The Unlikely Spy (27 page)

Gareth was sorry to be missing the music
too, but this murder was dogging him—less with the emotion of some
of their previous investigations, but with its mundaneness. He
couldn’t honestly say that he cared all that much about Gryff’s
death. Gryff was one more dead man Gareth hadn’t known. His
obligation was to Prince Hywel, who expected Gareth’s best no
matter the investigation, and to himself. The circumstances around
Gryff’s death nagged him. There was something more here—not only
about Gryff the man but the reason for his murder—than met the eye,
and Gareth needed to know what that was.

And while in the past he’d sometimes had too
many suspects, today he didn’t have enough. Surely Iolo topped that
list, but they still didn’t have a good motive for why he might
kill his apprentice. Alun had been locked in his cell more to teach
him a lesson than because Rhun—or anyone else—believed he’d
murdered his brother-in-law. Gareth believed Alun could have. He
had the strength for the deed. But especially now that it was clear
Gryff hadn’t married Madlen, Alun didn’t have a motive that Gareth
could discern. And more than anything else, that was what was
troubling Gareth about the circumstances surrounding this
death.

Still, at the very least, Gareth would be
pleased to be able to tell Carys that her husband hadn’t betrayed
her with another woman. Or, Gareth amended to himself, if he did,
it wasn’t with Madlen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Evan
planted himself in front of Gareth.

“Did you think you could give us the slip?”
Rhodri braced Gareth’s back as if Gareth were a criminal aiming to
flee.

Gareth laughed and shook his head. “I assure
you, that wasn’t my intent.”

“You questioned Iolo without us, with only
Gwen for backup!” Evan said. “What were you thinking?”

Gareth held up both hands. “I apologize. I’m
not used to needing a guard. I forgot.”

Rhodri tipped his chin to Evan. “He
forgot.”

“A likely story.” Evan fell in beside Gareth
as they began walking up the road to the castle.

“I hear Iolo ran,” Rhodri said, settling
into an easy stride on Gareth’s other side.

“Goch talks too much,” Gareth said.

“Just don’t do it again.” Rhodri had turned
serious. “Prince Hywel would have our heads if something happened
to you on our watch.”

“I apologize,” Gareth said. “I honestly
didn’t sneak away on purpose. I just didn’t think about it.”

“Well, think next time.” Evan remained
uncompromising.

The castle, when they reached it, was nearly
deserted except for a small contingent of guards necessary to
maintain a minimum of defenses. “My lord.” The guard at the gate
saluted Gareth as he passed through it.

Rhodri stopped to speak to him while Evan
and Gareth continued towards one of the far towers opposite the
gatehouse. Both Cadwaladr and Cadell had brought more soldiers with
them than the occasion warranted, but they weren’t enough to take
Hywel’s castle if the gates were closed. For that they needed siege
weapons or archers, such as Hywel had used to take it from
Cadwaladr in the first place.

Like Hywel, Gareth both dreaded the day that
Cadwaladr broke the final bonds that bound him to King Owain and
hoped for it. Gareth was a soldier, and his gut told him that
action was almost always better than inaction. Fortunately for
Gwynedd, King Owain, for all his temper, had more patience than
either Gareth or Hywel.

The fortress was built in wood with a stone
foundation. Hywel had plans to build the whole of it in stone, as
his father was doing at Aber, but he didn’t yet have the resources
to do it. Alun’s prison consisted of a single cell at the base of
the west tower, accessed by a door with iron bars at the bottom of
a shallow set of stairs. It wasn’t a true basement, more like half
of one, such that if the prisoner stood at the bars, he could be
easily seen from almost anywhere in the courtyard. Another guard
sat on a stool in the dirt outside the door, chewing on a piece of
bread.

“All is well?” Gareth said.

“Yes, my lord.” The guard was one of Rhun’s,
and Gareth didn’t know him well. Hywel’s men and Rhun’s men had
spent most of the summer mixed among one another. Many of the older
men had served King Owain before they served Hywel or Rhun, and
those Gareth knew better. With the murder, on top of the additional
duties required by the festival, everybody was being put to use
this week.

Gareth motioned with his head towards the
keep. “Take a walk, if you would. I’d like to speak to the
prisoner.”

The guard got to his feet. “Thank you, my
lord.”

