The Unlikely Spy (18 page)

“I don’t know,” Gareth said, thinking of his
own marriage to Gwen, which had united his family with hers, though
at the time, his family consisted only of himself. “I gather you
yourself have never personally met Iolo?”

Alun frowned. “Come to think on it, I
haven’t. I suppose if I’d gone to the festival as Gryff had asked I
finally would have.”

“Didn’t you find it odd that you never had
met him before?” Gareth said.

Alun shrugged. “It was typical Gryff. Or so
I thought then. But I’m starting to wonder if I knew the man as
well as I thought I did.”

Hywel

H
ywel and Rhun went
first to the monastery to see to the wellbeing of Gwen, Mari, and
the children. When they reached it, the women were sitting on a
bench near the guesthouse with Tangwen and Gruffydd. Hywel came to
a halt in front of them, crouching low to examine the stones the
children had piled in the dirt.

“That has kept them occupied for the last
hour,” Gwen said.

“I see that.” His fingers were itching to
pick up his son, but he knew better than to disturb him when he was
happy.

“How goes it with you?” Mari said.

Hywel straightened and kissed her temple.
“Well enough. Though Cadwaladr sat beside me tonight.”

Mari drew in a breath. “Cadwaladr has
arrived?”

Rhun laughed. “He was surrounded by enemies
because Cadell is here too.”

“Neither can mean me immediate harm. Not
today, anyway.” Hywel sat on the bench beside his wife and took her
hand. “This is nothing for you to worry about.”

Mari gave him an exasperated look. “If you
didn’t want me to worry, you shouldn’t have said anything.”

Hywel knew that was true, but he found it
impossible to keep secrets from her. He saw Gwen studying them from
Mari’s other side. “What have you discovered that I don’t know
about?” he said to her.

Gwen dipped her head. “I appreciate your
confidence that I would have discovered anything.”

Mari elbowed Gwen in the ribs. “It seems
Gryff came to the monastery on the afternoon he died.”

Hywel’s eyes lit. “He did? Why? What did he
do?”

“He was looking for you, actually,” Gwen
said.

Hywel’s expression turned wary. “For
me?”

“Yes. We don’t know why—or rather, the
gatekeeper to whom he spoke doesn’t know why or what he wanted you
for.”

Hywel and Rhun exchanged a glance. “You
can’t go back to that day.” Rhun said, correctly interpreting the
regret on Hywel’s face. “What’s done is done, and you weren’t
here.”

“Gryff offered to bring the gatekeeper his
dinner, and then he left, without having found you of course.” Gwen
clenched a hand into a fist and dropped it onto her thigh. “I wish
we knew what he wanted.”

Hywel rubbed his chin. “That is truly the
question of the hour. You learned this from the gatekeeper?”

“I did,” Gwen said. “I even questioned the
cook afterwards. He remembered only that Gryff had come into the
kitchen, requested the meal for Sion, waited until it was ready,
and departed.”

Mari looked concerned. “Are we thinking that
Gryff might have wanted access to the kitchen for some reason?”

Gwen shrugged. “In past investigations, we
might have worried about poison, but we have no reason to suspect
him of doing anything wrong. Gryff is the victim here.”

“Or so we have assumed, since he was the one
who was stabbed,” Hywel said, “but what if the man who killed him
did so in self-defense? We could be looking at this the wrong way
around.”

They all thought about that for a moment.
“He did marry two women,” Rhun said. “That is not the act of a
righteous man.”

Gwen shook her head. “We need more
information than we have. Perhaps when Gareth returns, he’ll be
able to shed some light on these events.”

“Speaking of Gareth,” Hywel said, “I need to
speak to him the moment he returns.”

“Oh no,” Gwen said. “What’s happened? Not
another murder?”

“Barring the ones I committed in my head at
the feast?” Hywel said, only half-jesting. “No. But Rhun and I have
discovered that my treacherous uncle and King Cadell have each
brought fifty cavalry with them to Ceredigion and hidden them in
the woods around Aberystwyth.”

“What?” Gwen and Mari said together, looking
from Rhun to Hywel.

Tangwen had looked up at her mother’s
shocked voice, and Gwen put out a hand to her, bending forward and
saying, “It’s all right,
cariad
.” Tangwen returned to her
play, and Gwen straightened. “Where?”

