The Lost Brother (22 page)

Gareth appeared beside the cart the moment
it came to a halt, and Rhun was all business again, insisting on
overseeing the transfer of his father from the cart bed to his
tent, which had already been set up.

“I am happy to see you,
cariad
, but
not the king in this condition.” Gareth held out his hand to help
Gwen out of the cart. Once her feet hit the ground, she staggered a
bit, her legs and back stiff from the ride. Gareth embraced her,
and Gwen felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes again. She
fought them back. She was
so
tired and worn out.

And cold too. A dozen fires blazed from
within stone rings, raising the temperature of the surrounding
area. The rain had continued to hold off, but now that the sun had
set, the air was genuinely cold again. Gwen hoped it wouldn’t snow
by morning, and she shivered at the thought.

Gareth tightened his hold on her, his
fingers clenching the wool at the back of her cloak. “The princes
weren’t pleased to hear that their father had left the monastery
and fallen ill beside the road.”

“I can’t say I was either!” Gwen looked up
into her husband’s face. “The king sent me away from the sick room
to get some air, and by the time I discovered what he planned, he’d
already mounted his horse. He’s seen the error of his ways,
obviously.”

“It is hard for a king to admit he is
wrong,” Gareth said. “I’m sorry to run off on you, but I can’t be
here to assist you or the princes. I have business in the
village.”

“In Cilcain?” Gwen said.

“Not Cilcain, though I spent all day
questioning the villagers there,” Gareth said. “To no avail, mind
you. I don’t know which of us had the more tedious job.”

Gwen gave him a commiserating smile.

Gareth scoffed at himself. “It would be
unfair to think my day was worse than yours, I admit. But no, this
time I’m headed to the village of Gwern-y-waun, and my task isn’t
related to the investigation, though if the chance appears to speak
to someone about Adeline and Cole, I will.”

“How can what you’re about to do not be
related to our investigation?” Gwen said.

Gareth smiled. “We are at war,
cariad.
I am tasked with subduing the village, not that it
should amount to more than a brief show of force followed by
friendly mingling over cups of mead. Or at least I hope that’s all
it amounts to. Madoc and I will be off in a moment—and Godfrid too
if he wants to come.”

“If nothing else, those two will keep you
well entertained.” Gwen gave her husband another hug.

He laughed. “Two more different princes
could not be found, except they both are intelligent in their own
way. It has been helpful to hear their thoughts on the
investigation, even if what they’ve concluded hasn’t brought us any
closer to finding our killer.”

“Have we given up on the idea that Cole was
murdered by a different man than the one who created the deception
as a whole?”

“Not necessarily.” Gareth stretched his
back, trying to warm his muscles. “If such a man exists, either he
killed Cole for murdering Adeline, or he killed Cole because he
thought he was me. I don’t much like the idea of such a man running
around free, but he isn’t my chief concern right now.”

Gwen nodded. “It’s the man behind the
deception you’re most worried about.”

“My only comfort is that he may not yet know
we are on to him,” Gareth said. “Only a few of the king’s men are
aware of our travels during the last few days, and whatever we have
done is surely overshadowed by the coming siege. If he doesn’t know
we’re aware that a plot against the king is afoot, we still have a
chance to sneak up on him unawares.”

Gwen shivered again, and not from the cold
this time. “You may have had a brother you didn’t know about,
Gareth.”

“If Cole was my brother, I don’t care to
claim him.” Gareth looked down at her, his face full of concern.
“Stay near the king or the princes while I’m gone, will you?”

“I won’t wander off. I promise,” Gwen said,
“and you keep your eyes open too.”

“Always.”

And then she had to watch Gareth walk away
again. Bereft, she didn’t even know which tent was his, though that
wouldn’t be hard to find out. Because this camp was just being
established, the activity leaned closer to chaotic than organized.
Men were still digging the latrine pits and setting up tents. Her
stomach growled as the smell of stewing mutton reached her.

