The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery) (23 page)

“It is all my uncle’s doing, as far as we know,” Hywel said.

Thus, the company of two hundred, Hywel and Cadell in the lead, left Aber and rode east to Caerhun and then south. It was a distance of some twenty miles to Dolwyddelan, a journey Gareth knew well, and then a further fifty to their ultimate destination: Aberystwyth Castle, Cadwaladr’s seat in Ceredigion. From the look of determination on Hywel’s face, they’d be resting little and pushing the horses, even in the mountains.

The company spent that first night at Dolwyddelan and a second in a rough camp near Machynlleth. To reach Ceredigion, they then followed the Roman road to the west of the mountains that took up much of central Wales—a road that was difficult to traverse with an army and which slowed them considerably.

So it was just after noon on the third day when they reached the ford in the river below Aberystwyth and gazed the quarter of a mile—straight up—to the castle. As one of the few large fortresses in Ceredigion, it was well positioned to guard the entire coast of Wales.

It sat at the crest of a large plateau, a hundred feet above the floodplain. The castle was larger and better defended than a manor house, more on the scale of Dolwyddelan than Aber, but with no stone to protect it. Anarawd’s father had burned the original castle in 1135, and Cadwaladr rebuilt it in earth and wood.

Ditches surrounded the wooden palisade, making a siege difficult, not that any army had a hope of getting close to it in a frontal assault. It wasn’t any easier from the rear: the plateau dropped off sharply behind the castle, straight into the sea.

Hywel pulled his horse close into Gareth’s. “I expect you to accompany me when I speak to Cadwaladr’s wife.”

“Yes, my lord,” Gareth said. “But what about King Cadell?”

“He has chosen to remain in the background.” Hywel cast a glance to where Cadell had dismounted in the midst of his men.

Gareth followed his gaze, still not sure what to make of this new king. He turned back to his prince. “You don’t believe that Cadwaladr is here, do you?”

“No,” Hywel said. “Although I suppose he could still surprise me. I certainly didn’t anticipate him taking Gwen, nor that he’d believe she carried my child.” He gazed into the distance for several heartbeats, before seeming to shake himself out of the brief reverie. “Let me do the talking.”

“Of course,” Gareth said.

“Will Cadwaladr’s wife surrender the castle, do you think?” Evan reined his horse in on the other side of Gareth.

“No, she won’t,” Gareth said. “Not necessarily for his sake, but for hers. Alice believes she has as much—if not more—right to Ceredigion as her husband does.”

Cadwaladr, in one of those strange, royal alliances, had married Alice de Clare, the daughter of the man whom Owain Gwynedd, Cadwaladr, and Anarawd had defeated for control of Deheubarth back in 1137. At least her father had died near Abergavenny, fighting against the men of Gwent, rather than by Cadwaladr’s own hand. Still, it was a stretch to think theirs was a love match.

Gareth had left Cadwaladr’s service shortly thereafter. Alice, for her part, was not a beauty, though purportedly far more intelligent than her husband. To Gareth’s mind, that wouldn’t be difficult.

“Come to within two hundred yards—no further—and aim to stay in the trees by the river,” Hywel said. “They’ve seen us coming but right now she doesn’t know why we’re here or how many men I’ve brought. I’m just her nephew, traveling through Ceredigion. Right now her greatest concern is how she’s going to feed us all.”

“We could deceive her,” Gareth said. “Enter the castle and take it from the inside.”

“We could.” Hywel gave Gareth a piercing look. “And if her garrison refuses to surrender? It will be hand to hand in the courtyard. I value my men more than that—and Cadwaladr’s for that matter—far more than he does.”

Choosing six other men he trusted, Evan among them, Hywel led the way up the road to the castle. The path doubled back on itself twice before coming out on the flat area in front of the castle gate. The portcullis was up as they arrived, but Hywel hesitated on the threshold.

“Please ask my aunt to come to the gate,” he said to the guards. “I have news she should hear.”

The guards murmured among themselves and one of them ran for Alice who appeared shortly thereafter. She was in her late twenties—and heavily pregnant. Gareth blinked at that. Fighting this woman was surely not what they wanted. At the sight of her, Gareth and Hywel dismounted and walked forward to greet her.

“Why is it that you do not come inside?” Alice spoke in French, which both Gareth and Hywel understood—though Gareth couldn’t speak it as well as his lord.

