The Uninvited Guest

by Sarah Woodbury

  Pedr shrugged. “I found food and shelter where I could. Eventually I went east.”

  “So you have been to St. Asaph before. What were you and Caradoc talking so intently about two nights ago?”

  Pedr had been staring at his hands but now looked up. “Me and who?”

  “Caradoc of Rhuddlan.”

  The youth’s face drained of color and he took a long drink from the cup that Dafydd had refilled yet again and placed at his elbow. “We didn’t talk of anything important.”

  Gareth put his hand on the boy’s, and made his voice gentle. “Your conversation was important. Prior Rhys noticed it specifically.”

  Pedr took another drink, not answering.

  “You settled in Rhuddlan after your father died, didn’t you? Perhaps you did odd jobs for the steward there, in exchange for room and board. That’s why Caradoc lied to me about you.”

  Silence.

  Gareth canted his head to one side. “You lived there, what, four years?”

  “Five.” Pedr bit his lip. He’d said too much in that one word and he knew it.

  “You spoke to Caradoc of your misfortune, of course. I’m sure he proved a good listener?”

  “No!”

  “And when the time came for you to repay your debt, he pointed you in the direction of King Owain and let you loose.”

  Pedr shook his head back and forth, back and forth. “No, no, no.”

  “Who let you out of your cell at Aber?” Gareth said.

  “No one! I broke out myself and left by the postern gate. I didn’t even steal a horse because I’d left mine nearby—”

  “And nobody saw you? Nobody helped you?”

  Pedr started to scoff, but then froze. He’d admitted that he’d been at Aber. The game was up. As Gareth waited, a cold and yet fiery feeling settled into his belly. It felt like triumph.

  Gareth patted the boy’s hand again. “It’s all right. You’ve come this far. You might as well tell me the rest.”

  Pedr swallowed hard. “The garrison was lax and that wall—the panels weren’t even nailed down. Nobody saw me leave.”

  “What about the men who guarded your cell?”

  Pedr shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they fell asleep? The boards made no noise when I pulled them out so perhaps they didn’t notice.”

  “Didn’t it strike you as odd that your prison was so flimsy?” Gareth said.

  “Who was I to question my good luck?” Pedr said. “It had been bad for so long, I deserved a little.”

  Dafydd leaned in to whisper in Gareth’s ear. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “Enough truth that the lies don’t stand out.” Gareth rubbed his chin as he studied the youth. “Where did you get the money to buy your mead?”

  Pedr’s expression turned mulish. “Caradoc gave it to me yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “He took pity on me.”

  Gareth was through being nice. “It wasn’t in partial payment for the attempted murder of King Owain?”

  “No!”

  “Give me your scrip,” Gareth said.

  “You can’t have it—!” Pedr’s voice had gone high as he choked on his fear.

  Gareth reached across the table and yanked the boy’s purse from his waist, breaking the strings that held it. He sat back and opened the pouch.

  “I told you not to open it.” Pedr shook his head, no, no, no and his eyes teared. He’d gone from an angry drunk to a weepy one.

  Gareth glanced up, noting how young and pathetic Pedr’s voice had become, and then back down at what he’d removed: a ring, one that a man would wear on his left hand because of its weight, one with the raised image of a lion’s head, worked in gold. The sight of it rocked him back. He gazed at it, so surprised that he spoke without thinking, “You murdered Enid?”

  Pedr was still sniveling. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. Then Gareth’s words penetrated. “Who?”

  “Enid.” Gareth held up the ring. “We found an impression of this lion’s head in Enid’s skin.”

  Pedr stared at Gareth, a blank expression on his face. “Who’s Enid?”

  That sounded like true confusion. “The dead girl at Aber. The one you killed before you fled.”

  Pedr shook his head and his jaw firmed, despite the drink. “I don’t know anything about any dead girl.” He pointed to the ring in Gareth’s hand. “Caradoc gave that to me the night before last!”

  “And how did it get from Aber to him?” Gareth said.

  “I don’t know.” Pedr held out his hand, palm upward, for Gareth to give him back the ring. Gareth didn’t comply. “Maybe the killer sent it to Caradoc so you wouldn’t find it on his person.”

