The Unlikely Spy (24 page)

Hywel turned back to the women. “We have
many questions about Gryff’s death and his relationship with the
two of you. When we have a more complete picture, we will make a
determination as to whom this cross belongs. Until then, Carys, you
must stay far away from Madlen. We have buried your husband. Your
children are fatherless. You should be thinking of them. And you—”
he looked at Madlen, “—you feel yourself misused in that Gryff
played you false. He was not the first man to do so, nor will he be
the last. I suggest that before you tie yourself to a dreamer
again, you meet his family first.”

Madlen and Iolo looked at the ground,
indicating that—if not suitably chastened—they were at least
willing to pretend they were listening to their lord. Hywel snorted
his derision, motioning for everyone to take their leave. Iolo
tugged on Madlen’s arm, urging her to come with him. She looked as
if she was going to call for Hywel’s attention again, which would
have been a mistake. But after another brief hesitation, she went
with her uncle.

“Wait.” Rhun pointed at Carys and Alun
before they could depart too. “I’m not finished with you two.”
Gruffydd, Rhun’s captain, and the three soldiers still boxed the
pair in. Rhun stepped up to the big man. “Did you hope I’d
forgotten that you threw me across the fairgrounds?”

Hywel had moved away to return to what he’d
been doing before but now hastened back to Rhun’s side. “What’s
this?”

Alun pulled in his chin, looking as if he
wanted to flee. “I didn’t mean—”

Rhun cut him off. “Don’t lie to me. You
meant to get me out of the way, and you didn’t care who I was. You
have a temper, Alun. Was it you who met your brother-in-law beside
the millpond two nights ago and murdered him?”

“No!” Alun took a step back in his dismay,
bumping into Gruffydd, who shoved him forward again. “I don’t know
what you’re talking about. Nobody ever said anything about
murder!”

Carys fell to her knees in the short grass,
her arms wrapped around her middle as if she might be sick right
there and then.

Rhun eyed the big man, whose eyes had gone
wide with shock. “You say you had nothing to do with Gryff’s death,
and so far that’s what everyone’s been saying. But I tell you now
that someone killed him. I have been wondering all day if that
someone was you.”

Hywel stepped smoothly between them.
“Perhaps a day or two in a cell up at the castle will jog his
memory, brother?”

“I think you’re right, brother. Everyone has
lied to us,” Rhun said. “I think it’s time this one stopped, don’t
you?”

Alun choked on his fear and fell to his
knees beside his sister. “I haven’t lied! My lords, please! I don’t
know anything about why Gryff died! You have to believe me!” His
words appeared heartfelt.

“We really don’t.” Rhun gazed down at Alun
but was spared any more of Alun’s denials by a trumpet blast that
reverberated all around the festival grounds.

King Owain had arrived.

Hywel spun on his heel, his own eyes
widening. Rhun put a hand on his brother’s arm. “This is going to
go well. You have done brilliantly.” Rhun’s only goal now was to
support his brother, and whatever Alun did or did not know had to
be put aside. Rhun jerked his head at Gruffydd. “Put him in the
cell.”

“Yes, my lord,” Gruffydd said.

Rhun looked down at Carys. “Given the
circumstances, we still have questions for you too. I expect to be
able to find you when I need to ask them.”

Carys’s eyes were wide. “My children—”

“I understand they are with Alun’s wife,”
Rhun said.

Carys nodded.

“Then they should be fine to stay with her
another day.” Rhun ignored Carys’s gasping protest and headed
across the pavilion in Hywel’s wake, hastening to catch up.

By the time Rhun reached him, Hywel had come
to a halt on the near side of the ford of the Ystwyth River and was
smoothing his palms down the sides of his breeches. Though the late
afternoon sun had finally fallen below the level of the escarpment
to the west, Hywel was sweating at the knowledge that he was about
to see his father. Rhun understood the pressure Hywel was under
and, for possibly the first time ever, was grateful not to be in
his brother’s shoes.

As the object of his father’s outsized
expectations since birth, Rhun had learned to work around and with
his father. Hywel, as the second son, had been spared many of those
particular burdens, but he had carried other ones. Their father had
given Hywel Ceredigion to see what kind of man he had become.

Rhun couldn’t blame Hywel for being
nervous.

