King Owain looked at his older son. “And Angharad?”
“She went with him,” Rhun said. “I was not able to speak to her before she left.”
“We will find a way, son,” King Owain said.
“Thank you, Father.”
King Owain studied the darkness beyond the tent and shook his head. “Those two will be the death of me—” He turned back to his sons. “Let me see the ring.”
Rhun took two steps forward and carefully placed Cadwaladr’s signet ring on the table in front of his father.
King Owain glared at it but didn’t speak. Gwen hoped his temper wasn’t about to rise because he’d likely wake Gruffydd, who’d fallen asleep on Mari’s shoulder.
Rhun spoke into the silence. “It seems that Gryff came upon the ring and the cross, whether while fulfilling his role as messenger or when actively searching for them. The latter had been given to Iolo by Cadell to be used as proof that he spoke for him, the former by Cadwaladr to show to Cadell for the same reason. Father, I believe this is the real reason both Gryff and Iolo were killed.”
“They were murdered to hide Cadell’s involvement in his own brother’s murder, and my brother’s recent involvement in Ceredigion.” King Owain sat heavily in his chair. “He knows that I would not support his designs on this land, and for him to plot to take it, with or without Cadell’s help, moves him past mischief to treason.”
It was Rhun, not the stony-faced Hywel, who said, “Yes, Father.”
King Owain’s expression was dark as he contemplated his sons. “My brother is like a high wind that blows away everything and everyone in its path. I cannot predict when it will come, only that it is coming. When my brother betrays me, as it seems he must, I ask only that the three of us remain united, whatever the cost.”
Gareth stood taut beside Gwen. In a way, this was the moment they’d all been waiting for and made up for all the failures and lack of concord in the past. King Owain had finally spoken out loud what they’d all known needed to be said for years.
“Of course,” Rhun and Hywel said together.
“After Cadwallon died, my father made me swear to look after my younger brother. Only we two were left, you see. I have tried …” Suddenly King Owain looked ten years older than his actual age.
Mari put a hand on the king’s arm. “Nobody doubts your loyalty, my lord. You have done more for your brother than he deserved. But some men cannot be saved.”
“Especially not from themselves,” King Owain said.
Morgan appeared at the entrance to the tent. At first only Gwen noticed him, but then he cleared his throat, and everyone else turned to look. “I apologize, my lords, for the interruption, but I bring grave news.”
Hywel raised a hand to his steward, indicating that he should speak.
“A rider has arrived from the east, from Lord Goronwy,” Morgan said.
Lord Goronwy was the father of Cristina, King Owain’s wife.
King Owain straightened in his chair. “Spit it out, man. We’ll never be in a better mood to hear it.”
“Earl Ranulf has left Chester in force. He has fortified Mold Castle on Gwynedd’s eastern border. Lord Goronwy fears an assault is imminent.”
King Owain stood abruptly, tipping back his chair, which Gareth caught before it could hit the ground. “It may be that my brother heard this news and responded, choosing not to share it with us. He seeks glory for himself.”
“Or he allies himself with Chester,” Rhun said. “He has done it before.”
“The festival is over,” Hywel said. “My men can be ready to leave tonight.”
“Then we go,” King Owain said, “and may God have mercy on our souls.”
The End
The Lost Brother, the next Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery is available wherever books are sold.
The Lost Brother
November 1146. War has come to Gwynedd at the hands of Ranulf, Earl of Chester, who seeks to gain a foothold in Wales against the day peace finally comes to England. On the eve of King Owain’s counter-assault on Mold Castle, the body of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Gwen is discovered buried in someone else’s grave. Even in the midst of war, murder must be investigated, and it falls to Gareth and Gwen to bring the guilty to justice.
When their investigation uncovers not only another body, but also treason at the highest levels of King Owain’s court, Gareth and Gwen must come to terms with unprecedented treachery—and a villain whose crimes can never be forgiven.
The Lost Brother is the sixth Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery.
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Keep reading for a sample of Footsteps in Time, the first book in the After Cilmeri series, also set in Medieval Wales:
Sample: Footsteps in Time
In December of 1282, English soldiers ambushed and murdered Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales. His death marked the end of Wales as an independent nation and the beginning of over seven hundred years under the English boot.
Footsteps in Time is the story of what might have happened had Llywelyn lived.
And what happens to the two teenagers who save him.
Chapter One
Anna
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Anna looked back at her brother. He’d followed her to the door, his coat in his hand.
“Okay.” She tried not to sound relieved. “You can hold the map.”
The clouds were so low they blended into the trees around the house and Anna tipped her head to the sky, feeling a few gentle snowflakes hit her face. They walked across the driveway, the first to leave tracks in the new snow.
“You’re sure you can handle this?” David said, eyeing the van. It faced the house so Anna would have to back it out.
“Christopher’s waiting,” Anna said. “It’s not like I have a choice.”
“If you say so,” David said.
