Free The Unlikely Spy by Sarah Woodbury

Tangwen there every warm evening since.
    Once at the pool, Gwen sat on a rock, pulled
up her skirt, and slipped out of her boots. She stripped off
Tangwen’s dirty clothes and set them aside, and then, holding
Tangwen’s hand tightly, she helped her step into the pool. Tangwen
squealed at the cold water and splashed her free hand in it in
delight. It was shallow enough that Tangwen could sit on the bottom
on a flat rock and still keep her head above water, but Gwen still
needed to watch her closely, lest she slide under the surface.
    “Do you like the water?” Gwen bent to feel
it with the fingers of her free hand. Because the shallow pool had
sat in the sun all day and the water flowed in and out of it
slowly, it was warmer than the brook that ran beside it. “Is it
nice?”
    “Nice water.” Tangwen rarely said more than
one word at a time, so using two together today was something of a
triumph.
    Gwen scooped water up in her cupped her hand
and poured it over Tangwen’s head, and then she rubbed at her
daughter’s dirty cheeks and hands with a wet cloth until they were
clean.
    “Did you hear about the man found in the
millpond?”
    The words carried to Gwen from her left. She
straightened slightly, continuing to hold onto Tangwen’s wrist to
keep her upright, and peered in the direction of the sound. Two
monks of an age with Elspeth were just visible through the trees
that grew down to the water’s edge. They lifted up their robes and
waded in the brook, still talking.
    “I saw him!” the second monk said. “Hosteler
Adda sent me to bring water to wash him in preparation for burial
tomorrow morning. He said the man’s wife came to claim his body.
Did you see her?” At the other monk’s shake of his head, the second
continued, “She was beautiful, but …” He looked down at the water
rushing past his feet.
    “But what?” The first monk was trying to
walk on the rocks into the middle of the brook. He slipped and fell
to one knee, soaking the hem of his robe. He cursed in a very
unmonklike fashion and rose to his feet again, balancing with his
arms outstretched on either side of him.
    “When I brought the water, I looked into the
dead man’s face. I’ve never seen a drowned man before.” The second
monk shook his head. “The funny thing is that he looks very much
like my cousin’s husband. He is named Gryff too. Do you think I
ought to tell someone about that?”
    The first monk sputtered his surprise at his
friend and slipped off his rock.
    Gwen swung Tangwen onto her hip and
slithered through the mud on the bank to where the two monks had
gone into the brook. “I definitely think you need to tell someone
about that.”
    The two boys swung around, gaping at her.
The monk who thought he knew Gryff said, “I didn’t mean for anyone
else to hear.”
    “Well I did hear, and your instincts are
good.” Gwen put out a hand to the boys, trying to put them at their
ease. “I am Gwen. Sir Gareth is my husband, and he is investigating
Gryff’s death. Please tell me again what you just said about your
cousin’s husband.”
    Both boys were still standing in the water,
staring at her, and it occurred to Gwen that they might be worried
about a whole host of things that had nothing to do with Gryff:
they’d been chatting with each other, the first monk had sworn like
a soldier, and very likely they were shirking whatever duties they
should be fulfilling. Vespers, for one.
    They could also have been staring in horror
at Gwen herself, since her hair was askew, she was shoeless, and
she had a naked baby girl on her hip. But Gwen waited, and after
another pause, the first monk shook himself. “Tell her, Fychan.
This really might be important.”
    Fychan still looked wary, but he took a few
steps closer to Gwen. “Gryff is the name of the husband. And this
man looked like him.” Fychan shrugged. “That’s all.”
    “Could you come with me?” Gwen said. “Other
men will want to hear what you have to