The Fallen Princess Read Online Free PDF Page A

beyond a small circle, you see.”
    “You don’t have to apologize, Rhodri,”
Gareth said. “She’d been dead a long while before today.”
    Rhodri ducked his head. “It’s not that. It’s
this.” From his pocket, Rhodri brought out a coin pendant with a
hole shot through it and strung on a length of leather thong.
“Within a few moments of our arrival, my boy found this lying on
the path. He picked it up, thinking to keep it, but I reckon that
it isn’t his to keep.”
    Gareth took the pendant and held it out flat
in the palm of his hand, a cold wave of dismay flooding his chest.
It was clearly old and so worn that Gareth couldn’t read the
writing on the coin or make out the image on its face. It would
have been worn as a necklace and passed through many hands to reach
his. “Thank you, Rhodri, for your honesty. I will show this to
Prince Hywel.”
    “I thought it might be the dead woman’s, you
see,” he said. “I couldn’t by rights keep it.”
    “See to your boy. This can’t have been an
easy day for him.” Gareth dismissed Rhodri and returned to Hywel’s
side. The prince had by now seen his cousin safely ensconced in the
cart. Gareth waited patiently for Hywel to finish adjusting the
cloak so it covered Tegwen completely and then caught his lord’s
attention, touching his sleeve and stepping away from the group of
men who had gathered themselves for the somber journey to Aber
Castle.
    Hywel’s expression turned wary at seeing the
concern on Gareth’s face, and when Gareth handed him the necklace
and explained where it had been found, the muscles in Hywel’s jaw
tightened. He turned the coin over in his fingers, licking his lips
and as reluctant as Gareth to speak.
    Finally, Hywel said, “You know as well as I
do to whom this belongs.”
    “I will name him if you won’t,” Gareth
said.
    Hywel shook his head. “Uncle Cadwaladr, what
have you done now?”

Chapter Three
    Hywel
     
    U
ncle
Cadwaladr
.
    Although Hywel had never liked him, his very
existence had been haunting Hywel for over a year now. At first, it
had been because he hired a company of Danes from Dublin to ambush
and murder King Anarawd of Deheubarth and Hywel had been
instrumental in proving his culpability. Since then, Hywel had
taken over Cadwaladr’s castle and lands in Ceredigion, and the
legacy of his uncle’s every decision had been dogging Hywel’s
steps. Cadwaladr had been a bad ruler, alienating the populace and
fomenting discontent such that they didn’t trust
those
foreigners from Gwynedd
, of which they viewed Hywel most
definitely as one.
    And the worst thing was that Hywel could see
Cadwaladr in himself. A few different pieces to his life—and a few
different people in his life—and he and Cadwaladr could have been
very much alike.
    Long ago, when Gwen and Hywel were no more
than eight and nine, Gwen had openly chastised Hywel for his
behavior for the first time. Hywel had taken a kitten from the
daughter of one of the kitchen staff and hidden it from her in his
room. He hadn’t hurt it, but when Gwen learned that the kitten was
missing, she’d come to him, all fire and outrage.
    At first he’d tried to brazen it out, but
then he’d succumbed to her glare and shown her where he was keeping
it and that it wasn’t hurt. Gwen had then asked him, why would
you take pleasure in hurting others?
    Such a simple question, and one that he’d at
first refused to answer, though his heart had sunk into his boots.
He hadn’t known why he’d stolen the kitten. It had been a game to
him with no real consequences from his end, since he’d intended to
return it eventually. But he’d hated the disappointment he’d seen
in Gwen’s eyes. She could see right through him.
    Everyone else he could charm—and he’d
charmed Gwen plenty too, he knew—but not when right and wrong were
at stake. If not for Gwen—not just that time, but all the times she
pointed him in a better direction from the one he was taking,
though