The Unexpected Ally (18 page)

Evan subsided, and Gareth looked at his son.
“Did she say anything to you about where she’d been?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me what she did?”

He gave an elaborate shrug. “She took one of
the torches that lit the gate and headed off east.”

“How long did you have to wait for her
return?” Gareth said.

Dai shook his head and looked down at the
ground while mumbling, “I don’t know. A while.”

Something was wrong. Dai hadn’t wanted to
answer that question. “Did you see with whom she met?”

Dai’s eyes skated towards the left for an
instant and then came back to his father. “No.”

Gareth looked at his son. “Dai.”

Dai wavered, but he was an honest boy at
heart, and capitulated without Gareth having to order him again to
speak. “It was my duty to guard the door, but I was curious about
what the Queen of Powys was doing outside the monastery so late in
the evening, so I followed her. It was easy because of the
torch.”

“Leaving the gate unguarded
and
open,” Gareth said.

Dai returned his eyes to his feet.

Gareth ran a hand through his hair and
scrubbed at it before dropping his hand. “Pray something good comes
of this. What did you see?”

“Queen Susanna met a man on horseback who
was waiting for her in the middle of the track that led east. He
pulled her up behind him, after which I had to run to keep up. Then
just before they reached the crossroads, Susanna dismounted, and
they waited, hardly speaking, for a long time. I was wavering,
knowing that I’d left the door unguarded and feeling guilty about
it, when a woman stopped on the road to talk to the queen.”

“We saw that last part,” Gareth said. “Could
you identify the man if you saw him again?”

“He wore a hat pulled down low over his
head, but—” Dai frowned.

“But what?” Gareth waited. His son had
always been more observant than most.

Dai turned his body this way and that,
motioning with his left hand. And then his expression cleared.
“Both when he helped Queen Susanna mount and when he pulled the
woman onto his horse, he held out his left hand to them, and—” He
stopped again, clearly still puzzled as to whether or not what he
saw could be true.

Gareth placed a hand on Dai’s shoulder. “And
what?”

“He was missing the last finger on his left
hand.”

Hywel

T
hat his Aunt
Susanna was involved in the intrigue swirling around the monastery
surprised Hywel when he heard about it, which wasn’t until the next
morning as he was preparing for the conference. Or rather, he
wasn’t surprised that she was involved in intrigue—only that she
would sully her hands with murder. Then again, her relationship
with Derwena and the defingered man remained to be established.
Hywel needed to confront her with it—he couldn’t leave that task to
Gareth—but like the rest of the investigation, it would have to
wait until after today’s meetings.

The men who would speak of peace were
gathering in the chapter house, which was the largest room in the
monastery outside the dormitory or the church itself. This was
where the monks met every day to listen to their Rule read and to
discuss monastery business. Conall loitered by the gatehouse,
watching the riders as they came in. After each one passed, he
would signal to Hywel and Gareth with one or two fingers or a
raised fist to indicate whether they wore their weapons and how
many he noted, or if the man had left them at home as promised.

So far, though no man openly wore a sword,
Conall had counted three boot knives among Madog’s men, and seven
men who wore dart sheathes up their sleeves. Conall himself had a
knife hidden ingeniously in his bracer, a design Hywel was
determined to ask his armorer to copy next he saw him.
Unfortunately for Conall, he hadn’t been wearing his bracers when
he’d been captured back in Shrewsbury, which was what had given him
the thought to look for weapons among Madog’s men.

Hywel stood in the courtyard, Gareth at his
left shoulder. Gwen fussed over them both, making sure their belts
were straight and their surcoats smoothed across their chests. For
the fifth time, she adjusted the way Hywel’s cloak draped around
his shoulders, and he caught her hands before she could twitch the
fabric again. “It’s fine, Gwen. You shouldn’t be nervous. You don’t
have to attend.”

“It would be easier if I were attending! I
hate waiting.”

Gareth put a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps
you can take Tangwen for a walk into the village. Saran should be
there, and—”

Gwen subsided, something of a grim set to
her chin. “I suppose I could ask around about Erik again. You found
nothing, but you couldn’t have talked to everyone. I want to be of
use.”

