Several hours later, Hywel stood in the darkness of his aunt’s room. The feast that had followed the afternoon’s session had dragged on far too long, but Hywel had managed to escape with the unlikely excuse of desiring a private moment in the church to give thanks for the peace. He’d gone back to the guesthouse instead to wait for his aunt’s return. He didn’t think she’d be long, seeing as how she was prone to pleading a headache. He’d always assumed she’d done so to avoid her husband’s attentions. Now he wondered what else he’d misread if she was willing to sacrifice so much for him.
Light steps came from the corridor, and the door to the room opened. His aunt Susanna stood silhouetted in the doorway, and then she closed the door and crossed to the shutters. Opening them, she looked out, took several deep breaths, and then turned to where Hywel stood in a shadowed corner. “I thought I might find you here.”
Shaking his head to think that even for a moment he could have fooled the woman who’d lived a double life since her marriage, Hywel moved away from the wall. “We need to talk.”
“You know everything you need to—”
“Don’t lie to me,” Hywel said, more sharply than maybe he intended. It had been an emotional day. “You can lie to everyone else, but you have no need to lie to me.” He moved closer. “You and I are two of a kind. You can trust me with the truth. You didn’t order my death, and thus, I don’t believe you did any of these other things either, even for Cadwaladr.” When his aunt tried to interrupt, he forestalled her with a raised hand. “I understand why you did it, as does my father.”
“He knows?”
“Everything,” Hywel said.
“How angry is he?”
“If not for his concern for you, he’d be amused.”
“I can take care of myself,” Susanna said.
“That much is clear,” Hywel said. “What I need to know now is what role you or Madog had in the death of my servant, a half-Dane named Erik, and the theft of silver here at St. Kentigern’s.”
Susanna stared at him. The moonlight was coming in the window, lighting half of her face, but the other half was deeply shadowed. He could tell, however, that she was surprised by the question. “I-I don’t understand.”
Hywel had one arm folded across his chest, and he rubbed at the stubble on his chin with the other hand, watching his aunt. He recognized that his aunt was one of the few people he couldn’t easily read, and he didn’t know if she was lying. He decided that he needed to tell the truth himself, in hopes that it would prompt her to do the same.
“Last night, you were not in bed with a sick headache, but you dosed your maid with poppy juice and saw off Rhodri’s mother, Derwena, with a nine-fingered man. Erik, my servant, was strangled by someone missing strength in the last finger on his left hand and was left submerged in a trough at the barn that was burned today. Five silver pennies were found in the vicinity of the murder scene. When Erik’s body was being transported to the monastery to be examined, it was stolen by a band of men and then later that day turned up in a field nearby—cut open.”
Susanna listened to Hywel’s recitation with wary eyes, and she continued to look at him for a count of five before sighing. She turned to sit somewhat forlornly on the end of the bed, her hands in her lap, looking down at the floor.
“The young guard told you it was I?”
“Gareth and Conall witnessed Rhodri’s arrest on the other side of the monastery, picked up Derwena and questioned her, and then, after they released her, followed her to her meeting with you. Dai, the young guard, happens to be Gareth’s son.”
She looked up at that. “I didn’t know that Gareth had fathered a son.”
“I misspoke. Dai is his foster son.”
Susanna gave an unladylike grunt. “You see where lies have brought us.” She sighed again. “Derwena was your cousin’s wet nurse. Rhodri was just starting to walk when Llywelyn was born. Derwena and Rhodri were living in Llangollen at the time, her husband had died, and it seemed a perfect solution to the burden of having a young widow in the village to bring her into my service. I have known her these many years and, of course, this connection to our court was how Madog and Cadwaladr found Rhodri as one of the men to sack that monastery.”
She looked up at him. “I didn’t find any of this out until very recently, you understand? Not until after you were almost killed.”
“After your husband tried to have me murdered, you mean,” Hywel said—and then instantly regretted it. He put out a hand to her. “I’m sorry, aunt.”
