The Fourth Horseman (33 page)

Chapter
Twenty-six

Gwen

“I
am honored to receive you.” Earl Robert bowed low and held the
pose longer than he might have if he hadn’t wanted to convey his
deepest respects.

The Welsh folk who faced him honored him in
the same way. Gwen held her curtsey until she sensed Prince Hywel
rise.

“
We were pleased to be of
service,” Prince Rhun said.

From beside Gwen, Mari reached for her hand
and squeezed it once as they followed Hywel and Rhun towards the
high table to take their places on either side of the earl. Hywel
sat on the earl’s right, with Mari in the next seat down, while
Rhun took the seat on Earl Robert’s left. Alard and Ralph, though
invited to the meal, still preferred the private to the public and
had chosen to dine at the friary with their good friend Prior Rhys.
That was one conversation Gwen would have very much liked to
overhear.

Prince Henry, known as ‘Richard’, sat to
Gwen’s right, with Gareth on the other side of him. Everyone at
Newcastle had been overjoyed to learn that Prince Henry was still
alive, except the explanation the earl had given his people was
that the prince had never left Bristol and the entire journey had
been a ruse from beginning to end to draw out the assassin.
‘Richard’ remained one of the retinue and otherwise
unremarkable.

“
Are you well?” Gwen asked
Richard/Prince Henry.

“
More people have asked me
that in the last few days than in my entire life. I am well.” He
looked at her with a fierce expression that belied his age. “I will
not forget the service you and Sir Gareth rendered to the Crown of
England. If you ever need anything from me, you have only to
ask.”

Gwen was happy to hear that—although if
Henry did become king one day as his mother wished, that might be
an oath he’d come to regret. Kings shouldn’t make promises they
couldn’t keep.

“
We could not have done
otherwise,” Gareth said.

“
What I don’t understand is
how John and David could have betrayed the empress so profoundly
after all their years of service,” Prince Henry said, following the
custom of referring to his mother—and himself—as if he wasn’t
himself and she wasn’t his mother.

“
I have spoken long with
Amaury,” Gareth said. “Once Philippe told his men that Alard was a
traitor, they became pawns in Amaury’s game. David and John never
knew they were serving King Stephen instead of the
empress.”

“
How could they not know?”
For all that he’d been raised a prince, Henry was still only ten
years old. Truth came in black and white to him.

“
Because Philippe had begun
to rely more and more on Amaury over the past few months,” Gwen
said. “When Amaury told David and John that the emeralds were
payment for their long years of service to the empress, and they
had only this one last task to do for her—to kill Alard—they
believed him.”

Prince Henry’s brow furrowed as he thought.
“Why give the emeralds to David and John at all? If they thought
the order came from Philippe, they’d be doing no more than their
duty to obey him. At the very least, Amaury could have paid them
once Alard was dead.”

“
Ah, but then it would look
as if the emeralds were payment for murder, not for long service,”
Gwen said.

“
Amaury needed to keep them
quiet and send them on their way once Alard was dead,” Gareth said.
“Reporting to Philippe would have been their natural instinct, and
Amaury hoped they would be so focused on the emeralds, they would
accept his instruction not to do that. They were to meet Amaury
later at the farmhouse.”

“
At which point Amaury
would have killed them and taken back the emeralds,” Henry said.
“Even I can see how Amaury thought this would work.”

“
Thanks to Alard, that part
of the plan failed before it started,” Gwen said.

“
Amaury tried to recover
the emeralds, to salvage what he could,” Gareth said. “He arranged
for his men to take David’s remains from the chapel and had already
removed the emerald from John’s body by the time I examined
it.”

“
But why kill Alard at
all?” Henry said.

Gareth rested his elbows on the table and
took a sip of wine. “This is where Amaury started to think too hard
about what he was doing. He was afraid that Philippe, despite his
infirmity, was growing suspicious of him. The messenger from
William of Ypres had said Alard was the traitor, but Amaury was
afraid that if Alard was alive to defend himself, Philippe would
begin to doubt the authenticity of the messenger’s claim.”