  “The killer—” Gareth’s mind was in a whirl.

  “Caradoc gave it to me and told me to leave Wales and never return. Give it back. It’s mine.”

  Gareth studied the ring and victory was acid in his mouth. King Owain would pay for trusting where it was not warranted. Gareth clenched his fist around the ring.

  “I will keep it.” Gareth got to his feet and stood gazing down at Pedr. “You deserve hanging, you know that.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Pedr said.

  Gareth studied the boy. “One more thing … did you shoot an arrow at King Owain a few weeks ago? One that missed?”

  Pedr stuck out his bottom lip. “I’m not saying anything more.”

  Gareth snorted a laugh. “I take that as a ‘yes’.” Gareth pointed a forefinger at the wayward youth, who gazed up at him, open-mouthed. “I, Gareth ap Rhys, do formally charge you, Pedr ap Marc, with the attempted murder of King Owain Gwynedd.”

  “You have no writ here!”

  “But I do.” Dafydd grabbed Pedr’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “Stand up.”

  Pedr’s legs trembled and wouldn’t hold him so Dafydd signaled to another man-at-arms who’d been waiting nearby. He took Pedr’s other arm.

  “Wh-what are you going to do to me?”

  “The sheriff will decide,” Dafydd said.

  “Help me!” Pedr struggled as Dafydd and one of his men hauled him out of the tavern.

  “If you set foot in Wales again, it will be your life.” Gareth followed behind them. It was late enough now that the street outside the tavern was deserted. “Your image has been well-circulated.”

  Dafydd hauled Pedr the dozen steps to the night gate. In another moment, he’d thrust Pedr through it. Although he should have been grateful for his life, Pedr was still howling about injustice as Dafydd closed the door in his face. Admittedly, Pedr was very drunk.

  Gareth came to a halt a few paces away. This was not what he’d expected at all. “I thought you were going to take him to the sheriff?”

  “He doesn’t want him,” Dafydd said. “Sir Amaury told me before we left the castle that unless we had proof Pedr had murdered someone, he didn’t want him in a cell. Bad precedent.”

  Gareth laughed. “You were very convincing. You had me fooled.”

  Dafydd wiped his hands on his pants. “He’ll end up in the River Dee by morning. You can count on it. Pathetic bastard.”

  Gareth hoped that Pedr wouldn’t cause him any more trouble, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Pedr was right: Gareth had no writ here. So instead, he clapped his new friend on the back. “Thank you for your help. Please inform the sheriff that I got what I needed.”

  “You’re going back to Wales?” Dafydd said. “Now?”

  “It’s a long way to Aber, and I have a murderer to catch.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  By the time Hywel and Gwen got back to the great hall, Cristina had the entire castle moving in the direction she wanted. Two hundred people couldn’t fit easily into the chapel, but everyone could watch the wedding which would take place on the front stoop. The couple would hear mass afterwards inside the church.

  Gwen, for her part, would just as soon not have been involved, but to her dismay, both Cristina and
Mari remembered Cristina’s expressed wish for Gwen to take Enid’s place in the wedding party.

  Gwen protested all the way down the corridor to Cristina’s room where the other bridesmaids were getting dressed. “I don’t have a gown—”

  Mari looked her up and down, not letting go of her arm. “You and I are of a size. I know just what will fit you. Cristina and I have talked about it already.”

  Even more, Gwen was annoyed that when she was to wear the finest dress she’d ever worn, Gareth wouldn’t be there to see her in it. In the end, however, she had to admit that the dress Mari chose for her was beautiful. Deep green, and embroidered at the wrist and bosom, it complemented Gwen’s eyes and hair.

  A knock came at the door. Mari reached it in two strides and pulled the door open only wide enough for her to see through the crack between the door and the frame. “What do you want, Lord Hywel?”

  Gwen heard Hywel laugh at Mari’s rudeness and then say, “I need to speak to Gwen. It’s import—”

  “I’m sure it is very important and you’ve kept her very busy these last few days,” Mari said, “but right now she is dressing for a wedding. You can speak to her after.”

