The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery)

inwardly sighing. “We’ll have to speak to them all,” she said. “Maybe one of them saw something that will help us.”
    Two hours later, they’d worked their way through all but one of the servants. Of the ten they interviewed, six had remained in the hall throughout the meal, while the other four had run back and forth between the kitchen and the serving tables, keeping the diners well stocked with food and drink.
    Owain Gwynedd was known for laying on a fine table, and even in a state of mourning, yesterday had been no exception. None could say anything about who had or had not been in the kitchens. Unsurprisingly, none would confess to being the poisoner. Nor had any of them noticed someone hauling a body out of the barracks in the middle of the night and hiding it.
    “It isn’t any of them,” Gwen said, finally, after the last servant had turned away. “It’s got to be this last person we can’t find.
    “I agree.” Gareth stood, stretched, and then guided Gwen out the rear of the kitchen and into the garden beyond. The herbs were in the flush of late summer growth, with green vines winding up the trellises and flowers of every color decorating the beds. “Is any belladonna growing here?”
    “No,” Gwen said. “I did look.”
    “You’re sure?” Gareth said. “It would be easier if it was.”
    “I know, but belladonna gives off a strong odor—even a nauseating one as you can attest—when it’s crushed or bruised. The culprit would have had to abuse it to contaminate your mead.”
    “I haven’t smelled anything like that,” Gareth said.
    “Nor I,” Gwen said. “And none of the other servants’ hands or sleeves smelled of it either. I made certain.”
    “Someone else could have given them a prepared vial,” Gareth said. “He wouldn’t have had to touch it at all.”
    “Of course,” Gwen said, “and then the traces would be on him, not a servant.”
    “We’re going in circles,” Gareth said.
    “Even if we found the servant who did the deed, we’d need to force them to reveal who paid them.”
    “I’m sure Hywel and I could find a way,” Gareth said.
    Gwen glanced at him. She was sure he could too. “We need to take a look at your peers.”
    Gareth’s lips twitched. “None of them—whether knight, man-at-arms, or simple soldier—will take well to being questioned by a woman.”
    “I’ll hang back; we’ll be nosy but not too much so and perhaps something will come to us. The murderer has been one step ahead of us for two days. We have to catch up; we have to think like him.”
    “I hope that’s harder for you than you’re making it sound,” Gareth said.
    “I’d never killed anyone until two days ago,” she said.
    Gareth pulled up, tugging Gwen to a halt on the pathway. “What did you say?”
    Gwen hadn’t meant to tell him, but she couldn’t keep it in any longer. “When I was riding with you, when the Danes ambushed us, I stabbed a man with my knife. I even meant to do it, but somehow when the blade went in all the way to the hilt, I couldn’t quite believe it.”
    Gareth clasped both her hands in his and brought them to his lips. “I’m sorry.”
    “I’m not sorry,” Gwen said, “not in the sense that I regret what I did. But I keep seeing him die, seeing him fall.” Gwen’s throat closed at the memory and she forced back the tears that pricked her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to weep in front of Gareth. She felt that if she were to start crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
    “If it’s the only man you ever kill, you’ll remember it for the rest of your life,” Gareth said. “Better that than to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of lives you’ve taken.”
    Telling him had eased Gwen’s heart, just a little, but … “I don’t like thinking of you in that position. Here I cry about one death by my hand, as if you didn’t kill men yesterday yourself. And that’s only one of a hundred days you’ve done the same.”
    “Two hundred,” Gareth said. “I serve my lord the only way I know how.”
    “Owain!”
    The scream split the air and after a shared glance, Gwen and Gareth set off at a run for the stables from which the sound had come. Just as they reached the open door, Cristina, King Owain’s intended, staggered out, her hand to her head.
    Gwen grabbed her arms. “What is it?”
    Cristina shook Gwen off, flinging out a hand to point behind her. “There’s—there’s—” She couldn’t speak.
    King Owain