The Unexpected Ally Read online

  “What, then, are you doing in St. Asaph with King Owain’s army?” Rhys looked from Gwen to Gareth and back again.

  Gwen spread her hands wide. “There’s so much to tell you, and this probably isn’t the place.” She tipped her head in a motion not dissimilar to Anselm’s. “For now, suffice to say that it is better to be here than at Aber.”

  Rhys huffed a laugh. “Aber must truly be a dangerous place.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Gwen said.

  Chapter Two

  Gareth

  As females, Gwen and Tangwen, Gareth and Gwen’s daughter, had no business riding with the king and his men to St. Asaph, especially since Gwen was pregnant. If Gareth had known in advance about King Owain’s transformation from bedridden mourner to vibrant monarch, he would have left Gwen behind at Dolwyddelan Castle with Mari, Hywel’s wife, where they’d spent the last night of their journey from Shrewsbury before reaching Aber. But they’d discovered that the king was well only at the moment of their return to Aber. King Owain had been leaving the castle, supplied for a journey, with an army of men around him. Though Abbot Rhys had invited him for a peace conference, the king was prepared for war.

  Their surprise at Owain’s resurrection had driven out any other thought, and when the king had beckoned to everyone in Hywel’s party to follow him out the gate and onto the high road heading east, they’d complied. By the time the company had ridden to Caerhun, some ten miles from Aber, it would have been more of a burden to send Gwen away than to let her stay.

  In retrospect, Gareth wouldn’t have left Gwen at Aber anyway. Though King Owain hadn’t openly stated that he and his wife, Cristina, were estranged, he’d implied it, and the coldness between them was plain for all to see, even just from the couple’s brief exchange in Aber’s courtyard. King Owain’s wife was difficult to live with under normal circumstances, but Gareth would have been jeopardizing his own marriage if he’d left Gwen with Cristina when the queen was feeling slighted and unhappy.

  Now, with another murder investigation before them, Gareth wasn’t sorry to have Gwen by his side. In Shrewsbury, they’d considered telling Hywel that these murders were taking too great a toll on them and their family and that they couldn’t pursue them anymore. In the aftermath of their captivity and the investigation’s resolution, however, they’d decided that they couldn’t turn their backs on the necessity of having someone do what they did. Until such a person appeared, they would instead strive to be more careful to protect their family—and their own hearts.

  With another dead body at their feet, and a man they knew at that, that was going to be easier said than done. Gareth indicated Erik with a tip of his head. “I should probably have a look before the others return.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Rhys said. “I wouldn’t have woken you if I didn’t think this was murder.”

  “I know.” Gareth raised the torch higher so it would shine directly into the trough and on Erik’s face, clearly visible beneath the water. The rain had all but stopped, so there were fewer raindrops leaving ripples in their wake to mar the surface. “I don’t have to tell you, Father, that we’ve done this before, and you can leave the investigation to us.”

  “It’s why I had Lwc wake you, of course.” Rhys sighed. “I gather from the way you reacted when you saw this man’s face that you knew him personally?”

  “Both of us do—did—and you did too, after a fashion.” Gwen leaned over the trough, frowning. “He was in Aberystwyth.”

  “I don’t think the good father ever met him, Gwen,” Gareth said.

  Gwen looked up at Gareth. “Oh, well—” she glanced at Rhys before returning her attention to Erik’s face, “—his name is Erik, and he has served quite a few lords over the years, including Prince Godfrid of Dublin and Prince Cadwaladr. After Aberystwyth, he became Hywel’s spy, after a fashion, having been cast off and abandoned by Cadwaladr.”

  “That is quite a list of masters.” Rhys pursed his lips as he studied Erik’s body. As a former soldier, he would have seen fallen men before, and for a murder scene, this was cleaner than most. “Given that he served Cadwaladr, am I to understand that he didn’t much care whom he served as long as he was paid?”

