The Unlikely Spy (21 page)

“Would you be willing to tell me what you
and Gryff discussed when you saw him the day before he died?” Gwen
said.

Alun gestured impatiently with one hand. “I
already told your husband. We talked of nothing of importance. He
was planning to visit Carys on Sunday. I offered to fetch him, but
he said he would start early and was happy to walk. That is
all.”

“He didn’t say anything else? The next day
he came looking for Prince Hywel, very upset. He didn’t mention any
concerns to you?”

“No,” Alun said.

“Is there anything at all that was unusual
about that conversation? Did he perhaps give you something?” Gwen
knew she was grasping at straws, but the investigation would stall
out without new information.

“No,” Carys said.

“Yes, he did.” Alun uncrossed his arms, and
for the first time, his expression was clear of tension. “He gave
the cross to me to give to you, Carys.”

“A cross?” Gwen said.

With obvious reluctance, Carys pulled out a
small gold cross that had lain hidden underneath the bodice of her
dress. It looked very much like the one Gwen herself wore that
Gareth had given to her.

Gwen leaned closer to examine it. The cross
was finely worked, with the letters C and G interwoven together.
“C.G.,” Gwen said. “What does that stand for?”

“C is for Carys,” Carys said, “and G is for
Gryff, of course.”

Gwen looked back to Alun. “What did Gryff
say when he gave it to you?”

Alun shrugged. “Not much, which is why I
forgot about it until you asked. He wanted me to give it to
her.”

Alun seemed to forget events easily. Gwen
turned back to Carys. “Did he say where he got it? Did he have it
made especially for you?”

Again Carys looked to Alun. “He didn’t
say.”

Gwen thought it was a spectacular gift to
say so little about. “Weren’t you curious?”

Alun snorted his disgust and uncrossed his
arms. “I thought it was a waste of money. You can’t eat a cross.”
He gestured towards Carys. “Though you can’t tell a woman
that.”

“Carys, why do you think he didn’t wait to
give it to you himself?” Gwen said. “It’s beautiful.”

“I don’t know, but I am so glad he sent it
when he did.” Carys clutched the cross, and now the tears spilled
down her cheeks again. “It’s something of him.” Then her look
turned fierce. “If he hadn’t given it to Alun, I would never have
known about it. That whore would have kept it for herself.”

“Carys!” Alun spoke sharply to his
sister.

“She has no right! No right to his things or
anything about him.” And with that, Carys leapt to her feet and ran
off down the path, heading away from the monastery.

Alun and Gwen looked after her, and then
they looked at each other. “It’s a hard thing.” Alun shook his
head. “I never understood why Carys loved Gryff so much, but she
did.”

Gareth

B
efore the funeral,
after Gareth sent Gwen to speak to Iolo and Madlen, Hywel pulled
him aside and laid out what he’d learned of Cadwaladr’s and
Cadell’s doings the previous evening while Gareth had been tracking
down Carys. Hywel also told him of the personal animosity Cadwaladr
still seemed to hold towards Gareth himself and the threat against
him.

“We already knew he hated me,” Gareth
said.

But Hywel shook his head. “This seems to be
more intense than before—and even less rational than usual. You
need to watch your back. In fact, I’m going to detail men to watch
it for you.”

Gareth gave a tsk of disgust. “Having guards
around me all the time will limit my activities.”

Hywel’s eyes lit at that. “Such do I live
all the time.”

“You’re Lord of Ceredig—”

Hywel openly laughed.

“What?”

“Who would have thought eight years ago when
Cadwaladr sent you away in disgrace from this very spot that it
would be his disgrace which would become paramount, while you are a
trusted companion of the Lord of Ceredigion and the King of
Gwynedd?”

Gareth looked down at his feet and shook his
head. The odd thing was that while his circumstances had
changed—and without a doubt his life was better for it, from his
service to Hywel to his marriage to Gwen—he was the same man he’d
been then. In fact, it was that decision that had made him the man
he was today.

When Gareth had disobeyed Cadwaladr, he’d
done so because he could no longer stomach his orders. For months
he’d been wavering on the edge of a cliff. A little push and he
could have fallen into dishonor. He could have obeyed Cadwaladr and
remained in Ceredigion. Even in his defiance, he hadn’t consciously
valued that sense of honor as he did now, but he thanked God that
he’d had enough of it to do what he’d done. That decision had been
the turning point in his life.

