The Uninvited Guest (34 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

“H
ow is Madoc?” Gareth said.

“
The healer from St. Asaph
is with him.” Gwen wore a blanket over her cloak against the cold
and her nose was red.

Gareth leaned in and kissed it. “Good.”

Gwen put a hand on his arm. “He might not
fight again.”

Gareth took in a deep breath. For Madoc to
be felled through treachery, and lose his livelihood in the
process, burned in his gut.

“
Has Tomos finally
surrendered?” Gwen said.

“
In a matter of speaking,”
Gareth said.

Tomos had put up the white
flag again as soon as he saw King Owain’s banner, but the king had
refused to talk to him. The king’s archers hadn’t arrived yet, so
he’d put his
teulu
to work with the same hastily arranged fire arrows that Hywel
had used to burn Aberystwyth. Every Welshman learned to shoot, even
if cavalry shot less well than men dedicated to the art. Gareth’s
ribs wouldn’t allow him to bend a bow, but he’d insisted on
standing with his fellows, his sword at the ready. And thankfully,
the arrows had done their work and he hadn’t needed to use it.
Within an hour of his arrival, the king was well on his way to
burning his own castle to the ground.

After half the day had passed, and Gareth
couldn’t see how the defenders had any hope of saving their
situation, the gates finally opened. Men belonging to both Tomos
and Cadwaladr spilled out the front gate. Tomos was the last to
come, riding his horse, his back straight and his chin high. To
Gareth’s mind, he rode as if his head were already in a noose. It
was an ignominious end to an elaborate scheme. King Owain’s men had
brought him to the encampment and sequestered him in a tent.

“
Have you seen Tomos?” Gwen
said. And then added more perceptively, “Will it bother you to see
him?”

“
I spent a night with
Cadwaladr, even befriended him,” Gareth said. “I can deal with
Tomos. He is a doomed man. What can he say that can hurt
me?”

“
We will deal with Tomos
together.” Hywel approached the pair, having just exited the king’s
tent. “Just be prepared to hear things you won’t like. It will be
his way.”

Hywel nodded at the men guarding Tomos’ tent
and stalked past them. Gareth didn’t stalk. He’d found that it was
better to walk very stiffly and slowly, sitting down only
occasionally because bending at the waist hurt more than walking.
Lying down would have been best, but he wasn’t going to admit that
to anyone.

Tomos sat in a chair at a three-legged table
rescued from Rhuddlan, perhaps the same table and chair in which
Cadwaladr had eaten his meal in front of Gareth and mocked him with
it. Tomos waved the leg of mutton he held. “Come in! Come in! I’d
offer to have you join me but …”

“
We would have declined in
any case.” Hywel folded his arms across his chest and gazed at
Tomos, who continued to eat, openly unconcerned. It was his last
meal before his appointment with the gallows in the morning. King
Owain’s men were building it right now.

Gareth gingerly leaned against the tent
post. It couldn’t hold his whole weight, but it was enough to aid
him in staying upright. If he didn’t move, he had less trouble
breathing.

“
So you’ve come to look
upon a doomed man, is that it?” Tomos said.

“
If you are doomed, it is
your own doing,” Hywel said.

Tomos gave a derisive laugh. “It is your
father’s doing. All of it.”

“
My father did not kill
Enid and Ieuan,” Hywel said.

Tomos shrugged. “I suppose not. In any case,
if he hadn’t interfered where he wasn’t wanted, I wouldn’t have had
to do what I did.”

“
Why don’t you tell us all
about it,” Gareth said.

Tomos glanced to Gareth and then back to
Hywel. “You allow him to speak, do you?”

“
Just answer him,” Hywel
said.

“
I was forced to take
certain measures,” Tomos said. “I did what I had to do.”

“
And what about the boy you
corrupted?” Gareth said. “Pedr.”

Tomos waved a hand. “I admit that sending
him to Aber was a long shot, but I felt it worth it, once my
earlier attempts to redirect the king failed.”

“
Redirect?” Hywel said.
“You tried to kill my father.”

