The Uninvited Guest (13 page)

“
I’m fine.” Goronwy waved
his hand at Tomos. “Join Cadwaladr and Gruffydd in the hall. They
are far more interesting than I am.”

“
But—”

“
Go!” And then Goronwy
laughed. “A beautiful young lady is here to see me and I don’t want
you getting in my way.”

Tomos laughed too, though his eyes looked
worried. Still, he opened the door wide enough for Rhun and Gwen to
enter. He spoke in a low voice to Gwen as she went by him. “He
doesn’t remember anything about last night, from dinner time on.
And his head hurts.”

“
Thank you,” Gwen said.
“But I have to ask.”

“
I’ll return shortly,”
Tomos said, in a louder voice.

“
Fuss, fuss, fuss,” Goronwy
said, but his tone was warm. He lifted his hands from the covers
and dropped them with a sigh. “I was wondering when one of King
Owain’s minions would pay me a visit.”

“
I’m glad to see you
feeling better, Sir.” Rhun said.

“
Yes, yes.” Goronwy waved a
hand. “Come closer, my dear.”

Goronwy meant her, not Rhun, so Gwen moved
to his bedside and when he patted the coverlet beside him, sat on
the edge of the bed. Then he took her hand. Gwen was glad Gareth
wasn’t with her.

“
We wanted to ask you a few
questions about last night,” Gwen said. “About your …
illness.”

Goronwy cursed under his breath. “When I
finally awoke this morning, I was ready to strangle Enid for what
she’d done to me. But that was before I found out she was already
dead.”

“
I’m sorry,” Gwen
said.

“
I am too,” Lord Goronwy
said. “I always thought Enid was a most amusing girl, until
yesterday.”

“
Perhaps you could start at
the beginning,” Gwen said. “We are still trying to piece together
what happened last night.”

“
Yes, yes,” Lord Goronwy
said. “I wasn’t going to say anything about what happened. I told
Tomos and the others that I didn’t remember anything after
yesterday evening, but it’s not true.” Goronwy looked sheepish. “I
was hoping to downplay my stupidity so that the wedding could still
go forward today, but with it postponed, it seems silly to protect
the reputation of a girl who no longer needs my
protection.”

“
So … you had a rendezvous
with Enid, some time last night?” Gwen’s cheeks flushed and she
glanced over at Rhun whose face remained impassive. As an unmarried
woman, it wasn’t appropriate for her to ask this, but Rhun showed
no signs of helping her out. She almost wished she was back with
the dead body instead of here. Goronwy didn’t share her
reservations, however. He laughed and patted her hand. “Even a
sweet girl like you must have heard the rumors about Enid’s many
relationships with men.”

Gwen gave him a hesitant nod, though until
today, she hadn’t known who Enid was.

“
Whatever you’ve heard is
most likely true.” Now Goronwy leered at Gwen.

Gwen glanced again at Rhun, who was gazing
at a point three feet above Goronwy’s head, his expression blank.
Gwen turned back to Goronwy, determined to speak as
straightforwardly as she could. She cleared her throat. “What time
did you plan to meet Enid?”

“
It was my task to stand
watch outside King Owain’s room for the second shift. She agreed to
come to me in the hour after midnight,” Goronwy said.

“
Wait—wait. King Owain
mentioned something about this—you were part of his honor
guard?”

Goronwy leaned forward and lowered his
voice. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, my dear—male secret, you
know—but since you asked … The four of us—Tomos, Taran, Cadwaladr,
and I—had the honor of standing guard outside King Owain’s bed
chamber the night before his wedding. We would have escorted him to
the chapel for the ceremony, too.”

“
Cristina begged King Owain
to go through with the wedding,” Gwen said. “It won’t happen today,
but you might still get your chance.”

“
She’s a good girl, my
daughter,” Goronwy said. “She’s made of strong stuff and perfect
for our good king.” Goronwy gave Gwen a satisfied smile.

Gwen still wanted to hear more about the
honor guard. “You’re saying that each of you were to take turns
keeping watch outside King Owain’s room throughout the night. Who
had the first duty?”

