Read Online The Fourth Horseman by Sarah Woodbury - Free Book Online

first. “I
found Gwen because I asked—” Mari stopped, and her face suffused
with color. Gwen had never seen her look so embarrassed
before.
    Mari tried again. “While my uncle saw to our
accommodations, I spoke with Prince Hywel. He was in the hall,
having recently completed an audience with Earl Robert. He didn’t
know where any of you were, but the guard at the door had seen Gwen
enter the chapel with Evan.” Mari smiled and touched Gwen’s cheek.
“You can’t go anywhere unremarked, you know.”
    Gwen didn’t know what to make of that, but
Gareth’s jaw clenched, and he hugged her closer. “Do you think you
can walk, Gwen?”
    “ I’m fine, really.” Gwen
allowed Gareth to help her to stand and then took a step. In so
doing, she realized that she really was fine. She didn’t even weave
on her feet. “You survived worse last winter and walked home to
Aber after.”
    Gareth’s eyes narrowed. “I swore to your
father that this trip would not be dangerous.”
    Suddenly, Gwen found herself smiling. “Did
you forget whom we serve, husband?”
    Gareth gave a snort of laughter but then
immediately sobered. “You would have told me if you’d seen anything
that might help us, right? Even if you didn’t see the face of the
man who took David’s body.”
    “ I can’t think of anything
that would help.” Gwen gave a short laugh too. “I assumed Prior
Rhys had returned to the room, and I was trying to figure out how
to tell him—”
    Gwen broke off as the rest of her memory
came flooding back.
    “ What? What is it?” Gareth
said.
    At that moment, Mari bent to the floor.
“What’s this?” She held out her hand. The emerald lay nestled in
her palm.
    Gwen fumbled for the purse at her waist. The
strings hung loose, and she remembered that she’d never closed them
around the stone.
    “ How came this here?” Mari
said, awe in her voice.
    “ I dropped it,” Gwen said.
“I had just put it in my purse when the man grabbed me. David had
sewn it into the hem of his cloak. It must have fallen out of my
purse when the man sent me to the floor.”
    The three friends stood together, looking
down at the stone.
    “ Do you think the person
who took the body knew about the gem and wanted it—or wanted it
back because he had given it to David in the first place?” Mari
said.
    “ If that is true, when he
examines David’s body and doesn’t find it, he may come looking for
you, Gwen,” Gareth said.
    Gwen didn’t like the sound of that. “No. No,
he won’t. Prior Rhys was shocked to learn that I planned to examine
David’s body. He left the room because the very idea of it made him
uncomfortable.”
    “ Really?” Gareth
said.
    Gwen shrugged. “Or so it seemed at the time.
Regardless, if the man who took David’s body was worried that I’d
found the emerald, don’t you think he would have harmed me
more?”
    Gareth made a growling sound deep in his
throat. “I like Newcastle less and less with every hour that
passes.”
    “ You’d better take this.”
Mari dumped the emerald into Gareth’s hand.
    Gareth clenched his fist around the stone.
“I must speak to Prince Hywel. We have two bodies now and a gem so
valuable I’m afraid to keep it with me.”
    “ How would David have come
by an emerald?” Gwen said. “He didn’t appear to me to be a rich
man.”
    “ This would make him rich,
but—” Mari tapped Gareth’s fist so he would open it, and she peered
at the gem again, “—not that rich. It’s very small.”
    “ You mean it isn’t worth as
much as I thought?” Gwen said.
    “ I don’t know what you
thought it was worth,” Mari said. “Certainly, it could buy David
some land. It has a value of more than most villages.”
    “ So does my sword,” Gareth
said.
    “ Was David a thief, do you
think?” Gwen said. “Or could the gem have been meant as payment for
a task?”
    “ If the latter is the case,
it would be nice to know if he still had to complete it,” Mari
said, “or if