The Uninvited Guest (7 page)

“
Completely
understandable,” Hywel said. And it was. A woman who overindulged
in wine was not safe on her own, not with so many eligible and
attentive men-at-arms and knights about.

“
Did she say anything about
being frightened of anyone?” Hywel said.

“
No, Hywel,” Cristina
said.

“
I’m sorry to ask this, my
lady,” Gareth said, “but did she say anything to you—anything at
all—about a plan to meet with someone later?”

Cristina shook her head, and her face showed
regret. “No. I don’t know what happened to Enid after we went to
bed.”

“
But that’s odd, isn’t it?”
Gwen said. “Wasn’t she staying in the same room with you and the
other bridesmaids?” The castle was so full that every room
overflowed. Even Gareth might not have found a real bed. Gwen eyed
him, wondering where he’d spent the night.

“
No.”

Neither man seemed to think this was as
strange as Gwen did, and Gwen didn’t feel as if she could pursue
it, not with Cristina gazing at her with her arms folded across her
chest and her chin out. Instead Gwen said, “What brought you out of
your room at this early hour, my lady?”

As soon as she asked the question, Gwen
regretted it. She’d seen a certain coldness creeping into
Cristina’s demeanor. They needed to know the answer to that
question, but … “It is my wedding day,” Cristina said. “We woke
early and thought we’d array ourselves accordingly.”

“
And you kept your wedding
dress in here?” Gwen surveyed the closet. “Why not in your
room?”

Cristina gritted her teeth. “It was supposed
to be in my room. Obviously, Enid removed it so she could destroy
it.”

“
Thank you,” Gareth said,
shutting down the interview. “You have been very
helpful.”

Cristina left the closet and Hywel pursed
his lips as he eyed Gwen. “She didn’t like Enid very much, did
she?”

“
Even with the girl dead at
her feet, she didn’t feel the need to hide it,” Gwen
said.

“
It’s interesting that
Cristina assumed Enid destroyed her dress,” Hywel said. “Someone
will need to talk to her again, but it won’t be you. It will not do
for you to antagonize your future queen.”

Gwen wrinkled her nose, annoyed. When Gareth
and she questioned individuals of a lower station, those
individuals were usually forthcoming and eager to please—especially
once Gwen and Gareth proved their reasonableness. The danger for a
servant was to be accused of a crime he didn’t commit, because he
was an easier target compared to one of his betters. In contrast,
for Gwen to question a baron … he could complain about her
impertinence to King Owain, who hadn’t always been as supportive as
he appeared to be now.

“
If we split up, we can get
more done,” Gwen said. “We need to ask everyone in the castle about
Enid and find out who saw her last.”

“
The killer,” Gareth
said.

Gwen gave him a disgusted look. “Of
course.”

“
Shall I wake King Owain,
my lord?” Gareth said to Hywel. “He wouldn’t have heard Cristina
scream.” The King’s rooms lay on the second floor of the wing on
the other side of the sprawling complex, separated from the western
wing by the great hall.

“
I will do it.” Prince
Cadwaladr stepped into the room. Gwen had heard no footsteps since
Cristina left, so he must have been waiting in the corridor, just
out of sight. She didn’t like the idea of him eavesdropping, though
he might consider it a matter of survival.

Hywel eyed his uncle. “Thank you.”

Cadwaladr left and the three companions
looked at each other. “That was odd,” Gwen said.

“
Very odd,” said
Gareth.

Hywel pursed his lips. “Odd enough that my
suspicions are renewed.” He took a deep breath and released it. “To
work, then.”

“
What is the time?” Gwen
said.

“
Just before Prime,” Gareth
said. “The sun won’t rise for more than an hour.”

Hywel knelt beside the trunk that held
Enid’s body. He put a hand to the girl’s neck and then lifted her
arm and dropped it. “Warm and nearly stiff.”

Gwen had encountered enough
dead bodies by now (sadly) that she didn’t have to ask what that
meant. If Enid’s body was warm and stiff
,
Enid had been dead more than two hours, but not more than half a
day.
Gwen regretted that she’d heard
nothing of what had gone on in the closet. They would have to speak
to the occupants of the rooms on either side, though as Cristina
hadn’t heard anything, Gwen didn’t have much hope that anyone else
had either.

