The Fourth Horseman (17 page)

While Gwen lit the lantern, Gareth lowered
the ladder into the hole. The floor below had been dug deep and the
top of the ladder barely reached the level of the upper floor. The
pair exchanged a glance and Gareth shrugged. He stepped onto the
first rung.

“
Take it slowly,” Gwen
said.

“
I’ll be fine.”

Ten feet down, Gareth reached the cellar
floor and looked upwards to Gwen, still framed in the square hole
with the light coming in from the open door behind her. He gestured
for her to climb down too. She handed him the lantern, and when she
reached the ground, she gasped.

Gareth didn’t gasp, but he was no less
surprised than Gwen. After he set the lantern on a narrow table,
they both spun slowly around, taking in the shelves, crates, and
trunks filled with an assortment of goods from clothing to weapons.
“I know several lords who would be envious of what we’ve found
here,” he said.

“
Why did they dig the
cellar so deep?” Gwen said. “With the river nearby, I would have
thought they’d have hit water.”

Gareth put a hand to the dirt wall. His
fingers came away dry. “Apparently they know something we
don’t.”

Armor and weaponry, including bows,
crossbows and axes, lined one wall. An entire barrelful of arrows
rested in one corner. A single wooden chair sat at an angle in
another. Gareth’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed the lantern and went to
inspect the chair. The arms were worn in places, as if ropes had
rubbed them, and the ground beneath the chair was discolored. He
bent closer.

“
Are those bloodstains?”
Gwen pointed to the seat of the chair.

“
I know why the ceiling is
so high,” Gareth said.

“
Why?” Gwen looked from the
chair to him.

Gareth stretched, trying to touch the
ceiling, but even jumping, he couldn’t reach it. “This is meant to
be a place to question and hold prisoners, in addition to keeping
supplies.”

Gwen shivered. “Just as long as we don’t get
trapped down here.” She lifted up the lid of a nearby trunk and
pulled out the robes of a priest. “Why would they have this—” And
then she broke off and nodded. “Because they’re spies.”

“
They’ve kept everything in
excellent condition,” Gareth said.

“
Before yesterday, three of
the horsemen still lived,” Gwen said. “They must have used it
often, and given that they left the door unlocked, had confidence
that nobody but they would ever come here.”

“
Or the door was left open
as a trap for us,” Gareth said.

Gwen glanced at him. “What? How can you say
that so calmly? Do you really think so?”

“
I hope so.” Gareth smiled
at Gwen’s stunned expression.

Then she frowned at him. “You could have
told me what you were thinking.”

“
I didn’t want to speak of
it in case I was wrong.” Gareth looked around the room, struck by
the order, the neatness. The men who spent time here had cared
about their work.

“
I feel like I’m prying.
Alard isn’t here. We should go—” Gwen broke off.

“
What—?” Gareth spun
around. The bottom of the ladder was already five feet off the
floor. Gareth leapt towards it, his fingers just brushing at the
last rung before it was pulled out of reach.

Gareth looked upwards. Gwen moved to stand
beside him, but Gareth put out his hand to keep her back. He pulled
his sword from its sheath, though it would be of little use against
the air between them and whoever had pulled up the ladder. Still,
having it in his hand made him feel more confident.

Then Alard came to stand at the edge of the
trap door and look down on them. He wore a wry smile and was as
untouchable as when he’d hung from the rope above the Lyme Brook.
He had his own lantern, and between the two, the farmhouse was lit
up like day.

Gareth could have thrown his knife, maybe
even hurt the man badly, but that would have defeated the entire
purpose of this exercise, not to mention leaving him and Gwen still
in the cellar. Given that Alard had trapped them down here instead
of killing them, Gareth was hoping for talk, which was all he’d
wanted in the first place.

“
So, it is the Welshman who
comes. I am Alard, servant of Empress Maud, but you knew that
already.”

Gareth nodded. “What do you want?”

“
To talk to
you.”

