“Of course.” Gareth turned to Evan and Gruffydd and spoke in Welsh. “Would you excuse Sir Amaury and me? Perhaps if we are alone, he will tell me something of the truth. So far, I don’t know that we’ve heard much of it from anyone.”
Evan and Gruffydd nodded, and Amaury and Gareth returned to the bank so they could be alone by the river. Amaury jerked his head towards a tree that hung over a small waterfall. When Gareth followed him to where he indicated, the rush of the water grew even louder than on the trail. Amaury was right in thinking that the sound would drown out their voices to all but them.
Amaury leaned his shoulder against the trunk of the tree, and Gareth stepped close, such that they stood only two hand-spans apart. Gareth didn’t find it comfortable being so close to the Norman, but if it was the only way to get him to talk, he was willing to endure it. This had the makings of a secret worth hearing.
Amaury thought for another count of ten, his eyes on Gareth’s face, and then said, “What I have to tell you must not go beyond you and your lords.”
Gareth nodded, grateful that Amaury understood that Gareth was honor-bound to report everything he learned to Prince Hywel.
“And if someone asks how you came by this knowledge, it didn’t come from me.”
Again, Gareth agreed. He clasped his hands behind his back, patient and attentive. Finally, Amaury found it within himself to speak, though he didn’t look at Gareth and stood as he had when he’d delivered the bad news about Alard to Gareth earlier in the great hall: “Once there were four men. The empress called them her ‘four horsemen’, and to her they represented everything you think of when you hear that phrase.”
If Amaury’s expression had been less anxious, Gareth would have whistled through his teeth. He knew his Bible, of course. At the ending of the world, the four horsemen of the apocalypse would be visited on mankind: conquest, war, famine, and death. That Empress Maud would refer to her men in such a fashion made Gareth’s stomach clench. At the same time, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. Unlike King Stephen, who had such a fine sense of honor it was costing him the war, Maud was known less for her piety than for her vindictiveness.
“In what way did they work for her?” Gareth said, more to say something than because he feared Amaury wouldn’t tell him.
Amaury took in a deep breath through his nose. “Remember the rebellion in the southwest of England in the early days of Stephen’s reign? It forced Stephen’s focus away from fighting Maud to fighting his own barons, when he wasn’t at odds with the Scots or the Welsh.”
“I remember,” Gareth said. “I was fighting Normans in Ceredigion around that time.”
Amaury gave him a wry smile. “Who do you suppose were instrumental in helping Earl Robert foster that rebellion? Who infiltrated castles, made promises Maud might never keep, and put steel in those half-Saxon spines?”
“The horsemen, clearly, or you wouldn’t be telling me this,” Gareth said.
“I don’t know where she found them, exactly, or in what fashion she gathered them together, but they were her spies, and by that I mean they were trained to a degree few men have attained. Two were Welshmen, another was a Saxon, and the fourth was a Frenchman.”
“I’d wager that David was one of the Welshmen,” Gareth said, and at Amaury’s nod added, “though Ranulf said he was his man, not Maud’s.”
“Ranulf thought David belonged to him; he was meant to think so,” Amaury said.
“But you know differently?” Gareth said.
Amaury gave him a long look, and when Gareth didn’t add to his question, he said, “You need me to lay it out?”
Gareth chewed on his lower lip, studying Amaury’s face. “Your liege lord is Ranulf as well. Are you implying that your allegiance is also broader, to the empress, just as David’s was? Are you a spy for her too?”
Amaury coughed a laugh. “Hardly. I am a knight, as you see.” He spread his hands wide. “But that does not mean I am not party to certain information.”
Gareth hated such obliqueness, but he didn’t want to throw Amaury off his stride. “I accept that. We were talking about the four horsemen.”
Amaury nodded. “To continue, that man there—” Amaury tipped his head towards the clearing where John’s body lay, “—the Saxon, John, along with the second Welshman who died years ago, were under Earl Robert’s authority.”
