* * * * *
Gwen groaned, her hand to her head. The room in which she found herself was plain, with an unlit fireplace, wooden beams that supported the roof, and little else. It wasn’t the room in which she slept at Aber. Gwen blinked—and then remembered. I’m not at Aber!
That she was alive, Gwen considered to be something of a miracle, given the bodies that Anarawd’s murderer had no apparent qualms about strewing across Gwynedd. It was why she was alive that concerned her. Not that she wasn’t happy about it; obviously the man who ordered this had his reasons. She didn’t know—and didn’t really want to find out—what a man might think a credible reason for abducting her.
Or a woman, Gwen supposed, though the notion that any woman, even Cristina, was behind her captivity seemed vanishingly remote. She lay as they’d left her, on her side and curled into a ball, in a room that was entirely empty except for her. Her head and stomach hurt so badly, just the thought of standing made her nauseous. She tried to piece together the course of events since Aber, but couldn’t recall more than passing emotions and vague shadows.
At least they hadn’t put her at the back of the stables where Gareth had found himself. Wherever she was, she was in a house of some kind, and a well-kept one at that, given the fine wood floor on which her pallet rested. She also, now that she could feel her body better—and see it—wore a finely woven blue dress over the night shift she’d worn to bed. She really didn’t want to know how they’d gotten her into it while she’d been unconscious.
What troubled her most about her imprisonment was the extent to which none of this made any sense at all. Where had she gone wrong? To whom had she given the false impression that they were near to finding the killer? Neither she, Hywel, nor Gareth had come close to discovering who’d murdered Anarawd, much less killed all those other people.
Gwen amused herself with the idea that multiple people had worked at cross-purposes, running into each other in their attempts to cover up their crimes and cast blame on someone else, until she remembered that the someone else in question had been Gareth. Worse and worse.
She couldn’t help Gareth, not from wherever she was now, so she forced thoughts of him to the back of her mind and refocused on her own predicament. For now, she needn’t concern herself about all those potential villains. She just needed to worry about the one who’d stolen her away.
From the quality of the light leaking through the cracks around the shuttered window, the day had faded into late afternoon. She tried to marshal the requisite energy to open the window but just as she had convinced herself she could stand, footfalls outside her door stayed her. The bar came up and the door opened.
“I know you’re awake.” It was Prince Cadwaladr, striding across the floor to the window and opening it for her.
Gwen put a hand to her head, cursing herself for not controlling her temper better with him. But had Cadwaladr really killed the stable boy, attempted to poison Gareth, and stolen Anarawd’s body? She couldn’t see it. He’d have had to get his hands dirty himself, and usually he ordered others to do his most unsavory tasks. How many men could he have who would murder a stable boy and a servant woman? How much money was one man’s soul worth, and what would he take in trade?
“You might as well sit up and pay attention.”
Gwen did as he bid, blinking her eyes against the sudden light. The scent of the sea that she’d noticed earlier was stronger now on the breeze. She filed that away in the back of her mind for future thought. “Why am I here? Why have you taken me from Aber against my will?”
“Against your will?” Cadwaladr swung around to look at her. “Why would you think that? No, my dear. I took you from Aber to keep you safe, since you were in great danger there.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “In danger from whom?”
“From Gareth, of course,” Cadwaladr said. “Even in his cell, he could harm you as long as he has Hywel’s ear. That might not have been evident to your lover, but it was clear as day to me.”
“To … my lover?”
Cadwaladr made an impatient motion with his hand. “Men in love are blind. Naturally, Hywel wanted to keep you with him, but it wasn’t the wisest course. As his uncle, I had to take action when he would not.”
Gwen gaped at Cadwaladr. Her throat closed on any comprehensible thing she could possibly put forth. Cadwaladr gazed at her with such condescension and certainty, any contradiction of his beliefs was impossible—and probably unwise. She looked away, her hand to her head. It ached and she didn’t know if it was from the poppy juice, or the surprise of hearing him get this so drastically wrong. But as it appeared to be the only reason she was alive, she didn’t dare deny it.
“Since it was clear my nephew was incapable of seeing the truth, I acted. After my brother hangs the traitor, we will return.” Cadwaladr turned to look out the window. “We don’t have long to wait. Last I spoke to him, King Owain promised me Gareth’s death would occur at dawn tomorrow.”
Gwen struggled to rise, the desire to throw herself at Cadwaladr and choke him so strong, she felt she’d actually have the courage to do it. Seeing her movement, Cadwaladr put out a hand. “Now, now. Easy. You shouldn’t move quickly in your condition.”
Gwen subsided, settling for shooting daggers at him with her eyes. Truth be told, now that Cadwaladr had her here, Gwen had the feeling he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her. He was very confident as he spoke to her, but he twitched more than usual, and so far hadn’t looked her in the eye even once. “Where are we?”
Cadwaladr tsked under his breath—exactly like her father often did—and returned to the doorway. “I’ll send food and water.” He closed the door behind him.
Gwen rested her head against the wall of her prison, pulled a thin blanket over her legs, and closed her eyes. She’d obviously slept the day away. She opened her eyes again and looked towards the open window. Pushing through her exhaustion, Gwen rose to her feet, stumbling almost as if she’d been on a boat instead of lying on a pallet on dry land. Her hands clutched the window ledge.
The sea! Cadwaladr had been playing games with her not to give her the name of the castle. He must have known that one look out the window would tell her. She’d been here before. Another glance around the room with clearer eyes told her she’d even been in this room before. Owain Gwynedd had only two seaside castles within a day’s range of Aber that Cadwaladr might think to use: Criccieth, south of Caernarfon, and Aberffraw to the north. How she could have missed a ride across the Menai Strait she didn’t know, but she had. Cadwaladr had grown up here, as had she and Hywel.
