The Fourth Horseman (7 page)

Gareth eyes narrowed. “We know Alard killed
David. How can you think otherwise?”

Amaury sighed and did not answer.

Gareth reminded himself, not for the first
time, that Alard had been Amaury’s friend. “At the very least, you
have to grant that he is involved in his death.”

“
Yes. I grant that,” Amaury
said.

Gareth glanced away, thinking. “Could these
four men—or rather, the remaining three—have had some kind of
falling out?”

“
They were never natural
friends,” Amaury said, “and if they had a falling out, it was years
ago. What people will assume now, if we cannot prove otherwise, is
that Alard has betrayed the empress for Stephen, just as Earl
Ranulf said.”

Gareth wished his French came as naturally
to him as his Welsh. Amaury seemed to feel the need to assume the
best of his former friend, despite all evidence that condemned him.
Gareth decided to allow his skepticism and ignorance to show. “You
don’t believe Alard is a traitor either? Ranulf seemed sure. All of
this would make more sense and be quite straightforward if he
was.”

“
When one is dealing with
spies, things are rarely straightforward,” Amaury said. “I don’t
believe it. For all that he is a spy, Alard is not a coward. If he
had defected to Stephen, he would have told the empress himself. He
would have told me.”

In Gareth’s experience, one of the most
predictable aspects of intelligent men was how unpredictable they
could be. But again, Alard had been Amaury’s friend. “Yet now we
have John,” Gareth said. “He could have been the third man on the
tower.”

“
Of course he could have. I
assumed it, right up until his boot didn’t fit the print, which
means that we are looking for a
fourth
man.” Amaury shook his head. “I
am as much in the dark as you.”

“
The fourth horseman?”
Gareth said.

“
He’s dead,” Amaury
said.

“
What was his
name?”

“
Why does it
matter?”

Gareth shrugged. “I’m just gathering
information. I don’t know what might become important later.”

Amaury picked at his lower lip. “Peter.”

“
Right,” Gareth said. “Well
… if Alard is as intelligent as you say, he had a reason for coming
to Newcastle.”

“
Ranulf would say it was to
murder David,” Amaury said.

“
But you still don’t think
so?”

Amaury sighed. “I admit that dropping
David’s body at your wife’s feet implies that he killed him. But
again, Alard is very intelligent. If he were planning to kill
David, do you think he would have done it in broad daylight? He’s a
spy. He lives in the dark.”

Gareth had thought much the same thing
earlier and couldn’t disagree. “It does appear to be an absurd act,
and yet I saw his eyes. He knew what he was doing.”

“
Perhaps he merely meant to
speak to David and their conversation turned to violence,” Amaury
said.

Gareth swallowed down a
mocking laugh. “David was strangled
and
stabbed. And then thrown over a
battlement. Alard wanted him dead.”

As he spoke, however, Gareth suddenly
doubted his surety. Now that he had the chance to think more about
it, the determination in Alard’s face might have reflected a
decision to drop David at their feet once he was dead, rather than
leave him on the wall walk to be found after Alard escaped. There
was still something about that act that nagged at Gareth. It was so
public and obvious. Alard had to know that someone would recognize
him. And yet, he’d done it anyway.

“
Ranulf will say that when
David and John refused Alard’s invitation to join him in his
service to King Stephen, Alard killed them,” Amaury
said.

“
Earl Ranulf is your lord,
in name if not in fact,” Gareth said. “And yet you—”

Amaury cut Gareth off. “You presume too
much, Sir Gareth.”

Gareth blinked, surprised at Amaury’s sharp
tone and unsure of what he’d done to deserve it. “Excuse me?”

The tenseness in Amaury’s expression eased.
“I apologize for my abruptness, but I have told you all I can, and
we shouldn’t linger here any longer. Alard was my friend. I must
discover the truth of what happened, for good or ill.”

Gareth nodded. “I will help you, if I
can.”

“
Thank you for that.”
Amaury made his hands into fists. “I have a task I must see to
alone, but when I am finished, I will find you.”

