The Irish Bride Read online

  The Irish Bride

  The Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries, Volume 12

  Sarah Woodbury

  Published by The Morgan-Stanwood Publishing Group, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE IRISH BRIDE

  First edition. July 21, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Sarah Woodbury.

  ISBN: 978-1386524830

  Written by Sarah Woodbury.

  Table of Contents

  A Note about Godfrid the Dane

  Prince Hywel’s Family Tree

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  A Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery

  The Irish Bride

  by

  Sarah Woodbury

  Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Woodbury

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  August 1148. The wedding of Godfrid and Cait promises to be the event of the year, and even Gwen has made the journey across the Irish Sea to celebrate. Weddings can be moments around which tensions and resentments pivot, however, so when a monk turns up dead within moments of Gareth and Gwen’s arrival in Ireland, the pair put on their sleuthing hats and get to work, racing to solve the mystery before it ruins Godfrid’s big day.

  Join Gareth & Gwen and their friends and companions for murder and mayhem in medieval Dublin in The Irish Bride, the 12th Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery.

  Complete Series reading order: 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 Favored Son, The Viking Prince, The Irish Bride. Also The Bard’s Daughter (prequel novella).

  www.sarahwoodbury.com

  To my mom

  who’s always up for a good mystery

  Special thanks to my physician sister

  for her help with all the various ways to die.

  All errors are my own.

  A Note about Godfrid the Dane

  Godfrid the Dane makes his first appearance in the Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries in the first book, The Good Knight. He comes to Anglesey at the behest of Prince Cadwaladr, but quickly realizes the deal he’s made is not quite what he thought, and Cadwaladr is not worthy of his allegiance or alliance. He takes it upon himself to keep Gwen safe and gives her up to Gareth when he comes to Ireland in search of her.

  He and Gareth grow to respect each other, and Godfrid returns to Gwynedd in The Fallen Princess, on a quest to find the Book of Kells, which has been stolen, and again in The Lost Brother, in search of allies in his conflict with Ottar of Dublin, who has usurped Godfrid’s the throne of Dublin. In both instances, Godfrid ends up aiding Gareth and Gwen in their investigations.

  In the previous book, The Viking Prince, Godfrid is faced with a mystery of his own, at the end of which his brother is crowned King of Dublin and Godfrid is betrothed to Caitriona, his friend Conall’s sister.

  The Irish Bride is the next chapter in the story ...

  Prince Hywel’s Family Tree

  Cast of Characters

  Gwen – Gareth’s wife, spy for Hywel

  Gareth – Gwen’s husband, Prince Hywel’s steward

  Hywel – Prince of Gwynedd

  Llelo – Gareth and Gwen’s son

  Dai – Gareth and Gwen’s son

  Tangwen – Gareth and Gwen’s daughter

  Taran – Gareth and Gwen’s son

  Evan – Gareth’s friend, Dragon member

  Gruffydd – Rhun’s former captain, Dragon member

  Cadoc – Assassin, Dragon member

  Steffan – Dragon member

  Iago – Dragon member

  Aron – Dragon member

  Conall – Spy, Ambassador to Dublin

  Caitriona (Cait) – Conall’s sister

  Dorte – Caitriona and Conall’s mother

  Godfrid – Prince of Dublin, Caitriona’s betrothed

  Brodar – King of Dublin

  Diarmait – King of Leinster

  Rory – Prince of Connaught

  Donnell – Prince of Connaught

  Jon – Godfrid’s captain

  Bern – Cait’s guard

  Sitric – Cait’s guard

  Chapter One

  Dublin, Ireland

  Last days of August, 1148

  Day One

  Gwen

  Gwen fell to her knees on the dock, thankful beyond reckoning to be on dry land again—and heedless of the seawater that soaked the wooden boards and her plain brown dress. She had a better dress, a blue one, to wear tonight for the welcome feast, and a brand new one in a gorgeous green for the wedding day itself. Maybe, if she could be that careless of something she owned, she would pass this dress on to someone who needed it rather than face wearing it again, even for the return journey, which at the moment didn’t bear thinking about.

  Gareth crouched beside her, rubbing her back. “Give it a few breaths. You should start to feel better soon.”

  Gwen obeyed, taking in a deep breath that brought her the scents of wet wood, algae, and salt. She’d come to Dublin, not of her own accord, five years earlier and remembered this smell that seemed peculiar to Dublin. With three thousand souls living cheek by jowl here, the city ought to have smelled more offensive. But there was always a breeze in Dublin, especially near the water, as they were, which made the city smell cleaner than it should, like the sea when the wind was up.

  “I’m already starting to feel better.” She looked up at her husband. “We may have to live permanently in Ireland, my love. How am I going to make that trip again?”

  “Don’t think about it. Perhaps one of the healers here has a better remedy for your nausea than any had to offer you in Wales. This is a city of seafarers after all.”

  “Which probably means all of them are better sailors than I am!”

