gwynedd in the autumn.
She motioned with her hand to encourage Teilo to continue his story. “You were walking by and …?”
“And I saw him, bobbing about in the reeds,” Teilo said.
“Face down or face up?” Gwen said.
Teilo’s face went blank for a moment, but then he said, “Face down.”
She needed to ask these kinds of questions, even if they appalled the men, so she tried to ignore their shock. She looked at the two monks. “You two retrieved him?”
They nodded.
“Can you show me exactly where he was floating?” she said.
Prince Rhun answered for them. “He was under the trees, over there in an eddy.”
One of the monks then pointed east, to the opposite side of the pond from the mill. The Rheidol River flowed from east to west, emptying ultimately into the sea. Upstream, a portion of the river had been diverted into a man-dug channel to form a pond here, in order to provide a steady supply of water to the water wheel that ran the mill.
Gwen turned back to Prior Rhys. “While I examine the body, would you mind following the others around the edge of the pond to see if you can discover the place where the dead man went in? It would be good to know the exact spot.” Gwen remembered from an earlier investigation how uncomfortable the prior had been to witness her examination of a body. She would avoid discomfiting him this time if she could.
A smile hovered around Prior Rhys’s lips—perhaps in acknowledgement of what she was trying to spare him—but he nodded and gestured to the two monks that they should lead the way. The journeyman begged off, saying that he had to get back inside the mill. Gwen watched him go, telling herself not to distrust the man just because he was resentful of his position.
Teilo went with the monks, but before Prior Rhys himself moved away, Gwen caught the edge of his sleeve. “I don’t want to tell you what you already know, but Gareth would want me to say this: try to make sure they don’t trample whatever evidence has been left.”
“I’ll do my best.” A smile twitched at the corner of Rhys’s mouth.
“Sorry.” Gwen looked down, chastising herself for even mentioning it. Prior Rhys had been a soldier and spy before she’d been born. She had no business telling him what to do.
“You have a job to do, Gwen,” Prior Rhys said. “I am glad you are doing it.”
“Thank you.”
Prior Rhys turned away to follow the other men around the millpond, and Gwen eyed Prince Rhun, who was hovering over the body. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’ve seen dead bodies before, Gwen.” He looked at her carefully. “You must know that I have killed men.”
“Yes, but—” Gwen broke off as she thought of how best to say what she meant. Rhun meant that he’d killed men in war. Gareth had too, of course. But murdering a man—and the sight of a murdered man—was different in both thought and deed, and a man who could kill another man in the heat of battle might find himself squeamish at the sight of the same man dead beside a millpond on an August afternoon. “I know you’ve seen murdered men before, but it’s a beautiful day and maybe you have other tasks that need your attention.”
“One—” Prince Rhun held up his right forefinger, “I’m not leaving you alone here with a dead body and men you don’t know, and two—” up went the second finger, “I’m interested. I have witnessed the beginning of investigations before—Newcastle comes to mind—but I had other duties there that prevented me from seeing the whole of it.”
“Well—” Gwen took in a breath and let it out, accepting that Rhun meant to stay and deciding not to worry about it, “—if you mean it, we might as well get started.”
“What do we do first?” Prince Rhun said.
“Well, first of all, we should acknowledge that this man didn’t drown.”
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The Fallen Princess Page 28