Before he could leave, however, Gareth put
out a hand. “Do you know where Alun’s sister, Carys, is?”

“I saw her in the hall before my duty
started.” The guard rolled his shoulders and stretched after
sitting for too long.

“If you see her again, send her to me.”

“Yes, my lord.” The guard bowed and
departed.

Leaving Evan to watch his back, though that
anyone would threaten him while inside Hywel’s own castle was
unlikely, Gareth walked down the steps.

“Come to gloat?” Alun stuck his face up to
the bars. The cell was cramped, with only six feet from floor to
ceiling, so Alun couldn’t straighten up all the way. Gareth had
seen cells only four feet in height, so in a way Hywel had been
generous in the construction of this one.

“Is that any way to speak to your captor?”
Gareth said. “If you give me the answers I seek, you may find
yourself released.”

“You want my confession? You won’t get it no
matter how long you leave me here. I had nothing to do with Gryff’s
death.”

“But your behavior has not been that of an
honest man,” Gareth said.

Alun sneered and turned his back on the
door. “I have done nothing wrong.”

Gareth rested his forearm above the door and
looked through the bars, hunching somewhat in order to do so,
since, like Alun, he was over six feet. For the first time ever,
Gareth was glad that the cell at Aber he’d once occupied had been
at the back of the stables. “You assaulted a Prince of
Gwynedd.”

“Ach.” Alun looked at Gareth over his
shoulder, a sheepish expression on his face. “I didn’t mean
anything by it. I was concerned for Carys.”

“Who herself assaulted Madlen,” Gareth
said.

“That woman is a witch!” Alun said. “Gryff
may have been many things that I didn’t respect, but unfaithful had
never been one of them until she came along!”

“And still wasn’t.”

Alun swung all the way around to face the
door. “What?”

“I appreciate your concern for your sister’s
wellbeing,” Gareth said, “so you’ll be glad to hear that Madlen
lied about her relationship with Gryff. They were never married,
and Gryff was never even interested in marrying her.”

Alun came forward to clutch the bars. “You
speak the truth?”

“I do,” Gareth said.

“Then why—why did she say what she did? Why
did she tell the abbot and Prince Hywel that she was Gryff’s
wife?”

“I will attempt to speak with her on the
matter in the morning,” Gareth said. “For now, Iolo claims that
Madlen loved Gryff and couldn’t bear to have that love unreturned.
She wanted the recognition that would have come with being his
wife—that Carys received, in fact, from the abbot once he learned
of her prior claim. With the need to bury Gryff quickly, Madlen
hoped that nobody would ever uncover her lie.”

Alun pulled a long face. “That’s mad.”

“I can’t say I disagree,” Gareth said, “but
a woman in love can do strange things.”

“That’s for true.” Alun absently scratched
his upper lip in thought and then pushed away from the door. In
backing up, however, he banged his head on the ceiling. Cursing, he
rubbed the top of his head.

“Sorry.” Gareth resisted the urge to rub the
top of his own head in sympathy.

“Surely you can’t think that Carys had
anything to do with Gryff’s death now that we know he was faithful.
He gave her that cross! What reason could she possibly have to kill
him?”

“She lied about being in Aberystwyth,”
Gareth said. “As did you.”

“She panicked at being questioned,” Alun
said.

“There’s a lot of that going around.” Gareth
snorted his disbelief. “If we’re going to learn anything about
Gryff’s death, I need you and Carys to tell me everything that
happened in the days before he died. You pretended you hadn’t seen
him, and I know now that Carys even went to his lodgings with him.
There’s more you haven’t said—”

“What are you doing? Get away from him!”
Carys dashed across the courtyard towards them from the keep.

Evan put out a hand to block her, and Gareth
took a few steps up the stairs. At the sight of them both, Carys
pulled up, her mouth forming an ‘ach’ of surprise. Her feet
faltered. “I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t see you there—”

“Who did you think you saw?” Gareth
said.

Carys swallowed hard.

Gareth signaled to Evan to let her pass.
“You thought I was Iolo. I can’t decide if I should be offended
that you think we look alike.”

“It was dark—” Carys reached the top
step.

Gareth stepped to one side so she could
descend to the door.

When she reached Alun, her brother said,
“Sir Gareth reports that Madlen never married Gryff, Carys. She may
have wanted to, but he didn’t have anything to do with her.”

