The Unexpected Ally (16 page)

From his position on the wall, Gareth could
see the flames of at least a dozen campfires, and he realized what
he was seeing. “It’s Madog’s camp.”

Gruffydd grunted. “I thought they had set up
their tents farther to the east.”

“Apparently not.” Gareth peered into the
distance as shouts echoed across the fields. “Perhaps Madog hopes
to flank us.”

“I would have preferred to go to war against
them,” Gruffydd said.

Gruffydd had been with Hywel when Madog had
tried to burn them alive, so he had every right to his anger, even
if it wasn’t a very fruitful emotion and clouded a man’s
judgment
.

“These men didn’t do anything but be born in
Powys,” Gareth said matter-of-factly. He didn’t want Gruffydd to
think he was being condescending, but if he was going to be useful
to Hywel, he needed to rein that anger in—as they all did. “It
isn’t their fault their lord is a treacherous bastard.”

Then a shout came from much closer by,
followed by a woman’s shriek, “Stay away from me!” The words echoed
to them from a small stand of fruit trees on a low hill between
fields two hundred feet from where they stood. Gareth thought he
even heard a somewhat ominous
thud
as something heavy—like a
body—hit the ground.

The three men looked at each other and,
without needing to say anything about it, Gruffydd and Evan jumped
off the wall. A six-foot drop was going to jar Gareth’s shoulder,
so he took the long way down, this time using the overhanging
branch of the same tree as a brace to ease himself down to the
ground outside the monastery wall. By the time he reached level
ground, Evan and Gruffydd were well ahead of him.

He ran after them, holding his left arm
close to his body and cursing. He pulled up at the edge of the
trees, finding the darkness under them a sharp contrast to the
brighter sky outside, and followed his friends into the woods. The
rich smell of apple blossoms filled the air.

Someone moaned up ahead, allowing him to
more accurately pinpoint where he was supposed to go, and then he
bumped into someone’s back.

“Careful.” Evan put out a hand. “It’s
Conall.”

Sure enough, beyond Evan, a strand of
moonlight made it through the leafy canopy overhead, and shone down
on Conall, who was moaning as he pushed himself to all fours.
Gruffydd put a hand under his arm and helped him to his feet, at
which point Gareth stepped out from behind Evan. “What
happened?”

“I have no idea.”

With an exasperated
tsk,
Gareth went
to Conall’s other side and steadied him. He weaved a bit, and
between Gareth and Gruffydd, they helped him hobble out of the
trees to a low wall that surrounded the next pasture and sat him on
it.

Conall hung his head, his arm across his
belly, breathing hard. “This I did not need today.”

“What were you doing in the trees?” Gareth
said.

“I was watching Madog’s camp.” Conall lifted
his head. “I don’t see any of you celebrating mass with the two
kings either.”

Gareth laughed under his breath. “No. We
left that to men greater—and possibly braver—than ourselves.”

Conall bobbed a nod. “Your politics are just
like ours—full of intrigue between close family members. The last
thing I want to do is involve myself or Leinster in that, but since
I was here, I thought I could be of use in one of the few ways I
know how.”

“Scouting,” Evan guessed.

Another bob, though Conall arrested the
movement halfway through as it seemed to hurt him. “I was minding
my own business—or rather, Madog’s—when I bumped into a woman. She
screamed and hit me.”

None of the other men could keep the smirks
off their faces.

“It did sound like a woman,” Evan said.

Conall groaned and rolled his eyes. “I will
never live this down. In my weakened condition—” Conall’s tone was
full of ironic laughter, “—I couldn’t defend myself.”

“In other words, she got the jump on you,
and you let her go rather than stab her with your belt knife,”
Gruffydd said.

Conall scoffed. “She was plump and older.”
He lifted his chin to point at Gareth. “You would have done the
same.”

“I would have squealed too.” Gareth relented
a little from his smirking laughter.

But then a caterwauling scream from a real
female’s voice rose up near the lights in the distance. “No! No! He
didn’t do anything! He came here in good faith. You can’t take
him!”

The woman continued to lament, but her cries
faded to a more generalized weeping. “You two stay here.” Gruffydd
pointed at Gareth and Conall, and then he and Evan sprinted
off.

