The Unexpected Ally

by Sarah Woodbury

  The immediate grounds of the monastery were surrounded by a stone wall, which started out ten feet high at the gatehouse, where the main road ran east to west through St. Asaph, and also along the road by the river, which Gareth had traveled in his aborted attempt to bring Erik’s body to the chapel. By the time the wall had run around two-thirds of the monastery, however, it was more like six feet high—about Gareth’s height—and more of a deterrence to trespass than an actual barrier to an invader.

  Gruffydd stood atop the wall, a dark shape against the lighter evening sky, straddling the exact corner of the wall with his legs spread wide, one foot on the wall running east-west and the other on the one running north-south. The wall was only two feet thick here, and there was no wall-walk or steps up. Gruffydd wasn’t holding a torch, which was only to be expected if he wanted to see anything beyond the margins of the monastery, and Gareth and Evan hadn’t chosen to carry one either. If they had, they might have missed Gruffydd in the dark.

  Gareth and Evan stopped a few paces away and looked up at him. “See anything?”

  “Sheep. Many sheep. And a party of men I’m not liking at all.”

  “Whose men?” Gareth cast around for a way to climb onto the wall, and Gruffydd pointed to a tree to Gareth’s right. If he grasped one of the lower branches, he could swing himself up into the tree and then step over to the wall. Doing so might be painful, but he let Evan go first to show him that it could be done, and he used his good right arm to heave himself into the tree. He tried not to think about the fact that Gwalchmai could have done this without a second thought. Growing old wasn’t for the faint of heart. Then again, he wasn’t ready for his death bed either, even if during this last week he’d felt sometimes like he was already on it.

  Evan steadied him once he was up, and the two men picked their way along the top of the wall to where Gruffydd stood, still unmoving, his arms folded across his chest.

  Torches flared in the distance, perhaps three hundred yards away across the orchards and fields that formed this part of the monastery’s property.

  The monastery itself was laid out in a long rectangle, with the main gate facing south along the east-west road that ran through St. Asaph. The gatehouse protected the primary buildings of the monastery, which lay beyond the cobbled courtyard and were approximately a hundred yards at the widest and perhaps a hundred and fifty yards deep north to south. All of this was enclosed by the stone wall, which protected the most vital portions of the monastery’s gardens and upon which Gareth and the others were currently standing.

  From here, however, the monastery’s lands fanned out, with the river running north to south on the far western side, and the eastern road making a wide curve around a portion of the monastery’s expansive pastureland, fields, and orchards.

  From his position on the wall, Gareth could see the flames of at least a dozen campfires, and he realized what he was seeing. “It’s Madog’s camp.”

  Gruffydd grunted. “I thought they had set up their tents farther to the east.”

  “Apparently not.” Gareth peered into the distance as shouts echoed across the fields. “Perhaps Madog hopes to flank us.”

  “I would have preferred to go to war against them,” Gruffydd said.

  Gruffydd had been with Hywel when Madog had tried to burn them alive, so he had every right to his anger, even if it wasn’t a very fruitful emotion and clouded a man’s judgment.

  “These men didn’t do anything but be born in Powys,” Gareth said matter-of-factly. He didn’t want Gruffydd to think he was being condescending, but if he was going to be useful to Hywel, he needed to rein that anger in—as they all did. “It isn’t their fault their lord is a treacherous bastard.”

  Then a shout came from much closer by, followed by a woman’s shriek, “Stay away from me!” The words echoed to them from a small stand of fruit trees on a low hill between fields two hundred feet from where they stood. Gareth thought he even heard a somewhat ominous thud as something heavy—like a body—hit the ground.

  The three men looked at each other and, without needing to say anything about it, Gruffydd and Evan jumped off the wall. A six-foot drop was going to jar Gareth’s shoulder, so he took the long way down, this time using the overhanging branch of the same tree as a brace to ease himself down to the ground outside the monastery wall. By the time he reached level ground, Evan and Gruffydd were well ahead of him.

  He ran after them, holding his left arm close to his body and cursing. He pulled up at the edge of the trees, finding the darkness under them a sharp contrast to the brighter sky outside, and followed his friends into the woods. The rich smell of apple blossoms filled the air.

  Someone moaned up ahead, allowing him to more accurately pinpoint where he was supposed to go, and then he bumped into someone’s back.

  “Careful.” Evan put out a hand. “It’s Conall.”

  Sure enough, beyond Evan, a strand of moonlight made it through the leafy canopy overhead, and shone down on Conall, who was moaning as he pushed himself to all fours. Gruffydd put a hand under his arm and helped him to his feet, at which point Gareth stepped out from behind Evan. “What happened?”

  “I have no idea.”

  With an exasperated tsk, Gareth went to Conall’s other side and steadied him. He weaved a bit, and between Gareth and Gruffydd, they helped him hobble out of the trees to a low wall that surrounded the next pasture and sat him on it.

  Conall hung his head, his arm across his belly, breathing hard. “This I did not need today.”

  “What were you doing in the trees?” Gareth said.

  “I was watching Madog’s camp.” Conall lifted his head. “I don’t see any of you celebrating mass with the two kings either.”