Gareth would have qualified that sentence
with
that we know,
and he had wanted to be the one to tell
Carys the news, but now that it was done, he wasn’t sorry.

Carys stared at Alun, her face paling where
before it had been red with anger at seeing Gareth (or Iolo, as she
had thought) talking to Alun. “She what?”

“Madlen lied about their relationship,”
Gareth said. “We still aren’t sure why, though Iolo says that she
loved him and couldn’t resist telling us they were married for the
attention it brought her.”

“That attention was rightfully mine,” Carys
said.

“Nobody is arguing with that,” Gareth said,
“and you may have noted that once you arrived at the monastery, the
abbot treated you well.”

Carys bowed her head, somewhat chastened.
“What does Madlen herself say?”

“I haven’t spoken to her,” Gareth said.
“Apparently she was so distraught that Iolo sent her to a
relation’s house in a nearby village.”

“Not to Goginan?” Carys put a hand to her
heart.

“No.”

Then Carys’ expression turned fierce again,
not yet ready to let go of her anger and righteousness. “She had no
right to say those things. She had no right to break my heart.”

“I know, Carys,” Gareth said, “and I regret
the role I played in this. Still, you lied too.”

“Excuse me?” Carys froze in the act of
reaching for Alun’s hand. He had stuck it through the bar of his
cell so she could grasp it in solidarity.

“You were in Aberystwyth the day Gryff died.
Pawl, the inn keeper, spoke to you,” Gareth said. “He told us of
it, and your brother has all but admitted it.”

“Oh.” Carys looked down at her feet.

“Now is the time to speak the truth, Carys,”
Gareth said. “Gryff saw Alun the day before and gave the cross to
him to give to you. But then you came to Aberystwyth to see him
rather than waiting until Sunday as usual. Why?”

Carys bit her lip and still refused to look
at Gareth.

Alun signed. “Tell him, Carys. You can’t
hurt Gryff now, and it might help Sir Gareth get to the truth of
all of this.”

“I wanted Gryff to take the cross back to
whomever he’d bought it from and get his money back,” she said. “I
could do so much with it.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “He
refused?” Gareth said.

“He said that he didn’t buy it. He found it
and didn’t know whose it was,” Carys said.

“Did you believe him?” Gareth said.

Carys shook her head morosely. “I assumed he
stole it.”

The truth, finally. “What do you think now?”
Gareth said.

“I don’t know,” Carys said. “He’d never been
a thief. He never cared about money. I want to believe there was
something more to it, but he wouldn’t tell me what that was.”

“But you’re still wondering?” Gareth said.
“The C and G do represent your names.”

“Half of all babies born carry names that
begin with those letters,” Carys said.

She wasn’t far wrong. Alun knew it too. He
sighed and said, “Madlen said the cross had been hers. What if she
was telling the truth? What if he stole it from her?”

Carys frowned. “She said she gave it to
him.”

The truth appeared to be as elusive as ever.
Gareth motioned to the guard, who’d returned and was standing out
of earshot, to come closer, and then he held out his hand for the
key to Alun’s cell.

“What are you doing?” Alun said as Gareth
unlocked the door.

“Letting you go,” Gareth said.

“Why?” Alun said.

“You didn’t murder Gryff,” Gareth said.
“Tonight that’s all I care about.”

Rhun

A
s the music ended
and the evening approached midnight, the crowd began to break into
smaller groups. Gratifyingly, the majority of people weren’t ready
to return to their lodgings or tents. Several bards had broken out
their instruments to form an impromptu concert around Meilyr and
Gwalchmai.

For his part, Rhun kept a wary eye on his
brother, who circulated through the crowd, Mari on his arm,
accepting congratulations from all quarters. Rhun felt his own
blood pumping through him in a way that was typical of a successful
performance—usually in his case he felt this way when a fight had
gone well. For Hywel, it was when he’d held a crowd in the palm of
his hand, which meant that tonight he had to be on top of the
world.

Then Gareth appeared near the high table and
bent to whisper in Gwen’s ear. She held the sleeping Tangwen in her
lap, but she turned to look up in evident surprise at her husband’s
words. Rhun reached them in half a dozen long strides, which he
hoped weren’t too conspicuous. “What is it?”