The Unlikely Spy (28 page)

“Maybe everything,” Gareth said, and gave a
summary of his conversation with Carys and Alun. Rhun had already
heard from Gwen about Madlen’s lies. Strange as they had been, he
could almost understand them. As to the rest of the lies they’d
been told, he feared he would never make a good king because the
common mind eluded him.

“You need to find your bed,” Rhun said.

Gareth opened his mouth to protest, but Rhun
looked darkly at him, and Gareth snapped his lips together. When he
opened his mouth again, he said, “I bow to your command, my lord. I
will escort Gwen and the babies home—Mari too if she will consent
to come. I’m asleep on my feet.” Gareth pointed with his chin to
Prince Hywel. “See if you can get your brother to return to the
monastery once he comes down from his mountain top.”

Rhun smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

Gwen shifted Tangwen to her shoulder and
rose to her feet. “Your father seems happy, my lord.”

“My father had the foresight to put Hywel
under Meilyr’s tutelage.” Rhun directed a quick nod in Gwen’s
direction. “So much joy has come from that simple act.”

“It changed my life,” Gwen said. “You could
even say that it set the course of my life.”

“And mine,” Gareth said.

Rhun nodded. “I will say your goodbyes to my
brother. You’ll be of no use to him if you can’t think straight,
either of you.”

As Rhun looked back to Hywel, thinking to
detach Mari from him, he felt a tug on his elbow. Turning, he saw
that Angharad’s maid had darted towards him from out of the
darkness beyond the pavilion, and was already halfway back to it.
Frowning, he followed her past the last tent pole and tether
line.

“My lord.” The woman’s forehead was
practically on the ground in her obeisance.

Rhun raised her up. “What is it?”

“My lady Angharad asks to speak with
you.”

Rhun looked at her cautiously. “Why doesn’t
she return to the pavilion?”

“She fears her uncle’s wrath,” the woman
said.

Rhun growled in dismay. “Lead on.”

He followed the maid towards Cadell’s
encampment. He’d collected Angharad from her tent here earlier that
day, but it seemed as if their stroll among the stalls had taken
place weeks ago instead of merely hours. As they closed in on the
entrance, the woman darted off, this time towards the trees that
lined the river. She stopped in the darkness fifty feet from the
nearest tent.

Rhun hurried to catch up with her, and when
he did, Angharad detached herself from the trunk of an oak tree.
She was wrapped in a dark cloak that hid all but her pale face. “My
dear.” Rhun took the hand she offered him. “What are you doing
here?”

“I need you to take me away.”

Rhun swallowed and moved closer, lowering
his voice. “Why? Are you in danger?”

“My uncle knows I’ve been speaking to
you.”

“I know he does. He gave me permission to
court you,” Rhun said.

“That’s not it.” Angharad looked at the
ground. “He’s been asking questions about you. I fear he is using
me to spy on you.”

Rhun suppressed a smile at her earnestness.
“It’s all right, Angharad. It is no less than I expected.”

“When he questioned me this evening, I
became flustered. He knows I’m lying to him.”

“What could you possibly lie to him about?”
Rhun said.

“I denied that I told you about his men
hidden to the south of Aberystwyth,” Angharad said.

Rhun made a disgusted sound at the back of
his throat. “Angharad, he expected you to tell me. He wanted Prince
Hywel to know.”

“What?” she said. “Why would he want
that?”

“
Cariad,
this is a game we are
playing. I know it doesn’t feel like it, and perhaps that isn’t the
right word for what’s going on, but this is a contest. Your uncle
wants Ceredigion back. My father took it from his older brother,
Anarawd, as spoils of war, and as payment for his troubles after
the 1136 war. The fifty men he brought were not meant to violate
the peace but to show his defiance and strength. We were meant to
learn of them. He may even have used you as a way to let us know
about them without having to be more obvious.”

Angharad looked aghast. “He used me?” Then
her expression hardened. “Here I was concerned about your safety
and mine, and my uncle is probably laughing at me right now.”

“I don’t think he’s laughing,” Rhun said,
“especially not at the sight of my uncle Cadwaladr, who also
brought a small army with him.”