“I am here on a less than pleasant mission, Aunt.” Hywel took her hand and bowed over it. “I would speak to your lord husband.”

Alice looked bewildered and Hywel did not release her hand, even as she tried to tug it away without seeming to. “He’s not here, Hywel. He—” she hesitated as she looked from Hywel to Gareth, perhaps searching for some kind of reassurance, which she didn’t find in Gareth’s eyes. “He went to Aber for your sister’s wedding.”

“He has left Aber, Aunt,” Hywel said.

Alice shook her head. “I’ve not seen him.”

“Then I ask you to call your son, and come with me,” Hywel said.

Now Alice backed away—just one small step, but enough to show that she didn’t necessarily trust Hywel or his motives, even if she’d been polite up until now. “Why?”

Hywel moved with her, still clasping her hand. “My lord father, the King, has sent me to seize these lands, including this castle. Your husband has fled to Dublin.”

Alice’s face paled. Her control was good, however, because the expression lasted only for a heartbeat. Then she whirled on one heel, dragging Hywel with her. “Close the gate! We must defen—”

Hywel didn’t let her finish. He grasped her around the shoulders and pulled her against him, his sword suddenly unsheathed. He pointed it at her guardsmen who’d been slow to react behind her. Perhaps they hadn’t understood French enough to grasp her conversation with Hywel. She’d screamed her orders in Welsh, however.

Holding Alice, much as Cadwaladr had held Gwen, Hywel backed away from the gate. Unlike Cadwaladr, however, he held no knife to her throat and didn’t threaten her men with her death. “I will not hurt her but I will take her with me if you do not do as I ask. She has commanded you to defend the castle but it is your choice whether you do so or not. Do you yield? I am sent by Owain, King of Gwynedd and my father. His seal is on this action.”

The captain of the guard, an older man named Goronwy whom Gareth knew from his days in Ceredigion, skidded to a halt just on the castle side of the wooden gates, which the guards had half-closed at Alice’s warning. They wouldn’t have wanted to drop the portcullis until she was safely back inside.

Goronwy flicked his gaze from Alice to Hywel, and then past them to Gareth. His eyes widened. Gareth canted his head in acknowledgement of an old friendship but didn’t say anything, since Hywel had asked him not to.

“We defend,” Goronwy said.

“Send out the boy,” Hywel said. “Now. For his own safety.”

“Why do you do this?” Alice said. “We’ve done you no harm.”

“Your husband paid mercenaries to murder Anarawd, the King of Deheubarth, and all his men,” Hywel said. “As Cadwaladr has fled and left you and his men to face the consequences of that decision, my father has disowned him.”

Alice stared straight ahead, absorbing this news without apparent emotion. She believed Cadwaladr had done exactly as Hywel said; she had to know him well enough for that. Perhaps she knew of his numerous other crimes. This time, however, he’d been found out and there were consequences in that for her.

Hywel saw it too. “Cadwaladr thinks only of what he wants and getting it, whether or not his wants are good for him or Wales,” Hywel said. “I’m sorry you’ve been caught up in it.”

“Mama!” A boy of five raced out the gate, which Goronwy then closed behind him. Gareth scooped him up before he could reach Alice and carried him to Braith. Hywel, meanwhile, boosted Alice very gently onto his horse.

“Then why did you not let me defend Aberystwyth as I intended?” Alice said. “Surely your father wishes that Cadwaladr and I should share the same fate.”

Hywel gave a derisive laugh. “Do you know my father as little as that? We will take your castle, but I would not do it with you and the boy in it.”

And that, right there, was all anyone needed to know about the difference between serving Hywel and what Gareth’s time had been like under Cadwaladr.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A
t that first feast, Gwen scared her captors when she threw up everything she’d tried to eat. She should have known better than to consume anything more than broth after her illness on the ship, but nobody had suggested it. She’d eaten until she was full, and then thrown off the grasping hands of her guards in order to lose it all in the grass outside the hall. She’d been given leave to go to bed after that, and slept all of the next day and night. Two days in Dublin, nearly a week since she’d been at Aber, with how many more before they could return home?

Gwen sat on her pallet combing her hair with her fingers. She’d slept near the main hall in a small hut which comprised the women’s guest quarters. She was glad the Danes were civilized enough not to make her sleep in the hall. She wished she had other clothes to put on but so far none had been forthcoming.