“You speak no more than the truth. Very well, after Madog tried to kill you, I confronted him with it, and he confessed the whole sordid story. He feared that you might find Cadwaladr in Shrewsbury, you see. I don’t know that it occurred to him that you might uncover the slave ring too. He told me also of his agreement with the slavers and then his role in the raid on the monastery at Wrexham, all designed to line his and Cadwaladr’s pockets with easy silver and malign Owain in the process.”
“Did Rhodri believe all along that he’d been paid by Gareth?”
“Cadwaladr set up the raid before Rhun’s death and his own exile. It was the kind of mischief Cadwaladr liked well. Once the imposter was dead, Cadwaladr and Madog knew that Rhodri’s ignorance was still necessary for the deception to be complete. Rhodri had to believe he was telling the truth. Not only that, but our own men had to believe it.”
“So someone else tricked Rhodri into approaching Madog’s encampment, where he could be recognized and arrested.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who?”
“Not for certain.”
Hywel stared at his aunt, waiting for more. When it wasn’t forthcoming, he said, “And Derwena?”
“She had no part in any of this other than confirming for me the details of the sacking of Wrexham, once Rhodri confessed to her that he’d been involved.” Susanna was firm in that. “She followed him here because she feared for his life. I promised her that I would do what I could for him and for her.”
“How could you know that we had questioned her, such that you would send her away so soon after?”
“I didn’t!” Susanna said. “I’d arranged for her to meet me, in order to keep her safe until I got to the bottom of the plot. It was because she was with you that she was late to meet me.”
“Who is the man you sent her away with? He was missing a finger on his left hand and that implicates him in Erik’s murder.”
“He is one of my long-time servants, a man of Powys. He and Derwena have favored each other for years.” She looked directly at Hywel. “He could not have murdered Erik. I swear it. He was traveling with me until we arrived, which I believe was the afternoon after Erik died.”
“You are absolutely sure of it?”
“Yes.”
Hywel grimaced. “I hate coincidences.” He rubbed his forehead, feeling a genuine headache coming on. “Are you telling me that you know nothing of Erik’s death?”
“Not his death.” Susanna put her folded hands to her lips as she might have in prayer and looked at him over the top of them.
It had been a throwaway question, one that Hywel genuinely hadn’t expected any kind of answer to. “But you did know him?”
Her eyes didn’t leave his face. “Erik used to carry messages between Cadwaladr and Madog … and between Cadwaladr’s wife, Alice, and me.”
Hywel rocked back on his heels. “Could he have been doing that when he was killed?”
Now she grimaced. “He was carrying messages, of that I am certain, since he brought one from Alice to me.” She laughed without humor. “If I really did all the things I confessed to doing, I would know more, but I didn’t do those things, so I only know what my husband told me.” She leaned forward and looked intently at Hywel. “You should know, however, that Erik was first and foremost Alice’s man.”
Hywel blinked. “I have been blind, deaf, and dumb.”
“You have been preoccupied.”
/> “What will happen to you now, aunt?”
She canted her head. “Madog will put me aside for a time as punishment. Owain has agreed that I may confine myself to the nunnery at Llanfaes.” She paused. “I have friends on the island, you know.”
She was referring, without a doubt, to Alice, Cadwaladr’s wife. Clearly, Hywel had underestimated his aunt. He didn’t want to think about what those two women could contrive together either—and perhaps what they’d already contrived without his knowledge. “All the way to Anglesey? Madog doesn’t mind you returning to Gwynedd?”
Susanna canted her head. “He owes me.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Gwen
“He surely does owe her—more than any husband ever has,” Gwen said the next afternoon once Hywel finally had a moment’s peace to relate to her and Gareth the entire conversation with Susanna. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t help us with who killed Erik, stole him, or set the barn on fire. And we still haven’t been able to determine whether Deiniol was involved in these thefts or just Lwc.”
