The Uninvited Guest (3 page)

Gwen nodded, for once subdued (which Gareth
tried not to read too much into). “I will stay here and keep an eye
on the king—and his guests.” She threaded her fingers through
Gareth’s.

“
Start asking questions of
those in the hall, the best you can,” Hywel said. “So close to the
incident, we might get some unguarded responses.”

Gareth kissed Gwen’s
forehead and released her. Without looking back, he and Hywel
followed the guards into the corridor, past Hywel’s office, and
then out the side door. It was a way to reach Aber’s courtyard
without having to walk the length of the great hall. Rhun, as
the
elding
and
Owain’s right hand man, stayed behind to support the
king.

Once outside, the wind whipped Gareth’s
cloak from his body and brought a wash of rain to his face. It
revived him after the warmth and close confines of the hall. At the
same time, the cold air stiffened his overworked muscles. He rubbed
at his shoulders and neck with one hand to loosen them.

“
My father lives every day
with the threat of death.” Hywel stalked towards the stables, his
chin out. “He has a food taster who samples every dish before it is
brought to the high table, a steward who makes it his business to
know everyone who enters Aber, and guards to watch over him night
and day. How could this happen?”

“
Because for all that, it’s
impossible to keep anyone completely safe,” Gareth said. “He has to
see his people and to be seen among them. He can’t do that from
behind a wall any higher than Aber’s. Besides, it’s his wedding day
tomorrow. He has to show the world that he believes in what he is
doing, which means inviting everyone around to witness
it.”

“
Damn priests,” Hywel said.
“They should keep their noses out of private business.”

“
Not all of them are bad,”
Gareth said. “You can be grateful their reach extends only so far.
Cristina is your father’s cousin and thus forbidden to him in their
eyes. But they can’t
prevent
him from marrying her. They have more power over
the King of England than they do over the King of
Gwynedd.”

“
So I’m to be grateful for
small mercies, is that it?” Hywel shot Gareth a twisted grin. “What
my father really should do is get rid of my uncle
Cadwaladr.”

“
And yet he’s done exactly
the opposite,” Gareth said. “He might be regretting that, just
now.”

Hywel caught Gareth’s arm and pulled him
closer. “What are the odds that my uncle is behind this?”

Gareth chewed on his lip. “I’m not the one
to ask and you know it. But even objectively, he’s a likely
candidate. He planned the murder of King Anarawd only last summer.
He brought an army of Danes to Gwynedd. Is it a stretch to think
that he could plot to murder his own brother? I assure you, we will
not be the only ones to think it either.”

“
Everyone in the hall
should be thinking it right now,” Hywel said.

“
What will the king do?”
Gareth said.

“
Nothing, not without
proof. Don’t think my father hasn’t regretted saving his brother
from the gallows. He and I discussed Cadwaladr’s continued
existence before I rode to Ceredigion.” Hywel lowered his voice.
“It is no small matter to kill a prince. Or have him
killed.”

Gareth couldn’t keep his disgust out of his
voice. “Ask Anarawd about that.” He gestured to the guards just
entering the stables. “Or our assassin.”

Hywel shook his head. “Even keeping
Cadwaladr imprisoned all these months hasn’t been easy. Cadwaladr
has his supporters, as you well know, men who are loyal because
they can’t imagine being anything else. My father can’t win them to
his side overnight. And certainly not with Cadwaladr dying an
unexpected death in his prison cell.”

“
Is that why your father
let him out?” Gareth said.

Hywel blew out a breath. “It was politically
expedient.” This was a significant admission on Hywel’s part, and
showed his confidence in Gareth’s discretion. Gareth was pleased
that Hywel trusted him enough to speak what was on his mind.

Hywel had continued to grip Gareth’s arm as
they walked, but now released him. “If Cadwaladr hired this man,
you and I—and Gwen (can’t forget her)—must find it out. Then my
father will have no choice but to hang him.”

“
I will do my best, my
lord,” Gareth said.

