The Unlikely Spy (20 page)

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Gwen said.

Her mind shied away from putting herself in
Madlen’s place. Someday, she might be the one following behind her
husband’s coffin to see him into his grave. Gareth had faced death
in the past at Hywel’s side and would again. It was the reality of
being married to a soldier. It was the reality of being
married.

Gwen still fought through sleepless nights
when she lay awake for hours, her stomach in knots as she worried
for him. Having Tangwen helped to distract her, but every night
Gareth lay beside her in bed was one to be thankful for. She’d
missed Gareth last night and had woken every few hours to reach out
a hand to him, only to find that he wasn’t there. That would be
Madlen’s fate for every night from now on.

Madlen’s face twisted into a grimace. “I saw
that woman here in Aberystwyth on the day Gryff died, you
know.”

“What woman?” Gwen said.

Madlen gestured ahead of her. “That woman.
His
wife
.” The last word came out with an added sneer, for
which Gwen couldn’t blame her.

“You saw Carys the day Gryff died? When and
where?” Gwen said.

“She was near our lodgings in Aberystwyth,”
Madlen said. “We always stay with a tavern keeper we know. She was
outside the tavern. Watching it.”

Gwen looked ahead through the undyed robes
and bowed shoulders of the monks between them to where Carys
walked, herself with a bowed head. “Are you sure it was she?”

“Most definitely.” Madlen gritted her teeth.
“She must have found out that Gryff loved me instead of her. She
drove him to his death!”

Madlen’s sudden adamancy and anger were
somewhat alarming.

“What do you mean, ‘drove him to his
death?’” Gwen said. “Do you know something about Gryff’s death that
you need to tell me?”

Madlen’s eyes widened as she realized she’d
gone too far in making an unfounded accusation. “What? No! No, I
didn’t mean—I didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t listen to me.” She
put her face in her hands and sobbed.

Gwen would have to check with Gareth, but
with two small children at home, it would have been quite a feat
for Carys to be gone all day to Aberystwyth, murder her husband in
the early hours of the morning, and then return to Goginan. On top
of which, Carys could have directed the same accusation at Madlen:
Madlen had discovered Carys’s existence and murdered Gryff in a
moment of passionate anger. Though, given Madlen’s emotional
theatrics, the more likely scenario would have been for Madlen to
murder
Carys
, not Gryff.

Gwen eyed the grieving girl, wondering if
Madlen was such a good actor as to be able to deceive them all with
her tears and regrets, and that she really did know something about
Gryff’s death that she wasn’t telling. Honestly, Gwen couldn’t
tell. She’d been lied to before and not known it, and she’d
disbelieved another’s words and found them later to be true. People
lied. It was the one and only thing Hywel and Gareth would have her
assume.

Upon arriving at the gravesite to witness
the funeral, Gwen was glad she’d arranged in advance for Elspeth to
keep Tangwen inside the monastery grounds. Emotions were running
high between the two grieving widows, and the difficulty of the
situation would only have been compounded by Gwen’s chattering
daughter, who wouldn’t have understood the gravity of the
occasion.

Still, it was a beautiful spot in which to
be buried. Gwen hoped the peacefulness here, aided by the scents of
the late summer flowers and the leaves twirling in the breeze above
their heads, would ease the hearts of the two women Gryff had
loved. The heat of the day hadn’t yet risen, and as the priest
began to read the words of the Latin prayer at the gravesite, Gwen
closed her eyes and allowed the warm sun to bathe her face.

The mourners stood with bowed heads around
the grave until after the priest finished and the gravediggers
began shoveling the dirt over the top of Gryff. Carys and Alun
turned away with the abbot, who had invited them to break their
fast with him. Poor Madlen, as the second woman in Gryff’s life,
received no such recognition.

So as the small group dispersed, only
Madlen, Iolo, Gareth, and Gwen remained to watch the final stages
of Gryff’s burial. Madlen stepped forward and tossed a handful of
dirt into the grave, and then dropped a lavender blossom after it.
“My life is over.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Iolo put an arm
around Madlen’s shoulder, the first real sign of comfort Gwen had
seen him give her today. “The world is full of men.”

