The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery)

Brian Boru, like your Hywel, eh?”
    Gwen opened her eyes fully, finding that her fear was fading, as he’d said. “I am Gwen, a bard’s daughter.”
    His eyes lit at that, although whenever she’d looked into them they’d been bright—as if he found the world deeply amusing. Maybe he was like Hywel in that, though in Hywel, that amusement came out with more than a touch of cynicism. “You will sing for us when we reach my father’s hall.”
    “Is he the King of Dublin?” Gwen said.
    A shadow crossed Godfrid’s face. Apparently, this was the one thing that could dampen his mood. “He shares power with Ottar.”
    Gwen didn’t know who Ottar was, nor Ragnall for that matter. The politics of Wales were so complicated that she’d never had time to learn anyone else’s, though she’d met men from Ireland before in southern or western Wales. “And Cadwaladr? Does he have plans for me?”
    Godfrid glanced behind him to where Cadwaladr stood near the prow of the boat, one foot up on a box of cargo. He rested his hip on the rail and looked towards Ireland. “He may not realize it, but you are my hostage now, not his. You carry my cousin’s child. He should not have taken you from Hywel.”
    Cousin . And that eased Gwen’s fears even more. The Danes were no less fierce about kinship than the Welsh, for all that brother murdered brother just as in Wales. Gwen had learned enough about Hywel’s ancestry growing up with him to understand what that tie meant to the Royal House of Wales.
    As Godfrid promised, they reached Dublin just after noon on the second day out from Anglesey. Though pale, having not kept anything down except a few sips of water in two days, Gwen was able to sit up once they reached the calm harbor below the city. She’d never seen so many ships in one place, from the larger warships like the one in which she’d sailed, to the smaller, more agile craft that hugged the coast.
    These Danes didn’t seem to be fisherman as much as traders, bringing goods from all over the world into Dublin. She wondered how much of it was stolen. The Danes hadn’t raided Welsh shores for a hundred years, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t moved farther afield. Well … unless Anarawd’s murder counted as a raid. And that wasn’t random, since Cadwaladr had invited them in.
    Dublin was a place unlike any she’d ever seen. In all their travels in Wales, her family had never passed through a town with more than a thousand people. The Dublin streets wended around a maze of thatched cottages. As at home, they’d been built in wattle and daub with thatched roofs, all crammed in together. They also appeared to have been planted anywhere the owner liked. Interspersed among them, equally haphazardly, were craft halls, stalls, churches, merchants, and small greens.
    Church bells rang from all directions. She’d thought the Danes heathen, but according to Godfrid, who held her elbow as he helped her off the ship, that was no longer the case, not since the great Sitric of the silken beard had converted to Christianity and later died on pilgrimage to Rome. That was the same Sitric from whom Hywel descended, though not Godfrid as it turned out. He’d explained the genealogy that made him and Hywel cousins, but Gwen had soon lost track of the odd-sounding names and the multiple marriages and divorces that connected them. Besides, as she really wasn’t carrying Hywel’s child, it could hardly matter to her.
    Solid ground felt like heaven, even as the barrage of sights and sounds overwhelmed her senses. “Five thousand souls live in Dublin,” Godfrid said, and Gwen could well believe it. The smell of refuse, excrement, and humanity almost made her vomit yet again, but she held onto her stomach with one hand and Godfrid’s arm with the other, weaving on her feet but still upright. Godfrid handed her off to the mute Olaf, who guided her through the streets, passing houses, merchants, and an open air market. At first she couldn’t grasp what was being sold, until she saw the men, women, and children bound together in a long line. Slaves .
    Gwen shivered, though not from cold this time. Regardless of Godfrid’s present friendliness, if Cadwaladr or the Danes discovered that she wasn’t carrying Hywel’s child, that could be her fate too. The company wended its way deeper into the maze that was Dublin until they reached Godfrid’s father’s home on the edge of the city.
    Prince Cadwaladr was there before her,