The Fourth Horseman (3 page)

“
Fool.” Ranulf jerked away,
leaving Hywel to lower the body back to the ground.

Gwen hadn’t often heard a dead man called a
fool, but Ranulf seemed more irritated than saddened by David’s
death. “The killer tried to choke him first,” she said.

Ranulf glanced at the body out of the corner
of his eye, nodding when Gwen tugged on David’s collar to reveal
the purpling at his neck. He looked away again. Perhaps his
thoughts, like Gwen’s, were moving beyond the dead body to its
living consequences. Now that he knew the worst, Ranulf seemed
anxious to have this ordeal over. He turned to Amaury, who’d been
standing on the steps observing the crowd while Ranulf talked to
Hywel and Gwen. “We can’t leave him here,” Ranulf said.

Hywel made a choking sound,
disguising laughter with a cough and narrowly avoiding open mockery
of Ranulf.
No … not a good idea to leave a
dead man in the bailey.

“
I’ll see to it.” Amaury
waved a hand at two men who stood together on the bottom step to
the keep. “Find a board on which to carry him.”

“
Yes, sir,” one of them
said. Both bowed and departed at a quick walk, heading towards the
gatehouse and the barracks.

If Gareth hadn’t already described to Gwen
his previous meeting with Amaury, she would hardly have noticed
him. He was of average height, slender, and a generally
inconspicuous sort of person, except that now that she looked at
him more closely, he appeared to hold himself as tightly as a
strung bow. She was a little surprised that Amaury hadn’t followed
Gareth into the keep as Rhun had, but perhaps Gareth was already by
him before he realized what was needed.

While Ranulf and Amaury were distracted by
their preparations to move David’s body, Hywel focused on Gwen.
“Did you see the second man clearly?”

Gwen shook her head, regretting her failure.
“I saw him only for an instant. Truthfully, it was David who caught
my attention. His eyes were so flat; I knew something was wrong
with him before he fell.”

“
I think we’re looking at
more than a simple murder.”

Gareth, accompanied by Prince Rhun, had come
up silently behind Gwen. She spun around and sighed, relieved that
Gareth had returned, and took the hand he offered her. Some of the
tension of the moment eased just because he was beside her.

“
I saw the killer before he
threw the body over the wall,” Gareth continued. “I looked in his
eyes a second time just now as he hung from a rope over the
brook.”

“
We could do nothing to
stop him,” Prince Rhun said.

“
What did he say? Did your
man lose him?” Ranulf stepped closer, his brow furrowed. They’d
been talking in Welsh and now switched to French out of courtesy to
Ranulf and Amaury.

“
He did,” Prince Rhun
said.

“
Would you recognize him
again?” Ranulf said, this time speaking directly to
Gareth.

“
Of course,” Gareth
said.

“
Perhaps you could draw an
image of him, Sir Gareth?” Amaury said, coming to stand beside
Ranulf. “You have a fine hand.”

Ranulf stared at Gareth as if he had
suddenly grown three heads. “Is that so?”

“
It is, my lord,” Gareth
said.

Ranulf gave a stiff nod. “That would be very
helpful.”

“
Sir Gareth is one of my
most trusted captains,” Hywel said, stepping into the conversation.
“He has other skills that might be useful to you in finding the
killer.”

Ranulf eyed Gareth suspiciously, but Gwen’s
heart warmed at the respect Prince Hywel was showing her husband.
Without further ado, Gareth sat down on one of the steps and pulled
out a scrap a paper from inside his coat to sketch his drawing in
charcoal.

“
My lord, if I may
interject?” Prior Rhys said, speaking for the first time. Rhys had
aided Gareth last winter in the pursuit of the man who’d tried to
murder King Owain. Like Amaury, Gareth thought well of Rhys and was
on the way to trusting him.

“
Please.” Ranulf gestured
that Prior Rhys should come closer.

“
There was a third man at
the top of the tower, along with the two so far mentioned,” Prior
Rhys said, “but all I saw was the back of his head, not his
face.”

Gareth looked up at Prior Rhys’s words. “You
are sure, Prior? I didn’t notice.”