Hywel stepped closer, his voice low and
urgent. “I don’t need to tell you that it is because you have the
strength to choose what is right over what is easy that you hold
the position you do. I would be most concerned if you became
someone different just because you had more power or
influence.”

Gareth’s head came up at that. “I would
never—”

“I know. I’m merely commenting on the fact
that Cadwaladr has acknowledged the inequality between the two of
you and doesn’t understand it,” Hywel said. “It is beyond his
comprehension that a man could go from poverty to wealth, from
abasement to an exalted station, and remain the same man. That he
would not become corrupted or altered. Cadwaladr fears and
distrusts—and disparages—what he does not understand.”

“I will be careful.”

The truth was that Gareth worked very hard
never to think about Cadwaladr if he could help it. His dismissal
from Cadwaladr’s service had been one of the darkest times of his
life. His faith in himself had been shaken. Even with the loss of
his parents and the later death of his uncle, he’d always landed on
his feet. Somehow, until that day, he’d still been one of those
people who believed that if he did the right thing everything would
turn out all right in the end.

That day, his faith had failed him, but he’d
disobeyed Cadwaladr anyway. Sometimes Gareth thought he’d seen too
much despair since then, and too many bad things had
happened—irretrievable things—for him to have regained that
underlying sense of hope. Still, he lived as if he believed it
because to do otherwise would betray the very essence of who he
was, and what Hywel—and Gwen—and Gareth himself—valued. And as
Hywel had pointed out, it had turned out well for Gareth in the
end. It had just taken a few years to get there.

With a nod, Hywel went on his way,
surrounded by a guard of ten who would protect him with their
lives. He left Evan and Rhodri with Gareth. At the sight of their
taut shoulders and grave expressions, Gareth made a rueful face. “I
see you’re taking your duties seriously.”

“All our lives may depend upon it,” Evan
said.

During Gryff’s burial, the pair occupied
themselves by scouting the periphery of the monastery grounds, and
when Gareth left Gwen to begin his duties anew, they fell in beside
him.

“What’s next?” Evan said.

“With Gryff’s body in the ground, the
physical evidence of the crime is now out of reach,” Gareth said,
“but other than the wound that killed him, the prince and I didn’t
find anything helpful on the body anyway.”

“We know how Gryff died,” Evan said. “We
know where he died. We know roughly when. We just don’t have any
good idea as to who killed him.”

“Nobody seems very worried about us finding
out either,” Rhodri said. “I watched Iolo and Madlen all day
yesterday, and they don’t behave like guilty people.”

“Nobody looks afraid,” Evan agreed.

“Prince Hywel has wrought many changes in
Ceredigion over the last three years,” Rhodri said. “It looks to me
like that’s one of them: the people involved—from the monks who
found him, to Madlen and Carys, to Iolo and Alun—aren’t afraid of
his wrath. Another lord—Cadwaladr for one—might have condemned an
innocent man simply to close the investigation.”

“If he’d investigated the death at all, that
is,” Evan said.

Gareth was grateful for their staunch
support, but their words also made him wary. “In order to lull the
murderer into a false sense of security, we’ve kept to ourselves
the knowledge that Gryff was murdered. Perhaps we’ve done our job
too well.”

“Our killer threw Gryff into the millpond
thinking that Prince Hywel would treat the death like Cadwaladr
might have—as that of a common man of no consequence,” Evan said.
“Unless a lord has someone like you to delve into unexplained
deaths, deaths like Gryff’s are dismissed as an accident and
forgotten.”

“So maybe the killer isn’t from Aberystwyth
after all,” Gareth said. “Maybe he doesn’t know Prince Hywel or his
reputation enough to fear him.”

“I don’t know how that helps us,” Evan said
sourly. “Everyone on our list of suspects lives far afield.”

“But it might be useful to examine
everything we know from that perspective,” Gareth said. “If the
murderer doesn’t live here, he doesn’t know how the miller or his
pond works, or the daily routine of life in Aberystwyth. He threw
Gryff into the pond not knowing that he would be found.”

