The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery)

moment.”
    “Perfect?” Meilyr’s voice was full of outrage.
    “I apologize for the poor choice of words,” Gareth said, suppressing his irritation at how quickly Meilyr grew angry. “I only meant that they must have planned this very carefully, as well as had fortune on their side.”
    Her hand to her throat, Gwen stared at the dead men. Their bodies lay as if a giant had tumbled them together. Gareth thought about taking her arm after all, fearing she’d retreated dangerously inside herself and might be going into shock.
    But then she spoke. “No company of men could cause so much death and leave nothing of themselves behind. There must be something here we can link to their identity. A token, a fallen surcoat, something…”
    “Don’t—” Gareth reached a hand to stop her from entering the battlefield but in one step she moved out of his range.
    “Let her be,” Meilyr said, his voice back to a growl, but not as disapproving as Gareth might have expected, given that his daughter picked her way among the dead. “It’s not the first time she’s been a part of a scene like this.”
    “What do you mean?” Gareth said.
    “She spies for Owain’s son, Hywel.” Gwalchmai blurted out the words and then swallowed hard at Gareth’s incredulous look.
    “You’re not serious.” Gareth glanced from Meilyr to Gwalchmai, who gave him a weak smile. “You are serious?”
    “She didn’t ask my permission, if that’s what you mean,” Meilyr said. “Just told me one day that I might stop her from marrying the man she wanted—that would be you—but she was going to follow her own road in this and I didn’t have any say in the matter.” Meilyr dismounted, his legs jerking stiffly. “Not a thing I could do to stop her.”
    Gareth barked a laugh. “If I remember anything about her, I remember that.” He turned to Gwalchmai and handed him his own horse’s reins. “Here, boy. Don’t stop for anything or anyone.”
    “What about the men who did this?” Gwalchmai’s voice trembled as he asked this question but then he firmed his chin.
    Gareth placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder to reassure him. “They’re surely gone by now. And they wouldn’t be on the road to Dolwyddelan, regardless.”
    “You’ll be fine. Ride straight back the way we came,” Meilyr said.
    “Yes, sir.” With a last look at his father and a nod to Gareth, Gwalchmai spurred away. Galloping hard, he disappeared around a bend in the road, the echo of the horse’s hooves fading into the distance.
    Gareth canted his head at Meilyr. “I could have sent one of the men-at-arms, but thought it would be better if Gwalchmai had something to do besides look at dead men.”
    “Thank you.”
    Gareth restrained his disbelief that Meilyr would thank him for anything and just nodded, not knowing what else to say.
    Gwen had come to rest beside the fallen Anarawd and looked up at Gareth as he approached. “I can’t believe I spoke to King Anarawd only this morning. I can’t decide which feels more like a dream, then or now.”
    Gareth had no words to comfort her. “I wish we were dreaming.” He studied the body of the downed king. Anarawd sported a few gray hairs, but even at forty years old, had the physique of a much younger man, with shoulders used to wearing armor and no sign of a softened belly.
    “Tell me what you wouldn’t speak about in front of the others,” Gwen said.
    Trust her to read me that well, even after all these years apart. Gareth thought for a moment, reliving the scene, and then indicated the rise in the road a hundred yards north of their position. “I’d just crested the ridge there when the two sides met in force below me. I could do nothing to help Anarawd, being only one man, so I rode to find the scouting party from Caerhun, led by my friend Madog, whom I’d encountered by the river earlier.” Gareth shrugged. “The battle here was over by the time I returned with Madog and the other soldiers.”
    They both glanced at the host of men he’d brought. All wore the red and yellow crest of Gwynedd on their surcoats, as did Gareth himself. They’d begun to shift the dead men, laying them out side by side on the road. Gareth knelt beside Gwen, drawing her attention back to him. “Tell me what you see.”
    Before Gwen’s family had come upon him, Gareth had stripped the armor from Anarawd’s body and pulled open his shirt, exposing the fatal wound, a slender cut between two ribs where his attacker