If Rhun hadn’t known it before, he was learning it now: when Gwen focused, very little could deter her from her chosen path. Some might claim that doggedness was a man’s trait, but Rhun knew quite a few women with that characteristic, some of whom had far less tact than Gwen. Rhun’s stepmother, Cristina, came instantly to mind, and half-shuddering, Rhun pushed away her image.
Hywel had teased Rhun only this morning about his quest for a wife, wondering how he was going to find one stuck away in the backwater that was Aberystwyth. What Hywel didn’t yet know—and Rhun wasn’t going to tell him until things had progressed much farther than they so far had—was that he was well on his way to finding his own wife.
Rhun had been spending the summer supporting his brother’s rule of Ceredigion, and in so doing, Rhun had traveled multiple times at Hywel’s behest to visit Dinefwr Castle, the seat of King Cadell of Deheubarth. Relations had been more cordial than Rhun (or Hywel) might have expected, considering that Hywel was ruling Ceredigion, which Cadell considered part of Deheubarth and rightfully under his jurisdiction.
While Rhun had been overtly supporting Hywel’s agenda, he had also been pursuing his own. Cadell had a niece, Angharad, who had caught Rhun’s eye. When Cadell had agreed to attend Hywel’s festival, the king had also promised that Angharad would accompany him to Aberystwyth.
But even if Gwen had known about Angharad, Rhun’s romantic prospects were the last thing that she was concerned about right now. Rhun, however, hoped that this murder would be cleared up quickly, before Angharad arrived. He didn’t want anything to distract him from her, even as—almost against his wishes—he could feel a growing sense of obligation to discover who had murdered this poor, unnamed peasant.
Prior Rhys seemed to be feeling it too. He bared his teeth in a silent grimace as he looked through the overhanging branches, thick with leaves this time of year, to the millpond. “Stabbed is it? What do you say to the idea that the dead man and his killer conversed in this small space?” He made a sweeping motion with his arm to indicate the area under the trees a dozen feet from the edge of the pond. “They argued, one man stabbed the other, he fell, and then the murderer dragged the body into the pond, hoping to wash away the evidence.”
“I can see it,” Prince Rhun said. “He hoped the body would sink as drowned bodies are supposed to.”
Prior Rhys raised his eyebrows.
“Thus Gwen explained to me just now,” Rhun added. “The killer would have wanted to put time and space between him and the body immediately. Hiding the evidence was one way to do that. He should have buried it instead.”
“It takes time and effort to dig a grave deep enough to bury a man, time the murderer may not have had,” Prior Rhys said. “Not to mention a shovel.”
“It would have been difficult to keep quiet about it this close to the road and the monastery too,” Prince Rhun agreed. “The millpond must have seemed like an easy solution.”
“Prior.” Teilo was back, ducking his head in obeisance. “We haven’t found anything else.”
Prior Rhys nodded. “Thank you for your efforts.” He dismissed the monk to help his brother monk guard the body. Then he sent Teilo off too, with a warning not to gossip about what he’d seen. Given Teilo’s bright eyes, Rhun suspected the warning fell on deaf ears. It was a good thing Teilo hadn’t witnessed Gwen’s examination of the body because the story he would tell would be that the man had drowned, just as they wanted.
Prior Rhys looked at Gwen. “If the murderer left the area, we may never catch him.”
“We can’t think that way,” Gwen said. “Hywel always tells me to pull on any thread that’s offered and unravel it to see where it leads. If the murderer has left Aberystwyth, we will know soon enough.”
Prince Rhun’s brows came together. “That would make the murderer a newcomer to the area—”
“Since the alarm hasn’t been raised about the dead man’s absence, he appears to be a stranger too,” Prior Rhys said. “Plenty of strangers here for the festival.”
“Yes,” Prince Rhun said, “but if the murderer is one of the visitors to the festival he won’t have left yet. Gwen told me that if our dead man had drowned, he would have stayed under the water for days, giving the murderer enough time to see the festival through and depart before the body was found.”