Hywel met Gareth’s eyes for an instant over
Gwen’s head, and his captain gave him a brief nod. Showing Erik’s
image around the village in broad daylight was a better occupation
for her than nearly anything else they could think of, and Gareth
was silently saying that having approval come from Hywel himself
was better than from Gareth. “That’s a good idea, Gwen. Let us know
when we adjourn if you discover anything.”

“Of course.” Gwen bent to pick up Tangwen
from where she was crouched with a stick over a puddle. When she
straightened, Conall, whom Gareth had already signaled to approach,
was standing beside her. At the sight of him, she shook her head
and tsked. “And I suppose you’re coming with me?”

“It seems so.” Conall always had an air
about him that implied both that he couldn’t care less about
something and a certain resigned amusement. But he smiled genuinely
at Gwen. Gwen rolled her eyes at her husband, but with Tangwen on
her hip and well-guarded by Conall, she left the monastery
courtyard.

Hywel turned to Gareth. “You don’t have to
be here either.”

“Yes, I do. If ever you needed the support
of your captains, it is now.”

“I’m fine.”

“He tried to have you murdered.”

“That is true.” Hywel gave Gareth a jerky
nod and then turned to face his father, who’d just entered the
courtyard through the gatehouse.

The King of Gwynedd was surrounded by his
guard, among them Ithel, his captain and Cadifor’s eldest son, and
Cynan, Hywel’s younger brother and the castellan of Denbigh Castle.
The next oldest brother, Madoc, wasn’t here because he held Mold
for Owain, and it wasn’t so long since they’d taken it that Owain
felt they could leave it with a steward. The king’s eldest
legitimate son, Iorwerth, now a thinly muscled seventeen-year-old
man, was serving in Cynan’s train, just as Gareth’s sons, Llelo and
Dai, were.

King Owain stumped up to Hywel and halted in
front of him. “You ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s Madog?”

“Already inside, sir. Abbot Rhys suggested
that the two of them speak privately for a moment before the
conference started.” Hywel cleared his throat. “I think it was so
you and he wouldn’t be left to your own devices in the courtyard
again.”

Owain grunted. “I was civil last night.
We’ll see about now.”

Hywel had hoped that the arrival of his
father would be somewhat calming to the overall tension in the air,
but that had been a faint hope. His father was as agitated as Hywel
had ever seen him. That meant that Hywel himself had to be the calm
one. With no help for it, he straightened his shoulders and strode
into the chapter house at his father’s side.

Madog and Rhys were standing in an open
space beyond which row after row of wooden benches formed an
extended half-circle around this central area. There was room for
two hundred men to sit, and each party had been accorded roughly
half the seats, with a few extras going to monks and associates of
the monastery. Hywel nodded at Father Alun, who was standing
against the wall behind the lectern, from which on another day the
Rule and the news of the day would be read.

Owain’s boots scraped on the stone floor as
he stopped three paces from the King of Powys. “Madog.” The menace
in his tone caused Rhys’s eyes to widen slightly, and though Madog
didn’t betray himself by rocking back on his heels, his nostrils
flared.

Hywel kicked himself for not having said
something to his father when he came in about toning down his
aggression, but perhaps it would have only agitated him more. Not
for the first time, Hywel wished himself far away, thinking of his
boys and wife at Dolwyddelan, where he’d spent far too little time
of late. He also spared a thought for his castle at Aberystwyth and
instantly put that thought away. He would attend to Ceredigion when
he had fulfilled his duties to his father here.

As it was, Rhys put out a hand to the party
from Gwynedd. “Please, if you would sit here and Powys will sit
there.” He stabbed a finger to indicate where each king should sit,
across from each other at the ends of a long table that took up the
center of the open space, with Rhys sitting in the middle of one
side, facing the audience.

Gareth leaned into Hywel. “Is this a peace
conference or a courtroom?”

