The Uninvited Guest (32 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

A
s
his day turned to night and his captivity wore on, Gareth retreated
more and more into himself. He’d never known such misery. He’d
failed Hywel. He’d lost Gwen. Every muscle in his body ached and
his chest hurt every time he took more than a shallow breath. He
wiggled his toes within his boots, grateful Tomos hadn’t taken them
from him. It was a small mercy, even if unintended. At the same
time, he didn’t know what good they would do him if Cadwaladr
didn’t help him. Boots weren’t useful to a dead man.

He guarded the little strength he had left,
breathing in and out, resting his eyes if not his body. He wasn’t
quite at the end, but a part of him would have preferred the
silence of oblivion. He almost wished now that Cadwaladr had
withheld the few sips of mead he’d given him, because his thirst
had increased for having had a taste. The pounding of the rain on
the thatch above his head only made the thirst worse. The roof
leaked here and there: another mark against Tomos and an indication
of the way he’d lined his own pockets at the expense of the estate
that was in his charge.

Gareth listened for noise outside his
door—anything that would signal a change in his status, any change
at all. It had been hours since Cadwaladr had left him, and the
only sound he’d heard, other than the staccato of rain on the roof,
was his own breathing. That and the rats in the corner. His head
drooped lower.

“
Got a crust for the
prisoner.”

Gareth started awake as the door to his cell
swung open.

“
I thought Lord Tomos said
no food for him,” the man who’d opened the door said.

Gareth could almost hear the first man
shrug. “Changed his mind. Doesn’t want the prisoner to die just
yet.”

Which was both good and bad from Gareth’s
perspective. That Tomos cared to feed him meant that more torture
might be in his future. On the other hand, it meant he’d still be
alive to experience it. The first man entered the room and
approached Gareth. He set down the tray and departed without
another word.

Gareth stared at the food, though it was
hardly worthy of the name. Lord Tomos had literally given him a
crust of bread, no bigger than his fist, and a bowl of water. Tomos
probably meant to humiliate Gareth by forcing him to lap at the
water like a dog, but even though Gareth’s hands remained
unchained, he couldn’t have lifted a cup without spilling it. He
leaned forward and sucked at the water.

Nothing in his life had ever tasted so good
and every slurp increased his strength a notch. Gareth swallowed,
paused, and swallowed again. More at ease, he sat back and picked
up the bread. The cook had hacked off the end of a loaf—stale, mind
you—leaving him mostly crust plus a small portion of soft insides.
He broke the bread in half. Something tinked as it hit a stone on
the floor. His cell was so dark Gareth couldn’t see anything but
shadow, but he felt on the ground between his legs and came up with
a key. If the rain hadn’t lessened, he might not have heard the key
fall at all.

Gareth gazed at it for half a heartbeat, and
before doubt set in about this course of action, he tried to jam
the key into the lock that held his ankles. He missed. Gareth
clenched the key in his fist and breathed deeply before trying
again.

A moment later, his ankles were free. He
stretched his legs, took up the bowl of water in hands that no
longer shook, and drank it all down. Then he got to his
feet—staggered really—and with one hand on the wall, moved to the
door. He knelt and put his head to the floor so he could peer
through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. He
couldn’t see much, since the only light available came through the
far doorway that led to the courtyard of the castle.

Earlier in the night, a torch had lit up the
little guardroom where his captors kept watch. But no light shone
now. Carefully, his heart in his throat and barely able to breathe
past it, Gareth pushed on the door.

It swung open.

The wooden bar lay to one side, next to a
guard who slumped on a bench, his back to the wall and his eyes
closed. Gareth looked around for a weapon, but none presented
itself except the sword laid across the guard’s lap, its belt
wrapped around the scabbard. Gareth blanched. The sword was
Gareth’s own.

He couldn’t leave it. Gritting his teeth to
keep his body from trembling so much that he would wake the guard,
Gareth bent and gently lifted the guard’s hand. The guard was so
relaxed that he didn’t shift and Gareth had his sword back, belt
and all.

