The Unexpected Ally (24 page)

“Yes.” Lwc’s head was down. Every line of
his body spoke of misery.

“Is this the first time, or did you steal a
few pennies last week?”

“That wasn’t me.”

Conall frowned and glanced at Gwalchmai, who
already knew from his eavesdropping that some money had been
missing from the monastery before today. It was odd for Lwc to lie
about it, however, since he was well and truly caught. “Where did
you put what you stole? Will I find it in Deiniol’s bags?”

“No. It’s in the stable, hidden in grain
sacks.”

“Whose idea was it to burn the barn to the
ground?” Conall said. “Yours or Deiniol’s?”

Lwc’s head came up. “That wasn’t us! We
didn’t burn anything!”

“You’re trying to tell me that you never
planned to steal from the monastery, but the opportunity presented
itself so you took it?” Conall’s voice was dripping with
disdain.

“No! We were going to do it after the peace
conference ended. With so many people about, it’s easier to keep
your head down and do whatever you like. That’s what Deiniol said,
and it’s true! We just had to wait until Abbot Rhys was occupied.
It was meant to be tonight at dinner, which is being held at the
Powys encampment.”

“How about murder?” Conall said. “Was it you
who killed Erik to stop him from exposing your plan to steal from
the monastery?”

Lwc shook his head frantically back and
forth. Gwalchmai felt a little sick to see the fear on his face. “I
didn’t kill anyone!”

“Why was Deiniol leaving if the gold was
still in the stable?” Conall said. “What was supposed to happen
next?”

“This evening at dusk, I was to wheel it in
a hand barrow out the back gate of the monastery. We figured that
with everyone at the dinner, it would be easy to slip by without
anyone asking questions.”

“And what about you?” Gwalchmai said because
he couldn’t help himself. His dismay had turned to disgust. “How
much were you to keep for yourself?”

Lwc’s mouth dropped open, and he looked
pleadingly at Conall. “The gold wasn’t for me! It was for my
monastery. Deiniol was going to give it to our abbot so he could
rebuild it!”

Gwalchmai took a step forward. “You came
from Wrexham too?”

Lwc nodded frantically.

Conall barked a laugh. “What kind of sense
does it make to steal treasure from one monastery to rebuild
another?”

Uncertainty entered Lwc’s eyes. “Uh … well …
Deiniol said that the bishop took the gold that should have gone to
Wrexham and gave it to Abbot Rhys. Deiniol said that Abbot Rhys
didn’t deserve his station, that he was grasping and ambitious—”
Lwc broke off, head hanging down again.

Conall let his silent disbelief drag out for
a count of ten. Lwc refused to look at either of them.

“Are you even a monk?” Gwalchmai said.

That question had his head jerking up again.
“Of course I’m a monk! I came as an infant to Wrexham!”

“How is it that you came to St. Asaph to be
the abbot’s secretary?” Conall said.

“I can read and write. Deiniol told me how
to write out the orders so they’d be believed. Deiniol had the
bishop’s seal to mark it, and then he sent me here in advance of
him. After the thefts, I was to stay another week and then head
back south.” Lwc hung his head again. It was an odd pose for a man
who’d just stolen a fortune from a monastery.

Conall noted the irony too. “You have an
interesting relationship with the Ten Commandments, son.” He canted
his head as he looked at Lwc. “How long was Deiniol a monk at
Wrexham?”

Lwc’s face went blank for a moment, as if it
had just occurred to him that Deiniol might be not what he seemed.
Gwalchmai wasn’t yet sixteen, but he’d sung for kings since he was
nine years old. He watched people out of need and habit and
because, more often than not, up until they’d returned to Aber four
years ago, he’d always been on the outside of every social
situation, looking in to what he couldn’t have.

“He arrived a fortnight before we were
raided, riding from Abbey Cwm Hir.” Lwc paused. “Or so he said. The
abbot believed him,” Lwc ended, somewhat defensively.

Gwalchmai pulled on his lower lip as he
thought. “What about Brother Anselm?”

“What about him?”

“I remember Gwen saying that the two of you
arrived in St. Asaph together, both sent from the bishop. That was
a lie in your case. What about his? Is he working for Deiniol
too?”

“No!” Again, Lwc looked horrified. “I joined
him on the road, just a few hours out from St. Asaph. He seemed
surprised to see me, but because I had a letter from the bishop
too, he accepted me.”