Gareth nodded. “In the scriptures, the
fourth horseman is death. Whatever happens, we cannot allow Alard
to kill again.”

Chapter Seven

Gwen

G
wen pushed up onto her hands and knees, moaning. The wood
floor beneath her was worn smooth from many years of treading feet
and felt good beneath her fingers. It gave her something to think
about besides the pain in her head.

“
Shush, Gwen. You’re safe
now.”

Gwen managed to separate her eyelids enough
to find the face of the woman crouching in front of her.

“
Mari? What are you doing
here?” Gwen stared at her beautiful friend, thinking she must still
be dreaming. Mari wore a gown of deep green, and her long, dark
hair was wound elaborately around her head in a manner Gwen
couldn’t have begun to emulate. The style was similar to those Gwen
had seen on a few of the women who’d passed through the hall while
she’d been waiting for Gareth.

“
Looking for you.” Mari
smiled and put a gentle hand on Gwen’s temple. “Are you all
right?”

“
I don’t know.” Gwen
couldn’t think straight. She touched her throat, feeling for marks,
but she felt nothing but smooth skin where the man had pressed on
her.

Mari spoke to someone behind Gwen. “Find Sir
Gareth. Now.”

Gwen turned her head to see a young man
hovering in the doorway of the room. “My lady—”

He looked from Gwen to Mari, who waved a
hand. “Go, Edmund!”

Mari’s sternness made Gwen smile. She was
glad for it. Gwen wanted her husband to come here too.

Mari brushed back a loose strand of hair
from Gwen’s face and said, “Let’s get you up.” She put an arm
around Gwen’s waist and helped her to the stool on which Prior Rhys
had been sitting when Gwen had entered the room earlier. “I won’t
ask if you’re all right, but are you feeling a bit better than you
did?”

Gwen sagged against the wall at her back,
still finding it hard to take full breaths and focus her thoughts.
She touched her throat again, remembering the man and the fear, and
looked into Mari’s eyes. “By what chance did you find me?”

“
I’ve come to Newcastle
with Lord Goronwy. His wife was Norman, if you remember, and he
still holds lands that tithe to England—specifically, to the Earl
of Gloucester.”

Gwen rubbed at her temples, struggling to
remember what she knew about Mari’s complicated family relations.
Goronwy had become Mari’s foster father when her parents died, but
he was her uncle too.

“
Can you tell me what
happened to you?” Mari said. “I’ve never been so scared in my life
as when I entered the room and saw you on the floor.”

“
I remember … everything.”
Gwen straightened on the stool as she realized that she did—or
thought she did. “I was examining the body of the dead man, David—”
Gwen glanced to the table where David’s body lay. Except that
nothing lay there now, not even the cloth that the guards had used
to cover his face.

“
What body?” Mari said.
“What dead man?”

Gwen’s head hurt more than
ever. “That’s exactly it, isn’t it?
What
has happened to the body?
”

“
Have you involved yourself
in another murder?” Mari’s voice held disapproval and concern, but
then her eyes lit. “Can I help you solve the mystery this
time?”

Gwen choked back a laugh. “I don’t think you
really want to do that. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Besides,
you helped last time, you know.”

“
I did?”

“
Very much so. It was you
who realized that the purpose of the murders at Aber was to prevent
King Owain from marrying Christina, and everything else that
happened was in service to that.” Then Gwen leaned forward, her
head in her hands, forcing down the bile that had risen suddenly in
her throat.

“
What’s wrong?” Mari put an
arm around Gwen’s shoulders. “Is it your head?”

“
My stomach is
queasy—”

The door, which Edmund had left half-closed,
flew open and slammed into the wall behind it. Gareth bounded into
the room. He took in the scene with a single glance, and then his
eyes fastened on Gwen. He reached her in two strides. Mari moved
out of the way so Gareth could kneel in front of Gwen and put his
arms around her.

“
Cariad
!”

