The Unexpected Ally Read Online Free PDF

stop the
fighting before it started.
    As he helped Gareth hobble along towards the
guesthouse, Hywel said in an undertone, “Tell me what
happened.”
    “Did you hear about the murder?” Gareth
said.
    Hywel nodded gravely. “Erik. Gwen told me.”
He shook his head. “My father knows too, and we are both worried.
If someone killed Erik, it was for a reason that doesn’t bode well
for us.”
    “You’re assuming he was doing your work?”
Gareth said.
    “I would have thought so.”
    “Did you know he had left Ireland?”
    “No—only that he’d found no sign of
Cadwaladr there. But of course, we know now that Cadwaladr never
went to Ireland.”
    “When did you last hear from Erik?” Gareth
said.
    Hywel gave Gareth a sharp look. “Do you
suspect me?”
    Gareth huffed a laugh. “No, my lord. I
genuinely want to know what he could have been doing in the village
of St. Asaph.”
    “I have no idea.” Hywel glanced at his
friend’s profile. Gareth was in obvious pain, but as they crossed
the monastery courtyard, he got his feet under him better and was
able to walk a little straighter. “So, are you going to tell me
what happened to the horse and cart that was hauling the body to
the church?”
    As with every church or monastery Hywel had
ever been to, St. Kentigern’s church was oriented on an east to
west axis, so that the sun rising in the east on the spring equinox
would shine through the high windows behind the altar. Because the
monastery lay to the north of the road that ran from east to west
through St. Asaph, when one came through the southern gatehouse
from the road as they just had and entered the central courtyard,
the church occupied the entirety of the courtyard’s north side,
while the guesthouse was to the left and the stable to the
right.
    The monks’ cloister and all its associated
buildings were on the other side of the church, accessed by a
narrow passage on the east side past the stables and by a broader
path to the west that took parishioners to the main door of the
church.
    “We still have the horse and cart, which we
left where it was. It seemed like too much effort to drive when it
was empty anyway—” Gareth cleared his throat, “—but unfortunately
we have been robbed of the body.”
    Hywel gaped at Gareth for a heartbeat and
then released yet another involuntary laugh. “What is it with you
and missing bodies?”
    Gareth shook his head, laughing under his
breath himself. “As you may recall, my lord, that one time the loss
was your doing.”
    “So you say.” Hywel stayed smiling. “But you
still haven’t explained why you are so wet. It looks like you
climbed right into the trough with Erik.”
    “Not quite. When the body was taken, three
men came at me. More attacked Ben, and that means there had to be
still more to steal Erik’s body and get away successfully. My
attackers held me face down in a stream with my arms tied behind my
back and sacking over my head. They let me go before I drowned,
obviously, but by the time I got free of my bonds, they and the
body were gone.”
    Hywel was aghast. “Where did this
happen?”
    “On the path leading north from the barn.
There was no entrance onto the road for a good hundred yards or
more, and they were waiting for us in the bushes on either side of
the gate.”
    “So they could be anywhere by now.” Hywel
made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat.
    “I can tell you only what I saw, which
wasn’t much. They left the cart behind and took the body.”
    “Erik isn’t exactly a lightweight either,”
Hywel said.
    “That’s one reason they needed so many men.
Just lifting him requires at least three people.”
    “That means they had horses close by, though
I suppose with the river just across the road, they could have put
him in a boat.”
    Gareth cleared his throat. “At this point,
we’re better off not assuming anything.”
    They’d reached the guesthouse door, and
rather than go through it, Gareth reached