Then Conall spoke from behind them. “I’d like to take a look at your bags, Deiniol, before you go.”
“Of course you may, but why would you want to?” For the first time, Deiniol’s placating smile faltered, and anger flashed in his eyes for a single heartbeat before he mastered it.
“That would be because Prince Iorwerth and I spent the last half-hour watching Lwc carrying the monastery’s wealth from the treasury to the stable,” Gwalchmai said in a voice loud enough to carry to Iorwerth, who nodded vigorously back.
“Lwc! Why would you do such a thing?” Deiniol took a step to one side, putting space between him and Lwc. Gareth now edged closer, encroaching on Lwc’s space as Gwen was on Deiniol’s.
For his part, Lwc’s face paled and stayed pale, making him far easier to read, even for Gwalchmai. Gwen noticed too, and her lips pressed together tightly as she looked at the young monk.
Deiniol was a good enough mummer for an Easter play, and even Gwalchmai might have been convinced of his innocence if Lwc hadn’t taken that moment of distraction to rabbit. He dashed past Gwalchmai, knocking him off balance with a hard shove, and disappeared through the open gate.
Gwalchmai was after him in an instant. “I got him!”
He took off at a hard run, knowing that neither Conall nor Gareth were in any shape to run anywhere.
After leaving the gatehouse, Lwc took a right so as to head west, towards the bridge across the river. Gwalchmai pounded down the road after him, not really gaining but not falling behind either. Then Lwc reached the corner of the monastery and took a right, heading down the road in the direction of the fire. Smoke wafted into the afternoon sky, blowing east. As he ran, Gwalchmai was trying to predict what Lwc thought he was doing, since he was running directly towards a hundred men, any one of whom could stop him simply by standing in the middle of the road and blocking it. Perhaps he hoped to swim the river and escape that way.
After another fifty yards or so, Gwalchmai realized that he was definitely gaining on the young monk, who’d had to hike up his long robes and hold them above his knees to free his legs. Gwalchmai could simply pound along, his arms and legs pumping furiously. He was only a hundred feet behind when Conall passed him on horseback. Another fifty yards farther on, Lwc swerved to the left into the trees that lined the river, except they’d reached the vicinity of the millpond and watermill. The young monk launched himself over the stone wall that marked the mill’s domains. With a desultory casualness, Conall’s horse leapt it immediately after.
By the time Gwalchmai clambered over the wall himself, Lwc was on the ground in the clearing before the mill where grain carts parked, with Conall’s knee in his back and Conall’s horse casually chuffing at the margins of the clearing for grass. As Gwalchmai trotted up, his breath coming less in gasps than it had a moment ago, Conall waved a hand to his saddle bags. “Rope, if you will.”
“Yes, sir.” Gwalchmai unbuckled the satchel on the back of Conall’s horse and rummaged inside until he came up with a length of rope, which he tossed to the Irishman. If anyone asked, Gwalchmai could say with certainty that Conall himself possessed no jewels or coins beyond what was in his purse. Not that Gwalchmai would have expected otherwise, but it was good to be thorough.
Conall quickly tied Lwc’s hands behind his back, pulled him to his feet, and gave him a little shake. “You stole from the monastery, yes? Gwalchmai can testify that you did, so don’t bother to lie.”
“Yes.” Lwc’s head was down. Every line of his body spoke of misery.
“Is this the first time, or did you steal a few pennies last week?”
“That wasn’t me.”
Conall frowned and glanced at Gwalchmai, who already knew from his eavesdropping that some money had been missing from the monastery before today. It was odd for Lwc to lie about it, however, since he was well and truly caught. “Where did you put what you stole? Will I find it in Deiniol’s bags?”
“No. It’s in the stable, hidden in grain sacks.”
“Whose idea was it to burn the barn to the ground?” Conall said. “Yours or Deiniol’s?”
Lwc’s head came up. “That wasn’t us! We didn’t burn anything!”
“You’re trying to tell me that you never planned to steal from the monastery, but the opportunity presented itself so you took it?” Conall’s voice was dripping with disdain.