“And the fourth, the Frenchman, was … Alard?” Gareth said, seeing where this was going.
“He was a favorite of the empress, a man she’d known for twenty years, ever since he was a boy. He was the most trusted of the four,” Amaury said.
“And Alard has now killed both David and John,” Gareth said, “two of the four horsemen.”
“So it seems,” Amaury said
Gareth eyes narrowed. “We know Alard killed David. How can you think otherwise?”
Amaury sighed and did not answer.
Gareth reminded himself, not for the first time, that Alard had been Amaury’s friend. “At the very least, you have to grant that he is involved in his death.”
“Yes. I grant that,” Amaury said.
Gareth glanced away, thinking. “Could these four men—or rather, the remaining three—have had some kind of falling out?”
“They were never natural friends,” Amaury said, “and if they had a falling out, it was years ago. What people will assume now, if we cannot prove otherwise, is that Alard has betrayed the empress for Stephen, just as Earl Ranulf said.”
Gareth wished his French came as naturally to him as his Welsh. Amaury seemed to feel the need to assume the best of his former friend, despite all evidence that condemned him. Gareth decided to allow his skepticism and ignorance to show. “You don’t believe Alard is a traitor either? Ranulf seemed sure. All of this would make more sense and be quite straightforward if he was.”
“When one is dealing with spies, things are rarely straightforward,” Amaury said. “I don’t believe it. For all that he is a spy, Alard is not a coward. If he had defected to Stephen, he would have told the empress himself. He would have told me.”
In Gareth’s experience, one of the most predictable aspects of intelligent men was how unpredictable they could be. But again, Alard had been Amaury’s friend. “Yet now we have John,” Gareth said. “He could have been the third man on the tower.”
“Of course he could have. I assumed it, right up until his boot didn’t fit the print, which means that we are looking for a fourth man.” Amaury shook his head. “I am as much in the dark as you.”
“The fourth horseman?” Gareth said.
“He’s dead,” Amaury said.
“What was his name?”
“Why does it matter?”
Gareth shrugged. “I’m just gathering information. I don’t know what might become important later.”
Amaury picked at his lower lip. “Peter.”
“Right,” Gareth said. “Well … if Alard is as intelligent as you say, he had a reason for coming to Newcastle.”
“Ranulf would say it was to murder David,” Amaury said.
“But you still don’t think so?”
Amaury sighed. “I admit that dropping David’s body at your wife’s feet implies that he killed him. But again, Alard is very intelligent. If he were planning to kill David, do you think he would have done it in broad daylight? He’s a spy. He lives in the dark.”
Gareth had thought much the same thing earlier and couldn’t disagree. “It does appear to be an absurd act, and yet I saw his eyes. He knew what he was doing.”
“Perhaps he merely meant to speak to David and their conversation turned to violence,” Amaury said.
Gareth swallowed down a mocking laugh. “David was strangled and stabbed. And then thrown over a battlement. Alard wanted him dead.”
As he spoke, however, Gareth suddenly doubted his surety. Now that he had the chance to think more about it, the determination in Alard’s face might have reflected a decision to drop David at thei
r feet once he was dead, rather than leave him on the wall walk to be found after Alard escaped. There was still something about that act that nagged at Gareth. It was so public and obvious. Alard had to know that someone would recognize him. And yet, he’d done it anyway.
“Ranulf will say that when David and John refused Alard’s invitation to join him in his service to King Stephen, Alard killed them,” Amaury said.
“Earl Ranulf is your lord, in name if not in fact,” Gareth said. “And yet you—”
Amaury cut Gareth off. “You presume too much, Sir Gareth.”
Gareth blinked, surprised at Amaury’s sharp tone and unsure of what he’d done to deserve it. “Excuse me?”
The tenseness in Amaury’s expression eased. “I apologize for my abruptness, but I have told you all I can, and we shouldn’t linger here any longer. Alard was my friend. I must discover the truth of what happened, for good or ill.”
Gareth nodded. “I will help you, if I can.”
