The Fallen Princess (5 page)

“No, my lord.” Cynan licked his lips. “I
apologize if I shouldn’t have looked at her while you were
examining her, but I did look.” He made a helpless gesture with one
hand. “She’s wearing Tegwen’s garnet and her cloak.”

“It’s been five years since anyone has seen
her,” Hywel said. “How is it that you remember what she wore?”

Color rose in Cynan’s face. “She was
beautiful, my lord, and full of life.”

Evan had been listening to their exchange,
and now he stepped closer, bowing his head as Cynan had. When he
looked up, his face wore a stunned expression. “My lord, please. I
couldn’t help but overhear that you believe this is Tegwen. But it
can’t be. She ran away with a Dane.”

“Apparently, she didn’t.” Hywel studied the
faces of his men, acknowledging that the body’s identity was no
longer a secret and he shouldn’t pretend his men didn’t know. “Does
anyone remember who it was that saw her sail away?”

Dewi, the driver of the cart, raised his
hand. “I believe it was her maid.”

Cynan’s brow furrowed. “I thought it was a
guard on duty at Bryn Euryn.”

That was as Hywel remembered too. “Did you
speak of this to anyone at Aber just now, Cynan?”

“No, my lord.” Cynan shook his head. “It was
my understanding that it was Gwen’s task to inform the king. I
delivered her to the castle and said nothing to anyone before
returning. It was what I thought you expected of me.”

“Good man.” Hywel rested a hand briefly on
Cynan’s shoulder. “I would appreciate it if you would keep her
identity to yourselves until my father announces it in the
hall.”

There were nods all around, and then Hywel
turned to see Gareth hiking up the beach with his foster son.
Gareth glanced up and saw Hywel looking at him. He raised one
shoulder in a half-shrug, his expression showing the same
resignation and acceptance of his fate that Hywel himself felt.

“We came home looking for a respite from our
troubles, my lord,” Evan said, “only to have trouble find us
instead.”

Hywel allowed himself a slight laugh. “You
would think we’d have learned by now to expect it.”

Gwen

T
he early morning
activity in the castle came to a sudden halt the moment Gwen rode
underneath the portcullis and reined in before the gate. Her
brother, Gwalchmai, appeared at her side to help her down from her
horse. Because he often entertained the hall late into the night,
it was rare that he was awake at this hour, so he had to have been
watching for her. A moment later, her father, Meilyr, hurried from
a side doorway, puffing with every step. His belly had expanded
into a paunch in the last year since they’d returned to Aber, and
of late his shortness of breath had her worrying about his
health.

“Well? Can you tell me what’s happened?”
Gwalchmai had grown over the summer too, undoubtedly trying to keep
up with Llelo, and was now tall enough to look into Gwen’s eyes.
“We heard that a woman’s body has washed up on the beach.”

“It didn’t wash up, but that’s all I can
tell you right now. Prince Hywel sent me back to Aber to speak to
the king. Father—” Gwen broke off as she greeted Meilyr with a kiss
on the cheek. They had come a long way since the cold silences,
sometimes lasting a week, that had haunted their relationship
before her marriage to Gareth. She’d grown up, and if her father’s
heart had expanded along with his belly, she couldn’t begrudge him
the long, mellow evenings that had caused the change. “I can’t say
anything about it until I see him.”

“You should speak to Taran first,” Meilyr
said. Lord Taran was the king’s steward and closest confidant. “I
will accompany you.” He pinned his gaze on his son. “Gwalchmai, you
stay here.”

Gwalchmai opened his mouth to protest, but
Gwen put a hand on his arm. “This is serious. I will tell you all
about what has happened afterwards, though you may hear rumors
before I get to you. It’s not going to be a secret for long.”

Gwalchmai settled back on his heels with a
suppressed sigh but didn’t protest again. Gwen left her horse with
him and entered the keep with her father, who held the door for
her. The keep housed the great hall and had two wings leading off
of it, guarded by stone towers at each corner. Taran’s room was the
door closest to the great hall in the east wing, while the king’s
rooms were further along the corridor.