Gwen hadn’t noticed him either, but then,
the dead man’s expression was still all she could see behind her
eyes.

“
Even as the body fell, I
saw a shadow against the battlement and a flash of dark hair. I’m
sorry that I can’t tell you more. But he was there.”

Hywel turned to look at David’s body again,
muttering under his breath in Welsh and only for Gwen’s ears, “A
third man. Just what we need.”

Ranulf’s mouth worked as if he wanted to
spit on the ground but was too polite to do so. “I must speak to
Earl Robert immediately to tell him what has transpired. Amaury,
stay with our guests until I call for you.”

“
Yes, my lord.” Amaury
bowed to Ranulf, though the earl had already turned his back. He
stalked up the steps to the great hall, leaving Amaury as the lone
Norman among the Welsh visitors. He stood with them in a
semi-circle near David’s body: the two princes, Hywel and Rhun;
Gareth and Gwen; Gruffydd; Prior Rhys; and Evan.

Amaury bowed slightly at the waist. “My
lords, I don’t know what to say.” He stopped.

“
Unless you killed David,
which would have meant being in two places at once, no apology is
necessary,” Prince Hywel said.

Gwen shifted uncomfortably.
Hywel was very forthright sometimes. Amaury didn’t seem to know how
to respond.
Had Hywel just accused him of
murder?
It was hard to say. His mouth
worked, but then he managed a thin smile. “Thank you, my lord. I
appreciate your understanding.”

If they had been home at Aber, Gwen knew
what would have happened next: Hywel would have turned to Gareth,
and by extension, to Gwen herself, and told them to get on with it.
But here, Rhun and Hywel had no authority and hadn’t even spoken to
Earl Robert yet. Except for the fact that David had been King
Owain’s man, or so Hywel had assumed, the next step might be to
return to their tents outside the walls and await events.

But not yet. The two guardsmen arrived with
a board, distracting Amaury and breaking the awkward silence. The
men placed the board on the ground and loaded David’s body onto it.
“Take him to the chapel,” Amaury said. “He can lie in a room off
the vestibule.”

“
My lord, may I attend to
him?” Prior Rhys’s eyes flicked from Hywel to Amaury. Hywel nodded,
and Amaury said, “Of course.”

Gareth rose to his feet as Rhys passed him,
and the two men nodded at each other. Then Gareth handed his
drawing to Amaury. The Norman lord scrutinized it, sucking on his
teeth. His expression was noncommittal, but Hywel must have read
something in it, because he stepped closer to Amaury and looked at
the image over his shoulder.

“
What’s wrong?” Hywel said.
“Do you recognize the assassin?”

“
I do.” Amaury puffed out a
breath of air. “His name is Alard. And he is my friend.”

Chapter Four

Gareth

“Y
ou’re telling me that the dead man, this—” Earl Robert snapped
his fingers at Ranulf. “What was his name?”

Ranulf stepped forward and replied, without
informing his father-in-law that he wasn’t a dog, “David, my
lord.”

“
Yes. David. You say he was
your man?” Robert stood near the dais in the great hall with his
legs spread and his hands behind his back. At fifty, he was tall
and still slender, without even a slight paunch. His full head of
hair was turning grey at the temples, and he wore it swept back
from his face.

“
Yes, my lord,” Ranulf
said.

“
But you didn’t know he had
returned to Newcastle?” Robert said.

“
No, my lord.” Ranulf
clenched his hands tightly behind his back. He was not enjoying
being questioned by his wife’s father. The set of his shoulders
spoke of a man within inches of storming from the room. Then he
took in a deep breath and let it out. “I gave him a certain degree
of independence in order to complete his tasks. I had not seen him
in some time.”

Ranulf’s red hair stood straight up; he’d
worked his hands through it too many times in the past hour since
David’s body had fallen at Gwen’s feet. Gareth had heard that
Ranulf’s temperament was more volatile than King Owain’s, which was
saying something. King Owain was quick to anger and equally quick
to cool. But while Owain might forget his ire within moments of the
offense, Ranulf was one to bear a grudge.

“
Define ‘some time’,” Hywel
said.

