The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery)

a union would ever work, any longer. Across from him at the evening meal, she touched his hand. “I’ve thought about what you said to me. About what you asked.”
    Godfrid had been taking a sip from his cup and now set it down. She had his full attention.
    “You’ve offered me something that I’ve wanted since I became a woman: a life that includes a man who cares for me, and children,” she said. “And maybe even more than that, it seems likely you’ve offered me the freedom to be my own person.”
    “I meant it so,” Godfrid said. “Yet, I see in your eyes that you do not accept.”
    “I cannot,” Gwen said. “Please believe me when I tell you that it’s not because of you.”
    “There is another,” Godfrid said, and Gwen could see him thinking it through. “Though not Hywel.”
    “Not Hywel. In Wales—” Gwen paused again, trying to think it through herself and explain it in a way that would make sense to him, even if it meant talking around the subject first. She shrugged. “I think it’s much the same here. One’s family confines and constrains you in ways you don’t even understand until you are away from them.”
    “It is thus with me and my father.” Godfrid gestured to the front of the hall where Ragnall sat, holding court. Shorter and darker than his son, he projected an aura of power that Gwen couldn’t quite put her finger on or explain. It was enough that when he spoke, the hall quieted, and people walked more softly in the space around him.
    “You are a grown man and yet, you do his bidding,” Gwen said.
    Godfrid smiled softly. “That is true.” He touched her hand with one finger, mimicking what she’d done to him. “You were not speaking of my father.”
    Gwen smiled, shy now that it came to it. “My father has turned down every contract for me that has come his way. I’ve cared for him and my brother, Gwalchmai, since my mother died at Gwalchmai’s birth.”
    “He doesn’t want to let you go,” Godfrid said. “He is clever but not wise.”
    Gwen tipped her head, acknowledging the distinction. “Part of me wants what you are offering, but I cannot stay here, Godfrid. It’s possible that I could go home and then come back, but I am Welsh and my feet are dug deeply into that soil. I can’t allow Cadwaladr—and all of you—to return to Wales without me.” She gestured to the room at large. “Your coming will not be good for my people.”
    Godfrid studied her face for a long moment, and then nodded. “Cadwaladr will want my father and Ottar behind him when he faces Owain Gwynedd.”
    “And that is only one of a long list of his mistakes,” Gwen said. “Your presence will have the opposite effect of the one he inten—”
    The doors burst open at that instant, cutting Gwen’s sentence short. Cadwaladr strode through them, at the head of a crowd of Danes. A grin split Godfrid’s face and for a moment Gwen feared it was the sight of Cadwaladr that cheered him, but then a man walking just behind the Welsh prince lifted a hand to Godfrid, who waved back. He was a shorter, squatter version of Godfrid himself, so Gwen wasn’t surprised when Godfrid said, “My brother, Brodar, comes.”
    Cadwaladr and Brodar were followed by … Gareth.
    Gwen stared, her heart in her throat. Has he been captured too? But his hands weren’t tied and his sword still rested at his waist. He walked ahead of some of the Danes as a not-quite-trusted equal rather than a prisoner. His head swiveled this way and that and instinctively she knew he was looking for her. She stood, and then found that her feet had started moving of their own accord. She ran towards him. “Gareth!”
    “ Cariad .”
    Gareth caught her and buried his face in her hair. Gwen had her arms around his neck, hanging on for dear life, thankful for how solid he felt. She only had a moment of him, however, before he pulled back, remembering propriety before she could. “You’re all right? You’re not hurt?”
    “This is the one?” Godfrid loomed over them both, for though Gareth was a taller man than average, Godfrid dwarfed him.
    Gwen clutched Gareth’s hand. “Yes.” A wave of relief swept through her at the admission. Yes, he is the one.
    Godfrid stuck out his hand to Gareth. “She’s in one piece. Keep a better eye on her next time. Don’t let her be fair game for murderers and Danes.”
    Gareth eyed Godfrid and then to Gwen’s relief, clasped Godfrid’s offered forearm. “Your brother,