The Unexpected Ally (10 page)

Gareth let out an exasperated puff of air.
“Exactly. We’re speculating with far too little to go on.”

Conall nodded. “I’ll measure the footprint.”
He disappeared again.

Gareth paced around the trough, seeing
nothing of interest, getting progressively wetter, and thinking
that—injury or no injury—he might do well to climb into the loft to
see what Conall had found. Then a glint of silver caught his eye,
and he frowned. His first instinct was to pass it off as a few bits
of hay, but then he crouched to the ground and brushed aside the
clod of dirt that covered the glint. Five silver pennies, each the
width of the tip of his pinky finger, lay in a cluster in the
mud.

Gareth wasn’t surprised they’d missed the
coins in the dark last night. As he crouched in the mud and the
rain, the question before him was if the pennies belonged to Erik,
to the murderer, or to a third person whose identity they’d just
fruitlessly speculated upon. Regardless, their loss to their owner
would be grievous—unless, of course, he was Erik. The coins might
be small and only five, but sixty could buy a man a cow. A typical
peasant in Wales might not possess a single coin even once in his
entire life, since goods were bought with services rendered, or
services rendered were paid for with goods.

Another man might have been tempted to say
nothing in hopes of keeping them for himself, but Gareth didn’t
have a single heartbeat of greed. He’d sinned enough in his life
that he wasn’t even tempted to add such a gross addition to his
collection. With the trust of his lord and a wife who loved him,
Gareth was already the richest man in Wales.

Hywel

H
ywel couldn’t help
feeling pride at riding towards the encampment at his father’s
side. He would never, ever get over Rhun’s death, but he was
growing used to being the
edling,
the son his father trusted
and relied upon above all others. He couldn’t think of anything
that could have pleased him more than arriving at Aber Castle three
days ago to find his father not only on his feet, but welcoming him
with open arms. When Hywel had left Owain last to ride to Mold
Castle, he’d had no expectation that his father would ever be happy
to see him again because he could never forgive Hywel for being the
son who lived.

“I gather you knew the dead man?”

Hywel shot a startled look at his father.
King Owain hardly ever involved himself in Hywel’s investigations
beyond ordering him to see to them. He didn’t want to know, because
he understood that Hywel sometimes walked on the darker side of
running the kingdom. Owain had certainly kept Rhun from
involvement, though Rhun had involved himself anyway, at times
without his father’s knowledge.

Resigned to having this conversation, even
though he would have preferred to keep his father entirely out of
his doings—and not remind him of the past, which any discussion of
Erik would have to—Hywel gave a slight jerk of his head in assent
and took the
crwth
by the fingerboard: “Uncle Cadwaladr used
Erik as a spy for a time, and when he abandoned Erik in Ceredigion,
I took him on.” He braced himself for his father’s reaction to what
he was going to say next. “This was before we took Mold.”

“Before Rhun’s death, you mean.”

“Yes, Father.” Hywel took in a breath. He
didn’t regret bringing Erik into his service, but he felt in his
heart that Rhun wouldn’t have done it, or if he had, it would have
been for entirely different reasons—because he would have thought
it a mercy, rather than because he wanted to use Erik as a weapon.
“I sent Erik to Ireland in case Cadwaladr had retreated there
again. It is only since we took Mold that we learned that he’d gone
to England, but it had already been months, and I had no means to
call Erik back. I did not know that Erik had returned to Wales
until this morning when he turned up dead.”

Hywel’s father made a
huh
sound deep
in his chest. “I want to know everything you’ve learned about
Cadwaladr’s movements since Rhun’s death.”

Hywel stared at his father, somewhat taken
aback. “You do?”

Owain turned on his son. “Of course I do!”
Then he calmed, taking a deep breath through his mouth and letting
it out his nose as he often did when he knew he needed to rein in
his temper. “I feel somehow that this feud with Madog is a
distraction from the main issue, which is the whereabouts of my
brother and his latest treacherous plot.”

Hywel cleared his throat. “May I ask a
question? Several actually?”