Conall groaned again, straightening while
still leaning against the wall. “Come on. You don’t take orders
from him, right?”

Shaking his head and laughing, Gareth
wrapped his good arm around Conall’s waist to help him to the other
side of the wall. They crossed two fields, following Gruffydd and
Evan, who’d leapt the walls athletically. Conall and Gareth chose
to detour both times to a nearby stile and eventually came out onto
a road that ran between the monastery fields and a rising hill upon
which Madog’s men had pitched their tents.

A woman knelt in the center of the road,
hunched over with her arms around her waist, sobbing. She was alone
now because the party of men to whom she’d directed her protests
was moving away from her towards the camp and even now was passing
the first sentry points. Though the road was completely dark,
torches lit up the camp, and Gareth could make out the silhouettes
of at least eight men, one of whom had his wrists bound behind his
back, which Gareth could tell because the two men on either side of
him had grasped his elbows and were hauling him along.

Gruffydd and Evan had stopped beside the
woman, looking between her and the men and hesitating.

Gareth called ahead to them. “Don’t. Wait.”
He and Conall hurried the last few paces to where they waited.
Gareth was breathing hard from his effort. Annoyingly, Evan and
Gruffydd seemed completely unaffected by their run.

Gareth stopped beside Gruffydd and spoke in
an undertone. “We are men of Gwynedd, and those are Madog’s
soldiers. We can’t involve ourselves in whatever this is about—not
without learning more first. King Owain wouldn’t thank us for
that.” Then he turned to the woman, whom Conall was helping to her
feet. “We heard you cry out. What’s this about?”

“They took my son!”

All the men looked again to the camp.
Madog’s soldiers and their prisoner had disappeared into its
depths.

“Why would they do that?” Gareth said.

“I don’t know!” Her answer came out a wail.
“All they said was that he was a wanted man.”

“But they didn’t say what he was wanted
for?” Gruffydd said.

“No!” Again the wail, but this time there
was a tone to the protest that didn’t ring entirely true.

Gareth’s eyes narrowed. “He must have done
something.”

The woman put a hand to her heart and took
in a breath. “I don’t—I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Then her
attention went to Conall as if seeing him for the first time, even
though he’d been the one to help her to her feet. Her eyes widened,
and she pointed at him with a trembling hand. “That’s the man who
attacked me in the woods!”

“I didn’t attack you, woman,” Conall said.
“You ran into me.”

She glared at him. “What were you doing in
the woods?”

“The same as you, I imagine. Spying on
Madog’s camp.”

“I wasn’t spying!” Her response was heated,
but when the men around her simply looked at her, she settled down.
“All right. I was following my son. But that’s not really
spying
. It’s being a good mother.”

Gareth found himself on the edge of
patience. By now the party of men and the woman’s son were long
gone, and the camp emitted only the usual noises of men talking and
laughing as they ate and drank. The men weren’t necessarily
prepared for imminent war, but Gareth counted at least six
sentries, spread out on the perimeter of this side of the camp—and
those were just the ones he could see. “Let’s start at the
beginning. What is your name and the name of your son?”

“I’m Derwena, and that’s my son Rhodri.”

Gwen

T
he four men heard
the whole story from Derwena on the way back to the monastery, and
she (quite willingly) went through it all again in the dining room
of the guesthouse for the benefit of Gwen, Meilyr, and Saran, who
had returned by then. The sisters had been jubilant at their
reunion, even if both women were dismayed to know that Rhodri was a
captive in Madog’s camp.

Gwen had seen to Conall’s injuries already
and put him to bed with a warm compress and a carafe of mead. As it
turned out, the retinues of neither king had chosen to stay in the
guesthouse, except for Hywel, who at the moment was dining at the
Gwynedd camp, and Susanna, who’d gone to bed with a sick headache.
Gruffydd, Evan, and Gareth had done a quick canter around each
man’s obligations and responsibilities, ending with Gruffydd
departing to speak to Hywel of the night’s events. Tangwen was
asleep, and Gwalchmai had gone to the church to sing for Compline.
Abbot Rhys knew well Gwalchmai’s worth, and Gwen suspected that he
would employ him to the fullest capacity as long as the young bard
was a guest in his house.