“
Taran did, from the
eleventh hour to the first hour after midnight. I relieved him and
stood from one to three, Tomos from three to five, and Cadwaladr
would have stood from five to seven if Enid’s death hadn’t
interrupted the watch.”

“
And did Enid come to you
during your shift as you’d agreed?” Gwen said.

“
Yes,” Goronwy said.
“
Not long after the start of
my watch, she brought me something to drink to
help while away the hours.”

“
And you drank it,” Gwen
said.

Goronwy sighed. “I did. I drank the wine and
remember nothing after that until this morning.”

“
Thank you for telling me
this,” Gwen said. “If you could keep our conversation between us,
for now, I would appreciate it. Just keep pretending you don’t
remember anything.”

Goronwy studied her, his eyes no longer
jovial or teasing, but revealing a more wily and intelligent man
than he’d displayed so far. “Of course.” He paused. “Are you
suggesting my life might be in danger if I did remember?”

Gwen swallowed hard. “I hope not, my lord.
Given that you were left alive, it seems unlikely you’d be in
danger now. But we don’t know who killed Enid, and until we do, I
suggest you play dumb.”

“
I can do that,” Goronwy
said.

Gwen squeezed his hand, liking him despite
his excessive attention, and said her goodbyes with Rhun. As the
door closed behind them, she said, “He doesn’t remember anything
because she slipped poppy juice into his wine.”

Rhun pursed his lips. “I grant that this had
to be what happened, but unconscious, Lord Goronwy would have been
a dead weight to carry. Even with him hanging over her shoulder,
Enid never could have gotten him down the stairs and into his room
by herself. She had to have had help.”

“
So she had an accomplice,”
Gwen said. “But we already knew that because she didn’t strangle
herself.”

“
It couldn’t have been the
servant,” Rhun said. “He was already dead.”

“
A third man,” Gwen said.
“The killer.”

“
There’s a third
man?”

Gwen and Rhun swung around to see Taran step
out of the door of a room at the end of the corridor. He came
forward and stopped. “Please. Tell me something. Anything. I want
to help.”

“
That’s not a good idea,”
Rhun said.

Gwen took a deep breath. “Where did you go
after Lord Goronwy relieved you outside King Owain’s door?”

Taran sighed. “I suppose you must ask,
especially since that boy accused me of plotting to murder the
king. I wasn’t involved in any of this, you know.”

“
None of us want to think
it, but it would be helpful if you could at least give us an alibi
for Enid’s murder,” Gwen said.

“
I went to bed,” Taran
said.

“
Alone?” Gwen
said.

Taran’s eyes flicked to Rhun, who was
looking at him with a noncommittal expression, and then back to
Gwen. “Not alone.”

Gwen’s eyebrows rose but she schooled her
face as quickly as she could. “Can you give me the woman’s
name?”

“
I would rather not,
because she
is
alive and has her reputation to consider,” Taran said. “She
and I have been friends for many years, ever since her husband
died. I was with her all night, until I slipped away before
dawn.”

“
It would make things very
much easier if you could tell me who she is,” Gwen said. “I promise
that I would never betray your trust, and I will give you time to
warn her if we do need to speak with her.”

“
Lady Jane,” Taran said.
“Enid’s mother.”

Now that’s awkward.

But it gave Taran an alibi for Enid’s death,
if not for Ieuan’s, and explained the nervous sweating in the cell
after the youth tried to assassinate the king. Gwen was relieved to
be able to look beyond Taran for their murderer, though it didn’t
let him off the hook with the assassination attempt.

“
I wasn’t even in the
castle,” Taran said. “She took a room in the manor by the village.”
He lifted a shoulder. “For privacy.”

“
Thank you, my lord.” Gwen
curtseyed.

Taran trudged past them into the great hall.
Rhun gestured for Gwen to precede him. “Who’s next?” he said.

Gwen sighed. “Prince Cadwaladr, don’t you
think?”

