As he promised, Gareth sent Carys and Alun over to Gwen, who remained sitting on the bench. Tangwen had fallen asleep, and Gwen tucked her against her chest, watching the pair walk towards her. She scooted over slightly so Carys could sit down in the shade without sitting as closely to her as Gareth had been, and so that as Tangwen slept, she wouldn’t kick Carys.
Carys, however, reached out a hand to Tangwen’s bare foot, rubbing at her smooth baby skin with her thumb. “So sweet. I have one this age.”
“Where is he now?” Gwen said.
“He’s with Alun’s wife,” Carys said.
“Did you leave him with your sister-in-law two days ago when you came to Aberystwyth?” Gwen took advantage of the opening, which had come far sooner than she’d hoped.
“What did you say?” Carys said.
“I assume you saw the other woman, Madlen, at the gravesite?” Gwen said.
Carys blinked, threatening to dissolve in tears again, but she managed to beat them back. “I saw her.”
“She said that she saw you in Aberystwyth the afternoon before Gryff died. You were standing outside their lodgings,” Gwen said.
Carys’s mouth fell open. “She lies.”
“Does she?” Gwen turned her head to look at Alun, who had taken up a position under the eaves (and thus out of the sun) with his shoulder braced against the wall of the hut and his arms folded across his chest. His expression remained completely blank. Something was going on here.
Alun licked his lips. “It’s an absurd accusation.”
“Would you be willing to tell me what you and Gryff discussed when you saw him the day before he died?” Gwen said.
Alun gestured impatiently with one hand. “I already told your husband. We talked of nothing of importance. He was planning to visit Carys on Sunday. I offered to fetch him, but he said he would start early and was happy to walk. That is all.”
“He didn’t say anything else? The next day he came looking for Prince Hywel, very upset. He didn’t mention any concerns to you?”
“No,” Alun said.
“Is there anything at all that was unusual about that conversation? Did he perhaps give you something?” Gwen knew she was grasping at straws, but the investigation would stall out without new information.
“No,” Carys said.
“Yes, he did.” Alun uncrossed his arms, and for the first time, his expression was clear of tension. “He gave the cross to me to give to you, Carys.”
“A cross?” Gwen said.
With obvious reluctance, Carys pulled out a small gold cross that had lain hidden underneath the bodice of her dress. It looked very much like the one Gwen herself wore that Gareth had given to her.
Gwen leaned closer to examine it. The cross was finely worked, with the letters C and G interwoven together. “C.G.,” Gwen said. “What does that stand for?”
“C is for Carys,” Carys said, “and G is for Gryff, of course.”
Gwen looked back to Alun. “What did Gryff say when he gave it to you?”
Alun shrugged. “Not much, which is why I forgot about it until you asked. He wanted me to give it to her.”
Alun seemed to forget events easily. Gwen turned back to Carys. “Did he say where he got it? Did he have it made especially for you?”
Again Carys looked to Alun. “He didn’t say.”
Gwen thought it was a spectacular gift to say so little about. “Weren’t you curious?”
Alun snorted his disgust and uncrossed his arms. “I thought it was a waste of money. You can’t eat a cross.” He gestured towards Carys. “Though you can’t tell a woman that.”
“Carys, why do you think he didn’t wait to give it to you himself?” Gwen said. “It’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know, but I am so glad he sent it when he did.” Carys clutched the cross, and now the tears spilled down her cheeks again. “It’s something of him.” Then her look turned fierce. “If he hadn’t given it to Alun, I would never have known about it. That whore would have kept it for herself.”
“Carys!” Alun spoke sharply to his sister.
“She has no right! No right to his things or anything about him.” And with that, Carys leapt to her feet and ran off down the path, heading away from the monastery.
Alun and Gwen looked after her, and then they looked at each other. “It’s a hard thing.” Alun shook his head. “I never understood why Carys loved Gryff so much, but she did.”
