The Uninvited Guest (12 page)

King Owain took her arm. “Cristina—”

“
It’s so unfair! I want to
be married!” Cristina stomped her foot and then silenced the hall
by bursting into tears. Gwen could hardly blame her, since she’d
been weeping a moment ago herself. Cristina looked into the king’s
face, tears tracking down her cheeks. “We could still marry this
evening, couldn’t we? We don’t have to let this stop
us.”

King Owain kissed Cristina’s forehead. He
usually gave in to Cristina’s requests so Gwen thought he might
agree, but he just shook his head. “It would be unseemly, Cristina.
Enid was your cousin. And now this …” He looked as helpless as Gwen
had ever seen him.

“
But—”

“
The church already opposes
our union,” King Owain said. “What would the priests say if they
knew we began our life together on the heels of a murder, not to
mention an attempt on my life? It cannot be. Our marriage will
happen, but not today.”

“
Oh, Owain!” Cristina threw
herself into King Owain’s arms. “I love you so much!”

King Owain stroked her hair
while Cristina dried her tears on his shirt. He glared at Gwen and
Gareth over the top of her head. “Find him.” He pointed with his
chin towards the open fireplace. “
Someone
is behind this. He must not be
allowed to act again.”

Gareth and Gwen nodded. Neither would ever
deny the reasonableness of one of the king’s requests, especially
not with two hundred people watching. “Yes, my lord,” Gareth
said.

King Owain leaned in so the crowd couldn’t
hear him, his voice quieter but no less intense. “What am I to
do?”

Gwen gaped at him,
surprised he would ask
them
, but at the same time,
whom could he ask?
In
this, even King Owain was in uncharted waters. The murders of last
summer, though horrific, didn’t hit as close to home as Enid’s
death did. A servant had died at Aber in August, but she was the
woman who’d poisoned Gareth. They’d known
why
she’d been murdered from the
instant they found her. It had just taken them some time to find
out
who
had done
the deed
.

“
We have suspects, my
lord,” said Gareth. “Too many.”

“
I’m not going to make the
same mistake I made with you last summer. I will hang the culprit
in the gallows field, but not without solid proof.” King Owain
leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Not when the
primary suspects are my friend and my brother.”

He meant Taran and Cadwaladr. “Perhaps my
father and Gwalchmai could be persuaded to sing?” Gwen said. “It
would give the people something to occupy their thoughts.”

King Owain snapped his fingers. “An
excellent idea, my dear.” He was still holding Cristina, who sobbed
quietly into his chest, and he squeezed her once. “A cup of mead
and a song will calm everyone’s nerves.”

Then he waved a hand towards Gareth and
Gwen, dismissing them. Obediently, they turned away, to find Hywel
standing inches from them. They stopped. He flicked his eyes
towards the front door and they followed him through it. He led
them across the courtyard and into the barracks, to a tiny room in
which a body lay face up on a narrow table.

“
Who’s this?” Gareth
said.

“
Ieuan,” Hywel said. “He’s
one of the men who does physical labor around the castle—hauls
firewood, mops floors, that sort of thing. He died last night in
what we assumed was an accident.”

“
Hoped, more like,” Gwen
said.

“
Given Enid’s death, I
cannot assume anything anymore,” Hywel said.

“
Who found him?” Gareth
stood beside Hywel and looked down at the body. A cloth covered the
dead man to his waist, for propriety’s sake, even in
death.

“
Cristina,” Hywel
said.

“
Really?” Gwen said. “Why
didn’t you tell me that last night?”

“
I didn’t think it was
important.” Hywel spoke absently, his eyes on the body.

Gwen found herself studying
Hywel’s hands. Looking at men’s hands was going to become a habit
if she wasn’t careful. His fingers, unlike his brother’s, were long
and thin, well suited to plucking a harp when they weren’t wielding
a sword. Gwen felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease. Hywel
was a soldier. He’d killed Anarawd with a knife.
Maybe Hywel wasn’t lying to them this
time.

