Sighing, he looked over his trembling daughter’s shoulder and spied his eldest. “Morgana!” Daffyd growled, eyeing his firstborn with quiet rage. “You have defied me for the last time.”
“Aye, that she has,” Garrick said, his arm firmly around Morgana’s waist. “She has given me back my son and my castle, and I owe her my life. You’ll have no more gray hairs from this one, Daffyd, for she is to become my wife.”
“Your wife?” Daffyd said, his scowl slowly changing to a smile of calculated pleasure and the thought of losing a willful daughter and gaining a powerful son-in-law. “Well, well…” With one arm still supporting Glyn, he crossed the inner bailey, moving past the kneeling peasants and knights. “This I will give my blessing, and I bring you good news: Osric McBrayne has turned back to Castle Hawarth. Lord Rowley and I convinced him it would best serve him to leave Abergwynn to you.”
“You are truly faithful,” Garrick said. “You shall be rewarded.”
Daffyd’s eyes narrowed a bit, as they always did when he contemplated gold.
“There are others who must be rewarded and some who will be punished. We will find out which of Strahan’s thugs stole Logan, and they will be banished or beaten or worse,” Garrick proclaimed. “The men who killed Cadell and Ware shall be punished as well. And as for Will Farmer, I think we owe him a horse.”
“Not Luck,” Morgana argued quickly. “For without him, I could not have returned.”
“Then we shall give the farmer the pick of the stables,” Garrick said, his arm slung possessively over the shoulders of his bride-to-be. “What say you? A little food? A lot of wine? A marriage ceremony?” Garrick looked at his kneeling army. “Arise,” he said. “Those of you who will stay, I shall speak with on the morrow” —he glanced slyly at Morgana— “long after noon.”
A hair-raising howl rose from outside the castle, and Morgana whistled sharply. Wolf streaked through the gate and into the inner bailey and wriggled his way into Morgana’s waiting arms.
Morgana laughed and ruffled his fur before Garrick took her arm again. “Come. ’Tis time for a wedding.” He linked his arm through Morgana’s, allowing her to help him climb the steps. With Wolf padding behind them, the lord and future lady of Abergwynn walked into the great hall that was to be their home forever.