The Uninvited Guest Read Online Free

indication, he hadn’t moved since
the soldiers had dumped him there. Gareth closed the door behind
him but didn’t lock it since the boy wasn’t in any condition to
escape. Hywel gazed down at the prisoner for a count of ten, but he
still didn’t move, so Gareth prodded him with the toe of his boot.
“Wake up.”
    “ I don’t know that he can.”
Hywel stood with his hands on his hips, his lips pursed, studying
the boy.
    Since Gareth had been housed here the
previous summer, the cell had reverted back to a storage room.
Filthy hay littered the floor and someone had stacked wooden crates
in a precarious pile in one corner. It still smelled strongly of
horse and urine.
    Gareth glanced at his prince, made uneasy by
Hywel’s intense focus on the boy’s face. “Do you know him?”
    Hywel slowly shook his head. “No.” But his
denial lacked assurance.
    “ I hear hesitation in your
voice,” Gareth said.
    His lord, though he strove
to keep his face impassive, had a tell when he was eliding the truth—or
lying as Gwen would more straightforwardly say. Even if he gazed
straight at you as he lied, the corner of his mouth would twitch,
and then when you nodded your agreement and appeared to accept his
lie as truth, his eyes would skate to the left. It was only for an
instant, but Gareth had learned to watch for it. Hywel had very
rarely lied to him, but he lied to other men routinely.
    Gareth had learned to
search for similar responses in the men he questioned. Most men
were honest, as it turned out, and bad liars. The men to be most
concerned about were the ones who’d so convinced themselves that
their lies were truths, that they felt no guilt and had no tells. Cadwaladr was such
a man.
    Gareth didn’t mention any of this to
Hywel.
    Hywel glanced at him. “Is this a way of
asking if I had anything to do with this? Am I a suspect now?”
    Gareth searched for a way to respond without
offending. “I didn’t say so. And yet, why am I here if not to read
between the lines?”
    Hywel barked a laugh. “You have me there.”
He crouched to brush the hair out of the boy’s face so he could see
it better. “The occasion of our meeting tickles at the back of my
mind, but I can’t tell you more right now. I have a feeling I’ve
seen his face before.”
    Gareth wondered why his lord hadn’t just
said so in the first place. He crouched over the youth and began
going through his clothing. The boy’s coat had three inner pockets
which revealed nothing beyond lint. He had no scrip, either, nor
anything to identify him beyond his face. Gareth sat back on his
heels. “He’s a ghost.”
    “ Or rather, one who planned
to become one,” Hywel said.
    “ Do you think he went into
the hall expecting never to come out?” Gareth said.
    “ That makes more sense than
the idea that he thought he could get away with murdering my
father.”
    “ As we were leaving the
dais,” Gareth said, “Taran told the king that the boy was one of
the many extra servants hired for the wedding. When we return to
the hall, I’ll talk to him.”
    Hywel looked up from studying the boy’s
supine form. “Taran will blame himself.”
    “ That is a fact, my lord,
and one that you cannot talk me out of.” Taran pushed open the door
and hurried into the cell. His face was red and he was out of
breath.
    “ You’ve had a busy week,”
Gareth said. “Nobody blames you.”
    “ I should have been more
careful,” Taran said.
    “ Is there something we can
do for you now?” Gareth said.
    “ Your lord father sent me
to speak to you, to tell what I know, little as that may
be.”
    “ Do you remember the
circumstances of his hiring?” Hywel said.
    If possible, Taran’s face got even redder.
“Yes, my lord, in the sense that I took him on when he presented
himself. I remember him particularly because all he had was what he
stood up in—no bedroll, no pack, nothing. He was one of a dozen men
who came to offer their services in the hall and stables.