The Lost Brother (9 page)

“You will come with me.”

Father Alun came through the doorway behind
the man and tugged on his arm. “Sir Pedr. Let me explain why
they’re here.”

The man shrugged him off, instead gesturing
with one hand to indicate that Gareth should come forward. Gareth
didn’t move, and Gwen stayed where she was, slightly behind
Gareth’s left shoulder. She was surprised her breathing remained
steady.

“Who are you?” Gareth said.

“My name is Pedr ap Gruffydd. I serve Lord
Morgan, of Bryn y Ddu. I am tasked with bringing you to his
seat.”

“Why?” Gareth said.

Pedr hesitated. “I have not been given leave
to answer that.”

“And if I refuse to come?” Gareth said.

“Refusal is not an option.”

“Of course it is,” Gareth said.

Gwen couldn’t see Gareth’s face and couldn’t
tell what he was thinking, other than that his shoulders remained
relaxed. Gwen recognized his stance. He was prepared for a
fight.

Pedr put his hand on the hilt of his own
sword and gestured that the five men who’d come with him should
enter the nave. They circled around Gareth and Gwen, and while none
of them had pulled their swords from their sheaths either, Gareth
and Gwen were at a woeful disadvantage. Gareth was an excellent
swordsman, but he couldn’t fight six men at once.

Father Alun, his hands fluttering, rushed
forward and set himself between Gareth and Pedr. Three more
soldiers crowded through the chapel door after the priest. Gareth
recognized the impossibility of his position, and the muscles in
his jaw clenched. He slowly moved his hand from the hilt of his
sword. For Gwen’s part, she gripped the hilt of her belt knife as
it lay in its sheath at her waist, though like Gareth, she didn’t
draw it.

“I don’t want violence, especially not in a
church,” Pedr said. “If you come quietly, I won’t be forced to tie
your hands.”

“I’m under arrest?” Gareth said.

Pedr nodded curtly. “Lord Morgan has charged
me with the task of bringing you to his seat.” He held up one hand.
“Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”

Gwen found it ironic that Pedr could ask
Gareth not to make life difficult for
him,
as if that should
be where Gareth’s sympathies should lie. In this case, however,
making life difficult for Pedr would certainly make it even more
difficult for Gwen and Gareth.

Then Pedr looked beyond Gareth to Gwen, as
if seeing her for the first time. “If this is your lady wife, Sir
Gareth, my lord requests her presence too.”

Gareth edged sideways to shield Gwen more
fully from Pedr’s view. “My wife needn’t be a part of this.”

“My lord disagrees.” He took another step
forward, and this time he brought up one hand appeasingly. “I give
you my word that she will come to no harm. I swear it on my
mother’s grave.”

Father Alun had remained standing between
Pedr and Gareth, but at this oath, he dropped his arms and turned
to Gareth. “I know Sir Pedr. You can believe what he says.” He
leaned closer and spoke in an undertone. “Sir Pedr is very loyal to
Lord Morgan. If he was bidden to bring you, that is what he
believes he must do.”

“Regardless of whether or not I want to
come.” Gareth made a guttural sound deep in his throat. “It seems
my standing as the captain of Prince Hywel’s
teulu
bears no
weight with him.”

Father Alun was back to anxious. “I assure
you that Pedr isn’t loyal to Ranulf of Chester.”

“That may be true,” Gareth said, “but it
doesn’t explain what possible grounds Morgan has for my
arrest.”

Gwen rubbed her forefinger on the back of
Gareth’s elbow and said in a whisper, “I don’t think we have a
choice but to go with him, Gareth.”

“I know.” He looked down at Gwen. “We have
few choices, and none of them are good.”

“Every villager saw us ride past,” Gwen
said. “Pedr named you directly. He knows who you are, which means
he knows why we’re here. At the very least, by speaking to Lord
Morgan we might learn something about the woman and why she was
buried in his grandfather’s grave.”

“I will learn nothing if I’m locked in a
cell.”

Father Alun was six inches shorter than
either man, and Gareth met Pedr’s gaze over the top of his
head.

“There is so much more going on here than we
know right now,” Gwen added in an undertone.

After another moment’s reflection, Gareth
nodded his assent.