“Thank you for that.” Amaury made his hands into fists. “I have a task I must see to alone, but when I am finished, I will find you.”
Gareth nodded. “In the scriptures, the fourth horseman is death. Whatever happens, we cannot allow Alard to kill again.”
Chapter Seven
Gwen
Gwen pushed up onto her hands and knees, moaning. The wood floor beneath her was worn smooth from many years of treading feet and felt good beneath her fingers. It gave her something to think about besides the pain in her head.
“Shush, Gwen. You’re safe now.”
Gwen managed to separate her eyelids enough to find the face of the woman crouching in front of her.
“Mari? What are you doing here?” Gwen stared at her beautiful friend, thinking she must still be dreaming. Mari wore a gown of deep green, and her long, dark hair was wound elaborately around her head in a manner Gwen couldn’t have begun to emulate. The style was similar to those Gwen had seen on a few of the women who’d passed through the hall while she’d been waiting for Gareth.
“Looking for you.” Mari smiled and put a gentle hand on Gwen’s temple. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” Gwen couldn’t think straight. She touched her throat, feeling for marks, but she felt nothing but smooth skin where the man had pressed on her.
Mari spoke to someone behind Gwen. “Find Sir Gareth. Now.”
Gwen turned her head to see a young man hovering in the doorway of the room. “My lady—”
He looked from Gwen to Mari, who waved a hand. “Go, Edmund!”
Mari’s sternness made Gwen smile. She was glad for it. Gwen wanted her husband to come here too.
Mari brushed back a loose strand of hair from Gwen’s face and said, “Let’s get you up.” She put an arm around Gwen’s waist and helped her to the stool on which Prior Rhys had been sitting when Gwen had entered the room earlier. “I won’t ask if you’re all right, but are you feeling a bit better than you did?”
Gwen sagged against the wall at her back, still finding it hard to take full breaths and focus her thoughts. She touched her throat again, remembering the man and the fear, and looked into Mari’s eyes. “By what chance did you find me?”
“I’ve come to Newcastle with Lord Goronwy. His wife was Norman, if you remember, and he still holds lands that tithe to England—specifically, to the Earl of Gloucester.”
Gwen rubbed at her temples, struggling to remember what she knew about Mari’s complicated family relations. Goronwy had become Mari’s foster father when her parents died, but he was her uncle too.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?” Mari said. “I’ve never been so scared in my life as when I entered the room and saw you on the floor.”
“I remember … everything.” Gwen straightened on the stool as she realized that she did—or thought she did. “I was examining the body of the dead man, David—” Gwen glanced to the table where David’s body lay. Except that nothing lay there now, not even the cloth that the guards had used to cover his face.
“What body?” Mari said. “What dead man?”
Gwen’s head hurt more than ever. “That’s exactly it, isn’t it? What has happened to the body?”
“Have you involved yourself in another murder?” Mari’s voice held disapproval and concern, but then her eyes lit. “Can I help you solve the mystery this time?”
Gwen choked back a laugh. “I don’t think you really want to do that. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Besides, you helped last time, you know.”
“I did?”
“Very much so. It was you who realized that the purpose of the murders at Aber was to prevent King Owain from marrying Christina, and everything else that happened was in service to that.” Then Gwen leaned forward, her head in her hands, forcing down the bile that had risen suddenly in her throat.
“What’s wrong?” Mari put an arm around Gwen’s shoulders. “Is it your head?”
“My stomach is queasy—”
The door, which Edmund had left half-closed, flew open and slammed into the wall behind it. Gareth bounded into the room. He took in the scene with a single glance, and then his eyes fastened on Gwen. He reached her in two strides. Mari moved out of the way so Gareth could kneel in front of Gwen and put his arms around her.
“Cariad!”
Gwen pressed her face into Gareth’s neck, holding on to him with all her strength. She’d been struggling with control before he came, but now, just by his presence, he’d brought her to tears. He pulled back briefly to study her face and then kissed her forehead and both eyes.
“What happened here?” he said. “Where’s David’s body?”