“No! We were going to do it after the peace conference ended. With so many people about, it’s easier to keep your head down and do whatever you like. That’s what Deiniol said, and it’s true! We just had to wait until Abbot Rhys was occupied. It was meant to be tonight at dinner, which is being held at the Powys encampment.”
“How about murder?” Conall said. “Was it you who killed Erik to stop him from exposing your plan to steal from the monastery?”
Lwc shook his head frantically back and forth. Gwalchmai felt a little sick to see the fear on his face. “I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Why was Deiniol leaving if the gold was still in the stable?” Conall said. “What was supposed to happen next?”
“This evening at dusk, I was to wheel it in a hand barrow out the back gate of the monastery. We figured that with everyone at the dinner, it would be easy to slip by without anyone asking questions.”
“And what about you?” Gwalchmai said because he couldn’t help himself. His dismay had turned to disgust. “How much were you to keep for yourself?”
Lwc’s mouth dropped open, and he looked pleadingly at Conall. “The gold wasn’t for me! It was for my monastery. Deiniol was going to give it to our abbot so he could rebuild it!”
Gwalchmai took a step forward. “You came from Wrexham too?”
Lwc nodded frantically.
Conall barked a laugh. “What kind of sense does it make to steal treasure from one monastery to rebuild another?”
Uncertainty entered Lwc’s eyes. “Uh … well … Deiniol said that the bishop took the gold that should have gone to Wrexham and gave it to Abbot Rhys. Deiniol said that Abbot Rhys didn’t deserve his station, that he was grasping and ambitious—” Lwc broke off, head hanging down again.
Conall let his silent disbelief drag out for a count of ten. Lwc refused to look at either of them.
“Are you even a monk?” Gwalchmai said.
That question had his head jerking up again. “Of course I’m a monk! I came as an infant to Wrexham!”
“How is it that you came to St. Asaph to be the abbot’s secretary?” Conall said.
“I can read and write. Deiniol told me how to write out the orders so they’d be believed. Deiniol had the bishop’s seal to mark it, and then he sent me here in advance of him. After the thefts, I was to stay another week and then head back south.” Lwc hung his head again. It was an odd pose for a man who’d just stolen a fortune from a monastery.
Conall noted the irony too. “You have an interesting relationship with the Ten Commandments, son.” He canted his head as he looked at Lwc. “How long was Deiniol a monk at Wrexham?”
Lwc’s face went blank for a moment, as if it had just occurred to him that Deiniol might be not what he seemed. Gwalchmai wasn’t yet sixteen, but he’d sung for kings since he was nine years old. He watched people out of need and habit and because, more often than not, up until they’d returned to Aber four years ago, he’d always been on the outside of every social situation, looking in to what he couldn’t have.
“He arrived a fortnight before we were raided, riding from Abbey Cwm Hir.” Lwc paused. “Or so he said. The abbot believed him,” Lwc ended, somewhat defensively.
Gwalchmai pulled on his lower lip as he thought. “What about Brother Anselm?”
“What about him?”
“I remember Gwen saying that the two of you arrived in St. Asaph together, both sent from the bishop. That was a lie in your case. What about his? Is he working for Deiniol too?”
“No!” Again, Lwc looked horrified. “I joined him on the road, just a few hours out from St. As
aph. He seemed surprised to see me, but because I had a letter from the bishop too, he accepted me.”
“This is Bishop Meurig of Bangor, yes?” Conall said.
Lwc nodded. “But he isn’t in Bangor right now. He journeyed to Chester on St. Dafydd’s day and is still there, meeting with Chester’s bishop and visiting Lichfield and Coventry.” Lwc spoke these words rapidly, as if he didn’t know them to be true for himself but had heard someone else say them.
Conall barked a laugh at Lwc’s pedantic tone. “You heard that from Abbot Rhys, did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You respect him—Abbot Rhys, that is—don’t you?” Gwalchmai said. “You know that what Deiniol told you isn’t true, don’t you? You probably knew it from your first day at the monastery.”
Lwc was back to staring at his feet. “I do.”
Conall put a gloved finger to Lwc’s chin, forcing him to look up. “Then why would you steal the monastery’s wealth?”
“I didn’t have a choice—” he broke off.