Their aunt had asked Anna to pick up her cousin at a friend’s house since she had a late meeting and wouldn’t make it. Ignoring David’s skeptical expression, Anna tugged open the door, threw her purse on the floor between the seats, and got in the driver’s side. David plopped himself beside her with a mischievous grin.
“And don’t you dare say anything!” She wagged her finger in his face before he could open his mouth. He was three years younger than she, having just turned fourteen in November, unbearably pompous at times, and good at everything. Except for his handwriting, which was atrocious. Sometimes a girl had to hold onto the small things.
“Which way?” Anna said once they reached the main road. The windshield wipers flicked away the new snow, barely keeping up. Anna peered through the white for oncoming cars and waited for David to say something.
David studied the map, disconcertingly turning it this way and that, and then finally settled back in his seat with it upside down. “Uh ... right.”
Anna took a right, and then a left, and within three minutes they were thoroughly lost. “This is so unlike you.”
“I’m trying! But look at this—” He held out the map.
Anna glanced at it, but one of the reasons she’d accepted his offer to come with her was because maps confused her under the best of circumstances.
“The roads wander at random and they all look the same,” he said. “Half of them don’t even have signs.”
Anna had to agree. Identical leafless trees and rugged terrain faced them at every turn. She drove up one hill and down another, winding back and forth around rocky outcroppings and spectacular, yet similar, mansions. As the minutes ticked by, Anna clenched the wheel more tightly. She and David sat unspeaking in their heated, all-wheel drive cocoon, while the snow fell harder and the sky outside the windows darkened with the waning of the day. Then, just as they crested a small rise and were taking a downhill curve to the left, Davi
d hissed and reached for the handhold above his door.
“What?” Anna took a quick look at David. His mouth was open but no sound came out, and he pointed straight ahead.
Anna returned her gaze to the windscreen. Ten feet in front of them, a wall of snow blocked the road, like a massive, opaque picture window. She had no time to respond, think, or press the brake before they hit it.
Whuf!
They powered through the wall and, for a long three seconds, a vast black space surrounded them. Then they burst through to the other side to find themselves bouncing down a snow-covered hill, much like the one they’d been driving on but with grass beneath their wheels instead of asphalt. During the first few seconds as Anna fought to bring the van under control, they rumbled into a clearing situated halfway down the hill. She gaped through the windshield at the three men on horseback, who’d appeared out of nowhere. They stared back at her, frozen as if in a photograph, oblivious now to a fourth man, who’d fallen to the ground.
All four men held swords.
“Anna!” David finally found his voice.
Anna stood on the brakes but couldn’t get any traction in the snow. All three horses reared, catapulting their riders out of their saddles. Anna careened into two of the men who fell under the wheels with a sickening crunching thud. Still unable to stop the van, she plowed right over them and the snow-covered grass into the underside of a rearing horse.
By then, the van was starting to slide sideways, and its nose slewed under the horse’s front hooves, which were high in the air, and hit its midsection full on. The windshield shattered from the impact of the hooves, the horse fell backwards, pinning its rider beneath it, and the airbags exploded. By then, the van’s momentum had spun it completely around, carried it across the clearing to the edge, and over it.
The van slid another twenty feet down the hill before it connected with a tree at the bottom of the slope. Breathless, chained by the seatbelt, Anna sat stunned. David fumbled with the door handle.
“Come on.” He shoved at her shoulder. When she didn’t move, he grasped her chin and turned her head to look at him. “The gas tank could explode.”
Her heart catching in her throat, Anna wrenched the door open and tumbled into the snow. She and David ran toward a small stand of trees thirty feet to their left and stopped there, breathing hard. The van remained as they’d left it, sad and crumpled against the tree at the base of the hill. David had a line of blood on his cheek. Anna put her hand to her forehead and it came away with blood, marring her brown glove.
“What—” Anna swallowed hard and tried again. “How did we go from lost to totaled in two point four seconds?” She found a tissue in her pocket, wiped at the blood on her glove, and began dabbing at her forehead.
David followed the van tracks with his eyes. “Can you walk up the hill with me and see what’s up there?”
“Shouldn’t we call Mom first?” Their mother was giving a talk at a medieval history conference in Philadelphia, which is why she’d parked her children at her sister’s house in Bryn Mawr in the first place.
“Let’s find out where we are before we call her,” David said.
Anna was starting to shake, whether from cold or shock it didn’t really matter. David saw it and took her hand for perhaps the first time in ten years. He tugged her up the hill to the clearing. They came to a stop at the top, unable to take another step. Two dozen men lay dead on the ground. They sprawled in every possible position. A man close to Anna was missing an arm, and his blood stained the snow around him. Anna’s stomach heaved, and she turned away, but there was no place to look where a dead man didn’t lie.
But even as she looked away, her brain registered that the men weren’t dressed normally. They wore mail and helmets and many still had swords in their hands. Then David left her at a run, heading along the path the van had followed. Anna watched him, trying not to see anyone else. He crouched next to a body.