“She hasn’t yet told me,” Mari said, her voice matter-of-fact. “I felt at her head and there’s no lump—”
Gareth had been looking Gwen up and down, and now he put his fingers under her hair at the back of her head.
“There’s nothing there.” Gwen patted Gareth’s chest to get him to stop feeling at her head. “Shortly after I arrived in the chapel, when I was still removing David’s boots, Prior Rhys stepped out of the room for a moment. I thought he’d returned. Instead, someone else entered the room. I never even saw him. He came up behind me and pressed on my neck.” Gwen gestured to her throat to show him where.
Gareth nodded. “I know what he did. Put pressure there, and it renders a person unconscious after a few heartbeats. It’s a way to silence a man without killing him.”
Gareth’s knowledgeable tone suggested that he might have done it himself a time or two, but now wasn’t the moment to ask him about it. “He spoke to me softly,” Gwen said. “The experience was almost more terrifying because he was so sure of himself—and treated me gently.”
Gareth held Gwen’s face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Can you see me fine? How do you feel?”
“I found her unconscious on the floor,” Mari said. “How do you think she feels?”
Mari’s tone was one that Gwen had heard her use a few times, usually in conversation with Prince Hywel. It spoke of no-nonsense thinking and impatience with anything but the facts. Gwen found Mari’s lack of drama soothing. “I have a headache, though it’s already beginning to fade,” Gwen said. “I will be fine in a moment if I can sit here a bit longer.”
“Gaah.” Gareth slapped his hand on his thigh and got to his feet. “This gets worse by the hour. First David, then John, and now this …”
Gwen looked up at her husband. “Who’s John?”
Gareth shot her a worried look. “Amaury’s men found another body outside the castle, near the place where it looks like Alard came out of the water.” He leaned in close to her and lowered his voice. “He told me some things that I shouldn’t repeat here. David’s murder seems to be a piece of a larger puzzle, one which we haven’t even begun to find the edges of.”
“I still don’t understand why someone would take a dead body,” Mari said.
Gwen glanced at her friend and then back to Gareth. “Do you
think Alard could be responsible for the removal of David’s body?”
“I don’t want to presume that he was or wasn’t,” Gareth said. “My instincts argue against it. Why flee the castle only to return an hour later? And with everyone on the lookout for him, he would have found it nearly impossible to get inside, much less out again with a dead body.”
“He might have taken it if he was worried about us examining it,” Gwen said. Hywel himself had removed a body from Aber Castle the previous summer, rather than risk Gareth uncovering his role in the murder of King Anarawd.
“Then why dump it at our feet in the first place?” Gareth said. “No, we are missing too much of our puzzle. To suggest that Alard harmed you is like adding two and two and reaching five. I am thankful, however, that whoever this man was, he had the grace not to kill you or Prior Rhys.”
“Prior Rhys!” Gwen had forgotten about the prior’s absence in thinking about herself. “What has happened to him?”
“Moments ago, one of Ranulf’s men found him unconscious near the postern gate,” Gareth said.
“Oh no! I would never have wanted him involved in something like this—” Gwen made to push to her feet, but Gareth crouched down again, rubbing at her arms to settle her and keep her on her stool.
“What happened to Prior Rhys is not your fault,” Gareth said.
Gwen swallowed. “You give me too much credit if you were worried I was thinking that. I don’t believe it was my fault, but you and I both know that wherever we go, murder follows. I don’t like seeing him caught up in it.”
“He wasn’t always a monk,” Gareth said.
“I know that,” Gwen said, “but he is older now and used to a quiet life in the monastery.”
Gareth smirked. “I won’t tell him you said that. I suspect he takes pride in remaining as fit as he ever was.”
“Where is he now?” Gwen said.
“He has been given a room in the keep.” Gareth turned to Mari. “Thank you for caring for Gwen. We had just returned to the castle when I learned of the attack on Prior Rhys. My first thought was of Gwen, of course. I’m so glad you were here to find her.”
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