“You want to know why I haven’t deprived
Cadwaladr of all of his holdings—why his wife sits as she does at
Aberffraw,” Owain said, not as a question. “You want to understand
why I have acted as I have, knowing full well Cadwaladr’s
misdeeds.”

“Yes,” Hywel said. “I want to know
that.”

“You think that I have behaved unjustly—not
only to you, who loved Rhun so well, but to Cadwaladr himself. You
know that the manner in which I have punished Cadwaladr up until
now is a far cry from what he truly deserves, and that if I allow
him to roam free in England while Alice oversees his lands on
Anglesey, it sets a poor precedent.” Owain laughed harshly. “You
believe that the way I forgave him earlier, for the death of King
Anarawd in particular, sent him the wrong message. He saw my mercy
as weakness and that made him behave worse.”

Hywel nodded his head, suddenly feeling far
less righteous than he’d felt a moment ago—and maybe a little
foolish. He’d questioned his father’s sanity and doubted his
fitness to lead. But for all that his father had lain abed for the
last four months, here he was speaking rationally. In fact, he was
speaking like a king.

“You are not wrong, but you know as well as
I that running a kingdom means compromising sometimes. Alice’s
father is dead, but when Cadwaladr married her, he married one of
the most sought after women in England, if what a man values in a
wife is the power and influence she can bring him.”

“Which Cadwaladr does.”

“Which Cadwaladr does,” Owain agreed. “May I
remind you that her uncle is Ranulf, Earl of Chester, who is
himself married to Robert of Gloucester’s daughter. In addition,
Alice’s brother is the Earl of Hertford, another uncle is the Earl
of Pembroke, and her brother-in-law is the Earl of Lincoln.”

“You’re telling me that I was mistaken to
think that Cadwaladr would hide in Ireland. He’d tried that
already. Likely he’s hiding in an earl’s household.” Hywel ground
his teeth at the thought of Cadwaladr cowering amongst his Norman
relations.

“You’re missing my point, son,” King Owain
said. “I have to assume that Cadwaladr has leagued with Ranulf
again or with one of these other barons. He would league with them
even if he still held Ceredigion. I am far more concerned that if I
were to deprive Cadwaladr of all of his lands, it means I would
also deprive Alice, and that is an affront that her powerful family
would not ignore. We already know that Ranulf of Chester has spent
his entire adult life looking covetously at Wales. He would like
nothing more than to use my supposed mistreatment of Cadwaladr—and
by extension Alice—as an excuse to launch a war on Wales.”

It took no stretch of the imagination at all
to contemplate the enormous resources any of these lords could
bring to bear on Gwynedd should they choose to. The fact that only
Ranulf had posed a real threat up until now was in large part
because all of England was caught up in the war between King
Stephen and Empress Maud. At the same time, the war also provided
the perfect opportunity to make incursions into Wales while the
rest of England was distracted. Ranulf had already done so. Hywel’s
father was right that these other Normans might need very little
prompting to try it too.

Hywel ran his hand through his hair. “I knew
this of course. All politics are a family matter, whether here or
in England. What is the war in England now but a fight between
cousins?”

Owain paused to study his son’s face, and
his expression was so serious, Hywel feared what was coming … and
for good reason since next his father added, “What’s happening in
Ceredigion and Deheubarth is a family matter too—one in which the
Earl of Pembroke plays a role. My sister married Cadell’s father
and died defending Aberystwyth. We are bonded not only by blood
ties but by blood spilled.”

Hywel swallowed hard at the shift in their
conversation. Both Cadell, King of Deheubarth and Clare, Earl of
Pembroke, coveted Ceredigion, lands Owain had taken from Cadwaladr
and given to Hywel. The fact that Cadell’s father had controlled
Ceredigion before the war there ten years ago put Hywel’s rule in a
precarious position. Hywel himself had left Aberystwyth at the end
of the summer, called by his father to defend eastern Gwynedd from
Ranulf of Chester.

But with the events that followed—Rhun’s
death and the taking of Mold among them—Hywel had not returned to
Ceredigion. He’d even moved Mari and his sons north to Dolwyddelan
Castle. Because of Rhun’s death, Hywel’s duties had changed, and he
hadn’t known how long it would be until he could return.

