The Uninvited Guest (2 page)

One of the serving men, a youth of less than
twenty, came through the door to the kitchen with a tray of food to
replenish the dishes at the tables. He stopped short at the
solemnity of the diners and shifted from one foot to the other.
Gwen didn’t know him—Aber’s steward had hired many men for the week
whom she didn’t know—but she motioned for him to stand at the wall
so as not to interrupt the ceremony.

The man set his tray on a small table next
to the door and took his place beside her. He dipped his head to
Gwen. “Thanks.”

Cristina and King Owain faced the room again
and Goronwy retook his seat. Cristina tipped her head
characteristically to one side as she gazed at her future subjects.
From her relaxed shoulders and folded hands, Gwen could tell that
she was pleased.

King Owain put down his cup and spread his
arms wide in an expansive gesture. “First, thanks to you all for
coming to witness this blessed day. I would especially like to
extend my appreciation to my long-time companions who will stand
with me tomorrow: Lord Goronwy,” Owain dropped a hand to his
friend’s shoulder, “Lord Taran, my brother Cadwaladr, and Lord
Tomos, a true friend if there ever was one.” Taran, seated on
Hywel’s right, raised his cup, and both Cadwaladr and Tomos lifted
a hand in acknowledgment of the King’s words.

Gwen smiled as she recognized this final
friend. Tomos was one of the few barons in the hall who was
consistently polite to all, baseborn, royal, or somewhere in
between. He nodded to the king from his seat one down from
Cristina.

The crowd in the hall raised their cups, and
everyone drank. Before the noise level could rise, King Owain
lifted his hands again. “Tonight I also wish to announce the first
of many gifts to my bride.”

Cristina’s head whipped around so fast to
look at the king it was a wonder she didn’t strain herself. And
then she recovered, facing forward and straightening in her seat.
She hadn’t known the time had come for gift-giving, for all that
Owain must have made her and her family promises when Lord Goronwy
signed the papers of betrothal.

King Owain continued his announcement: “The
moment we are wed, I bestow upon Cristina ferch Goronwy my estate
of Rhuddlan in the cantref of Tegeingl. It once belonged to her
grandfather, and it is my pleasure to return it to her family. Many
thanks to my friend, Lord Tomos, who has kept it well these many
years.”

King Owain lifted his cup in the direction
of Tomos. What King Owain didn’t say, and this was why the Church
was opposed to his wedding, was that Cristina’s grandfather was
also Owain’s grandfather, and the man for whom he was named. His
mother (who had died last spring) and Cristina’s father had been
siblings.

The control of Rhuddlan was a plum
appointment, one that Tomos had to regret losing. Cristina, when
she took over the estate, would want to bestow the stewardship of
it on someone of her own choosing, probably a family member. Such
was the way of kingly largess. Gwen wouldn’t have expected Tomos to
cheer at this announcement, but as he raised his cup to Owain, a
huge smile spread across his face. Then King Owain explained the
reason for Tomos’ pleasure: “In thanks for the fulfillment of his
arduous duties for so many years, I have given Lord Tomos the
estate of Nefyn in Arfon, for himself and for his heirs.”

A communal gasp blew around the hall. That
was friendship indeed.

Cristina rose to her feet. “Thank you, my
lord. You have given me more than I deserve and have been generous
beyond all expectation.” She gave the king a deep curtsey, her head
bowed in apparent submission.

Owain stepped past her father’s chair to
reach for her hand and raise her up. Cristina tipped her cheek for
a kiss. Applause echoed throughout the room. Owain seated Cristina
again and went back to his chair. Gwen turned to smile at the young
man next to her, to comment on how lovely the scene had been, only
to find him unsmiling.

And then he pulled a blade from the sheath
at his waist and started forward.

Chapter Two

W
hen the youth had entered the hall at the beginning of King
Owain’s speech, Gareth had noted the mulish set to his jaw. He’d
assumed the boy resented his servitude, but had then dismissed him
from his thoughts—until the boy’s face coalesced into a rictus of
hate. It took Gareth a moment to register the expression, and then
his eyes flashed to Gwen’s. The smile which she’d given the youth
at the conclusion of the ceremony had turned to a look of stark
horror.

