The Good Knight Read online

A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery

  The Good Knight

  by

  Sarah Woodbury

  Copyright © 2011 by Sarah Woodbury

  Cover image by Christine DeMaio-Rice at Flip City Books

  The Good Knight

  Intrigue, suspicion, and rivalry among the royal princes casts a shadow on the court of Owain, king of north Wales…

  The year is 1143 and King Owain seeks to unite his daughter in marriage with an allied king. But when the groom is murdered on the way to his wedding, the bride’s brother tasks his two best detectives—Gareth, a knight, and Gwen, the daughter of the court bard—with bringing the killer to justice.

  And once blame for the murder falls on Gareth himself, Gwen must continue her search for the truth alone, finding unlikely allies in foreign lands, and ultimately uncovering a conspiracy that will shake the political foundations of Wales.

  To my Gareth

  The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:

  The Bard’s Daughter (prequel)

  The Good Knight

  The Uninvited Guest

  The Fourth Horseman

  The Fallen Princess

  The Unlikely Spy

  The Lost Brother

  The Renegade Merchant

  The Unexpected Ally

  The Worthy Soldier

  The After Cilmeri Series:

  Daughter of Time (prequel)

  Footsteps in Time (Book One)

  Winds of Time

  Prince of Time (Book Two)

  Crossroads in Time (Book Three)

  Children of Time (Book Four)

  Exiles in Time

  Castaways in Time

  Ashes of Time

  Warden of Time

  Guardians of Time

  Masters of Time

  Outpost in Time

  The Lion of Wales series:

  Cold My Heart

  The Oaken Door

  Of Men and Dragons

  A Long Cloud

  Frost Against the Hilt

  The Last Pendragon Saga:

  The Last Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Blade

  Song of the Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Quest

  The Pendragon’s Champions

  Rise of the Pendragon

  The Pendragon’s Challenge

  Legend of the Pendragon

  The Paradisi Chronicles:

  Erase Me Not

  www.sarahwoodbury.com

  A Brief Guide to Welsh Pronunciation

  c a hard ‘c’ sound (Cadfael)

  ch a non-English sound as in Scottish ‘ch’ in ‘loch’ (Fychan)

  dd a buzzy ‘th’ sound, as in ‘there’ (Ddu; Gwynedd)

  f as in ‘of’ (Cadfael)

  ff as in ‘off’ (Gruffydd)

  g a hard ‘g’ sound, as in ‘gas’ (Goronwy)

  l as in ‘lamp’ (Llywelyn)

  ll a breathy /sh/ sound that does not occur in English (Llywelyn)

  rh a breathy mix between ‘r’ and ‘rh’ that does not occur in English (Rhys)

  th a softer sound than for ‘dd,’ as in ‘thick’ (Arthur)

  u a short ‘ih’ sound (Gruffydd), or a long ‘ee’ sound (Cymru—pronounced ‘kumree’)

  w as a consonant, it’s an English ‘w’ (Llywelyn); as a vowel, an ‘oo’ sound (Bwlch)

  y the only letter in which Welsh is not phonetic. It can be an ‘ih’ sound, as in ‘Gwyn,’ is often an ‘uh’ sound (Cymru), and at the end of the word is an ‘ee’ sound (thus, both Cymru—the modern word for Wales—and Cymry—the word for Wales in the Dark Ages—are pronounced ‘kumree’)

  Cast of Characters

  Owain Gwynedd – King of Gwynedd (North Wales)

  Cadwaladr – ruler of Ceredigion, younger brother to Owain

  Cadwallon – elder brother to Owain and Cadwaladr, deceased

  Rhun – Owain’s son

  Hywel – Owain’s son

  Elen – Owain’s daughter

  Meilyr – court bard to Gruffydd ap Cynan (Owain’s father d. 1137)

  Gwen – Meilyr’s daughter

  Gwalchmai – Meilyr’s son

  Gareth – Knight

  Cristina – Owain’s love interest

  Anarawd – King of Deheubarth

  Cadell – Anarawd’s brother

  Chapter One

  August, 1143 AD

  Gwynedd (North Wales)

  “Look at you, girl.”

  Gwen’s father, Meilyr, tsked under his breath and brought his borrowed horse closer to her side of the path. He’d been out of sorts since early morning when he’d found his horse lame and King Anarawd and his company of soldiers had left the castle without them, refusing to wait for Meilyr to find a replacement mount. Anarawd’s men-at-arms would have provided Meilyr with the fine escort he coveted.

  “You’ll have no cause for complaint once we reach Owain Gwynedd’s court.” A breeze wafted over Gwen’s face, and she closed her eyes, letting her pony find his own way for a moment. “I won’t embarrass you at the wedding.”

  “If you cared more for your appearance, you would have been married yourself years ago and given me grandchildren long since.”

  Gwen opened her eyes, her forehead wrinkling in annoyance. “And whose fault is it that I’m unmarried?” Her fingers flexed about the reins, but she forced herself to relax. Her present appearance was her own doing, even if her father found it intolerable. In her bag, she had fine clothes and ribbons to weave through her hair, but saw no point in sullying any of them on the long journey to Aber Castle.

  King Owain Gwynedd’s daughter was due to marry King Anarawd in three days’ time. Owain Gwynedd had invited Gwen, her father, and her almost twelve-year old brother, Gwalchmai, to furnish the entertainment for the event, provided King Owain and her father could bridge the six years of animosity and silence that separated them. Meilyr had sung for King Owain’s father, Gruffydd; he’d practically raised King Owain’s son, Hywel. But six years was six years. No wonder her father’s temper was short.

  Even so, she couldn’t let her father’s comments go. Responsibility for the fact that she had no husband rested firmly on his shoulders. “Who refused the contract?”

  “Rhys was a rapscallion and a laze-about,” Meilyr said.

  And you weren’t about to give up your housekeeper, maidservant, cook, and child-minder to just anyone, were you?

  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’s father had almost cried when Meilyr had refused Rhys’s 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 to
o, 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.