“Deiniol and Rhodri claim never to have seen each other before, either on the road to St. Asaph or otherwise,” Hywel said, “so it may well be that the burned body in the barn is Erik’s friend—not that Deiniol recognized him either.”
“The body was badly burned,” Gwen pointed out.
They were talking in the common room of the guesthouse, just the three of them. Last Gwen had seen, Conall and Evan had been at the top of the gatehouse tower, keeping an eye on the comings and goings of men in and out of the monastery. With the peace conference over, Sunday mass celebrated, and the celebratory feast eaten, most of Owain’s men had gone back to the camp in order to oversee to the dispersal of the army. The spring planting and lambing called to them. Nobody was sorry to be going home.
Gwen had seen King Owain in passing that morning, and he had been in high good humor, despite the fact that everything Susanna had said at the conclave was a lie, and he knew it. But he’d played his part. Susanna had saved Hywel from Madog at Dinas Bran, and she was coming to stay at Llanfaes, across the Menai Strait and within sight of Aber. In one sweeping gesture, she’d given Owain breathing room to get his barons back in order and saved her husband from having to fight a war he might not win.
In fact, the two kings had reconciled to such an extent that they’d accepted Prior Rhys’s suggestion that they betrothe Madog’s daughter, Marared, to Iorwerth, King Owain’s son, as a means to further secure the peace. Not only had neither young person objected, but for once it looked as if an arranged marriage would be a happy event for all parties. The church wouldn’t put up any barriers either, since Marared was Madog’s daughter only, and thus not Iorwerth’s first cousin.
Although Gwen was happy that Gwynedd wasn’t going to war against Powys, she had lain awake much of the night listening to her family breathe and thinking long and hard about the way the investigation had stalled out. They still had two bodies on their hands, and it seemed time for some drastic action. “I’ve had an idea, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“What is it? I can tell you that there are few things I like less than having a murderer roaming free in Gwynedd,” Hywel said.
“What if we let Deiniol and Lwc go?” Gwen said.
Hywel coughed a laugh. “Why would we do that?”
“Because we could follow them and see what they do—and if they do it together. We have only Lwc’s word that Deiniol is involved. I, personally, am not satisfied that Lwc is telling the whole truth.” She threw out a hand to point beyond the walls. “Somewhere out there still is the band of men who stole Erik’s body. What if they are the men who sacked Wrexham, and they came here to do the same thing? What if they’re simply waiting for the army to leave so they can sack the monastery? We shouldn’t be leaving it unguarded.”
“I haven’t forgotten them, and you’re right about the guards. At the very least, we can’t leave until we bring this investigation to a conclusion.” Hywel leaned back against the stones beside the fireplace.
Gareth’s expression turned thoughtful. “What if we enlist Rhodri’s help? Madog left him in our charge without stipulating that we keep him imprisoned.”
“The boy might want a chance at redemption.” Hywel canted his head towards Gareth. “Why don’t you go get him and let’s see?”
Gareth stood. “It would be my pleasure.” He strode from the room.
Hywel looked at Gwen, and she had the sudden sense that he had wanted to speak to her alone. “When this investigation is over, I want you to ride to Dolwyddelan to be with Mari. I want you to bring Saran with you.”
Gwen looked at him warily. “She had nothing to do with this, Hywel. She’s an old friend.”
“Whose sister was nursemaid to the royal house of Powys, and who came looking for her just as these events were taking place.” He put up a hand. “But that’s not why I want her at Dolwyddelan. Last week when we were there, Gruffydd had a cough I didn’t like. I know you trust her healing skills, and I want her to look at him.”
Gwen had known that she’d been on borrowed time in regards to staying with Gareth beyond these last weeks, and she was opening her mouth to agree to Hywel’s request when the outside door opened and King Owain himself entered the room. He was alone, which was rare enough to remark upon, though neither Gwen nor Hywel did. Both got immediately to their feet.
