The Fallen Princess (16 page)

“No, my lord. Of course not.”

Then King Owain allowed himself a laugh,
sounding a great deal like his brother. “What am I saying? You’ll
run and tell my son and Gareth as you always do.” He waved a hand
at Gwen, sweeping her from the room. “Go on. What are you waiting
for? Find me Tegwen’s killer.”

“Yes, my lord.” Gwen couldn’t get to her
feet fast enough. She curtseyed to the king and left the room. Once
outside, however, she hesitated. King Owain’s bellow of laughter
had followed her into the corridor.

Hywel

“T
hat’s that,
then,” Hywel said after Gwen recounted the conversation with
Cadwaladr to him and Gareth. “My father seemed pleased with the
result of the interview? Actually pleased?”

“He was angry at your uncle,” Gwen said,
“but then he wasn’t. You know how he is—quick to anger and equally
quick to laugh. I think he was relieved to know that his brother
didn’t kill Tegwen. So he laughed. I don’t know how your father
sleeps at night.”

“He has learned to manage the worry,” Hywel
said. “Kings have far less power than everyone thinks.”

The trio had chosen to stand outside the
kitchen to talk, for lack of a more private location. The family
that would be housed in Hywel’s rooms had arrived while Gwen had
been speaking with Cadwaladr; every noble soul was doubling or
tripling up for the next few days, even Hywel and Mari. Though
Gareth and Gwen weren’t noble, Gareth was Hywel’s captain, and to
share a room with Mari and Hywel meant Gareth and Gwen wouldn’t
have to sleep in the hall. Even Rhun, Hywel’s elder brother, had
found a bunk in the barracks. Depending on how the rest of the day
went, some of them might not be sleeping at all anyway.

Gwen had found a sunny spot on one of the
stumps used for chopping the wood that kept the fires going in the
kitchen. A boy worked with a pile of cuttings a few yards away, the
satisfying
thunk
of his axe into the next block of wood
punctuating their conversation.

“What if Brychan is right and Bran murdered
Tegwen?” Gareth said.

“An entire investigation completed in one
day?” Hywel clapped his hands together before making a rueful face.
“I don’t think so.”

“I think we need a great deal more evidence
before we can conclude who killed Tegwen,” Gwen said. “We can’t
hang a man based upon the opinion of the dead woman’s lover. So
what if Bran didn’t love Tegwen? That’s not a crime.”

“It is a crime in my eyes,” Hywel said, “but
even our knowledge of the poor state of their marriage is based on
nothing but hearsay.”

“So where do we go from here?” Gareth said.
“I admit to being surprised that we have discovered as much as we
have, but Cadwaladr’s activities happened only this morning. We’re
looking now for answers about a death that may have occurred five
years ago.”

“Two deaths, actually,” Hywel said.

“Two?” Gwen said.

“Bran was murdered two years later,” Hywel
said. “That changes everything.”

Gareth glanced at him before looking down at
his feet, clearly wanting to say something but choosing to hold his
tongue. Thus, Hywel hesitated before continuing. Gareth had wanted
the murderer to be Cadwaladr, which Hywel understood completely,
but that desire was affecting his judgment and preventing him from
seeing the whole situation as clearly as he sometimes did.

“What if the same man murdered them both?”
Hywel said. “I admit it’s a long shot, since their deaths were two
years apart, but it’s worth considering, especially since Tegwen
told Mari she knew a secret about her husband. What if it was a
secret her husband shared with someone else?”

“I’m wondering how Tegwen got from Rhos to
Aber without anybody knowing about it,” Gwen said. “Did the Dane
she ran off with bring her here, or someone else? Where was Bran at
the time?”

“In Powys with everyone else,” Hywel
said.

“Did you see him there?” Gwen said. “You
always know everything about everyone.”

Hywel scoffed. “This was five years ago, and
I was hardly paying attention to where any specific man was during
the campaign. We had periods of inactivity. Who’s to notice who
slipped away?”

“Cadwaladr could have slipped away,” Gwen
said.

“Perhaps,” Hywel said.

Gareth raised his head. “I’m reluctant to
admit this, but Cadwaladr
is
a prince of Wales. If he’d been
gone long enough to return to Aber and murder Tegwen, someone would
have noticed.”

