The Unexpected Ally (33 page)

“How can you say you didn’t kill Erik when
you have his things?”

“Because I didn’t kill him. I witnessed his
murder. To his credit, Erik fought back. He managed to stab his
companion, but not before he himself was so weakened, he couldn’t
fight anymore. While they were arguing, I took the bag.”

The calm way he denied the murder but
confessed to thievery was disconcerting. She also didn’t know that
she believed him. Jerome could have been stabbed in the back in a
fight with Erik, but she found it equally likely that Anselm had
done it himself, either in defense of Erik or so he could take the
bag without resistance. Regardless of whether or not Anselm was
telling her the truth, she was determined to continue asking
questions, to keep him here as long as possible and to distract
him. “Why would his companion kill him?”

“Why does any man kill another?” Anselm
tsked through his teeth. “Greed. They were arguing about money, or
the apportionment of money that was yet to be made. Erik’s friend
wanted more, and Erik wanted out. He’d fallen in with a common
thief and lost his life because of it. He used to be smarter.”

Gwen didn’t know about that, but the Erik
she’d known had had a strong sense of self-preservation. Not enough
of one, apparently. “Why were you there at all?”

“Erik and I had arranged to meet in the
barn, so he could give me the letter to King Cadell. Before I could
show myself, Erik’s killer surprised him.”

“Why didn’t you bury the bodies, or hide
them, or … or something? You could have disappeared, and nobody
would ever have been the wiser.”

Anselm scoffed. “Do you know how hard it is
to get rid of a body on short notice? Really get rid of it?” He
shook his head. “Better to leave things as they were.” He eyed her
sourly. “I didn’t know about your husband—or you—at the time. I
left Erik in the trough where he died and piled hay on the other
fellow, who’d managed to crawl back into the barn to nurse his
wound, but then bled out where he lay. You’ll have to find someone
else to blame for the fire. Your husband neglected to leave a watch
in case the culprit returned to the scene of his crime.” He cocked
his head at her. “I imagine he won’t make that mistake again.”

Then he stepped closer, true menace
emanating from him for the first time. He held out his hand. “I
need my letters back.”

Without arguing, Gwen handed him the bundle
of letters. He quickly went through them, taking out the ones he
wanted and tossing the rest onto the bed. Then, he grabbed the bag
from where it lay beside her and stuffed his bundle into it.

Gwen kept both hands up, knowing she
couldn’t keep him any longer. He knew better than to stay when
Hywel and Gareth, not to mention Abbot Rhys, could return at any
time.

He backed towards the door. “It was a
pleasure doing business with you, Gwen. I haven’t met many women
quite like you. Give my regards to your lord.” Anselm saluted her
with a hand to his temple—and then was gone.

Gareth

G
areth, Hywel, and
Abbot Rhys found Gwen still in Anselm’s room a quarter of an hour
later. She was sitting on the bed, looking forlorn, a pile of
letters in her lap.

“
Cariad,
what happened?”

Gwen looked up and her eyes widened. Gareth
looked down at himself and for the first time realized he was
covered in blood. “It’s all right, love. It isn’t mine.” He tugged
the surcoat off over his head, exposing his mail armor, and dropped
the bloody fabric to the floor. Then he knelt in front of her and
took her hands in his. “What are you doing in Anselm’s room?
Something—something else—has gone wrong?”

Gwen let out a breath and looked down, and
Gareth knew her well enough to know that she was fighting tears.
“Gone wrong, yes. Though I suppose in a way it’s gone right too.”
She raised her head, and when she looked at him, and then past him
to Hywel, her eyes were clear. “You lost a man?”

Gareth nodded wearily and told her what had
befallen them at the bandits’ hideout. “Lwc and the other survivors
are being taken to King Owain’s camp. It’s better that we keep no
more criminals here.”

“The last few days haven’t been good for my
flock.” Rhys gestured to indicate the room. “Though I’m thinking
what you’ve discovered won’t be either. I almost hate to ask what
you are doing in Anselm’s room.”

