The Uninvited Guest

by Sarah Woodbury

  Mari glanced at Cristina, who took up the tale. “Her mother has lived as Enid did—off of rich men who keep her for a while.”

  Mari nodded, obviously relieved to have had Cristina say it. “The situation with her mother hasn’t allowed Enid to stay with her in recent years,” Mari said, “so she moved from household to household among her cousins in Powys.”

  “Including my father’s estates,” Cristina said.

  “And you all resented it?” Gwen said. “That’s what I’m sensing from you.”

  More shrugs. Nobody wanted to admit to it.

  “Someone told me that Enid was sweet and gullible,” Gwen said, “which is why she went with so many men.”

  Alis barked a very unladylike laugh. “Sweet, she wasn’t.”

  “We talked about jealousy as the reason for her death, but it was Enid who was jealous,” Rhiannon said, speaking for the first time. She was the youngest and most beautiful of Cristina’s cousins, with thick, rich brown hair and startlingly blue eyes. “Enid always thought that other girls didn’t deserve what they had and that if she’d been … something—luckier, I guess—she would have had what others had.”

  “Instead of realizing that it was her own fault she wasn’t married and didn’t have friends,” Alis said.

  Gwen had turned back to the box as the girls were speaking, thinking that they would be more forthcoming if she wasn’t looking directly at them (which they had been). Underneath the top layer of undergarments, Gwen found a small sack, one a man might carry when he had coins.

  At the sight of it in Gwen’s hand, Cristina moved closer. “What is that?”

  “You’ve not seen this before?” Gwen loosened the ties that held it shut and looked inside. Then she tipped the contents into her palm.

  Rhiannon gasped. “Where did Enid get those?”

  Two rings, a pendant, and a gold chain lay in the palm of Gwen’s hand. “She was wearing a necklace around her neck when she died,” Gwen said. “The killer left it on her.”

  Alis smirked. “I’m surprised it wasn’t the only thing on her.”

  These girls really hadn’t liked Enid. Gwen looked down at the jewelry. “Could these have been … payment of a kind?”

  The other girls were still talking among themselves, so only Mari and Cristina heard Gwen’s words. Slowly, Mari nodded her head. But for what were they in payment? From a paramour, or an advance from the killer for services rendered?

  Gwen found Cristina watching her, the soon-to-be-queen’s eyes tracking from the top of Gwen’s head to her feet and back again.

  “You are really quite lovely, my dear, if your clothing wasn’t so bedraggled,” Cristina said.

  “Th-thank you, my lady.” I think? Gwen looked down at her dress. Given that she’d examined two bodies while wearing it, it had survived the day rather well so far. Her apron was badly stained though, and she found herself brushing at the marks before she stopped the nervous reaction.

  Cristina turned to Mari. “What do you think?”

  “I think she’s a good choice,” Mari said. “And will reflect well on you.”

  “I think so too.” Cristina turned back to Gwen. “You will replace Enid in my wedding party. I will find you an appropriate gown to wear.”

  Sweet Mary, save me! “Yes, my lady.” Gwen curtseyed.

  Cristina canted her head to Mari who stepped forward with her arm out. She escorted Gwen to the door, and then came with her into the corridor and closed the door behind them. “Was that helpful?”

  “Yes. Very much so.” Gwen peered at Mari’s face, trying to make out her expression in the dimly lit corridor. “It was very kind of you to help.”

  “But not so kind, perhaps, for me to agree that you should be in the wedding ceremony.” Mari gave Gwen a rueful smile. “I could tell you were more irritated than honored.”

  Gwen swallowed. “I didn’t mean to be. It’s just that I’m a bard’s daughter. I don’t have anything in common with any of Cristina’s cousins.”

  All of a sudden, Mari smiled. It lit her usually somber face and made her beautiful. “Except, maybe, me?”

  Gwen opened her mouth and then closed it. She didn’t know what to say. She liked Mari more and more—and particularly she liked the deft way she had with Cristina—but could she be friends with a noblewoman, no matter how impoverished? “Except for you,” Gwen said.