“How so?” Conall said.
Lwc’s lower lip stuck out. He was affecting a pose like Gwalchmai might have at five years old when Gwen caught him in wrongdoing. “Deiniol threatened to tell the abbot that I had come here to steal. I didn’t want the abbot to think badly of me.”
“How did you think he was going to feel when he found the monastery’s wealth gone, you gone, and his monastery sacked?” Conall said.
Lwc gaped at him. “What did you say? Who said anything about sacking?”
Conall tsked through his teeth at Lwc’s foolishness. “Theft at Wrexham and theft at St. Asaph—and Deiniol and you present at both places. Is anyone going to think that’s a coincidence? How long before the band of marauders arrive to take what’s left and destroy the monastery?”
“Those were men from Gwynedd! Hired by King Owain! Everybody knows that! Deiniol said that King Madog captured one of the men responsible last night!” Lwc was practically gasping with righteousness at being so falsely accused.
Conall studied him, tugging on one ear again, which Gwalchmai was beginning to recognize as something he did when he was thinking. “What the king is going to believe, rather than anything you’ve said so far because it defies reason that anyone could be so foolish, is that you’ve been in league with the bandits all along. You let them into Wrexham, and then you came to St. Asaph to try the same thing here. The peace conference upended your plans, so you set fire to the barn to distract everyone, stole the treasure, and were about to ride away with it.” Conall looked at Gwalchmai. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”
Gwalchmai tried to look very serious. “It does.” He marveled at how the boy could have been so thoroughly deceived. Of course, he hadn’t been raised on the road as Gwalchmai had, but in a monastery. If nothing else, however, Lwc should have known that stealing was wrong, no matter how desperate the need.
“No, no, no! That’s not it at all!”
Conall dragged Lwc over to his horse and lashed the end of a second piece of rope around his wrists. He kept tight hold of the other end, even as he boosted Gwalchmai onto the horse’s back. “Tell Gareth and Gwen what Lwc has said. We’ll be along shortly.”
Looking down at the pair of them, Gwalchmai hesitated, wanting to say something, to thank Conall for including him and trusting him. He wanted to sneer at Lwc for being perhaps the stupidest man he’d ever met.
Misunderstanding Gwalchmai’s hesitation, Conall said, “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt him.”
Gwalchmai nodded, relieved, and urged the horse towards the stone wall. But just before the horse leapt it, he caught Conall’s laughter and added comment, “—much.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Hywel
For the last quarter of an hour since he’d left Rhodri’s cell and arrived in the courtyard, Hywel had been getting an earful, first from Gareth and Gwen about what had been going on since he’d last spoken to them, and then from Iorwerth, detailing his surveillance of Lwc’s theft of the treasury. It was hard to believe so much could have gone wrong in so short a time—hard to believe, that is, if he hadn’t been associated with Gareth and Gwen for as long as he had. Deiniol, one of the apparent culprits keeping Hywel from his father’s side, had been tied at the wrists and attached by a rope to a post in the stable, out of earshot of Gareth’s narration but not out of sight.
Then Conall’s horse turned under the gatehouse, Gwalchmai instead of Conall mounted on its back, and trotted up to where the trio were standing.
“Did you catch him?” Gareth said by way of a greeting.
Gwalchmai dropped to the ground with an envious agility. Hywel wasn’t injured like Gareth, but he was tired—and growing older. His muscles were stiffer after riding in a way that hadn’t been the case a few years ago.
“Conall did. Lwc told us a tale, one worth hearing. It might even be true.” Gwalchmai lifted his chin to glare in Deiniol’s direction and raised his voice so that it could be heard across the distance. “He says Deiniol murdered Erik.”
At the accusation, Deiniol showed a surfeit of emotion, struggling against the rope that bound him so that he could move closer. “He can’t have said that! I didn’t murder anyone. I didn’t steal anything either.”
“Did he really say that Deiniol murdered Erik?” Gareth said in an undertone to Gwalchmai.
Gwalchmai turned his face away from Deiniol. “No, but he did blame Deiniol for the idea to steal from the monastery. The treasure is hidden in sacks of feed in the stable. Lwc was going to wheel them out in a handbarrow later tonight.”