  “But—”

  Mari shut the door in his face.

  Beside Gwen, Cristina smirked and the other women in the room, including the maidservant who was stitching a quick seam in Gwen’s gown, had smiles on their faces. Mari glared at them all, a foot from the door. “What?”

  “Nobody talks to Prince Hywel that way,” Cristina said.

  “I don’t see why someone shouldn’t.” Mari picked up a comb and worked it through her hair, though her tresses were perfectly aligned as it was. “He is far too full of his own importance. Everyone does his bidding all day long. Whatever has happened this time, it can wait.”

  Gwen wasn’t so sure about that, but didn’t object. It was nice to be in the company of other women who were friendly to her, even if her station was so much lower than all of theirs.

  It took longer than Gwen would have thought possible for all the women to dress, in part because Cristina tried on four different gowns before settling on the replacement for the one that Enid had ruined. Eventually they managed to get themselves in order. As they exited the room, Hywel’s tenor carried towards them all the way from the great hall on the other side of the wall. Everyone stopped to listen.

  “The man can sing, I’ll give him that,” Mari said.

  Gwalchmai’s soprano joined the song two octaves higher. Gwen turned to agree with Mari, but never got the words out. Her soon-to-be-queen, walking between them, had burst into tears.

  “My lady.” Gwen put her arm around Cristina’s shoulders.

  “After all that has happened, I never thought this day would come,” Cristina said. “First the assassin, and then Enid’s death … I was sure, Owain would decide our wedding was a lost cause.”

  “He loves you, my lady,” Gwen said. “Anyone can see that.”

  “We could have died today if it weren’t for you!” Cristina turned towards Gwen and sobbed into her shoulder.

  Gwen stared wide-eyed at Mari over Cristina’s head. She didn’t know what to say. Cristina was over-dramatizing again, since she would have been made ill from the mandrake, but not to death. Gwen was ashamed to admit that what concerned her most was the possibility of walking behind the queen to the ceremony with a huge wet spot on her dress.

  “My lady.” Mari rubbed up and down on Cristina’s arms, trying to get her to stop crying. “King Owain is waiting.”

  Cristina managed to get control of herself, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hands. Somehow, she’d managed to cry without reddening her eyes, though it was a good thing that she wore no powders or creams on her face like some of the Norman women did. Cristina knew, and few would disagree, that she didn’t need them, which meant that today she had no cosmetics to smear.

  “I’m ready,” Cristina said.

  The women processed into the great hall. At the sight of them, Gwalchmai and Hywel began to move towards the main door, still singing, and Lord Goronwy took Cristina’s arm. He patted her hand and she smiled at him. They walked across the hall, down the stairs, and into the courtyard. The cold wind hit Gwen full in the face as she came through the door, but her father was there to wrap a cloak around her shoulders.

  “Foolish idea to get married in front of the chapel when the hall has been good enough all these years,” he said. “You and Gareth could do better.”

  Gwen squeezed her father’s hand. “We’ll try.”

  King Owain was getting married in front of the chapel to thumb his nose at the Norman Church, and her father knew that. Nobody, high or low, would care about where Gwen and Gareth got married. The Church would have nothing to do with it. Meilyr just had to sign the papers giving his daughter to Gareth.

  King Owain stood on the bottom step of the chapel stairs. As groomsmen, Taran and Rhun stood to his left, on the hard-packed earth of the courtyard. Hywel and Gwalchmai finished their song and Hywel moved to join his brother. Goronwy escorted Cristina forward, to stand on the same step as King Owain, while the priest stood one step above them. Gwen, Mari, and Cristina’s two other bridesmaids lined up on the other side, opposite the groomsmen. Torches lit the courtyard. Gwen was very glad it wasn’t raining.

  The priest began to speak but Gwen closed her ears to him. His voice was of a pitch that grated, and she was more interested in watching the crowd. Like Gwen, the guests had worn their finery but had covered it with heavy cloaks and hoods. Her eyes traveled to Hywel, standing beside Taran, with his hands behind his back. He winked at her and then canted his head, ever so slightly, towards Rhun and Taran who stood between Hywel and his father.