  “You can assume it.” Gareth lifted one shoulder to shrug. It was becoming a habit lately to raise just his right shoulder, since the left was injured—though, in point of fact, his left shoulder had bothered him on and off for years, so he wasn’t even sure if the habit was new. He was intensely grateful that it had been the left side that the bandits had injured, rather than the right, lest he end up completely crippled. “I had no idea he had returned from Ireland.”

  Rhys glanced at Gareth. “Why would he have gone to Ireland?”

  Gareth paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts and debating how much he could tell Rhys without violating Prince Hywel’s confidence.

  Gwen had no such reservations. “After Rhun died, Prince Hywel sent Erik to Ireland to look for Cadwaladr, who has allies and family members within many Irish kingdoms, as well as in Dublin. As a former Dublin Dane, Erik speaks—I’m sorry, spoke—both Danish and Gaelic, so he really was the best man to send.”

  “I see.”

  Gareth focused on Rhys’s face. “Do you?”

  “Prince Cadwaladr’s duplicity and treachery are familiar territory for me, and I am also aware of his role in Prince Rhun’s death.”

  “How did you hear of it?” Gwen said.

  “Father Alun of St. Mary’s Church in Cilcain travels to St. Kentigern’s from time to time seeking advice. He was particularly shaken by the events of last autumn, and he gave me a full accounting of what happened that week from his understanding.”

  Gareth nodded. “I am hoping to speak to you about what happened from mine.”

  Rhys looked at him gravely, understanding Gareth’s need for counsel and solace without him having to articulate further. Gareth and Gwen had spoken of their grief at length to each other, of course, but as a former warrior, a priest, and a friend, Rhys was a man upon whom Gareth could not only depend but to whom he could pass his burdens for a while.

  “Who found him, Father?” Gareth said.

  “The brother in charge of the milking, a man named Mathonwy. He sent one of his lads to Anselm, who woke me. Once I saw the body, unlike Prior Anselm, I knew that it was murder, so I sent Lwc to find you. I let Brother Mathonwy attend to his duties elsewhere until he was needed here.”

  “Who is Lwc, exactly?” Gareth wasn’t asking the young man’s origins so much as why he had been the one to accompany Rhys to the murder scene.

  “He is my secretary, also newly appointed. He refuses to allow me to leave my chambers without him.” Rhys smiled half-apologetically. “The bishop determined that in my advancing years my workload was too heavy and sought to lighten it by sending me an assistant. He arrived with Anselm last week, and already I find him indispensable.”

  “Ha!” Gareth laughed under his breath. “Advancing years … the bishop doesn’t know you very well, does he?”

  “You are an irreverent young man.” Rhys shook his head, though he was smiling. “I suspect that you, like me, are far older than when we first met.” It was a sobering reminder of all that had happened—and all that had been gained and lost—in the last three and a half years. “I will make the milkman available for you to question.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Gareth said. “He can give us an idea of the earliest Erik could have died, since I imagine the body wasn’t here yesterday evening when the cows were milked.”

  “Presumably not,” Rhys said—and then, his eyes bright, he put out a hand before either Gwen or Gareth could say anything. “I know. Never presume.”

  Gwen had gone back to surveying the body. “It’s odd that Prior Anselm’s thoughts went first to suicide. Do you know why that might be?”

  “I do not. We received him as our prior as a transfer from a brother house far to the south, and I know little of his origins
beyond what the bishop told me and what Anselm himself has chosen to reveal.” Rhys tapped a finger to his lips. “Perhaps it was a mistake not to learn more.”

  Rhys’s mind had already made a leap Gareth hadn’t yet considered—namely that Anselm might have had something to do with Erik’s death and was attempting to pass it off as suicide rather than murder.

  “Was Anselm where he was supposed to be all night?” Gwen said.

  “He wasn’t present at Matins, our night office, but that’s because he’s been feeling poorly for several days and has been sleeping in the infirmary. I wouldn’t have asked him to come out this morning, but he was the one who woke me.” Then Rhys shook his head. “Anselm is far too small a man to have held down Erik.”

  Gareth waved a hand. “We will question everyone. While on the whole I agree with your assessment of Anselm, it is too early to draw conclusions, especially since we haven’t yet removed the body from the trough.”

