The Unexpected Ally (21 page)

Hywel sighed. Such was the fate of the
edling.
That thought, again today, made him smile rather
than despair. If nothing else, his father’s amusement was
contagious. He pulled out the chair Rhys had abandoned and sat in
it, his eyes on the king.

By now, King Owain was laughing so hard that
tears were leaking out of the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t until
he put both hands on the top of his head and leaned back to look up
at the ceiling, trying to gain control of his laughter, that he
finally managed to speak. “Old Madog really pulled that one out of
the sack, didn’t he? Whoo!” He rocked back in his chair, still
struggling for control.

“What are you finding so funny?” Hywel
said.

Owain wiped his eyes. “We had him, you know.
We had him completely in our net.” Within the space of a heartbeat,
the amusement vanished entirely, and Owain leaned forward to look
intently at Hywel. “He tried to kill you. You. My. Son.” He poked a
finger on the table to emphasize the last three words.

But then he calmed and sat back again.
“There really should have been no counter to that. He gambled with
your life, and he lost. He should have had to pay a price for his
ambition.”

Hywel opened his mouth to speak, but his
father put up a hand to stop him.

“Cadwaladr’s ambition. I know that’s what
you think.” He sighed. “I think it too.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I was about to
say,” Hywel said. “You know—and Rhys knows—about what happened in
Shrewsbury. But Madog doesn’t know that we know it. That Madog and
Cadwaladr conspired to sell Madog’s people as a quick way for
Cadwaladr to raise money so that he can pay someone—Ranulf,
perhaps, or one of Alice’s other brothers or cousins—to attack
Gwynedd remains Cadwaladr’s end game. He still wants the throne.
Madog must have seen my arrival at Dinas Bran as a way to clear
away one more impediment.”

“Not that either Madog or Ranulf needs an
excuse to attack Gwynedd,” Owain added. “We did just take Mold and
the surrounding lands.”

Hywel nodded. “Nevertheless, though we
shouldn’t assume it quite yet, I truly believe that Madog himself
hired these men to attack that monastery in order to come to the
conference with a grievance that was credible and new. Bringing up
the death of his father or what happened fifteen years ago before
Uncle Cadwallon died might be relevant in the long run—and Madog
surely keeps those grievances against Gwynedd fresh—but they would
not be enough to convince the conclave that you are in the wrong in
the matter of the attack on me.”

King Owain tapped his fingers rhythmically
on the table. “And that is why Madog truly came to this conference,
isn’t it? Not for peace, per se.”

“It was to convince outsiders, Normans,
maybe even King Stephen or Robert of Gloucester, that you are out
of control.”

“With grief, still, you mean?”

Hywel canted his head to one side, saying
yes without saying it.

“Rhun’s death has repercussions far beyond
the actual loss of him, which is distressing enough,” Owain said.
“It is time, however, that the other lords of Wales and the March
stopped thinking I’m in my dotage. I have many years of rule in me
yet.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hywel said. “In truth, I
hope for it.”

His father shot him a piercing look. “You
mean that.”

“Of course I mean it!”

“Not all sons would,” Owain said.

Hywel snorted in disgust. “This son has
always felt that way. If something were to happen to you, I would
lead, and I would want to, but I’m patient. Rhun was too, you
know.”

“I know.” Owain rubbed at his chin. “So, how
do we get the better of Madog?”

Hywel smiled. Intrigue was to him like mead
was to another man—his lifeblood, even if he’d been neglectful of
that side of him of late. “First of all, there are a few things you
don’t know.” He proceeded to relate everything they knew about the
investigation into Erik’s death, which on the surface appeared
peripheral to the situation with Madog, up until last night, when
Susanna had seen Derwena away with the man who might be his
killer.

“And this is the sister of the woman Gwen
knows, who came here looking for her?” Owain said.

“Yes. It feels coincidental that Gareth,
Conall, and Gruffydd witnessed Rhodri’s capture last night. If
Rhodri really was a member of the marauders, paid for by Madog,
then he should have been with them already. Why arrest him and
abuse him now? But if I’m wrong, and Madog didn’t set this all up,
how did they know that Rhodri—a common boy from Corwen—was
involved?”