Thus it was Evan, Gareth, Saran, and Gwen
who gathered around Derwena to listen to the story. Meilyr was
there too, but he’d found a seat in the corner with his lyre and
was playing a gentle melody. Gwen assumed that he was listening,
but he had deliberately set himself apart so as not to become
involved in their business or the investigation until he was
wanted.

“The part you haven’t yet explained is
why
exactly Madog’s men arrested Rhodri,” Gwen said, trying
to keep the exasperation out of her voice but undoubtedly
failing.

Derwena looked down at her feet. So far,
Gwen had been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because
she was Saran’s sister and obviously under great duress. But there
was something shifty about her wide-eyed innocence, and when she
talked, she didn’t always look directly at anyone. It could have
been that she was embarrassed, but equally, it could be because she
wasn’t telling the entire truth. Saran was one of the most
intelligent people Gwen knew, man or woman, but it was possible
that Derwena hadn’t been given the same gifts.

“Rhodri has been secretive of late. He
didn’t want me to come north with him, but I put that off as simply
his concern for his mother’s wellbeing.” Derwena shook her head.
“But now I fear it was something more.”

Gwen didn’t know everything there was to
know about young men—less than many women, certainly—but she
suspected that few wanted their mothers along on their adventures
even if they weren’t doing anything that would put them in prison.
Again, it was a naiveté on Derwena’s part that Gwen found
disconcerting. She didn’t say anything, though—just allowed Derwena
to keep talking.

“What sort of
more
are you thinking
of?” Gareth said.

Derwena’s eyes flicked around the room. “I’m
afraid I don’t know.”

Saran had her arms folded across her chest
and was studying her sister. “Anything at all will help us to
understand what’s happening here and maybe to get Rhodri back.”

Gwen was glad it was Saran who’d said that,
because it felt like Derwena was a hair’s-breadth away from closing
up.

Derwena shook her head, her eyes back on her
feet. “It could be that Rhodri was passing information. Maybe.”

“From whom to whom?” Saran said. “Rhodri
serves King Owain, but he was arrested by King Madog’s men. Are you
saying he spied for King Owain?”

Saran’s assessment seemed to leave her
sister speechless. She shook her head again, her eyes on the floor,
and then shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”

Saran went down to a crouch in front of her
sister, like Gwen might in front of Tangwen when her daughter was
having a hard time conveying her thoughts. “None of us believe that
Rhodri spies for Owain, Derwena. Whom did he really serve?”

But even Saran couldn’t get anything more
out of Derwena. She’d gone mute, and just shook her head.

“Derwena, do you have a place to stay
tonight?” Gwen broke in.

“She can stay with me,” Saran said before
Derwena could answer. “Earlier I spoke with the healer here in St.
Asaph, and she made me welcome.”

“No—” Derwena put out a hand. “I would be
glad to stay with you, but I will not be an unwanted guest.” Saran
opened her mouth—perhaps to protest—but Derwena overrode her. “She
invited you, not me. I have a place with some of the other women in
the encampment.” Derwena stood and brushed her hands down her
skirt, smoothing the fabric. “I’ll just go.” And with a few hasty
steps, she was out the door and gone.

Gareth jerked his head towards the door.
“Evan and I should follow.”

There was a time when Gwen would have wanted
to go with him, maybe as recently as two weeks ago in Shrewsbury
when she
did
go with him, but she had duties here, not the
least of which was Saran herself. From the way Saran was holding
her arms around her middle, she was less than pleased with how the
evening had gone.

Once Gwen, Meilyr, and Saran were alone,
Meilyr stopped the music and put down the instrument he was
holding. Saran paced in front of the fire, the fingers of one hand
playing with the end of her long braid, which was otherwise coiled
around her head. When Gwen had known her in Carreg Cennan, her hair
had been coal-black, but a startling white streak now rose from her
widow’s peak, and elsewhere the black was shot with strands of
white.

“What are you thinking, Saran?” Gwen said
after Saran had paced around a little more.