  “Good.” Mari squeezed her hand. “Will you join me for a meal?”

  Gwen blinked. “You just ate.”

  Mari laughed. “I’m always hungry. It takes a lot of strength to keep Cristina happy.”

  That Gwen could well believe. The two women walked together into the hall. Gwen sensed that Mari was even more pleased to have met Gwen than Gwen was to have met her. Gwen knew a truth about herself: she held herself aloof from people much of the time and found it hard to make friends. Perhaps it was a product of moving from place to place her whole life, following the music. Or perhaps it was because her mother had died and left her with too many responsibilities at too young an age. Or maybe there was just something wrong with her. She forced herself not to look at Mari warily, and for now, to accept the friendship she was offering.

  Gwen spent the rest of the afternoon with Mari, ignoring her investigative duties entirely, and as the sun began to go down, went with her to the battlements to watch for the return of the hunters. They’d had three days without rain, which was unusual for November, and the sky remained clear. The sun sat so low in the sky this time of year that it didn’t set to the west as it did in the summer, but to the southwest. Gwen could just catch a glimpse of the last rays shooting over the foothills of the mountain that lay to the south of Aber.

  “I like it here,” Mari said.

  Gwen glanced at her. “I do too, though I grew up at Aberffraw.”

  “I’ve never been to Anglesey,” Mari turned to look at Gwen. “You had a bad time of it at Aberffraw at the hands of Prince Cadwaladr, didn’t you? Do you think you’ll ever go back there?”

  “I don’t know why I’d need to go to Aberffraw, but Gareth’s lands are on the island. We might live there soon.” Gwen smiled. “You could visit me.”

  “I’d like that.” Then Mari lifted her chin and pointed west. “Here they come!”

  King Owain’s search party was returning. They had lit torches and Owain Gwynedd himself led the company. With his blonde hair and bulk, he was impossible to miss.

  King Owain raised his spear, and the men behind him cheered loudly enough for Gwen to hear, even from a half a mile away. Mari and Gwen exchanged a glance. Had they found the assassin? The lead riders picked up their pace, closing the distance rapidly. Then, just before they crossed the bridge over the Aber River some three hundred yards from the castle, a riderless horse burst from the trees that lined the river and galloped directly towards King Owain.

  He saw it—everyone saw it—and reined in as it approached. Gwen peered towards the bridge, finding it hard to see clearly in the fading light.

  “What is it?” Mari said.

  “Do you see the horse?” Gwen said.

  Mari put her fingers to the corners of her eyes and squinted. “Not very well.”

  “It doesn’t have a rider.” Gwen’s heart rose into her throat. Frozen, she gazed down from the height for another ten heartbeats, each one thudding in her chest so that her whole body felt them, and then she turned towards the stairs that led down to the gate.

  “What’s wrong?” Mari said.

  “That’s Gareth’s horse!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You missed me that much, did you?” Gwen said. “I waved to you from the steps but you ignored me.”

  After Gareth caught his breath, he wrapped his arms around Gwen’s waist and pulled her closer. “I would never ignore you. I thought of you every day we’ve been apart. It was the events of last summer and their aftermath that chased you from my thoughts.”

  A flash of concern crossed Gwen’s face. “I h
ated that you left so soon, before we had a chance to talk or make real plans.” She took a step back from him and gripped each of his hands in hers, looking him up and down. “How are you, Gareth?”

  For a moment, Gareth’s exhaustion showed in his face, but he mastered it as quickly as he could. “I survived, Gwen. I am here. That is all that needs to be said of Ceredigion.”

  Gwen put a hand to his cheek. “You don’t have to speak of it. Not just now.”

  Not ever. “And you?” Gareth said, drinking her in. “You are so beautiful.”

  “I love you,” Gwen said.

  Gradually, Gareth came to himself. He didn’t know how long he’d been thinking about Gwen, but he was sure that if he opened his eyes, she’d be right in front of him. Yet, when he did open his eyes, he could see nothing. His heart raced. He was blind! But then he breathed in leaf mold and sneezed hard and realized he was face down in the dirt.