“This is Bishop Meurig of Bangor, yes?”
Conall said.

Lwc nodded. “But he isn’t in Bangor right
now. He journeyed to Chester on St. Dafydd’s day and is still
there, meeting with Chester’s bishop and visiting Lichfield and
Coventry.” Lwc spoke these words rapidly, as if he didn’t know them
to be true for himself but had heard someone else say them.

Conall barked a laugh at Lwc’s pedantic
tone. “You heard that from Abbot Rhys, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You respect him—Abbot Rhys, that is—don’t
you?” Gwalchmai said. “You know that what Deiniol told you isn’t
true, don’t you? You probably knew it from your first day at the
monastery.”

Lwc was back to staring at his feet. “I
do.”

Conall put a gloved finger to Lwc’s chin,
forcing him to look up. “Then why would you steal the monastery’s
wealth?”

“I didn’t have a choice—” he broke off.

“How so?” Conall said.

Lwc’s lower lip stuck out. He was affecting
a pose like Gwalchmai might have at five years old when Gwen caught
him in wrongdoing. “Deiniol threatened to tell the abbot that I had
come here to steal. I didn’t want the abbot to think badly of
me.”

“How did you think he was going to feel when
he found the monastery’s wealth gone, you gone, and his monastery
sacked?” Conall said.

Lwc gaped at him. “What did you say? Who
said anything about sacking?”

Conall tsked through his teeth at Lwc’s
foolishness. “Theft at Wrexham and theft at St. Asaph—and Deiniol
and you present at both places. Is anyone going to think that’s a
coincidence? How long before the band of marauders arrive to take
what’s left and destroy the monastery?”

“Those were men from Gwynedd! Hired by King
Owain! Everybody knows that! Deiniol said that King Madog captured
one of the men responsible last night!” Lwc was practically gasping
with righteousness at being so falsely accused.

Conall studied him, tugging on one ear
again, which Gwalchmai was beginning to recognize as something he
did when he was thinking. “What the king is going to believe,
rather than anything you’ve said so far because it defies reason
that anyone could be so foolish, is that you’ve been in league with
the bandits all along. You let them into Wrexham, and then you came
to St. Asaph to try the same thing here. The peace conference
upended your plans, so you set fire to the barn to distract
everyone, stole the treasure, and were about to ride away with it.”
Conall looked at Gwalchmai. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t
it?”

Gwalchmai tried to look very serious. “It
does.” He marveled at how the boy could have been so thoroughly
deceived. Of course, he hadn’t been raised on the road as Gwalchmai
had, but in a monastery. If nothing else, however, Lwc should have
known that stealing was wrong, no matter how desperate the
need.

“No, no, no! That’s not it at all!”

Conall dragged Lwc over to his horse and
lashed the end of a second piece of rope around his wrists. He kept
tight hold of the other end, even as he boosted Gwalchmai onto the
horse’s back. “Tell Gareth and Gwen what Lwc has said. We’ll be
along shortly.”

Looking down at the pair of them, Gwalchmai
hesitated, wanting to say something, to thank Conall for including
him and trusting him. He wanted to sneer at Lwc for being perhaps
the stupidest man he’d ever met.

Misunderstanding Gwalchmai’s hesitation,
Conall said, “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt him.”

Gwalchmai nodded, relieved, and urged the
horse towards the stone wall. But just before the horse leapt it,
he caught Conall’s laughter and added comment, “—much.”

Hywel

F
or the last
quarter of an hour since he’d left Rhodri’s cell and arrived in the
courtyard, Hywel had been getting an earful, first from Gareth and
Gwen about what had been going on since he’d last spoken to them,
and then from Iorwerth, detailing his surveillance of Lwc’s theft
of the treasury. It was hard to believe so much could have gone
wrong in so short a time—hard to believe, that is, if he hadn’t
been associated with Gareth and Gwen for as long as he had.
Deiniol, one of the apparent culprits keeping Hywel from his
father’s side, had been tied at the wrists and attached by a rope
to a post in the stable, out of earshot of Gareth’s narration but
not out of sight.

Then Conall’s horse turned under the
gatehouse, Gwalchmai instead of Conall mounted on its back, and
trotted up to where the trio were standing.

“Did you catch him?” Gareth said by way of a
greeting.