Unlike in past years, Gwen wasn’t resentful
of her father’s presence. In fact, she was grateful for it. He
might be accompanying her because he wanted to know what was going
on as much as because he was worried for her, but telling the king
that his long-lost niece was dead was not a task she relished
taking on all by herself.

“Someone is dead?” Meilyr stopped outside
Taran’s door.

“I’m afraid so. It’s someone he cared
about,” Gwen said.

“He was in a mellow mood last night when he
retired,” Meilyr said.

“I’m sure it was in part because you and
Gwalchmai sang so well.”

Meilyr bowed his head in silent thanks. “I
suspect tonight’s entertainment will be more in the way of
forgetting our troubles than to celebrate the harvest.”

Gwen’s father was right that the king’s good
humor at seeing all of his people gathered in his hall wasn’t going
to last beyond the next few moments. “Better that than not to have
any music at all. This is not a message I would ever choose to
bring to the king.”

Meilyr straightened his tunic. “Are you
ready?”

At Gwen’s
yes
, he reached up to knock
on Taran’s door, but it opened before his knuckles hit the wood so
that Meilyr almost rapped on the steward’s nose.

“Meilyr! Gwen! What are you doing here? I
heard voices outside my door and wondered who it might be.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Gwen said.

“How may I help you?” When he’d opened the
door, Taran had still been adjusting his sleeves inside his coat,
and now he pulled them straight with quick jerks.

Gwen licked her lips and glanced quickly at
her father, who gave her a slight nod. “One of the guards woke me
earlier to tell me that a body had been found on the beach,” she
said. “He was looking for Gareth, but since Gareth and Prince Hywel
were on patrol, I went to see it in their place. Once they
returned, the prince recognized who it was and sent me to inform
the king before he could hear about it from someone else.”

Taran smoothed his mustache, his eyes on
Gwen’s. “Just say what you have to say, child. I can tell that you
are bringing bad news.”

Gwen glanced right and left to make sure
they were still alone in the corridor. “Hywel believes the body to
be that of Tegwen, the king’s niece.”

Taran took a step back, his heel bumping the
bottom of the door behind him. “That’s not possible. She’s been
gone these five years. She ran away.”

“She may have done so,” Gwen said, “but it
seems she didn’t get far.”

Meilyr, too, was staring at Gwen. “She ran
away with a Dane. She was seen getting into a boat with him.”

“I know that was what we were all told,”
Gwen said. “As I said, it may have been true. But somehow she has
ended up on Aber’s beach five years later.”

Taran was standing with a hand pressed to
the top of his head. “You are sure it’s Tegwen?”

“Hywel is certain or he wouldn’t have sent
me.” Gwen took Taran’s free hand and squeezed it. “It’s more
complicated than that, too, because it’s obvious that she’s been
dead a long while. Her body is all dried out like—” Gwen cleared
her throat, “—pardon me for saying it, but like an old apple.”

“Then how do you know it is she?” Taran
said.

“Hywel is sure, my lord,” Gwen said. “I am
only doing as I was bidden.”

“How did she die?” Meilyr said.

“Someone bashed her skull in,” Gwen said,
and at Taran’s horrified look, added, “I know. It’s awful. Here
we’ve spent the last five years believing that even if she ran away
with a Dane, it was her choice, when all the while she’s been dead
in Gwynedd with her murderer walking free among us.”

Taran closed his eyes and breathed deeply
through his nose, letting the air out through his mouth. Then he
opened his eyes, his usual manner of quiet competence returning.
Releasing Gwen’s hand, he said, “Come. We should go to the king. He
won’t like being disturbed, but he would prefer it to not being
woken.”

That had been Gareth’s reasoning too, and
Gwen was glad now that she had come, even if it was one of the
worst tasks she’d ever been set. She tugged her cloak closer around
her, chilled even though the corridor wasn’t cold. In her mind’s
eye, she kept seeing the dent in Tegwen’s skull and the blood.
Death came to everyone, of course. Each person lived with it every
day, but it was hard to know that it had come by murder to Tegwen.
As Taran had said, they’d all imagined her happy with her Dane. The
truth was going to be like a bucket of cold water thrown over
Aber.

