The Unexpected Ally (14 page)

He continued, “We see how the war has
unleashed the devil in men, who have known nothing but violence for
ten years now. With the failing health of Robert of Gloucester,
Maud’s influence in the west lessens, and that lack has spurred
King Stephen to press the advantage wherever he can, most recently
against Chester. That has put our monastery in the crossroads
between the Earl of Chester, who supports Maud, and the Earl of
Ludlow, who supports Stephen, but as they are fighting farther to
the east, it leaves the border with Wales unprotected.”

At the general nods all around, Deiniol
added, “I know as much as I do because my abbot told me of it
before sending me on my way.”

“Abbot Tudur is an old friend,” Rhys said
for the benefit of Gareth and Gwen. “The brothers have been
scattered to several monasteries, but a party of twenty are on
their way here.” Rhys sent a wry smile in Gareth’s direction. “A
handful intended to ask for sanctuary in Shrewsbury.”

“I can accept that as a coincidence,” Gareth
said.

Deiniol made a helpless gesture with one
hand. “How this may change with the recent defection from Stephen
of the Earls of Hertford and Pembroke, I don’t know. I know only
that my abbot entrusted me with the task of finding a home for my
brothers.”

Abbot Rhys met Gareth’s gaze. “Lawless men
are free to roam wild when kings and barons are distracted by a
quest for power.”

“Thus we found in Shrewsbury,” Conall
said.

“We don’t—” Gwen looked from one man to
another and tried again, “—we aren’t thinking that what happened in
Shrewsbury is happening here, are we?”

Gareth put out a hand to reassure her.
“Perhaps not slavery. No. But organized thievery? I would believe
that.”

“The men who sacked our monastery were
organized,” Deiniol said. “They came in broad daylight when we were
at our prayers and most of the buildings were unoccupied. Before we
knew it, they’d barricaded us inside the church. They gave us the
opportunity to flee only when they realized most everything of
value was in the church.”

Gareth drew in a long breath through his
nose. “I suspect you are less than pleased to have found sanctuary
in Gwynedd, but I hope you can see it now as a blessing. No group
of armed men, no matter how well organized, no matter what their
allegiance, would dare attack St. Kentigern’s while we are
here.”

“But you
are
men of Gwynedd,” Deiniol
said. “King Owain could simply order his men to take what is
here.”

Gareth’s chin firmed. “It is just barely
possible that men of Gwynedd did, in fact, destroy your monastery,
but they did not do so on the orders of King Owain. When you speak
of the king, you will do so with respect.”

Deiniol swallowed hard.

Gareth realized that as he’d spoken, he’d
leaned forward in a way that Deiniol might perceive as menacing.
Gingerly, he leaned back before Abbot Rhys had to tell him to calm
down.

Gwen shot him a worried look before adding,
“Prince Hywel and King Owain themselves, when they hear of these
events, will insist that the perpetrators be brought to justice, no
matter whom they serve.”

Rhys looked directly at Gareth. “We need to
know if there is a link between what happened in Wrexham—and what
is happening around it—” he gave special emphasis to these words
with a flick of his eyes in Deiniol’s direction, “—and Erik’s
death.”

Deiniol started at that and turned to Gwen.
“My lady, when you showed me the picture, you didn’t tell me the
man was dead!”

Gwen gave him a small smile. “I know. That
you didn’t know until now implies that you didn’t kill him.”

Deiniol’s jaw dropped. “Well, of
course—”

At a motion from Rhys, he stopped talking.
“You may leave us now, Deiniol. If Gareth has more questions about
what happened to your brothers, I hope that you will accommodate
him by answering as completely and truthfully as possible.”

“Of course.” Deiniol bobbed his head in
Gareth’s direction. “I can say, my lord, that I do not believe that
you were among the culprits.”

That Gareth could be so accused at all
rankled him, and he struggled to be gracious. He did manage to say,
“I’m sorry for what happened to you and your brothers. I assure you
that if men of Gwynedd are responsible, I will do everything in my
power to find them and see that not only are they punished, but
that the valuables taken from Wrexham are returned.”

“Thank you.” Deiniol left the room.

