The Lost Brother (4 page)

Gwen shivered beside him. Concerned, Gareth
pulled up her hood and retied the scarf around her neck so that it
held her cloak closed and prevented the wind from getting into the
core of her body. Beneath the cloak, she was already wearing wool
breeches, a shift, an underdress, and an overdress. Any more layers
and she’d barely be able to move. As it was, the only bits of her
that were showing were her nose and mouth.

It took only a few moments to mount, and
then the companions rode down the track to the monastery. They
arrived in the clearing in front of what had once been the main
gatehouse but was now something of a ruin. The base of the wall had
been originally built in stone, but it had crumbled on either side
of the gate to a height of less than three feet and no longer
provided any serious barrier to the courtyard behind it.

The wooden gate stood open, and a half-dozen
horses cropped the grass that had grown up between the slate stones
that paved the courtyard in places. Dismounting, the companions led
their horses through the gate. At that moment, Prince Rhun, Owain’s
eldest son and Hywel’s blood brother, appeared out of the entrance
to the cloister with a man dressed in priest’s robes. The pair had
been talking intently and looked up at the sudden arrival of the
visitors.

Rhun broke into a smile and, sounding very
much like his father, said, “Well, well. Look what the cat dragged
in.” He walked towards Godfrid, who tossed his reins to Gareth.

The two princes reached each other in three
strides. Godfrid didn’t give Rhun as exuberant a greeting as he’d
given Hywel, but they shook arms with genuine affection. They were
near to each other in height and weight, attributable to their
mutual Viking ancestry.

“Cousin.” Godfrid stepped back from Rhun. “I
bring you greetings from my father, as well as twenty good fighting
men.”

Rhun dipped his chin. “I am very glad to
hear it—and to see you. I am looking forward to hearing your news
from Dublin, but—” His eyes strayed first to Gareth, and then to
Gwen, who’d pushed back the hood of her cloak so Rhun could see her
face.

Gwen smiled. “My lord.”

Rhun was in his late twenties, a few years
younger than Gareth. He’d been his father’s right hand since he’d
become a man and knew his father’s mind better than anyone except
Taran, King Owain’s longtime friend and the steward of Aber
Castle.

“I do not know how it is that you are here,
Gwen, but somehow I can’t be surprised. It is just as well. The
good father has need of your services.”

Gwen put a hand to her breast. “My
services?”

“Yours and your husband’s.” Rhun tipped his
head towards his brother. “It appears, once again, that your
captain is needed for other duties for a few days.”

“Why is that?” Hywel looked nonplussed. “The
siege of Mold is imminent, Rhun.”

“Our preparations will have to continue
without Gareth, at least for now,” Rhun said. “Father Alun, of the
parish of Cilcain to the east of here, has found a body in his
graveyard.”

Gwen

P
rince Rhun
gestured Father Alun closer. The priest, a rounded, somewhat squat
man somewhere in advanced middle age, obeyed, stepping out from
under the eave that sheltered the doorway into the monastery
proper. He’d waited there while Rhun had greeted Godfrid.

Arrayed in the undyed robes of a country
priest, simple and plain down to the sandals and a belt made of
rope, he couldn’t have been comfortable in this weather. Gwen felt
colder just looking at him. He had a kind face and eyes, though,
which were currently riveted on her face with an intensity that was
disconcerting.

Gwen didn’t know the reason for it, so she
tried to ignore it, saying instead, “Aren’t bodies supposed to be
found in graveyards?”

Gareth squeezed her hand briefly, probably
glad that she’d been the one to ask the obvious question rather
than leaving it for him.

“Indeed,” Father Alun said, his eyes still
fixed on Gwen. “One would expect it. But this is something of a
different situation. I was wandering among the stones at the back
of the churchyard, looking for a burial spot for a parishioner who
died, when I came upon a body in a freshly dug grave.”

Gareth’s eyes narrowed. “One, I gather, that
shouldn’t have been freshly dug?”

“And a body that shouldn’t have been in it,
freshly dug or not,” Rhun said.

Father Alun’s gaze skated to the prince, who
tipped his head in a possible apology for interrupting, or merely
to indicate that the priest should continue his tale.