Unfortunately, such a long absence meant
that Hywel had been required to choose a steward to defend his seat
at Aberystwyth. After weighing his options carefully, he’d
appointed a local nobleman, hoping that this man’s promotion would
assuage any concerns the populace might have about how much Hywel
cared for them. The new steward, Seisyll, was a capable man, but he
wasn’t Hywel. While the people feared and distrusted northerners,
they also would resent being neglected in favor of Hywel’s other
holdings in Gwynedd.

Hywel’s father saw the uncertainty in him
and put out a hand. “I am concerned about Ceredigion but not your
stewardship of it. If you have neglected the principality, it is
because I have been selfish and kept you in the north too long.
When this is over, you should go south again. In particular, you
should make peace with King Cadell.”

“I have already made overtures in that
regard, my lord,” Hywel said, feeling suddenly as if he needed to
speak formally. “We are making plans to—ah—encroach on Wiston
Castle.”

King Owain released a disdainful laugh.
“Walter the Fleming’s possession.”

The Normans, in their relentless quest to
defeat the southern Welsh, had brought in a host of settlers from
Flanders, assigning them Welsh lands and dislocating the local
people. The lord who ruled the Flemish knew absolutely that these
settlers would never side with the native Welsh and, surrounded by
strangers as they were, would fight to the death to keep what
they’d been given. As a strong fighting force, they had so far been
impossible to dislodge.

The conversation about Cadwaladr had taken
them nearly to the forward sentries of the encampment, which lay
less than a mile to the southeast of the monastery. With Madog of
Powys setting up his own encampment in the nearby fields, the men
of Gwynedd had decided to keep their distance, lest fighting break
out among the common men. If they were going to war, it wouldn’t be
by accident.

“Now, I have questions for you, which you
have very successfully managed to divert me from for almost the
whole of this journey.” King Owain waggled his finger at his son.
“But they will have to wait.” Then King Owain turned in the saddle
and waved an arm at Taran, his closest friend and the steward of
Aber Castle. “I’m not surprised that Madog agreed to this peace
conference, since he is clearly in the wrong, but I suspect
treachery too. He should never have tried to murder you, and the
only reason he did so is because he thought he could get away with
it. I want to know why he thought he could before I walk into that
chapter house tomorrow.”

Taran urged his horse closer. He’d been
riding behind the king and to his right during Hywel’s conversation
with his father, giving them the space and privacy they needed to
talk, father to son. That Taran had left Aber testified to the
breach that had opened up between Hywel’s father and Cristina,
Hywel’s stepmother, and Hywel wondered again what had finally
broken her and the king apart.
That
was a question Hywel
didn’t yet dare ask of his father.

When Taran came abreast, Owain said, “I will
hear what Madog has to say, for Susanna’s sake, if for no other
reason.”

“Yes, my lord,” Taran said.

Susanna was Hywel’s aunt, his father’s
sister—and also Madog’s wife. Hywel had given Madog the benefit of
the doubt too because of her, and it had almost cost him his life.
At the same time, it was she who’d saved him at Dinas Bran, so he
didn’t object to his father’s decree.

As they approached the encampment, located
in the curve of the river Clwyd to the southeast of St. Asaph, a
shout rose up from the watchers, and then Cynan, Hywel’s younger
brother, came to greet them, buttressed by Cadifor, Hywel’s foster
father, and two of Cadifor’s sons.

“We are prepared, sir,” Cynan said without
preamble, “ready to march today, if you wish.”

“What do the scouts report?” King Owain
dropped to the ground in a smooth motion. Hywel had feared that his
father had neglected his health in the months since Rhun’s death,
but now that he was looking at him objectively, his father was
slimmer than he had been last autumn and certainly appeared fitter
than when Hywel had last seen him.

“King Madog should be here soon, if he isn’t
already at the monastery.” Cynan held the bridle of Hywel’s horse,
and he dismounted too. “He rides with his
teulu
and a small
army, but he has left the bulk of his men at home to defend
Powys.”

“He really might not want a war today,”
Hywel said.

Cadifor folded his arms across his chest and
contemplated his foster son. “Then he shouldn’t have tried to kill
you, should he?”