The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery)

purple with anger. “What did you say? How dare you bring Cristina into this!”
    “He speaks the truth, my lord.”
    Cristina stepped through the doorway into Hywel’s office and very gently closed the door behind her. She shot Gwen a look that told Gwen not to speak. As Gwen was trembling from head to foot, she was hardly going to challenge her future queen. At the same time, Gwen had to ask herself, what game was Cristina playing?
    Owain Gwynedd had no answers either. He stared at Cristina and then scrubbed at his hair with both hands, making the straw tufts stick up on end. “I am undone. My entire family conspires and plots without my knowledge.” He collapsed onto the bench that Gwen had vacated.
    “Please forgive me, my lord, but I was attempting to help your son in his search.” Cristina gave King Owain a look that managed to make her look coquettish, rather than guilty or embarrassed. “King Cadell’s room was one of several I examined.”
    “Why?” King Owain raised his hands and dropped them in his lap in a helpless gesture. “Why would you do this?”
    “Because I was the only one who could.”
    King Owain gazed at her. Cristina didn’t back down. Like Hywel, she kept her face calm and unconcerned. Then King Owain began to laugh. He threw back his head and roared at the ceiling. Still standing behind his desk, Hywel grinned at Gwen. She just barely managed to smile back. It really wasn’t funny—and the power Cristina seemed to wield over the King certainly made it worse—but for the moment, Cristina appeared to be on their side.
    Eventually, King Owain sobered. “Did you tell Cadell what you found?”
    “Of course not,” Cristina said. “I gave the seal to Gwen, who obviously showed it to Hywel and Gareth, which is how it ended up among Gareth’s things. I have no idea how Cadell came to hear of it.”
    “He would, of course, have discovered it missing,” Gwen said.
    “That is if he put it there in the first place,” Hywel said, “and if he is the perpetrator of all this.”
    “Ach.” King Owain waved a hand. “You’re looking in the wrong direction. Cadell is neither smart enough, nor devious enough, to have planned something this complicated. He’s been Anarawd’s loyal advisor ever since their father died.” Owain paused. “I am considering giving him Elen’s hand.”
    “But someone ordered Anarawd’s death, my lord,” Cristina said. “Who stands to gain the most from it?”
    “What about Uncle Cadwaladr—”
    “Don’t speak his name!” King Owain jutted his chin out at his son. “I have heard your opinion of him and I grant that he might be wrong about Gareth, but he has done nothing to deserve any accusation, especially not one as inflammatory as this.”
    Nobody replied and King Owain seemed to sense their muted disapproval. He straightened. “I need proof of someone else’s guilt, Hywel, before I can free Gareth. You know that.”
    “I’ll get your proof, Father.” Hywel glanced at Gwen. “We’ll get it if it’s there to find.”
    “I trust you,” King Owain said. “You have never failed me.” And with that astounding piece of fatherly affirmation, he stood and held out his arm to Cristina, who took it.
    Hywel stopped his father, however, before he could leave the room. “Why do you think so poorly of Gareth, Father, when he has served us well?” His tone was genuinely curious. “Back when we first heard the news of Anarawd’s death, you referred to something Uncle Cadwaladr told you. What was it?”
    King Owain pursed his lips. “I’ll tell you. There’s no reason not to. Cadwaladr believes Gareth was the spy who revealed our movements to the Normans in the last days of fighting in Ceredigion, before your grandfather died.”
    Gwen blinked. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.
    “Why didn’t he name him so at the time?” Hywel said.
    “He chose not to. We’d won the war; there seemed little to gain and the admission that he’d harbored a spy would have shown weakness just at a time when he needed to show strength. The people of Ceredigion needed a leader, not one who could be fooled by a strip of a boy.”
    “All I can tell you is that I don’t believe it, Father,” Hywel said. “It doesn’t fit with the man I know.”
    “Perhaps. For now, I want him where I can see him. It was his brother, Bran, who rode with the Danes,” King Owain said. “Perhaps they conspired together.”
    Gwen’s teeth were