  “Don’t be so sure. I imagine many a Dane has been embarrassed to admit he doesn’t feel the call of the sea and sought a way to disguise his sickness.” Gareth kissed the top of her head. “Your color is starting to return.”

  As she took in another breath, Gwen realized he was right. For the first time since she set foot in the boat the previous morning, she didn’t feel like she was going to vomit. She even managed a few sips of water from the skin Gareth gav
e her. Various people had told her over the years that if only she were to sail more often, her seasickness would abate, which made her feel as if they thought her inability to manage sailing without vomiting was somehow her own fault. It hadn’t escaped her notice that such claims were never made by people who actually suffered from seasickness.

  What was her own fault was getting on the boat in the first place, even knowing what it would be like. At least she wasn’t pregnant like Evan’s wife, Angharad, which had precluded her from coming at all. Gwen had been bound and determined to attend the wedding, regardless of the personal cost.

  But that was over for now, and she allowed Gareth to help her to her feet. Their daughter, Tangwen, now a precocious three and a half, had disembarked as well, followed by their new nanny, Marged, holding nine-month-old Taran. While their servants who had traveled with them, Beric and Sian, saw to the luggage, Gwen’s adoptive son Llelo bounded down the dock. Llelo’s brother, Dai, now squire, servant, and general underling to all six of Prince Hywel’s Dragons at once, had sailed in Prince Hywel’s ship. At sixteen and fourteen respectively, the two boys had become men and embarked on their chosen pathways. Though, as Gwen knew from her own life, only God knew to what end.

  Godfrid, bless his heart, had known what the crossing of the Irish Sea was going to do to Gwen and had planned accordingly. He’d sent a ship to collect Gareth and Gwen, sail across the Irish Sea, and when they reached Dublin, to dock several slips down from Prince Hywel’s boat, which even now was gliding expertly into place. That was where Godfrid, Conall, their men, and a small crowd of onlookers had gathered to greet the travelers. Only two of the Dragons, Steffan and Aron, had sailed with Gareth and Gwen, while the rest had found berths on Hywel’s boat.

  With luck, Gwen herself would be entirely ignored until she had a chance to catch her breath and change her appearance to one that was more acceptable for the wife of Prince Hywel’s seneschal. With his elevation in status, Gareth had become a lord and she a lady. It was daunting for the daughter of a bard, no matter how renowned. Godfrid had asked that Gwen and Hywel sing at their wedding, and Hywel had composed a song specifically for the two of them to sing together. For once, it was a love song that ended well. Fortunately, Gwen had three days to remember how to be a performer again.

  Gwen was quite nervous as well about meeting Godfrid’s wife-to-be, Caitriona, and she wasn’t too sorry to see that Cait hadn’t come to the dock while Gwen was in such a state. At first, when Gwen had heard Godfrid was getting married, she’d worried about the woman who’d finally managed to bring him to the altar. Abbot Rhys’s description of Cait’s wit and courage—and the fact that she was Conall’s sister—had left Gwen breathing a little easier. But still, she would be sorry if they didn’t end up friends.

  Away down the dock, Godfrid greeted Prince Hywel with great ceremony and gestured that he should walk with him to the palace, which, if memory served, lay in the southeastern corner of the city. That was where Godfrid’s brother, Brodar, the new King of Dublin, would be waiting to greet them—along with Diarmait, the King of Leinster and Dublin’s overlord, who just happened also to be Cait and Conall’s uncle. Cait wasn’t quite a princess, but for the brother of the King of Dublin, she was more than close enough.

  Gwen could just make out Conall, in large part hidden by the Danish prince’s bulk, standing amongst the greeters, as befitting the representative to Dublin from the throne of Leinster. Both Conall and Godfrid were dressed in finery: Conall in a somewhat austere red and black and Godfrid in blue and gold to match his eyes and hair.

  This afternoon, after the travelers had been given an opportunity to bathe, change, and rest, they would attend a feast held in their honor. All this Gwen knew because Godfrid had laid out the itinerary in a letter he’d sent with the captain of the ship. Godfrid’s wedding to Caitriona was in four days’ time, and he wanted everything to be perfect. If anything, he was overmanaging the situation, which was a side of him Gwen had never seen before. The Godfrid she knew best was full of humor and enthusiasm, in between bouts as one of the fiercest warriors Gareth had ever met. Gwen was looking forward to seeing him as a doting husband.

  Everyone from Gwen’s ship deliberately held back to allow the royal retinue time to leave the dock. But—really to nobody’s surprise—Godfrid couldn’t maintain the formal façade, even for the time it took to reach the city gate. He glanced back, spied Gareth and Gwen, and reversed course. His long legs ate up the hundred feet between them, and before Gwen knew it, she’d been lifted off her feet in a bear hug. Godfrid set her down somewhat more decorously than he’d picked her up, before enveloping Gareth in a similarly effusive embrace.