Within two steps, Gareth reached the
exterior door. He poked his head out. His cell lay at one end of
the stables, as far from the gatehouse as it was possible to get,
but only a dozen yards from the postern gate. Rain had puddled in
the courtyard but the rain itself had stopped and the air had
turned bitterly cold. It smelled like snow would come soon. The
only sound Gareth heard was the shifting of the horses in their
stalls.

The door to the keep opened. The shape of a
man showed in the light behind him, and then went back to shadow as
the door closed. Gareth was alone in the courtyard of the castle.
Knowing he couldn’t wait, he crossed the distance to the postern
gate at a loping run. He braced himself to drive his sword through
the guard at the postern gate, but pulled up as the man stood and
pushed back his hood.

“
About time,” Cadwaladr
said.

“
You!”

“
Who did you think?”
Cadwaladr’s voice was full of scorn.

Gareth didn’t answer, just pushed past
Cadwaladr and opened the postern gate. He looked through it, and
then back to Cadwaladr, surprised by his ambivalence. “Are you
coming?”

Cadwaladr wavered in the doorway. Gareth
grabbed his sleeve. “Come now or give me your cloak. It’s freezing
out here.”

“
Put on your own.”
Cadwaladr pulled a length of cloth from the satchel in his hand,
gave it to Gareth, and then shouldered the pack.

“
Right.” Gareth threw the
cloak around himself. Cursing at the weather, he pushed through the
postern gate. “I’m glad you understood that this is the best path
for you.” He stuck out his hand feeling the first flakes of snow
hit his open palm. If the snow stuck, it would make them easy to
track.

The men skidded down the steep incline
towards the river. Gareth’s boots were caked in mud before he was
half-way down. Cadwaladr puffed beside him. “I want you to tell my
brother that he needs to give me back my lands in Ceredigion.”

Gareth didn’t answer. Hywel might have
something to say about that.

“
It’s the least he can do,”
Cadwaladr said. “Rescuing you will make me a hero.” Cadwaladr was
about as far from a hero as it was possible to get, but since
he
had
freed
Gareth, he could forgive him just about anything right
now.

“
We need to put as much
distance between us and Rhuddlan as we can,” Gareth said. “We
should go cross-country.”

“
We need horses,” Cadwaladr
said.

Gareth scoffed. “Then you should have freed
them too. What were you thinking?”

Cadwaladr didn’t catch the sarcasm. “It
would have called attention to us. I couldn’t risk it. I did too
much as it was giving you that key.”

“
Tomos will know it was you
who freed me the moment he discovers your absence,” Gareth said.
“Why does it matter what you did or did not do?”

“
Because he might kill my
men,” Cadwaladr said.

Oh.
It was the first time, to Gareth’s knowledge, that Cadwaladr
had expressed concern for the fate of his men. Then again,
Cadwaladr didn’t have so many anymore that he could afford to lose
even one. Cadwaladr had saved Gareth, and in so doing, may have
knowingly traded their lives for his.

“
We’ll come back with an
army,” Gareth said. “Tomos isn’t stupid. If he kills your men, he
has nothing to trade.”

“
That is my hope,”
Cadwaladr said. “But it will take time for my brother to marshal
his forces.”

“
I sent him a message from
St. Asaph,” Gareth said. “He should already be on the
move.”

They’d reached the Clwyd River. “Tomos is
great friends with the Abbot there.” Cadwaladr grunted as he pulled
off his boots. Because of the rain over the last week, the water
was running high and fast, even at the ford. It was also very cold.
“Are you sure the message was sent?”

Gareth’s heart sank.
What if Prior Rhys had lied to him?
“I saw the rider leave.”

“
Uh huh.” Another grunt
from Cadwaladr as he waded into the river. “But didn’t you meet
Tomos soon after you left St. Asaph? Tomos could have encountered
the rider in the middle of the night. Perhaps he suspected
treachery and waylaid him.”

Gareth gritted his teeth as he waded
thigh-deep into the river, his boots and sword clutched to his
chest. The initial strength that had flooded him at the sight of
the key, and that had gotten him out of his cell and out of
Rhuddlan, was fading. By the time they came out of the river on the
western side, he felt little but his own misery. His legs were numb
from cold. His ribs ached more than ever, even as he set a fast
pace away from Rhuddlan, with Cadwaladr struggling to keep up.