“Evan found Cadwaladr’s force near St.
Dafydd’s chapel.” Hywel motioned with his head to indicate where
Evan stood with their horses. As Gareth’s second-in-command, Evan
was standing in for him until he returned. Rhun had left his
captain, Gruffydd, to stay with Morgan and keep an eye on the
goings on at the castle. “It lies to the northeast of here.
Cadell’s fifty cavalry are to the southeast. I sent men to scout
his encampment as soon as I heard of it from Rhun.”

Gwen looked inquiringly at Rhun, who nodded.
“Angharad told me of it.”

Gwen didn’t quite hide her knowing smile,
but she managed to look down at her toes before it became too
obvious. “I don’t expect Gareth to return tonight, my lord.”

“I know,” Hywel said. “We’ll have a look
tonight without him.”

Prior Rhys came around the chapel and
hastened across the courtyard towards them. “You received my
message, my lord?” he said when he reached them.

“We did,” Hywel said. “Thank you for the
information. We have doubled the guard around the monastery.”

Prior Rhys jerked his head in a nod. “I
would hope that you are looking to your own back as well. An errant
knife in the hands of a determined man can do a great deal of
damage, as we saw with Gryff.”

“Rhun and I are both taking extra care,”
Hywel said. “Thank you for staying here with Gwen and Mari.”

Prior Rhys bowed. “I am honored to have been
so trusted.”

Hywel and Rhun, with Evan and a handful of
men, rode northeast from St. Padarn’s. They rode without torches,
but the moon was up in the starlit sky, illuminating the road to
St. Dafydd’s Chapel. The road rose to several hundred feet above
the monastery, and then fell again as they dropped into the
adjacent valley, which like most of the area surrounding
Aberystwyth consisted of green fields and stands of trees. This was
rich land. Hywel was determined to keep it out of his uncle’s—or
Cadell’s—hands.

At the point where Evan told them they
needed to walk, they pulled their horses off the road and into a
patch of woods that hadn’t been cleared for farmland. As he tied
his horse to an oak tree, Hywel could hear a brook gurgling to the
north of their position. And then he heard the unmistakable
clip-clop of horses along the road they’d just come down.

All the men froze, with their hands over
their horses’ noses to silence them. From the calls and shouts
coming from the road, the riders were making no attempt to keep
quiet.

Rhun stepped close to Hywel and said, “I
count a dozen at least.”

“Cadwaladr’s men. That’s the approximate
number he brought to the castle tonight.” Hywel pointed with his
chin to Evan. “How close are we?”

“It’s a short walk to the camp,” Evan said,
“a quarter of a mile, no more.”

“We should hurry.” Hywel gestured to the
road along which the riders had now passed. “They’re making so much
noise, we could walk openly and they’d never notice, but I want to
be in position before Cadwaladr gets there.”

Rhun looked at Evan. “I assume they’ve
posted sentries.”

“Not deep into the woods when I was here the
first time,” Evan said, “just around the camp’s perimeter.”

“Cadwaladr doesn’t fear attack,” Hywel
said.

“He has no reason to,” Rhun said.

They started forward, Evan in the lead.

“What’s he thinking, bringing so many men to
Ceredigion?” Rhun said, articulating what was going on in Hywel’s
own head. “How could he imagine you wouldn’t notice fifty men?”

“Perhaps he doesn’t care, or he actually
wants me to know,” Hywel said.

“Why?” Rhun said.

“Because he is looking to get the better of
me, to make me squirm,” Hywel said. “He believes I would never
challenge him while he is my guest. You know how his mind works.
Cadwaladr sees what is right in front of him, and if he thinks it’s
good for him, he never thinks of the consequences.”

“Such has been his downfall up until now,”
Rhun said.

“Do we have any reason to believe he has
changed?” Hywel said.

“I fear the day that we don’t discover what
he is up to until it is too late,” Rhun said.

“I don’t. I look forward to it.” Hywel
pushed aside a tree branch and held it for Rhun. This time of year,
the branches were fully leafed, green and glossy, though he
couldn’t see their color in the darkness. “For then Father will be
forced to banish him from Gwynedd forever.”

Rhun stopped beside Hywel. “You don’t want
that, brother. You think you do now, but you don’t. Cadwaladr has
the power to wreak a kind of havoc on us that even he doesn’t
appreciate. Right now, he is containable. But the moment he commits
himself to betraying Father completely, or you, there’s no telling
what he might do.”

