The Unexpected Ally (2 page)

Anselm canted his head. “I commend you on
your charity, Sir Gareth, and thank you for your suggestion. It is
always better to think the best of everyone and not jump to the
worst conclusion.” He bowed grandly in Gareth’s direction.

Gwen blinked again, still at a loss for
words. She’d already been thinking that Anselm looked a bit like a
shrew, and now his supercilious expression was firmly entrenched in
her mind, and she feared she would never dislodge it.

Abbot Rhys raised a hand, cutting through
the companions’ stark incredulity and Anselm’s self-satisfaction.
“Thank you, Prior Anselm, for your thoughts. If you would do me a
personal favor and return to the monastery to see to your brothers,
I would be most grateful.” He glanced to the sky for a moment,
checking the condition of the light.

In the short time Gareth and Gwen had been
talking to Rhys and Anselm, some of the darkness had lifted, though
with the heavy cloud cover and rain, it was hard to tell exactly
how far off dawn really was. Sometimes when Gwen was up early
tending to Tangwen, her daughter, or taking a few moments to
herself before the rest of her family woke, she liked to go outside
as the sun rose. Even when clouds covered the sky as they did this
morning, she would close her eyes and breathe—and it was almost as
if she could feel the moment the sun lifted above the horizon.

There wasn’t time for that today, even if
Gwen could have benefited from the peacefulness of such a moment.
The needs of the dead took precedence, as they always did. Or
rather—it wasn’t the needs of the dead that required seeing to, but
those of the people left behind, who might suffer because of what
the living had done. The dead suffered no more.

“In particular,” Abbot Rhys continued, “I
will need you to ease the minds of many of the younger novices,
since it will be impossible to keep what has happened here from
them. It would also serve me well if you would lead our dawn
prayers. I suspect that the loss of this young man will occupy much
of my attention this morning.”

“As you wish, Father.” Anselm might have
spoken his conclusions about suicide with assurance, but at least
he didn’t insist on standing outside in the rain any longer than
necessary, and he definitely looked pleased to have been asked to
lead the service in the abbot’s absence. He canted his head again
in what Gwen assumed he meant to be an accommodating manner, turned
away without complaint, and started back down the path to the
monastery proper.

Then Rhys turned to Lwc. “Perhaps you could
arrange for a cart to move this poor soul. We’ll need at least two
men to lift him.” He glanced towards Erik again. “Maybe three.”

“Of course, Father.” Lwc handed his torch to
Gareth before following Anselm at something of a faster pace. He
would be heading towards the dormitory where the monks slept. That
left Rhys alone with Gareth and Gwen.

They watched Lwc go until he was out of
earshot, and then Rhys smiled apologetically and pointed with his
chin in the direction his brothers had gone. “Prior Anselm is newly
appointed to his post at the request of the bishop. Up until now, I
have found him less than reliable under pressure, so I am pleased
with how well he comported himself this morning.”

Gwen managed to suppress an unladylike snort
of laughter at Rhys’s words. The intervention of the bishop
explained a great deal, since Gwen couldn’t imagine that Rhys would
have chosen Anselm as his second-in-command if he’d had a true say
in the matter. She looked down at the ground to hide her amusement.
The hard rain of the night had left puddles everywhere, and Gwen’s
fresh dress was soaked to mid-calf. She sighed and hoped that
yesterday’s dress would be dry by the time she returned to the
guesthouse.

Gareth was still talking to Abbot Rhys. “The
variety of God’s creation is boundless, Father. I’m sure the bishop
saw in Anselm some redeeming characteristics that are less clear to
the rest of us mortals.”

Rhys’s eyes brightened, and he reached out
to Gareth’s left shoulder, meaning to show affection as one old
soldier to another, but Gareth took a quick step back before Rhys
could touch him. Rhys arrested his hand in midair, the unasked
question of why Gareth didn’t want to be touched plain on his
face.

Gareth gave the abbot a rueful look. “I was
stabbed last week, and I cannot deny that my shoulder hurts when
anyone touches it.”

“Gareth!” Rhys turned to Gwen. “My dear, you
should have said!”

“I would have said something when we
arrived, but Gareth doesn’t want me talking about it, even though I
know how much his injuries are hurting him.”

