The Fallen Princess (9 page)

Stymied for the moment, Gwen hovered on the
edges of the crowded room. King Owain was holding court on the dais
for all the well-wishers who’d come for a feast but found
themselves attending a funeral instead. He hadn’t summoned her to
him as he’d said he would, but they’d both been so busy, he hadn’t
had the chance. Gwen spared a thought for Tegwen’s body, lying now
in the barracks, and decided she’d better stay in the hall rather
than hide away there examining what was left of the princess. The
conversation among the inhabitants of Aber consisted of nothing but
talk of Tegwen. Gwen would start upon the task Hywel had given her:
to listen to what people had to say.

The hated Cadwaladr sat at one end of the
dais, basking in the attention of his followers. If anything, he
was growing more handsome as he aged, and no hint of baldness had
yet touched his head, unlike his elder brother, who was losing his
blonde hair faster than it could gray. Even Cristina, for all her
fiery will, couldn’t stop what nature had decreed. For once,
Cadwaladr’s wife and children had accompanied him to Aber. Alice de
Clare, daughter of a Norman, could have felt out of place in this
very Welsh castle, but she sat beside her husband and ate her food,
never a hair out of place, keeping one eagle eye on the active
six-year-old Cadfan and the other on her one-year-old daughter,
currently in the arms of her nanny.

Since Hywel had burned Aberystwyth and taken
the lands for himself (at his father’s bidding), Cadwaladr and
Alice had been living on Cadwaladr’s estate in Merionydd. Like
Rhos, it was a cantref of Gwynedd. Its proximity to Aber gave them
a much shorter distance to travel for the festival. With Alice
sitting beside him, a maligned wife if there ever was one, Gwen
felt a little bad about hating Cadwaladr as much as she did. She
didn’t feel so badly, however, that she wasn’t looking forward to
the moment Hywel held out the pendant coin to him and asked
Cadwaladr where he’d been last night. That pleasure, however, had
to be deferred until they knew more about the circumstances
surrounding the disappearance, death, and reappearance of
Tegwen.

A pity.

“I’ve been watching for you.” The voice came
low in her ear. “What do you see? What are you looking for?”

Gwen turned her head, startled to find her
queen, Cristina, at her side. Gwen glanced again towards King
Owain, chastising herself for being so unaware that she hadn’t
noticed her queen’s absence from the high table. “My lady, to what
do I owe this honor?”

Cristina dismissed Gwen’s obeisance with a
gesture. “I may sit where I like, with whom I like. Owain doesn’t
like to trouble me with difficult issues these days, but I would
like nothing more than to be distracted by this new intrigue. I
assume you do not fear my involvement in this matter? You don’t
think I had anything to do with Tegwen’s death or the discarding of
her body on the beach?”

“Of course not, my lady.” Gwen meant what
she said, for once. Cristina certainly wasn’t gallivanting about
Gwynedd last night, hauling Tegwen’s body from wherever it had been
hidden and leaving it on the beach in the small hours of the
morning. “How are you feeling?”

“As well as could be expected for a woman
about to deliver her first child,” Cristina said. “Your time will
come.”

Gwen bowed her head in acknowledgement of
their shared experience, interested that Cristina had even brought
it up.

Cristina, however, was not to be distracted
by the coming baby. “Do you think you can divert me from what I
want to know like a hapless miscreant? I am not fooled by your
innocent gaze, my dear.”

Gwen looked down at the trencher she didn’t
remember putting in front of her. Cristina wasn’t wrong that Gwen
wanted to avoid answering her questions or giving her any
substantive information, especially since Gwen hadn’t yet spoken
more fully with King Owain. She thought quickly as to what she
could say and opted for the essential truth, even if she couldn’t
give Cristina all of it.

“The body is Tegwen’s, as you know, and we
are just beginning our inquiry. I can tell you little, even if
Prince Hywel hadn’t ordered me to say nothing to anyone other than
the king.” Admittedly, Prince Hywel hadn’t said anything of the
sort but only because he didn’t have to since Gwen already knew
it.

Cristina leaned closer to Gwen, which wasn’t
easy given the size of her belly. “I am your queen.”