That was a singularly unhelpful comment, and
Iolo should have known better. Of course, Gwen’s own father had
said the exact same words to her once upon a time. She’d been
sixteen and had to watch Gareth ride out of her life after being
banished from Ceredigion by Cadwaladr, who’d been his lord at the
time.

Gareth had been standing on the other side
of the grave from Gwen, and she glanced up to meet his eyes, which
flashed with something akin to amusement before turning serious
again. “If you can think of anything else that could tell us why
Gryff was by the millpond that night,” he said to Madlen, “please
contact me at the castle or here at the monastery.”

Iolo sighed. “I heard we have you and Prince
Hywel to thank for keeping Gryff out of a suicide’s grave.”

Gareth nodded in brief acknowledgment of the
truth. “I don’t believe Gryff killed himself.”

“Obviously, your word was enough for the
abbot.” Still with his arm around Madlen, Iolo turned away. “Come,
girl. We have work to do.”

Sniffing and dabbing at her eyes, Madlen
went with her uncle. Their stall at the market fair needed
manning.

Gareth watched them go, his hands on his
hips.

“What are you thinking?” Gwen said.

Without answering, Gareth held out his hand
to Gwen. She took it, and they started walking back to the
monastery. “I’m thinking that before we go any further, we need to
clarify our timeline. I want to make sure we haven’t missed
anything.”

Gwen nodded. When an investigation had this
many moving parts, it was always important to reassess with each
new snippet of information. Sometimes Gareth sketched out a chart
on one of his pieces of paper so he could keep it straight in his
mind.

“Well,” Gwen said, “the first thing anyone
has admitted—though whether or not it’s true is based only on
Iolo’s word—was that Iolo, Madlen, and Gryff have been in the
vicinity of Aberystwyth for two weeks, though they only reached the
town four days ago.”

Gareth opened a narrow wooden gate in the
hedge that surrounded the monastery gardens and led Gwen through
it. She could hear Tangwen and Gruffydd shouting somewhere in the
distance. Gareth heard their voices too and picked up the pace,
heading in their general direction. “The next day,” he said, “Alun
came here and spoke to Gryff, though he claims they spoke about
nothing out of the ordinary. Before Alun saw Gryff in the street,
he hadn’t even realized he was in Aberystwyth.”

“The following day,” Gwen said, “Madlen says
she saw Carys outside their lodgings. We have no evidence for that
either save Madlen’s word.”

Gareth stopped in the middle of the path.
“Madlen saw Carys outside their lodgings?”

“So she told me just now,” Gwen said.

Gareth rubbed his chin. “Carys could have
learned of where he was staying from Alun.”

“If Madlen isn’t lying,” Gwen said.
“Regardless, later that afternoon, Gryff sought out Prince Hywel,
spoke to the gatekeeper, and went away disappointed. He was
murdered in the early hours of the following morning. We still have
no idea why he wanted to speak to Prince Hywel or why he was
murdered.”

“That single incident—that he wanted to
speak to Prince Hywel about something—raises my hackles,” Gareth
said.

“Mine too,” Gwen said.

“It’s our only indication of any motive for
murder other than the surprising fact of having two wives,” Gareth
said.

Gwen sighed. “It isn’t much to go on, is it?
Both sides say he didn’t have an impressive intellect, or at the
very least he was a dreamer. He doesn’t sound like a master
manipulator who could have maintained such an elaborate deception
for so long, much less become involved in something bigger that got
him killed.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Gareth said. “We
know that if we know anything.”

“Then I am well and truly deceived,” Gwen
said.

Gareth started walking again. “He knew his
killer.”

Gwen nodded. “That seems clear because of
the knife to the chest. His death looks like a confrontation gone
wrong more than a sneak thief.”

“Gryff had nothing worth stealing,” Gareth
said.

“That we know of,” Gwen said, “though if he
did have something worth stealing, the murderer would have taken
it, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so,” Gareth said, “and until we
find our killer, we won’t know what that was.”

Just then, Tangwen came around from behind a
large lavender bush—of the same color flower as the one Madlen left
on Gryff’s grave—and held out her arms to Gwen. Gwen picked her up
and carried her towards the herbalist’s hut, which had a bench
resting against the south facing wall. Most of the bench lay in the
full sun, since it was now mid-morning, and the sun was well up
above the trees.