Gareth looked daggers at Gwen, but she
smiled beatifically up at him, and added, “He was hit hard on the
head too.”

Rolling his eyes, Gareth turned back to
Rhys. “I’m healing well. The knife hardly penetrated.”

“Not for lack of trying, Father,” Gwen said,
not willing to let Gareth underplay his pain. “Gareth’s left
shoulder blade stopped the knife, but the blade cut through the
muscle, and the wound bleeds easily if he moves too much.”

“What, then, are you doing in St. Asaph with
King Owain’s army?” Rhys looked from Gwen to Gareth and back
again.

Gwen spread her hands wide. “There’s so much
to tell you, and this probably isn’t the place.” She tipped her
head in a motion not dissimilar to Anselm’s. “For now, suffice to
say that it is better to be here than at Aber.”

Rhys huffed a laugh. “Aber must truly be a
dangerous place.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Gwen
said.

Gareth

A
s females, Gwen
and Tangwen, Gareth and Gwen’s daughter, had no business riding
with the king and his men to St. Asaph, especially since Gwen was
pregnant. If Gareth had known in advance about King Owain’s
transformation from bedridden mourner to vibrant monarch, he would
have left Gwen behind at Dolwyddelan Castle with Mari, Hywel’s
wife, where they’d spent the last night of their journey from
Shrewsbury before reaching Aber. But they’d discovered that the
king was well only at the moment of their return to Aber. King
Owain had been leaving the castle, supplied for a journey, with an
army of men around him. Though Abbot Rhys had invited him for a
peace conference, the king was prepared for war.

Their surprise at Owain’s resurrection had
driven out any other thought, and when the king had beckoned to
everyone in Hywel’s party to follow him out the gate and onto the
high road heading east, they’d complied. By the time the company
had ridden to Caerhun, some ten miles from Aber, it would have been
more of a burden to send Gwen away than to let her stay.

In retrospect, Gareth wouldn’t have left
Gwen at Aber anyway. Though King Owain hadn’t openly stated that he
and his wife, Cristina, were estranged, he’d implied it, and the
coldness between them was plain for all to see, even just from the
couple’s brief exchange in Aber’s courtyard. King Owain’s wife was
difficult to live with under normal circumstances, but Gareth would
have been jeopardizing his own marriage if he’d left Gwen with
Cristina when the queen was feeling slighted and unhappy.

Now, with another murder investigation
before them, Gareth wasn’t sorry to have Gwen by his side. In
Shrewsbury, they’d considered telling Hywel that these murders were
taking too great a toll on them and their family and that they
couldn’t pursue them anymore. In the aftermath of their captivity
and the investigation’s resolution, however, they’d decided that
they couldn’t turn their backs on the necessity of having
someone
do what they did. Until such a person appeared, they
would instead strive to be more careful to protect their family—and
their own hearts.

With another dead body at their feet, and a
man they knew at that, that was going to be easier said than done.
Gareth indicated Erik with a tip of his head. “I should probably
have a look before the others return.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Rhys said. “I
wouldn’t have woken you if I didn’t think this was murder.”

“I know.” Gareth raised the torch higher so
it would shine directly into the trough and on Erik’s face, clearly
visible beneath the water. The rain had all but stopped, so there
were fewer raindrops leaving ripples in their wake to mar the
surface. “I don’t have to tell you, Father, that we’ve done this
before, and you can leave the investigation to us.”

“It’s why I had Lwc wake you, of course.”
Rhys sighed. “I gather from the way you reacted when you saw this
man’s face that you knew him personally?”

“Both of us do—did—and you did too, after a
fashion.” Gwen leaned over the trough, frowning. “He was in
Aberystwyth.”

“I don’t think the good father ever met him,
Gwen,” Gareth said.

Gwen looked up at Gareth. “Oh, well—” she
glanced at Rhys before returning her attention to Erik’s face,
“—his name is Erik, and he has served quite a few lords over the
years, including Prince Godfrid of Dublin and Prince Cadwaladr.
After Aberystwyth, he became Hywel’s spy, after a fashion, having
been cast off and abandoned by Cadwaladr.”

“That is quite a list of masters.” Rhys
pursed his lips as he studied Erik’s body. As a former soldier, he
would have seen fallen men before, and for a murder scene, this was
cleaner than most. “Given that he served Cadwaladr, am I to
understand that he didn’t much care whom he served as long as he
was paid?”