Once the door closed behind him, Rhys leaned
forward, implying that now that Deiniol was gone, the real
discussion could begin. “I did an accounting of our treasury. It is
possible that the coins you found belong to this monastery. My
records indicate that we are missing six silver coins, plus three
other items: two gold crosses and a ring. I wouldn’t have known to
look closely—or thought to do so until the next accounting—had you
not found the coins, since on the surface nothing has been
disturbed.” He shrugged in a somewhat self-deprecating way.
“Perhaps I am even mistaken that we are missing anything.”

Gareth scoffed. “If the monastery were run
by anyone but you, I might consider the possibility. Tell me the
truth—are you mistaken?”

Rhys took in a breath, and Gareth sensed his
hesitation was less because he was searching for patience but that
he was trying to control anger. “No. Someone has been in the
treasury.”

In Wales, the wealth of a monastery was in
its sheep, cattle, and land, not in gold or silver. At times,
however, wealthy barons endowed the monastery with their temporal
goods. They might donate money, jewelry, candlesticks, chalices, or
other movable items. They did so out of Christian devotion, in an
effort to find absolution for a long life poorly lived, or simply
because they had no suitable heir to whom to bequeath their wealth
and didn’t want it to go either to a distant relative they didn’t
know or simply revert to the king.

“What I don’t like,” Gareth said, “is that
Deiniol’s monastery and yours have lost wealth—his more than yours
obviously.”

Gwen was tapping a finger to her lips as she
thought. “Deiniol’s monastery was robbed and burned outright.”

“My immediate thought is to agree that these
are two very different circumstances,” Rhys said, “and that they
could not possibly be perpetrated by the same men.”

Conall, who had so far remained completely
silent, spoke for the first time. “That’s the kind of coincidence
we don’t like.”

Rhys nodded. “I agree, thus the notion that
what is happening here is part of a larger tapestry.”

“How long has it been since you did an
accounting of the treasury?” Gareth said.

“Five days. I reconcile the ledger with all
the items once a month, though the schedule isn’t necessarily that
rigidly regular. It is an unseemly task for a monk, but somebody
has to do it.”

“Were you alone?” Gwen said.

There was a pause. And when Rhys didn’t
answer immediately, Gareth leaned forward, gazing at him intently.
“Father?”

Rhys made a motion with his head implying
that he didn’t want to say, but knew that he must. “It is always
the abbot and the prior who do the accounting, along with a third
monk, chosen at random. In keeping with the traditions established
by my predecessor, I never choose the same man twice.”

Gareth’s eyes narrowed as he thought. “So
the men involved were you, Prior Anselm, even though he must have
just arrived—”

“He’d been here only two days,” Rhys
said.

“And a third man. Who?” Gareth said.

Rhys scratched the top of his head, clearly
still reluctant to say, but as Gwen, Gareth, and Conall looked at
him, he gave a sharp nod. “Brother Mathonwy, the milkman.”

Gareth rocked back in his chair. “That
changes everything.”

Rhys sighed. “You’ll have to talk to him
again.”

Gareth looked over at Conall, asking with
his eyes if Conall was ready for another visit to the barn. The
Irishman nodded and then looked at Rhys. “Does anyone else know
about the missing items?”

“Since I sent Brother Fidelus back earlier
in such haste, by now most of the monastery will know something is
amiss,” Rhys said. “They don’t know exactly what is wrong,
however.”

“Not even Prior Anselm?” Gwen said.

Rhys shook his head. “But with Erik’s death,
the theft and rediscovery of his body, and the condition in which
it was found, rumors are swirling around the monastery. In fact—”
he rose to his feet, “Vespers is upon us and I must see to my
flock. Many of them have spent their entire lives in the monastery
and do not have the emotional ballast to accommodate these
events.”

A knock came at the door, and at Rhys’s call
of “Come!” Brother Lwc opened it and poked in his head. His eyes
were wide, excited by the news he had to share. “Father Abbot. King
Madog of Powys has come.”

Hywel

H
ywel had thought
he’d understood how angry, hurt, and fearful Gwen had been after
his uncle had abducted her to Ireland. Now, as he stood beside
Gareth and stared down from the top of the gatehouse tower upon the
King of Powys in the monastery courtyard, his stomach tied in
knots, he realized that he hadn’t understood at all. Not
really.

