The Unlikely Spy

by Sarah Woodbury

  “And still wasn’t.”

  Alun swung all the way around to face the door. “What?”

  “I appreciate your concern for your sister’s wellbeing,” Gareth said, “so you’ll be glad to hear that Madlen lied about her relationship with Gryff. They were never married, and Gryff was never even interested in marrying her.”

  Alun came forward to clutch the bars. “You speak the truth?”

  “I do,” Gareth said.

  “Then why—why did she say what she did? Why did she tell the abbot and Prince Hywel that she was Gryff’s wife?”

  “I will attempt to speak with her on the matter in the morning,” Gareth said. “For now, Iolo claims that Madlen loved Gryff and couldn’t bear to have that love unreturned. She wanted the recognition that would have come with being his wife—that Carys received, in fact, from the abbot once he learned of her prior claim. With the need to bury Gryff quickly, Madlen hoped that nobody would ever uncover her lie.”

  Alun pulled a long face. “That’s mad.”

  “I can’t say I disagree,” Gareth said, “but a woman in love can do strange things.”

  “That’s for true.” Alun absently scratched his upper lip in thought and then pushed away from the door. In backing up, however, he banged his head on the ceiling. Cursing, he rubbed the top of his head.

  “Sorry.” Gareth resisted the urge to rub the top of his own head in sympathy.

  “Surely you can’t think that Carys had anything to do with Gryff’s death now that we know he was faithful. He gave her that cross! What reason could she possibly have to kill him?”

  “She lied about being in Aberystwyth,” Gareth said. “As did you.”

  “She panicked at being questioned,” Alun said.

  “There’s a lot of that going around.” Gareth snorted his disbelief. “If we’re going to learn anything about Gryff’s death, I need you and Carys to tell me everything that happened in the days before he died. You pretended you hadn’t seen him, and I know now that Carys even went to his lodgings with him. There’s more you haven’t said—”

  “What are you doing? Get away from him!” Carys dashed across the courtyard towards them from the keep.

  Evan put out a hand to block her, and Gareth took a few steps up the stairs. At the sight of them both, Carys pulled up, her mouth forming an ‘ach’ of surprise. Her feet faltered. “I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t see you there—”

  “Who did you think you saw?” Gareth said.

  Carys swallowed hard.

  Gareth signaled to Evan to let her pass. “You thought I was Iolo. I can’t decide if I should be offended that you think we look alike.”

  “It was dark—” Carys reached the top step.

  Gareth stepped to one side so she could descend to the door.

  When she reached Alun, her brother said, “Sir Gareth reports that Madlen never married Gryff, Carys. She may have wanted to, but he didn’t have anything to do with her.”

  Gareth would have qualified that sentence with that we know, and he had wanted to be the one to tell Carys the news, but now that it was done, he wasn’t sorry.

  Carys stared at Alun, her face paling where before it had been red with anger at seeing Gareth (or Iolo, as she had thought) talking to Alun. “She what?”

  “Madlen lied about their relationship,” Gareth said. “We still aren’t sure why, though Iolo says that she loved him and couldn’t resist telling us they were married for the attention it brought her.”

  “That attention was rightfully mine,” Carys said.

  “Nobody is arguing with that,” Gareth said, “and you may have noted that once you arrived at the monastery, the abbot treated you well.”

  Carys bowed her head, somewhat chastened. “What does Madlen herself say?”

  “I haven’t spoken to her,” Gareth said. “Apparently she was so distraught that Iolo sent her to a relation’s house in a nearby village.”

  “Not to Goginan?” Carys put a hand to her heart.

  “No.”

  Then Carys’ expression turned fierce again, not yet ready to let go of her anger and righteousness. “She had no right to say those things. She had no right to break my heart.”

  “I know, Carys,” Gareth said, “and I regret the role I played in this. Still, you lied too.”

  “Excuse me?” Carys froze in the act of reaching for Alun’s hand. He had stuck it through the bar of his cell so she could grasp it in solidarity.