“Besides, she was his niece,” Hywel said. “I
find it unlikely, even as repugnant as I find my uncle, that he
would have had cause to murder her. A romantic liaison with Tegwen
would have been beyond even him.”

“Who knew of the house?” Gareth said.
“Riding hard through a night and a day during a lull in the
fighting, any man could have returned to Aber.”

“Many of Cadwaladr’s men knew about it too,”
Gwen said, “not to mention all of the women he brought there and
whomever they told about it.”

“My lord,” Gareth said, “only Gwen has
spoken with either Brychan or Cadwaladr. Bran is clearly out of
reach, but Brychan is here. I think it’s time we asked him some
more questions.” Gareth put out a hand to Gwen. “Have you seen him
since you talked to him?”

Gwen took in a surprised breath. “I didn’t
think to keep an eye on him or ask anyone else to. Have I been a
fool?” She put her hand to her mouth. “He was distraught enough
after our conversation that he might have thought twice about
staying at Aber.”

“If you have been a fool, we all have. Let’s
just see if we can find him,” Hywel said. “Brychan should know
better than to think I would arrest him just because it’s
convenient.”

“You, yes,” Gwen said, “but your
father?”

“I see your point.” Hywel’s mouth twitched.
“Still, my father has behaved reasonably up until now, and we still
have another full day before the sun sets tomorrow night and
Hallowmas begins.”

“Even for us, solving Tegwen’s murder by
then would be quick work.” Gwen shivered. “This isn’t like our
usual investigations. Years have passed since any of these events
took place.”

“And yet, we’ve had at least one murderer
running loose in Gwynedd, maybe two, between Tegwen and Bran,”
Hywel said. “By now, he must have thought it would never come to
light. We can use that to our advantage.”

“Gwen, if you could look for Brychan in the
hall while Prince Hywel and I—“ Gareth cut off his sentence as a
wail of pain and grief went up from the entrance to the castle.

“Go! Go!” Gwen said.

Gareth and Hywel raced around the corner of
the keep, pulling up when they saw that the cries were coming from
a woman who had buried her face in King Owain’s chest. The king,
looking extremely uncomfortable indeed, held her and patted her
back. The begging look his father gave him was one Hywel had never
seen in his eyes before.

Gruffydd, the castellan of Dolwyddelan
Castle, stood nearby, and it was his wife, Sioned, in King Owain’s
arms. Although Hywel knew Sioned to be in her early fifties, she
had the dark hair and smooth skin of a much younger woman. Perhaps
to match his wife’s youthfulness, Gruffydd retained the straight
posture and flat stomach of a man ten years younger too. The couple
was accompanied by a matron holding the hands of two girls who had
to be Tegwen’s daughters.

Fortunately, before his father could foist
Sioned off on Hywel, Gwen appeared. Sioned raised her head to look
into the king’s face, tears streaming down her cheeks, and then at
the king’s urging, collapsed in grief onto Gwen’s shoulder instead.
Hywel hadn’t realized until that moment what a tall woman Sioned
was. Although she wasn’t overweight, she was well muscled, and the
much smaller Gwen struggled not to bow beneath the older woman’s
weight. Noticing his wife’s distress, Gareth took Sioned’s elbow,
turning her towards him. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

King Owain cleared his throat. “Tegwen’s
grandparents have just learned of the events of the morning.”

“I need to see my baby.” Sioned’s head
remained bowed.

“What happened to her?” Gruffydd said.

“We’re doing all we can to discover exactly
that,” King Owain said. “It will take some time.”

Gruffydd clenched his jaw. “Hallowmas is
tomorrow night. We must put her in the ground before then.”

Hywel stirred. “We can’t complete our
investigation that quickly.”

Gruffydd turned on him. “My granddaughter
deserves to rest in peace!”

“We will see to her burial by then,
regardless of how much we’ve learned,” King Owain said appeasingly.
“To do otherwise would be unseemly.”

Hywel bowed his own head, his jaw clenched
tightly, and didn’t contradict his father. He recognized a command
when he heard one.

While Calan Gaeaf was the day to celebrate
the harvest and the first day of winter, the night before, Nos
Galan Gaeaf—or Hallowmas—was the day the spirits of the dead walked
abroad. Hywel knew why Tegwen’s grandfather wanted Tegwen buried
before then. Nobody wanted to think about her body lying in a room
in the barracks—within the castle walls—on such a night. Although
burning the body upon death like the pagans of old would have
deprived them of material evidence, Hywel could understand the
impulse to put the dead beyond reach forever.

