Free The Uninvited Guest by Sarah Woodbury

that.”
    “ He does,” Gwen said. “It’s
as if I both trust him, and don’t trust him. I don’t know what to
think about him most days.”
    “ It would be easier just
not to know what he’d done,” Gareth said. “Why did he give you the
knife, do you think? He could have snapped the blade and thrown it
in the marsh.”
    Gwen picked up one of Enid’s very white
hands. The blood had pooled in her torso, not her extremities,
indicating she’d probably died where they found her. “Because he
wanted me to understand him better, to serve him with my eyes open,
and because lies only beget more lies. The truth is almost always
better. You said as much just now yourself. Would you rather I
hadn’t told you what he’d done?”
    “ No,” Gareth said. “I’d
just rather it wasn’t true.”
    Gwen could only agree with that. “Look at
this.” She’d been examining Enid’s hands, looking for signs of
struggle. Enid had skin and blood under the nails of her left
hand.
    “ She marked him,” Gareth
said.
    Gwen turned over Enid’s hand to look at her
palm. “More than that. He marked her.” Something rigid and round,
about half an inch in diameter, had pressed deep enough into the
fleshy palm of Enid’s hand to leave a permanent impression in her
skin.
    “ Is that a lion’s head?”
Gareth turned his head this way and that, trying to make it out.
“It looks like it was made by a seal.”
    Gwen groaned. “Don’t say that!”
    Gareth ignored her. “Is there anything in
the trunk that could have caused it?”
    Gwen rifled through the clothing at the
bottom of the trunk. “Not that I can see.” The killer had all but
emptied the trunk so he could fit Enid inside of it. Gwen ran her
hands through the linens he’d piled on the floor. The stack had
been knocked over and she straightened it while at the same time
making sure nothing was hidden among the cloths.
    “ If she was pressed into it
after she died, would the spot be so bruised?” Gwen said. “Isn’t it
more likely to have been on the body of the person who killed
her?”
    “ I’m just trying to think
of everything,” Gareth said.
    “ Can you really tell what
made it?” Gwen said. “I can’t make out the image at all. It just
looks like a bunch of squiggles inside a more clearly defined
circle.”
    “ To me too,” Gareth said.
“It looks like a lion’s head only when I squint. To make a case
against a man, we’d have to have the ring in our possession and
match it to her palm.”
    “ It’s a clue, though,” Gwen
said. “We’ll keep an eye out for anyone with a trio of scratches on
his forearm and a ring with a raised design.” Gwen removed a linen
sheet from the stack on the floor. “Let’s wrap her up.”
    “ Can’t we leave the
servants to do it?” Gareth said, though he followed her lead by
helping her spread the sheet on the floor and then lifting Enid
onto it.
    “ This symbol, whatever it
is, is too crucial a clue. I don’t want information about that
impression getting out before we have a chance to question the
inhabitants of the castle.”
    Gareth twitched the sheet over Enid’s face
and then looked into Gwen’s. “You don’t even want to show it to
Prince Hywel?”
    “ I want to show him,” Gwen
said. “But—”
    “ You can’t continue working
for Hywel unless you can be honest with him, Gwen, even if he isn’t
always honest with you,” Gareth said. “Either we trust Hywel or we
don’t.”
    “ You haven’t had enough
time to absorb all that I’ve told you—or to talk to Hywel himself,”
Gwen said. “It’s not that easy—”
    “ If we don’t share what we
know,” Gareth said, “we’re hampering ourselves before we’ve even
started. To do so could put King Owain’s life at risk.”
    Gwen looked down at her feet while she
thought, scuffing the toe of her boot into a crack between two
planks in the wooden floor. She wanted to believe Gareth. Maybe she
hadn’t come to terms with Hywel’s