Hywel clapped Gareth on the shoulder. “I
know you will. For now, we deal with what is in front of us.”

Chapter Three

T
hey entered the stables. The guards had dumped the youth in
the cell that took up the right rear of the building. Gareth had
spent far too many hours in it last summer. He couldn’t help but be
glad it wasn’t his bruised body in there tonight.

Two guards blocked the doorway but moved
aside as Gareth and Hywel approached. “Stay here,” Hywel said to
them. “I don’t want anyone entering who doesn’t belong.”

“
Yes, my lord,” both men
said.

Two more men stood over the would-be
assassin, and at a wave from Hywel, they bowed and left the cell,
leaving Gareth and Hywel alone with the youth. If his odd pose on
the dirt floor of the cell was an indication, he hadn’t moved since
the soldiers had dumped him there. Gareth closed the door behind
him but didn’t lock it since the boy wasn’t in any condition to
escape. Hywel gazed down at the prisoner for a count of ten, but he
still didn’t move, so Gareth prodded him with the toe of his boot.
“Wake up.”

“
I don’t know that he can.”
Hywel stood with his hands on his hips, his lips pursed, studying
the boy.

Since Gareth had been housed here the
previous summer, the cell had reverted back to a storage room.
Filthy hay littered the floor and someone had stacked wooden crates
in a precarious pile in one corner. It still smelled strongly of
horse and urine.

Gareth glanced at his prince, made uneasy by
Hywel’s intense focus on the boy’s face. “Do you know him?”

Hywel slowly shook his head. “No.” But his
denial lacked assurance.

“
I hear hesitation in your
voice,” Gareth said.

His lord, though he strove
to keep his face impassive, had a
tell
when he was eliding the truth—or
lying as Gwen would more straightforwardly say. Even if he gazed
straight at you as he lied, the corner of his mouth would twitch,
and then when you nodded your agreement and appeared to accept his
lie as truth, his eyes would skate to the left. It was only for an
instant, but Gareth had learned to watch for it. Hywel had very
rarely lied to him, but he lied to other men routinely.

Gareth had learned to
search for similar responses in the men he questioned. Most men
were honest, as it turned out, and bad liars. The men to be most
concerned about were the ones who’d so convinced themselves that
their lies were truths, that they felt no guilt and had no
tells.
Cadwaladr was such
a man.

Gareth didn’t mention any of this to
Hywel.

Hywel glanced at him. “Is this a way of
asking if I had anything to do with this? Am I a suspect now?”

Gareth searched for a way to respond without
offending. “I didn’t say so. And yet, why am I here if not to read
between the lines?”

Hywel barked a laugh. “You have me there.”
He crouched to brush the hair out of the boy’s face so he could see
it better. “The occasion of our meeting tickles at the back of my
mind, but I can’t tell you more right now. I have a feeling I’ve
seen his face before.”

Gareth wondered why his lord hadn’t just
said so in the first place. He crouched over the youth and began
going through his clothing. The boy’s coat had three inner pockets
which revealed nothing beyond lint. He had no scrip, either, nor
anything to identify him beyond his face. Gareth sat back on his
heels. “He’s a ghost.”

“
Or rather, one who planned
to become one,” Hywel said.

“
Do you think he went into
the hall expecting never to come out?” Gareth said.

“
That makes more sense than
the idea that he thought he could get away with murdering my
father.”

“
As we were leaving the
dais,” Gareth said, “Taran told the king that the boy was one of
the many extra servants hired for the wedding. When we return to
the hall, I’ll talk to him.”

Hywel looked up from studying the boy’s
supine form. “Taran will blame himself.”

“
That is a fact, my lord,
and one that you cannot talk me out of.” Taran pushed open the door
and hurried into the cell. His face was red and he was out of
breath.

“
You’ve had a busy week,”
Gareth said. “Nobody blames you.”

“
I should have been more
careful,” Taran said.

“
Is there something we can
do for you now?” Gareth said.

“
Your lord father sent me
to speak to you, to tell what I know, little as that may
be.”