“Please, Madame, I am well aware of that.
Perhaps if you’d like to help us uncover the truth, you could tell
me what you knew of Tegwen. I have learned already today that I
knew her even less well than I thought I did.”

Cristina sat straighter, looking somewhat
mollified. “She visited my father’s house in Powys, of course.”

Gwen nodded. “Mari said as much.”

“Her father died when she was twelve, and
her mother was not well-born. Still, she was a princess, and my
father insisted that I treat her as befitted her station. She was a
sweet girl but malleable, and she fell in love with the wrong
man.”

Gwen waited, but when Cristina didn’t
continue, she made a small gesture with her hand that fell short of
actually touching the queen’s arm. “It would be helpful to know the
truth of who she was. It will come out eventually. You know how
Prince Hywel gets with an investigation.”

“He worries at it like a dog with a bone and
won’t let it go until he’s eaten the marrow. I know.” Cristina
gazed towards the high table, where Cadwaladr remained in close
conversation with Cristina’s own father, Goronwy. Gwen’s father,
Meilyr, sat to one side of the dais with Gwalchmai, tuning their
instruments in preparation for entertaining the assembled
throng.

“It should be I who speaks to this.” King
Owain sat heavily on the bench on the other side of Gwen. “I don’t
know anything about the Dane whom we all thought Tegwen ran off
with five years ago, but the man she would have married instead of
Bran was a man-at-arms in my father’s company.”

Gwen gaped at the king. She didn’t know if
she was more surprised to see him sitting on a bench like a
commoner or that he was willing to tell her what he knew.

He wagged a finger at her. “I told you to
come and find me.”

Gwen swallowed. “I am sorry for my lapse, my
lord. With one thing and another, I hadn’t yet seen my chance.”

King Owain accepted her apology with a nod,
and Gwen sensed that his chastisement had been no more than a
formality. “I wasn’t king when she had to forsake her lover for
Bran, but I played a part in the decision that she do so. I should
have paid more attention to my brother’s only child, but I had
children of my own and, upon Cadwallon’s death, a kingdom to manage
for my father.”

“But it seems you can tell me something
about this man Tegwen loved?” Gwen said.

“He was landless,” King Owain said, “with no
hope of betterment and not brave, so unlikely to be knighted in
battle. It was a hopeless match; everyone but Tegwen knew it at the
time, even the man.”

“I guessed as much,” Gwen said and then
paused, worrying that she’d been rude to the king by implying that
he was telling her something she already knew. Gwen hurried on,
“I’m sorry for speaking so directly, my lord, but we must find
him.”

Cristina’s brow furrowed. “It was my
understanding, my lord, that he went to Ceredigion with you after
Tegwen and Bran married and didn’t return.”

“He died?” Gwen said, looking from Cristina
to the king.

King Owain kept his eyes on his wife. “You
are correct that after Tegwen’s marriage to Bran, I made sure that
her lover lived far from Rhos. I sent him south to Bala, and then
he stayed in Ceredigion after our victory there.”

At the mention of Ceredigion, Gwen felt a
prickling at the back of her neck, as if someone was watching her.
She glanced towards the high table. Cadwaladr was openly glaring at
the three of them. She looked away but not before King Owain had
seen where her attention had gone. “Gwen,” he said, a warning in
his voice. “What don’t I know?”

“I-I am not the one to discuss this matter
with you,” Gwen said. “Hywel and Gareth are pursuing the man who
brought Tegwen to the beach. I beg that you remain patient. I
believe we will have a more complete tale to tell you upon their
return.”

King Owain didn’t look satisfied with that
answer. “Don’t keep me waiting too long.”

“No, my lord.”

King Owain rose to his feet, reaching for
Cristina’s hand, which she took. “I have duties to attend to. Much
can change about a man in nine years, especially if those years are
hard ones. I suggest you speak to Brychan over there.” He indicated
a swarthy man on the opposite side of the hall from them. “He
should have an interesting tale to tell you.”

Gwen glanced over to the man and then
quickly up at the king. “Him? Are you saying—”

Cristina’s eyes lit as she studied the
soldier. He sat alone at the end of a table, shoveling food into
his mouth. She leaned down and put her lips to Gwen’s ear. The glee
in her voice was unmistakable. “He’s telling you that Brychan was
Tegwen’s lover. Aren’t you lucky that so many lords have come to
Aber for Calan Gaeaf and brought their men with them?”