“Bring him.” Pedr spun on his heel and
strode for the door. The soldiers in the nave closed in on Gareth
and Gwen, herding them before them.

Father Alun walked beside Gareth, wringing
his hands. “This is all my fault.”

Gareth stopped on the threshold of the
chapel and put a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “You didn’t kill
this woman. You only sought justice for her, which was the right
thing to do. You are not to blame for Lord Morgan’s betrayal.”

“We’ll be all right.” Gwen said, trying to
speak confidently even if she didn’t feel it inside.

Lord Morgan was a completely unknown
quantity. She couldn’t imagine what he thought Gareth could have
done to justify his arrest. King Owain ruled here. Arresting one of
his sworn liegemen was hardly the best way to go about currying
favor. The combination of death and fear curling in her belly was
nauseating.

Stepping out of the door, she took in a
breath of fresh air, just as she had earlier when she’d left the
chapel on Gareth’s orders. Pedr and his men waited a few feet away
with their horses, next to where Gareth and Gwen had left
theirs.

“What should I do with the body?” Father
Alun glanced through the still open door of the chapel to the table
where the woman lay under her shroud.

“I was all but finished with my
examination,” Gareth said. “If we haven’t straightened this out
with Lord Morgan by morning and returned to finish what we started,
bury her as you planned.”

Pedr, who’d moved a few steps closer in
order to hear the tail end of Gareth’s and Father Alun’s
conversation, said, “He won’t be back.” He waved an arm to indicate
that she and Gareth should proceed to where they’d left their
horses.

Gwen gave Father Alun’s an imploring look.
“Pray for us.”

“I will be on my knees all night,” he
assured her, “for all of you.”

Gareth

G
areth had almost
fought Pedr. He’d been a hair’s-breadth away from it, in fact, and
he would have, even if that had then meant he’d have been taken
before Lord Morgan in irons. Gwen’s presence and the tensions
coiling and twisting in that nave had forced him to reconsider. The
nerves of every fighting man in the region had been on edge this
autumn, which had led to arguments among friends in the encampment
and actual sparring in some cases. Under such circumstances, Pedr’s
men might have simply run him through.

As it was, Pedr hadn’t harmed either him or
Gwen. He’d even stood at Gareth’s stirrup and presented to Gwen his
interlaced fingers to boost her onto Braith’s back behind Gareth.
She was riding pillion, which had been Gareth’s choice as well as
Pedr’s. Gareth didn’t want to risk being separated from Gwen, and
Pedr wanted them tightly contained.

“Can we run?” Gwen asked in a low voice.

“Aren’t you curious as to what this is all
about?” Gareth said.

“Of course I am, but not enough to risk your
life!” Gwen said.

“Leaving presents as much a risk as
staying.” Gareth tipped his head to indicate the man riding just to
the right of them. “One shot from that bow, and either you, me, or
Braith is dead.”

He felt Gwen nod her understanding into his
back.

Two of the men riding behind them held
torches that threw out enough light to see the road and the ditches
on either side. Gareth couldn’t see anything else, however. The
cloud cover over their heads was absolute, hiding the moon and
stars. Again, if he were alone, he might have chosen to follow the
riskier path, to urge Braith off the road despite the danger of
being shot or the fact that he’d be riding blind.

Gwen’s arms were tight and warm around
Gareth’s waist, and he patted the back of her hand. “It’s going to
be all right.” With the cold and wind—and snow coming before the
dawn—this wasn’t the night to take Gwen into the hills unless he
had no other choice.

“How do you know?” Gwen said.

“Because it has to be,” he said. “I have
done nothing to warrant arrest.”

“What if Morgan’s intent is to sell you to
Ranulf?” Gwen said.

“That, to me, is the most likely scenario,”
Gareth said, “but I do not fear death at Ranulf’s hands. He has no
more reason to harm me than Morgan does. At worst, I might rot a
while in a prison cell.”

“That’s supposed to be comforting?” But then
Gwen pressed her cheek into his back, and he felt that she was
comforted.

“As you’ve said in the past, it’s a matter
of tugging on a loose thread until the whole plot unravels at our
feet,” Gareth said. “We have to start somewhere. It might as well
be here.”