“Puzzling, but not insurmountable,” Owain
said. “We need to get to Rhodri.”

Hywel rose to his feet. “I’ll do it. He
knows more than he’s telling, that is certain. If he will confess
to the raid on the conclave, and if he was the one who rode to St.
Asaph with Erik, then perhaps he will tell me some detail that will
help us discover who murdered Erik and why. In fact, I’ll go see
him now before anyone else has time to start thinking about what he
knows and while most everyone is still at this fire.”

Owain pushed to his feet too and jerked his
head at Cynan. “With me, son. We will make our unhappiness known to
everyone within hailing distance. They will remember us, and nobody
will wonder what has become of Hywel.”

Cynan grinned. “It will be my pleasure,
sir.”

The two men transformed their faces into the
very epitome of discontent and stalked from the room, mirror images
of each other except that Cynan was several inches shorter than his
father. Hywel went out the other way, in the direction the monks
had taken Rhodri when they’d left the chapter house.

Hywel had been to the monastery before and
had made it his business to know how it was laid out. The monks’
dormitory was on the second floor above the chapter house and
attached to the church at the north transept, so during the night
offices the monks could descend into the church by the night stair
without having to go outside. At the same time, while the vast
majority of monks participated in the daily life of the monastery,
there were times when a brother wanted solitude or was under
penance, and such a man moved into a cell in the northern range of
buildings, adjacent to the infirmary block.

The cells weren’t really cells in the prison
sense of the word, but while the dormitory was exactly that—a long,
open room where the monks at the monastery slept—the cells were
private, each with its own door. There were three of them, tucked
between the infirmary pantry and the warming room for the sick.
They had their own anteroom, to protect the inhabitants of the
cells from weather and the wind that might blow through the window,
perhaps a foot square, in their individual wooden doors. Each cell
had a second window high up in the back wall. It meant they
couldn’t see out of it, but daylight could light the cell and save
on candles.

Rhodri’s cell was being watched by the same
two monks who had taken him away. Either Madog really did trust
Abbot Rhys to keep Rhodri safe, or he’d been distracted by the fire
and hadn’t yet given thought to how thoroughly his prisoner might
be guarded. Last Hywel had seen, Madog been walking away with Rhys,
and somewhere in the back of Hywel’s mind, he had a stray thought
that Rhys had meant to distract Madog and his men so they left the
field clear for Hywel. But then he gave a dismissive shake of his
head. Rhys was an old soldier and spy, but he wasn’t
omnipotent.

The two monks who guarded Rhodri wore hooded
robes, hands hidden inside their sleeves. Both were dark and lean
in their middle twenties, and they could have been brothers in life
as well as vocation. Perhaps they were.

Hywel’s boots scraped on the threshold to
the anteroom, calling the attention of the two monks to him. “May I
speak to the prisoner?”

The expression on the monks’ faces would
have made Hywel laugh if things were a bit less serious. The
brothers knew who Hywel was, and they didn’t want to deny him, but
they hadn’t been given orders regarding who might talk to
Rhodri.

“I will be only a moment.”

When the two men still hesitated, Hywel put
up his hands. “I assure you that I won’t harm him! And if anyone
asks, you are free to tell him that I came calling.”

“Yes, my lord.” The two monks left the cell
anteroom, instead posting themselves on either side of the exterior
door, which remained open. Hywel didn’t mind. This wasn’t a secret
meeting, since the monks had obviously seen him. If word got back
to Madog that he’d been here, he wanted there to be no questions
about what he’d come for.

The window shutter in the door that blocked
Rhodri’s cell could be opened from either side, and Rhodri’s window
lay open flat against the outside of the door, allowing his guards
to see what he was doing inside. At the moment, that was nothing,
other than sitting on his pallet on the floor, looking, if
anything, more miserable than he had in the conclave.

Hywel put his nose to the window. “Come
here, boy.”

Rhodri looked up. He couldn’t have missed
Hywel’s conversation with the monks, but he was putting on the
appearance of caring little for it one way or the other. “I was
told to speak to nobody.”

“Told by whom?”

