The Lost Brother Read online

  “Gareth!”

  Gareth put out a hand to Gwen, “—let me finish. I was going to say that my aim was more accurate.”

  Gwen bit her lip as she looked at the calm faces of Gareth and Llelo. “I understand why you didn’t want to tell me, but I need to know the bad as well as the good.” She looked at Llelo. “And what about you?”

  “I learned a valuable lesson,” Llelo said, sounding far more like a man than the boy she’d last seen at Aber.

  “We have both been more careful since then,” Gareth said.

  “I am so scared for all of you, every day,” Gwen said. “After this, if I ride to see Mari in Aberystwyth, it might be months before I see you again.”

  “I know you’re scared for me,” Gareth said, “but please know that I am not. Trust me that I know what I’m doing.”

  “It isn’t your skills that I question,” Gwen said. “It’s those of the men you face I’m worried about.”

  Gareth actually laughed. “The real difficulty ahead is wresting control of Mold Castle from Ranulf. King Owain is determined to take it before Christmas. We weren’t fully committed to the effort before last week, and until yesterday some of the lords remained reluctant to agree to a siege. From what Hywel has told me, King Owain hopes to move the men forward by the end of the week, and then the whole army will converge on Mold.”

  “The boys too?” Gwen said.

  Llelo stepped back from Gareth, eyeing his attire and nodding, satisfied with his work. Gareth was satisfied too, which was why he had no qualms about stealing his son from Cynan every now and then when he needed him.

  “I will keep my eye on them,” Gareth said.

  Dai grinned. “That’s what he says, but it’s really that we’ll be keeping an eye on Da for you, Mum.”

  “For which I am very grateful,” Gwen said, reaching for Dai again and bringing him into the circle of her arm.

  Then Dai said, “But you shouldn’t be here, Mum.”

  “I’m only here for a day, and then I’ll return to Aber. I needed to see you all, and Lord Taran had a letter for the king.” Gwen looked at Gareth. “I suppose we should see about speaking to him.”

  Leaving Dai and Llelo to their duties—both were due to stand watch on the perimeter of the camp—Gareth and Gwen left the tent and found Godfrid and Hywel waiting for them by one of the fire pits. Hywel stood with his hands outstretched to the warm flames. He’d taken off his leather gloves, and his fingers were white. Gareth eyed them, watching the color gradually return to them. It appeared that the prince’s sensitivity to cold was growing worse.

  From Gwen’s report, Hywel’s hands and feet had reacted strongly to cold since his early teens. It wasn’t something a soldier—or a prince—was allowed to complain about, but Gareth remembered the first time Hywel had shown him the forefinger of his right hand after it had turned white and lifeless. Warm water was best for heating it up, but Hywel had been known to plunge his fingers into a bowl of cooking porridge when he was desperate to feel his fingers.

  Hywel saw Gareth looking at his hands. He grimaced and hastily pulled his gloves back on. He never went anywhere without them in winter, and his boots had an interior layer of wool to better keep out the cold. Living outdoors all the time might be more difficult for him than for King Owain.

  “Do we walk to the monastery?” Gwen asked.

  “It’s a half-mile through the woods,” Hywel said. “Better to ride in this weather.”

  Even if he suspected the prince wanted to ride because of the condition of his fingers, Gareth didn’t protest. The air had turned colder over the last hour, and given its size and the exposed nature of the field, the camp was open to the weather. Warm winds and rain, both of which they’d had plenty of this autumn, came from the southwest. But it was a cold north wind that was blowing this afternoon. They could have snow by morning.

  Gwen shivered beside him. Concerned, Gareth pulled up her hood and retied the scarf around her neck so that it held her cloak closed and prevented the wind from getting into the core of her body. Beneath the cloak, she was already wearing wool breeches, a shift, an underdress, and an overdress. Any more layers and she’d barely be able to move. As it was, the only bits of her that were showing were her nose and mouth.

