The Unexpected Ally by Sarah Woodbury Page A

you
for reminding me that good can come from any setback. In truth, we
rode here with King Owain because we could do nothing else, but if
the king had realized how unfit Gareth was, he would have left him
behind at Aber.”
    “Then it is just as well he didn’t know,
since I have need of Gareth. Again, we can be thankful even when
circumstances don’t seem to call for it.”

Chapter Six
    Gwen
     
    R hys moved towards
the door and opened it. “Lwc! I need—” He cut himself off at the
sight of his assistant already standing in the doorway with an
eager expression on his face.
    “Yes, Father?”
    Even though he was quite a few years older
than her brother, Lwc reminded Gwen very much of Gwalchmai, and she
almost laughed again.
    Rhys recovered from his surprise and
gestured to Gwen. “Lwc, I would like you to be Gwen’s escort around
the monastery. She and her guard, Evan, who serves Prince Hywel,
are to have full access to all areas of the monastery and to every
monk, barring those in the infirmary. We need to find this killer
before he strikes again.”
    Lwc straightened his shoulders to an almost
military bearing. “Yes, Father.” Then he hesitated. “What about
Prior Anselm? He’s been feeling poorly of late and sleeping in the
infirmary rather than in his cell, but he was about earlier.”
    “If he’s in the infirmary, don’t disturb
him,” Rhys said. “We know already that he didn’t recognize the dead
man. I will speak to him myself later.”
    “Why choose me, Father?” Lwc said.
    “Because I don’t have to explain to you the
seriousness of what has occurred, and I know you will be
discreet.”
    The expression on Lwc’s face as he looked at
Rhys was one of hero-worship. “You can count on me, Father.”
    Rhys settled a hand on his shoulder. “I know
I can. That’s why I chose you for this task.”
    It was still raining as Evan, Gwen, and Lwc
set out from Rhys’s office. Gareth had made it clear that he would
be speaking to the brothers who worked in the fields and gardens,
so it was Gwen’s job to take on everybody else. The monastery at
St. Asaph was Welsh in origin, having been founded by St. Kentigern
five hundred years earlier, before there were any Roman monastic
orders in Wales at all. It was a poorer monastery than the Abbey of
St. Peter and St. Paul in Shrewsbury from which she’d just come and
was home to one hundred monks.
    In typical more equitable Welsh fashion, St.
Kentigern’s employed few laymen to work for them. Compared to the
abbey in Shrewsbury, Gwen was much more comfortable here, among
Welshmen, speaking Welsh and with Welsh customs and norms. It had
been odd to be in England, even if only seven miles from the Welsh
border, and find that what she thought was normal and made sense
perhaps didn’t quite. But even a hundred was a great many men to
question in a day.
    Roughly half the monks in the monastery
worked within a stone’s throw of the guesthouse, and the rest were
scattered far and wide in the fields and pastures which the
monastery controlled. With the idea that they might as well start
with what was closest, their first stop was the scriptorium. Gwen
and Evan waited in the corridor for Lwc to pace importantly ahead
of them and prepare the monks for Gwen’s arrival. He left the door
open, however, and Evan watched with bright eyes as Lwc lectured
his fellow monks on discretion. Gwen herself suppressed a smile and
looked down at the ground.
    As they waited, Evan stretched his back and
shoulders, loosening his muscles. “I, for one, am not sorry that
I’m not out there in the muck fighting men of Powys today.”
    “I would that men never went to war again,”
Gwen said, “but I don’t see how the abbot will achieve peace, even
if he wants it desperately. At the same time, I can’t see what
Madog has to gain from fighting.”
    Evan pursed his lips before speaking. “He
has more men than we do.”
    Gwen frowned. “He does?”
    Evan waggled his head. “We