Chapter Fifteen
Gareth
Before the funeral, after Gareth sent Gwen to speak to Iolo and Madlen, Hywel pulled him aside and laid out what he’d learned of Cadwaladr’s and Cadell’s doings the previous evening while Gareth had been tracking down Carys. Hywel also told him of the personal animosity Cadwaladr still seemed to hold towards Gareth himself and the threat against him.
“We already knew he hated me,” Gareth said.
But Hywel shook his head. “This seems to be more intense than before—and even less rational than usual. You need to watch your back. In fact, I’m going to detail men to watch it for you.”
Gareth gave a tsk of disgust. “Having guards around me all the time will limit my activities.”
Hywel’s eyes lit at that. “Such do I live all the time.”
“You’re Lord of Ceredig—”
Hywel openly laughed.
“What?”
“Who would have thought eight years ago when Cadwaladr sent you away in disgrace from this very spot that it would be his disgrace which would become paramount, while you are a trusted companion of the Lord of Ceredigion and the King of Gwynedd?”
Gareth looked down at his feet and shook his head. The odd thing was that while his circumstances had changed—and without a doubt his life was better for it, from his service to Hywel to his marriage to Gwen—he was the same man he’d been then. In fact, it was that decision that had made him the man he was today.
When Gareth had disobeyed Cadwaladr, he’d done so because he could no longer stomach his orders. For months he’d been wavering on the edge of a cliff. A little push and he could have fallen into dishonor. He could have obeyed Cadwaladr and remained in Ceredigion. Even in his defiance, he hadn’t consciously valued that sense of honor as he did now, but he thanked God that he’d had enough of it to do what he’d done. That decision had been the turning point in his life.
Hywel stepped closer, his voice low and urgent. “I don’t need to tell you that it is because you have the strength to choose what is right over what is easy that you hold the position you do. I would be most concerned if you became someone different just because you had more power or influence.”
Gareth’s head came up at that. “I would never—”
“I know. I’m merely commenting on the fact that Cadwaladr has acknowledged the inequality between the two of you and doesn’t understand it,” Hywel said. “It is beyond his comprehension that a man could go from poverty to wealth, from abasement to an exalted station, and remain the same man. That he would not become corrupted or altered. Cadwaladr fears and distrusts—and disparages—what he does not understand.”
“I will be careful.”
The truth was that Gareth worked very hard never to think about Cadwaladr if he could help it. His dismissal from Cadwaladr’s service had been one of the darkest times of his life. His faith in himself had been shaken. Even with the loss of his parents and the later death of his uncle, he’d always landed on his feet. Somehow, until that day, he’d still been one of those people who believed that if he did the right thing everything would turn out all right in the end.
That day, his faith had failed him, but he’d disobeyed Cadwaladr anyway. Sometimes Gareth thought he’d seen too much despair since then, and too many bad things had happened—irretrievable things—for him to have regained that underlying sense of hope. Still, he lived as if he believed it because to do otherwise would betray the very essence of who he was, and what Hywel—and Gwen—and Gareth himself—valued. And as Hywel
had pointed out, it had turned out well for Gareth in the end. It had just taken a few years to get there.
With a nod, Hywel went on his way, surrounded by a guard of ten who would protect him with their lives. He left Evan and Rhodri with Gareth. At the sight of their taut shoulders and grave expressions, Gareth made a rueful face. “I see you’re taking your duties seriously.”
“All our lives may depend upon it,” Evan said.
During Gryff’s burial, the pair occupied themselves by scouting the periphery of the monastery grounds, and when Gareth left Gwen to begin his duties anew, they fell in beside him.
“What’s next?” Evan said.
“With Gryff’s body in the ground, the physical evidence of the crime is now out of reach,” Gareth said, “but other than the wound that killed him, the prince and I didn’t find anything helpful on the body anyway.”
“We know how Gryff died,” Evan said. “We know where he died. We know roughly when. We just don’t have any good idea as to who killed him.”
“Nobody seems very worried about us finding out either,” Rhodri said. “I watched Iolo and Madlen all day yesterday, and they don’t behave like guilty people.”
“Nobody looks afraid,” Evan agreed.
