The Fallen Princess by Sarah Woodbury Page A

that?”
Llelo said. “If she drowned, her body would have been bloated, but
if she died a long time ago, wouldn’t her body have rotted
away?”
    “How would you know about that?” Gareth
said.
    Llelo shrugged. “I’ve seen plenty of dead
animals. I found the remains of sheep we lost during a previous
winter. Usually they’re just bones by the time I get to them.”
    “Right. Of course.” Gareth nodded,
acknowledging that his thirteen-year-old self would have known as
much, which was why it always stumped him when he came across
adults who had no experience with dead bodies. Common folk who
lived off the land or worked it had a very different perspective on
life and death than the nobility. “Regardless of how recently she
died, whether last month or years ago, her body was kept in a dry
place and all the moisture leached from her before she could
rot.”
    “Like if you leave a dead frog in the sun?”
Llelo said.
    “Even so,” Gareth said.
    Llelo’s brow furrowed. “I came upon a cave
once with a dead sheep inside. The body was all brown and dried out
like this body. The wool was still soft!”
    Gareth nodded. “That sounds like the right
kind of place. You probably don’t remember since you were so young,
but we had a dry spring and summer the year Tegwen may have died.
Crops failed, even on Anglesey, because of it.” Herders had found
the high pastures in the mountains parched along with the lowlands.
Creeks and pools that had never failed in living memory had lacked
water. Gareth had suffered himself in his trek to Dolwyddelan,
finding places to fill his water skins in short supply.
    The boy driving the cart that would carry
Tegwen’s body to Aber Castle had turned the horse around so it
faced away from the beach, and Prince Hywel stood by the cart bed.
Evan nodded at Gareth as he approached and stepped closer. “I have
given a report to Prince Hywel.”
    “I will hear it from him and then from you,”
Gareth said. “Good work.”
    While Gareth moved to stand beside Prince
Hywel, the men formed up behind them. Everyone would walk back to
the castle behind the cart to honor the burden it was carrying.
“Tegwen will receive the ceremony due her, even if five years too
late,” Hywel said.
    “I’m sorry, my lord,” Gareth said. “I wish
there was something I could say to make this easier.”
    “We can find out who murdered her,” Hywel
said. “It’s the least I can do. I failed her in life; I refuse to
fail her in death.”
    “How did you fail her?” Gareth said. “It’s
hardly your fault that she’s dead.”
    Hywel sighed. “She told me she didn’t want
to marry Bran, and I didn’t help her talk to my father. I knew Bran
had little regard for her and was marrying her because she was
Cadwallon’s daughter, but—” The muscles around his eyes
tightened.
    “Marrying for love is rare among noblemen,”
Gareth said.
    “Not in my family,” Hywel said. “We all
marry for love. Why do you think my father sacrificed the Church’s
regard to marry Cristina?”
    “He wanted to unite the last remnants of his
family—”
    “He loves her,” Hywel said simply. “I love
Mari. Rhun will find a wife soon too, and if he chooses a woman he
doesn’t love, my father will not accede to his request.”
    Gareth loved Gwen more than life itself, so
he could understand what Hywel was saying. And it was certainly
true that a Welsh woman of whatever status generally had more say
in whom she married than a Norman noble woman. A couple’s ability
to elope was codified into Welsh law. King Owain’s own sister had
eloped with the much older King of Deheubarth, which was how
Gwynedd had become involved in Ceredigion in the first place. While
her husband was absent, negotiating a treaty in Gwynedd, a Norman
force attacked her castle and killed her by hanging her from the
battlement.
    “So why didn’t your father discourage
Tegwen’s union with Bran?” Gareth said.
    “I don’t know. Maybe her