“How do we know the stab wound was what killed him? Not all such wounds are fatal.” The prior had turned to face Rhun, and it was with a small degree of surprise that Rhun realized the prior was taking him seriously. Rhun had always felt that Rhys considered him something of a spoiled princeling, dismissing him in favor of Hywel, who was more clever and less open than Rhun.
It had never bothered Rhun that the prior had assessed him thus and found him wanting—or at least it hadn’t bothered him very much. Rhun knew that his father looked upon him with favor. He was the etifedd, the first born son and heir to the throne. It was his birthright to be favored. Rhun could give way in favor of his younger brother once in his life.
Still, in his own mind, Rhun had never meant to play the princeling or take for granted what God had given him, which was why he was pleased to see Prior Rhys speaking to him man-to-man. Rhun didn’t like having his qualities questioned, especially by someone whom he himself admired.
“Gwen says the man was dead before he went into the water,” Rhun said.
Rhys made a huh sound at the back of his throat. “Regardless, there doesn’t appear to be much blood.”
“If he died quickly, there wouldn’t have been,” Rhun said.
“Why is that?” Prior Rhys said.
“Because corpses don’t bleed.”
Prior Rhys’s eyes actually twinkled. “You learn quickly.”
“Gwen is a good teacher.”
Ignoring their exchange entirely, Gwen had been standing with one arm around her waist and the fingers of the other hand to her lips, studying the crushed vegetation. Then she bent into a walking crouch and began moving around the small space, her hands on her knees and her eyes on the ground. “Gareth tells me that if you really want to kill a man without leaving a trace, you slice him between the bones at the back of his neck.” She rubbed at the back of her own neck to show the two men where she meant. “He will immediately drop to the ground, and his death will be nearly instantaneous. There will be very little blood to scrub away, and you’d hardly have touched the body.”
Prior Rhys moved out of Gwen’s way, looking upon her with amusement. Rhun didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed anew that she knew so much about effective methods of killing men. He was glad, regardless, that she was with them today. Though he’d sent Prior Rhys to find Gareth, Gwen was proving to be more than adequate to the task before her.
Thinking to help, Rhun bent to observe the soil and dead leaves that had been scraped in a path from the base of a tree to the pond. The marks ended at the water’s edge. He frowned. “Is the level of the pond higher than it was last night or earlier today?”
Gwen remained bent over, but she turned her head to see where Rhun was gesturing to the plants growing beneath the level of the water—plants that wouldn’t normally have grown under water at all.
“The water clearly ebbs and flows,” Prior Rhys said, understanding Rhun’s point immediately. “Would the murderer have known that and could he have used it to his advantage?”
“You have good eyes, my lord,” Gwen said.
“Perhaps I should ask the mill master,” Prince Rhun said. “It should be he who controls the level of the water coming from the river through the sluice gates.”
Gwen straightened. “That’s a good idea.”
Rhun didn’t feel like Gwen was mocking him, though he could tell that his assumption of responsibility amused her. He hadn’t been able to hide how surprised—even shocked—he’d been at her knowledge of death, and how little about it he knew himself, despite his experience with war. He’d been beside her for all of an hour and already he knew more about murder
than he’d learned in the dozen battles he’d led and from the men he’d killed.
He was ashamed to realize it.
Whether a man died in battle or of old age, Rhun had viewed death as a definitive process. But he’d been wrong about that. Death in battle might be violent, but death by murder was an evil thing, with darkness at its center.
“Please come find us when you’ve spoken with him. Prior Rhys and I will continue to search.” Gwen glanced at the prior, who nodded. “Even if the others found nothing of interest, it might be worthwhile to look again. We can’t pass up the chance that the murderer left a token of himself here. A cloth caught on a branch or a footprint could help us discover who he is.”
“You’re assuming the murderer is a man.” Rhun was turning away as he spoke, but he caught Gwen’s whuf of surprised laughter. Smiling, Rhun continued through the trees back towards where the dead man lay.