Gwen sighed. “It’s the last piece of the
puzzle.” Then she related her conversation with Anselm.

As she told the men about giving up the
letters that proved who Anselm was, Gareth pulled her into his
arms. “You couldn’t do anything else,
cariad
. He claimed not
to have murdered Jerome, but I don’t believe him. He could have
killed you too.”

“I know. I knew it at the time—” she pulled
away enough to reach into her purse and pull out Hywel’s ring.
“You’ll want this back, my lord.”

Hywel took the ring and clenched it in his
fist. He held the packet of letters in his other hand.

“I’m tempted to ask you to throw those in
the fire,” Rhys said. “The last thing we need is more
disunity.”

Hywel held them out to the abbot. “Do
it.”

Rhys put up a hand, his expression rueful.
“I have kept secrets and lived lies for most of my life, but I am
not that man anymore. Gwen is right that you need to keep them.
Your father’s rule is precarious because of Cadwaladr’s actions.
King Owain needs to know who his enemies are.”

“They circle round him, nipping at his heels
like wild dogs.” Gareth moved to sit beside Gwen on Anselm’s bed
and kept his arm around her.

Meanwhile, Hywel weighed the packet of
letters in his hand. “Cadwaladr implicates these lords simply by
writing to them. Some of them were here at the peace conference,
ostensibly on my father’s side.”

“Is our final conclusion that Erik betrayed
you, my lord?” Gareth said.

“I don’t think so,” Hywel said. “He may have
been involved with the sacking at Wrexham, but Lwc also said that
he was angry about the bandits turning their sights on St.
Kentigern’s, and I’m convinced now more than ever that Aunt Susanna
meant for me to find them at her farm. She couldn’t tell me
outright about her husband’s misdeeds, but she could help me stop
them.”

“You believe Lwc that it was Jerome who was
working for Madog, not Erik?” Gwen said.

“Erik was working for Susanna, and now that
I think back to my conversation with her, more to the point, he was
working for Alice. And perhaps it was Alice all along to whom he
gave his allegiance. Just because Cadwaladr let him go does not
mean that he turned his back on her.”

“He shouldn’t have accepted your patronage,”
Gareth said.

“He certainly shouldn’t have,” Hywel said,
“but again, looking back, I can see how he thought he might serve
me and her at the same time. Alice would have wanted to know
Cadwaladr’s whereabouts too, and who’s to say she herself wasn’t
looking to Ireland for support for Cadwaladr’s cause, as Cadwaladr
did four years ago.”

“What are you going to do about the
letters?” Gwen said.

“Now that war with Powys is averted for a
time, I think I will go to Anglesey. I’d like to know that my aunt
is settled comfortably.”

“Which aunt?” Gareth said.

“Both.” Hywel held up the letters. “I will
personally deliver Alice’s to her.”

“What about Anselm and King Cadell?” Gwen
said.

Prince Hywel shook his head. “I am perturbed
to learn that King Cadell has been meddling in Gwynedd’s affairs. I
had said that I wanted you to go to Dolwyddelan, Gwen, and I do,
but now I think that after Anglesey, Gareth and I will join you—and
from there we will all go on to Ceredigion.”

“You think there’s more to Anselm’s story
than he told me, don’t you?” Gwen said.

“Oh yes,” Hywel said. “Of that I have no
doubt.”

The End

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Continue reading for the opening of
The
Last Pendragon
, the first novella in
The Last Pendragon
Saga
, set in dark age Wales
.

Rhiann knows that demons walk the night. She
has been taught to fear them. But from the moment Cade is dragged
before her father's throne, beaten and having lost all of his men
to her father's treachery, he stirs something inside her that she
has never felt before. When Cade is revealed to be not only
Arthur's heir but touched by the sidhe, Rhiann must choose between
the life she left behind and the one before her--and how much she
is willing to risk to follow her heart.