“
That means she was killed
sometime before the third hour after midnight,” Gwen
said.

“
From midnight to three are
the three most silent—and most secret—hours of any day.” Gareth
gazed down at Enid’s body. “What did you get up to in that time
that got you killed, Enid?”

Hywel turned to Gwen. “While Gareth and I
get her out of the trunk, see what you can find in here that the
murderer might have dropped, or that might give us a clue as to his
identity.”

Gwen didn’t scoff at him, but it seemed
unlikely she’d find anything. “The killer would have been trying to
hurry, and hoping not to make noise, but he’d have had this room to
himself—one of the few rooms in the castle where this would be
true.” Even with guests strewn across the floor in rooms on either
side, Taran hadn’t housed anybody in here.

“
That he left Enid’s body
here indicates how comfortable the murderer feels at Aber Castle.”
Gareth grunted as he and Hywel lifted Enid from the
trunk.

Gwen took a quick look into the hallway, and
then closed the door to the room. Too many young women slept along
the corridor. If any of them observed her examining Enid, there’d
be more screaming. “Did the murderer kill her in here do you
think?”

“
We’ll see in a moment,”
Gareth said. That would be determined by the way in which the blood
had pooled in Enid’s body.

Hywel and Gareth wrestled Enid out of the
trunk and laid her flat on her back on the floor. She wore the same
dress she’d been wearing the night before.

“
She never intended to go
to bed,” Hywel said, “or at least not in the room designated for
her.”

Gareth leaned into the trunk and came up
with a small vial. “What’s this?”

Hywel and Gwen clustered around him as he
unstoppered it.

“
Is that what I think it
is?” Hywel said.

Gwen didn’t have to bend close to recognize
the smell that wafted from the vial. She remembered it all too
well: syrup of poppies. Only a few drops remained in the
bottom.

The three companions gazed at each other in
dismay. “Could this be Enid’s?” Gareth said.

“
Or the killer’s?” Gwen
said.

“
Enid didn’t die from poppy
juice. Either someone in the castle is suffering a great deal of
pain which he’s kept well hidden, or the poppy syrup was used on
someone else. But if not Enid, who?” Hywel said.

“
And why?” Gareth shook his
head. “And how are the answers to these questions related to Enid’s
death?”

Gwen gritted her teeth,
ready now to ask what Cristina hadn’t been willing to answer.
“Can
you
tell me
why Enid wasn’t sleeping in the same room as Cristina?”

“
Ah, Gwen.” Hywel coughed a
laugh. “Cristina didn’t want to tell you what she and her
bridesmaids knew to be true: Enid often didn’t sleep in the room to
which she’d been assigned.”

Gwen caught an intent look that shot between
Gareth and Hywel. “You’re telling me that for Enid to meet a man in
a closet was … more usual than not?” Gwen held her breath.

“
Yes,” Hywel
said.

Hywel’s exploits with women were well known.
If a woman as beautiful as Enid—with her thick honey-colored hair
and curving figure—made herself available, he would know about it.
And would be unlikely to decline what she was offering.

Silence stretched among them. Gwen looked
down at her feet. Finally, Hywel sighed. “Rather than force you to
ask me, I’ll just say it: I did not meet with Enid last night.”

Gwen looked up. “From what
you’re not saying, I’m guessing you have
met
with her in the past?”

“
Yes.” For all his faults,
Hywel wasn’t one to beat around the bush. “Years ago.”

Gareth cleared his throat, glanced up at
Gwen, and flushed red from the neck up. Regret filled his face.
“I’m sorry to say, my lord, that you are not the only one.”

Chapter Six

G
wen took a step back. Gareth knew she was going to turn and
run and he couldn’t let her. Before she could grasp the latch, he
was on his feet, his hand pressed to the door to stop her from
opening it.

“
Let me go!”

“
No,” he said. “It was
nearly five years ago, Gwen. You have to let me
explain.”