Gwen sat on the end that was still shaded by
the eave of the roof and adjusted Tangwen in her lap so she could
nurse her.

Gareth sat beside them and put a finger
through one of Tangwen’s brown curls, letting it curl around it.
Elspeth appeared briefly, checking on her charge, but Gareth waved
her away. Tangwen would nurse for a while, possibly falling asleep
in the process, and they didn’t want to discuss their investigation
in front of her nanny.

Gwen’s brow furrowed in thought as she
cradled her daughter. “We need to talk to Carys about her
whereabouts on the day Gryff died. Could we be wrong about the time
that he died?”

“The gatekeeper saw Gryff towards the dinner
hour. He was alive then,” Gareth said. “Iolo and Madlen saw him
later in the evening. Did Carys stay in Aberystwyth until
nightfall?”

“Maybe somebody saw her,” Gwen said. “You
can sketch her too and ask around. What about Alun?”

“Are you thinking that Alun could have lured
Gryff to the millpond?” Gareth said.

“I imagine it wouldn’t have taken much
luring,” Gwen said. “Carys and Gryff were married. She was the
mother of his children. To me, it’s a matter of
why
either
of them would have wanted Gryff dead. By all appearances, he hadn’t
been good for much before this, and now he had enough money to
support Carys. Why kill him?”

“Jealousy,” Gareth said.

“That applies to Carys, but not to Alun,”
Gwen said. “And even if Carys was jealous, killing Gryff wouldn’t
have solved her problem. Better to have killed Madlen.”

Gareth tugged on his ear. “That’s a
difference between a man’s response to being cuckolded and a
woman’s: a man is more likely to murder his wife, while a woman is
more likely to murder the object of her husband’s attention.”

“I’m not sure what that says about us women
that our anger is directed at the other woman, rather than the
cheating, lying husband.”

Gareth put up both his hands, laughing at
Gwen’s vehemence. “I know where my loyalties lie, my dear.”

Gwen laughed too. “That still leaves hate as
the motive, however, which implies a crime of passion. I don’t like
it. Meeting by the millpond like Gryff did with his killer couldn’t
have been a spur of the moment thing.”

“Unless Gryff went there for reasons of his
own and the murderer—who admittedly he knew—followed him. They
argued, and Gryff died.” Gareth looked towards the courtyard, a
corner of which they could see from where they sat in the garden.
Alun had appeared beside his cart. “Maybe we can get some of these
questions answered. I’ll send Alun and Carys to you.”

“Where are you going?” Gwen said.

“I think it’s time I used the resources I
have to my advantage.” Gareth grinned. “I have several dozen men at
my disposal. Even leaving many on guard duty and others asleep, we
can cover a great deal of ground. Let’s see who else saw Gryff that
day.”

As he promised, Gareth sent Carys and Alun
over to Gwen, who remained sitting on the bench. Tangwen had fallen
asleep, and Gwen tucked her against her chest, watching the pair
walk towards her. She scooted over slightly so Carys could sit down
in the shade without sitting as closely to her as Gareth had been,
and so that as Tangwen slept, she wouldn’t kick Carys.

Carys, however, reached out a hand to
Tangwen’s bare foot, rubbing at her smooth baby skin with her
thumb. “So sweet. I have one this age.”

“Where is he now?” Gwen said.

“He’s with Alun’s wife,” Carys said.

“Did you leave him with your sister-in-law
two days ago when you came to Aberystwyth?” Gwen took advantage of
the opening, which had come far sooner than she’d hoped.

“What did you say?” Carys said.

“I assume you saw the other woman, Madlen,
at the gravesite?” Gwen said.

Carys blinked, threatening to dissolve in
tears again, but she managed to beat them back. “I saw her.”

“She said that she saw you in Aberystwyth
the afternoon before Gryff died. You were standing outside their
lodgings,” Gwen said.

Carys’s mouth fell open. “She lies.”

“Does she?” Gwen turned her head to look at
Alun, who had taken up a position under the eaves (and thus out of
the sun) with his shoulder braced against the wall of the hut and
his arms folded across his chest. His expression remained
completely blank. Something was going on here.

Alun licked his lips. “It’s an absurd
accusation.”