  His sneezing convulsion made his head hurt. He moaned and rolled onto his back. The bed of leaves on which he lay had provided a cushion for his head, but now crackled as he moved. Though many of the trees had lost their leaves, others were evergreen, like the yew that overhung the ravine into which he had fallen. Once his face was no longer pressed into the earth, hints of light from the star strewn sky and the nearly full moon filtered through the foliage far above him.

  He remembered where he was—and even more to the point, why—and it wasn’t a happy thought, though he was pleased that he could remember anything at all. As had been the case with the young assassin, many men could have had their minds damaged by the blow he’d received. An image of the branch that felled him filled his vision. Had someone swung it at him? He could have convinced himself it was an accident, if not for that muffled curse. Unfortunately, he hadn’t recognized the man’s voice.

  Gareth touched his head where it hurt and his fingers came away sticky. He rubbed his fingers together. Blood. That had him pushing up on his right elbow and feeling for the rest of his limbs. He couldn’t sense his left hand and his heart raced until he realized that his arm was numb because he’d spent the last hours awkwardly lying on it.

  He flexed and stretched his arms and shoulders, becoming more awake with every heartbeat. He shivered. His teeth chattered and they sounded as loud as clapping in the winter woods. He clenched them, while at the same time reaching for his cloak to clutch it around himself. He felt around his shoulders, and then at his throat. His cloak and the clasp that held it were missing.

  Could the killer have taken it? But no, it had snagged on a tree branch eight feet above his head. He got to his feet and scrabbled at the leaves and dirt, climbing just high enough so that he could reach its tail. He tugged at it, gently at first, and then harder. It came loose with a tearing sound and Gareth fell back to the leaves.

  It was difficult to see the damage to it in the shadow of the ravine, but he felt along the cloak’s length to a six inch tear near the bottom on one side, and then to another tear where the broach’s pin had held it around his neck. Fortunately, it was still wearable and he threw it around his shoulders and secured the broach in a different spot.

  Gareth wrapped his arms around his midsection and shivered violently. If he’d slept another hour, he might never have awakened. As it was, his head hurt so badly, all he wanted to do was lie down. He did lie down, just for a moment, but then jerked himself into wakefulness.

  That wouldn’t do at all. That was what the murderer wanted.

  Gareth felt at his waist for his belt knife and scrip. He fingered the few coins in the scrip—the only thing of value he carried other than his sword.

  His sword! Another gasp of panic flashed through Gareth until he remembered that he’d strapped his sword in its sheath onto Braith’s back, rather than wear it on the hunt. The slap of the sheath against his thigh as he rode was annoying and he hadn’t thought he’d need the sword.

  Braith, however, had run off or been scared away. He recalled her whinnying protest.

  Fully alert now, Gareth eased out of his bed of leaves and stood. He surveyed the distance to the top of the ravine. It was twenty-five feet to the top at least. Given his difficulty in reaching his cloak, climbing out of here might be impossible. Better to walk along the bottom until he found a better spot.

  Gareth set out, his mind churning all the while. He pictured the moment the branch had hit his head. If it wasn’t an accident, if a tree branch hadn’t just happened to fall on him, it was a crime of opportunity. Impulsive. But no less evil for all that. At the same time, that the killer had left him alive could be due only to the steepness of the ravine into which he had fallen. He’d hit Gareth and left him for dead, rather than climb down himself and finish the job.

  Unfortunately, knowing who had ridden with King Owain didn’t narrow Gareth’s list of suspects at all. But it gave him the inkling of a plan. Hastily, Gareth returned to the ambush site and pushed the leaves into a man-sized pile. And then with reluctance, he removed his cloak (saving the broach) and draped it over the pile. He couldn’t know what this would look like to the killer in the daylight, but were he to have second thoughts and return to finish the job, hopefully it would fool him into thinking Gareth was really dead.

