The Fallen Princess (34 page)

Gwen felt even sicker inside.

“What about Dewi, here?” Evan said.

“The penalty for murder by poison is a
hanging,” Gareth said. “You’re lucky he’s alive. You’d better hope
he stays that way.”

“Dewi was at the hut the night Tegwen died,”
Gruffydd said. “Brychan told me Dewi was there when Bran killed my
granddaughter.” And like Brychan before him, it was as if Gruffydd
broke in half. He bent forward, choking on grief as fresh today as
it had been five years ago when Tegwen disappeared. “Bran didn’t
deserve the title of lord.”

Gruffydd lifted his chin, tears streaming
down his cheeks, and raised his voice. Gwen turned, confused as to
whom he was speaking, and saw that the courtyard behind her had
filled with onlookers. “Brychan came to me a few years after
Tegwen’s disappearance with what little proof he had that Bran
might be responsible. That he might have killed her. I found
more.”

“You questioned the nuns at the convent near
Bryn Euryn,” Gareth said.

“Them among others. The moment I saw you
speaking with the nuns, I knew it was over.” Gruffydd’s next words
tumbled out of his mouth in a rush now that his long held secrets
had become known. “Bran received no punishment for his crime, while
Sioned and I suffered, never to know where she’d come to rest,
never able to visit her grave. In order even to see Tegwen’s
children, we had to pretend to Bran that we suspected nothing.” He
paused, and the hatred that rose in Gruffydd’s eyes had Gwen
retreating a pace. “It was intolerable.”

“You murderous bastard!”

While Gwen had stepped back at Gruffydd’s
confession, Dewi had moved closer. With a cry of pain and anguish,
he plucked the knife that Evan had been twirling between his
fingers and launched himself at Gruffydd.

Gareth saw him coming and pulled Gruffydd
sideways, falling with him to the ground as Dewi’s knife descended.
The blade missed Gruffydd’s heart, instead sliding along his right
ribcage. Dewi ended up straddling Gruffydd with Gareth sprawled
underneath them both. It all happened so fast that nobody else was
able to intervene until Dewi’s arm came up for another thrust, at
which point Hywel caught him with both arms around his torso and,
with Evan’s belated help, hauled him away.

Gareth managed to scoot out from under
Gruffydd, who lay in a helpless ball in the dirt, his knees pulled
up to his chest and his hands still tied behind his back. Blood
soaked his left side, but he was alive. Hywel kicked away the knife
that Evan had knocked from Dewi’s hand and stood above both men,
his hands on his hips, glaring down at them.

Then a women’s voice came from behind Gwen.
“Don’t hurt him, please.” Sioned rushed past Gwen to throw herself
over Gruffydd’s prone form. “He never killed anyone. He’s only
telling you that he did to protect me.”

Hywel

“C
ome here,
Godfrid. We have a present for you.” Gwen was practically hopping
up and down in her glee as the big Dane made his way towards where
she, Hywel, and Gareth had gathered at the far end of one of the
long tables near the dais.

Godfrid halted two paces away, his gaze
taking in each of them and then the wrapped package on the table.
Disbelief and hope warred together in his expression. “That’s
not—”

Gwen clasped her hands together and went up
on her toes. “It is!”

Hywel reached out and carefully unfolded the
wrappings that had kept the Book of Kells safe on its long
journey.

Godfrid moved forward, dropping a hand onto
Gareth’s shoulder as he stopped beside him. “You are a miracle
worker.”

“It wasn’t my doing,” Gareth said.

“That’s not true, Gareth,” Gwen said.
“Prioress Nest sought you out because she trusts you.”

Godfrid growled. “You’re starting the story
at the ending again.”

Gareth grinned.

In addition to not witnessing Gareth’s
encounter with Prioress Nest, Godfrid had also missed all but the
very end of the drama with Gruffydd and Sioned. Once the Book of
Kells was stowed safely in Aber’s treasury until such a time as the
winds turned favorable and Godfrid had concocted a strategy for its
return, he demanded they tell him that story from the beginning
too. Many of the guests had already departed for their homes, the
story of Tegwen’s death and its resolution on their lips, and
everyone left in the great hall was well into a mellow mood.
Feeling charitable towards all, Hywel sprawled in his seat, his
ankles crossed in front of him and his arm across the rail of
Mari’s chair.

