The Unexpected Ally by Sarah Woodbury Read Free Book Online Page B

sadly. “Not yet, but I did
want to congratulate you on your rise to abbot.”
    Rhys made a huh sound in the back of
his throat and gestured that she should sit in the chair on the
other side of his desk. Then he sat too and clasped his hands in
front of him. “I don’t know if congratulations are really in order,
my dear. Some would say that my job and that of a sheepdog are much
the same.”
    “But you are so good at it,” Gwen said.
“It’s always nice when someone outside your immediate friends or
family acknowledges your particular skills. Just because you were a
warrior once doesn’t mean you didn’t have a head for managing money
and men.”
    Rhys smiled. “You are as sweet as ever.
Now—it was kind of you to congratulate me, but that isn’t really
why you’re here, is it? Tell me what you need from me.”
    “I think you already know the routine,
Father. We need to question everyone in the monastery about Erik.
We don’t know anything about his movements over the last months,
never mind the last few days. We don’t even know if he arrived last
night, or weeks ago.”
    “And you don’t have a body to examine for
clues.” He grimaced. “Despite that lack, did Gareth get enough time
with it to estimate when he died?”
    “No, except that the condition of the body
tells him that Erik wasn’t in the water for more than a few hours.
That could mean he died shortly after midnight and was put in the
trough directly, or if he died longer ago, that the body was
moved.”
    “How does he know that?”
    “It has to do with the way the blood pooled,
discoloring Erik’s back, and the extent to which the skin wrinkled
and loosened on his fingers—” Gwen broke off as Rhys raised one
hand.
    “I understand. No need to explain. I accept
Gareth’s judgment in this matter.”
    Gwen smiled gently. “I’m sorry. You’ve been
involved in these deaths before, and sometimes I get carried away
with my explanations.”
    “I must be growing squeamish in my old age.
Don’t mind me.”
    Gwen moved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine.
For now, we’re working on the premise that Erik died during the
night between sunset and when your milkman found the body this
morning. We’re hoping that among all the people in St. Asaph last
night, someone will have noticed something amiss.”
    “Men can be restless during those hours,
myself included, though I saw and heard nothing that could be
useful.” Rhys eyed her. “While you question my brethren, what will
Gareth be doing?”
    “He and Conall—that’s the Irishman we’ve
befriended—are going to survey the murder site, speak to the monk
who found Erik, and try to find some sign of the men who took the
body and where they might have taken it. Why they might have taken
it will have to wait.”
    “I can tell you the answer to that: they
took it to cover up wrongdoing,” Rhys said, speaking like the
churchman he was. “I’ve just come from talking to Brother Ben, the
monk who was driving the cart. Ben says he never saw the faces of
the men who attacked him. They wore their hoods pulled down over
their foreheads. He was not subdued quite as forcefully as Gareth,
however, and he was able to count five of them.
    “Gareth couldn’t even tell us that much.
Three attacked him at once. He almost drowned.” She shuddered.
    “Your husband does have a knack for finding
trouble, doesn’t he?” Rhys reached a hand across the desk, and she
took it, squeezing once.
    Despite her worries about Gareth’s
wellbeing, Gwen managed a smile, though inside, her heart quailed
again at how badly injured he was. Since Shrewsbury, with the long
journey on horseback home to Aber, the two-day ride to St. Asaph,
and then this new attack, Gareth was pushing the edge of what his
body was capable of recovering from without real rest. He needed to
be in bed.
    She and Gareth had resolved to take the
investigations they encountered in the path of service to Prince
Hywel with a lighter heart, if