Tomos smirked. “If I’d really tried, he
would be dead.”

“
You
did
just want to stop the wedding,”
Gareth said.

Tomos shook his head. “Only delay, only
delay. I needed more time to set Rhuddlan’s affairs in order. I had
several interests that were coming due … I would have given up the
estate, just not quite yet.”

So far Gareth had kept his
face expressionless, but he couldn’t let this last comment stand.
“You say you weren’t trying to kill anyone, but you
did
kill.”

Tomos took a bite of bread and spoke around
it. “Regrettable, but necessary.”

“
For how long did you steal
from my father?” Hywel said.

“
Why should I tell you?”
Tomos said.

“
Lord Taran is going over
your accounts now,” Hywel said. “They didn’t burn in the fire. You
don’t have to answer, but we’ll know the truth soon.”

“
Eleven years.”

“
Eleven years,” Gareth
said. “That sounds very specific.”

Hywel leaned in to Tomos. “Why?”

That was the question they’d all wondered,
from before they knew who the murderer was, and even more now that
they had captured Tomos. King Owain was used to treachery from
Cadwaladr, but from Tomos? He had been counted a good friend.

Hywel and Tomos stared at each other with an
intensity that had Gareth’s hackles rising. He was missing
something here.

“
Why should I tell you?”
Tomos said.

“
Why shouldn’t you?” Hywel
said.

Again the long gaze and then Tomos leaned
back in his chair and sighed. “Your father isn’t hanging me in the
morning because I murdered Enid. He’s silencing me because I know
the truth about his brother’s death. As you may recall, Cadwallon
died eleven years ago this week.”

Gareth straightened, no longer needing the
post for support. With Tomos’ words, the earth had shifted beneath
his feet. Hywel, however, just studied Tomos. “Tell me.”

“
My cousin was married to
Marc ap Iefan. Pedr is a nephew of a sort.”

Ah
.

“
When you burned his manor
upon your father’s orders, Marc lost everything of value he
owned—”

“—
except his family,” Hywel
said.

Tomos shrugged. “Be that as it may, he died
a few months later, leaving my cousin a widow and the boy
fatherless. I didn’t hear of your actions until after they’d left
Gwynedd. It took me some time to track Owena down. By then, she was
near death herself—she’d been living off charity and was caring
more for the boy than for herself. I took them in.”

“
And you blamed my father,”
Hywel said. “But why? Marc was a traitor.”

“
Was he?” Tomos said. “Is
that what your father told you?”

Silence
.

“
Why do you say he wasn’t?”
Hywel said.

“
Because of what Marc told
me. Eleven years ago, your uncle Cadwallon was murdered,” Tomos
said.

“
Cadwallon died in battle,
in fighting to the east in Powys,” Hywel said.

“
Your uncle died, all
right,” Tomos said. “But not of his wounds, though he bore them.
Marc suffocated Cadwallon in his sleep, on your father’s
orders.”

The only sound in the tent was Tomos’
chewing, as Gareth and Hywel thought about that for a moment.

Then Hywel scoffed. “I don’t believe
it.”

Tomos shrugged. “Marc told me. And when the
guilt began to eat Marc up, threatening to come out and expose him,
King Owain sent you to resolve matters.”

“
I wasn’t ordered to kill
Marc,” Hywel said.

“
But were you told not to?”
Tomos said. “I imagine your father assumed that you
would.”

Hywel’s renewed silence told Gareth that he
was reviewing what his father had said to him those many years
ago—to the fourteen year old boy that he’d been. He’d been anxious
to please his father and prove his worth. But perhaps he hadn’t
done quite as well as he’d thought.

“
It is a damning story, my
lord.” Gareth took the liberty of putting a hand on Hywel’s
shoulder. Hywel started and glanced at Gareth, though his eyes were
unseeing. Tomos wore a self-satisfied smile. “But is it true? Or
are these the words of a condemned man who seeks revenge on the man
he betrayed, and desires to wreak havoc among those who accuse
him?”