“
We should rethink that if
it turns out that Cristina had the opportunity to kill both Enid
and Ieaun.” Gareth looked at his lord. “In which case, she’s even
more clever than I’ve always thought.”

Gwen stood against the far wall, leaving the
inspection to the men. Like Enid, the dead man hadn’t suffered a
knife or sword wound. The killer didn’t like to get messy,
apparently. Given that twelve hours had passed since the man had
died, his body had stiffened considerably more than Enid’s and was
turning colder every hour that passed. The smell of released bodily
fluids threatened to bring up the bit of breakfast Gwen had managed
to eat.

“
What do you see?” she
said, after a period of silence.

“
His head has been caved
in. Look at this—” Gareth turned Ieuan’s head from side to side.
“—it happened in two places, not one, indicating that there was an
initial blow and then a second one immediately after.
Not
an
accident.”

“
Could a killer have hit
Ieuan on the head, and then pushed him into the empty bath?” Gwen
said.

“
Cristina was more upset to
see that one of the tiles was cracked than that the man was dead,”
Hywel said.

Gareth barked a laugh. “Clearly, if she were
our murderer, she would have killed him somewhere else.”

“
The killer is violent,”
Gwen said. “Accustomed to it, I’d say, to have killed two people
within a few hours of each other and not show it in his demeanor or
on his face.”

“
But not a soldier,” Gareth
said.

Hywel looked up, attentive. “Why do you say
that?”

Gareth gestured to the body. “Warriors use
blades and I haven’t seen one yet.”

“
Huh,” Hywel said. “I
hadn’t thought of that.”

Gwen went to the pile of clothes on the
table. “Are these his?”

“
Hywel glanced in her
direction. “Yes.”

I wonder where the murder weapon has got
to,” Gwen said, going through the clothing piece by piece. “We need
to look for it.”

“
I’d settle for finding our
missing assassin,” Hywel said.

“
He’s someone who knows
Aber well enough to hide bodies in places where they won’t be found
immediately,” Gareth said. “He knew about the linen closet where we
found Enid’s body and he knew about the schedule of the
baths.”

“
You’re saying he walks
among us,” Hywel said. “That he feels comfortable here, and except
for committing murder, feels unthreatened by our search for
him.”

“
I would agree that he’s
confident,” Gareth said. “Like Cadwaladr, he has no qualms about
killing and is sanguine about not getting caught.”

“
I wonder why that is?”
Hywel said.

Gareth shrugged. “It’s as
if he doesn’t believe we
can
catch him.”

“
Why would he think that?”
Gwen said. “We’ve hardly started. It’s not like we’ve had a chance
to question anyone yet, not even Cadwaladr about his
ring.”

“
And maybe that’s his
intent. To keep us off balance until he finishes what he’s
started,” Gareth said.

Hywel stood up suddenly, gazing at Gareth
intently. “You’re talking about the death of my father. That’s what
the killer wants. He’s trying to distract us until he can achieve
it.”

Gareth nodded.

“
It’s a terrifying thought,
if true,” Gwen said.

“
I still think the attacks
on my father could be unrelated to these two deaths,” Hywel
said.

“
It’s not really likely,
though, is it?” Gwen said. “What are the odds that this is a second
instance of one person taking advantage of another’s
wrongdoing?”

Either Hywel missed the reference to his own
behavior, or didn’t feel he needed to acknowledge it. “Perhaps it’s
a servant, paid to kill.”

“
A servant isn’t killing
people with such passion,” Gwen said. “The murderer has something
immediate to gain or lose by these deaths. Else why do it with so
many people in the castle?”

“
And what about the
would-be assassin?” Gareth said. “What’s become of him? Is he dead
in a ditch, murdered as this man was, or was he set
free?”

“
We don’t even know that
boy’s name.” Gwen lifted out Ieuan’s scrip and her brow furrowed.
It was empty but for a single coin and … Gwen leaned in to sniff at
it.

Gareth plucked at his lip with his finger,
watching her. “What is it?”