They were at Aberffraw.
She pushed the shutter wider to illuminate the room. Turning back, she studied the empty fireplace, the mantle, and the box that held the extra firewood, empty today since it was August. Crouching down, she traced the faded lettering that Hywel had carved into one of the box’s slats, long ago. She’d been there when he’d done it and had been appropriately shocked at the time: Meilyr is an ass.
She laughed.
They’d taken their lessons together here. Her father had included her, with King Owain’s permission, more to keep Hywel company than because anyone thought it appropriate she learn to read. Even then, however, she’d the sense that Meilyr himself thought he would personally benefit from teaching her. Thus, every morning for two years, she and Hywel sat together in this very room, learning their Latin and Welsh from Meilyr. Along with their letters, he taught them figures and, most importantly, music.
In those years, it was music that had governed their lives, far above the hated Latin. Even King Owain, who paid far less attention to his second son than his first, had recognized Hywel’s capacity as a musician and acknowledged that to give him anything less than the best and most thorough instruction and guidance would be doing Wales—and by extension, King Owain himself—a disservice.
Hywel had asked her to listen to the first song he’d ever composed. Just her i
nitially, to help him gather his courage to show it to Meilyr. He’d said it was to her as well, though almost immediately she doubted it as she overheard him telling one of the serving wenches the same thing three days later. He was only twelve and she ten at the time, but every woman in the room was fair game to him, even then. Meilyr had approved the meter and rhyme, if not the actual content, and Hywel’s career as a warrior-poet was born.
Not long after, Gwen’s mother had died birthing Gwalchmai, and Gwen’s lessons ended, replaced by caring for the baby. Hywel too began splitting his time more between his swordplay and his lessons. He might be the second, bastard son of the second son of the King of Gwynedd, but to all concerned the warrior part of warrior-poet was ever the most important.
As fate would have it, King Owain’s older brother, Cadwallon, died the next year. All of a sudden, Hywel was far more important to his father than he’d been before. King Owain might dote on Rhun, he might not understand this second son, who was both wildly creative and physically bold—and exactly like his father—but he needed him, just as King Owain’s father had needed Owain himself when Cadwallon died. It wasn’t hard to see the parallels between King Owain’s growing up and Hywel’s, even if the idea of Rhun dying prematurely was horrifying.
But in a royal family, these things had to be acknowledged. Just as the possibility of treachery of one brother towards another needed to be accepted as well. Hywel would make an extraordinarily capable King of Gwynedd, perhaps more so than Rhun because he was so much more intelligent and devious. But he’d been born second.
Gwen was too old now—and she and Hywel had grown too far apart—to ask him if he minded. Purportedly, King Anarawd had gotten along with his brothers too, and it might well be a smooth transition for Cadell to step into his brother’s shoes as King of Deheubarth. If that was the case, such an outcome was rarer than it should have been.
The food came and went, served by a wide-eyed squire. He’d brought a fresh loaf of bread, some cheese, and mead, but it left Gwen unsatisfied. It wasn’t that she was hungry, but the room was empty of everything and everyone but her and her memories—and regrets. All she could do was stare out the window to the sea and wonder when, and if, a rescue would come.
She understood that if nobody came for her, it wouldn’t be because Gareth didn’t want to come. If he knew of her absence, despite their five-year separation, he would move heaven and earth to get to her. If he didn’t come for her, it was because he couldn’t—whether because the King still imprisoned him in his cell at Aber or because King Owain had hanged him, as Cadwaladr hoped. Gwen prayed that Hywel, in playing his great game, would think that was more than a minor issue, even if in the end he might not be able to stop his father from building a gallows for Gareth or might feel that saving Gareth’s life wasn’t worth his father’s supreme disfavor.
Hywel too should notice Gwen was gone. What his assessment of her value might be, Gwen didn’t have the confidence to judge. As with everything, he’d calculate the costs and benefits of coming after her and come down on the side that gave him the strongest position. If he wasn’t willing to save Gareth, he certainly wouldn’t be willing to rescue her. She didn’t lie to herself that she prayed he’d do both.
Gwen continued to gaze out the window. The drop to the ground was at least twenty feet—far more than she could ever hope to jump, and the exterior of the castle was otherwise smooth. It wasn’t even built in stone with commensurate handholds.
As the sun fell lower in the sky in front of her, its light reflected off the water in the distance. She lost track of how long she stood there.
Then, her gaze sharpened and her heart caught in her throat. She’d never seen Danish warships before, but she’d heard them described. She knew enough to understand what she was seeing: three ships, their decks stacked with men, rowers working in unison, plowing through the calm waters of the estuary towards Aberffraw.
It was right out of a nightmare. For hundreds of years, the Danes—or the Irish or the Vikings, it hardly mattered which and for the purposes of the Welsh, there were few distinctions among them—had ravaged the coast of Wales, either from their homes to the north or from Ireland, a portion of which they’d conquered before the Normans came to Wales. And rumor had it, the Normans had Viking ancestors too, which Gwen couldn’t help but believe.
From their Dublin seaport, the Danish invaders had sacked churches, raped women, and kidnapped any number of people to bring them home as slaves. Their ships were fast and sleek, capable of riding right up to the beach and casting off at a moment’s notice.
Gwen, Gareth, and Hywel had known that whoever had paid to have Anarawd killed had hired Danes from Ireland to do the job, but that more mercenaries might come to Aberffraw, now, was almost beyond Gwen’s comprehension. Everyone knew that Danes would do anything and everything for a profit. No act, no matter how heinous, was beneath them. If Cadwaladr paid them, they would do his bidding, regardless of what that bidding was.
And there wasn’t a single thing that Gwen could do about it.