“Which leaves us hundreds of festival-goers
to interview,” Rhodri said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Gareth said. “There are
hundreds now, but there weren’t nearly that many two days ago when
Gryff died. That is what we’re going to do now.”

With renewed enthusiasm for the task,
Gareth, Rhodri, and Evan returned to the festival grounds and
rounded up twenty more of Hywel’s men. Gareth sketched an
additional dozen pictures of Gryff and handed them around. “Ask
everyone you see if they were here two days ago. We need to
question everyone in the festival area, Llanbadarn Fawr, on the
road, and around the monastery to find anyone who saw Gryff the day
he died. Better yet, we need to find someone besides Iolo and
Madlen who saw him that evening.”

Gareth then spent a frustrating hour
speaking to the vendors around Iolo’s booth. Each time he passed
it, both Iolo and Madlen were busy with customers. As they already
had determined, most of the fair-goers weren’t native to
Aberystwyth. Most didn’t even know where the millpond was unless
they’d passed it on the road to the festival grounds. Gareth
returned to the monastery for an early afternoon meal, and then
spent another three hours interviewing the monks and workers. His
only consolation for the complete waste of the day was his
proximity to Gwen, who took a moment to relate her conversation
with Carys and Alun about the gold cross.

Gareth was pleased to learn she’d discovered
something new, but disgruntled that they had yet another mystery to
resolve rather than a true piece of the puzzle. This seemed to be
one of those investigations that didn’t build stone by stone, but
in which they discovered dozens of unrelated snippets of
information that somehow they had to assemble into a complete
story.

Finally, Gareth rode the mile back to the
festival and called in his men, who, as it turned out, hadn’t had
any more luck than he’d had. Several merchants had seen Gryff
around, but none had noticed him after sunset. Gareth released the
men to other duties, leaving him alone with Evan and Rhodri, who’d
hung on to him like leeches throughout the day.

“Nobody will admit to anything,” Gareth
said.

“Could be they have nothing to admit to,”
Evan said.

Gareth clapped each man on the shoulder. “We
have one last destination before I admit defeat to Prince
Hywel.”

Rhodri visibly straightened. Gareth had
learned to appreciate Rhodri’s steadiness and occasional insights,
and Evan had proved a trusty companion long since. While Gwen
wouldn’t have enjoyed the last few hours, Gareth missed her
companionship. At Aber, she could have been as nosy as he, but she
couldn’t wander the festival the way he could, and she refused to
leave Tangwen for long. It was an attentiveness he didn’t
understand but had learned to appreciate. Tangwen was happy,
healthy, and as bright as Gwen. Gareth wasn’t going to do or say
anything to interfere with Gwen’s mothering.

This was also the first investigation in a
long while that Hywel had been too distracted to participate in.
Hywel’s current need for Gareth to work independently was
reminiscent of Hywel’s own relationship with his father. In the
past, when trouble had come to Gwynedd, King Owain had turned to
Hywel, who had turned to Gareth. Now Gareth was playing the same
role for Hywel in Ceredigion, doing his job and reporting back,
while Hywel attended to more important things.

Hywel had been in near constant motion the
last few days, and this hour was no exception. Tossing a coin to a
vendor, Gareth snagged a skewer of roasted mutton from a stall and
carried it from the festival grounds to the giant pavilion that
Hywel had established in an adjacent field. For a crowd this size,
it would have been impossible and uncomfortable to hold the musical
performances in the castle’s hall, and with the sides of the tent
rolled up, the onlookers could expand to fill the available space
outside the tent’s canopy.

Upon reaching Hywel, who was standing by the
center pole with his hands on his hips, surveying the grounds,
Gareth bowed and presented the skewer. “My lord. It is my guess
that you have not eaten recently.”

Hywel grunted his thanks, took the skewer,
and bit absently into a piece of mutton. He chewed, swallowed, and
then wiped his lips on his fist. “What would I do without you?”

Before Gareth could decide what to
say—whether to make a jest or to take Hywel seriously—Rhun passed
through the tent. He’d been heading in the other direction, towards
King Cadell’s encampment, but he changed course and came over to
them. “Have you news?”