Gareth surged forward, knocking aside a
servant who was pouring mead into a cup for one of the diners and
sending him sprawling across the man’s lap. The youth’s attention,
however, remained entirely on King Owain, and he didn’t glance in
Gareth’s direction. Gareth thought he had a chance.

Gareth reached the dais in four strides. As
the knife descended towards the king’s back, the blade glittering
in the light of the candles that lit the table, Gareth threw
himself forward to bridge the last yards to the king. His torso hit
the table with a thud, extinguishing two candles and sending food
and dishware flying in all directions. Gareth skidded across it,
reached out, and caught the youth around the waist.

They fell to the floor on the other side of
the table and landed hard, Gareth on top and the would-be assassin
beneath. The impact knocked all the air from Gareth’s lungs but
also flung the youth’s arm upward with such force that he released
the knife. It sailed across the room and skittered under the table
near where Gwen had been standing.

Gareth lay as he’d fallen for a moment,
sprawled at a diagonal across the body of the boy, with his
forehead resting on the smooth planks of the floor. He coughed.
Then he pushed to his knees so he straddled the youth’s midsection
and punched a fist to his own chest, trying to get his breath back.
The assassin moaned and tried to twist away but Gareth held him
down. His head lifted and fell back, his eyes opening once and then
closing.

The instant Gareth had seen the knife aimed
at King Owain’s back, his ears had closed to the hubbub in the
hall. Now the crescendo of sound overwhelmed his senses. People
around him shouted and screamed their shock, but their words made
no sense to Gareth. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Lifting
his eyes from the youth’s face, Gareth found Gwen a few feet away,
her hands to her mouth and her eyes wide. His shoulders sagged in
relief to see her unhurt.

The diners at the high table had pushed back
their chairs and risen to their feet. Of the small circle of
onlookers, Hywel was the first to speak. He dropped a hand to
Gareth’s shoulder. “Praise be to God. You saved the king.”

King Owain’s eyes tracked from Gareth, to
the man on the ground, to Gareth again.

Gareth cleared his throat. “He tried to kill
you, my lord.”

“
I see that.”

Gareth allowed himself a deep breath. For
one heartbeat—only one but it had felt like a lifetime—he’d feared
King Owain might misunderstand what had just occurred and think the
youth had merely been bringing him a knife for his meal. It would
have been so easy for Gareth to have misread the situation and been
in the wrong again.

But no. Gareth hadn’t been wrong. He had
acted on instinct because the expression on the youth’s face—and
the upraised knife in his hand—had been impossible to
misinterpret.

A man-at-arms stooped to pick up the
assassin’s knife where it had lodged under the serving table. He
brought it to Hywel who took it and then held it out to his father,
the blade flat against his palm. Despite the earlier tone of dry
amusement in the King’s voice, color had yet to return to his face.
But he took the knife, and then passed it to his steward, Taran.
“Keep this safe for me, will you?”

Taran nodded. Like everyone else, his eyes
were too wide and the lines at the corners of his mouth were
accentuated as he gazed down at the youth from beside the king.
“This is my fault—”

Cristina pushed past her father to reach
King Owain. He saw her coming and put out his arm to draw her to
him. “I’m all right, my dear.”

She seemed genuinely
distraught and pressed her face to his chest. The cynical part of
Gareth believed she was upset because someone had tried to kill the
king
before
he
married her. If he’d died, she would never have become the Queen of
Gwynedd. “How-how-how could this happen?”

“
That is something we will
have to find out,” King Owain said, his eyes on Hywel.

The uproar in the hall was ongoing. Ten
people had been seated at the high table, but the dais had fifty on
it now. Even Prince Cadwaladr appeared shaken, with a pinched look
to his eyes and mouth. He held his arm around Alice, his wife, who
like King Owain, seemed to have forgiven him his past misdeeds. Or
rather, she had chosen to ignore them.

Lord Tomos had risen and come closer to
support the king. He reached for Cristina, whom King Owain
gratefully passed off to him. “My dear, let me get you away from
all this.”