Gwen pressed her face into Gareth’s neck,
holding on to him with all her strength. She’d been struggling with
control before he came, but now, just by his presence, he’d brought
her to tears. He pulled back briefly to study her face and then
kissed her forehead and both eyes.

“
What happened here?” he
said. “Where’s David’s body?”

“
She hasn’t yet told me,”
Mari said, her voice matter-of-fact. “I felt at her head and
there’s no lump—”

Gareth had been looking Gwen up and down,
and now he put his fingers under her hair at the back of her
head.

“
There’s nothing there.”
Gwen patted Gareth’s chest to get him to stop feeling at her head.
“Shortly after I arrived in the chapel, when I was still removing
David’s boots, Prior Rhys stepped out of the room for a moment. I
thought he’d returned. Instead, someone else entered the room. I
never even saw him. He came up behind me and pressed on my neck.”
Gwen gestured to her throat to show him where.

Gareth nodded. “I know what he did. Put
pressure there, and it renders a person unconscious after a few
heartbeats. It’s a way to silence a man without killing him.”

Gareth’s knowledgeable tone suggested that
he might have done it himself a time or two, but now wasn’t the
moment to ask him about it. “He spoke to me softly,” Gwen said.
“The experience was almost more terrifying because he was so sure
of himself—and treated me gently.”

Gareth held Gwen’s face in his hands and
looked into her eyes. “Can you see me fine? How do you feel?”

“
I found her unconscious on
the floor,” Mari said. “How do you think she feels?”

Mari’s tone was one that Gwen had heard her
use a few times, usually in conversation with Prince Hywel. It
spoke of no-nonsense thinking and impatience with anything but the
facts. Gwen found Mari’s lack of drama soothing. “I have a
headache, though it’s already beginning to fade,” Gwen said. “I
will be fine in a moment if I can sit here a bit longer.”

“
Gaah.” Gareth slapped his
hand on his thigh and got to his feet. “This gets worse by the
hour. First David, then John, and now this …”

Gwen looked up at her husband. “Who’s
John?”

Gareth shot her a worried look. “Amaury’s
men found another body outside the castle, near the place where it
looks like Alard came out of the water.” He leaned in close to her
and lowered his voice. “He told me some things that I shouldn’t
repeat here. David’s murder seems to be a piece of a larger puzzle,
one which we haven’t even begun to find the edges of.”

“
I still don’t understand
why someone would take a dead body,” Mari said.

Gwen glanced at her friend and then back to
Gareth. “Do you think Alard could be responsible for the removal of
David’s body?”

“
I don’t want to presume
that he was or wasn’t,” Gareth said. “My instincts argue against
it. Why flee the castle only to return an hour later? And with
everyone on the lookout for him, he would have found it nearly
impossible to get inside, much less out again with a dead
body.”

“
He might have taken it if
he was worried about us examining it,” Gwen said. Hywel himself had
removed a body from Aber Castle the previous summer, rather than
risk Gareth uncovering his role in the murder of King
Anarawd.

“
Then why dump it at our
feet in the first place?” Gareth said. “No, we are missing too much
of our puzzle. To suggest that Alard harmed you is like adding two
and two and reaching five. I am thankful, however, that whoever
this man was, he had the grace not to kill you or Prior
Rhys.”

“
Prior Rhys!” Gwen had
forgotten about the prior’s absence in thinking about herself.
“What has happened to him?”

“
Moments ago, one of
Ranulf’s men found him unconscious near the postern gate,” Gareth
said.

“
Oh no! I would never have
wanted him involved in something like this—” Gwen made to push to
her feet, but Gareth crouched down again, rubbing at her arms to
settle her and keep her on her stool.

“
What happened to Prior
Rhys is not your fault,” Gareth said.

Gwen swallowed. “You give me too much credit
if you were worried I was thinking that. I don’t believe it was my
fault, but you and I both know that wherever we go, murder follows.
I don’t like seeing him caught up in it.”

“
He wasn’t always a monk,”
Gareth said.

“
I know that,” Gwen said,
“but he is older now and used to a quiet life in the
monastery.”