  What was he trying to say?

  And then she saw it. Cristina had four bridesmaids, with Gwen standing in for the dead Enid. King Owain had only three groomsmen. Where was Lord Tomos of Rhuddlan?

  Perhaps because the priest was cold too, and it was getting late, he didn’t linger over the blessing. He made the sign of the cross over the bowed heads of Cristina and King Owain, and then gestured that they should follow him into the chapel.

  The instant his father moved, Hywel pulled Gwen from the line of waiting worshippers and hauled her with him into the great hall.

  “What about mass—”

  “We can hear mass any day,” Hywel said. “My father was almost poisoned an hour ago. We can’t waste any more time on this ceremony. Come with me to the kitchens.”

  “We’ve questioned the kitchen staff so many times, for so many murders, it’s a wonder we have any staff left,” Gwen said.

  Hywel managed a laugh at that, but it didn’t lessen the urgency within him. “What did you see that made you fear for my father and Cristina?”

  “It was Mari,” Gwen said.

  Hywel stopped short, halfway down the stairs to the kitchen. “Mari?”

  “She’s very clever, you know,” Gwen said. “She suggested that we were looking at this all wrong; that the murders weren’t about your father, or Enid, or the servant who died, even if the two murders were intended to cover up other wrongdoing. Someone wanted to stop the wedding. He’d tried a range of methods to do so, and failed with each attempt. Coming on top of all the other evil that has occurred these last few days, if your father and Cristina had become ill, the king might have cancelled the wedding permanently. The question becomes, then, who had the most to lose by the marriage?”

  “Rhun and I,” Hywel said. “And my uncle Cadwaladr.”

  Gwen shrugged. “Perhaps, but your father has many sons and he’ll have many more, whether he marries Cristina or not.”

  “True,” Hywel said. “They’re married now, for better or for worse. They should have gotten married weeks ago.”

  “They didn’t know,” Gwen said. “We’ve only just figured it out.”

  “So what changed?” Hywel said. “What sent the murderer over the edge? We’ve known for months that my fat
her and Cristina would make a match of it.”

  “Who didn’t realize until a month ago how much he stood to lose?” Gwen said.

  Hywel ran both hands through his hair and tugged. “Nobody.”

  “What about Tomos of Rhuddlan?” Gwen said. “Given that he missed your father’s wedding, he must be the baron who rode away today.”

  Hywel shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s not losing anything, not really, not when he gains an estate at Nefyn.”

  “He might not see it that way,” Gwen said.

  “I can say that he’s no longer in the castle.” Hywel let his hands fall to his sides. “Could the killer have acted again? Could he have murdered Tomos and stashed his body in an out-of-the-way location?”

  “How much more likely is it that Tomos didn’t want to lose Rhuddlan to Cristina.” A shiver passed through Gwen. She’d spoken with the man many times. He’d held her arm. She’d seen him charm everyone around him without trying. He was far more personable than Cadwaladr, and yet, could that charm really mask a killer? “If the murderer is Tomos, he has deceived everyone.”

  “Possibly, for years,” Hywel said.

  “What did your father say about his absence?” Gwen said.

  “I haven’t spoken to him yet, but it’s not like he didn’t notice.” Hywel gazed towards the doors to the great hall, then turned back to Gwen. “I’ll ask him as soon as mass is over. We’ll do what we can until then.”

  The priest would combine the wedding mass with evening prayers, so Hywel and Gwen had another hour before the service ended. Because the inhabitants of the castle would feast afterwards, controlled chaos reigned in the kitchen as Gwen and Hywel entered it.

  Dai, the cook, flung out a hand to them. “I’ll be with you in a moment!” He threw something into a pot boiling on the fire, yelled at the boy turning a pig on a spit in the roasting pit, and opened the rear door to the kitchen. A waft of cool air swept through the kitchen. Dai hurried to them. “I know about the wine. I’ve kept the cups here as you asked.”

  Dai showed them to a tray where the carafe and two goblets stood. Dai worked at his apron with both hands. “First it was Sir Gareth, poisoned last summer, now this. I don’t know if I can trust any of my helpers. I’ll never hire new again.”