Chapter Fifteen
“I’ve something you need to see,” Cristina said.
Gwen turned, surprised to find anyone—much less the woman who would soon be wife to the King of Gwynedd—in the bath room with her. She was so stunned, in fact, that she didn’t answer, just stared at Cristina stupidly.
Cristina didn’t appear to notice. “It’s lovely isn’t it?” Walking down one side of the bath, Cristina trailed her fingers along the patchwork of mosaics on the wall. “When my lord Owain hired masons to rebuild the curtain wall in stone, I asked him to let me borrow them for a time to repair the walls in here too. The decorations aren’t complete, and I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to finish them properly, but I’d like to try.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this room.” Gwen decided that standing before her future mistress in nothing but her shift didn’t bother her as much as she might have thought.
Cristina wore a dress of deep burgundy, fitted in the bodice and embroidered at the wrists and neck. It would have been a dreadful color on Gwen but it offset Cristina’s honey-colored hair perfectly. A gold necklace adorned her throat.
Without haste, Gwen began pulling on her stockings. “How does the bath work? The water was very warm, and retained its heat far longer than I expected.”
“There’s a tunnel below this room that leads to a fire,” Cristina said. “Owain only lets me light it to heat the water once a week, but when he does, sometimes I stay in here all day.”
Now Gwen was worried. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I should have spoken to you before I used it.”
“Oh no.” Cristina waved a hand as if it was no matter. “I had my bath this morning.”
“Lord Hywel urged me to come in here.” Gwen allowed herself a slight laugh. “The road was long, and we’ve been involved in some unsavory things.”
“I understand.” Cristina shivered. “Dead bodies! It would be selfish of me to keep all this splendor to myself. Besides, this way I can speak to you without interruption.”
Gwen straightened, unsure of Cristina’s meaning. Cristina continued to trail her hand along the walls. When she’d circled the bath completely, she came to stand in front of Gwen. Then she reached into the scrip at her waist, her eyes never leaving Gwen’s face, and pulled out a small box. Opening it, she held it out to Gwen. Inside lay a small, gold seal.
Gwen took the box from her. Warily, she traced the design carved into the metal: a lion rampant. “This is a royal seal. Why are you showing it to me?”
“I found it in King Cadell’s rooms,” Cristina said, “but it isn’t his.”
“Whose is it?” Gwen’s stomach clenched, since she knew the answer before Cristina spoke.
“Anarawd’s,” Cristina said. “I recognized it from the paperwork that confirmed his marriage to Elen. It’s his personal seal. It was nestled next to the traditional crest of the royal House of Dinefwr, which was also in Cadell’s possession.”
Gwen closed the box with a snap. “Will you come with me?” Gwen hadn’t liked Cadell from the first. She was glad to finally have a proper culprit, even if she had no idea how the seal had gotten from the road near Dolwyddelan to Aber. “Lord Hywel must learn of this.”
Cristina stepped back. She held up both hands, palms out, and shook her head. “No. I will not speak of this to Hywel. That’s why I brought it to you—and you may only take it to him under the condition that you leave me out of it.”
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. She found she was no longer intimidated by this beautiful woman, just suspicious. “What do you mean?”
“Just as I said,” Cristina said. “Owain must not know that I found it.”
Gwen gaped at her. “How am I to explain to Lord Hywel how I acquired it, then?”
“That’s your problem,” Cristina said. “Owain would be most upset if he knew that I’d been in Cadell’s rooms.”
That was certainly true.
“Especially after finding the dead body yesterday,” Cristina said. “I can have no part in your investigation.”
Gwen bit her lip and studied the other woman. “And what were you doing in his rooms?” At this point, Gwen didn’t see that she had anything to lose by asking. Her impertinence was slight in comparison to what Cristina had done.
Gwen thought she might have the upper hand for a moment, but Cristina laughed and waved a hand, brushing off her indiscretion as if it was nothing. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this at all. It would be far easier to keep this to myself … but the truth is, I was snooping.”
“Snooping?”
“Snooping,” she said. “You’re not the only one who finds pleasure in the art. First you and that young knight, Gareth, and then later Hywel, hunted all over Aber for information about Anarawd’s death. Everyone saw you. But I doubted any of you had the wherewithal to venture into Cadell’s rooms.”
“With all the barons and nobles here for the wedding, most of Aber was closed to Gareth and me,” Gwen said. “Many turned their noses up at Hywel’s request for entry as well, for all that King Owain encouraged the barons to cooperate.”
“That’s what I thought,” Cristina said, “so I decided to look for you. I found the seal the other night, during Anarawd’s funeral feast. Since Gwalchmai’s singing entertained everyone so well, I knew all the barons would be in attendance and, for once, I wouldn’t be missed. The barracks and sleeping quarters were open to me.”
“And was it you who sent the guards away?” Gwen said.
Cristina gazed at Gwen blankly. “Guards?”
Gwen bit her lip. “Never mind.”
“Cadell styles himself a warrior,” Cristina said. “It suits him to sleep in one of the few private rooms on the third floor of the barracks.”
Gwen nodded and tightened her grip on the box. Remarkably, Cristina appeared to have done them a favor. “Did you have a reason to look in his rooms particularly?”
Cristina’s faced flushed. At first Gwen thought it was in embarrassment, but Cristina’s next words told her differently. “He is a close confidant of Prince Cadwaladr, who objects to my relationship with Owain. Both of them have spoken to the King of their concern that he might grow too attached to me.”
Nothing more needed to be said, did there? Woe to the man who got on the wrong side of Cristina. “You must realize that there’s a problem with what you’ve done,” Gwen said.
“And what is that?”
“The real villain might not be Cadell. The killer could have put the seal in Cadell’s rooms to implicate him, knowing that if we found it there, we’d accuse Cadell of wrong-doing.”