  “Unless Erik was killed elsewhere and the body moved, the man who strangled him would have had to be right in the trough with him,” Gwen said.

  There was a pause as both men looked at her, and then they bent forward to see what she was seeing. “You think he was strangled?” Rhys said.

  “Even from here I can see the bruising on his neck,” Gwen said.

  Rhys released a sharp puff of air. “So it is murder.”

  Gareth had noted some discoloration around Erik’s neck, but bending over hurt a little more than he wanted to admit, so he’d resolved to wait to decide what he was seeing until they got Erik out of the trough. Now that Gwen had pointed out the marks, however, they were unmistakable, even through the water, as she’d said.

  Rhys rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Why did he die here?”

  “That is one of a dozen questions we can’t yet answer.” Gareth’s lips twisted in a rueful smile in case his words had come across as more dismissive than he intended.

  Gwen’s boots squished in the mud as she took a few careful steps back from the trough. “The earth is so churned up, Gareth, that I’m afraid we aren’t going to learn anything from footprints, but maybe daylight will bring us a better perspective.” She frowned. “I hate seeing him there. I wish we could take him out of the trough now.”

  Gareth gingerly straightened his back. “We have no place to lay him, Gwen. Another few minutes to wait for the cart won’t hurt him worse than he already is.”

  Almost as if wishing made it true, the moment Gareth stopped speaking he heard the sound of hooves clopping.

  Rhys turned to look towards the road that lay to the west of the barn. “Ah. There they are.” Then he glanced back to Gwen and Gareth and explained, “The track that leads from here straight back to the monastery is too narrow for a horse-drawn cart. Lwc would have arranged for a driver and cart to leave the monastery by the front gate and take the long way around. The cart will have to travel a short distance past the barn on the road before he reaches a gate, which will give him access to the track we see in front of us. Everyone should be here soon.”

  When Lwc had led Gareth and Gwen from the guesthouse, he’d taken them through the monastery’s protected gardens and out the back gate to reach the extensive pasture and farmlands owned by the monastery and worked by the monks who lived in it. The paddock in which they found themselves was attached to a barn that was part of a farmstead directly managed by the monks and one which supplied the monastery with milk and eggs. To the left of the barn was a fence and then the road Rhys had mentioned. Beyond it lay the monastery’s mill and mill race on the Elwy River.

  Sure enough, a few moments later, men could be heard through the mist talking softly to one another, coming towards them from the monastery grounds. It was Lwc with three assistants. Shortly thereafter, a cart pulled by a single horse arrived from the opposite direction, having reached the barn from the north. The monk driving it maneuvered the cart until the bed was as close to the entrance to the paddock as he could get it. Then two of the men who’d accompanied Lwc pulled a thick, six-foot board from the bed and carried it between them towards the trough.

  The third man hastily laid down four stones in the muck to keep the board from getting dirty, and the others set the board down on them. Gareth could have told them it was a lost cause, since the moment they lifted Erik from the trough and set him on the board, it would sink six inches farther into the mud, but he didn’t say anything. Without the stones, the board definitely would become mired, and he had enough on his trencher without telling other men how to do their job.

  Gareth gently pulled Gwen back to give the men room to work, and with a heave, they got Erik’s body out of the trough and onto the board (which sank as predicted). Then, grunting with the effort, and with Erik’s body streaming water, the three assistants and Lwc lifted the board and carried it to the back of the cart. Gareth didn’t even attempt to assist them. He was more of a hindrance than a help in any circumstance that required the use of his left arm. While he hated feeling useless, he didn’t need a glare from Gwen to know that his limited strength should be reserved for the coming days and the discovery of Erik’s killer, not expended in lifting the dead man himself.

  Rhys had been watching the activity with his arms folded across his chest and a finger to his lips. As the monks settled the body in the bed of the cart, he turned to Gareth. “We have a room along the cloister set aside specifically for the washing of the dead. If we take Erik there, is that an acceptable place for you to examine him?”

  “That will be fine. You know well our requirements.”