  It took only a few moments to mount, and then the companions rode down the track to the monastery. They arrived in the clearing in front of what had once been the main gatehouse but was now something of a ruin. The base of the wall had been originally built in stone, but it had crumbled on either side of the gate to a height of less than three feet and no longer provided any serious barrier to the courtyard behind it.

  The wooden gate stood open, and a half-dozen horses cropped the grass that had grown up between the slate stones that paved the courtyard in places. Dismounting, the companions led their horses through the gate. At that moment, Prince Rhun, Owain’s eldest son and Hywel’s blood brother, appeared out of the entrance to the cloister with a man dressed in priest’s robes. The pair had been talking intently and looked up at the sudden arrival of the visitors.

  Rhun broke into a smile and, sounding very much like his father, said, “Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.” He walked towards Godfrid, who tossed his reins to Gareth.

  The two princes reached each other in three strides. Godfrid didn’t give Rhun as exuberant a greeting as he’d given Hywel, but they shook arms with genuine affection. They were near to each other in height and weight, attributable to their mutual Viking ancestry.

  “Cousin.” Godfrid stepped back from Rhun. “I bring you greetings from my father, as well as twenty good fighting men.”

  Rhun dipped his chin. “I am very glad to hear it—and to see you. I am looking forward to hearing your news from Dublin, but—” His eyes strayed first to Gareth, and then to Gwen, who’d pushed back the hood of her cloak so Rhun could see her face.

  Gwen smiled. “My lord.”

  Rhun was in his late twenties, a few years younger than Gareth. He’d been his father’s right hand since he’d become a man and knew his father’s mind better than anyone except Taran, King Owain’s longtime friend and the steward of Aber Castle.

  “I do not know how it is that you are here, Gwen, but somehow I can’t be surprised. It is just as well. The good father has need of your services.”

  Gwen put a hand to her breast. “My services?”

  “Yours and your husband’s.” Rhun tipped his head towards his brother. “It appears, once again, that your captain is needed for other duties for a few days.”

  “Why is that?” Hywel looked nonplussed. “The siege of Mold is imminent, Rhun.”

  “Our preparations will have to continue without Gareth, at least for now,” Rhun said. “Father Alun, of the parish of Cilcain to the east of here, has found a body in his graveyard.”

  Chapter Three

  Gwen

  Prince Rhun gestured Father Alun closer. The priest, a rounded, somewhat squat man somewhere in advanced middle age, obeyed, stepping out from under the eave that sheltered the doorway into the monastery proper. He’d waited there while Rhun had greeted Godfrid.

  Arrayed in the undyed robes of a country priest, simple and plain down to the sandals and a belt made of rope, he couldn’t have been comfortable in this weather. Gwen felt colder just looking at him. He had a kind face and eyes, though, which were currently riveted on her face with an intensity that was disconcerting.

  Gwen didn’t know the reason for it, so she tried to ignore it, saying instead, “Aren’t bodies supposed to be found in graveyards?”

  Gareth squeezed her hand briefly, probably glad that she’d been the one to ask the obvious question rather than leaving it for him.

  “Indeed,” Father Alun said, his eyes still fixed on Gwen. “One would expect it. But this is something of a different situation. I was wandering among the stones at the back of the churchyard, looking for a burial spot for a parishioner who died, when I came upon a body in a freshly dug grave.”

  Gareth’s eyes narrowed. “One, I gather, that shouldn’t have been freshly dug?”

  “And a body that shouldn’t have been in it, freshly dug or not,” Rhun said.

  Father Alun’s gaze skated to the prince, who tipped his head in a possible apology for interrupting, or merely to indicate that the priest should continue his tale.

  Father Alun sighed. “Earlier in the day, one of the village pigs was found inside the churchyard wall. We rousted him and thought we’d undone the damage from his rooting, but we hadn’t investigated very far behind the church. I wish I had, because he’d been digging at the grave with his hooves and uncovered a woman’s hand.”

  Gwen wrinkled her nose in distaste. “That must have been unpleasant.”

  Father Alun nodded. “It was. I’m sorry to say that I did not keep my dignity as well as I would have liked.”