Now it was Cristina’s turn to gape at Gwen. “I hadn’t thought of that. It does complicate matters.”
Gwen glanced down at the box. “At least we know what happened to it. It wasn’t on Anarawd’s body or among his possessions when we found him, and if Gareth’s milk-brother was telling the truth, the Danes set the second ambush specifically to look for it again themselves.”
“That’s why I brought it to you.” Cristina gave Gwen a self-satisfied smile.
“But … if all the Danish mercenaries are dead, then how did the seal get here?” Gwen said. “Someone must have brought it to Aber—someone who took part in the first ambush but not the second.”
“There’s someone else we need fear?” Cristina said. “This is all so much more complicated than I initially thought.”
Their conversation had felt natural up until then, but these last words from Cristina brought Gwen up short. In a flash, Cristina had reverted to the girlish consort Owain Gwynedd courted, not the competent, somewhat hard-edged woman Gwen thought her to be—and with whom Gwen had been speaking just now. Something here wasn’t right.
Still, Gwen didn’t say anything more, merely turned to the bench on which she’d left her clothes and slipped the seal into her scrip. She was glad to have it, even if the rest of Cristina’s story didn’t make as much sense as Gwen would like.
&n
bsp; “I’ll keep it safe; I promise,” Gwen said.
“Thank you,” Cristina said. “I’m glad I could help. I’ll send a maid to assist you in dressing.”
Cristina slipped out the door, and Gwen stared after her until her footsteps faded along the passage, thinking hard about what she would tell Hywel. When the maid arrived, Gwen had to bite her tongue not to hurry her along as she fumbled with the ties on Gwen’s dress. Finally done, Gwen trotted through the castle to Hywel’s office. She poked her head around the doorframe. The room was empty. She ducked back into the hallway. Humph.
She leaned back against the wall and was wondering where in the castle Hywel might be and how long she’d have to wait for his return, when a woman giggled nearby. Gwen peered into the room again. Hywel had left the bedroom door two fingers’ width ajar. More giggles emanated from the room, along with a sharp bark of laughter that could only have been Hywel’s voice.
Gwen lifted her eyes to the ceiling, hoping Hywel wasn’t bedding the daughter of a visiting king. He usually had more sense than that. Gwen drew the door to the corridor closed, cursing her employer’s intemperate ways under her breath, and was about to turn away when Gareth came through the exterior door.
“He’s busy,” she said.
Gareth halted in mid-stride. “Why am I not surprised?” He studied her. “Why do you want to see him?”
Gwen checked both ends of the corridor to make sure they were alone, pulled out the seal, and gave Gareth the gist of her conversation with Cristina. While Cristina had asked to be left out of it, Gwen had no intention of obeying such a request. The stakes were far too high to muddy the waters with falsehoods.
“I don’t like this,” Gareth said.
“Don’t like what?” The door beside them opened to reveal Hywel, just tucking in his shirt. “Come in. You didn’t have to wait outside.”
Warily, Gwen stepped into the room while Gareth masked his discomfort with a cough. This time, Hywel had closed the door to his bedroom all the way. Hywel walked around his desk while Gwen and Gareth stopped in front of it. Gwen set the box containing Anarawd’s seal before Hywel and opened it.
Hywel took in a long breath. As Gwen had, he fingered the fine workmanship, before saying, “This is Anarawd’s.”
“It is,” Gwen said. “Cristina found it in Cadell’s room. She asked that I not tell you that it was she who found it.”
Hywel looked up, his eyes lit from that inner well of amusement that he could never quite suppress. “Did she now? And what was she doing there?”
“Helping us,” Gwen said. “Or so she said.”
“That sounds remarkably unlikely,” Hywel said. “And while it’s nice to have recovered the seal, it proves nothing. Someone could have left it among Cadell’s things to implicate him.”
“That’s what I told her,” Gwen said.
“In fact,” Gareth said. “While I did see her hurrying from the barracks last night as she claims, she could be lying about where she found the seal to misdirect us.”
“There is one thing I do know,” Hywel said. “My father will not take kindly to any insinuations against King Cadell unless the proof of his participation in these events is more substantial.”
“If this is Cadell’s doing,” Gwen said, “and I’m not saying it is, he shouldn’t have kept it at all.”
Hywel shrugged. “I can see why he did. It was valuable. He couldn’t throw it away.”
“It’s too bad the killer didn’t simply keep the seal on his person,” Gareth said. “We could have caught him with it and then he could have led us to his master.”
“It seems to me, that instead of implicating Cadell, it widens the circle of suspects,” Gwen said. “When do we start looking at King Owain’s brother, Cadwaladr?”
Hywel’s mouth turned down. “Just because he mistreated Gareth, doesn’t mean he killed King Anarawd. Why would he?”
“It’s no secret that Cadwaladr thinks his lands inadequate,” Gwen said, warming to the idea. “Maybe he and Cadell made a deal. Maybe in payment for murdering Anarawd so that Cadell could take his throne, Cadell promised to expand Cadwaladr’s holdings in Ceredigion.”
“Cadwaladr has been very friendly with Cadell of late.” Hywel tapped his chin with one finger. “But is it likely? And what about Cristina? What if Cadwaladr is working with her to implicate Cadell? Isn’t that equally likely? He could have all of Deheubarth were that the case.”
For Gwen’s part, she wouldn’t put anything past Cristina. If anyone were to threaten Cristina in some way, or betray her, she would take revenge. But her animosity towards Cadwaladr seemed genuine, and Gwen believed her when she said she found the seal in Cadell’s rooms. The real issue was who had put it there. Gwen was beginning to admire Cristina more than she wanted to admit.
“She, at least, didn’t kill Anarawd,” Gareth said.
Hywel threw back his head and laughed. “God help us if she did.”