Kingdom of Gwynedd

655 AD

T
he smell of smoke
and sweat filled the hall, mingling with the overlay of roast pig
and boiled vegetables. More soldiers than usual sat at the long
tables, here to celebrate their victory. The mood was subdued,
however, not the wild jubilation that sometimes accompanied triumph
and caused Rhiann’s father to lock her in her room in case he
couldn’t control the men.

Today, the drinking had begun in earnest the
moment the men had returned from the fight and settled into a
steady rhythm Rhiann had never quite seen before. Here and there, a
hand clenched a cross hung around the neck or an amulet against the
powers of darkness, that should her father see, might mean death
for that soldier. For a man to ask the gods for protection instead
of the Christ meant he was less afraid of the King of Gwynedd than
someone, or perhaps something, else. Rhiann had been afraid of her
father her whole life and couldn’t imagine fearing another more,
not even the demons that were said to walk the night, hungering for
men’s souls.

Perspiration trickled down the back of
Rhiann’s dress, made of the finest blue wool that her father had
gotten in trade from merchants on the continent. Welsh wool, while
plentiful, was courser than that of sheep raised in warmer
climates. The Saxon threat was enough to keep the Cymry within
their own borders, but the sailors still took to the western seas,
bringing in trade goods of wine, finely wrought cloth, metalwork,
and pottery.

For once, Rhiann’s father, King Cadfael of
Gwynedd, had eaten little and drunk less. For her own preservation,
Rhiann had always been sensitive to his moods and noted the exact
instant his disposition changed. He shifted in his seat and rolled
his shoulders, like a man preparing for a battle instead of the
next course of his meal. A moment later, the big, double doors to
the hall creaked open, pushed inward by two of the men who always
guarded them. The rain puddled in the courtyard behind them, and
Rhiann wished she were out in it instead of here—anywhere but
here.

She kept her place, standing behind and to
the left of her father’s chair. It was her duty to tend to his
needs at dinner as punishment for her refusal to marry the man he’d
chosen for her. Rhiann hadn’t turned the man down because he didn’t
love her, or she him; she knew better than to wish for that. It was
a hope for mutual respect for which she was holding out. But even
this seemed too much to ask for an unloved, bastard daughter.
Consequently, Rhiann spent her days as a maidservant, albeit one
who worked above stairs. She didn’t regret her station. As the
months passed, she’d come to prefer it to sharing space at the
table with her father and his increasingly belligerent allies.

Silence descended on the hall as two of King
Cadfael’s men-at-arms entered, dragging between them a young man
whose head fell so far forward that no one could see his face. He
was visibly collapsed, with his arms dangling over the guards’
shoulders and his feet trailing behind him. As the trio progressed
along the aisle between the tables toward the king’s seat, the
youth seemed to recover somewhat, getting his feet under him and
managing to keep up with their strides. As he came more to himself,
he straightened further.

By the time he reached the dais on which
Rhiann’s father sat, he was using the men-at-arms as crutches on
either side of him. Because he was significantly taller than they,
it was even as if he was hammering them into the ground with his
weight. His footsteps rang out more firmly with every stride,
echoing from floor to ceiling, matching the drumming of Rhiann’s
heart. The closer he got to her father, the harder it became to
swallow her tears.
By the souls of all the Saints, Cadwaladr,
why did you come?

Rhiann had been her father’s prisoner her
whole life, unable to escape his iron hand. The high, wooden
palisade that circled Aberffraw had always signified prison walls
to her, rather than a means to protect her from the darkness
beyond. This young man had grown up on the other side of that wall.
He’d not had to enter here. He’d had a choice, but had recklessly
thrown that choice away and was now captive, just as she was. She
felt herself dying a little inside with every step he took as he
approached Cadfael.

The young man, Cadwaladr, the last of the
Pendragons, fixed his eyes on those of the woman sitting beside the
King. She was Alcfrith, Cadfael’s wife, taken as bride after the
death of Cadwaladr’s father. Rhiann couldn’t see her face, but from
the back, the tension was a rod up her spine, and her shoulders
were frozen as if in ice.