Dewi’s chin stuck out, his expression mutinous and defiant. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I need to know who else you told about Tegwen’s disappearance and death,” Gwen said, “or anything about what you witnessed the night she died. Someone poisoned you last night, and I can’t believe it was for no reason.”
Evan and Goch, who’d recovered from the blow to the head Dewi had given him, had dragged him out of the stables into the daylight. They set him on the same stump by the kitchen door that Gwen had sat on two days ago to talk to Gareth and Hywel. Dewi’s hands weren’t tied, but he had no weapons, and his face was drawn and white from his ordeal. According to the healer, he’d been sick until he had nothing left inside him and had lain shivering and feverish until dawn.
This time, Gwen had banished the kitchen boy to chop his wood elsewhere. The only reason they were out here at all rather than in the cell at the back of the stables was because it reeked of sickness—among other things—and Gwen’s stomach couldn’t take it.
“I didn’t tell anyone!” Dewi brushed his lank black hair out of his face. It had come undone from the tie at the base of his neck. “Do you think I’m a fool?”
Gwen did, but she tried not to let her skepticism show on her face. He’d obviously kept Bran’s secret well enough to have survived this long. “What about Erik? Could he have talked? We’re trying to figure out why someone tried to kill you.”
“Erik wouldn’t have talked,” Dewi said, “and he wouldn’t poison me either.”
“He’s long gone anyway,” Goch said.
Fugitives had been known to double back, but Erik would know that they were searching for him. He couldn’t show his face in Aber; thus, Gwen had to agree with Goch. At the very least, Erik didn’t murder Brychan and then retreat into Aber.
“Particularly in the last few days, did you mention to anyone anything about the events of that night?” Evan said. “You knew Tegwen. You could have let slip that you’d been near Aber with Bran around the time she disappeared.”
Dewi screwed up his face in a parody of thought. “No, I didn’t.”
“You could have mentioned it accidently, perhaps to impress a girl you were wooing?” Goch said.
Dewi made as if to dismiss the question, and then his brow furrowed. “Well, I talked to my half-brother, of course.”
Evan leaned in. “When was this?”
“Moreover, who is your half-brother?” Gwen said.
“The first time was years after Tegwen died,” Dewi said, answering Evan’s question first. “It can’t be important now.”
“What did you tell him?” Evan said.
“He said that he knew Tegwen before her marriage to Bran and wondered what had happened to her. I didn’t tell him that she’d died,” Dewi added hurriedly, “only that I thought there was more to the story. I might have mentioned that I saw her not long before she disappeared, but he knew I worked for Bran, so why wouldn’t I have seen her? How could this be important now?”
Gwen put her face into Dewi’s. “Who. Is. Your. Brother?”
Dewi looked around as if expecting to see him in the courtyard. “His name is Brychan. We didn’t see each other for years while I was in Rhos and he was in Dolwyddelan and Bala, but then we reconnected by chance in Ceredigion during the wars there and then again a few years ago after he returned to Gwynedd.”
Gwen knew her mouth had fallen open. She didn’t know what to say.
“Dewi doesn’t know, Gwen,” Evan said.
Dewi glanced at Evan. “Know what?”
Gwen put her hand on Dewi’s shoulder and tried to speak as gently as she could. “Brychan was murdered last night.”
Dewi goggled at Gwen. “What? He can’t have been! Why would anyone do that?”
“Did you confess your knowledge of Tegwen’s death to Brychan after we found her body?” Gwen said.
Dewi’s face went blank.
At that moment, there was a commotion in the kitchen and Gruffydd, Dolwyddelan’s castellan, burst through the doorway. He skidded to a halt in front of Dewi, his eyes widening. “I thought you were dead!” And then he seemed to come to himself, gaping at Gwen, Evan, and Goch, who were watching him in various stages of surprise and consternation.
He stared at them for two heartbeats, and then as Gareth flung himself through the open doorway from the kitchen, Gruffydd fled, running flat out for the postern gate.
Gareth put up a hand. “Stop him!”
The guards at the gate looked at Gareth, confused expressions on their faces, and then at Gruffydd as if to say, “Stop him?”
“Out of my way!” Gruffydd made a sweeping motion with his arm.
“Yes!” Gareth was younger and a little more fit than Gruffydd, but if the sentry hadn’t pulled the postern gate closed at the last moment, Gruffydd might have escaped. Fortunately, the sentry knew an order when he heard one, and he was more comfortable taking orders from Gareth than from Gruffydd.
Goch and Evan had run after Gareth. Gwen followed at her usual slower pace. By the time she reached the postern gate, Gareth had Gruffydd pressed to the closed door and was tying his hands behind his back. With a word from Gareth, Evan removed Gruffydd’s sword from his belt and a knife from his boot.
“This is ridiculous. I have done nothing wrong,” Gruffydd said.
“Then why did you run?” Gareth said.
“You have misunderstood,” Gruffydd said. “I ate something that disagreed with me and was hastening outside of Aber before I humiliated myself in front of everyone.”
“You seem healthy enough to me,” Gareth said.
Gruffydd hacked and coughed, which seemed real enough to Gwen. She almost believed his story. She might still have believed it if Evan hadn’t at that moment turned Gruffydd’s knife over in his hands and, with a curious expression on his face, shown it to Gareth.
“That’s blood.” Evan traced a thin line near the hilt with his finger. Narrow with a fine point, the knife looked like it would match Brychan’s wound, if the body hadn’t been too burned to match it to.
“Don’t be absurd,” Gruffydd said.