A young woman appeared in the doorway of the otherwise deserted room, blinking in the transition from sunshine to the darkness within the hut. “Godfrid says to come out now.”

Gwen looked up at her as she stood silhouetted in the doorway. “Excuse me?”

“Come out now,” the girl repeated. Then she added, “Godfrid says.”

“Thank you.” From the girl’s accent, Gwen didn’t think she knew much more Welsh than that. Gwen pulled on her boots, straightened her filthy dress and followed the girl outside.

“Food and drink,” Godfrid said without preamble.

“No, ‘how are you?’; no, ‘I’m sorry this has been so rotten’?” Gwen tossed the conversation back at him. “No, ‘I’m sorry to have taken you away from your home?’”

Godfrid coughed and gave Gwen a quick bow. “How are you, Gwen?”

“Filthy and hungry, thank you for asking,” she said. “What’s to become of me?”

Godfrid allowed the smile that was in his eyes to show on his lips. “Food first.”

“Godfri—” Gwen swallowed the rest of the name at Godfrid’s quizzical look. This was a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Just as with the girl, who ran off at a gesture from him. Gwen bit her lip and looked down at her scuffed boots.

“This way.” Godfrid headed back to the hall.

Two dozen other people—men, women, and children—gathered for the meal. Gwen would have liked to sit with a family, to remind herself that she had a father and brother back in Wales—and a man who just might love her—but Godfrid nudged her towards an empty table and sat across from her.

A different girl, this one with a collar around her neck indicating her slave status, laid a full cup of beer and a bowl with the needed broth inside it.

“Eat,” Godfrid said.

“Thank you,” Gwen said to the girl, who didn’t meet her eyes. Gwen took one sip, hesitated, and then took another. The broth warmed her stomach and for the first time in a week she didn’t feel ill.

“Wait.” Godfrid put a finger on the rim of the bowl and forced Gwen to set it down.

“It’s all right,” Gwen said. “I won’t eat too much this time.”

Godfrid nodded. He turned sideways on the bench, leaned against the pillar that buttressed it, and crossed his arms. “Cadwaladr is not here.”

Gwen looked at him over the top of the bowl, and then gave a quick glance around the room. “Where’s he gone?”

“To Ottar,” Godfrid said.

“And that upsets you?”

Looking even more pensive, he drummed his fingers on the table. “A company of Ottar’s men went to Wales ten days ago and have not returned.”

“Oh.” Gwen took another sip of her soup and then swallowed hard, feeling a bit sick again.

Godfrid caught the nuance beneath that short utterance. “You know of it?”

“Yes,” Gwen said. “It’s why Cadwaladr is here. I suppose it’s not surprising you don’t know the whole story, given what followed.”

“Tell me.” Godfrid swung his legs down from the bench, braced his elbows on the table, and hunched over them. “I must know.” His blue eyes glared at her beneath his bushy blonde brows.

Gwen sighed, not feeling like she had a choice but to tell him the whole story. “Cadwaladr hired your people—or rather Ottar’s people—to murder the King of Deheubarth. A man named Anarawd. Anarawd was to marry Owain Gwynedd’s daughter—Hywel’s sister—and was on his way to the wedding when he was murdered.”

“Ho.” Godfrid pushed off his elbows and gazed at Gwen with a stunned expression. He tsked through his teeth. “That is a tale.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Why did Cadwaladr do this?”

“I couldn’t tell you why,” Gwen said, “except that he saw an advantage in it for himself.”

“If the money was good, such a proposition would tempt Ottar, though I find it distasteful myself,” Godfrid said. “What went wrong?”

“They killed Anarawd and all his men, as Cadwaladr intended,” Gwen said. “But later they attacked the company bringing King Anarawd and his dead companions to Caerhun for burial.” She shrugged. “They underestimated their opponents.”

“You mean Ottar’s men are all dead,” Godfrid said.

Gwen nodded. “Owain Gwynedd is very angry. He didn’t take kindly to Anarawd’s death and even less to Danish mercenaries being hired to see to it.”

“I see,” Godfrid said, and Gwen knew he really did see. On one hand, Godfrid may have participated in any number of similar acts, but as a prince himself, he understood that King Owain couldn’t condone what his brother had done under any circumstances. “And what will Owain Gwynedd do?”

“I don’t know yet,” Gwen said. “Cadwaladr abducted me from Aber before the King knew that Cadwaladr was behind Anarawd’s death.”