Gareth’s cold assessment had Hywel’s eyes
clearing. He glared at Tomos. “If your story is true, I will
discover the truth. And if it’s not …”

“
I will be dead in either
case.” Tomos raised his cup to Hywel and drank.

As he set down the cup, his pupils became
pinpricks. Gareth surged forward and knocked the cup from Tomos’s
grasp. It sprayed a tiny measure of wine on the flattened grass
beneath his feet, but that was all. Tomos had drunk the rest, along
with whatever he’d put into it.

Tomos smiled, reached into an inner pocket
of his coat, and drew out a vial which he set onto the table. “Too
late.”

A spasm wracked his body, and then he slowly
toppled off his chair to the ground.

In the ensuing chaos of accusation and
regret, the removal of the body and the renewed anger of King
Owain, Hywel remained completely silent. He stood by Gareth at one
of the camp fires, watching the flap to Tomos’ tent open and close
as people went in and out.

King Owain spied them and came to a stop in
front of his son. “Did you get anything useful from him before he
killed himself?”

“
He was cheating you,”
Hywel said.

King Owain snorted under his breath. “I know
that.”

Gareth’s brow furrowed as a new thought
occurred to him. “Did you know before this that he was cheating
you? Is that one of the reasons you chose to remove Rhuddlan from
his purview and give it to Cristina?”

“
That’s why we keep you
around, eh? You ask questions others won’t.” King Owain grasped
Gareth’s shoulder and barked a laugh. “But no. I didn’t
know.”

An unwanted moan of pain hissed through
Gareth’s teeth.

“
Sorry!” King Owain
released him, still laughing. “My grandfather ruled in this region
and I thought it fitting to return Rhuddlan to Cristina’s side of
the family.” King Owain rubbed his hands together. “Which is now my
side of the family too.”

King Owain turned on his heel. Hywel watched
him go, and then jerked his head to indicate that Gareth should
follow him. They found a spot under a tree. It had begun to snow
again and the flakes sifted down from an entirely gray sky.

“
You are not to tell anyone
what Tomos said.
Anyone!”
Hywel said.

“
I won’t,” Gareth
said.

“
Not even Gwen!”

“
My lord, you would be wise
to consult her, you know that,” Gareth said. “She’s good at keeping
your secrets.”

Hywel bit his lip. “Only Gwen then.” He
kicked at the frozen grass at his feet. “I find myself so angry at
Tomos. And at my father, if what Tomos said is true.”

Gareth made an instant decision. “It isn’t,
my lord.”

Hywel turned on him. “And how do you know
that?”

“
I was there when Prince
Cadwallon died.”

“
What—what? You were there?
Why didn’t I know that?”

Gareth shrugged, though even that hurt. “My
uncle died at the same time as your Uncle Cadwallon. They shared a
tent, lying side by side on their deathbeds. I stayed with my uncle
until the end. He died of his wounds the same night Cadwallon did.
I will never forget the sound of them breathing together, straining
with every heartbeat to keep breathing. They died within moments of
each other.”

Hywel had stopped scuffing the ground and
was now gazing at Gareth intently. “I never knew this.”

“
I hid in a far corner of
the tent,” Gareth said. “I don’t know that anyone knew I spent the
night with them. A healer found me the next morning, curled into a
ball, my hands over my ears.”

Hywel’s shoulders sagged, with relief rather
than despair.

“
But even had I not been
there,” Gareth said, “I find it very hard to believe that Marc told
only Tomos and nobody else what he’d done, especially given King
Owain’s treatment of his family. You know how rumors spread,
especially when they involve murder and treachery.”

Hywel nodded.

“
What better way to bring
shame and retribution onto King Owain than to accuse him of
murdering his beloved older brother? Tomos went to all this trouble
to stop the wedding, and didn’t think to use the most powerful tool
at his disposal?”

“
You hearten me, my
friend.” He clapped a hand on Gareth’s shoulder, more gently than
his father had, out of respect for Gareth’s injuries. “I can close
this investigation with a lighter heart.” He stepped a pace away,
prepared to re-enter the snow, but Gareth put out a hand to stop
him.