Gwen called after him. “I was assuming, my lord. We would do well to remember not to!”
Still laughing to himself, Rhun waved a hand above his head in acknowledgement of her comment but didn’t turn around. This murder had well and truly caught his attention. He wanted to help with the work. And truthfully, the miller might respond to his authority better than to Gwen’s. Gwen was the wife of a knight, but Rhun had met the miller in his ramblings around Aberystwyth over the last few months, and the man had an attitude that was common to many middle-aged men: he’d reached a point in his life where he was sure of the world and his place in it. A young woman investigating a murder might very well rub him the wrong way like a cat stroked tail to head.
The miller hadn’t been present at the discovery of the body, making it unlikely that Rhun would find him in the mill itself. But as Rhun came out of the trees near the clearing, a few yards from where the monks still guarded the dead man, the miller drove a one-horse cart into the clearing and halted. Spying the monks, he leaped from the cart and loped towards the water’s edge.
Then he caught sight Rhun and pulled up, blanching. “My lord! I heard there’s been some trouble.” He looked from Rhun to the monks and back again.
“You could say that,” Rhun said.
To Rhun’s mind, the miller was currently at the top of his (admittedly short) list of suspects. The miller knew his pond well. He could have killed the man and raised the level of the water in the pond in hopes of hiding evidence of where the body had gone in. Prior Rhys had so quickly discovered the exact spot where the man had died, despite the water level, because Gwen had been on hand with a working knowledge of what was to be done. If Prior Rhys hadn’t hastened to bring her to the scene and prevented the monks from carting the body back to the monastery right away, much of the evidence that could ultimately point to a killer could have been lost.
In addition, if Rhun himself hadn’t known that a dead body thrown into the water wouldn’t sink to the bottom, it was easy to believe the miller wouldn’t have known it either.
The miller had moved a few more paces towards the monks, his eyes on the body on the ground. “Is that—?” He couldn’t take his eyes off it. He put a cloth to his mouth, and his throat contracted.
“A dead man, yes,” Rhun said. “Would you be so kind as to look into his face and tell me if you recognize him?”
“Of course, of course.” The miller mopped his sweating brow.
Rhun might have read guilt in the action, but it was a hot afternoon. He should delay any conclusion until he learned more. One of the monks had laid a handkerchief across the dead man’s face, and now he removed it.
“Do you know him?” Rhun said.
The miller bent over the body for a moment and then straightened, clear relief sweeping across his face. “No, my lord. No, I don’t.”
“Are you sure?” Rhun said.
“I’m sure. I was afraid for a moment—” He stopped.
Rhun pounced on the man’s hesitation. “What were you afraid of? If you know anything about his death, I need to know it right now.”
“I know nothing.” The miller shook his head vehemently back and forth. “I was going to say that I’ve been waiting for my apprentice to return from his aunt’s house in Borth.” He gestured helplessly to the body. “Even were I unsure of this man’s features, this body isn’t missing a hand.”
“Excuse me?” Rhun said. “Your apprentice is missing a hand?”
The miller waved a hand dismissively. “He’s a good worker nonetheless.”
Rhun was sure that Gareth or Gwen would have done a better job at hiding their surprise, but he took a breath and soldiered on nonetheless. “Did you have some particular reason to think this was your apprentice?”
“Not-not really. I expected him back from Borth this morning, but he hasn’t come. When I learned a body had been found, I feared the worst. But this isn’t he.” The miller clasped his hands in front of him to stop himself from wringing them.
The miller was genuinely concerned, and Rhun felt his sympathies rising, despite the fact that the miller’s information was turning out not to be worth very much. The miller put the cloth back to his mouth. He had turned a distinctive shade of green.
Rhun pointed to the water’s edge a few feet away. “If you are going to be sick, please move away.”
The miller swallowed hard and lifted his eyes towards the sky. “I am well enough.”
“What can you tell me about the millpond?” Rhun said.