Gareth shot Prince Henry a sardonic smile.
“In addition, Amaury hoped that killing Alard would allow him
closer access to Henry’s retinue and perhaps even authority over
his security at Newcastle. ‘Prince Henry’ would have been easy
pickings for Amaury at that point.”

“
All the rest of what
Amaury did that had us chasing our tails was his attempt to patch
the holes that had been rent in his increasingly complicated plot,”
Gwen said.

“
Distract, delay, and
divert
were his exact words,” Gareth said,
“even to the point of bribing that guard, Ieuan, at the camp to do
whatever he could to obstruct me. It didn’t matter to Amaury what
that might be.”

Mari leaned forward to speak across Gwen. “I
am glad that you had the presence of mind to identify Amaury as the
assassin, my lord.”

“
Thank you,” Prince Henry
said.

“
What I don’t understand,”
Mari said, “is why Bernard wasn’t better protected.”

Gwen’s brow furrowed. “I assumed Earl Robert
left Bernard open to attack because he was bait. That’s not
true?”

“
Young lady, you have a
quick tongue.”

Gwen started. The earl, sitting beyond Mari
and Hywel, had turned his steely blue eyes on her. She swallowed
hard. “I apologize, my lord, for speaking out of turn. But Sir
Amaury was playing a long game and didn’t fool only you.”

“
That is no excuse in my
case.” Earl Robert stabbed a turnip with his knife and bit off the
tip. “Bernard was my responsibility, and I failed to predict the
possible danger that he might face in the bailey of my own castle.
I didn’t anticipate how the treachery of one man could be so hard
to defend against.”

“
What I’d most like to
know,” Prince Henry said, “is
why
Amaury did it?”

“
Every man has his price,
and loyalty is more often about promises and payment than love,”
Earl Robert said. “Some men come cheaper than others, though for
four emeralds, even small ones, Amaury didn’t come cheap.” He put
down the knife and turned his full attention to their end of the
table, his eyes this time on Prince Henry. “You should know that
the empress has departed for Devizes with the traitor.”

Gwen’s heart hurt when Prince Henry’s face
crumpled at the news. “She never spoke to me, not even once.”

“
The empress is nearly as
loving as my father,” Mari said, in Welsh and under her
breath.

Gwen shot her friend a wide-eyed look,
afraid Earl Robert had heard her. “What will become of Amaury?” she
said to change the subject.

“
He will lose his head,”
Earl Robert said, having returned his attention to his food, “as an
example to those who would betray the empress.”

“
What is to become of
Prince Henry?” Henry said, sounding like the ten-year-old boy he
was.

“
As soon as it is feasible,
I mean to send him back to his father in France,” Earl Robert said.
“He is too important to our cause to risk.”

“
You might send Alard and
Ralph with him,” Gwen said. “You know them now to be unwaveringly
loyal.”

“
I intend exactly that.”
Earl Robert glanced down the table yet again, this time with a
smile twitching at his mouth. “That may mean a slight delay,
however, since Ralph’s first responsibility will be to attend his
daughter’s wedding.”

Mari and Hywel froze in identical postures
of shock, food halfway to their lips. Slowly, Prince Hywel put down
his knife, wiped the corners of his mouth with a cloth, and glanced
at Mari. Gwen’s heart leapt to see the smile they shared.

“
Why didn’t you tell me?”
Gwen elbowed her friend in the ribs.

Mari just smiled and looked down at her
lap.

Prince Hywel cleared his throat. “I must
confer first with my father before anything can be decided.” Then
he grinned and his eyes lit, turning them to blue sapphires. Gwen
hadn’t seen such happiness in him in a long time. “But Earl Robert
is right. I have spoken to Mari and she has agreed, despite the
numerous flaws in my character, to become my wife.”

Chapter
Twenty-seven

St. Kentigern’s Monastery, St. Asaph

Hywel

H
ywel stepped out from behind the pillar, stopping Prior Rhys
in his tracks. The prior hesitated before raising his lantern. “Are
you here to kill me, Prince Hywel?”