“My lord.” Gwen curtseyed.
“Father.” Hywel straightened first. “What is it?”
“Your Aunt Susanna has already left for Llanfaes.”
Hywel drew in a breath. “I was waiting for her, hoping to speak to her one more time.”
“You can visit her at the convent,” Owain said. “For now, you have something more important to attend to.”
“I know. You want me to ride with you to Mold—”
King Owain was shaking his head before Hywel had finished his sentence. “She has paid the sarhad as her debt for the attempt on your life. It includes a patch of land a mile to the south of St. Asaph that came with her on her marriage as part of her dowry. She said you would want to inspect it.” He handed Hywel a rolled up piece of parchment. “Taran has already made over the land to you.”
Hywel took the deed his father offered and unrolled it. “What is this about?”
King Owain spread his hands wide. “I don’t know anything more than I’ve told you.”
“What exactly did she say?”
King Owain pursed his lips as he thought and then said, “Tell my nephew that if he and that fine captain of his should visit the place sooner rather than later, they might find themselves well rewarded for their efforts.” He laughed. “You know how she is when she’s trying to tell you something without actually telling you, but I don’t know what this means.”
Hywel looked at Gwen, who shook her head and said, “I don’t know either, but you ought to do as she asks, don’t you think?”
“I’ll keep a few men with me—Gareth, of course. Evan and Gruffydd. Conall, if he will come.”
King Owain’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about keeping Conall at your side?”
Hywel shrugged. “It’s seems a little late to second guess his presence, and I don’t think we’ll be sorry to have someone we know well among Diarmait’s court in the coming years.”
“I give way to your judgment in this, son. Your brothers and I will move out at dawn tomorrow. Catch us up when you can—after you’ve sorted out everything here.”
“Yes, Father.” Hywel bowed again, looking pleased that his father had accorded him such confidence. His approval had been casual, as if this kind of trust in his son was an everyday occurrence.
King Owain left, and Gwen could hear him shouting for his horse in the courtyard. Gwen and Hywel looked at each other appraisingly. “You should go look at that farmstead,” Gwen said.
“Doing what my aunt asks has always been the wise choice,” Hywel said. Then Gareth’s voice telling Rho
dri to stand up straight resonated outside the door. “First, however, we’ll talk to Rhodri.”
Gareth entered the room holding Rhodri by the scruff of the neck. The young man wasn’t resisting exactly, but he had a sullen look on his face that Gwen recognized. He’d been deceived, and he didn’t like it. If she had to guess, never having spoken to him before, his mother had spoiled him, and he’d never taken on the responsibilities of a man, despite being one.
Gareth dumped him onto a stool in front of Hywel, deliberately making Rhodri look up to see the prince’s face.
Hywel studied him for a moment, no more impressed than Gwen, and then he said abruptly, “Would you like to earn back a portion of your lost honor?”
Gwen wasn’t sure that Rhodri knew what honor was, but his expression cleared slightly, and he nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
“The two monks beside you in the cells—have they spoken?” Hywel said.
Rhodri scoffed. “One blubbers constantly about how he was made to steal and he never meant it. He goes on and on. The other I’ve heard from less, since his is the first cell and mine’s the last, but all he does is pray.”
Hywel kept his gaze on Rhodri, but Gwen and Gareth exchanged a glance. The two monks were staying in their respective roles. It wasn’t going to be easy to catch them changing their story.
“We are going to arrange for you to escape, and then we want you to free them and go with them to wherever they go.”
“How am I to escape?”
Hywel raised his eyebrows at Gareth, who answered, “When we return you to your cell, I will throw you roughly inside, Prince Hywel will haul me off of you—and then forget to lock the cell. The monks will be called away for Vespers, at which point you can free your fellow captives and escape with them. We will follow the best we can, and we’re counting on you to find us and tell us where their hideout is.”
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