  “You were in Aberystwyth the day Gryff died. Pawl, the inn keeper, spoke to you,” Gareth said. “He told us of it, and your brother has all but admitted it.”

  “Oh.” Carys looked down at her feet.

  “Now is the time to speak the truth, Carys,” Gareth said. “Gryff saw Alun the day before and gave the cross to him to give to you. But then you came to Aberystwyth to see him rather than waiting until Sunday as usual. Why?”

  Carys bit her lip and still refused to look at Gareth.

  Alun signed. “Tell him, Carys. You can’t hurt Gryff now, and it might help Sir Gareth get to the truth of all of this.”

  “I wanted Gryff to take the cross back to whomever he’d bought it from and get his money back,” she said. “I could do so much with it.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “He refused?” Gareth said.

  “He said that he didn’t buy it. He found it and didn’t know whose it was,” Carys said.

  “Did you believe him?” Gareth said.

  Carys shook her head morosely. “I assumed he stole it.”

  The truth, finally. “What do you think now?” Gareth said.

  “I don’t know,” Carys said. “He’d never been a thief. He never cared about money. I want to believe there was something more to it, but he wouldn’t tell me what that was.”

  “But you’re still wondering?” Gareth said. “The C and G do represent your names.”

  “Half of all babies born carry names that begin with those letters,” Carys said.

  She wasn’t far wrong. Alun knew it too. He sighed and said, “Madlen said the cross had been hers. What if she was telling the truth? What if he stole it from her?”

  Carys frowned. “She said she gave it to him.”

  The truth appeared to be as elusive as ever. Gareth motioned to the guard, who’d returned and was standing out of earshot, to come closer, and then he held out his hand for the key to Alun’s cell.

  “What are you doing?” Alun said as Gareth unlocked the door.

  “Letting you go,” Gareth said.

  “Why?” Alun said.

  “You didn’t murder Gryff,” Gareth said. “Tonight that’s all I care about.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Rhun

  As the music ended and the evening approached midnight, the crowd began to break into smaller groups. Gratifyingly, the majority of people weren’t ready to return to their lodgings or tents. Several bards had broken out their instruments to form an impromptu concert around Meilyr and Gwalchmai.

  For his part, Rhun kept a wary eye on his brother, who circulated through the crowd, Mari on his arm, accepting congratulations from all quarters. Rhun felt his own blood pumping through him in a way that was typical of a successful performance—usually in his case he felt this way when a fight had gone well. For Hywel, it was when he’d held a crowd in the palm of his hand, which meant that tonight he had to be on top of the world.

  Then Gareth appeared near the high table and bent to whisper in Gwen’s ear. She held the sleeping Tangwen in her lap, but she turned to look up in evident surprise at her husband’s words. Rhun reached them in half a dozen long strides, which he hoped weren’t too conspicuous. “What is it?”

  “Maybe everything,” Gareth said, and gave a summary of his conversation with Carys and Alun. Rhun had already heard from Gwen about Madlen’s lies. Strange as they had been, he could almost understand them. As to the rest of the lies they’d been told, he feared he would never make a good king because the common min
d eluded him.

  “You need to find your bed,” Rhun said.

  Gareth opened his mouth to protest, but Rhun looked darkly at him, and Gareth snapped his lips together. When he opened his mouth again, he said, “I bow to your command, my lord. I will escort Gwen and the babies home—Mari too if she will consent to come. I’m asleep on my feet.” Gareth pointed with his chin to Prince Hywel. “See if you can get your brother to return to the monastery once he comes down from his mountain top.”

  Rhun smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

  Gwen shifted Tangwen to her shoulder and rose to her feet. “Your father seems happy, my lord.”

  “My father had the foresight to put Hywel under Meilyr’s tutelage.” Rhun directed a quick nod in Gwen’s direction. “So much joy has come from that simple act.”

  “It changed my life,” Gwen said. “You could even say that it set the course of my life.”

  “And mine,” Gareth said.

  Rhun nodded. “I will say your goodbyes to my brother. You’ll be of no use to him if you can’t think straight, either of you.”