Gareth put a hand on Gwalchmai’s shoulder. “Good work.” He strode off, past Deiniol and into the stable.
Gwalchmai and Gwen in tow, Hywel approached Deiniol. “If you didn’t murder Erik, do you mean to imply that you convinced Lwc to murder Erik for you?”
“What’s this about murder? There’s been no murder—not by me!” Deiniol said. “You can’t think it!”
Hywel canted his head. “Do you know who I am?”
Gareth had greeted Hywel when he’d arrived as my prince, so if Deiniol had been paying attention at all he should know that Hywel was a man of importance, even if he didn’t realize that he was the edling.
Deiniol’s jaw clenched. Given that Deiniol had been caught with Lwc, and that he was also their only witness to the existence of Erik’s friend, they’d gone full circle with him. It was doubtful that they could believe anything he said.
Still, Hywel took his refusal to answer as an assent of a kind and said, “Then you know that I have the power to hang you right now for murder on Lwc’s word. We are in the middle of a war, and we don’t have time for the niceties of lawyering. Can you produce anyone to vouch for your innocence?”
Deiniol licked his lips, looking more uncertain with every breath. “No, my lord.”
“Then you would be wise to admit to the lesser charge of theft and tell us what you did do rather than risk the greater one, don’t you think?” Gareth returned from the stable, holding a silver candlestick in one hand and a bag of coins in the other.
Deiniol tugged fruitlessly on his bindings. “I have never seen those before! This is not my doing, but Lwc’s! I came into the stable at the same time Lwc was tying closed one of the feed sacks. I had nothing to do with any theft! I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. You have to believe me.”
“We really don’t,” Gareth said.
Deiniol’s eyes moved from Gareth’s face to something beyond Hywel. Hywel turned to look and saw Conall and Lwc entering under the gatehouse, Lwc on a leading rein. The boy looked appropriately cowed, a little rough around the edges with dirt smearing the front of his robe, but his face showed no bruising.
At the sight of Hywel, Gwen, and Gareth at the entrance to the stable with Deiniol tied to a post, Conall stopped fifty feet away and didn’t approach. Hywel jerked his head in the direction of the cloister, thinking it wise to keep Lwc and Deiniol separated
until he heard the full story from both of them. Conall tugged Lwc towards the far side of the courtyard, and Hywel turned back to Deiniol, whose eyes had bugged out a little at the sight of the younger monk.
Hywel pursed his lips and then waved a hand. “Watch them, you two,” he said, referring to Iorwerth and Gwalchmai, “while we confer.”
The four adults moved to the center of the courtyard, equal distance between the two culprits but no closer to understanding what was really going on here.
“What exactly did Lwc say?” Hywel said to Conall.
While Conall gave a summary of his interrogation of Lwc, Hywel’s eyes stayed on the boy. He sat on the ground in his dirty robe, his knees pulled up and his chin resting on them. Then he turned to look at Deiniol, whose expression had turned even more apprehensive.
Conall concluded with a lifted chin. “What does Deiniol say?”
“He denies any wrongdoing, up to and including having a hand in the thefts,” Gareth said.
“Can we believe either of them?” Gwen said.
Hywel looked at her, thinking her comment uncharacteristically suspicious. “You don’t think Lwc speaks the truth?”
“Clearly he’s involved since Gwalchmai and Iorwerth saw him stealing from the treasury, and we’ve recovered what he stole. But it’s awfully convenient of him to play the innocent and put all the blame on Deiniol, who we have so far caught in no wrongdoing.”
“We simply find him smarmy and off-putting.” Conall spoke matter-of-factly, in a manner Hywel had grown accustomed to hearing from him.
“Does it change anything to know that I spoke with Rhodri just now, and he claims that he was paid by my father to be among those who sacked the monastery?” Hywel said. “He accuses Gareth of being his paymaster, and he is prepared to say so in front of everyone at the conclave.”
The three others gaped at him, prompting a harsh laugh from Hywel.
“Not again!” Gwen was holding Gareth’s hand so tightly her knuckles whitened. “How do we prove otherwise?”
The Unexpected Ally Page 18