“I was a fool to think any of this was a
good idea,” Hywel said. “I should have told my father from the
start that I wasn’t ready to rule Ceredigion.”

“You were ready and the festival was a good
idea,” Rhun said.

“You know very well how difficult this has
been,” Hywel said.

“I do,” Rhun said. “You need to take a
breath. Everything is prepared. Even the rain has held off. You
will sing tonight, Father will weep, and when you are ready to show
him all you have accomplished here, he will be pleased.”

Hywel shot him a startled look. “I have made
mistakes—”

Rhun scoffed. “Do you think no ruler has
ever made mistakes? You are here because our grandfather entrusted
Ceredigion to Cadwaladr. Father knows the state the lordship was in
when you took it over. Taran has visited here often enough to have
given him a clear picture.”

“You comfort me.” Hywel returned his eyes to
the front.

“Father was young once too,” Rhun said. “At
your age, his father hadn’t yet laid the kind of responsibilities
on him that he has given to you.”

The flag of Gwynedd had just appeared on the
other side of the river, so Rhun didn’t say the rest of what he was
thinking: their father’s brother, Cadwallon, had been killed nearly
fifteen years before, when their father was in his thirties. It was
Cadwallon who had been the eldest and the one upon whom all hopes
for Gwynedd had rested. Owain had been trusted, but as a second
son, not as much had been expected of him. While Rhun had hope that
he would not share Cadwallon’s fate, he appreciated his father’s
desire not to be unprepared for the unexpected.

If Rhun were to die, the future of Gwynedd
would rest on Hywel’s shoulders. When and if that happened, Hywel
needed to be ready. And if Rhun outlived his father and assumed the
throne as he and everyone else planned, then Hywel would be just
the right-hand man that Rhun needed to rule Gwynedd. Rhun had every
intention of keeping his country as strong and united as his father
had made it.

As their father prepared to cross the ford
of the Ystwyth River, shallow thanks to the lack of recent rains,
the two brothers walked forward. Rhun allowed Hywel to get a little
ahead of him: this was his lordship, and Rhun was here for moral
support only. He caught sight of Angharad out of the corner of his
eye. She waved at him, and he fought a smile, though he’d forgotten
about her briefly in his anxiety for Hywel.

Then King Owain’s horse picked its way
through the water, came up the low bank, and halted five paces from
where Hywel stood alone in the middle of the path. King Owain
dismounted. Leaving his horse with a member of his guard, he walked
to stand in front of Hywel.

“Sire.” Hywel bowed, but when he
straightened, King Owain stepped forward and wrapped him up in a
bear hug, going so far as to lift Hywel’s feet off the ground.

“Good to see you, son!”

Hywel managed to grunt an acknowledgement of
the greeting, although from past experience Rhun knew their father
had squeezed all the air from Hywel’s lungs.

King Owain dropped him to the ground and
released him, but only so he could hammer him on the back. “This
festival is the talk of Wales.” King Owain spread his arms wide.
“It is quite an accomplishment, son.”

“Thank you, Father.” Hywel bowed again. “I
hope it lives up to expectations.”

“I have no doubt,” King Owain said.

Rhun could hear the heartiness in his
father’s voice, and even if the king was putting on a show of a
sort, his pride in his son was genuine. Rhun gazed around at the
brightly colored flags and jubilant crowd, trying to see it anew
with his father’s eyes. Rhun felt a rush of pride rise in his own
chest at what Hywel had accomplished.

“I trust the journey was uneventful?” Hywel
said.

“In the extreme,” King Owain said.

“So—slow, I take it?” Hywel said.

“We’re two days late.” Then King Owain
looked to where Rhun waited. Moving past Hywel, King Owain shook
Rhun’s forearm and then pulled him closer for a brief hug, taking
the opportunity to speak to him in a low voice that didn’t carry,
“I’m glad to see you well, son.”

“And you, sir,” Rhun said.

His father released him to turn back to
Hywel, who gestured that they should begin walking towards the main
pavilion. Rhun took a moment to direct King Owain’s captain to the
field that had been saved for them, where they should pitch their
tents, and then he hurried after his brother and father.

