The Unexpected Ally (29 page)

The king looked down at his sister for a
long moment, and then he reached for her and pulled her into his
arms.

After that, there was no more talk of war.
There couldn’t be. But that didn’t mean that every question had
been answered. In fact, as far as Hywel was concerned, no questions
had been answered. By taking the blame for her husband’s actions,
Susanna had brought peace to Wales and cut short the conference,
but Hywel still had a dead spy whose murderer was either lying
alongside him or remained at large. And that didn’t even touch upon
the theft of St. Asaph’s treasury, which Hywel believed now had
been spawned by the sacking of Wrexham.

Several hours later, Hywel stood in the
darkness of his aunt’s room. The feast that had followed the
afternoon’s session had dragged on far too long, but Hywel had
managed to escape with the unlikely excuse of desiring a private
moment in the church to give thanks for the peace. He’d gone back
to the guesthouse instead to wait for his aunt’s return. He didn’t
think she’d be long, seeing as how she was prone to pleading a
headache. He’d always assumed she’d done so to avoid her husband’s
attentions. Now he wondered what else he’d misread if she was
willing to sacrifice so much for him.

Light steps came from the corridor, and the
door to the room opened. His aunt Susanna stood silhouetted in the
doorway, and then she closed the door and crossed to the shutters.
Opening them, she looked out, took several deep breaths, and then
turned to where Hywel stood in a shadowed corner. “I thought I
might find you here.”

Shaking his head to think that even for a
moment he could have fooled the woman who’d lived a double life
since her marriage, Hywel moved away from the wall. “We need to
talk.”

“You know everything you need to—”

“Don’t lie to me,” Hywel said, more sharply
than maybe he intended. It had been an emotional day. “You can lie
to everyone else, but you have no need to lie to me.” He moved
closer. “You and I are two of a kind. You can trust me with the
truth. You didn’t order my death, and thus, I don’t believe you did
any of these other things either, even for Cadwaladr.” When his
aunt tried to interrupt, he forestalled her with a raised hand. “I
understand why you did it, as does my father.”

“He knows?”

“Everything,” Hywel said.

“How angry is he?”

“If not for his concern for you, he’d be
amused.”

“I can take care of myself,” Susanna
said.

“That much is clear,” Hywel said. “What I
need to know now is what role you or Madog had in the death of my
servant, a half-Dane named Erik, and the theft of silver here at
St. Kentigern’s.”

Susanna stared at him. The moonlight was
coming in the window, lighting half of her face, but the other half
was deeply shadowed. He could tell, however, that she was surprised
by the question. “I-I don’t understand.”

Hywel had one arm folded across his chest,
and he rubbed at the stubble on his chin with the other hand,
watching his aunt. He recognized that his aunt was one of the few
people he couldn’t easily read, and he didn’t know if she was
lying. He decided that he needed to tell the truth himself, in
hopes that it would prompt her to do the same.

“Last night, you were not in bed with a sick
headache, but you dosed your maid with poppy juice and saw off
Rhodri’s mother, Derwena, with a nine-fingered man. Erik, my
servant, was strangled by someone missing strength in the last
finger on his left hand and was left submerged in a trough at the
barn that was burned today. Five silver pennies were found in the
vicinity of the murder scene. When Erik’s body was being
transported to the monastery to be examined, it was stolen by a
band of men and then later that day turned up in a field nearby—cut
open.”

Susanna listened to Hywel’s recitation with
wary eyes, and she continued to look at him for a count of five
before sighing. She turned to sit somewhat forlornly on the end of
the bed, her hands in her lap, looking down at the floor.

“The young guard told you it was I?”

“Gareth and Conall witnessed Rhodri’s arrest
on the other side of the monastery, picked up Derwena and
questioned her, and then, after they released her, followed her to
her meeting with you. Dai, the young guard, happens to be Gareth’s
son.”

She looked up at that. “I didn’t know that
Gareth had fathered a son.”

“I misspoke. Dai is his foster son.”

