Could this situation be worse? Gareth couldn’t imagine how. Facing Gwen over a handful of dead bodies was one thing—not pleasant, but something with which he could cope. It was something else entirely to face Gwen’s father after not seeing either of them since Meilyr had rejected Gareth’s offer for Gwen. Meilyr oozed resentment, as if a better life could have been had than singing for the lords and kings of Wales. At least Gwen’s presence indicated that he’d not restrained her more than needful, nor sold her to the highest bidder. That she stood in front of him as beautiful as ever, and as if the intervening years had never happened, took his breath away.
At the sight of her, he wanted to either punch the air in exaltation or pull her into his arms, but did neither. Instead, he said, “Are there more of you? Are you traveling with a company?”
“No.” Gwen looked up at him, tears in the corners of her eyes. “We’d hoped to ride alongside King Anarawd, but my father’s horse went lame and delayed us at Dolwyddelan. The King and his men left without us.”
“Praise God they did,” Meilyr said. “If we’d traveled with him, we’d be dead too.”
Leave it to him to think about his own skin first, though in this instance, Gareth couldn’t blame him. If he’d had Gwen and Gwalchmai to protect, he’d have felt the same way.
“Gwalchmai seems a sturdy lad,” Gareth said. “If I give him my horse, can he ride back to Dolwyddelan? We need carts to transport the dead. It’s only a few miles—”
“I know how far it is,” Meilyr said, reverting to his habitual scorn. “We’ve just come that distance.”
That told Gareth all he needed to know about the state of Meilyr’s nerves. It was bad enough for Meilyr to ride into Aber Castle after so many years away and ask King Owain Gwynedd for entrance, even if he’d been invited. It was quite another to do the same with the dead body of the bridegroom thrown over his horse.
“Do you have any idea who did this?” Gwen said.
“Not specifically.” Gareth forced his eyes away from her, willing to talk to Gwen but not wanting to relate what he knew in front of Gwalchmai and Meilyr.
“Did you see anyone on the road to the north?” Gwen stepped closer to him and his arm itched to go around her. He stayed his hand. They’d fallen in love shortly after Meilyr’s falling out with King Owain, but now hadn’t spoken for five years. Their last words, while not thrown at each other in anger, had been full of pain. Christ. I was more a child than she was, for all I’ve seven years on her.
“No. I would have expected more traffic, given the upcoming wedding.” Gareth glanced at Anarawd’s body and added “—which won’t be taking place now.”
“Why would anyone want to stop Anarawd from marrying Elen?” Gwalchmai asked this with all the innocence of a twelve-year old. “It’s a perfect match.”
“I don’t know about that,” Gareth said, “but it looks as if the men who ambushed Anarawd chose the perfect moment.”
“Perfect?” Meilyr’s voice was full of outrage.
“I apologize for the poor choice of words,” Gareth said, suppressing his irritation at how quickly Meilyr grew angry. “I only meant that they must have planned this very carefully, as well as had fortune on their side.”
Her hand to her throat, Gwen stared at the dead men. Their bodies lay as if a giant had tumbled them together. Gareth thought about taking her arm after all, fearing she’d retreated dangerously inside herself and might be going into shock.
But then she spoke. “No company of men could cause so much death and leave nothing of themselves behind. There must be something here we can link to their identity. A token, a fallen surcoat, something…”
“Don’t—” Gareth reached a hand to stop her from entering the battlefield but in one step she moved out of his range.
“Let her be,” Meilyr said, his voice back to a growl, but not as disapproving as Gareth might have expected, given that his daughter picked her way among the dead. “It’s not the first time she’s been a part of a scene like this.”
“What do you mean?” Gareth said.
“She spies for Owain’s son, Hywel.” Gwalchmai blurted out the words and then swallowed hard at Gareth’s incredulous look.
“You’re not serious.” Gareth glanced from Meilyr to Gwalchmai, who gave him a weak smile. “You are serious?”