“King Madog.” As Rhodri said the king’s
name, he lifted his left hand in a dismissive gesture, and Hywel
instantly revised his approach. Though the last finger on Rhodri’s
left hand was completely normal, his hands were the size of serving
platters. Hywel had been going to try to sweet-talk him, but now he
decided that amused dismissiveness was a better tactic.

“I don’t want to talk to you about the
sacking at Wrexham. I already know you weren’t paid by my father to
do it.”

Rhodri was on his feet in an instant. “But I
was! We all were! I swear it!”

Hywel was again derisive. “How much did
Madog pay you to swear it?”

Rhodri’s expression went blank for a moment
as he tried to figure out what Hywel had just asked, and then he
launched himself at the door. “Nothing!”

Hywel backed off. “How much did Owain pay
you, then?”

“Ten pennies each!” That was a fortune for a
peasant.

“Do you have those pennies on you now?”

Rhodri stuck out his chin in stubborn
defiance. “I spent them.”

“Is that why you’re here? To get more money
out of King Owain?”

“No! He summoned me!”

Hywel looked darkly at Rhodri. “How so?”

“I received a message to meet my contact
here at St. Asaph. He had another task for me, one that didn’t mean
sacking a monastery. That was why I was on the road north of the
monastery last night.” Rhodri looked down at his feet, seemingly
having forgotten about not talking to anyone. “I was supposed to
meet one of King Owain’s captains there, but King Madog’s men
appeared instead.”

“What was the name of Owain’s captain who
paid you?”

Rhodri’s head came up. “So you believe
me?”

“I believe that you were paid, and if it was
one of my captains who did it, then I want his name so I can get to
the bottom of this quickly—hopefully before the conclave starts
again this afternoon.”

The boy finally remembered to look mulish
again. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

“You really should. Perhaps it will mean
that we go easy on you when you’re accused of murder.”

Rhodri jerked backwards. “I didn’t kill
anyone!”

“Your own hands say otherwise.”

Rhodri held his hands out in front of him,
turning them back and forth.

“I have a dead body in the chapel, one of my
men. He was strangled by someone with unusually large hands, and
yours would fit around his neck perfectly. And then, a noose will
fit around yours.”

“A-a-a noose!” Rhodri’s horror and confusion
seemed genuine.

“In addition, I have a man who will swear
that he saw you in the dead man’s company three days ago.” Hywel’s
words were a mix of half-lies and outright untruths, but he didn’t
care as long as they got a reaction out of Rhodri.

Which they did.

“No!” Rhodri staggered away from the door.
“I-I-”

“If it wasn’t you, then you should tell me
the name of the man who paid you, and maybe we can discover
together what is really going on here.”

Rhodri was still staring at Hywel. Then he
moved forward and grasped the sill of the window with both hands.
“This is a church! I claim sanctuary!”

“You can claim sanctuary all you want, but
only after you tell me this man’s name.” If Hywel had been inside
the room, he would have thrown Rhodri against the wall, and Rhodri
seemed to know it, because he cowered before Hywel’s wrath, both
arms moving to cover his head as if Hywel was about to hit him,
which wasn’t an illogical assumption. “Gareth! His name was
Gareth!”

Hywel so wanted to laugh, but now that the
name had been given, he realized he was completely unsurprised to
hear it, and that was why he was able to keep his expression
serene. Rhodri had just told him far more than a name. He’d given
him the identity of the man behind the plot, even if that was a
name Rhodri didn’t know. Hywel bobbed his chin in thanks and
stepped back from the door.

Rhodri lowered his arms, his eyes on Hywel
and disbelieving that the questioning was over. “What about
me?”

Hywel studied him from several paces away.
“Tell your story to the conclave just as you told me. I won’t
interfere.”

“You really do believe me.” Rhodri’s
shoulders sagged.

Hywel scoffed. “Every word you’ve told me is
a lie, but that lie didn’t come from you, and
I
believe that
you
believe yourself to be telling the truth. Go ahead and
tell it. Obey Madog, do as you are bid, and you will survive
this.”

“Thank you.” Rhodri breathed in and out as
if he’d just run a mile.