As soon as he said this, Rhun wished he
could take the words back. He didn’t want to use Angharad as her
uncle had, as a conduit between the two of them. He ought to be
grateful that he’d impressed Angharad enough with his noble
character that she would come to him. He brought both her hands up
to his chest and looked down into her upturned face. “I would take
you away from here, but I can’t defy my father, and I have not
asked him for his permission to marry you yet. But with your
permission, I will.”

Angharad’s eyes shone. “Yes! Yes! Oh my
lord, yes!”

Tentatively, Rhun bent forward and kissed
Angharad gently on the lips. Her eyes widened at first, but then
she closed them as he continued to kiss her. After a moment, he
took a step back. “I will watch until you are safely back in your
tent.”

But Angharad wasn’t having that. She
launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. Her joy
was infectious, and he caught her up and spun her around. He wasn’t
sure how this had happened so fast, but he wasn’t sorry either. His
stepmother, Cristina, was going to be very disappointed.

Rhun set Angharad down, and she eased back
from him a little, just a step, but it was enough to cause him some
disappointment of his own. Still, they couldn’t remain much longer
together here under the trees. They weren’t officially betrothed,
and until they were, he had to be careful with her.

“Oh, I just remembered,” Angharad said.
“There was something else I thought you should know: my uncle has
placed a spy among you.”

Rhun raised his eyebrows. “I would be
surprised if he hadn’t.”

“No, no. He’s not an ordinary person,” she
said. “He travels far and wide for Cadell, and I know for a fact
that he has met in secret with one of Prince Cadwaladr’s men, if
not Cadwaladr himself, as a way to pass messages between my uncle
and yours without anyone knowing.”

“Cadell and Cadwaladr are working together?”
Rhun said.

Angharad looked nonplussed. “You must have
suspected they’d been involved in the past.”

“Cadwaladr had Cadell’s brother killed,”
Rhun said.

“And who do you think orchestrated that?”
Angharad said. “My uncle, of course. He hated his brother.”

“You know this for certain?”

“As certain as I can be. At the very least,
they are working together now, despite the faces they show in the
pavilion. Cadwaladr’s man in Ceredigion is a half-Dane named Erik.
He has been passing messages to Cadell through my uncle’s man. Much
of the purpose of their arrival here in Ceredigion was to finally
meet.”

Rhun felt an understanding growing within
him. “So the two armies aren’t for the purpose of attacking Hywel
and Aberystwyth, but as a show of force and commitment to one
another?”

“Unless they intend to join forces here in
Ceredigion, but with King Owain’s arrival, that seems unlikely,
don’t you think?” Angharad said. “I confess to several sleepless
nights worrying about it.”

Rhun rubbed his forehead. “Does Cadell have
a target other than Ceredigion?”

“Yes, of course,” Angharad said. “He hates
the Normans to the south even more than your father. I think, too,
that he believes Ceredigion will always be there for him, easily
conquerable. For now, he appreciates his alliance with King Owain
because it protects his northern border, and he is loath to open a
war on two fronts at the same time.”

“What could be Cadwaladr’s purpose in all
this?” Rhun said. “If Cadell gets Ceredigion, what benefit is it to
him?”

“That I do not know,” Angharad said.
“Perhaps he plans to betray my uncle later.”

“That I can believe,” Rhun said. “Do you
know the name of this man who spies for Cadell and meets in secret
with Erik?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,”
Angharad said. “It’s the dead man’s master, Iolo, the cloth
merchant from the fair.”

“I am troubled, Gruffydd,” Rhun said to his
captain a short while later.

Gruffydd had tailed Rhun to Cadell’s
encampment, waited through Rhun’s conversation with Angharad, and
fell into step beside him once he headed back towards the
lights.

By the time Rhun had seen Angharad safely
back to her tent and returned to the pavilion, however, all that
remained were servants and men too drunk to find their proper beds.
Given the warm weather, it was a simple matter to pillow one’s head
on one’s cloak and go to sleep. A few inquiries revealed that Hywel
had escorted Mari back to the monastery, King Owain had also
retired for the night to his tent in the adjacent field, and
Gareth, of course, had been sent away by Rhun himself.

“Murder should always be troubling, my
lord,” Gruffydd said.

Rhun shook his head. “I can’t say that what
I just learned has anything to do with the murder, but it is a
cause for concern.” Rhun briefly relayed to his captain what
Angharad had told him. He didn’t hesitate to do so: if Gruffydd was
going to betray him, then Rhun had no business as a ruler of men
and would never trust anyone again.