Father Alun sighed. “Earlier in the day, one
of the village pigs was found inside the churchyard wall. We
rousted him and thought we’d undone the damage from his rooting,
but we hadn’t investigated very far behind the church. I wish I
had, because he’d been digging at the grave with his hooves and
uncovered a woman’s hand.”

Gwen wrinkled her nose in distaste. “That
must have been unpleasant.”

Father Alun nodded. “It was. I’m sorry to
say that I did not keep my dignity as well as I would have
liked.”

He admitted his failing with complete
serenity, and Gwen felt a sudden warmth towards this humble priest,
who seemed to have no agenda but to discover the name of the poor
victim who’d been left in his charge.

Prince Rhun waved a hand, dismissing Father
Alun’s admission. “Go on.”

Father Alun certainly knew how to tell a
story. While he didn’t relish the telling of it, he laid out the
salient facts with a clear voice: the grave lay in the far corner
of the graveyard under a spreading oak. The initial grave had been
dug long ago, and the man in it buried while the tree was still
young and its root system less extensive. The wide boughs had
prevented the robust growth of grass beneath the tree, which may
have deluded the man who’d buried the woman there into thinking the
digging would be easy. Instead, he’d encountered roots two feet
down, gave up, and buried the woman in a far too shallow grave.

“Even without the pig,” Father Alun
continued, “I might have noticed how the earth was more mounded
under the tree than it should have been. At the very least, even a
cursory inspection would have shown that someone had tried to get
rid of extra dirt by mixing it with fallen leaves and strewing it
over the spot where the digging had occurred.”

“Is the body of the man whose grave it is
still in place?” Gwen said.

“Yes, it is.” Father Alun said. “We
confirmed it without uncovering him entirely, and then laid the
dirt over him again. We tried to be respectful.” For the first time
he showed real discomfort, wringing his hands at the sacrilege done
to the dead man’s remains.

“Could someone have buried the body because
they didn’t think—” Gwen broke off, trying to find a better way to
articulate the ugly thought. She started again, “Could it simply be
a matter of burying a loved one whose interment in holy ground you
might not have approved of?”

“That was, frankly, my first thought.”
Father Alun spread his hands wide. “I am not one to deny burial
unless the circumstances are extreme, and I hadn’t heard of a woman
dying in the region other than the old woman for whom I was looking
for a burial site. We are a small parish, and any death would have
been known throughout Cilcain.”

“Anyway,” Rhun said, obviously having heard
the whole story already, “the man’s grave was old and had a stone
to mark it.”

“What about grave robbers?” Godfrid said,
speaking for the first time. He’d been listening to Father Alun
with an amused expression on his face, which was typical for
him.

Father Alun shook his head. “We are a poor
parish—poorer in recent years with all the fighting. My people
aren’t buried with expensive rings and trinkets.”

“Perhaps it’s time you tell us why you came
all this way,” Hywel said. “A dead woman is one thing. Are we to
understand that you believe she was murdered?”

“Her throat was cut.” Father Alun gave an
involuntary shiver.

Gwen had been waiting for him to admit
something along those lines and spoke gently, “You don’t recognize
her as someone from your parish?” It was one thing for Gwen herself
to become far too familiar with murder, but this might be the first
time the good father had encountered it.

“No, but—” Father Alun shook his head, his
attention back on Gwen’s face. Then, strangely, he came forward and
took one of Gwen’s hands in both of his. “I am accustomed to being
the bearer of bad news, but I have never had to bring news to a
relation in a situation such as this. My dear, I apologize for
staring at you, but even in death the woman we found bears some
resemblance to you. Do you—do you have a sister? Or-or-or a cousin,
one who could have come to grief near Cilcain?”

Gareth leaned in between Gwen and Father
Alun. “Wait. Are you saying that the murdered woman looks like
Gwen?”

“Yes.” Father Alun said. “I came here hoping
for help in putting a name to the woman’s face, but I had no idea
that discovering her identity was as simple as speaking to you, my
dear.” Father Alun looked helplessly at Gwen. “Please tell me her
name so that I may give her a proper burial.”

“But I don’t have a sister.” The words came
blurting out before Gwen could think about them or stop them. “I
don’t even have a female cousin that I know of. My mother died
birthing my brother.”