Chapter Eleven

K
ing Owain, however, had other plans—for himself, for his
brother, and for any of the men at Aber who’d been chafing to
escape the castle.

Because that was what he was doing:
escaping.

By the time Gareth and Hywel had finished
examining the body and arranged for it to be prepared for burial,
and Gwen had come back from speaking with Goronwy, King Owain had
gathered fifty men in the courtyard. A man hunt was in the
works.

Hywel stood at his father’s stirrup, Gareth
just behind him. “You can’t be serious, Father!”

“
I am. I cannot stay penned
up another hour.”

Hywel lowered his voice. “Someone is trying
to kill you.”

“
All the more reason to
find this assassin,” King Owain said. “And if we get to shoot a
deer or two along the way, so much the better. We have people to
feed.”

“
At least wait for Gareth
and me to ready ourselves!” Hywel said. “We must come with
you.”

“
Then you’d better
hurry!”

Hywel and Gareth headed for the barracks,
certain that King Owain would be as good as his word and leave
without them. “If my father weren’t so damn stubborn …” Hywel
muttered the words as they reached the storage room where they
would find their armor and polearms. They wore their swords already
but would have to outfit themselves again from head to foot in
order to be properly arrayed to ride from the castle.

Gareth couldn’t blame the king for taking
advantage of the opportunity to leave Aber. The castle had begun to
feel constricting even to Gareth. To King Owain, against whom these
deaths had to be directed (at least in part), it must have become
stifling.

Gareth stopped Evan as he was leaving the
barracks. “We’ll need our horses saddled and ready to go with the
king. Will you see to it? I’m afraid King Owain is going to leave
before we’re ready.”

“
Of course.” Evan clapped a
hand on Gareth’s shoulder. “It’s a change to have him rely on you,
eh?”

Gareth snorted a laugh. “Better than
spending three days in a cell, that’s for certain.”

Evan shook his head. “That will never happen
again. You’re like the new stone curtain wall that King Owain has
put up around Aber: inviolable.”

Hywel had already entered the armor room,
but Gareth hesitated in the doorway. “What do you mean?”

“
Three different lords
accused you of murdering King Anarawd, Owain Gwynedd among them.
Never mind that it was clear from the start you didn’t do it.
Because you were accused and found not guilty, nobody will ever
lock you up again.”

“
I wouldn’t say
tha—”

“
Think about it.” Evan’s
tone was that of a man convinced. “You stood up to them all and
were proved right. You could be found standing over a body with a
bloody knife in your hand, and still nobody would believe you’d
done the deed.”

Which, now that Gareth thought about it, was
about as good an outcome of the incident last summer as he could
have imagined. That and Gwen had become his. The image of her as
he’d seen her on the beach at Abermenai grew bright in his mind:
her freckled nose and sun-kissed cheeks from her recent sea voyage,
her deep brown eyes in which a man could lose himself forever. At
the time, Gwen’s long hair had come loose from the chignon at the
back of her head and hung down her back. He’d threaded his fingers
through it as he’d kissed her goodbye.

Evan jerked his head towards the courtyard.
“I’ll watch the king’s back until you catch up.” He left.

“
This is
so
like him!” Hywel stood
in front of Gareth wearing a helmet and breeches and nothing
else.

“
What do you mean?” Gareth
threw open the trunk that contained Hywel’s armor.

“
Do you want to know what’s
really going on?” Hywel ripped off the helm he’d just put on and
tossed it in a corner. “My father sent out scouts a week ago,
looking for sign of a boar he could hunt, and it just so happens
that they returned this morning with a report of a nest to the
southwest of Aber. Is this a man hunt or a boar hunt?”

“
You can’t blame him for
wanting to leave the castle,” Gareth said.

“
We don’t know who paid the
boy to kill him. We don’t even have any leads! And he’s going to
leave himself vulnerable, out in the open? Or leave the killer at
the castle to cause more trouble?”

“
Your father hopes it
begins and ends with the boy,” Gareth said, not sure why he was
defending King Owain to Hywel. “He has lived with the threat of
assassination for so long, he misjudges its intensity.”