“If Iolo spies for Cadell, it is hardly a
hanging matter, in truth,” Gruffydd said. “Your brother and father
have many spies, the Lady Gwen among them.”

“While what you say is true,” Rhun said, “I
do wonder what else Iolo has lied to us about. In the morning,
Gareth intends to send riders to Borth to collect Madlen. What if
he sent her away so she wouldn’t waver under our questions? What if
she aids in her uncle’s work too.”

“In which case we have even less reason to
believe anything he has so far told us,” Gruffydd said. “May I make
a suggestion, my lord?”

“Please,” Rhun said.

“Sleep feels elusive to me, but perhaps less
so to others. Would this be an opportune moment to search Iolo’s
cart for evidence against him?”

“Evidence that he spies for Cadell?”

“That would be a start,” Gruffydd said. “Up
until tonight, we had no motive for murder for him, but now …”

“Gryff came searching for my brother on the
afternoon he died.” A chill ran down Rhun’s spine that had nothing
to do with the cool breeze that swept through the field, rustling
the flags and tents all around them. “He could have discovered
something about Iolo’s activities that got him killed.”

“A motive, as you say, my lord,” Gruffydd
said.

Having proposed marriage to Angharad and
been accepted, Rhun had been unlikely to sleep either, but with
something solid to do, he picked up the pace, heading towards the
market fair. When they reached the place where the merchants’ carts
were parked, he found guards on duty, Goch still among them.
Watches in the middle of the night were usually dull, but Goch
seemed alert enough. He stood with his hip propped against the side
of the last cart on the end. At Rhun’s approach, he straightened.
“My prince.”

“Which cart is Iolo’s?” Rhun said by way of
a greeting.

“Third one from the end,” Goch said. “Some
of the merchants have moved theirs around tonight, looking to bring
them closer to their stalls to restock, but they’ve put them
back.”

“Iolo has not come himself?” Rhun said.

“Not since Gareth let him go. He went
straight to his stall and has not left it,” Goch said. “I have two
men watching, and more are posted at both entrances to the market
grounds. Sir Gareth was very specific in his orders. Iolo went in
and has not come out.”

“Good,” Rhun said. “Let’s have a look at his
cart.”

Goch raised his eyebrows, but then quickly
rearranged his expression. Rhun thought he knew what that was
about, and said, “I may not have the experience of some, but I am
loath to wake my brother or Gareth, and this needs doing.”

“Yes, my lord,” Goch said with somewhat more
enthusiasm.

Rhun didn’t often feel he had to justify his
actions to his men. His authority in battle had been hard won (and
was deserved, though he would never say it), but he had never been
so actively involved in a murder investigation before. He could
appreciate Goch’s skepticism, even as it annoyed him.

The cart had been built up on both sides in
wood, almost like a little house. It had openings in the sides like
a peddler’s wagon, for easier access to the wares, and an actual
door at the back with hinges and a pin lock. Such locks were
designed to stop sneak thieves, however, not determined princes,
and Rhun broke the lock off with his belt knife, sparing Goch the
duty. If this was a mistake, it was going to be Rhun’s mistake.

The door swung open, and the three men
peered inside. Rhun could see almost nothing and snapped his finger
for a torch. He wouldn’t take it inside the cart, but it could shed
light on the interior if held at the door. When Goch returned with
it, Rhun put a hand on Gruffydd’s shoulder to boost himself inside,
hunching in the narrow space between the two heavily laden sets of
shelves on either side. It was like being in a pantry, except it
was in a cart.

Although most of the stacks were neatly
ordered, reflecting what Rhun perceived to be Iolo’s character,
some of the stacks of cloth had fallen off the shelves or had been
tossed haphazardly on the floor, as if Iolo had left in haste.
Gareth had implied as much earlier, since they’d caught Iolo trying
to empty his stall so as to leave Aberystwyth.

Rhun pawed through the various woolens and
bolts of brightly colored woven goods, finding nothing that struck
him as out of the ordinary. He moved to the front of the cart,
finding an open trunk in which was stacked more cloth. After a
moment, Rhun realized that he was looking at actual clothing, which
belonged to Iolo and Madlen personally. Feeling slightly sick at
his intrusion, he searched through their belongings as quickly as
he could. Other than an ornate looking glass, Rhun found nothing of
particular value or which would implicate Iolo in spying.