Gareth leaned closer, keeping a hand pressed between Gruffydd’s shoulder blades and prodding his feet apart. “You’ve had a momentous few days.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gruffydd said.
Gareth tsked through his teeth. “The irony is that until you murdered Brychan, poisoned Dewi, and set fire to the manor house yesterday, you’d kept your hands clean. What made you fall apart so suddenly?”
“He murdered Brychan?” Dewi had come to a halt beside Gwen, who’d completely forgotten about him in the capture of Gruffydd.
Gareth glanced behind him. “Stay back, Dewi.”
Dewi didn’t hear him—or couldn’t hear him. “Why?” The word came out a wail.
Gwen didn’t answer Dewi because she didn’t know, and she was hoping someone was going to tell her soon.
“Murder, poisoning, and arson. Am I missing something?” Gareth said.
“And then there’s the matter of your attempted murder of me.” Hywel had come up behind Gwen and stopped at her left shoulder, between her and Dewi. Dewi had gone up on the balls of his feet and came down again only when Hywel put a heavy hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
“I didn’t shoot at the prince,” Gruffydd said. “That was Brychan.”
“Who happens to be conveniently dead and unable to gainsay you,” Gareth said.
“Brychan is the archer,” Gruffydd said.
“I don’t believe you.” Hywel released Dewi and closed in on Gruffydd. “I think you murdered Bran too.”
A sneer contorted Gruffydd’s features. “I admit to nothing.”
“It is as I suspected,” Hywel said. “Brychan was the one with the courage, not you.”
Gruffydd spat on the ground. “Brychan went only where I pointed.”
There was a silence as Gruffydd seemed to realize what he’d said. He clenched his jaw.
Gwen stood stunned. She’d spoken with Brychan at length and believed what he’d told her. If he’d murdered Bran, then he’d lied to her face. She felt like a fool to have been so trusting.
“What’s the penalty for conspiracy to murder the Lord of Rhos?” Gareth said as if asking Hywel about the weather on Anglesey.
“You can’t pin Bran’s death on me.” Gruffydd’s features were twisted with hate.
“But you did murder Brychan,” Gareth said.
Gareth had Gruffydd’s cheek pressed to the wall. Gruffydd’s mouth worked, and Gareth spoke in his ear. “We have the loose thread now. All we have to do is pull at it and your entire world will unravel. Better to confess to what you did do and only owe galanas to Brychan’s family, then to refuse to talk and be accused of Lord Bran’s murder as well as Brychan’s. Think of Sioned.”
“I am thinking of Sioned. I didn’t murder Bran.” Gruffydd seemed to think that if he repeated the phrase often enough, someone would believe him.
Gareth flipped Gruffydd around to face his audience and gazed at him, unbending. Gruffydd’s eyes flicked to Hywel. And it was only then that at last he nodded. “Brychan demanded that I give him money so he could leave Gwynedd forever. He told me that he feared you were getting too close. We fought. That he’s dead was an accident.”
“What—you accidently stabbed him through the heart with your boot knife?” Hywel said.
“It was an accident,” Gruffydd said again.
Gwen felt even sicker inside.
“What about Dewi, here?” Evan said.
“The penalty for murder by poison is a hanging,” Gareth said. “You’re lucky he’s alive. You’d better hope he stays that way.”
“Dewi was at the hut the night Tegwen died,” Gruffydd said. “Brychan told me Dewi was there when Bran killed my granddaughter.” And like Brychan before him, it was as if Gruffydd broke in half. He bent forward, choking on grief as fresh today as it had been five years ago when Tegwen disappeared. “Bran didn’t deserve the title of lord.”
Gruffydd lifted his chin, tears streaming down his cheeks, and raised his voice. Gwen turned, confused as to whom he was speaking, and saw that the courtyard behind her had filled with onlookers. “Brychan came to me a few years after Tegwen’s disappearance with what little proof he had that Bran might be responsible. That he might have killed her. I found more.”
“You questioned the nuns at the convent near Bryn Euryn,” Gareth said.
“Them among others. The moment I saw you speaking with the nuns, I knew it was over.” Gruffydd’s next words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush now that his long held secrets had become known. “Bran received no punishment for his crime, while Sioned and I suffered, never to know where she’d come to rest, never able to visit her grave. In order even to see Tegwen’s children, we had to pretend to Bran that we suspected nothing.” He paused, and the hatred that rose in Gruffydd’s eyes had Gwen retreating a pace. “It was intolerable.”
“You murderous bastard!”
While Gwen had stepped back at Gruffydd’s confession, Dewi had moved closer. With a cry of pain and anguish, he plucked the knife that Evan had been twirling between his fingers and launched himself at Gruffydd.
Gareth saw him coming and pulled Gruffydd sideways, falling with him to the ground as Dewi’s knife descended. The blade missed Gruffydd’s heart, instead sliding along his right ribcage. Dewi ended up straddling Gruffydd with Gareth sprawled underneath them both. It all happened so fast that nobody else was able to intervene until Dewi’s arm came up for another thrust, at which point Hywel caught him with both arms around his torso and, with Evan’s belated help, hauled him away.
Gareth managed to scoot out from under Gruffydd, who lay in a helpless ball in the dirt, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands still tied behind his back. Blood soaked his left side, but he was alive. Hywel kicked away the knife that Evan had knocked from Dewi’s hand and stood above both men, his hands on his hips, glaring down at them.
Then a women’s voice came from behind Gwen. “Don’t hurt him, please. He never killed anyone.” Sioned rushed past Gwen to throw herself over Gruffydd’s prone form. “He’s only telling you that he did to protect me.”