  Obviously the killer didn’t understand that going after a key investigator in a murder—and failing to subdue him—was never a good idea. Leaving Gareth for dead was a huge mistake on the killer’s part because it had Gareth asking questions the killer wouldn’t want asked. Cadwaladr had taken Gwen to Dublin because he thought she was getting close to fingering him. He had taken matters into his own hands and had been wrong, in the same way the killer here was wrong. What had Gareth done that made the man think he was close to uncovering the truth?

  Gareth had worked quickly, anxious that the killer might return and catch him in the act, and now hastened down the ravine, heading south. It was the wrong way if he wanted to reach the road to Aber, but was the only direction that was clear of impediments. It wasn’t until he had put several dozen yards between himself and the ambush site that he allowed himself to admit that he had been terrified the whole time. He was one man, alone and unarmed in a deserted and darkened wood, miles from Aber Castle. He didn’t like the feeling.

  Gradually, the ground rose before him and at last he reached a spot where the walls on either side of him were lower, only ten feet high. Boulders obstructed the path in front of him and he spent some moments finding a place where he could climb out of his prison. Finally, he reached level ground again. From the position of the moon, it was early evening still. If all had gone well, the hunting party should have headed home hours ago—because even armed parties didn’t like roaming the landscape after sunset. They’d killed the boar at least ten miles from Aber. It would be a long walk home for Gareth in the dark.

  Gareth continued through the woods, staying off the path but now curving away from the ravine, heading north, towards the road that would take him eastward. As time passed, his head ached less and his body warmed. He strode along comfortably, his arms swinging at his sides. It would have been a beautiful night, if someone hadn’t just tried to kill him.

  Another half an hour went by before the first shouts and the glow of torches came to him from the north: “Gaaaareeeeeeth!”

  His heart leapt. His first instinct was to run towards the sounds and the light. His first instinct.

  His second instinct was to think twice and slither into the darkness of a particularly dense stand of trees. From the number and timbre of the voices calling, a dozen men had come to search for him. That was about right: enough to cover ground quickly, but not so many they’d lose track of anyone. Nobody wanted to make things worse by losing a searcher in a quest for the missing. They’d be positioned on both sides of the trail, eyes to the ground. If Braith had returned to Aber—if that was how they knew something untoward had happened to him—Hywel would assume that Gareth had fallen from her back and couldn’t get up.

  Gareth stumbled over an
unseen root and braced his hand against the trunk of a tree. The night was bright enough that he could navigate, but moonlight made ghosts of rocks and bushes, and the floor of the woods was cloaked in darkness. Instead of moving directly towards the search party, he headed east, trying to loop around the searchers to reach the only one he wanted. He found, suddenly, that of everyone at Aber, it was still Hywel whom he trusted most.

  Hywel and—

  “Gareth!” Gwen’s high voice carried through the cold, night air.

  Gareth froze, having just come around a blackthorn bush with its dense, spiny thorns and into another area cleared of trees. Gwen held Braith’s reins and paced through the bracken half a dozen yards from him, at the end of the line. The closest man’s torch flickered fifty yards further on.

  Braith whickered.

  Gwen slowed to a stop and listened. The night was crisp and quiet, except for the calling of the men and the thud of their boots on the turf. “What is it?” Gwen patted the horse’s nose. “Did you lose Gareth near here?”

  Braith nudged Gwen’s right shoulder, turning her directly towards Gareth. Beyond, the man with the torch had moved another twenty paces south, blinded by his own torch and too far away to notice that Gwen had stopped moving.

  Gareth stepped out from behind the bush. Gwen opened her mouth to shout, but Gareth dashed across the grass, his finger to his lips, shushing her before she could speak. “I’m fine; I’m fine. Sssshhh.” He wrapped his arms around Gwen in an embrace, which she returned.

  “What—”

  “Let’s get into the trees and I’ll explain,” Gareth said.

  Gwen tugged on Braith’s bridle to get her moving. As they crossed the clearing, Gareth kept his arm around Gwen, ducking his head and trying to disguise his bulk behind her and the horse so that if anyone glanced their way, he wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

  When they reached the line of trees, Gareth pulled Gwen into the shadows of an ancient elm and into his arms. Gwen patted his back and then pulled away to look into his face. “Are you all right?”