The Unexpected Ally Read Online Free PDF Page A

at his wound to know that it was bleeding again.
    He spat on the ground to rid himself of the
last of the stream water and pushed to his feet. Ben lay in the
middle of the path, curled up in a ball with his hands to his head.
He was moaning in pain and bleeding from a gash in his forehead.
The right side of his face was red and puffy.
    And while the horse and cart were where Ben
had halted them before the attack—Erik’s body was gone.

Chapter Three
    Hywel
     
    H ywel stopped two
steps outside of the gatehouse, his mouth falling open at the sight
of Gareth and a young monk leaning drunkenly against one another as
they struggled to walk. Gareth wouldn’t be drunk at this hour of
the day, or any day for that matter—Hywel knew that like he knew
himself—and a second look had Hywel hastening forward. The monk was
bleeding from a gash along the line of his scalp, and Gareth was
holding his left arm bent and pressed to his belly. He was
shivering and every item of clothing he was wearing—from shirt and
breeches to cloak and boots—was soaked.
    “What happened to you? I mean … I can see
what happened to you, but why are you out here at this hour,
wounded again and sopping wet? It’s raining, but—”
    The gatekeeper must have been watching too
because he was only a step behind Hywel. Sputtering his protests at
the state of Gareth and the young monk with him, he hastened past
Hywel and ducked under the monk’s arm to support his other side.
Once beneath the gatehouse, the gatekeeper waved an arm to signal
to other monks in the courtyard that he needed help.
    Now that the sun was up and Lauds was over,
the monastery was alive with activity, and two monks responded,
hurrying forward with the hems of their robes raised so they
wouldn’t trip in their haste to help. Hywel caught a glimpse of the
sandals they wore beneath their robes as a sign of poverty and
affinity with Jesus Christ. Hywel would have liked to point out to
them that the Lord Christ had lived in the Holy Land, where
Crusaders reported that it was hot most of the time. Nobody had
asked him, of course, so it was just as well he’d never had a
vocation for the Church. He had little patience with impracticality
and, regardless, didn’t approve of men having cold feet. But then,
he had cold hands and feet no matter how careful he was to keep
them warm.
    Once the two monks took their brother from
Gareth, Hywel ducked under Gareth’s good arm to support him and
followed after them. St. Kentigern’s monastery consisted of a
cluster of a dozen buildings surrounded by a ten-foot-high stone
wall. Named several hundred years ago for its founder, the
monastery lay on the eastern bank of the River Elwy, not far from
the bridge they’d crossed in the middle of the night to reach St.
Asaph. Other than the wall and the church itself, the monastery
buildings were constructed in wood, a far less expensive option for
a relatively poor parish.
    With its location in eastern Wales, St.
Asaph was the intersection of more than just a river and many
roads. For six hundred years it had sat at the crossroads between
countries: first between Welsh and Saxon lands, later between Welsh
and Norman ones, and now between Gwynedd and Powys. The current
conflict was merely one episode of a much larger, long-running
war.
    St. Kentigern’s had suffered because of it.
Hywel didn’t know if the stone wall that surrounded the property
had been built since Rhys had become prior a few years ago, but it
was newer than the rest of the monastery—and had been added for
good reason. The church had burned to the ground in war at least
twice, and it was only since King Owain had risen to power in the
last ten years and more or less stabilized relations with Chester
and Powys that the monastery had achieved a degree of
prosperity.
    With war looming again between Gwynedd and
Powys, that peace might be at an end. It was little wonder that
Rhys was endeavoring to do everything within his power to