  “My friends!” Godfrid’s voice bellowed out from his barrel of a chest, to be heard all across the waterfront. “It’s been too long.”

  Then, instantly moderating his volume and tone, he crouched in front of Tangwen, who was looking up at him with big brown eyes, and poked her gently in the tummy.

  “And who is this gorgeous girl?” He spoke in accented Welsh, but understandable enough to everyone in the party, including Tangwen.

  Tangwen’s hands went to her belly. “Tangwen.”

  “I’m very pleased to see you again, Tangwen. You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you!”

  Then, melting the hearts of everyone watching, Tangwen reached out a hand and tugged on the point of Godfrid’s blond beard, prompting a chuckle from the big Dane. He touched her nose gently with his finger and then rose to his feet, his other hand resting gently atop Tangwen’s brown curls. His eyes went to Gareth. “You will be beating the men off with sticks in a few years.”

  “I won’t be limited to sticks, my friend.” Gareth rolled his eyes. “You are joining the ranks of married men. It won’t be long before you have a daughter of your own.”

  “God willing!” Godfrid swept out his arm. “Come! You will be staying at my house while you’re here.” He bent to Gwen. “Caitriona can’t wait to meet you.”

  “And I her!” Gwen looked up at him. “Abbot Rhys sends his regrets that he was not able to come, but he didn’t want to leave his brothers to their own devices again so soon.”

  “Or, to tell you the real truth, Abbot Rhys feared his prior was getting too comfortable in his seat and too sure of his own rightness to oversee the monastery.” Conall had been standing next to Prince Hywel, waiting patiently a few paces behind Godfrid, and now he stepped forward to greet Gareth with slightly less exuberance than Godfrid, if only because nobody could match the prince for enthusiasm. He had a kiss on both cheeks for Gwen.

  Happily, Gwen was feeling better with every step she took away from the boat—better enough, in fact, to take Tangwen’s hand and walk with her underneath the gatehouse tunnel and into the City of Dublin itself.

  At that point, however, Godfrid and Hywel, who were leading the group, with Conall and Gareth just behind, pulled up short due to the arrival of a man in churchly garb. The newcomer’s hair, which was so blond it was almost white, was cropped close to his head and untonsured, indicating he was either a novice (meaning he had not yet taken his vows), or wasn’t actually a monk. He stopped several paces away from the princes, breathing hard.

  “Prince Godfrid,” he said through heavy breaths, even bending forward to put both hands on his knees. He spoke in French, seemingly because he knew he was talking to a mixed audience. “Please pardon me, I have come from Bishop Gregory. He asks that you bring your companions to the cathedral. He is in need of them.”

  “My companions?” Godfrid looked bewilderedly around. “Does he mean Lord Conall? Or Prince Hywel?”

  The priest managed to stand upright, and he gestured towards the cluster of Godfrid’s companions who filled the street behind him. The number included not only Gareth and Gwen and their family and retainers, but Prince Hywel and his Dragons, plus various members of Godfrid’s own guard.

  “He understands you are today greeting Sir Gareth the Welshman and his wife. It
is their presence he is requesting.” Then he switched languages to Danish, which Gwen little understood, but she could grasp his last few words, even in his lowered tone. “It is a matter of a dead man.”

  Chapter Two

  Day One

  Gareth

  Gareth didn’t understand much Danish, but he understood død mand well enough and barked a laugh before he could stop himself. “Of course it is.”

  Conall moved closer to Gareth. “He said they’ve found a dead man.”

  “So I gathered.” Gareth shook his head.

  Godfrid, however, glared at the priest. “You can’t be serious. They just arrived.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord. I am only doing as I was bid.”

  After Conall translated, Gareth put out a hand to his friend. “It is all right, Godfrid. This happens to us with some regularity.”

  Godfrid put out his chin. “Not in Dublin.”

  “Admittedly, that is true. I did not encounter a dead body the last time I was here. I wish I had.”

  As soon as the words were out of Gareth’s mouth, he wished he could take them back, but it was too late. The joke was inappropriate. Death wasn’t something to be jesting about, not unless one was about to go into battle. And especially not when the young priest was looking at him so urgently.

  Still, he couldn’t mistake the snort of laughter from Hywel, who knew the dead man Gareth would have liked to have encountered was Hywel’s treacherous uncle Prince Cadwaladr, King Owain’s younger brother.

  Five years ago, Cadwaladr had turned to Dublin for mercenaries willing to kill a king and undermine Owain’s rule of Gwynedd. Prince Hywel’s grandfather, Gruffydd ap Cynan, had been born in Dublin. Through him, the family was descended both from the great Danish king, Sitric Silkbeard and the even greater High King of Ireland, Brian Boru. Hywel’s mother, who’d died at his birth, had also been Irish.

  Gareth had traveled to Ireland with Hywel in the early days of their relationship, but neither had ever been to Dublin nor met Godfrid before Cadwaladr had arranged for Anarawd’s assassination.