The Fallen Princess (19 page)

“Is she matchmaking again?” Hywel said with
sympathy. “You would do well to find yourself a wife all on your
own, rather than reject the one our stepmother chooses for
you.”

“Darling Rhun!” Cristina’s penetrating voice
echoed off the rafters; Rhun couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard her.
He grimaced at Hywel as Cristina glided up to him and took his
elbow.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I
must
introduce you to my cousin.”

“My lady—” Rhun tried to tug away.

Cristina held his arm in a tight grip.
“Surely you can spare a moment—”

“I was just leaving for Rhos with Hywel,”
Rhun said through gritted teeth.

“My dear, that’s impossible.” Cristina’s
lower lip stuck out in an artful pout. It made Hywel uncomfortable
to see that look on his very pregnant stepmother. “I will speak to
your father. It would be so unfair for you to leave us now.”

Hywel took a step back, grinning, intending
to beat a hasty retreat. As he turned around, however, his father
dismissed his courtiers with a gesture and summoned his two sons
and his wife to him.

“Do you have something to tell me?” the king
said.

“Rhun tells me that he and Hywel are riding
to Rhos tonight, and they won’t be here for the feast of Hallowmas
tomorrow,” Cristina said before Hywel or Rhun could speak. “I was
so hoping he could sit with my cousin, Anna. She has never been to
Aber before and needs an escort. I’ve been so busy …” Her voice
trailed off as she batted her eyelashes at Owain.

Hywel couldn’t believe his father could fall
for this act, but he did—yet again. “Hywel can go to Rhos, Rhun. I
need you here,” King Owain said.

“But—” Rhun swallowed down his protest. His
father’s words had been decisive. Both brothers knew better than to
argue when he used that tone of voice.

Hywel put a hand on Rhun’s arm. “Good
luck.”

Rhun growled back. “You too, you dog.”

Hywel gave Rhun a cheery salute and left the
hall, in a better mood than when he’d entered it. There was
something to be said for being the second son. Outside, Evan had
gathered ten of Hywel’s men-at-arms, and they stood waiting for him
by the gate.

Gareth stood with them, giving last minute
instructions to Evan. They both greeted Hywel, and then Gareth held
the horse’s bridle while Hywel mounted. “I should be riding with
you.”

“No,” Hywel said. “You should stay
here.”

“We have so many questions—”

“And I shall ask them,” Hywel said. “Don’t
be an old granny. I will be fine, and when I return, we will pool
our knowledge and solve this.” He leaned down. “You might rescue
Rhun from my stepmother.”

“It would be my pleasure, my lord.” Gareth
stepped back.

As Hywel turned his horse and rode out of
Aber, he felt his whole body relax. It was good to be moving and to
have a plan. With Uncle Cadwaladr no longer on the list of possible
suspects, he needed to know who else to put on it. The answers
might lie in Rhos.

And whatever his father’s hopes in keeping
Cadwaladr close, Hywel knew as surely as he knew that the sun would
rise tomorrow that his uncle would betray Gwynedd again. Hywel
intended to be there to catch him—and stop him—when he did.

Gareth

G
areth wanted to be
riding with Hywel—with Gwen too, of course—because movement was
better than no movement, and it was difficult to be left behind. He
could understand just a bit of what Gwen must feel every time she
watched him ride away.

“Mari is asleep and her maid is watching
over her, so can I at least walk if I can’t ride?” Gwen slipped her
hand into his.

He looked down at her upturned face. “What
do you mean?”

“We’re going back to Wena’s hut, right?” she
said. “I know you’re itching to see if you can find any evidence
there that you missed the first time.”

“You aren’t going anywhere today,” Gareth
said. “The sun will set within the hour.”

Gwen’s face fell. “I suppose you’re
right.”

Gareth looked carefully at her. That
capitulation came way too easily. “Have you seen Rhun?”

“I passed through the hall on my way to find
you. He was being introduced by Cristina to a very pretty girl,”
Gwen said, “one of her many cousins, I believe.”

“Hywel described him as in need of rescue,”
Gareth said. “Perhaps he’d like to accompany me to Wena’s hut.”

Gwen laughed. “Then we’d better see to it.
If we didn’t have Tegwen’s funeral tomorrow, Cristina would have
him married off by All Saints’ Day.”

It was nice to laugh with Gwen. Gareth felt
some of his tension leave him. Then a call went up from the
gatehouse tower.