“
Why?” Gareth said, though
that was what he had wanted too.

“
I have many questions that
need answering, and the only way for me to clear my name is to
encourage someone other than Ranulf or Philippe, someone from the
outside, to find me answers,” Alard said. “I trust nobody’s motives
but yours.”

Gareth sheathed his sword. That was quite a
declaration, coming from a lifelong spy. He decided to be as
friendly as possible until he had a reason not to. Alard had all
the advantages currently. It might pay to play nice. “Why do you
name Ranulf? What does he have to do with this?”

“
He is Earl Robert’s
son-in-law, and certain tasks fall to him—unsavory tasks—because he
excels at making problems go away,” Alard said. “I knew Earl Robert
would place the investigation of David’s death in his hands, and he
and I have no love for each other.”

“
Why is that?” Gwen
said.

“
His allegiance is to
Robert only. He cares nothing for the empress. I don’t trust
him.”

“
It is my impression that
what Ranulf cares most about is his own power and status,” Gareth
said.

“
That too,” Alard
admitted.

“
You may have questions,
but we also have them—and they need answers,” Gareth said. “First
and foremost, did you murder David?”

“
No,” Alard
said.

Gareth scoffed. “Then how did he die if you
didn’t kill him?”

“
I didn’t say I didn’t kill
him,” Alard said. “I did. But it wasn’t murder. He came at me, and
I had no choice. He was my friend and I killed him, with regret and
in self-defense.”

“
You had to throttle
and
stab him?” Gwen said.
Gareth was glad Gwen wasn’t cowed by the Norman spy and was asking
some of the questions. Alard might take them better coming from a
woman who seemed no threat to him.

Alard unhooked his cloak to show Gwen his
neck. It was mottled with bruises. “My side is bandaged—it’s a
wound from David’s knife. Do you need to see that too?”

Gareth remembered the splashes of blood on
the leaves beside the brook. “That won’t be necessary. What about
John?”

“
I didn’t kill him either,”
Alard said. “He was dead before I came out of the
brook.”

Gareth pursed his lips. “Then who murdered
him?”

“
I cannot say,” Alard
said.

“
Can’t or won’t?” Gwen
said.

Alard’s chin firmed, and for a moment he
looked like he was going to walk away. Gareth changed the subject
before they lost him. “What were you doing in Newcastle in the
first place?”

Alard gestured to the
farmhouse. “This is our base. I always return here. And in this
case, David asked to meet me. Knowing he might think
my
loyalty was in
question, I became concerned about
his
, so I suggested a public place for
our meeting. When he didn’t show, I took the opportunity to observe
your arrival. A Welsh delegation is an unusual enough sight for me
to want to inspect it personally, and that is all I was doing on
the wall walk until David came up behind me and caught me
unawares.”

“
How sloppy of you,” Gwen
said under her breath, in Welsh and for Gareth’s ears
alone.

Gareth clasped her hand in his, and she
looked down, hiding a smile. “Why would David want to kill you?”
Gareth said.

“
I assume he’d been told
that I was a traitor. I wanted to speak with him, hoping that he
would give me the benefit of the doubt.” Alard sighed and looked
away again. “Apparently not.”

“
I’m not sure that I
believe you,” Gareth said. “You left yourself an escape route by
rope from the battlement. That smacks of planning, not
happenstance.”

“
I always leave myself an
escape route,” Alard said.

Gareth coughed a laugh, his fist to his
mouth, and granted Alard his point.

“
When you chased me, I knew
I had made the right choice to drop David at your feet,” Alard
said. “Did you know that he was a traitor to your King
Owain?”

“
Prince Hywel knew it as
soon as Earl Ranulf claimed him as his man,” Gareth
said.

“
Good,” Alard said. “That
was as I hoped.”

“
You should know that one
of the reasons we’re here listening to you at all is because you
have at least one friend who wanted to hear your side before he
passed judgment,” Gareth said.

“
Who’s that?”