  As Rhun looked back to Hywel, thinking to detach Mari from him, he felt a tug on his elbow. Turning, he saw that Angharad’s maid had darted towards him from out of the darkness beyond the pavilion, and was already halfway back to it. Frowning, he followed her past the last tent pole and tether line.

  “My lord.” The woman’s forehead was practically on the ground in her obeisance.

  Rhun raised her up. “What is it?”

  “My lady Angharad asks to speak with you.”

  Rhun looked at her cautiously. “Why doesn’t she return to the pavilion?”

  “She fears her uncle’s wrath,” the woman said.

  Rhun growled in dismay. “Lead on.”

  He followed the maid towards Cadell’s encampment. He’d collected Angharad from her tent here earlier that day, but it seemed as if their stroll among the stalls had taken place weeks ago instead of merely hours. As they closed in on the entrance, the woman darted off, this time towards the trees that lined the river. She stopped in the darkness fifty feet from the nearest tent.

  Rhun hurried to catch up with her, and when he did, Angharad detached herself from the trunk of an oak tree. She was wrapped in a dark cloak that hid all but her pale face. “My dear.” Rhun took the hand she offered him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need you to take me away.”

  Rhun swallowed and moved closer, lowering his voice. “Why? Are you in danger?”

  “My uncle knows I’ve been speaking to you.”

  “I know he does. He gave me permission to court you,” Rhun said.

  “That’s not it.” Angharad looked at the ground. “He’s been asking questions about you. I fear he is using me to spy on you.”

  Rhun suppressed a smile at her earnestness. “It’s all right, Angharad. It is no less than I expected.”

  “When he questioned me this evening, I became flustered. He knows I’m lying to him.”

  “What could you possibly lie to him about?” Rhun said.

  “I denied that I told you about his men hidden to the south of Aberystwyth,” Angharad said.

  Rhun made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat. “Angharad, he expected you to tell me. He wanted Prince Hywel to know.”

  “What?” she said. “Why would he want that?”

  “Cariad, this is a game we are playing. I know it doesn’t feel like it, and perhaps that isn’t the right word for what’s going on, but this is a contest. Your uncle wants Ceredigion back. My father took it from his older brother, Anarawd, as spoils of war, and as payment for his troubles after the 1136 war. The fifty men he brought were not meant to violate the peace but to show his defiance and strength. We were meant to learn of them. He may even have used you as a way to let us know about them without having to be more obvious.”

  Angharad looked aghast. “He used me?” Then her expression hardened. “Here I was concerned about your safety and mine, and my uncle is probably laughing at me right now.”

  “I don’t think he’s laughing,” Rhun said, “especially not at the sight of my uncle Cadwaladr, who also brought a small army with him.”

  As soon as he said this, Rhun wished he could take the words back. He didn’t want to use Angharad as her uncle had, as a conduit between the two of them. He ought to be grateful that he’d impressed Angharad enough with his noble character that she would come to him. He brought both her hands up to his chest and looked down into her upturned face. “I would take you away from here, but I can’t defy my father, and I have not asked him for his permission to marry you yet. But with your permission, I will.”

  Angharad’s eyes shone. “Yes! Yes! Oh my lord, yes!”

  Tentatively, Rhun bent forward and kissed Angharad gently on the lips. Her eyes widened at first, but then she closed them as he continued to kiss her. After a moment, he took a step back. “I will watch until you are safely back in your tent.”

  But Angharad wasn’t having that. She launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. Her joy was infectious, and he caught her up and spun her around. He wasn’t sure how this had happened so fast, but he wasn’t sorry either. His stepmother, Cristina, was going to be very disappointed.

  Rhun set Angharad down, and she eased back from him a little, just a step, but it was enough to cause him some disappointment of his own. Still, they couldn’t remain much longer together here under the trees. They weren’t officially betrothed, and until they were, he had to be careful with her.

  “Oh, I just remembered,” Angharad said. “There was something else I thought you should know: my uncle has placed a spy among you.”