If Ranulf didn’t like being questioned by
Robert, he liked it even less from Hywel. Still, he answered
civilly enough. “Since the winter.”

Earl Robert turned to Hywel and Rhun.
“Meanwhile, your father believed David to be his servant.”

Rhun dipped his head. “That is so.”

Earl Robert sighed and smoothed the hair
back from his face. He turned towards the dais, paced back and
forth along it once, and then halted, his hands on his hips,
contemplating each of the men before him in turn. Robert of
Gloucester had a reputation as a measured thinker and a steady
leader, providing a strong counterpoint to his half-sister, Empress
Maud. She was known for her arrogance, mercurial temperament, and
capriciousness. Rumor had it that men stayed true to the empress
less because of a direct allegiance to her than out of loyalty to
her brother, who was her strongest supporter. “And you accuse Alard
of murdering him?”

“
Sir Gareth saw him,”
Ranulf said. “Alard is a traitor to the empress, of that we can be
sure.”

Earl Robert raised his eyebrows. “Alard has
served my sister for many years. How is it that I am only hearing
of his treachery now?”

“
His defection to King
Stephen’s side is very recent,” Ranulf said.

Gareth shifted, wishing Gwen was beside him.
She could have helped him read the undercurrents in the room. As it
was, Gwen, Evan, and Gruffydd had found seats at a table near the
front door to the hall. While the anteroom beyond remained full of
retainers, Earl Robert had requested that only his Welsh visitors
and a few of his own men witness this conversation.

Up until this moment,
Gareth had thought he was primarily interested in bringing David’s
murderer to justice for King Owain’s sake. Yes, Alard had murdered
a man in broad daylight; yes, David was working for Ranulf and
spying on King Owain at the same time, but that meant it was only a
matter of time before
someone
killed him. Now, however, the questions began to
pile up in his mind. Chief among them was the nature of Alard’s
relationship to David. He’d killed him, after all. One would
presume he had a reason.

Gareth also wondered if it was significant
that Alard had murdered a Welshman in front of a party of Welshmen.
If his intent was to get the attention of the two princes, he’d
surely succeeded. Gareth didn’t sniff the air to find the source of
the bad smell wafting from the stories everyone was telling, but
they stunk nonetheless.

“
If you knew Alard was a
traitor, how was it that he entered my castle unmolested?” Earl
Robert said, still talking to Ranulf.

“
I do not know,” Ranulf
said. “He escaped by rope into the Lyme Brook. Perhaps he entered
the castle the same way.”

Amaury made a derisive snort that he quickly
turned into a cough. Prince Rhun had suggested the same thing to
Gareth as they’d left the wall walk, and Gareth hadn’t contradicted
him, but Ranulf was clutching at straws. That Alard would climb up
the rope into the castle made no sense at all. It was hard to
imagine an entrance that was more likely to get him noticed. The
most logical course of action would have had him coming through the
main gate unremarked, as just another visitor to the castle, one
that some men in the garrison recognized and still believed to be
an ally. Alard could have left the rope tied around the merlon as a
precaution, an escape route of last resort that he would use if he
had to and leave behind if he didn’t.

Ranulf seemed not to have
heard Amaury’s understated disapproval. Perhaps to make amends
anyway, Amaury cleared his throat and stepped forward, deflecting
Earl Robert’s attention away from Ranulf to himself. “I have men
scouring the banks of the brook for any sign of the man, my lord.”
He paused and didn’t say what Gareth expected to hear, which
was
it is only a matter of time before we
find him.

It seemed that Earl Robert had expected to
hear those words too. When they didn’t come, he said, “But you
believe him to be long gone.”

“
Not necessarily gone,”
Amaury said, “but certainly untraceable unless Alard wishes to be
found. He had a significant head start, and he knows the area
well.”

“
And why would he want to
be found?” Earl Robert remained focused on Amaury, who stood
steadily before him.

“
Alard may have murdered
David, but that doesn’t make him less intelligent than he was
yesterday. He has a plan. He would return to Newcastle if he
believed his work unfinished,” Amaury said.

Earl Robert raised his eyebrows as Amaury
hurried on.