She looked down at the ground, not wanting
to see the sympathetic expressions on the men’s faces. It was
perfectly possible that her father had loved another woman besides
her mother. Gwen knew virtually nothing about her father’s life
before her own birth and might not know everything about his
conduct afterwards. He might never even have known that he’d sired
a daughter other than Gwen.

It would have been unusual for the mother of
the child not to tell him. In Wales, illegitimate children were
counted as legitimate as long as the father acknowledged them. King
Owain had many illegitimate sons and daughters, and he’d
acknowledged them all. Rhun was his father’s favorite and the
edling,
the chief heir to the throne, even though King Owain
hadn’t married his mother, an Irishwoman who’d died at Hywel’s
birth. It was one of the many ways that Welsh law differed from
English law, and why the Welsh were fighting so hard to maintain
their sovereignty.

Gwen was still shaking her head. “My mother
was an only child, and my father’s sisters have no daughters. I
don’t know who this woman is.”

Father Alun pressed his lips together for a
moment, and then said, “That may be, but would you consider coming
to see her for yourself?”

“I think you should,” Hywel said, before
Gwen could answer, “except that Cilcain is very close to the
territory controlled by Earl Ranulf’s forces. Cilcain itself was
ruled by him until we drove his men back towards Mold a month
ago.”

Gareth slipped his arm around Gwen’s
shoulder and directed his words at Prince Hywel. “My lord, this
isn’t just about the girl’s connection to Gwen. It’s murder
too.”

“As I was saying to the prince before your
arrival, my lords, Earl Ranulf’s men have moved south and east,”
the priest said. “A few of us alone won’t invite notice or comment,
even if he has men scouting the region.”

“Looking for us, you mean,” Hywel said. “He
knows that we are preparing to move on Mold.”

“All of Wales knows that,” Father Alun said,
“but Chester doesn’t have the men to stop you.”

Prince Rhun stepped closer. “How’s
that?”

Father Alun’s head twitched as he looked at
the intent faces of those surrounding him. “Didn’t-didn’t you know
that? He is facing pressure from King Stephen on his eastern
border. Small skirmishes only, but Ranulf has pulled back many of
his men all along the border with Gwynedd.”

Rhun’s face took on a rare intensity. “Is
that so? We hadn’t heard.”

Godfrid touched Gwen’s elbow, and he jerked
his head to indicate that he would like to speak to her and Gareth
a bit away from Father Alun, who was now being pressed harder by
Rhun and Hywel to explain exactly where his information had come
from.

“Father Alun could be a spy for Chester and
his story a ruse, as a way to deliver this piece of information to
King Owain,” Godfrid said. “What if his intent is to draw the king
into a trap?”

Gwen looked up at the Dane. His size and
enthusiasm sometimes made her forget the sharp mind behind his
twinkling blue eyes.

But even with Godfrid speaking low—and in
accented Welsh—Father Alun overheard him. He cleared his throat and
said loudly, “What I have told you isn’t news today to any man
living east of the mountains. Chester has refortified Mold as best
he can, it is true, but we haven’t seen any of his soldiers pass
through Cilcain in days. I swear it.”

“My lord,” Gareth said, speaking to Hywel,
“I am the captain of your
teulu
. If I were to go, I can
uncover the truth of Father Alun’s words. Cilcain is a small
village, and the people will all know about the woman’s death and
be concerned about a murderer running free among them. They will
need reassurance that their king—in the absence of Ranulf—has taken
an interest in their wellbeing. I can show them that he has.”

Hywel rubbed his chin, studying Gareth and
Gwen, and then turned to his brother. “I agree with Gareth. I think
we should help the good father, and Gareth can also discover if
what Father Alun says about Ranulf’s forces is true.”

Rhun looked east, though all he could see
from where he stood were the trees that surrounded the monastery.
“You know as well as I that determining the course of events that
led to this woman’s death is unlikely to be quick or simple.”

“Which is why I should go, my lords,” Gareth
said. “If it’s only Gwen and me, we will have access to homes and
crofts beyond those which a company might find open to them, and we
can ask questions of everyone.”