  “Sadly, yes.” With a flick of his hand to two of the monks who’d come with Lwc, he sent them running back to the monastery, presumably to prepare the room for Erik’s arrival. Then he held out his elbow to Gwen. “May I escort you back to the guesthouse, my dear? We may have stood together over several dead bodies in the past, but we can let Gareth shepherd this one home without us, can’t we?”

  Gwen frowned but took his arm. “I’m perfectly capable of helping Gareth with whatever needs doing, Father.”

  “I am well aware of that, but you are looking a little pale to me.” He glanced at Lwc and the last monk who’d helped lift Erik. “Come, my sons. We’ve all had enough excitement for one night. Sir Gareth and Brother Ben will ensure that Erik is delivered safely.”

  For a moment, Lwc’s chin stuck out as if he was going to dig in his heels and not go with Rhys. The trip to get the cart had enlivened him somewhat, and he wasn’t looking nearly as pale as before. Gareth suspected that he’d experienced more excitement in the past hour than in his whole career as a monk. A flash of insight told him also that Rhys was taking Gwen away not so much for her sake, but because he didn’t care for Lwc to spend any more time with the body than strictly necessary.

  But then Lwc’s expression cleared. He bent his neck in an accepting bow and hustled off with the others with only one regretful glance back.

  That left Gareth alone with the last remaining monk, the aforementioned Ben, who was the driver of the cart. He nodded at Gareth before climbing into the driver’s seat and taking the reins. Rather than sit beside the monk, even if that would have been more comfortable, Gareth opted to ride in the cart bed, since someone had to sit with the body to ensure that the board Erik was on didn’t slide off the back end of the cart.

  Gareth slotted his torch into the holder beside the cart seat and banged each boot in turn into the wheel of the cart to knock off the worst of the mud. Then he grasped the rail of the bed with his right hand and swung himself over it to land with a thud in the bed of the cart. It wasn’t a terribly graceful move, but it was more than he could have done even two days ago. With a feeling of satisfaction, Gareth lowered himself into a sitting position beside Erik’s head.

  It was still dark enough that they needed the torch in order to see. Eventually the sun would rise, and Gareth looked east with some anticipation. The clouds were showing signs of thinning, such that the darkness th
at congealed under the trees around the barn was slightly less gloomy.

  Ben snapped the reins to get the horse moving. In an attempt to minimize the distance Erik’s body had to be carried from the paddock, the cart had been parked so the horse faced north. Thus, as they lurched forward, Ben apologized for how out of the way their trip was going to be: “The only way to reach the monastery from here is to follow that road.” He tipped his head to indicate the road to the west that ran between the barn and the river. “But there’s a fence between us and it, so we have to head down here a way to reach a gate that’s wide enough for the cart to go through. We use handcarts around here mostly.”

  “That’s fine, Ben.” Gareth braced himself as the cart rocked and jostled along the narrow track. Then as it steadied, he focused his attention on Erik.

  A quick inspection revealed that the dead spy had no purse on him, nor a weapon, indicating that his murderer had taken them away with him. Robbery was as good a motive for murder as any at this point, though given Erik’s profession as a spy, simple theft seemed the least probable. More likely, the killer took his possessions because he had something valuable or important on him, or to keep him from being easily identified. Possibly, they were somewhere to be found in the trees and bushes around the enclosure—or perhaps in the river. Gareth would come back when the sun was fully up and bring a larger complement of men to search.

  The rocking of the cart smoothed out enough that Gareth was able to let go of his fierce grip on the side rail. He moved to a half-kneeling crouch and started patting Erik down, going through his clothing in advance of his more thorough examination later. Unsurprisingly, Erik had hidden pockets in his clothing—to hold weapons if nothing else—but Gareth found no secret knives, darts, coins, rings, or valuables of any kind in them. He did find a jagged slash in Erik’s shirt, along with a matching wound in his belly beneath it. The existence of the wound went a long way to explaining how someone could have strangled Erik in the trough, if that was indeed what had happened. The wound was another thing Gareth would need to examine more closely once Erik was brought inside.