“You can assume it.” Gareth lifted one
shoulder to shrug. It was becoming a habit lately to raise just his
right shoulder, since the left was injured—though, in point of
fact, his left shoulder had bothered him on and off for years, so
he wasn’t even sure if the habit was new. He was intensely grateful
that it had been the left side that the bandits had injured, rather
than the right, lest he end up completely crippled. “I had no idea
he had returned from Ireland.”

Rhys glanced at Gareth. “Why would he have
gone to Ireland?”

Gareth paused for a moment, gathering his
thoughts and debating how much he could tell Rhys without violating
Prince Hywel’s confidence.

Gwen had no such reservations. “After Rhun
died, Prince Hywel sent Erik to Ireland to look for Cadwaladr, who
has allies and family members within many Irish kingdoms, as well
as in Dublin. As a former Dublin Dane, Erik speaks—I’m sorry,
spoke—both Danish and Gaelic, so he really was the best man to
send.”

“I see.”

Gareth focused on Rhys’s face. “Do you?”

“Prince Cadwaladr’s duplicity and treachery
are familiar territory for me, and I am also aware of his role in
Prince Rhun’s death.”

“How did you hear of it?” Gwen said.

“Father Alun of St. Mary’s Church in Cilcain
travels to St. Kentigern’s from time to time seeking advice. He was
particularly shaken by the events of last autumn, and he gave me a
full accounting of what happened that week from his
understanding.”

Gareth nodded. “I am hoping to speak to you
about what happened from mine.”

Rhys looked at him gravely, understanding
Gareth’s need for counsel and solace without him having to
articulate further. Gareth and Gwen had spoken of their grief at
length to each other, of course, but as a former warrior, a priest,
and a friend, Rhys was a man upon whom Gareth could not only depend
but to whom he could pass his burdens for a while.

“Who found him, Father?” Gareth said.

“The brother in charge of the milking, a man
named Mathonwy. He sent one of his lads to Anselm, who woke me.
Once I saw the body, unlike Prior Anselm, I knew that it was
murder, so I sent Lwc to find you. I let Brother Mathonwy attend to
his duties elsewhere until he was needed here.”

“Who is Lwc, exactly?” Gareth wasn’t asking
the young man’s origins so much as why he had been the one to
accompany Rhys to the murder scene.

“He is my secretary, also newly appointed.
He refuses to allow me to leave my chambers without him.” Rhys
smiled half-apologetically. “The bishop determined that in my
advancing years my workload was too heavy and sought to lighten it
by sending me an assistant. He arrived with Anselm last week, and
already I find him indispensable.”

“Ha!” Gareth laughed under his breath.
“Advancing years … the bishop doesn’t know you very well, does
he?”

“You are an irreverent young man.” Rhys
shook his head, though he was smiling. “I suspect that you, like
me, are far older than when we first met.” It was a sobering
reminder of all that had happened—and all that had been gained and
lost—in the last three and a half years. “I will make the milkman
available for you to question.”

“Thank you, Father,” Gareth said. “He can
give us an idea of the earliest Erik could have died, since I
imagine the body wasn’t here yesterday evening when the cows were
milked.”

“Presumably not,” Rhys said—and then, his
eyes bright, he put out a hand before either Gwen or Gareth could
say anything. “I know. Never presume.”

Gwen had gone back to surveying the body.
“It’s odd that Prior Anselm’s thoughts went first to suicide. Do
you know why that might be?”

“I do not. We received him as our prior as a
transfer from a brother house far to the south, and I know little
of his origins beyond what the bishop told me and what Anselm
himself has chosen to reveal.” Rhys tapped a finger to his lips.
“Perhaps it was a mistake not to learn more.”

Rhys’s mind had already made a leap Gareth
hadn’t yet considered—namely that Anselm might have had something
to do with Erik’s death and was attempting to pass it off as
suicide rather than murder.

“Was Anselm where he was supposed to be all
night?” Gwen said.

“He wasn’t present at Matins, our night
office, but that’s because he’s been feeling poorly for several
days and has been sleeping in the infirmary. I wouldn’t have asked
him to come out this morning, but he was the one who woke me.” Then
Rhys shook his head. “Anselm is far too small a man to have held
down Erik.”