  Gareth laughed under his breath. “No. We left that to men greater—and possibly braver—than ourselves.”

  Conall bobbed a nod. “Your politics are just like ours—full of intrigue between close family members. The last thing I want to do is involve myself or Leinster in that, but since I was here, I thought I could be of use in one of the few ways I know how.”

  “Scouting,” Evan guessed.

  Another bob, though Conall arrested the movement halfway through as it seemed to hurt him. “I was minding my own business—or rather, Madog’s—when I bumped into a woman. She screamed and hit me.”

  None of the other men could keep the smirks off their faces.

  “It did sound like a woman,” Evan said.

  Conall groaned and rolled his eyes. “I will never live this down. In my weakened condition—” Conall’s tone was full of ironic laughter, “—I couldn’t defend myself.”

  “In other words, she got the jump on you, and you let her go rather than stab her with your belt knife,” Gruffydd said.

  Conall scoffed. “She was plump and older.” He lifted his chin to point at Gareth. “You would have done the same.”

  “I would have squealed too.” Gareth relented a little from his smirking laughter.

  But then a caterwauling scream from a real female’s voice rose up near the lights in the distance. “No! No! He didn’t do anything! He came here in good faith. You can’t take him!”

  The woman continued to lament, but her cries faded to a more generalized weeping. “You two stay here.” Gruffydd pointed at Gareth and Conall, and then he and Evan sprinted off.

  Conall groaned again, straightening while still leaning against the wall. “Come on. You don’t take orders from him, right?”

  Shaking his head and laughing, Gareth wrapped his good arm around Conall’s waist to help him to the other side of the wall. They crossed two fields, following Gruffydd and Evan, who’d leapt the walls athletically. Conall and Gareth chose to detour both times to a nearby stile and eventually came out onto a road that ran between the monastery fields and a rising hill upon which Madog’s men had pitched their tents.

  A woman knelt in the center of the road, hunched over with her arms around her waist, sobbing. She was alone
now because the party of men to whom she’d directed her protests was moving away from her towards the camp and even now was passing the first sentry points. Though the road was completely dark, torches lit up the camp, and Gareth could make out the silhouettes of at least eight men, one of whom had his wrists bound behind his back, which Gareth could tell because the two men on either side of him had grasped his elbows and were hauling him along.

  Gruffydd and Evan had stopped beside the woman, looking between her and the men and hesitating.

  Gareth called ahead to them. “Don’t. Wait.” He and Conall hurried the last few paces to where they waited. Gareth was breathing hard from his effort. Annoyingly, Evan and Gruffydd seemed completely unaffected by their run.

  Gareth stopped beside Gruffydd and spoke in an undertone. “We are men of Gwynedd, and those are Madog’s soldiers. We can’t involve ourselves in whatever this is about—not without learning more first. King Owain wouldn’t thank us for that.” Then he turned to the woman, whom Conall was helping to her feet. “We heard you cry out. What’s this about?”

  “They took my son!”

  All the men looked again to the camp. Madog’s soldiers and their prisoner had disappeared into its depths.

  “Why would they do that?” Gareth said.

  “I don’t know!” Her answer came out a wail. “All they said was that he was a wanted man.”

  “But they didn’t say what he was wanted for?” Gruffydd said.

  “No!” Again the wail, but this time there was a tone to the protest that didn’t ring entirely true.

  Gareth’s eyes narrowed. “He must have done something.”

  The woman put a hand to her heart and took in a breath. “I don’t—I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Then her attention went to Conall as if seeing him for the first time, even though he’d been the one to help her to her feet. Her eyes widened, and she pointed at him with a trembling hand. “That’s the man who attacked me in the woods!”

  “I didn’t attack you, woman,” Conall said. “You ran into me.”

  She glared at him. “What were you doing in the woods?”

  “The same as you, I imagine. Spying on Madog’s camp.”

  “I wasn’t spying!” Her response was heated, but when the men around her simply looked at her, she settled down. “All right. I was following my son. But that’s not really spying. It’s being a good mother.”

  Gareth found himself on the edge of patience. By now the party of men and the woman’s son were long gone, and the camp emitted only the usual noises of men talking and laughing as they ate and drank. The men weren’t necessarily prepared for imminent war, but Gareth counted at least six sentries, spread out on the perimeter of this side of the camp—and those were just the ones he could see. “Let’s start at the beginning. What is your name and the name of your son?”

  “I’m Derwena, and that’s my son Rhodri.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gwen

  The four men heard the whole story from Derwena on the way back to the monastery, and she (quite willingly) went through it all again in the dining room of the guesthouse for the benefit of Gwen, Meilyr, and Saran, who had returned by then. The sisters had been jubilant at their reunion, even if both women were dismayed to know that Rhodri was a captive in Madog’s camp.

  Gwen had seen to Conall’s injuries already and put him to bed with a warm compress and a carafe of mead. As it turned out, the retinues of neither king had chosen to stay in the guesthouse, except for Hywel, who at the moment was dining at the Gwynedd camp, and Susanna, who’d gone to bed with a sick headache. Gruffydd, Evan, and Gareth had done a quick canter around each man’s obligations and responsibilities, ending with Gruffydd departing to speak to Hywel of the night’s events. Tangwen was asleep, and Gwalchmai had gone to the church to sing for Compline. Abbot Rhys knew well Gwalchmai’s worth, and Gwen suspected that he would employ him to the fullest capacity as long as the young bard was a guest in his house.