  He admitted his failing with complete serenity, and Gwen felt a sudden warmth towards this humble priest, who seemed to have no agenda but to discover the name of the poor victim who’d been left in his charge.

  Prince Rhun waved a hand, dismissing Father Alun’s admission. “Go on.”

  Father Alun certainly knew how to tell a story. While he didn’t relish the telling of it, he laid out the salient facts with a clear voice: the grave lay in the far corner of the graveyard under a spreading oak. The initial grave had been dug long ago, and the man in it buried while the tree was still young and its root system less extensive. The wide boughs had prevented the robust growth of grass beneath the tree, which may have deluded the man who’d buried the woman there into thinking the digging would be easy. Instead, he’d encountered roots two feet down, gave up, and buried the woman in a far too shallow grave.

  “Even without the
pig,” Father Alun continued, “I might have noticed how the earth was more mounded under the tree than it should have been. At the very least, even a cursory inspection would have shown that someone had tried to get rid of extra dirt by mixing it with fallen leaves and strewing it over the spot where the digging had occurred.”

  “Is the body of the man whose grave it is still in place?” Gwen said.

  “Yes, it is.” Father Alun said. “We confirmed it without uncovering him entirely, and then laid the dirt over him again. We tried to be respectful.” For the first time he showed real discomfort, wringing his hands at the sacrilege done to the dead man’s remains.

  “Could someone have buried the body because they didn’t think—” Gwen broke off, trying to find a better way to articulate the ugly thought. She started again, “Could it simply be a matter of burying a loved one whose interment in holy ground you might not have approved of?”

  “That was, frankly, my first thought.” Father Alun spread his hands wide. “I am not one to deny burial unless the circumstances are extreme, and I hadn’t heard of a woman dying in the region other than the old woman for whom I was looking for a burial site. We are a small parish, and any death would have been known throughout Cilcain.”

  “Anyway,” Rhun said, obviously having heard the whole story already, “the man’s grave was old and had a stone to mark it.”

  “What about grave robbers?” Godfrid said, speaking for the first time. He’d been listening to Father Alun with an amused expression on his face, which was typical for him.

  Father Alun shook his head. “We are a poor parish—poorer in recent years with all the fighting. My people aren’t buried with expensive rings and trinkets.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you tell us why you came all this way,” Hywel said. “A dead woman is one thing. Are we to understand that you believe she was murdered?”

  “Her throat was cut.” Father Alun gave an involuntary shiver.

  Gwen had been waiting for him to admit something along those lines and spoke gently, “You don’t recognize her as someone from your parish?” It was one thing for Gwen herself to become far too familiar with murder, but this might be the first time the good father had encountered it.

  “No, but—” Father Alun shook his head, his attention back on Gwen’s face. Then, strangely, he came forward and took one of Gwen’s hands in both of his. “I am accustomed to being the bearer of bad news, but I have never had to bring news to a relation in a situation such as this. My dear, I apologize for staring at you, but even in death the woman we found bears some resemblance to you. Do you—do you have a sister? Or-or-or a cousin, one who could have come to grief near Cilcain?”

  Gareth leaned in between Gwen and Father Alun. “Wait. Are you saying that the murdered woman looks like Gwen?”

  “Yes.” Father Alun said. “I came here hoping for help in putting a name to the woman’s face, but I had no idea that discovering her identity was as simple as speaking to you, my dear.” Father Alun looked helplessly at Gwen. “Please tell me her name so that I may give her a proper burial.”

  “But I don’t have a sister.” The words came blurting out before Gwen could think about them or stop them. “I don’t even have a female cousin that I know of. My mother died birthing my brother.”

  She looked down at the ground, not wanting to see the sympathetic expressions on the men’s faces. It was perfectly possible that her father had loved another woman besides her mother. Gwen knew virtually nothing about her father’s life before her own birth and might not know everything about his conduct afterwards. He might never even have known that he’d sired a daughter other than Gwen.