“Prince Hywel has wrought many changes in Ceredigion over the last three years,” Rhodri said. “It looks to me like that’s one of them: the people involved—from the monks who found him, to Madlen and Carys, to Iolo and Alun—aren’t afraid of his wrath. Another lord—Cadwaladr for one—might have condemned an innocent man simply to close the investigation.”
“If he’d investigated the death at all, that is,” Evan said.
Gareth was grateful for their staunch support, but their words also made him wary. “In order to lull the murderer into a false sense of security, we’ve kept to ourselves the knowledge that Gryff was murdered. Perhaps we’ve done our job too well.”
“Our killer threw Gryff into the millpond thinking that Prince Hywel would treat the death like Cadwaladr might have—as that of a common man of no consequence,” Evan said. “Unless a lord has someone like you to delve into unexplained deaths, deaths like Gryff’s are dismissed as an accident and forgotten.”
“So maybe the killer isn’t from Aberystwyth after all,” Gareth said. “Maybe he doesn’t know Prince Hywel or his reputation enough to fear him.”
“I don’t know how that helps us,” Evan said sourly. “Everyone on our list of suspects lives far afield.”
“But it might be useful to examine everything we know from that perspective,” Gareth said. “If the murderer doesn’t live here, he doesn’t know how the miller or his pond works, or the daily routine of life in Aberystwyth. He threw Gryff into the pond not knowing that he would be found.”
“Which leaves us hundreds of festival-goers to interview,” Rhodri said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Gareth said. “There are hundreds now, but there weren’t nearly that many two days ago when Gryff died. That is what we’re going to do now.”
With renewed enthusiasm for the task, Gareth, Rhodri, and Evan returned to the festival grounds and rounded up twenty more of Hywel’s men. Gareth sketched an additional dozen pictures of Gryff and handed them around. “Ask everyone you see if they were here two days ago. We need to question everyone in the festival area, Llanbadarn Fawr, on the road, and around the monastery to find anyone who saw Gryff the day he died. Better yet, we need to find someone besides Iolo and Madlen who saw him that evening.”
Gareth then spent a frustrating hour speaking to the vendors around Iolo’s booth. Each time he passed it, both Iolo and Madlen were busy with customers. As they already had determined, most of the fair-goers weren’t native to Aberystwyth. Most didn’t even know where the millpond was unless they’d passed it on the road to the festival grounds. Gareth returned to the monastery for an early afternoon meal, and then spent another three hours interviewing the monks and workers. His only consolation for the complete waste of the day was his proximity to Gwen, who took a moment to relate her conversation with Carys and Alun about the gold cross.
Gareth was pleased to learn she’d discovered something new, but disgruntled that they had yet another mystery to resolve rather than a true piece of the puzzle. This seemed to be one of those investigations that didn’t build stone by stone, but in which they discovered dozens of unrelated snippets of information that somehow they had to assemble into a complete story.
Finally, Gareth rode the mile back to the festival and called in his men, who, as it turned out, hadn’t had any more luck than he’d had. Several merchants had seen Gryff around, but none had noticed him after sunset. Gareth released the men to other duties, leaving him alone with Evan and Rhodri, who’d hung on to him like leeches throughout the day.
“Nobody will admit to anything,” Gareth said.
“Could be they have nothing to admit to,” Evan said.
Gareth clapped each man on the shoulder. “We have one last destination before I admit defeat to Prince Hywel.”
Rhodri visibly straightened. Gareth had learned to appreciate Rhodri’s steadiness and occasional insights, and Evan had proved a trusty companion long since. While Gwen wouldn’t have enjoyed the last few hours, Gareth missed her companionship. At Aber, she could have been as nosy as he, but she couldn’t wander the festival the way he could, and she refused to leave Tangwen for long. It was an attentiveness he didn’t understand but had learned to appreciate. Tangwen was happy, healthy, and as bright as Gwen. Gareth wasn’t going to do or say anything to interfere with Gwen’s mothering.