Gwen’s breath caught in her throat, two
unspoken thoughts filling her head: A shocked,
really?
And a
more triumphant,
finally!

This was a piece of the puzzle Gwen had been
looking for since she’d spoken with Mari, who hadn’t known the
man’s name. Gwen wasn’t sure that Cristina had known it either
until this moment.

“If you have any kind of trouble with him, I
will require him to speak to you, but I would prefer not to involve
myself in this if it isn’t necessary,” King Owain said. “I admit
that sometimes my presence can appear … heavy-handed.”

That was quite an admission coming from the
king, for all that he was absolutely correct. It would be far
better for Gwen to try to speak to Brychan first, alone, and
without undue pressure from his superiors. Being cornered by King
Owain might close the man’s lips over all but the most basic
information.

Cristina and King Owain were already walking
away, and Gwen didn’t feel she could run after them to ask for a
little more to go on or even an introduction. She was going to have
to feel her way with Brychan and hope that he would find her less
intimidating than talking to Gareth or Hywel.

Gwen continued to be amazed at the way
interesting pieces of news could come from such unexpected places.
It seemed obvious to Gwen now that while Cristina had sought her
out to gossip about Tegwen, she’d been as surprised as Gwen at King
Owain’s subsequent forthrightness. Gwen watched Cristina smile up
at her husband, her expression genuinely joyful. The woman was a
potent mix of contradictions. It was Gwen’s experience that
Cristina never did anything without a reason—and one that
ultimately benefited her. Gwen reminded herself to remain wary of
what the benefit might be this time. She hoped that it was only
that Cristina liked mischief and to stir up trouble for her own
amusement. If that was all this was, it would be a blessing.

Meanwhile, Brychan drank deeply from the cup
in front of him and rose to his feet, kicking back the bench as he
did so such that the couple on the opposite end of the bench were
jerked back from the table; they glared at him, but he ignored them
and strode towards the door. Gwen followed him from the hall in
hopes of catching him before he reached wherever he intended to go.
She didn’t want to ambush him from outside the latrines if she
didn’t have to. As she passed through the door to the hall, Brychan
was already halfway across the courtyard, heading for the
barracks.

Gwen hurried to catch up. “Brychan!”

She put a hand on her belly to stop it from
jostling as she hustled down the steps towards him. Though it was
just noon, already two servants were trimming the ends of the
torches that were set into sconces by the door to the great hall
and by the gatehouse, in preparation for lighting the moment it
grew dark. One of them raised his eyebrows at Gwen, and she gave
him a quick smile. She knew him, as she knew most everyone who
worked at Aber. Suddenly, she wondered how many had known Brychan
and Tegwen nine years ago when they’d fallen in love and how she
might get them to speak to her about it now.

Fortunately, Brychan stopped and turned at
Gwen’s call. He was close to the barracks, standing in the full
sunlight, which continued to shine down on them and which allowed
Gwen to get a good first look at his face. When King Owain had
pointed him out to her, she’d seen only his profile and hadn’t
recognized him as someone she knew. Now, she realized that she’d
seen him before: he’d been among the men in Cadwaladr’s company
during the time that Gareth had served him and Gwen’s father had
sung at Cadwaladr’s court at Aberystwyth. Brychan had left
Cadwaladr’s retinue shortly after Cadwaladr had dismissed Gareth
from his service.

As she’d been wallowing in her own misery at
the time, she hadn’t cared enough about Brychan to learn why he’d
left or where he’d gone. To leave a position with a prince unless
forced out like Gareth was so rare for a lowly man-at-arms as to be
unbelievable. Gwen wondered if loving Tegwen had something to do
with his departure, and she hoped that Brychan would tell her if
her guess was true. Since he was here at Aber now, he must serve a
lord who tithed to King Owain, but that lord couldn’t have come
often to Aber if up until a few moments ago Cristina thought
Brychan was dead.

“Hello, Gwen. May I help you?” Brychan
said.

Gwen halted a few paces from him, surprised
that he knew her. She put a hand on her chest, trying to slow her
breathing. “I was hoping to talk with you a moment.”