The Unexpected Ally

by Sarah Woodbury

  Hywel made a noncommittal noise. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he sent word that Cadwaladr wasn’t in Ireland. If his tasks were done, he would have come himself.”

  “True.”

  When Hywel didn’t embellish his answer, Gareth prodded him. “What was he doing?”

  Hywel sighed. “Politics.”

  Gareth’s face was towards the fire, and he spoke softly so his voice didn’t carry on the off chance there was anyone else but Hywel to hear. “You are looking for allies.”

  It was a guess, but a good one. Hywel chewed on his lower lip, not so much stalling for time as gathering his thoughts. He hadn’t been deliberately keeping this information from Gareth so much as simply not discussing it. “Since Rhun’s death, I have felt that my position in my father’s household is more precarious than I would like. Cristina is ambitious, and with two sons already, she has a right to be. My father’s current state of mind implies there might not be any more sons with her, but I didn’t know that when I sent Erik to Ireland … and you know my father.”

  “Yes,” Gareth said. “He can be very forgiving.”

  “The priests would say that isn’t a fault, but—”

  “But you realize more than ever that you have to make your own way and develop your own allies.”

  “Yes.” Hywel looked down at Gareth. “Hopefully my father will live another twenty years or more, but war is everywhere, and life is uncertain. I must be ready to take the throne on my own terms when the time comes, and that means I need men. I will have Welshmen, for certain, but a pledge of support from Irishmen and Danishmen would not go amiss.”

  “Your brothers will support you,” Gareth said. “Cynan and Madoc, for two.”

  “Will they? I’d like to think so, but we have a long tradition in Wales of parceling out land to all sons in equal measure, regardless of the fact that the kingdom is weakened, if not destroyed, as a result. Cynan knew Rhun hardly at all, and while he knows me better, how long before he realizes that he is now next in line for the throne?”

  “When Rhun was alive, the idea of you becoming King of Gwynedd was a distant future.” Gareth chewed on his lower lip as he thought. “Now it’s a real possibility. Men die for all sorts of reasons.”

  “My father has many sons, and each one will want something. I will have to appease them for their support.”

  “Or fight them.”

  “And maybe kill them,” Hywel said.

  Chapter Four

  Hywel

  “We will pray that it never comes to that.” Gwen stepped back into the common room, a bundle of clothing in her arms.

  Hywel looked down at his feet and spoke in an undertone. “It will come to that.” He was with friends, so he could be completely honest.

  And it wasn’t only his father’s sons that Hywel would have to fight. Fifteen years ago, Cadwallon, who was Hywel’s uncle and his father’s older brother, had died in fighting near Dinas Bran, but he’d spent years systematically attacking each of his uncles in turn to eliminate them and their claim to the throne of Gwynedd. He’d done it for his father, Gruffydd, and for himself, knowing that he would one day be king. Unfortunately for him, it had turned out badly in the end, and it was Owain who’d reaped the rewards of Cadwallon’s sacrifice.

  Gareth knew as well as Hywel that he was right, and he grimaced. “It is your assumption then that Erik was working for you still?”

  “Yes, though I have no idea what he was doing here.”

  The sound of boots scraping on wood came from the opposite side of the room through the doorway that led to the dining room. Then Conall, the agent of Diarmait mac Murchada, King of Leinster, appeared. He’d ridden with them from Aber at King Owain’s invitation, one that at the time had seemed impossible for anyone to refuse. With bright red hair still tousled from sleep and so many freckles it would be impossible to count them all, he was the very vision of what an Irishman should look like. The bruises he’d received when he’d been captured by the same band of slavers in Shrewsbury who’d hurt Gareth were finally fading. And it was clear from his stance that while his cracked ribs still pained him, they were healing too, maybe more quickly than Gareth’s wounds, especially after today’s assault.

  Conall waved the piece of bread in his hand. “I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation and thought I ought to make my presence known.”

  Hywel grunted, not liking the idea of Conall being a party to the majority of what he and Gareth had talked about. Conall couldn’t unhear it, however, and Hywel motioned that he should enter the room. “You heard that Erik is dead?”