This was also the first investigation in a long while that Hywel had been too distracted to participate in. Hywel’s current need for Gareth to work independently was reminiscent of Hywel’s own relationship with his father. In the past, when trouble had come to Gwynedd, King Owain had turned to Hywel, who had turned to Gareth. Now Gareth was playing the same role for Hywel in Ceredigion, doing his job and reporting back, while Hywel attended to more important things.
Hywel had been in near constant motion the last few days, and this hour was no exception. Tossing a coin to a vendor, Gareth snagged a skewer of roasted mutton from a stall and carried it from the festival grounds to the giant pavilion that Hywel had established in an adjacent field. For a crowd this size, it would have been impossible and uncomfortable to hold the musical performances in the castle’s hall, and with the sides of the tent rolled up, the onlookers could expand to fill the available space outside the tent’s canopy.
Upon reaching Hywel, who was standing by the center pole with his hands on his hips, surveying the grounds, Gareth bowed and presented the skewer. “My lord. It is my guess that you have not eaten recently.”
Hywel grunted his thanks, took the skewer, and bit absently into a piece of mutton. He chewed, swallowed, and then wiped his lips on his fist. “What would I do without you?”
Before Gareth could decide what to say—whether to make a jest or to take Hywel seriously—Rhun passed through the tent. He’d been heading in the other direction, towards King Cadell’s encampment, but he changed course and came over to them. “Have you news?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” Gareth said, but he related what had been discovered since he’d spoken to Hywel that morning.
Rhun looked at his brother. “I don’t see either of these women as a murderer, do you?”
“Sioned was strong enough to stab a man,” Hywel said. “Neither woman is as tall as she, but passion could have given them strength.”
“It’s the hour of Gryff’s death that makes a scenario with the women more difficult,” Gareth said. “Neither should have been out so late at night. Still, it’s easier to place Madlen at the scene than Carys.”
“From the sound of it, Alun is a more likely killer than Carys, just as Iolo would have been more physically capable of murder than Madlen,” Hywel said.
“Though attributing a motive to either is far less easy,” Gareth said. “If Iolo was unhappy with
Gryff, he could have simply dismissed him.”
“Not without harming his niece,” Rhun said. “She and Gryff were married.”
“The same could be said for Alun and Carys,” Gareth said. “Perhaps Alun discovered that Gryff was betraying Carys. The man has a temper. I can see him meeting Gryff in the dark of night and killing him.”
Gareth looked at Hywel, who raised his eyebrows at him. “I like it. We need to establish Alun’s whereabouts at the time of Gryff’s death.”
“Haven’t Alun and Carys returned to Goginan?” Rhun said.
“I asked them to stay another day,” Gareth said. “Alun’s wife’s uncle lives in Aberystwyth. They said they would stay with him.”
“Good,” Hywel said. “Are you off to Aberystwyth now?”
“Yes,” Gareth said. “Gryff, Iolo, and Madlen lodged at the inn. I would speak to its keeper. I’ve sent most of the men back to their other duties but the three of us—” Gareth gestured to Evan and Rhodri, “—will run this question to ground.”
Rhun stepped closer. “Any sign of … other trouble?”
The prince was referring to Cadwaladr’s threat against Gareth. “Nothing,” Gareth said.
“I have sensed nothing amiss either,” Evan said.
“Nor have I,” Hywel said. “I’ve kept an eye out for Erik in particular, but either he is wearing a disguise, he is staying well out of my sight, or he has not put in an appearance.”
“I could make a sketch of him too,” Gareth said. “Pass it among the men?”
Hywel sucked on his lower lip. “No. I would hate for Cadwaladr to get wind that we know he is up to no good or have one of your sketches fall into his hand. We’ll keep this between the five of us for now.”
Gareth bowed to both princes and took his leave, fording the Ystwyth River with Rhodri and Evan and then heading northwest along the road. They bypassed Llanbadarn Fawr, which lay directly to the east of Aberystwyth, in favor of following a road that led from the castle to the sea and the village of Aberystwyth.
The Unlikely Spy Page 16