“I will bring you to her.” Gareth still held
Sioned’s arm, and now he moved away with her. Before they reached
the barracks, Gareth glanced over his shoulder at Gwen and mouthed
the words
find Brychan
.

Gwen threw up her hands in frustration.

Hywel leaned in to appease her. “Get Evan to
help you. He was on the wall-walk earlier.”

“What are you going to do?” Gwen said.

“Investigate.” Hywel nodded towards the
barracks. Tegwen’s grandparents had just disappeared inside with
Gareth.

“If the murderer is at all clever, and he
must be to have come this far undetected, he’ll know that we’re
looking for him now,” Gwen said.

“Don’t worry, Gwen,” Hywel said. “I’ve got
Gareth’s back.”

“As he has yours, my lord.”

Hywel didn’t know what he’d ever done to
deserve such staunch companions as Gareth and Gwen, but it was one
of the blessings of his life to know that what Gwen said was
true.

Gareth

T
he room in the
barracks to which they’d brought Tegwen’s body was one that could
hardly be spared, given the crush in Aber, but Gareth had no
concerns that anyone would begrudge it to her either. He hadn’t
known Tegwen—had never even met her—but from the accounting of her
that he’d heard since he stood over her body on the beach, he’d
come to think of her as a sweet girl, but lost. The news that she
drank more wine than was good for her had surprised him at first,
but given the tragedies of her short life, whether of her own
making or another’s, the desire to lose herself in drink was one he
understood.

And was one he had known well, once.

When Cadwaladr had dismissed Gareth from his
service, Gareth had left his entire life behind him. In one day,
he’d lost both his position and Gwen, and the humiliation of one
and the pain of the other had brought him to his knees—at first
only figuratively and then in fact as he’d been rescued by a
convent of women and found a place as its protector. They’d give
him a job and a purpose.

He’d gone back to them once, after he’d
joined Prince Hywel’s retinue, to show them what he’d made of
himself. The prioress had greeted him, holding his arms and kissing
each cheek. When he told her that he’d found a position in Prince
Hywel’s retinue, instead of congratulating him, she’d asked if he
was being of service. As was a habit with the wise, she’d ignored
his material possessions—his new sword and fine armor—and gone
straight to the only issue that mattered.

Tegwen, for all that she was a princess, had
walked a hard road not entirely of her own making. And yet Gareth
couldn’t look at Gruffydd’s wife, who’d found a stool in the corner
and was bent over her knees, her arms wrapped around her waist,
sobbing, and judge her for her part in it. Tegwen’s grandparents
had done what they thought was best for her. She was dead today not
because she was unhappy but because a man had killed her. Gareth’s
service to Tegwen, to his lord, and to God would be to unravel the
why and the who.

While Gruffydd ignored his wife and stared
down at his granddaughter’s body, rubbing at his jaw, his face
completely expressionless, Hywel was looking distinctly
uncomfortable with the raw emotion pouring from Sioned. Tegwen was
his cousin, and Gareth believed that he’d loved her, but Gareth
also knew what was going on in his prince’s mind without him
speaking:
Tegwen is dead,
and the longer you stand over
her body and keep me from my work, the longer it is going to take
to find out who killed her.

“Do you think it’s Tegwen?” Gareth said.

“My baby!” Sioned sobbed into her hands. “My
baby is dead.”

Gruffydd’s glance towards his wife seemed to
be without sympathy, but then he cleared his throat, and his voice
was thick with emotion as he answered. “I have no doubt.”

Hywel put a hand on Gruffydd’s shoulder. “I
recognized her as soon as I saw her too. I am so very sorry.”

While Gareth wasn’t a parent yet, he did
sympathize with their grief: the wound caused by Tegwen’s loss had
scabbed over in the years after her disappearance, but in the time
it took for them to ride under Aber’s gatehouse, that scab had been
ripped off. The situation was made particularly difficult because
Tegwen’s grandparents hadn’t been expecting anything more this
afternoon than a few days of camaraderie and feasting with their
friends and relations. Now they had the funeral of their
granddaughter ahead of them.