“Over here!” He waved an arm.
Anna followed David’s snowy footprints, weaving among the dead men. Every one had been butchered. By the time she came to a halt beside David, tears streamed down her cheeks.
“My God, David.” She choked on the words. “Where are we?” Heedless of the snow, Anna fell to her knees beside the man David was helping to sit upright. She was still breathing hard. She’d never been in a car accident before, much less one that landed her in the middle of a clearing full of dead men.
“I don’t know.” David had gotten his arm under the man’s shoulder and now braced his back. The man didn’t appear to have any blood on him, although it was obvious from his quiet moans that he was hurt.
The man grunted and put his hands to his helmet, struggling to pull it from his head. Anna leaned forward, helped him remove it, and then set it on the ground beside him. The man looked old to have been in a battle. He had a dark head of hair, with touches of white at his temples, but his mustache was mostly grey and his face was lined. At the moment, it was also streaked with sweat and dirt—and very pale.
“Diolch,” he said.
Anna blinked. That was thank you in Welsh, which she knew because of her mother’s near-continual efforts to teach her the language, although Anna had never thought she’d actually need to know it. She met the man’s eyes. They were deep blue but bloodshot from his exertions. To her surprise, instead of finding them full of fear and pain, they held amusement. Anna couldn’t credit it and decided she must be mistaken.
The man turned to David. “Beth yw'ch enw chi?” What is your name?
“Dafydd dw i,” David said. My name is David. David gestured towards Anna and continued in Welsh. “This is my sister, Anna.”
The man’s eyes tracked back to Anna, and a twitch of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “We need to find safety before night falls,” he said, still all in Welsh. “I must find my men.”
Now that was equally ridiculous and impossible.
Pause.
Anna was trying to think what to say to him, anything to say to him, when someone shouted. She swung around. A dozen men on horses rode out of the trees near the van. David settled the man back on the ground and stood up. At the sight of him, the lead rider reined his horse. The others crowded up behind him.
They all stared at each other, or rather, the men stared at David. They seemed frozen to their horses, and Anna looked up at David, trying to see what they saw. He had turned fourteen in November but his voice hadn’t yet changed. Nor had he grown as tall as many of his friends. At 5’ 6”, he was still four inches taller than she, however. David had sandy blonde hair, cut short, and an athletic build thanks to his continuous efforts in soccer and karate. Anna’s friends at school considered him cute in a geeky sort of way.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” David said. “Is it our clothes? Your hair?”
Anna touched her head, feeling the clip that held her hair back from her face. The bun had come lose and her hair cascaded down her back in a tangled, curly mass.
“They’re looking at you, David, not me.”
The man they’d helped moaned, and David crouched again beside him. His movement broke the spell holding the horsemen. They shouted, something like “move!” and “now!” and their lead rider climbed the hill and dismounted. He elbowed Anna out of the way, knocking her on her rear in the snow, and knelt beside the wounded man. This newcomer was about David’s height but fit the description Anna had always attributed to the word ‘grizzled.’ Like all these men, he wore mail and a helmet and bore a sword. He had bracers on his arms—where had she learned that word?—and a surcoat over his chain mail.
He and the injured man held a conversation while David and Anna looked at each other across the six feet of space that separated them. Despite her comprehension earlier, Anna couldn’t understand a word. Maybe the man had spoken slower for their benefit or in a different dialect from what he spoke now.
Then the grizzled man shoute
d something and other men responded by hurrying up the hill. They surrounded the downed man and lifted him to his feet. He walked away—actually walked—men supporting him on either side.
David and Anna sat in the snow, forgotten. Anna’s jeans were soaking wet, she was stiff from the cold, and her hands were frozen, even in her winter gloves.
“What do we do now?” David’s eyes tracked the progress of the soldiers.
“Let’s go back up the hill,” Anna said. “We didn’t drive that far. There must be a road at the top.”
David gave her a speaking look, which she ignored. Anna took a few steps, trying not to look at the dead men whom she’d managed to forget for a few minutes, and then found herself running away across the meadow. She veered into the wheel tracks of the van. David pounded along beside her until she had to slow down. They’d reached the upward slope at the far side of the meadow. The snow was deeper here because men and horses hadn’t packed it down; her feet lost their purchase on the steep slope, and she put out a hand to keep from falling.
Anna looked up the hill. Only a dozen yards away, the van tracks began. Beyond them, smooth fresh snow stretched as far as she could see. It was as if they’d dropped out of the sky.
More shouts interrupted her astonishment, and Anna turned to find horsemen bearing down on them. She looked around wildly, but there was nowhere to run. One man leaned down and, in a smooth movement, caught her around the waist. Before she could think, he pulled her in front of him. She struggled to free herself, but the man tightened his grip and growled something she didn’t catch but could easily have been sit still, dammit!
The Unlikely Spy Page 26