“
Why aren’t we taking the
main road?” Cadwaladr said through gasping breaths.

“
Tomos will expect us to go
that way,” Gareth said. “The snow isn’t sticking, but as soon as it
does, our tracks will show. We need to get as far away from here as
we can, as quickly as we can.”

Cadwaladr didn’t answer and Gareth focused
on his breathing. The further they got from Rhuddlan, the more
(rather than less) sure Gareth was that they’d be caught out here
by Tomos’ men, run down from behind, and thrown into a marsh. But
he and Cadwaladr ran doggedly on, while the wind whipped icy flakes
under their hoods and into their faces.

Despite Gareth’s injuries, Cadwaladr was in
worse shape than he. Cadwaladr was fifteen years older for a start,
and these last months, he had spent more time sitting in his hall
and less on the back of a horse than Gareth. The fighting in
Ceredigion—fighting the last of Cadwaladr’s men—had been wearisome
and endless, but it had kept Gareth fit.

“
I need to rest.” Cadwaladr
moved off the path and placed his hand against a tree. He bent
over, breathing hard.

“
If I stop, I’ll never
start again,” Gareth said.

The snow had started to stick to the grass
beside the road and Gareth hauled Cadwaladr back into the dirty
middle of the trail. “How far to Caerhun?” Cadwaladr said.

“
Twenty miles, give or
take,” Gareth said.

“
Twenty?” Cadwaladr let out
a deep laugh. Then he thunked Gareth on the back. “Who would have
believed that you and I would be scurrying around together in the
dark, eh?”

Gareth couldn’t laugh. “Certainly not I …
Come on. We must keep moving.”

“
How can you even see where
we’re going?” Cadwaladr said a bit later.

“
The snow helps,” Gareth
said. And it did, with a luminescence that to Gareth’s eyes showed
a pathway before them, fading into the west. “Besides, it’s getting
lighter already. Can’t you tell?”

“
Dear God,” Cadwaladr said,
after another hour of half-running, half-walking through the frozen
landscape. “We’ll never make it.”

“
We have to.” Gareth slowed
and tipped back his head to allow a few snowflakes to drop into his
mouth.

Cadwaladr had stopped altogether, bending at
the waist and holding his side. “I cannot go another step.”

“
Do you have food in that
pack?” Gareth said.

“
A bit.” Cadwaladr took the
bag from his shoulder, opened it, and removed a hunk of bread—fresh
this time—and a flask. “Wine.”

Gareth needed both. “Thanks.” He had just
enough will power to rip the bread in half and share it with
Cadwaladr, rather than diving into it face first. “We need to keep
moving.”

They set out again, this time at a walk.
During their brief pause, the sky had lightened further. Snow
covered everything in a wash of white. Gareth looked behind them.
Their tracks stretched east into the distance.

Damn.

Dawn, such as it was, came and went, and
still Gareth and Cadwaladr trudged on. Another hour passed, and
then another. Gareth began to feel lightheaded, and though he was
loath to admit it, he had reached a point where he was watching his
feet and willing them to move. He began to weave—he knew it but
couldn’t help himself—but when he glanced at Cadwaladr to ask for
assistance, he saw that Cadwaladr was weaving too.

Gareth rubbed both cheeks with his hands and
drank more of the wine. The snow still fell from the sky, but as
the day grew brighter, it lessened and finally stopped.
“Cadwaladr,” Gareth said. “We need to run.”

Cadwaladr glanced at Gareth. “What?”

“
I feel horses. I can’t
tell from where, but they’re getting closer. We’ve left a trail
miles long for Tomos’ men to track.”

Cadwaladr turned around. “I don’t see
anything.”

“
I tell you, they’re
coming.”

“
We can’t run. Let’s get
off the road and find a place to hide.”

“
Our tracks will lead them
straight to us,” Gareth said. “Besides, if I lie down, I will not
rise again. You would have to continue by yourself.”