Most wars were conducted in summer, due to
the better weather, but going to war after the harvest, as they
were now, made sense too. Food was momentarily plentiful because
King Owain had received tithes of grain and animals from his
people. While eating up his supplies so early in the winter might
not bode well for next spring, it did mean that he could feed his
army.

“Gwen.”

She was started out of her reverie by Prince
Rhun, back again, but this time accompanied by Hywel.

“Is the king—”

“He is resting and no worse than before,”
Rhun said.

“I will go to him now,” Gwen said.

Rhun stayed her with a hand to her arm. “Can
we talk again about poison?”

Gwen made a rueful face. “We can talk about
it. Men fall ill with the flux during wartime. I assumed—” She
broke off at the dark look Hywel sent her, but then said, “We
assume things every day, my lord. If I feared poison every time a
man became ill or murder every time a man died, I’d end up hiding
on my pallet with the blankets pulled over my head and never come
out again.”

Hywel softened his stance slightly. “I
despise the word and the concept.”

“Is fear of poison why you brought the king
here instead of to Lord Morgan’s fort, which would have been more
comfortable for him?” Gwen said to Prince Rhun.

“That is exactly why,” Hywel said.

Rhun put a dispelling hand on his brother’s
arm before focusing again on Gwen. “If it were poison, what could
it be?”

Gwen considered King Owain’s symptoms, which
included nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, of course, but also a
fever, and some incoherence. Gwen had attributed the last symptom
to a combination of exhaustion, fever, and dehydration. Taken
together, King Owain’s illness appeared to be a severe presentation
of the flux, except—

“Wait here.” Gwen hurried back to her horse,
and opened her saddle bag, though not without fumbling with the
ties that kept it closed because her fingers were cold. She pulled
out her box of herbal remedies, set it on the ground to get it out
of the way, and then returned to the bag to find her book of
poisons, illnesses, and cures.

Hywel had come with her, and he peered over
her shoulder at the book. “What is that?”

Gwen glanced at him before returning her
eyes to the pages. “Back in Aberystwyth, during the time I was
first with Gareth, I encountered a lawyer whose task was to defend
a thief. He had a little book like this one, smaller than the palm
of my hand. The laws of Wales had been recorded in it, along with
all his notes and addendums.

“It was only when we were in Aberystwyth
last summer that I remembered it. After we returned to Gwynedd, I
asked Taran to make me a book, except with the pages still blank,
to more permanently record what I learned from the investigations
Gareth and I undertake. Gareth keeps scraps of paper in his bag to
sketch images of suspects and victims, why not a little book for
me?” In fact, she’d spent much of the lonely autumn filling in the
pages with everything she knew about murder.

“And you wrote about poisons in there?” Rhun
said.

“I did.” She put her finger on a passage. “I
don’t think the king has been given one of the deadly three:
monkshood, hemlock, or belladonna, because the symptoms are wrong,
but he could have taken foxglove or even peony. Given in lower
doses, these both cause nausea and vomiting.” Gwen picked at her
bottom lip with the nail of her pinky finger. “Not mandrake
either.”

“Why not?” Hywel said.

Gwen looked over at him. “Some of these
herbs are so poisonous there’s hardly a safe dose that will only
cause the kind of vomiting he’s experiencing. Mandrake will put a
person into permanent sleep.” Gwen closed the book, shaking her
head. “I don’t know. I’d have to work backwards from what he ate
and when it happened to be able to tell you more, but we aren’t
even at the monastery now.”

Rhun gave an uncharacteristic growl that
rumbled low in his chest. “For all that I can’t condone my father’s
decision to ride with his men, I am not sorry he’s here. We’re
safer—and stronger—when we’re together.”

Gareth

T
he look on Gwen’s
face as he left her behind had told Gareth all he needed to know
about how her day had been. The king was very ill—maybe not as far
gone as Gareth had been led to believe by the rumors swirling
around the camp, but ill nonetheless. Either his illness had made a
dramatic improvement, or the men he’d spoken to had exaggerated the
danger. Perhaps both. Sometimes supposing the worst was preferable
to being surprised by it later.