“What do you need to know about it, my lord?”
“Is the water level higher today than yesterday?”
“Ach, yes.” The miller flapped his cloth. “I always raise it when I have a large amount of grain to grind. And with the orders from both the monastery and the castle that came in two days ago because of the festival, I knew I’d be grinding day and night throughout the week.”
“How quickly does the water level rise once you increase the width of the sluice gate?”
“It takes some hours,” the miller said. “It’s a constant battle to get it right, and don’t get me started on what it’s like in the spring during the floods.”
“I’m sure it isn’t easy,” Rhun said appeasingly. “Does anyone guard the mill at night?”
“My apprentice sleeps in the loft,” the miller said.
“The one who went to Borth?”
“The same,” the miller said.
Rhun just managed to refrain from rolling his eyes. “So you’re telling me that nobody was sleeping in the mill last night.”
“No, my lord. Nobody.”
“Where were you just now?”
“I had business in the village. My journeyman is more than capable of running the mill in my absence.”
Rhun was convinced that the miller’s business had included more than one tankard of mead, but he didn’t mention it. He wanted to keep the miller cooperative, not confront him with shirking his duties. Rhun glanced at the body, thinking of what question to ask next. So far the miller had explained about the water level in the millpond, which Hywel probably already knew but had been able to add little else. Rhun wasn’t going to have anything much to show Prior Rhys and Gwen when he saw them next. Then he consoled himself with the fact that at least they wouldn’t waste their time questioning someone who couldn’t help.
“May I go, my lord? I have business to attend to.”
Rhun nodded, waving a hand to dismiss the miller. “We know where to find you if we need to speak with you again.”
The miller ducked his head and departed.
“My lord!”
Rhun spun around to see Gareth urge his horse off the road and into the clearing in front of the mill. Almost at the same moment, Gwen and Prior Rhys appeared out of the trees and crossed the clearing towards him.
Rhun felt a rush of relief and wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Without help, this murder investigation would have had him in over his head and drowning.
Gareth dismounted, looking every inch the captain of the guard he was: tall and broad-shouldered wi
th close-cropped dark hair and intelligent blue eyes. He grasped the much smaller Gwen by her upper arms and held her as he looked down into her face. If they weren’t in the middle of a murder scene, Rhun would have wagered his best horse that Gareth would have wrapped his wife up in a hug and kissed her. They’d been married for nearly three years, and a blind man could see how much they loved each other.
Rhun wanted that for himself. He hoped that he might find it someday. Maybe even—he allowed himself a sliver of hope and anticipation—with Angharad.
Chapter Four
Gareth
“We have a murder,” Gwen said.
Gareth refrained from wondering aloud how it was that Gwen had managed yet again to be on the scene of a murder before he’d even learned there was a body. Then he looked around the clearing, a feeling of unease rising in him that had nothing to do with the murder. “My lord,” he said, turning to Rhun. “Where are your guards?”
“I dismissed them.”
“My lord, how could you—”
Rhun raised a hand. “I know, I know. I am a prince of Gwynedd. But this isn’t Gwynedd—”
“That’s right this isn’t Gwynedd!” Gareth said, and then he swallowed, working hard to modulate his tone. “It’s Ceredigion, with Normans and spies and common folk who haven’t forgiven Cadwaladr for his misuse of them and your father for putting him above them.”
Rhun had the grace to look abashed. He bobbed his head in a semblance of a bow, which was more than Gareth deserved for chastising a prince—especially when that prince wasn’t even his own master but his lord’s brother. “I stand corrected. And before you ask, no—Hywel didn’t know that I rode out alone today.”
“Why did you?” Gareth said.
Rhun pressed his lips together, such that Gareth thought he wasn’t going to answer or had an answer that Gareth wasn’t going to like. Maybe he’d been seeing a woman.
At that thought, Gareth put up both hands and took a step back. “Never mind, my lord. Your doings are not my concern.”
The Unlikely Spy Page 3