  It would have been unusual for the mother of the child not to tell him. In Wales, illegitimate children were counted as legitimate as long as the father acknowledged them. King Owain had many illegitimate sons and daughters, and he’d acknowledged them all. Rhun was his father’s favorite and the edling, the chief heir to the throne, even though King Owain hadn’t married his mother, an Irishwoman who’d died at Hywel’s birth. It was one of the many ways that Welsh law differed from English law, and why the Welsh were fighting so hard to maintain their sovereignty.

  Gwen was still shaking her head. “My mother was an only child, and my father’s sisters have no daughters. I don’t know who this woman is.”

  Father Alun pressed his lips together for a moment, and then said, “That may be, but would you consider coming to see her for yourself?”

  “I think you should,” Hywel said, before Gwen could answer, “except that Cilcain is very close to the territory controlled by Earl Ranulf’s forces. Cilcain itself was ruled by him until we drove his men back towards Mold a month ago.”

  Gareth slipped his arm around Gwen’s shoulder and directed his words at Prince Hywel. “My lord, this isn’t just about the girl’s connection to Gwen. It’s murder too.”

  “As I was saying to the prince before your arrival, my lords, Earl Ranulf’s men have moved south and east,” the priest said. “A few of us alone won’t invite notice or comment, even if he has men scouting the region.”

  “Looking for us, you mean,” Hywel said. “He knows that we are preparing to move on Mold.”

  “All of Wales knows that,” Father Alun said, “but Chester doesn’t have the men to stop you.”

  Prince Rhun stepped closer. “How’s that?”

  Father Alun’s head twitched as he looked at the intent faces of those surrounding him. “Didn’t-didn’t you know that? He is facing pressure from King Stephen on his eastern border. Small skirmishes only, but Ranulf has pulled back many of his men all along the border with Gwynedd.”

  Rhun’s face took on a rare intensity. “Is that so? We hadn’t heard.”

  Godfrid touched Gwen’s elbow, and he jerked his head to indicate that he would like to speak to her and Gareth a bit away from Father Alun, who was now being pressed harder by Rhun and Hywel to explain exactly where his information had come from.

  “Father Alun could be a spy for Chester and his story a ruse, as a way to deliver this piece of information to King Owain,” Godfrid said. “What if his intent is to draw the king into a trap?”

  Gwen looked up at the Dane. His size and enthusiasm sometimes made her forget the sharp mind behind his twinkling blue eyes.

  But even with Godfrid speaking low—and in accented Welsh—Father Alun overheard him. He cleared his throat and said loudly, “What I have told you isn’t news today to any man living east of the mountains. Chester has refortified Mold as best he can, it is true, but we haven’t seen any of his soldiers pass through Cilcain in days. I swear it.”

  “My lord,” Gareth said, speaking to Hywel, “I am the captain of your teulu. If I were to go, I can uncover the truth of Father Alun’s words. Cilcain is a small village, and the people will all know about the woman’s death and be concerned about a murderer running free among them. They will need reassurance that their king—in the absence of Ranulf—has taken an interest in their wellbeing. I can show them that he has.”

  Hywel rubbed his chin, studying Gareth and Gwen, and then turned to his brother. “I agree with Gareth. I think we should help the good father, and Gareth can also discover if what Father Alun says about Ranulf’s forces is true.”

  Rhun looked east, though all he could see from where he stood were the trees that surrounded the monastery. “You know as well as I that determining the course of events that led to this woman’s death is unlikely to be quick or simple.”

  “Which is why I should go, my lords,” Gareth said. “If it’s only Gwen and me, we will have access to homes and crofts beyond those which a company might find open to them, and we can ask questions of everyone.”

  Hywel looked at his brother, who was behaving very much the edling today. “You know how good at this they are.”

  In adulthood, the brothers had become closer than they’d been as children, providing each other with real support and without a shred of jealousy or acrimony. Though Gwen had never had a sister herself, Hywel had been like a brother to her at times, and she recognized real camaraderie when she saw it.