As he’d told Gwen, Gareth had spent the
whole day in Cilcain going from house to house and questioning the
inhabitants of the village as to what they’d seen the night Cole
and Adeline had died. What he’d discovered was a bucket full of
nothing. Nobody had seen them. Nobody knew anything about riders
passing through the village in the night. It had been a relief to
leave the unanswered questions behind him and return to his regular
duties as Prince Hywel’s captain.

To that end, Gareth had gathered up a mixed
group of men to ride to Gwern-y-waun, located just down the hill to
the northeast of the princes’ camp. Godfrid and his men rode among
them. Though nobody was paying the Danes in gold, effectively they
were mercenaries. They had fewer definitive tasks to accomplish,
which was one reason Rhun had taken them with him when he’d gone to
fetch his father.

The men of Rhun’s own
teulu
, while a
strong fighting force of themselves, were also the leaders of other
men, and those in the general army looked to the knights and
men-at-arms who served the princes and the king for guidance. The
common men didn’t entirely trust, and thus would be reluctant to
take orders from, a Dane. Too many Welshmen had died on Danish
swords, some not that long ago, for most Welshmen to relish
fighting alongside them.

That said, the men-at-arms who served the
princes mingled well with the men of Dublin, speaking in a mix of
Welsh and Danish without regard for proper grammar or
pronunciation. Gareth enjoyed listening to the banter, which even
without Madoc would have meant for an entertaining evening. With
Madoc, as was evident within moments of setting out, the result
could be downright dangerous. He may have kept nearly silent in the
presence of his elder brothers, but something about the Norsemen
had him far more talkative than usual. Currently, they were trying
to teach him Danish profanity, to general hilarity all around.

The men needed their fun, because
tomorrow—or the next day—they would go to war.

Infected by the mood of his men, Godfrid
reached out from where he was riding beside Gareth and punched him
on the upper arm. “I want to know all about the progress of this
investigation.”

Gareth rubbed at his arm, thankful for the
mail that protected it, because otherwise the punch would have
stung. “I intend to tell you everything I know over a large draught
of mead just as soon as I can run one to earth.”

“That should go down well,” Godfrid said,
complacently.

Hywel was convinced that spies for Ranulf
were hidden in plain sight in the countryside, which was why he had
asked Gareth to lead this overt show of force. No village headman
would ever think to counter a company of thirty mounted men-at-arms
and knights, especially when their numbers might be comparable to
the number of men in the whole village. Armed men were daunting.
Drunken men even more so.

Gareth’s men weren’t drunk, but they were
giving a good impression of it, which was all to the good. It gave
the villagers the chance to prepare to greet them, as well as fair
warning so they had time to spirit away their daughters to some
place safe. Likely, Prince Godfrid had already thought of that,
which was why he had encouraged his men’s play.

In short order, they reached the village
green where, to no one’s surprise, the village headman met them
with what looked like every man in the village backing him up.

Thirty soldiers. Thirty village men. Just as
Gareth had expected.

Several of Gareth’s men carried torches, and
combining these with the dozen in the hands of various villagers
meant that everyone could see everyone else clearly, even if the
light blinded their eyes to movement beyond the green.

Gareth dismounted and tossed his reins to
one of his men. He could have remained mounted and spoken to the
headman from on high, but that wasn’t how he wanted to be
perceived. If it had been up to him instead of a direct order from
Prince Hywel, he would have ridden down from the camp with five
men, brought a jug of mead as a sign of goodwill, and drunk it
right here on the green with them.

Still, now that he was here, he could
forgive Hywel for ordering the larger force. He hadn’t done so
because it was the better plan, but because he was angry and
fearful about his father’s health, the plot against Gareth and
Gwen, about which they still knew far too little, and the coming
assault on Mold.

So Gareth stuck out his arm to the headman
with aplomb and goodwill. “We have descended on you in force, but
you have no need to fear us. My lord has pledged not to strip your
homes or your lands of food or possessions. Or your women. The main
body of the army is camped a half-mile to the south of you here,
and orders have been given for the men to keep to it tonight.”