As they walked down the corridor to King
Owain’s quarters, Gwen was glad she had the two older men to
buttress her on either side. During the short ride from the beach,
she’d been dreading knocking on King Owain’s door, especially if
Cristina was beside him. Unlike Gwen and Gareth, the queen and king
didn’t always share a bed. Cristina had her own room on the floor
above, and she slept there roughly half the time. Gwen had
overheard Cristina telling one of her ladies-in-waiting that the
king snored. Cristina could endure it less well now that she was
heavily pregnant with their first child and not sleeping well
herself.

It was Cristina, more than King Owain, who
would resent an unexpected visitor outside her door. Gwen suspected
the reason was less that she didn’t like being woken than that she
didn’t like anyone to see her before her maid had dressed her and
fixed her hair. Coupled with her difficulty sleeping and her
pregnancy, Cristina was all the more to be avoided in the
morning.

Taran rapped his knuckles on the door. “My
lord? May I have a word?”

Gwen heard the thud of King Owain’s feet
hitting the floor and his lumbering tread to the door, which opened
to reveal his burly form, wild golden hair going gray, and
heavy-lidded eyes. With so many visitors at Aber for the
celebration of Hallowmas and Calan Gaeaf, the king had experienced
a succession of late evenings and had consumed more mead than was
his usual custom. He enjoyed his comforts, but Cristina and he
retired early most nights, especially since she’d fallen
pregnant.

Gwen knew what that was like. Some days, she
could barely keep her eyes open during the evening meal, and she
would have slept until noon if her duties hadn’t called to her.

“What is it?” King Owain hung on to the
doorframe, one arm above his head.

Gwen tried not to wilt under the king’s
glare. He didn’t have the look of a man with a full measure of
patience. Swallowing hard, she braced herself to tell him straight
out. “A body was found on the beach this morning. I have seen it,
and Gareth and Prince Hywel are examining it now. The prince
believes it to be the body of Tegwen, your niece, whom we believed
ran away with a Dane five years ago.”

There
. That had been as succinct a
statement as she could make.

King Owain, for his part, stared at Gwen
through several breaths without responding. Then he looked to
Taran, who nodded, his jaw tight, and then back to Gwen. “You found
a body on the beach that Hywel believes to be Tegwen’s? How is that
possible?”

“My lord, Hywel recognized her.”

“Did she drown?” King Owain said.

“No, my lord. From the condition of the
body, Hywel judges that she has been dead many years.” Gwen knew
she was a coward for not owning that estimate herself, but King
Owain would accept Hywel’s authority more than hers in this
instance.

“Then how could he possibly recognize her?
She would be nothing but bones.”

There it was again, the point that they
would be addressing over and over again. In Wales, it rained all
the time. The ground was moist year round, and anything and
everything that spent any time outside rotted away, even items
still in use. Clothing, rope, wooden posts that held up a roof.
Gwen herself was still having trouble accepting the strange
condition of the body. Not to mention the disturbing fact that
someone had found it and then left it on the beach.

Gwen bowed, loath to explain further but
knowing that she must. “Her form is dried and desiccated. But even
I, who didn’t know Tegwen well, can recognize her now that Hywel
has named her. She was wrapped in the cloak you gave her upon her
betrothal to Lord Bran.”

King Owain wasn’t buying it. “If she has
been dead for years, how is it that she lies on the beach?”

“That is something we cannot yet explain,”
Gwen said.

The king ran a hand through his hair and
looked behind him to Cristina. She’d been listening to their
exchange, sitting up in bed with the blankets pulled up to her
chin.

“It could be another girl dressed in
Tegwen’s cloak,” Cristina said.

King Owain’s eyes flicked back to Gwen’s,
and then he returned them to his wife’s face. “Yes, of course, my
dear. Don’t upset yourself. Whatever happened to this girl, Tegwen
or not, it happened a long time ago.” He’d taken a step towards
Cristina as he’d spoken to her but now turned back, moving into the
doorway, closer to Gwen. He pulled the door nearly closed behind
him, with only a sliver of empty space between the door and the
frame. He didn’t want Cristina to hear him. “Do you have any
indication as to how she died?”

Gwen found her gaze dropping to her shoes so
she wouldn’t have to see King Owain’s expression when she told him.
“My lord, her hair is matted with blood and her skull crushed.”