  Rhun raised his eyebrows. “I would be surprised if he hadn’t.”

  “No, no. He’s not an ordinary person,” she said. “He travels far and wide for Cadell, and I know for a fact that he has met in secret with one of Prince Cadwaladr’s men, if not Cadwaladr himself, as a way to pass messages between my uncle and yours without anyone knowing.”

  “Cadell and Cadwaladr are working together?” Rhun said.

  Angharad looked nonplussed. “You must have suspected they’d been involved in the past.”

  “Cadwaladr had Cadell’s brother killed,” Rhun said.

  “And who do you think orchestrated that?” Angharad said. “My uncle, of course. He hated his brother.”

  “You know this for certain?”

  “As certain as I can be. At the very least, they are working together now, despite the faces they show in the pavilion. Cadwaladr’s man in Ceredigion is a half-Dane named Erik. He has been passing messages to Cadell through my uncle’s man. Much of the purpose of their arrival here in Ceredigion was to finally meet.”

  Rhun felt an understanding growing within him. “So the two armies aren’t for the purpose of attacking Hywel and Aberystwyth, but as a show of force and commitment to one another?”

  “Unless they intend to join forces here in Ceredigion, but with King Owain’s arrival, that seems unlikely, don’t you think?” Angharad said. “I confess to several sleepless nights worrying about it.”

  Rhun rubbed his forehead. “Does Cadell have a target other than Ceredigion?”

  “Yes, of course,” Angharad said. “He hates the Normans to the south even more than your father. I think, too, that he believes Ceredigion will always be there for him, easily conquerable. For now, he appreciates his alliance with King Owain because it protects his northern border, and he is loath to open a war on two fronts at the same time.”

  “What could be Cadwaladr’s purpose in all this?” Rhun said. “If Cadell gets Ceredigion, what benefit is it to him?”

  “That I do not know,” Angharad said. “Perhaps he plans to betray my uncle later.”

  “That I can believe,” Rhun said. “Do you know the name of this man who spies for Cadell and meets in secret with Erik?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Angharad said. “It’s t
he dead man’s master, Iolo, the cloth merchant from the fair.”

  “I am troubled, Gruffydd,” Rhun said to his captain a short while later.

  Gruffydd had tailed Rhun to Cadell’s encampment, waited through Rhun’s conversation with Angharad, and fell into step beside him once he headed back towards the lights.

  By the time Rhun had seen Angharad safely back to her tent and returned to the pavilion, however, all that remained were servants and men too drunk to find their proper beds. Given the warm weather, it was a simple matter to pillow one’s head on one’s cloak and go to sleep. A few inquiries revealed that Hywel had escorted Mari back to the monastery, King Owain had also retired for the night to his tent in the adjacent field, and Gareth, of course, had been sent away by Rhun himself.

  “Murder should always be troubling, my lord,” Gruffydd said.

  Rhun shook his head. “I can’t say that what I just learned has anything to do with the murder, but it is a cause for concern.” Rhun briefly relayed to his captain what Angharad had told him. He didn’t hesitate to do so: if Gruffydd was going to betray him, then Rhun had no business as a ruler of men and would never trust anyone again.

  “If Iolo spies for Cadell, it is hardly a hanging matter, in truth,” Gruffydd said. “Your brother and father have many spies, the Lady Gwen among them.”

  “While what you say is true,” Rhun said, “I do wonder what else Iolo has lied to us about. In the morning, Gareth intends to send riders to Borth to collect Madlen. What if he sent her away so she wouldn’t waver under our questions? What if she aids in her uncle’s work too.”

  “In which case we have even less reason to believe anything he has so far told us,” Gruffydd said. “May I make a suggestion, my lord?”

  “Please,” Rhun said.

  “Sleep feels elusive to me, but perhaps less so to others. Would this be an opportune moment to search Iolo’s cart for evidence against him?”

  “Evidence that he spies for Cadell?”

  “That would be a start,” Gruffydd said. “Up until tonight, we had no motive for murder for him, but now …”