  “Yes, and that Gareth has done himself another injury.”

  “Merely renewed the old one,” Gareth said. “I was starting to feel a little better too.”

  Conall stepped behind Gareth to peer at his bare back. “Ah.”

  Hywel snorted. He liked this Irish spy. He had an air about him that implied constant amusement, though what had happened to him in Shrewsbury had been far from amusing. Like Gareth, Conall appeared to have a good mind, though he was more willing than Gareth was to compromise his honor in the service of his lord. Hywel suspected that it made him both better and worse at his job than Gareth, and Gareth’s honor hadn’t been something Hywel had regretted for a single moment since he hired him—not even when Gareth was on the trail to catching Hywel himself in wrongdoing. Gareth’s sense of honor was the reason that Hywel had brought him into his retinue in the first place.

  “If you two would give me a moment, I’ll get Gareth out of these wet clothes and bandaged.” Gwen gestured with her head that Hywel and Conall should leave them for the dining room. “Perhaps you could ask the cook to prepare breakfast for two more?”

  Gwen had essentially given Hywel, her lord, an order, but Hywel had known her since he was a boy, and with a hint of a smile at the way she mothered him, her husband, and everyone else, he led Conall from the room. He wouldn’t have been embarrassed to see Gareth stripped naked, and he would have been surprised if Gareth would have felt discomfited either. Upon reflection, however, Gwen was probably less concerned about Gareth’s modesty than his reaction to being bandaged. She didn’t want him to feel the need to hide his weakness and pain because he didn’t want to show it in front of other men more than he already had.

  Hywel settled himself at the long table in the dining room in the seat closest to the fire. The monks lived a frugal existence, with the only fire for their personal use in the warming room underneath the dormitory, but they didn’t expect such sacrifice from guests, something for which Hywel was very grateful. Hywel didn’t think he’d learned much from Rhun’s death—other than how full of grief and anger he could be and still walk—but he knew one thing: life was too short to spend cold.

  Conall went to the fire too and put out his hands to warm them.

  Hywel studied the Irishman for a moment and then said. “If you know anything about Erik’s death, tell me now.”

  Instantly, Conall turned to him, both hands up in a gesture of appeasement. “I know nothing. I saw nothing. I have never been to St. Asaph before. I have never met a half-Dane named Erik. I was fast asleep from the moment my head hit the pallet after I was shown to my room until the bell rang for Lauds. The monk who served me breakfast told me about Erik’s death, but I knew nothing else about it until I overheard you speaking to Gareth and Gwen.”

  That was about as comprehensive a denial as it was possible to give, and Conall had done it with his eyes on Hywel’s and a completely straight face. Hywel let out a low laugh. “Erik is half-Welsh too. He used to serve Prince Godfrid of Dublin—and after that, my uncle Cadwaladr.”

  Conall’s eyes lit. “A man flexible in his allegiances. Men like that are good to know as long as you never turn your back on them.”

  Conall was a spy, so he knew well the vagaries of men’s loyalties. But he might have been specifically referring to the shifting nature of allegiances in Ireland, such that L
einster had at times been allied with Dublin Danes like Godfrid, sometimes ruled them, and at other times fought alongside the Irish clans who opposed them. King Diarmait had even entreated the Normans in south Wales to come to the aid of Leinster against the Danes, perhaps not knowing that the Danes had asked those self-same Normans for help against the Irish.

  For Hywel’s part, he had Welsh, Irish, and Danish blood, but he specifically owed his friend Godfrid, the son of a former king of Dublin, a debt that he suspected he would be working off in the next year or two as Godfrid and his brother finally acted against the usurper of their throne, a fellow Dane named Ottar. How involved the Irish lords of Ireland would be in the fight for the throne of Dublin remained an open question. That was one reason Hywel had been so amiable to Conall: it never hurt to be on the right side of a king of Leinster.

  “And then Erik spied for you,” Conall said, not as a question.

  “It was a recent arrangement, and possibly not one that weighed too heavily on him as I didn’t know he’d returned to Wales. I have no notion as to what he might have been doing in St. Asaph.”

