The Uninvited Guest by Sarah Woodbury Read Free Book Online

with
the bath?” Hywel said.
    “ Last week,” Gwen
said.
    “ Last week.” Hywel kept his
face expressionless, as was his wont when his mind churned with bad
news. “I will speak to my father of it. You two get some sleep.
I’ll see you in the morning.”
    “ Yes, my lord,” Gareth
said. Gwen curtseyed.
    Hywel headed up the stairs to the hall and
disappeared back inside. Gwen found Gareth’s eyes, and then his
hands, on her.
    “ I missed you,” he
said.
    Gwen slipped her arms around his neck. “I
missed you too.” In the courtyard when he’d first arrived at Aber,
Gwen had pecked Gareth on the cheek in greeting. This time, the
kiss Gwen gave Gareth was a real one, which he deepened as he
pressed her to him.
    The door at the top of the stairs banged
open. Gareth and Gwen jumped apart, and then both laughed when
Hywel poked his nose around the frame.
    “ Get to bed,
Gwen.”
    “ Yes, my lord,” Gwen
said.
    Gareth saluted. Then he bent his head to
Gwen. “He’s meddling.”
    “ He can’t help it,” Gwen
said. Hywel wasn’t her father, but Gwen eased her hand out of
Gareth’s anyway. “I should go.”
    “ I still want to hear what
you have to say about the events of last summer,” Gareth
said.
    “ I want to tell you, too.”
The story was on the tip of Gwen’s tongue, but she shook her head.
“Now isn’t the time. It can wait.” She slipped away.
    Gwen entered the corridor
that went past Hywel’s office and headed for the stairs to the
second floor. Her pallet lay in one corner of the room where the
maidens of the court slept (those who were not in the wedding
party). As she approached the door, Anna, a young woman of fourteen
whose father served in the king’s teulu , stepped through it.
    “ Oh Gwen! Did you hear?”
Anna said.
    “ Hear what?”
    Anna leaned close and lowered her voice,
though she couldn’t temper the excitement in it. “One of the
servants slipped in the bath room and fell. He’s dead!”
    Gwen did not want to hear this. Not now. Not
when they’d just been discussing King Owain’s brush with death in a
similar incident. “Which servant?”
    Anna was practically dancing with the news.
“Ieaun, I think. He worked in the kitchen. Does it matter? It’s all
part of the curse!”
    “ You must not speak of such
things, Anna ferch Gruffydd!” One of the matrons of the court, Lady
Jane, bustled towards them from the garderobe at the end of the
hallway. “There is no curse.”
    “ But there is!” Anna could
not be stopped. “One of the housekeepers told me all about it. And
when I saw a raven perched atop the flagpole this morning, I knew !”
    Gwen spun on her heel and headed for the
staircase. Half-way down, she met Hywel coming up. He peered past
her to the two women who remained in the corridor. At a wave of his
hand, Lady Jane urged Anna back into the sleeping chamber.
    “ You’ve heard?” Hywel
said.
    “ A servant is dead?” Gwen
said.
    Hywel canted his head. “I examined
him—cursorily, I admit—but it looks like he slipped and fell. It
was a long enough drop to the bottom of the bath to kill him.”
    A burst of laughter came from the hall. A
few hours remained before midnight, so the tables were still full.
“Nothing we need to worry about, then?” Gwen said.
    “ Not tonight, leastways,”
Hwyel said. “Go to bed.” He backed down a step, but Gwen touched
his shoulder to stop him before he turned away.
    “ This is only going to make
the rumors worse, you know,” she said.
    Hywel grimaced. “I know. At what time is the
wedding planned for tomorrow?”
    “ Early afternoon,” Gwen
said. “With a feast after.”
    Hywel fisted a hand and slapped it into his
palm. “We just have to get through one more day.”

Chapter Five
     
    “E EEEEEEEEEEEE .”
    As the long wail faded into choking sobs,
Gwen shot up from her pallet, staring wildly around the room.
Although it was early morning, the fire still spit and smoldered in
its hearth, having been stoked