“Danes!”

Gareth swung around. The guard was pointing
towards Aber’s beach. Shouting at the men to close the gate, even
though they were already doing it, Gareth took the steps up to the
wall-walk two at a time and came out at the top. Skidding to a halt
beside the sentry, he looked to where the guard pointed: three
longboats were approaching Aber’s beach, not far from where
Tegwen’s body had been found.

Gwen stood in the courtyard below. Other
guests had clustered around her. “How many come?” she said.

Gareth squinted through the late-afternoon
sunshine, his heart racing—and then he laughed out loud. A beefy,
fair-haired Dane had raised a long pole with a white flag on it. He
waved it back and forth above his head in broad sweeping motions.
The white flag wasn’t a traditional symbol of peace among the
Danes, not that they ever surrendered and so would have had no
cause to use it anyway, but they knew what it meant. Their leader
had known the peril inherent in approaching a Welsh beach. Too many
Danes had raided Welsh shores for too many years for any Welshman
to look upon a Danish longship with anything but dismay.

As the boats approached the shore, Gareth
grinned again as certainty grew within him about who was leading
them. Danes were blonde and large as a matter of course, but none
were quite as blonde and large as the man with the white flag.

Gareth leapt down the steps from the
battlement at the same moment that King Owain, Rhun, and the
majority of the inhabitants of Aber surged out of the great hall.
Gareth jogged across the courtyard to greet the king and went down
on one knee before him. “Three Danish ships approach Aber beach, my
lord, but I believe Godfrid son of Torcall leads them. He raises
the white flag of peace.”

King Owain made an impatient gesture
indicating that Gareth should rise and then waved Rhun closer too.
He put one hand on Rhun’s shoulder and the other on Gareth’s. “How
many men, Gareth?”

“Two dozen, my lord. No more.”

“Do you believe their intentions are truly
peaceful?” the king said.

“If it is truly Godfrid who comes, then yes,
my lord,” Gareth said. It had been Godfrid who’d kept Gwen safe
after Cadwaladr had abducted her and stolen her away to Dublin.
Gareth would trust the man with his life. “Godfrid is not here to
raid Gwynedd’s shores.”

King Owain gave him a quick nod. “Take a
strong force and ride to the beach. Rhun will lead a second company
around the dunes to the east. If these Danes mean us harm, the two
of you will have the men to stop them.”

Rhun grinned at Gareth. “Try not to start a
war before I get there.”

“Sire, if I may ask,” Gareth said, “you
don’t seem surprised to learn of their approach.”

“I invited an embassage from Torcall months
ago.” King Owain waved a hand carelessly, as if he communicated
with the Danes of Dublin on a daily basis. “Given the time that has
passed, I didn’t expect him to take me up on my invitation. The
situation must be dire indeed in Dublin for him to send his son to
me.” Then he grinned broadly and wheeled around, waving at his
people. “Back to the hall! The wind grows chill. We will wait for
our guests inside.”

Gareth tugged his cloak tighter around his
shoulders and wished for a scarf. He hadn’t noticed the change in
the weather until the king mentioned it. Rhun clapped a hand on
Gareth’s shoulder. “Kings do as they please, do they not?”

“It seems so,” Gareth said.

In all the hubbub, Gareth had lost track of
Gwen, but he spied her near the gatehouse and reached her in a few
strides. “I must ride to the beach.” He pulled her hood up to cover
her ears. “Go inside with the king so you don’t become
chilled.”

“Yes, my lord,” Gwen said, holding her cloak
closed at the throat with a gloved hand. “Has Godfrid truly
arrived?”

“I told the king he had, so it better be
he.” Gareth glared at his wife in mock severity. “You will stay
well away from him.”

Gwen leaned forward and pecked Gareth on the
cheek. “Don’t be silly, husband. I chose you.”

Gareth smirked, and Gwen patted him on the
chest in reassurance before departing for the hall as he’d asked.
Stable boys were already working to saddle the many horses they’d
need for their short ride to the beach. With so many noblemen at
Aber, there was no lack of men-at-arms from whom to choose. He
would meet Godfrid with the same number Godfrid himself was
bringing, while Rhun would ride with two dozen more.

Gareth mounted his horse, which pranced at
the head of his company, impatient to get started. Gareth patted
his mount’s neck, controlling him with his knees while waiting for
the rest of the troop to form up behind him.