  “Most likely he was coming to speak to you.” Conall went to the narrow window to gaze out at the courtyard. He held his left arm somewhat gingerly across his lower rib cage in an attitude Hywel had seen him in quite often. Never having met Conall before he was injured, Hywel didn’t know if the stance was normal to him or because he was nursing aching ribs. “If he’d arrived at Aber not long after we left, he could have ridden here hard on our heels to arrive within an hour of us. It might be just like a spy to attempt to enter the monastery by the back way rather than go through the front door after midnight.”

  Hywel let out a breath of air that was almost a laugh. Leave it to Conall, the outsider, to see things differently from anyone else. “I hadn’t thought of that. If it turns out you’re right, I will beg forgiveness when I pray for him. Since Erik’s last message we’ve been a little busy—” Hywel laughed for real now, “—but you remind me that I did leave word with Aber’s gatekeeper, in the moments before we left, that if Erik appeared he was to tell him where I’d gone.”

  Conall turned to look at him, his eyes assessing. “Likely he was killed to prevent him from speaking to you.”

  “What could he have had to tell me?” Hywel clenched his hand into a fist and banged it on the table, frustrated that he honestly had no idea. His mind went immediately to what new and terrible plot his Uncle Cadwaladr might have set in motion, but without Erik alive or access to his belongings that might tell them something, Hywel was at a total loss.

  “If someone followed him from Aber, or he was recognized once he arrived, they could have surprised him.” Conall tapped a finger of his right hand to his lower lip as he thought. “Though I must admit, all of this had to have happened in a very short amount of time, and if that’s the case, his death might have been a matter of a chance encounter rather than premeditated.”

  “Perhaps it isn’t that he followed us from Aber but that he was already here, waiting for me, knowing that I would eventually come through here on my way to Mold.” Hywel sighed, acknowledging again, as he seemed to be doing more and more of late, that the price for serving him was often very high. If Erik’s death wasn’t enough to prove it, Gareth’s wounds were a daily reminder.

  “In that case, wouldn’t he have made himself known to some of the men already here?” Conall said. “Prince Cynan’s encampment lies less than a mile from the monastery. Doesn’t your brother oversee this region for your father?”

  “He does, but I doubt Erik would have sought him out,” Hywel said. “Erik’s and my arrangement was known to only a few—or rather, to only one other person.”

  “Gareth.” Conall grinned. “Then it was known to two because Gwen knew as well.”

  Hywel laughed. “Indeed. Regardless, I have yet to speak to Cynan, so perhaps I’m wrong and Erik did go to him. At the very least, one of his men or a monk here at St. Kentigern’s might have seen Erik and be able to tell us about his movements. Such questioning is a task that Gareth and Gwen usually take charge of.”

  “I offer you my service as well in this matter.” Conall spoke formally, and there was no doubting that he felt he could be of use.

  Hywel eyed the Irishman, not sure he was entirely ready to trust Conall with an investigation, though the events in Shrewsbury implied that he could, at least in regard to something over which the King of Leinster had no stake. He canted his head, deciding for the moment that he’d include him. “I accept. Our first task, since we can’t know Erik’s mind and are deprived of all evidence of his death, is to find out if anyone in the village, the encampment, or the monastery saw him. Even more, we should simultaneously be searching for the people who took his body. Hopefully questions about one will lead to answers about the other.”

  Gareth appeared in the doorway. “This is a small community. Someone had to have seen something. And Erik was an easy man to remember.”

  “Have you ever investigated a murder before, Conall?” Hywel said.

  Conall contemplated Hywel for a moment before answering in a completely even tone. “No.”

  Hywel hadn’t meant his question as a criticism. He genuinely wanted to know because it would help Gareth to figure out how much direction to give Conall as the day progressed.

  Gareth tipped his head. “I would be grateful for your help. Between the two of us, we might have one working body.” He snorted laughter.

  “You need more than just Conall, Gareth, if not to help with the questioning then to watch your backs.” Hywel glowered at his captain. “You surely need it.”

  “You have me.” Gwen slipped through the doorway, which Gareth was mostly blocking, and came forward to the table.