Hywel didn’t answer. It wasn’t that he
didn’t believe what Rhun was saying, but when it came to Cadwaladr,
Hywel was incapable of reasoned thought. He couldn’t see how
Cadwaladr banished from Wales forever could be worse than Cadwaladr
sitting beside his father’s chair in Aber.

Rhun put his hand on Hywel’s elbow to
emphasize his point. “Have you truly encompassed the worst of what
Cadwaladr could do? What if his plan is to attack the festival in
conjunction with Cadell?”

“Cadell doesn’t want to openly attack me,”
Hywel said, “not with Father arriving at any moment and war on his
southern flank.”

“What if his plan is to murder Father?”

Hywel stared at his brother, whose face was
just visible in the bit of moonlight that filtered through the tree
branches.

“What if he were to succeed?” Rhun urged.
“We would retaliate, chase him from Wales, and kill him if we
could, but would Father’s death be worth that bit of revenge?”

“Of course not,” Hywel said.

“Then be careful what you wish for.” Rhun
dropped Hywel’s elbow and continued walking.

“I’m sorry, Rhun.” Hywel hustled after him.
“I didn’t think of that.”

“I know. And that’s the danger we all face.
We have grown so used to hating Cadwaladr that we cannot see him
clearly. Even Father has allowed the sickness to infect him. Hate
blinds you to what is before you in favor of what you want to
see—or hope to see—or perhaps even need to see.”

Hywel studied Rhun’s back as they strode
onward. This summer had changed his brother, or perhaps Hywel was
just noticing the change that had been taking place gradually over
the last few years. When he was younger, he’d dismissed Rhun’s open
demeanor as innocence. He’d looked down on him for it—Hywel could
admit that now—and he could also admit that he’d been wrong to do
so.

“You are right, of course,” Hywel said.

“We need to discover what he’s up to and
stop him before he starts.” Rhun’s long legs caught up to Evan,
whom they’d allowed to get ahead of them, though the rest of their
men had stopped when they had, protecting their rear.

Hywel was glad that Cristina, his father’s
wife, was not accompanying King Owain to Ceredigion. She whispered
into the king’s ear and often told him things that weren’t true.
Cristina was already campaigning for Owain to favor her sons over
any of his other sons. That couldn’t be allowed to happen, not just
for Hywel’s own sake, but for Rhun’s.

Among the Welsh, illegitimate and legitimate
sons inherited equally. Dafydd and Rhodri, Cristina’s two boys,
were far down the hierarchy of Owain’s sons. First, of course,
were, Rhun and Hywel. They were the children of King Owain’s first
love whom he never married. Then came Cynan, Cadell, and Madoc,
ranging in age from twenty-three to eighteen. Only after various of
his women had given birth to these five had Owain fathered
legitimate sons by Gwladys, his first wife: Iorwerth, just of age
now at fourteen, and Maelgwn, his younger brother.

It occurred to Hywel only now that all the
while he’d been playing his games—with his women, spies, and
intrigue—Rhun had been keeping the kingdom together for their
father in ways Hywel hadn’t appreciated except in that he hadn’t
had to do it himself.

Rhun had been learning about people, about
the way they thought and acted, and noting the difference between
what they said and what they did. Hywel had said for years how glad
he was to be the second son, that it was going to be Rhun rather
than he who would some day become King of Gwynedd. He’d always
meant it. But this was the first time he’d admitted to himself that
Rhun really might make a
better
one.

“Well, well. What have we here?” Hywel
crouched beside his brother behind a holly bush.

Evan stood against a pine tree, blending in
against the dark bark in his brown cloak and plain tunic. He didn’t
need to say anything because they all could see what Cadwaladr had
brought: a small army. Men talked around three fires. One tent only
had been put up towards the north end of the camp. The weather was
clear and warm, and whatever warmth or protection from the elements
anyone needed could be provided by the fire and the surrounding
trees.

“He isn’t trying to hide that they’re here,”
Rhun said.

Hywel shook his head. He couldn’t make sense
of what he was seeing. “If Cadwaladr means to bring this force to
bear on Aberystwyth, he would hardly have left it in plain sight.
But he didn’t bring these men into the village for the festival,
nor inform me of their existence, as simple courtesy demands.”