“
Have you done something
worth killing over?” Hywel said, and then amended, “Recently, I
mean?”

“
I didn’t expect you to be
the one to come.” Rhys gestured with one hand, indicating that
Hywel should walk with him. They left the cloister and headed along
the pathway that led through the monastery gardens. “Or rather, I
was expecting someone else.”

“
Gareth,” Hywel
said.

Prior Rhys canted his head, not giving
anything away, but agreeing nonetheless.

“
Before our last parting,
you answered his questions to his satisfaction,” Hywel
said.

“
But not to yours?” Rhys
said, with a sideways glance at Hywel.

“
He has his questions; I
have mine.”

Rhys stopped and turned. “Don’t you have
some place to be? You’ve been married all of two days. Don’t tell
me your wife won’t notice your absence from her bed.”

Hywel pulled up with him. “She is sleeping.
Rhuddlan Castle is not far away. I will return to her before the
sun rises.”

Rhys peered at Hywel. “This is customary for
you, isn’t it? How long have you passed off your nocturnal
activities as liaisons rather than give voice to what you’re really
doing?”

Hywel tsked through his teeth. “A
while.”

“
You cultivate a guise of
willful promiscuity to hide … what … secret meetings with your
spies?” At the expression on Hywel’s face, Prior Rhys went on,
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure you’ve had your share of women,
but—”

“
Gareth warned me about
you,” Hywel said.

“
What did he
say?”

“
That if I came to see you,
I might end up giving more than I got.”

Rhys laughed, and this time it was genuine.
“I like that boy.”

“
So we now have spent
valuable time talking about me instead of about you,” Hywel said.
“I have questions, as I said.”

“
So ask them.”

Now that it came to it, Hywel wasn’t sure
where to begin. He had important questions, ones that Rhys wasn’t
going to want to answer. Perhaps it was better to start with an
easy one: “Just to be clear—who was the archer that shot
Amaury?”

“
Ah. Everyone seemed to
have forgotten about him. I hoped you had too. I should have known
better.”

“
Well?” Hywel said when
Rhys didn’t continue immediately. He could waste a little time
wooing the prior, but the man was right that he had Mari to get
home to.

“
The hours lay heavy in my
hands after I was injured and gave me too much time to think,”
Prior Rhys said. “I began to wonder, merely by the process of
elimination, if Amaury could be at the heart of the crimes we
witnessed. But of course, I was injured enough that I had little
ability to find proof of treachery on my own.”

“
I wish you’d spoken to me
or Gareth,” Hywel said.

“
You were suspicious of me,
as you may recall, because of what I’d hidden about myself,” said
Rhys. “To accuse another, a friend, might make me appear
disingenuous. In addition, you weren’t telling me everything
either. I didn’t know you had an emerald until after the incident
at the abandoned chapel.”

Hywel bowed slightly at the waist. “That is
true. My apologies.”

Prior Rhys looked down at his hands.

When he didn’t continue speaking, Hywel
prodded him for a second time. “The archer?”

Prior Rhys nodded. “I saw him when we
entered Newcastle that first day, that very first moment, in fact.
He was standing by the gatehouse, speaking with one of the guards.
I have a good memory for faces, but I didn’t need it in this case,
since I’d used him a time or two.”

“
He was an assassin,” Hywel
said.

Prior Rhys lifted one shoulder in a
half-shrug. “Think of him as the best shot in your arsenal. You use
him if you can.”

Hywel folded his arms across his chest,
ready to hazard a guess. “You got to him, didn’t you? You ordered
him to miss Ralph!”

Prior Rhys laughed. “Not quite. He told me
that Philippe, via our friend Amaury, had tasked him with bringing
down Alard—not to kill him, mind you, but to injure him just enough
that he could be captured. A nice leg wound would have done very
well. I merely suggested that he was on the side of the devil if he
followed that order and that he might find life more hospitable in
the court of King Owain in the land of his birth. I was very
persuasive.”