“Let me see if I understand this correctly,”
Godfrid said. “According to Dewi, Tegwen died after Bran struck her
and she fell against the corner of a table. Bran, Dewi, and Erik
left her in Wena’s hut—I must see this place before I leave,
Gareth—and put out that she ran off with a Dane.”

“Yes,” Gwen said.

“I am offended that Bran blamed one of my
own for the loss of his wife,” Godfrid said. “But then, we Danes
are the stuff of legends.”

Gwen smacked Godfrid’s shoulder, but his
look of self-satisfaction didn’t leave his face. Gareth couldn’t
blame the big Dane for his contentment. His quest had ended in
success, barring the loss of Erik, who had yet to be caught.

“Three years later,” Gareth said, “Dewi
tells Brychan a tiny piece of the story. Brychan turns to Gruffydd,
who begins asking questions he hadn’t known to ask before and
learns more about her disappearance. Both Brychan and Gruffydd
believe absolutely that Bran killed Tegwen and concoct the plan to
murder him.”

“By ambush.” Godfrid nodded. “Brychan, who
loosed the arrow, gets away clean.”

“Moving to the present day, once Tegwen’s
body is found and our investigation moves into full swing, Sioned,
who knows the full story even if she wasn’t a participant in the
ambush of Bran, panics. She’s afraid that we are close to
uncovering the truth about her husband’s role in Bran’s death and
convinces Brychan to take a shot at me.” Hywel straightened in his
seat at the memory. “Having failed, Brychan returns to Sioned and
demands payment to keep quiet. She slips a knife between his ribs
instead.”

“Why would Brychan be so foolish as to
listen to her in the first place?” Godfrid said.

“She threatened to expose him as Bran’s
killer if he didn’t help deflect the investigation,” Gareth
said.

“What about Dewi?” Gwen said.

“Dewi told Brychan of his involvement in
Tegwen’s death, and Brychan told Sioned. So Sioned poisoned Dewi,”
Gareth said. “If Erik wasn’t still at large, he would have been in
danger too.”

“And the fire?” Godfrid said.

“Sioned saw Gareth and me move Brychan’s
body,” Hywel said, “but she didn’t know that we’d recognized it in
the darkness nor that Brychan had talked to Gwen at length about
his relationship with Tegwen. That conversation, if not the one
with Dewi, Brychan had kept to himself.”

“Plus, a fire is always a good distraction,”
Gareth said, “with the added benefit of murdering us if she got
lucky.”

“If not for Dai and Llelo, she might have
succeeded,” Gwen said.

Gareth shot Gwen a questioning look. “Did we
ever find out where those scalawags had been and why they were
still awake?”

Gwen laughed. “Dearest husband, I think we
don’t want to know the answer to that question.”

“Sioned then confessed all to Gruffydd,”
Hywel said, continuing the story, “and when Gruffydd saw Prioress
Nest in the hall with Gareth, he panicked. Once caught, he chose to
take all of the blame.”

“The fact that Sioned had killed Brychan
with Gruffydd’s knife made his confession much more credible,”
Gareth said, “not that I would have ever suspected her of any of
this.”

“Sioned did what she did because she wanted
to protect her husband,” Gwen said. “She loves him.”

“And Gruffydd loves her,” Hywel said, “which
is why he did what he did.”

“It is astonishing that she attempted so
much in so short a time,” Godfrid said, “but I can see how as a
woman and the grieving grandmother, she was above suspicion. Who
would question her movements or her absence from the hall in her
time of grief?”

“Last night, Sioned asked her husband and
maid to leave her alone in the chapel, when what she was really
doing was meeting Brychan in the woods and murdering him,” Gwen
said. “Who would gainsay her request to be left alone during the
revelry? No one.”

“What is to become of Sioned and Gruffydd?”
Godfrid said.

“Payment for their crimes will pauper them.
They will lose everything,” Gareth said. “But for the fate of
Tegwen’s daughters, I suspect neither would care.”

Hywel tapped a finger to his lips. “I will
speak to Ifon. He will take the girls in.”

“I think your father, my lord, would have
preferred not to have learned any of this,” Gwen said. “But I’m
sure he’s happy to know that Cadwaladr was not at the heart of
it.”