“
Do you remember the
circumstances of his hiring?” Hywel said.

If possible, Taran’s face got even redder.
“Yes, my lord, in the sense that I took him on when he presented
himself. I remember him particularly because all he had was what he
stood up in—no bedroll, no pack, nothing. He was one of a dozen men
who came to offer their services in the hall and stables. The
harvest is over, you see, and many men like him have no real homes
…” Taran’s voice trailed off as the force of Hywel’s attention
became apparent.

“
But did you know him
yourself?” Hywel said. “Before this week?”

Taran shook his head. He wiped the moisture
from his forehead with a handkerchief, sweating even though the
stables were many degrees cooler than the hall. “He was one of
several who arrived at the same time as Cristina’s family. He is
from Powys, I believe.”

“
Does my father know he
arrived with Lord Goronwy?” Hywel’s gaze was piercing. “Or at least
appeared to?”

“
No. I would have answered
all his questions but he didn’t care to listen. I tried … but it
would have meant interrupting him. He is much occupied with his
guests. He sent me to you instead.”

Gareth ran a hand through his hair. “That
someone tried to kill the king is bad enough without bringing the
complication of Cristina’s family into it.” Cadwallon, Owain’s
older brother, had led a campaign through eastern Gwynedd and Powys
in 1132. His mandate had been to bring these lands, that had once
belonged to Gwynedd, back into his father’s hands.

In carrying out these orders, he slew
several of his own maternal uncles (his mother’s brothers, who were
also Cristina’s uncles) before dying himself. This left Cristina’s
ancestral lands bereft of lordship and King Owain’s father annexed
them back into Gwynedd. Cristina’s father had escaped the
familicide by marrying into a Norman family in Flintshire and
wisely renouncing his holdings in Gwynedd.

King Owain hoped that this marriage, rather
than opening old wounds, might heal them.

“
To which of Cristina’s
relatives did the man owe allegiance?” Hywel said.

“
I don’t know.” Taran
scrubbed at his hair with both hands as he thought, and then
dropped them. “I have failed you all.”

“
You couldn’t have known
what the boy would do,” Gareth said. “Unless, perhaps, you paid him
to do it?”

“
Gareth—” Hywel stopped
himself, knowing as well as Gareth that these questions had to be
asked.

Taran gaped at Gareth. “You can’t think that
I had anything to do with this? That I would conspire to murder my
king?”

“
It’s all right, Taran.”
Hywel put a hand on Gareth’s arm as if holding him back from an
imminent assault on the steward. The two of them had slipped
effortlessly into their well-practiced roles of friendly questioner
(Hywel) and unreasonable interrogator (Gareth). “He’s only doing
his job.”

“
It
is
my job to ask,” Gareth said. “And I
note that you didn’t answer, Taran. Did you hire the boy to kill
King Owain?”

“
No!”

Hywel patted Taran’s shoulder but spoke to
Gareth, though for Taran’s benefit. “There’s no point in
speculating when we have so little information. The boy will wake
soon and we can question him then.”

The three men gazed at each other, and then
at the youth on the floor. “He’s coming around.” Taran crouched
next to the prisoner.

To Gareth’s eyes, the steward had aged
considerably in recent months. Owain Gwynedd rode out with his men
from time to time, still vibrant in his forties despite the
thickening around his waist. For all that Taran was of an age with
his friend and lord, he looked fifteen years older. His once nearly
black hair had gone mostly gray, and his shoulders were no longer
those of a fighting man, but rounded. Of late, he’d spent too much
time at his papers and ledgers.

The prisoner coughed once and then opened
his eyes. He stared up at the three men, blinked, and pushed
himself to his elbows. “Where am I?”

“
In the stables at Aber
Castle.” Hywel met Gareth’s cynical look with one of his own. “What
is your name?”

“
I-I-I can’t say.” The
boy’s eyes widened in panic at this lack of knowledge. Or seemingly
so. Gareth, for his part, remained skeptical.

“
Why did you try to kill
King Owain Gwynedd?” Hywel said.