The Fourth Horseman by Sarah Woodbury Page B

put her hand to
Prior Rhys’s forehead. It was cool.
    “ I am awake.”
    Gwen jumped. Hywel had implied that Prior
Rhys was at death’s door. “I’m glad!” Gwen was so relieved, she was
tempted throw her arms around the prior and hug him. His austere
expression restrained her, however. “How do you feel?”
    “ My head hurts.”
    He said it with such an injured tone that
even Mari smiled. “Someone hit you very hard,” Mari said. “Did you
see him?”
    “ I’ve been lying here going
over what I remember,” Prior Rhys said. “I recall praying beside
David’s body in the little room off the chapel. Then Gwen entered
the room, hoping to examine the body.” His eyes flicked to Gwen and
then away again, back to Mari. “I admit that surprised
me.”
    “ I’m sorry,” Gwen said. “I
didn’t mean to disconcert you.”
    Prior Rhys turned his head, very carefully,
to look fully into Gwen’s face. “You were very matter-of-fact about
it. I didn’t know what to make of such behavior in a woman, and I
confess that I didn’t like the idea of you undressing the body in
front of me. I chose to take a walk while you worked.”
    Gwen, for her part, didn’t know how to
answer him. She could have used his help, and as before in the
chapel, his squeamishness surprised her. Still, the fewer people
who knew about the emerald, the better.
    Prior Rhys didn’t seem to need a response
from Gwen. He continued, “By the time I had strolled some distance
from the chapel, I had come to terms with what you were doing. In
fact, I made a list in my head of a dozen other women whom I had
known in my days as a soldier who might have had the capacity to
behave as you were. I was wounded fighting in France and left to
heal among a community of nuns. You reminded me of them.”
    “ Gwen is not a nun,” Mari
said.
    Now it was Prior Rhys’s turn to smile,
canting his head in acknowledgement of the truth of Mari’s
statement. “Still, she has some of the same qualities I admired in
them. Did you find anything important on his body? Anything that
might tell us why he was killed?”
    “ A man subdued me too,”
Gwen said, taking Hywel at his word that the emerald was not a
topic for discussion. “When I awoke, the body was gone.”
    “ What?” Prior Rhys
struggled to push himself more upright on the soft bed. “Gwen! I am
so sorry! I should have been there to protect you.”
    Gwen knew that Gareth thought much the same
thing and might even speak to the prior about it eventually. She,
however, wasn’t going to admonish him. “It isn’t your fault.”
    “ Are you all right?” He
looked her up and down. “You look well.”
    “ I am well. He didn’t hurt
me. I’m still not entirely sure what caused me to faint, but he put
his arm around my neck—” Gwen broke off, stroking her throat and
remembering what it had felt like. She was afraid that the memory,
and the feeling of helplessness the man’s action had engendered in
her was going to haunt her for a long time to come. At the very
least, she needed to be more careful about leaving her back to
doors in strange castles.
    Prior Rhys reached for Gwen’s hand. “My
dear.”
    “ We have been assuming that
Gwen and you were both harmed for the same reason—because you were
watching over David’s body,” Mari said.
    Prior Rhys shook his head. “But what is it
about David that would make someone do that? It’s nonsensical.”
    “ Not to the man who did
it,” Mari said.
    Prior Rhys lifted his eyes to look into
Gwen’s. “If I could stand, I would take you home to Wales before
the sun sets. Why hasn’t Gareth sent you home already?”
    “Because he’s afraid she wouldn’t reach the
border safely.” Hywel pushed through the door and entered the room.
“I thought I heard your voice, Prior. It’s good to see you
awake.”

Chapter Ten
    Hywel
     
    “I am glad to be awake,” Prior Rhys said. “It is my understanding
that whether or not I would ever wake was an