“This time,” Hywel said darkly. He still
couldn’t decide if that fact was a relief or a disappointment.

“That’s the problem with secrets,” Godfrid
said. “Given time, they fester.”

Gwen nodded. “The core of their lives was
rotten, and it proved their undoing.”

“There’s a lesson there for us all,” Godfrid
said.

At Godfrid’s last words, Hywel straightened
in his seat.
A lesson
.
A lesson for us all.
He stood
abruptly. “I have to see my father.”

Hywel felt Mari’s curious look, but he
simply kissed the top of her head and left the room. Certainty had
taken hold of him. He’d been struggling for weeks with his burdens,
worrying continually about the two lords he’d left in charge of
Ceredigion. They had been deposed from their lands by Normans and
regained them only at Hywel’s hand, so their commitment to Hywel
was absolute. Or so he hoped.

But a kingdom wasn’t won or maintained on
hope.

He found his father going over the kingdom’s
finances with Taran, discussing the cost of rebuilding the manor
house and what tithes might come in from the upcoming slaughter of
sheep and cattle in each cantref. Hywel stood in the doorway for a
moment without them seeing him.

He knew he was hesitating and cleared his
throat to get their attention. “Father.”

King Owain had been bending over the table,
reading the papers in front of Taran, who was seated. The king
straightened to his full height and looked at Hywel. “Son.”

Hywel took a step into the room. “I have
been a coward and a fool, Father.”

Owain jerked his head at Taran. The steward
rose hastily to his feet and departed, though not before resting
his hand on Hywel’s shoulder as he passed by him on his way into
the corridor.

Hywel’s father remained standing where he
was, waiting.

Hywel spoke again. “I have told you of our
gains in Ceredigion, and of the sacking of Cardigan, but what I
haven’t told you is what I have failed to do. What I am failing to
do.” And then like when Gruffydd had confessed his crimes, Hywel
found his next words tumbling out of his mouth: his decisions, many
of them wrong; the forces arrayed against him, which the attack on
Cardigan Castle was unlikely to stem; the losses of men and horses
that he had avoided elucidating clearly to his father for months;
and his stark awareness of his own inexperience.

“If you remove me from my position because
of my failures, it would be far better than for me to lose
Ceredigion for you entirely,” Hywel concluded. “My hope is that it
hasn’t quite come to that and that you can forgive me for coming to
you for help. Or rather, not coming to you for help sooner.”

Hywel’s father rubbed at his chin as he
thought about his answer. Hywel shifted from one foot to another.
His stomach had fallen into his boots when he’d entered his
father’s office initially, but Hywel had meant what he’d said.
Finally admitting that he didn’t know what to do or how to do it
had lifted a huge weight from his shoulders.

Then his father came around the desk, and to
Hywel’s astonishment, he came right up to Hywel and embraced him.
Then, taking a step back, he said, “It takes a brave man to admit
to his own ignorance. You are neither a coward nor a fool, son. To
say that I am proud of you would be to understate the case.”

Hywel gaped at his father for a heartbeat,
and then cold relief flooded through him. Suddenly, he could
breathe again.

“Now, why don’t you get Taran back in here,
and between the three of us, we can solve our little problem of
Ceredigion.”

Hywel had hoped that a return to Aber would
provide him with a respite from his troubles. As he pulled up a
chair opposite his father and Taran, he decided that he’d been
looking at this journey the wrong way round. Trouble wasn’t
something he could run from or to. It followed him everywhere he
went. It hadn’t been a respite from trouble that he’d needed, or
that he’d come to Aber to find.

It was clarity.

And it was a rare man who could find that
all by himself.

Gareth

G
areth paced back
and forth at the end of the corridor. Queen Cristina, herself
delivered of a healthy son named Dafydd shortly after Calan Gaeaf,
had given up her room for Gwen’s lying in. Gwen had woken at dawn
with pains, endured a full day of laboring, and now it was past
midnight and still their child hadn’t been delivered.

Sometime around sunset the pains had closed
in around Gwen, and the midwives had whisked her away to Cristina’s
room. Gareth had started drinking then, stopped a few hours later,
and had been pacing back and forth in front of the fire in the
great hall ever since. Other residents of Aber waited with him,
occasionally shooting glances in his direction, but otherwise had
the sense to leave him alone.