Hywel had been crouching
beside Enid’s body and now stood. “I’ll be leaving now.” With his
elbow, he nudged Gwen closer to Gareth as he pulled open the door.
Before he slipped through it, he shot an amused glance at Gareth.
Hywel’s amusement was all very well and good.
He
was a known womanizer; Gareth, not
so much.

Gwen stood with her head down and her arms
wrapped around her midsection. After Hywel closed the door, she
pressed her forehead into the wood.

God damn it! Why couldn’t
he keep his big mouth shut?
“Gwen—”

“
Just tell me, Gareth. I’d
rather you got it over with without feeling sorry for me. I’m not
so naïve that I’m willing to close my eyes and let you make a fool
of me.”

Gareth’s hand hovered above Gwen’s shoulder,
but then he dropped it, deciding that he shouldn’t touch her just
now. He glanced at Enid’s body, still supine on the floor, and
would have laughed at the incongruity of it if laughter wouldn’t
have made Gwen even sadder. For the sorrow in her voice was
unmistakable and broke his heart.

“
After I left Cadwaladr—and
you—Cristina’s father was the first lord for whom I fought. Enid
often visited Cristina in those days. It was known among the men
that she was free with her attentions, and so I …” The last words
came out in a rush but he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“
You took her up on her
offer,” Gwen said.

Gareth wanted to punch the wall. “Your
father had turned me down for your hand, Gwen. I was disgraced.”
The memory of those months tasted bitter in Gareth’s mouth, even
these many years later. He’d been twenty-three when he’d left
Cadwaladr’s service—seven years older than Gwen—and he’d thought
his life was over. The real truth, which he surely wasn’t going to
tell Gwen just now, was that Enid wasn’t the only woman who’d
shared his bed after he’d left Gwen, just the first.

Gareth cleared his throat. “It meant nothing
to either of us at the time. She paid attention to me for a few
days at most. We both knew from the start she would move on to
someone else. It would have meant nothing to either of us today if
Enid hadn’t ended up dead.”

Gwen’s shoulders remained hunched.

“
Gwen—”

“
I knew you hadn’t been
chaste since you left me. Or I should have known,” Gwen said. “I
never wanted to think about it.”

“
I’m sorry, Gwen,” Gareth
said. “I’d take it back if I could, but I can’t. Would you have
preferred that I hadn’t told you?”

Now, Gwen sighed. She turned around to face
him, her back to the door. “And when it came out that you knew her
and didn’t speak as Hywel did?” She shook her head.

Gareth let out the breath he’d been holding.
Her sane response, now that she’d had time to think, was exactly
why he’d told her.

Gwen lifted her hand as if she was going
touch him, and then dropped it. “How much worse would it have been
to have withheld the truth? You know what would have happened as
well as I. Some would have wondered what else you were hiding, and
might have speculated that you’d renewed your acquaintance with
Enid yesterday. And then they’d go on to wonder if you’d killed
her.”

It didn’t bear thinking on. He could have
ended up in that cell again. Gareth looked down at the top of
Gwen’s bowed head. “I am sorry, Gwen. More than I can say.”

Her head came up. “Were there other women I
don’t know about?”

A tendril of fear curled in Gareth’s
stomach. “Yes.” He kept his gaze steady on hers.

“
Recently?”

Gareth took in a breath and let it out.
“No.”

Gwen’s shoulders sagged. “Did you talk to
Enid yesterday?”

They both glanced towards Enid’s body, and
then away again. It was awkward to be discussing this here, but
worse not to. He couldn’t let Gwen leave the room with the past
hanging between them.

“
No,” Gareth said. “I
didn’t even know she was at Aber. Between our late arrival and the
attack on the King, I spoke to few people other than you and Hywel.
After you went to bed, I checked once more on our prisoner, who
continues to claim that he remembers nothing else, and then I went
to bed in the barracks.” He paused. “Alone.”

Gwen allowed Gareth to clasp her hand. “I
believe you, Gareth. It’s just a hard tale to hear under these
circumstances … And then there’s Hywel.”