“I just wish Pedr and his men weren’t so
menacing,” Gwen said.

More than anything Gareth wanted to assuage
Gwen’s fears and ease the anxiety he felt in her. Whether or not he
had any real reason for optimism, Gwen would gain nothing—and
jeopardize her ability to think clearly—by allowing those fears to
cloud her mind. “Whatever happens, stay close to me.”

Gareth would have expected the village to be
deserted now that it was full dark, but a few women poked their
heads out of their houses, and the tables in front of the tavern
were even busier than they’d been when he and Gwen had arrived. He
had to think the conversations would focus as much on their
presence—and his subsequent arrest—as on the death of the
woman.

Gareth tried to maintain a certain space
between Braith and the men who hemmed them in, but it quickly
became clear that they slowed as he slowed, and sped up as he did,
with hardly a pause. They were a well-trained troop. Their sword
sheaths had a sheen to the leather that meant they’d been much
handled, and the men closest to him had an aura about them that
indicated they would have been perfectly happy had the evening
turned out differently and Pedr really had run him through.

All in all, Gareth was pleased to still be
alive and upright. Although Pedr had taken his weapons, his hands
weren’t bound. As long as that was the case, he could protect Gwen
or die trying.

Once through the village, they rode directly
south towards the Alyn River, at twice the speed at which they’d
ridden through the village. Gareth was very aware of his
surroundings: his breath fogging in the air in front of him; the
staccato of the horses’ hooves; Gwen’s arms cinched around his
waist; and the lights shining from a settlement above them that he
guessed to be Morgan’s fort. Father Alun had mentioned that the
stronghold overlooked the ford.

The horses slowed as the road dipped down to
the river. Even though Gareth could hear water running over stones,
he couldn’t see the river until they were nearly in it.

Pedr headed across the ford, and Braith
entered the water right behind him, following where Pedr’s horse
had put its feet. The ford was improved with flat stones, which
widened the water’s run, but also made it so shallow that they
crossed with the water hardly rising past Braith’s hocks. The road
then curved to the right and began winding its way up to the
settlement a quarter of a mile away on a rise.

Cleverly, the road wound back and forth
across the face of the hill, crossing and recrossing in front of
the fort’s gatehouse, so the riders were always under the eyes of
the soldiers watching from the wall-walk. The cart tracks in which
Braith trotted were well worn. People had lived and worked in this
region for generations, and Morgan’s family had ruled them from
this spot when Wales had belonged only to the Welsh.

Unlike the motte and bailey castle the
Normans had built at Mold, Morgan’s fort was more than a military
stronghold. The palisade and buildings spread out across a flat
area partway up the much higher hill that rose up behind it. Gareth
had noticed it in the distance when they’d arrived in Cilcain
earlier in the day.

A guard poked his head above the gate to
observe them—and then admit them. As they passed through the
opening into the courtyard, Gareth felt the eyes of everyone in the
place on him and Gwen. The palisade surrounded an inner courtyard
which, based purely on its size, provided a home to far more people
than Morgan’s immediate family.

Gwen squeezed him hard.

“Just follow my lead.” Gareth swung his
right leg over Braith’s head and dropped to the ground.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,”
Gwen said.

The instant Gareth’s feet hit the earth of
the courtyard, four of Pedr’s men hemmed him in again, though they
did allow him to reach up and help Gwen off Braith’s back.

Upon entering the courtyard, Pedr had been
met by an older man in a long robe, of the style stewards had worn
before the Normans had come to Wales. While Gareth waited, they
spoke urgently with one another, though in an undertone, so Gareth
couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Then Pedr turned to Gareth and Gwen. “This
way.” He marched off towards the hall after the steward, who led
the way.

Like the rest of the fort, the main hall had
a well-used look to it, indicating its long service to Morgan’s
family. Large and single-roomed, with a hole in the roof to let out
the smoke from a central fireplace, its only concession to time was
the way additional buildings had been added onto it over the years.
Without a chamber for his exclusive use off the back or the side of
the main building, a lord had no place to conduct his private
business without clearing the hall of onlookers first. With
abundant forests within hailing distance, wood was a cheap source
of building material, not only for the hall itself but for little
huts and craft halls that lined the inner side of the palisade.