“She didn’t ask my permission, if that’s what you mean,” Meilyr said. “Just told me one day that I might stop her from marrying the man she wanted—that would be you—but she was going to follow her own road in this and I didn’t have any say in the matter.” Meilyr dismounted, his legs jerking stiffly. “Not a thing I could do to stop her.”
Gareth barked a laugh. “If I remember anything about her, I remember that.” He turned to Gwalchmai and handed him his own horse’s reins. “Here, boy. Don’t stop for anything or anyone.”
“What about the men who did this?” Gwalchmai’s voice trembled as he asked this question but then he firmed his chin.
Gareth placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder to reassure him. “They’re surely gone by now. And they wouldn’t be on the road to Dolwyddelan, regardless.”
“You’ll be fine. Ride straight back the way we came,” Meilyr said.
“Yes, sir.” With a last look at his father and a nod to Gareth, Gwalchmai spurred away. Galloping hard, he disappeared around a bend in the road, the echo of the horse’s hooves fading into the distance.
Gareth canted his head at Meilyr. “I could have sent one of the men-at-arms, but thought it would be better if Gwalchmai had something to do besides look at dead men.”
“Thank you.”
Gareth restrained his disbelief that Meilyr would thank him for anything and just nodded, not knowing what else to say.
Gwen had come to rest beside the fallen Anarawd and looked up at Gareth as he approached. “I can’t believe I spoke to King Anarawd only this morning. I can’t decide which feels more like a dream, then or now.”
Gareth had no words to comfort her. “I wish we were dreaming.” He studied the body of the downed king. Anarawd sported a few gray hairs, but even at forty years old, had the physique of a much younger man, with shoulders used to wearing armor and no sign of a softened belly.
“Tell me what you wouldn’t speak about in front of the others,” Gwen said.
Trust her to read me that well, even after all these years apart. Gareth thought for a moment, reliving the scene, and then indicated the rise in the road a hundred yards north of their position. “I’d just crested the ridge there when the two sides met in force below me. I could do nothing to help Anarawd, being only one man, so I rode to find the scouting party from Caerhun, led by my friend Madog, whom I’d encountered by the river earlier.” Gareth shrugged. “The battle here was over by the time I returned with Madog and the other soldiers.”
They both glanced at the host of men he’d brought. All wore the red and yellow crest of Gwynedd on their surcoats, as did Gareth himself. They’d begun to shift the dead men, laying them out side by side on the road. Gareth knelt beside Gwen, drawing her attention back to him. “Tell me what you see.”
Before Gwen’s family had come upon him, Gareth had stripped the armor from Anarawd’s body and pulled open his shirt, exposing the fatal wound, a slender cut between two ribs where his attacker had thrust a blade into Anarawd’s heart.
“It looks…” Gwen hesitated, and then tried again. “The wound is different from all the others, isn’t it?” She traced the cut with one finger. “Narrower.”
“Yes,” Gareth said. “A sword couldn’t have caused it.”
“A knife, then?”
“One with a notch in the blade.”
Gwen looked more closely. “That’s why it didn’t cut cleanly?”
“Yes.”
“What do you suppose this means?”
Gareth tugged down Anarawd’s shirt to cover his ruined torso and straightened. The wind blew through the trees and he listened for unnatural sounds above or beneath it. Rain had fallen in the night and now that the sun had risen high in the sky, light filtered through the leafy trees and the damp earth gave off an oppressive heat. “I couldn’t say. Not yet anyway.” He studied the ground around Anarawd. “What I can tell you is that Anarawd didn’t die where he lies.”
Gwen got to her feet too, though her head was still bent and her eyes on Anarawd. “How do you know?”
“By the lack of blood underneath the body and by the dirt and scuff marks on his toes,” Gareth said. “Someone dragged Anarawd face down from the place where he was killed.”
“Why would he drag him face down?”
“So he didn’t have to look at Anarawd’s expression and dwell on what he’d done?” Gareth said.
Gwen thought about that. “It would have been easier to drag him by the feet, surely. Much less awkward.”