Hywel smiled wryly. “There’s never been much
difference between them, has there? Each side presents its
grievances, its counter-arguments, and its witnesses, and then the
conclave decides the verdict as guided by the convener, in this
case, Abbot Rhys. My father has presided over assemblies like this
a thousand times, though not usually with quite so many lords in
attendance.” He bumped Gareth’s shoulder with his own. “Why did you
leave Cadwaladr’s service? Was it because cutting off that boy’s
hand was unjust? Of course. But it was also because the boy wasn’t
given his day in court as required by the law.”

By now Owain had turned to where Rhys
pointed and taken the chair opposite Madog’s. Hywel was not allowed
to stand behind his father, since that would block the view of the
men behind him, so he chose a seat to his father’s right that would
allow him to see the faces of both kings. With a suppressed groan,
Gareth settled on the bench next to him, giving Hywel a pang of
guilt for not sending his friend away. Still, the tension in the
room had the hair on the back of Hywel’s neck standing straight up,
and he couldn’t be sorry that Gareth was beside him if—when—things
went bad. If the conference went on for the full two hours between
now and the bell for noon prayers, he would find a way to ease
Gareth’s discomfort.

Wasting no time, Rhys didn’t seat himself
just yet but stood at the lectern, raised a hand, and the room
quieted. “We all know why we are here. While both sides are much
aggrieved, war should be the last resort of reasonable men, who
should be able to sort out their differences without killing each
other, as is forbidden by our Lord.”

This was shockingly plain speaking, and
while some of the men on the benches around Hywel shifted
uncomfortably, Hywel leaned forward, interested now more than
worried.

“We pray as our Lord in heaven instructed
that we might find the strength to live as Godly men.” He bent his
head and began to pray, first in Latin and then in Welsh.

Hywel listened at first, but with so many
people in the room, each with his own agenda and ideas about how
this should go, he couldn’t help but lift his head slightly to
survey the room. Every other man had his head bowed, which gave
Hywel free rein to observe them. He was more glad than he could say
that Rhys had forbidden the wearing of even a knife today. The
prayers might be heartfelt, but the mood of the room was ugly. Rhys
was right that both sides had longstanding grievances, and Madog
didn’t think his were any less serious than Gwynedd’s.

Hywel was tired of war, but he understood
that sometimes a king had to resort to it when an opponent wouldn’t
listen to reason. That Madog had tried to murder him was still
incomprehensible to Hywel. It made no political sense that he could
discern, and for that reason, he had to think there was a greater
issue underlying the act. He regretted how little time he’d had to
explore the issue since it happened, but the key question he had to
answer if his father was to come out of this conference unbowed was
why Madog had seen Hywel’s death as a means to an end. And exactly
what that end was.

Gareth

S
itting next to
Hywel as the conference continued could have been more
uncomfortable, though Gareth wasn’t entirely sure how—and it wasn’t
just because his body ached. He’d lived in Powys for a time, and he
recognized many of the men at Madog’s side, including a former
employer, Bergam of Dyffryn Ceiriog. Bergam’s lands were located to
the southwest of Llangollen and part of Powys, so Bergam had come
to St. Asaph at Madog’s behest. Gareth had left Bergam’s employment
in the same way he’d left Cadwaladr’s—under a cloud because the
tasks he’d been asked to perform were impossible to stomach. The
man’s spoiled son was not here, for which Gareth could only be
grateful. Ten years on, Gareth was wiser, but he didn’t have faith
that the man’s son would be.

For Bergam’s part, he hadn’t recognized
Gareth, or if he had, he gave no sign of it as his eyes passed over
him without stopping.

At first, Rhys did most of the talking,
which was fine. There were few men alive who made as much sense
when they spoke as Rhys. Then Gwalchmai and Meilyr sang—not war
songs, but ones of peace and tranquility to soften the mood—and
then the moment came for airing grievances. King Owain went
first.

Somewhat laboriously, though in hindsight
Gareth had seen him move with agility of late, so it had to have
been a bit of an act, Owain rose to his feet. What would happen
next was as much for his own barons’ benefit as for Madog’s. Owain
had to prove he was a fit king.