  Hywel had forgotten to call for breakfast, and he sent an apologetic look in her direction as he reached for the bell above the mantle. “I will find other men to help, Gareth. You will stay here, Gwen. I won’t risk you. It doesn’t bear thinking about what would have happened if you’d ridden in the cart with Gareth—or instead of Gareth.”

  In a lowered voice, Gareth added, “What I really need you to do, Gwen, is question the monks working within the monastery walls.”

  Gwen expression turned more than a little mutinous, but she didn’t argue out loud, just gave both men a brief nod. Then a monk bustled through the kitchen door, carrying a tray of food and drink for breakfast. He began setting out the dishes on the table. The smell was heavenly. Given the fire, it came as no surprise to Hywel to learn that Abbot Rhys didn’t skimp on other important things either.

  Eyeing the monk, Hywel spoke his next words carefully, not wanting to talk of anything important in an outsider’s presence. “As for you, Conall, if you help Gareth, it might delay even longer your return journey home.”

  Conall shrugged. “Another day or two of absence from Leinster will hardly matter one way or the other. My king knows where I am and when I tell him of what I have learned he will not begrudge time spent in the royal court of Gwynedd. Besides, I’m in no condition for a sea voyage.”

  The monk bowed to them and departed, at which point Gwen began pouring breakfast mead into cups for each of them, and Hywel reached for a serving spoon to ladle porridge into his bowl.

  Gareth turned to Conall. “You should know by now, but it’s only fair to remind you again, that our investigations have a tendency to be far worse than any sea journey.” Gareth accepted a cup from Gwen and looked at her over the rim. “In fact, sometimes they include them.”

  Gwen smiled, though Hywel knew that the memory of her journey to and from Dublin as Cadwaladr’s captive was one of the worst periods of her life. “I will do as you ask and speak to the monks.” She gave a low laugh. “Heaven knows I’ve done it before when you didn’t want me wandering about by myself. I’ll need a sketch to show them, Gareth.”

  “I’ll make several.” Gareth nodded his head to Hywel. “If we discover anything that pertains to the king or to you,
my lord, I’ll let you know immediately. But until then—”

  “Until then, I am the edling.” Hywel spoke matter-of-factly, surprised to find himself completely unresentful of the fact that he was leaving the investigation of Erik’s death to others. “My duty is to my father and to address the treachery of my Uncle Madog.”

  Gareth snorted into his cup. “You do seem to have your share of treasonous uncles, my lord.”

  Hywel looked up from his wooden bowl, taking in Gareth, Gwen, and Conall in a single glance. Despite another murder, a healing shoulder wound, and a brush with death, his friend was laughing again. Hywel was glad to see it. He wasn’t sure where Gareth’s amusement and the general banter around the table was coming from, but it was a welcome change from the heaviness of heart they’d all felt over the last few months in the wake of Rhun’s death. “It may be that our interests will coincide before we’re through.”

  Chapter Five

  Gwen

  Gwen wasn’t pleased to be relegated to questioning the monks as she had at Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury, but she understood why Hywel had given her this task and Gareth had backed him up: they were genuinely afraid of losing her.

  She understood too why the men felt that way and couldn’t add to their burden by knowingly putting herself in danger again. Staying behind at the monastery did mean that she could check in with Tangwen and Gwalchmai (who were still asleep) every so often. Above all, she was a mother, so she couldn’t be sorry that she would remain safe—for her own sake, for Tangwen’s sake, and for that of her unborn child.

  She also wasn’t sorry that staying behind gave her a chance to speak to Abbot Rhys again. He’d been a monk for only ten years, but that Rhys would become the abbot of his monastery had been a foregone conclusion from the moment he’d chosen the Church as his vocation. Gareth had trusted him almost from the moment the two had met, and Rhys had become a friend to both Gwen and Gareth in the subsequent years. Although Rhys had initially balked at Gwen’s participation in the investigations that came their way, he had grown to accept her presence, learned from her, and now treated her in the fashion of a proud and beloved uncle. As a rule, priests and monks didn’t get to have children, and she was pleased to have adopted him in some measure into her own family.