“
Amaury, a retainer of the
Earl of Chester,” Gareth said.

Some of the tension around Alard’s eyes
eased, and he nodded. “I always admired his intelligence, though he
has too much honor to make a good spy.”

“
We know about the four
horsemen,” Gwen said.

Gareth managed not to smirk when Alard
raised his eyebrows. “Then you know I am the only one left.”

Gareth regarded Alard steadily, careful not
to give Prior Rhys away. But then as Alard gazed back at him, his
focus caused Gareth to think again. “I would prefer we don’t tell
each other lies. Too many men have lied to me already since we
arrived at Newcastle.”

Alard rubbed his chin. “So I did see what I
thought I saw in the bailey yesterday.”

“
What did you think you
saw?” Gwen said.

“
Peter, with the Welsh
princes. I was busy with David at the time and later decided my
eyes had deceived me. I’m guessing that it is through his knowledge
that you learned of this farmhouse.”

Gareth canted his head, without giving
anything more away.

“
Does Peter think ill of me
too?” Alard said.

“
He did not share his
opinion of you with us,” Gwen said. “You do understand that the
accusations against you go beyond murder? That both Earl Ranulf and
your spymaster, Philippe, have named you traitor to the
empress?”

“
I’d been told that was the
way of it.” Alard crouched near the hole, hanging his hands between
his knees and looking more relaxed than before. “I have no
illusions of my own importance, great or small, but it explains the
effort expended to hunt me.”

“
There’s more, however,
that you’re not telling us,” Gareth said.

Alard’s jaw worked. “You wouldn’t believe
me.”

Gareth gestured to the contents of the room.
“I wouldn’t have believed this until I saw it. Tell me. You may
find me surprisingly open-minded.”

“
You do have a captive
audience,” Gwen said. “You are accused of murder and apparently
sentenced to die without a trial. At this point, telling us the
truth may be your only hope. You have nothing to lose.”

Alard clicked his tongue, not yet nodding
his agreement, but then he said, “Yes. You read me right. Besides
which, you have information I need. Perhaps we can help each
other.”

“
Is that why you chose to
dump David at our feet instead of leaving him on the wall walk?”
Gwen said.

“
That is exactly why,”
Alard said.

“
You got our attention,”
Gareth said. “I’ll give you that.”

“
Surely some of it had to
be unwanted,” Gwen said.

“
It was the price I chose
to pay. I can take care of myself.” Alard leaned forward. “You must
be wary of Philippe most of all. If he sent David to kill me, then
it is he who is the most dangerous—to you and to me. It is he who
betrays the empress.”

Gareth didn’t trust Philippe either, but
somehow the idea that Philippe was the traitor was troubling. “The
man is dying. Why would he betray the empress now? He has nothing
to gain.”

“
Dying men can be traitors
if it means leaving their loved ones well-provided-for,” Alard
said.

“
Philippe accuses you, and
you accuse Philippe,” Gwen said. “Why should we believe you over
him? You murdered your fellow horseman.”

“
As I said, I defended
myself only after Philippe sent David to kill me,” Alard
said.

“
He denies doing any such
thing,” Gareth said.

“
He would,” Alard
said.

“
But why?” Gwen said. “What
would he gain by lying about a thing like that?”

“
Trapping us here so we’ll
listen to your story is not the act of an innocent man either,”
Gareth said.

“
It is the act of a
desperate one,” Alard said, belying Gareth’s earlier assumption. “I
have served the empress my whole life. I would not betray her. Not
ever.”

“
Yet Philippe believes you
have,” Gwen said, “and you accuse him when he has served her just
as long.”

Alard straightened. “I don’t know what is
going on. I don’t know what he believes me to be planning. I only
know that he is laying someone else’s treachery at my feet.”

“
Philippe claims that your
aim is to murder Prince Henry.” It was on the tip of Gareth’s
tongue to mention the messenger from William de Ypres, but he
didn’t, not yet. He wanted to see if Alard had already heard of
him.