Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (35 page)

But instead of speaking, Gwen bit her tongue
and kept her thoughts to herself. She’d said it once and received a
slap to her face. Many nights she’d lain quiet beside her younger
brother, regretting that she hadn’t defied her father and stayed
with Rhys. They could have eloped; in seven years, their marriage
would have been as legal as any other. But her father was right and
Gwen wasn’t too proud to admit it: Rhys
had
been a
laze-about. She wouldn’t have been happy with him. Rhys’ father had
almost cried when Meilyr had refused Rhys’ offer. It wasn’t only
daughters who were sometimes hard to sell.

“Father!” Gwalchmai brought their cart to a
halt. “Come look at this!”

“What now?” Meilyr said. “We’ll have to
spend the night at Caerhun at present rate. You know how important
it is not to keep King Owain waiting.”

“But Father!” Gwalchmai leapt from the cart
and ran forward.

“He’s serious.” Gwen urged her pony after
him, passing the cart, and then abruptly reined in beside her
brother. “
Mary, Mother of God
…”

A slight rise and sudden dip in the path
ahead had hidden the carnage until they were upon it. Twenty men
and an equal number of horses lay dead in the road, their bodies
contorted and their blood soaking the brown earth. Gwalchmai bent
forward and retched into the grass beside the road. Gwen’s stomach
threatened to undo her too, but she fought the bile down and
dismounted to wrap her arms around her brother.

Meilyr reined in beside his children. “Stay
back.”

Gwen glanced at her father and then back to
the scene, noticing for the first time a man kneeling among the
wreckage, one hand to a dead man’s chest and the other resting on
the hilt of his sheathed sword. The man straightened and Gwen’s
breath caught in her throat.

Gareth.

He’d cropped his dark brown hair shorter
than when she’d known him, but his blue eyes still reached into the
core of her. Her heart beat a little faster as she drank him in.
Five years ago, Gareth had been a man-at-arms in the service of
Prince Cadwaladr, King Owain Gwynedd’s brother. Gareth and Gwen had
become friends, and then more than friends, but before he could ask
her father for her hand, Gareth had a falling out with Prince
Cadwaladr. In the end, Gareth hadn’t been able to persuade Meilyr
that he could support her despite his lack of station.

Gwen was so focused on Gareth that she
wasn’t aware of the other men among them—live ones—until they
approached her family. A half dozen converged on them at the same
time. One caught her upper arm in a tight grip. Another grabbed
Meilyr’s bridle. “Who are you?” the soldier said.

Meilyr stood in the stirrups and pointed a
finger at Gareth. “Tell them who I am!”

Gareth came forward, his eyes flicking from
Meilyr to Gwalchmai to Gwen. He was broader in the shoulders, too,
than she remembered.

“They are friends,” Gareth said. “Release
them.”

And to Gwen’s astonishment, the man-at-arms
who held her obeyed Gareth. Could it be that in the years since
she’d last seen him, Gareth had regained something of what he’d
lost?

Gareth halted by Meilyr’s horse. “I was sent
from Aber to meet King Anarawd and escort him through Gwynedd. He
wasn’t even due to arrive at Dolwyddelan Castle until today, but …”
He gestured to the men on the ground. “Clearly, we were too
late.”

Gwen looked past Gareth to the murdered men
in the road.

“Turn away, Gwen,” Gareth said.

But Gwen couldn’t. The blood—on the dead
men, on the ground, on the knees of Gareth’s breeches—mesmerized
her. The men here had been
slaughtered
. Her skin twitched at
the hate in the air. “You mean King Anarawd is—is—is among
them?”

“The King is dead,” Gareth said.

___________

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