Susanna gave an unladylike grunt. “You see
where lies have brought us.” She sighed again. “Derwena was your
cousin’s wet nurse. Rhodri was just starting to walk when Llywelyn
was born. Derwena and Rhodri were living in Llangollen at the time,
her husband had died, and it seemed a perfect solution to the
burden of having a young widow in the village to bring her into my
service. I have known her these many years and, of course, this
connection to our court was how Madog and Cadwaladr found Rhodri as
one of the men to sack that monastery.”

She looked up at him. “I didn’t find any of
this out until very recently, you understand? Not until after you
were almost killed.”

“After your husband tried to have me
murdered, you mean,” Hywel said—and then instantly regretted it. He
put out a hand to her. “I’m sorry, aunt.”

“You speak no more than the truth. Very
well, after Madog tried to kill you, I confronted him with it, and
he confessed the whole sordid story. He feared that you might find
Cadwaladr in Shrewsbury, you see. I don’t know that it occurred to
him that you might uncover the slave ring too. He told me also of
his agreement with the slavers and then his role in the raid on the
monastery at Wrexham, all designed to line his and Cadwaladr’s
pockets with easy silver and malign Owain in the process.”

“Did Rhodri believe all along that he’d been
paid by Gareth?”

“Cadwaladr set up the raid before Rhun’s
death and his own exile. It was the kind of mischief Cadwaladr
liked well. Once the imposter was dead, Cadwaladr and Madog knew
that Rhodri’s ignorance was still necessary for the deception to be
complete. Rhodri had to believe he was telling the truth. Not only
that, but our own men had to believe it.”

“So someone else tricked Rhodri into
approaching Madog’s encampment, where he could be recognized and
arrested.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who?”

“Not for certain.”

Hywel stared at his aunt, waiting for more.
When it wasn’t forthcoming, he said, “And Derwena?”

“She had no part in any of this other than
confirming for me the details of the sacking of Wrexham, once
Rhodri confessed to her that he’d been involved.” Susanna was firm
in that. “She followed him here because she feared for his life. I
promised her that I would do what I could for him and for her.”

“How could you know that we had questioned
her, such that you would send her away so soon after?”

“I didn’t!” Susanna said. “I’d arranged for
her to meet me, in order to keep her safe until I got to the bottom
of the plot. It was because she was with you that she was late to
meet me.”

“Who is the man you sent her away with? He
was missing a finger on his left hand and that implicates him in
Erik’s murder.”

“He is one of my long-time servants, a man
of Powys. He and Derwena have favored each other for years.” She
looked directly at Hywel. “He could not have murdered Erik. I swear
it. He was traveling with me until we arrived, which I believe was
the afternoon after Erik died.”

“You are absolutely sure of it?”

“Yes.”

Hywel grimaced. “I hate coincidences.” He
rubbed his forehead, feeling a genuine headache coming on. “Are you
telling me that you know nothing of Erik’s death?”

“Not his death.” Susanna put her folded
hands to her lips as she might have in prayer and looked at him
over the top of them.

It had been a throwaway question, one that
Hywel genuinely hadn’t expected any kind of answer to. “But you did
know him?”

Her eyes didn’t leave his face. “Erik used
to carry messages between Cadwaladr and Madog … and between
Cadwaladr’s wife, Alice, and me.”

Hywel rocked back on his heels. “Could he
have been doing that when he was killed?”

Now she grimaced. “He was carrying messages,
of that I am certain, since he brought one from Alice to me.” She
laughed without humor. “If I really did all the things I confessed
to doing, I would know more, but I didn’t do those things, so I
only know what my husband told me.” She leaned forward and looked
intently at Hywel. “You should know, however, that Erik was first
and foremost Alice’s man.”

Hywel blinked. “I have been blind, deaf, and
dumb.”

“You have been preoccupied.”

“What will happen to you now, aunt?”

She canted her head. “Madog will put me
aside for a time as punishment. Owain has agreed that I may confine
myself to the nunnery at Llanfaes.” She paused. “I have friends on
the island, you know.”

She was referring, without a doubt, to
Alice, Cadwaladr’s wife. Clearly, Hywel had underestimated his
aunt. He didn’t want to think about what those two women could
contrive together either—and perhaps what they’d already contrived
without his knowledge. “All the way to Anglesey? Madog doesn’t mind
you returning to Gwynedd?”