  Thus it was Evan, Gareth, Saran, and Gwen who gathered around Derwena to listen to the story. Meilyr was there too, but he’d found a seat in the corner with his lyre and was playing a gentle melody. Gwen assumed that he was listening, but he had deliberately set himself apart so as not to become involved in their business or the investigation until he was wanted.

  “The part you haven’t yet explained is why exactly Madog’s men arrested Rhodri,” Gwen said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice but undoubtedly failing.

  Derwena looked down at her feet. So far, Gwen had been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because she was Saran’s sister and obviously under great duress. But there was something shifty about her wide-eyed innocence, and when she talked, she didn’t always look directly at anyone. It could have been that she was embarrassed, but equally, it could be because she wasn’t telling the entire truth. Saran was one of the most intelligent people Gwen knew, man or woman, but it was possible that Derwena hadn’t been given the same gifts.

  “Rhodri has been secretive of late. He didn’t want me to come north with him, but I put that off as simply his concern for his mother’s wellbeing.” Derwena shook her head. “But now I fear it was something more.”

  Gwen didn’t know everything there was to know about young men—less than many women, certainly—but she suspected that few wanted their mothers along on their adventures even if they weren’t doing anything that would put them in prison. Again, it was a naiveté on Derwena’s part that Gwen found disconcerting. She didn’t say anything, though—just allowed Derwena to keep talking.

  “What sort of more are you thinking of?” Gareth said.

  Derwena’s eyes flicked around the room. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  Saran had her arms folded across her chest and was studying her sister. “Anything at all will help us to understand what’s happening here and maybe to get Rhodri back.”

  Gwen was glad it was Saran who’d said that, because it felt like Derwena was a hair’s-breadth away from closing up.

  Derwena shook her head, her eyes back on her feet. “It could be that Rhodri was passing information. Maybe.”

  “From whom to whom?” Saran said. “Rhodri serves King Owain, but he was arrested by King Madog’s men. Are you saying he spied for King Owain?”

  Saran’s assessment seemed to leave her sister speechless. She shook her head again, her eyes on the floor, and then shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”

  Saran went down to a crouch in front of her sister, like Gwen might in front of Tangwen when her daughter was having a hard time conveying her thoughts. “None of us believe that Rhodri spies for Owain, Derwena. Whom did he really serve?”

  But even Saran couldn’t get anything more out of Derwena. She’d gone mute, and just shook her head.

  “Derwena, do you have a place to stay tonight?” Gwen broke in.

  “She can stay with me,” Saran said before Derwena could answer. “Earlier I spoke with the healer here in St. Asaph, and she made me welcome.”

  “No—” Derwena put out a hand. “I would be glad to stay with you, but I will not be an unwanted guest.” Saran opened her mouth—perhaps to protest—but Derwena overrode her. “She invited you, not me. I have a place with some of the other women in the encampment.” Derwena stood and brushed her hands down her skirt, smoothing the fabric. “I’ll just go.” And with a few hasty steps, she was out the door and gone.

  Gareth jerked his head towards the door. “Evan and I should follow.”

  There was a time when Gwen would have wanted to go with him, maybe as recently as two weeks ago in Shrewsbury when she did go with him, but she had duties here, not the least of which was Saran herself. From the way Saran was holding her arms around her middle, she was less than pleased with how the evening had gone.

  Once Gwen, Meilyr, and Saran were alone, Meilyr stopped the music and put down the instrument he was holding. Saran paced in front of the fire, the fingers of one hand playing with th
e end of her long braid, which was otherwise coiled around her head. When Gwen had known her in Carreg Cennan, her hair had been coal-black, but a startling white streak now rose from her widow’s peak, and elsewhere the black was shot with strands of white.

  “What are you thinking, Saran?” Gwen said after Saran had paced around a little more.

  “She’s my sister.” Saran took in a deep breath and let it out.

  Meilyr pulled one of the stools closer to him and put his feet up on it. “We know she’s your sister, Saran, and that you want to think the best of her—and want the best for her. Even if it’s been a long time since you’ve seen us, you should know that you can tell us what troubles you.”

  She gave him a genuine smile. “I have seen you at your worst.”

  Meilyr nodded, his eyes on Saran’s face. “Yes, you have. Things are better now.”

  “I can see that.” Saran’s eyes went to Gwen. “My sister is two years younger than I. She was the baby of the family, prettier than I, and she has always used her prettiness to get what she wanted.”

  “I would not have said that Derwena is prettier than you now,” Gwen said.

  “She’s had a hard life, and any woman who reaches middle age as we have has lost her beauty by now. She had more beauty to lose. Her husband died when Rhodri was a child, and since then she has struggled to support them with her small flock of sheep.” Saran sighed. “Rhodri grew up clever but not wise or intelligent, if you know the difference?”