Gwalchmai dropped to the ground with an
envious agility. Hywel wasn’t injured like Gareth, but he was
tired—and growing older. His muscles were stiffer after riding in a
way that hadn’t been the case a few years ago.

“Conall did. Lwc told us a tale, one worth
hearing. It might even be true.” Gwalchmai lifted his chin to glare
in Deiniol’s direction and raised his voice so that it could be
heard across the distance. “He says Deiniol murdered Erik.”

At the accusation, Deiniol showed a surfeit
of emotion, struggling against the rope that bound him so that he
could move closer. “He can’t have said that! I didn’t murder
anyone. I didn’t steal anything either.”

“Did he really say that Deiniol murdered
Erik?” Gareth said in an undertone to Gwalchmai.

Gwalchmai turned his face away from Deiniol.
“No, but he did blame Deiniol for the idea to steal from the
monastery. The treasure is hidden in sacks of feed in the stable.
Lwc was going to wheel them out in a handbarrow later tonight.”

Gareth put a hand on Gwalchmai’s shoulder.
“Good work.” He strode off, past Deiniol and into the stable.

Gwalchmai and Gwen in tow, Hywel approached
Deiniol. “If you didn’t murder Erik, do you mean to imply that you
convinced Lwc to murder Erik for you?”

“What’s this about murder? There’s been no
murder—not by me!” Deiniol said. “You can’t think it!”

Hywel canted his head. “Do you know who I
am?”

Gareth had greeted Hywel when he’d arrived
as
my prince,
so if Deiniol had been paying attention at all
he should know that Hywel was a man of importance, even if he
didn’t realize that he was the
edling
.

Deiniol’s jaw clenched. Given that Deiniol
had been caught with Lwc, and that he was also their only witness
to the existence of Erik’s friend, they’d gone full circle with
him. It was doubtful that they could believe anything he said.

Still, Hywel took his refusal to answer as
an assent of a kind and said, “Then you know that I have the power
to hang you right now for murder on Lwc’s word. We are in the
middle of a war, and we don’t have time for the niceties of
lawyering. Can you produce anyone to vouch for your innocence?”

Deiniol licked his lips, looking more
uncertain with every breath. “No, my lord.”

“Then you would be wise to admit to the
lesser charge of theft and tell us what you did do rather than risk
the greater one, don’t you think?” Gareth returned from the stable,
holding a silver candlestick in one hand and a bag of coins in the
other.

Deiniol tugged fruitlessly on his bindings.
“I have never seen those before! This is not my doing, but Lwc’s! I
came into the stable at the same time Lwc was tying closed one of
the feed sacks. I had nothing to do with any theft! I was in the
wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. You
have
to
believe me.”

“We really don’t,” Gareth said.

Deiniol’s eyes moved from Gareth’s face to
something beyond Hywel. Hywel turned to look and saw Conall and Lwc
entering under the gatehouse, Lwc on a leading rein. The boy looked
appropriately cowed, a little rough around the edges with dirt
smearing the front of his robe, but his face showed no
bruising.

At the sight of Hywel, Gwen, and Gareth at
the entrance to the stable with Deiniol tied to a post, Conall
stopped fifty feet away and didn’t approach. Hywel jerked his head
in the direction of the cloister, thinking it wise to keep Lwc and
Deiniol separated until he heard the full story from both of them.
Conall tugged Lwc towards the far side of the courtyard, and Hywel
turned back to Deiniol, whose eyes had bugged out a little at the
sight of the younger monk.

Hywel pursed his lips and then waved a hand.
“Watch them, you two,” he said, referring to Iorwerth and
Gwalchmai, “while we confer.”

The four adults moved to the center of the
courtyard, equal distance between the two culprits but no closer to
understanding what was really going on here.

“What exactly did Lwc say?” Hywel said to
Conall.

While Conall gave a summary of his
interrogation of Lwc, Hywel’s eyes stayed on the boy. He sat on the
ground in his dirty robe, his knees pulled up and his chin resting
on them. Then he turned to look at Deiniol, whose expression had
turned even more apprehensive.

Conall concluded with a lifted chin. “What
does Deiniol say?”

“He denies any wrongdoing, up to and
including having a hand in the thefts,” Gareth said.

“Can we believe either of them?” Gwen
said.

Hywel looked at her, thinking her comment
uncharacteristically suspicious. “You don’t think Lwc speaks the
truth?”