“Hywel would have liked to have been here,”
Rhun said. “He finds the Danes amusing.”

“Most Welshmen wouldn’t agree,” Gareth
said.

“Oh, but they’re big and loud and full of
themselves,” Rhun said. “You have to admire them.”

Rhun’s grandfather had been born in Dublin
because his great-grandmother, Ragnhild, had been the daughter of
Olaf of Dublin, son of King Sigtrygg Silkbeard. That kinship
connected the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Dublin and meant that the
raids from Dublin on Wales had been far fewer in the last forty
years than in the previous hundred. It also meant that King Owain’s
invitation to Godfrid to come to Aber was not without
precedent.

“Do the Danes celebrate Calan Gaeaf?” Gareth
said.

“Godfrid isn’t here for the holy day,” Rhun
said. “He wants our help in his fight against Ottar. That’s what he
wanted last year, and that’s what he wants now.”

“Is your father going to give it?” Gareth
said.

“We’ll see,” Rhun said, “but I think not
yet.”

Rhun’s contingent rode away first. His
company would turn right at the bottom of the hill upon which Aber
perched, galloping east down the road towards a track to the beach
different from the one Gareth’s company would take. Gareth signaled
to his men to follow on his heels. It was Gareth’s second journey
to the beach that day. It seemed weeks since the finding of
Tegwen’s body. That morning, he’d stood on the sand and watched the
sun come up over the mountains to the east, and now he would stand
at the same spot and see it sinking into the western hills.

The track upon which Gareth’s company rode
petered out at the dunes. High tide had come and gone and washed
away all traces of their footprints from the morning. At low tide,
the Lavan Sands would stretch out across the Menai Strait, creating
a dangerous but passable footpath to Anglesey. With several hours
to go until that moment, however, the shallowly built Danish ships
had found a passage through them and now floated a few feet off
shore. As a courtesy to King Owain, Godfrid hadn’t ordered his men
to pull up to the beach until given permission to do so.

Gareth looked to the west, noting the clouds
gathering on the horizon and the chop on the water as it lapped at
the Danish boats.

Poor weather was more normal than not for
Wales this time of year, but after a beautiful day, it looked like
they were in for a change in the weather with the onset of evening.
Only a fisherman could tell him if the rain would last through
tomorrow. Rain at Hallowmas would be a disappointment, though
perhaps appropriate for Tegwen’s funeral.

Gareth signaled to his men to stop and rode
alone the last yards to the water’s edge. He dismounted, dropping
his horse’s reins to the sand, and held out his hand in greeting to
Godfrid, who leapt from his boat. Godfrid covered the distance
between them in three strides, and instead of taking Gareth’s arm,
he caught him in a tremendous hug, lifting him off his feet. Gareth
tried to speak, but Godfrid was squeezing the wind out of him. He
coughed as Godfrid set him down.

“Good man! Good man!” Godfrid pounded Gareth
on the back.

Gareth laughed, getting his breath back, and
clasped Godfrid’s forearm in a more decorous greeting. Rhun was
right that it was hard to resist the outrageousness of this prince
of Dublin. As they stood grinning at each other, Rhun and his
company appeared on the beach to the east and galloped across the
sand towards them.

“What is this? Didn’t you trust me?” Godfrid
said in mock dismay.

“I did.”

Godfrid bellowed his good humor and clapped
his hand on Gareth’s shoulder yet again, pounding him a few inches
further into the sand. “But when Danes arrive on a Welsh beach,
it’s better to be cautious about their intentions, is that it?”

“You have to admit, your people have not
always been friendly,” Gareth said.

“Those were the days, eh?” Godfrid rubbed
his hands together as if relishing the memory. Then he strode away
to catch the bridle of Rhun’s horse, and when Rhun dismounted, he
gave him the same treatment he’d given Gareth. The two princes then
stepped back and bowed to each other, after which Godfrid waved his
men out of their boats. “We are all friends, yes?”

“Yes,” Rhun said. “My father awaits you in
his hall. You are just in time for the evening meal.”

Godfrid’s eyes lit at that, and Gareth
suspected that he’d timed his arrival to coincide with sunset for
that very purpose. “That would be most welcome. Our boat was
swamped within hours of leaving Dublin, and we’ve eaten nothing but
salted meat and stale water since then. That is no food for
warriors.”