Susanna canted her head. “He owes me.”

Gwen

“H
e surely does owe
her—more than any husband ever has,” Gwen said the next afternoon
once Hywel finally had a moment’s peace to relate to her and Gareth
the entire conversation with Susanna. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t
help us with who killed Erik, stole him, or set the barn on fire.
And we still haven’t been able to determine whether Deiniol was
involved in these thefts or just Lwc.”

“Deiniol and Rhodri claim never to have seen
each other before, either on the road to St. Asaph or otherwise,”
Hywel said, “so it may well be that the burned body in the barn is
Erik’s friend—not that Deiniol recognized him either.”

“The body was badly burned,” Gwen pointed
out.

They were talking in the common room of the
guesthouse, just the three of them. Last Gwen had seen, Conall and
Evan had been at the top of the gatehouse tower, keeping an eye on
the comings and goings of men in and out of the monastery. With the
peace conference over, Sunday mass celebrated, and the celebratory
feast eaten, most of Owain’s men had gone back to the camp in order
to oversee to the dispersal of the army. The spring planting and
lambing called to them. Nobody was sorry to be going home.

Gwen had seen King Owain in passing that
morning, and he had been in high good humor, despite the fact that
everything Susanna had said at the conclave was a lie, and he knew
it. But he’d played his part. Susanna had saved Hywel from Madog at
Dinas Bran, and she was coming to stay at Llanfaes, across the
Menai Strait and within sight of Aber. In one sweeping gesture,
she’d given Owain breathing room to get his barons back in order
and saved her husband from having to fight a war he might not
win.

In fact, the two kings had reconciled to
such an extent that they’d accepted Prior Rhys’s suggestion that
they betrothe Madog’s daughter, Marared, to Iorwerth, King Owain’s
son, as a means to further secure the peace. Not only had neither
young person objected, but for once it looked as if an arranged
marriage would be a happy event for all parties. The church
wouldn’t put up any barriers either, since Marared was Madog’s
daughter only, and thus not Iorwerth’s first cousin.

Although Gwen was happy that Gwynedd wasn’t
going to war against Powys, she had lain awake much of the night
listening to her family breathe and thinking long and hard about
the way the investigation had stalled out. They still had two
bodies on their hands, and it seemed time for some drastic action.
“I’ve had an idea, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“What is it? I can tell you that there are
few things I like less than having a murderer roaming free in
Gwynedd,” Hywel said.

“What if we let Deiniol and Lwc go?” Gwen
said.

Hywel coughed a laugh. “Why would we do
that?”

“Because we could follow them and see what
they do—and if they do it together. We have only Lwc’s word that
Deiniol is involved. I, personally, am not satisfied that Lwc is
telling the whole truth.” She threw out a hand to point beyond the
walls. “Somewhere out there still is the band of men who stole
Erik’s body. What if they are the men who sacked Wrexham, and they
came here to do the same thing? What if they’re simply waiting for
the army to leave so they can sack the monastery? We shouldn’t be
leaving it unguarded.”

“I haven’t forgotten them, and you’re right
about the guards. At the very least, we can’t leave until we bring
this investigation to a conclusion.” Hywel leaned back against the
stones beside the fireplace.

Gareth’s expression turned thoughtful. “What
if we enlist Rhodri’s help? Madog left him in our charge without
stipulating that we keep him imprisoned.”

“The boy might want a chance at redemption.”
Hywel canted his head towards Gareth. “Why don’t you go get him and
let’s see?”

Gareth stood. “It would be my pleasure.” He
strode from the room.

Hywel looked at Gwen, and she had the sudden
sense that he had wanted to speak to her alone. “When this
investigation is over, I want you to ride to Dolwyddelan to be with
Mari. I want you to bring Saran with you.”

Gwen looked at him warily. “She had nothing
to do with this, Hywel. She’s an old friend.”

“Whose sister was nursemaid to the royal
house of Powys, and who came looking for her just as these events
were taking place.” He put up a hand. “But that’s not why I want
her at Dolwyddelan. Last week when we were there, Gruffydd had a
cough I didn’t like. I know you trust her healing skills, and I
want her to look at him.”