Gwen turned towards the table. “We don’t
know the assassin’s name. But I find it likely that one mystery is
solved anyway. Ieuan is the man Gwalchmai spoke of, the one who met
Enid by the stables. I smell syrup of poppies in his scrip.”

“
Wait one moment,” Hywel
said. “What does Gwalchmai have to do with any of this?”

“
Gwalchmai saw Enid leave
the hall last night during King Owain’s speech—which was rude of
her, if nothing else,” Gwen said. “Alun reports that she met with a
man near the stables, a man whose face he couldn’t see, who gave
her something small that she tucked in her hand. She then returned
to the hall.”

Hywel laughed. “Do we have another spy in
the family?”

“
Please
don’t say that to Gwalchmai,” Gwen said. “It will only
encourage him.”

Hywel began to pace across the floor,
looking down as he thought. “Enid left the hall yesterday evening
to meet with Ieaun who gave her the vial of poppy juice. Ieuan
ended up dead in the bath room shortly thereafter, while Enid
slipped the potion into Lord Goronwy’s drink. That would have put
him to sleep. Does it make sense that she would have dosed the
guards as well?”

“
No, my lord,” Gwen said.
“I can’t picture that.”

“
She did have a way with
men,” Gareth said. “If she brought one of the men-at-arms a drink,
he wouldn’t have turned her away.”

“
One of us must speak to
Lord Goronwy,” Gwen said. “Has anyone even told him that Enid is
dead?”

“
Last I heard, he wasn’t
yet speaking to anyone,” Hywel said.

Gareth gestured to the body. “I’d like to
examine the rest of him.” He glanced at Hywel, who nodded.

Hywel turned to Gwen. “Gareth and I will
continue here while you talk to Cristina’s father.”

“
Me?”

“
He likes pretty girls,”
Hywel said.

Gareth growled under his breath, but Gwen
laughed. “I’ll be fine, Gareth. The man just spent the night dosed
with poppies. He’s harmless. But I’ll get someone—Prince Rhun,
perhaps?—to come with me in case Lord Goronwy objects to being
questioned.”

“
Be careful, Gwen,” Gareth
said.

“
Yes, my lord.” With an
insouciant grin and a wave, Gwen left the barracks.

Chapter Ten

G
wen found Rhun in the great hall where he’d been soothing
several barons and their wives with cups of mead. “Can you come
with me to see Lord Goronwy?”

Rhun stood up quickly, almost knocking the
man next to him off his bench. “Of course.”

As Gwen went with him to the corridor that
led to the eastern wing of the complex, she leaned in, “Couldn’t
wait to get away, could you?”

Rhun shot her a grin. “Keeping busy makes it
easier to forget about what has happened. All of us—everyone in
this castle—feels as if we have a sword suspended above our heads
by a hair that could break at any moment.”

“
I’m sorry,” Gwen said. “We
can’t work any faster. I feel like we’re dropping notes and failing
to keep proper time as it is.”

Rhun shrugged. “You’re doing your best. The
rest of us will have to be patient.”

The rooms in this wing were larger and
better appointed than those on the other side of the hall where
Gwen had always slept. King Owain’s personal quarters lay one floor
above them. Lord Goronwy’s room was the second door on the right.
Two of Goronwy’s soldiers stood at attention on either side of the
doorway. It was clear that no one was going to get past them to
harm their lord. It was a perfect example of closing the stable
door after the horse has already gotten out. At least Goronwy had
been left alive. His life was in no danger now.

Rhun nodded at one of the guards, who
knocked on the door. Footsteps sounded on the wooden floor, and
then the door opened. Warm air wafted over Gwen’s face and she
smiled at Lord Tomos, who stood squarely in the doorway.

“
Yes?” Tomos
said.

“
We’d like to speak to Lord
Goronwy, if we may,” Rhun said.

“
He’s resting and shouldn’t
be distur—”

“
Don’t be an old woman,
Tomos!” Goronwy said from behind him. “Let them come
in.”

“
I really don’t think—”
Tomos turned on his heel to look at Goronwy. Gwen peered past him
to see Goronwy pushing himself to a sitting position.