“But then the skin on Anarawd’s face or the back of his head, were he face up, would have become marred,” Gareth said. “Anyone who found him would have asked questions.”
“As it is, the killer didn’t reckon on you.”
Gareth glanced at her, his expression deliberately unreadable, but it didn’t matter since her face remained downturned. She’d complimented him. He tried not to wonder if he still meant something to her. Then he gestured towards Anarawd’s chest. “From the stains on his shirt, he was standing up when he was stabbed and didn’t bleed out lying on his back.”
“Can you find where he fell?” Gwen said.
“Perhaps.” Gareth traced the perimeter of the battle with his eyes. “Anarawd knew his killer. He must have, to have allowed him to get so close.”
“All of a sudden, the quiet feels menacing, doesn’t it?” Gwen said.
One of the other men approached Gareth. “The attackers might still be out there, my lord. They might even return.”
“I know that, Madog. But Anarawd wasn’t just ambushed. He was murdered. I’ll need to examine his body more closely once we reach Aber. Right now, however, I must survey the area and discover whatever I can before the men trample all the evidence.”
“I’ll come with you,” Gwen said.
Gareth met Madog’s gaze. His friend gave him a quick nod before moving away, out of earshot. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” Gareth’s words trailed off as Gwen moved closer to him.
“Hywel trusts me,” she said. “I can help you.”
Gareth glanced to where Gwen’s father stood, his hands on his hips and his mouth in a thin line, staring at them. Gareth saw disapproval in his face, but whether he objected to Gwen’s close proximity to him or to the situation they were in, Gareth didn’t know. “And maybe with the two of us working together, we can get this over with more quickly so that you can get to Aber Castle sooner rather than later?”
Gwen nodded her head sharply.
“You’re worried about your father.”
“We’re all worried about this meeting with Owain Gwynedd,” she said. “King Owain may have invited my father to sing at the wedding, but it was my father who swallowed his pride first and asked for King Owain’s patronage. Now, with Anarawd’s death, King Owain will be very angry. How much harder is that going to make his meeting with my father?”
“As I recall, it was a mere spat that shouldn’t have solidified into enmity so easily.”
“You’re right,” she said.
“Remind me what happened.” The words came out an order, and he thought to backtrack since it wasn’t his place to order her about, but Gwen only shrugged and told him.
“It was nothing. After King Gruffydd died, Owain Gwynedd didn’t immediately choose my father to continue in his service as court bard. My father was offended.”
Gareth smirked. “That is an image I have no trouble picturing.”
Gwen made a rueful face. “So we left. We’ve returned now only because my brother needs a patron and my father would do anything to find a settled place for him. We lived among the royal court during all my growing up years. The king held his hand over us, and that was worth almost any kind of sacrifice, though it could hardly have been called that. That is something my father would like to establish for Gwalchmai before he dies.”
“Before he—” Gareth couldn’t finish the sentence. “Your father looks well.”
“He is well. He’s just feeling morbid.” Gwen gestured to the bodies. “Which this will do nothing to help.”
“So Meilyr doesn’t actually want the position of chief bard for himself?” Gareth tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice but didn’t think he was entirely successful.
Gwen shot him a brief smile. “No.”
“That’s a tricky position to be in—for everyone—but particularly Gwalchmai, upon whom all your father’s hopes rest.”
“You can see why it would be better to have some idea of who did this when we bring Anarawd’s body to King Owain,” Gwen said. “Anarawd was the king’s friend and the man who would have been his son-in-law.”
Gareth looked towards Gwen’s father again. Meilyr had stopped studying them and was rummaging through a satchel in the back of their cart. “Let’s see what we can find. And it would be better if we hurried.”
“Do you think whoever did this will come back, like Madog said?”
Gareth read real fear in Gwen’s face. He didn’t like seeing it. “I assured your brother that they wouldn’t, but—” Gareth tensed his shoulders and then relaxed them. Nothing about this day had gone right. The longer they stood here, the more worried he became. “This might not be over. Not by a long shot.”