Rhun knew why his father had greeted him
less exuberantly than he had Hywel. It wasn’t because his father
loved him less. It was because Hywel had needed that greeting, not
only for himself but so his people could see how much his father
favored him. Rhun didn’t need that kind of attention.

He didn’t know why the relationship between
Hywel and his father had always been more fragile than Rhun’s own.
He and his father might look alike, but they were miles apart in
temperament, unlike King Owain and Hywel. Certainly Hywel’s
dedication to winning women’s hearts had come from their father.
But as long as Rhun could remember, King Owain had looked upon Rhun
himself with favor. He might have been found wanting a time or two,
but Rhun couldn’t remember a day when he hadn’t tried to follow his
father’s example and been rewarded for the effort.

“How fares Gwynedd?” Rhun fell into step
beside his father.

“All is quiet in Gwynedd itself,” King Owain
said, “but I bring news from the east that will interest you.”

Rhun felt the corners of his mouth turn
down. News from the east was almost never good.

“Ranulf?” Hywel said.

“Ranulf,” King Owain agreed. “Word has
reached me that King Stephen has released the Earl of Chester from
his prison.”

“When?” Hywel said.

“Ten days ago now,” King Owain said.

“What was the promised price?” Rhun said.
“It must have cost all Ranulf had.”

“Most of what he cared about, anyway,” King
Owain said. “Ranulf is required to relinquish all royal lands and
holdings, including Lincoln Castle. He must give hostages and swear
never to act against the king again.”

Rhun nodded. “To Ranulf and the king, the
only real matter of importance is Lincoln Castle. This is the only
way he could compel Ranulf to release it.”

“Stephen’s other choice was more bloodshed,”
King Owain said.

“Along with failure and humiliation,” Rhun
said. “The king tried twice to take the castle and failed. He
needed to find another way.”

Hywel laughed sardonically. “If Stephen
believes any oath Ranulf swears, he is a fool. The king might get
his castle, but Ranulf will turn on him before the year is
out.”

“Before the week is out,” Rhun said. “But my
concern is more that he will turn against us.”

King Owain nodded. “Ranulf was imprisoned in
part because Stephen’s other barons mistrusted his motives,
thinking he intended to lure Stephen into a campaign against
Gwynedd, with the intent to ambush the king instead.”

Hywel’s eyes widened. “That I hadn’t
heard.”

“I’m not saying Ranulf might not have done
so,” King Owain said, “but we all know that he has had his eye on
our eastern border for years.”

“It worries me too,” Rhun said.

“Ranulf will turn against Wales,” King Owain
said, “thinking to appease Stephen. He will want to make the king
think he has taken a step back from the war with Empress Maud.”

“A step back is not a retreat,” Hywel said.
“The Earl of Chester is still one of the most powerful barons in
England. There’s a reason King Stephen hasn’t deprived him of his
earldom.”

“Because he can’t.” King Owain clapped his
second son on the back. “But this is a conversation for a long
evening over warm mead. Today is about Ceredigion. To have the
pleasure of hearing the voice of my son, the finest poet Wales has
ever produced, is something I’ve been looking forward to for many
months.”

Hywel looked modestly down at his feet, but
not before Rhun caught a glance from him that their father didn’t
see. Hywel’s eyes had snapped with pleasure. “Don’t let Meilyr hear
you say that.”

“Meilyr will be pleased too,” King Owain
said. “You were his student once, as much as Gwalchmai is now.”

Rhun glanced behind them. The bulk of King
Owain’s party had crossed the river and was wending its way towards
the field where they would pitch their tents. The three of them had
been walking slowly and had almost reached the central pavilion.
Throughout their conversation, many of the onlookers who’d come to
see King Owain arrive had remained to watch, some perhaps in hopes
of gaining an audience with the King of Gwynedd, however brief.

“Gwalchmai and Meilyr have come too, have
they not?” Rhun said.

“They would not have missed this for all the
gold in Winchester.” King Owain looked at Hywel. “It was wise of
you not to compete with the other bards. You are a prince and the
Lord of Ceredigion. You stand apart, and yet your voice rules over
all others. As does your sword.”

“Thank you, Father,” Hywel said.

Then King Owain buffeted the shoulders of
both his sons together. “After today, all will know that Gwynedd
leads Wales not only in might but in music as well.” Then he rubbed
his hands together. “I can’t wait.”