Cristina pressed Tomos’ hand and even
managed a small smile. “Thank you, my lord.”

Lord Goronwy, Cristina’s father, still sat
in his chair to the left of the king’s, a stunned expression on his
face, incapable of aiding his daughter. Gareth found it curious the
different ways in which people responded to unexpected events.
Some, like Tomos, seemed to recover smoothly no matter what
happened. It didn’t look to Gareth as if Goronwy was a good man in
a crisis.

“
There’s blood on your
shirt, Father.” Rhun pointed to a blotch of red on his father’s
otherwise spotlessly white shirt. King Owain had forgone his
customary mail vest in favor of finery in honor of the occasion.
The assassin must have known that would happen and taken his only
chance to bring Owain Gwynedd down.

“
Do I?” King Owain twisted
to look at his shoulder, but the place where the point of the knife
had gone in was too far down his back and near his spine for him to
see it. “I didn’t even feel it.”

“
It would have entered your
heart, but for Gareth.” Hywel held out his hand to Gareth who
clasped it and used Hywel’s strength to haul himself to his feet.
His knees trembled at the effort of staying upright but he locked
them so as not to sway. Hywel’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t
comment or make Gareth find a chair.

The youth remained as he’d fallen, arms and
legs akimbo, still unconscious. Or was he feigning it? Now that the
initial shock had passed, Gareth’s heart began to slow and instead
of his muscles, his brain, with its investigative instincts, began
to function. He wanted to know who this boy was and whether this
act had been his own idea or if he was working for someone else.
Why would a peasant boy want to murder the King of Gwynedd? From
the threadbare state of his breeches and shirt, he didn’t come from
money, and that made it more likely that the boy hadn’t conceived
the idea to kill the king on his own, but that someone had hired
him.

In point of fact, the boy was lucky to be
alive at all. Silently, Gareth ran through what had happened:
seeing the knife come out of its sheath, the youth raise it high,
and advance towards King Owain. Gareth had only noticed the boy’s
actions because he’d been watching Gwen, not the King. The bulk of
Owain’s body would have blocked the youth from the view of most of
the people in the hall until it was too late.

If the youth hadn’t tried to murder the king
in the middle of the great hall, the king’s men might have already
put a sword through his belly to finish what Gareth had started.
Hywel, whose mind often ran on similar paths to Gareth’s, put a
not-so-subtle boot on the boy’s chest, just in case he chose that
moment to awaken and try to get away.

“
You’re not bleeding under
all that armor, are you, Gareth?” Gwen ran her finger along a
wicked slice in the leather of his left bracer.

“
I don’t think I am.” When
Gareth had hit the assassin, the knife must have driven into Gareth
instead of the king’s back, though Gareth hadn’t felt it at the
time.

Gwen wrapped her arms around Gareth’s waist
and rested her head on his chest. Gareth responded to her touch,
pressing his cheek onto the top of her head. Her hair smelled of
apple blossoms.

Hywel touched his father’s sleeve. “No one
should leave the castle without your permission, Father.”

Rhun nodded. “We don’t know if the boy was
working alone or with another. I agree—”

Owain held up his hand to stop his sons from
speaking further. “Get this man out of here. We will talk after you
learn what you can from him.”

“
Yes, Father,” Hywel said.
The king’s words were meant more for him than for Rhun.

Two of King Owain’s men grasped the would-be
assassin by the arms and hauled him to his feet, his arms wrenched
behind his back. He’d done a good job of feigning unconsciousness
all this time, but Gareth’s first instincts were correct. The boy
couldn’t maintain the ruse once on his feet. He stood before them,
shaking and blinking rapidly. He did weave, however, and the two
soldiers who held him tightened their grip in order to keep him
upright.

Hywel jerked his head towards the rear of
the hall and the guardsmen responded by dragging the boy through
the doorway to the side corridor and its less public exit. Gareth
still held Gwen’s waist. He bent his head to speak to her but she
put a finger to his lips. “I know what you want. You don’t even
have to say it.”

Gareth did anyway. “Hywel and I will
question him. I don’t want you there for it.”