The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery)

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.

Chapter Twenty

    “ I don’t understand it.” Gareth paced around the confined space of his cell, intentionally kicking at the wooden bucket in the corner as he passed it. Pace, pace, pace, kick; pace, pace, pace, kick . If he kept it up much longer, Hywel would have his head, but the crunch of the wood under Gareth’s boot was eminently satisfying just now. “I knew it wasn’t like her to keep herself away from me all day, despite what I told her. Has nobody seen her?”
    Hywel braced his shoulder against the wall just inside the door to Gareth’s cell and folded his arms across his chest. He watched Gareth pace with what looked like amusement on his face—perhaps at Gareth’s admission of his and Gwen’s friendship—though, admittedly, that was Hywel’s usual expression. Hywel rarely showed his true thoughts to anyone, much less to Gareth.
    “Nobody,” Hywel said. “I didn’t see her at breakfast, though I didn’t notice that I hadn’t until later. My men and I rode out before noon and we didn’t return until just before the evening meal when I went looking for her.”
    “And you’ve questioned the garrison?” Gareth said, knowing that it wasn’t his place to tell Hywel his job but unable to help himself. “Nobody saw her leave?”
    “No,” Hywel said.
    “The castle isn’t very big; she can’t have gone far. Is she in the bath? Could she have slipped and fallen?”
    “It’s not running today,” Hywel said. “But yes, I looked there.”
    Gareth pursed his lips, taking that as Hywel meant it: he, himself, along with his men and squires, had looked thoroughly throughout the castle. None had found her and if Hywel hadn’t found her, she wasn’t here to be found. Gareth cursed himself for his blindness, for not seeing that something like this could happen if Gwen continued to pursue the murderer without him. “This tells me she got close to the culprit without knowing it.”
    “I