This man tried to kill me!
Hywel had
faced death in the past. He’d fought in many battles, and he and
his uncle, Cadwaladr, hated each other with a passion that was hard
to measure. But this betrayal was unlike those others. Madog had
violated the sacred oath of hospitality that was the backbone of
every interaction between Welshmen.

Thankfully, simply having that thought pass
through his head was enough to put Hywel’s mind to work again. The
fact that Madog could betray not only his alliance with Gwynedd but
the very basis of Welsh society suggested that Madog had been
spending so much time with Normans of late that he had forgotten
who he was.

Hywel’s eyes narrowed as he studied his
uncle. The King of Powys was of middle height with the growing
girth of middle age. He had neither mustache nor beard and wore his
dark but graying curly hair somewhat long and loose. He had dressed
as the king he was in a fur-lined cloak and highly polished
knee-high boots, but he also wore the full regalia of a Powysian
knight: armor, sword, and all.

“How am I to dine at the same table as
Madog? How are Father and I to sit across from him tomorrow at the
conference?”

“The same way men in your position always
have,” Gareth said, “with grace, and because you have to.”

“I hate him. I almost hate him more than
Cadwaladr, though that’s probably going too far.”

“I know.”

As Madog dismounted in the courtyard of the
monastery, he was greeted by Abbot Rhys. Unfortunately, seeing as
how he was only allowed to watch the formalities from the top of
the gatehouse, Hywel was too far away to hear what was being said.
Hywel’s father had delayed returning to the monastery so he
wouldn’t be tempted to do exactly what Hywel was doing. In fact,
his father had chosen to remove himself from St. Kentigern’s
guesthouse rather than sleep in the same building as Madog, should
the Powysian king choose to stay at the monastery. As loath as
Hywel was to sleep anywhere near Madog ever again, he had decided
to stay. It was an act of defiance and a refusal to be
intimidated.

Hywel’s Aunt Susanna had ridden with Madog,
along with their son, Llywelyn, whom Hywel had bested in his escape
from Dinas Bran. Small, blonde, and slender, Susanna was a few
years younger than her husband. Without her help, Hywel could not
have escaped from Dinas Bran, but the solicitous way Madog helped
her from her horse implied that he didn’t know the role she had
played. She was in an impossible position—torn between loyalty to
her brother, the King of Gwynedd, and her husband, the King of
Powys. Hywel wondered if the true hand behind the peace conference
was actually hers more than Abbot Rhys’s.

He shook his head. “How does he do it?”

“Who?”

“Abbot Rhys. He’s speaking to Madog as if he
trusts him and his motives. It’s exactly the same way he spoke to
my father this morning.”

“Rhys is one of those men with the ability
to perfectly understand another’s position and convey it without
any of the hearers being aware that he doesn’t share that opinion,”
Gareth said. “It isn’t that he doesn’t have one, but his purpose
here is to come to a peaceful solution to the current dispute
between Gwynedd and Powys—even if only for a time. To do that, he
has to be trusted by both sides, and that can’t happen if Madog
thinks Rhys is on our side.”

“It makes him impossible to read,” Hywel
said. “Looking at him now, I’m wondering if he believes that the
marauders could have been from Gwynedd.”

“He was a spy. That’s his job. As abbot,
those skills are put to daily use. He governs a hundred men, is
seen as the source of wisdom for an entire cantref, and is now in a
position to broker peace between kings.”

“About that.” Hywel made a
hmm
sound
deep in his throat. Then he glanced around the wall-walk and even
went so far as to step into the stairwell behind them to make sure
they were alone. Then he came back to Gareth. “I never told you
that after Newcastle-under-Lyme, I came to see him.”

Gareth rubbed his chin as he studied Hywel,
who noted the wariness that had suddenly come over his friend. “Why
did you do that?”

“Because I had questions about the role he’d
played in our adventure there, and I needed to ask them.”

“Did he answer?”

“Yes.”

Gareth just looked at Hywel, quietly
waiting.

“Rhys was a spy for Empress Maud, but before
that, he worked for Geoffrey of Anjou, her husband.”