The Favored Son

by Sarah Woodbury

  What remained to be seen was how much of the boy remained in the man. At Newcastle-under-Lyme, Henry had been a somewhat bewildered and unhappy child but fundamentally honest and hopeful. While he was reluctant to broach what had brought them here, Henry’s hesitation was out of grief, not uncertainty. He had approached them with confidence, certain of his own worth and authority. One could believe, looking at him now, that he really might one day become King of England.

  Gareth dropped a cushion onto a chair and held it for Gwen until she sat. At the change in altitude, Taran stirred and pushed at his blankets, but she rocked him, and he didn’t wake.

  Henry folded his hands and rested them on the table. “Thank you for coming. I know the circumstances are unusual, and the request even more so, but I cannot rest until I uncover the truth—or you do.”

  He paused. “I believe that my uncle did not die a natural death but was murdered.”

  Neither Gareth nor Gwen showed surprise, since that had been the gist of the message Prince Henry had sent to Aberystwyth. Earl Robert had died three weeks ago, on Calan Gaeaf, or to the English, All Hallows’ Eve, and the castle was still in deep mourning, as evidenced by the black drapery hung about the windows in the great hall.

  “I understand Earl Robert had been ill for some time,” Gwen said gently, trying to be diplomatic. Henry’s suspicions could be misguided, and they needed to lay the issue bare immediately.

  It didn’t work.

  Henry slammed a fist on the table. “I am not merely a grieving nephew who must be appeased! Nor am I a child any longer, and you are wrong to treat me as one. I am angry, yes, but it is because my uncle was hurried to his grave.” At the sight of Gwen’s stricken face—and Taran stirring in his wrappings—Henry immediately put up both hands in apology. “Please forgive me. Many others have said the same thing to me, and I am tired of hearing it.”

  “You seem very certain.” Gwen rocked Taran back and forth. “Is that because you are certain or because you’ve had to defend your position to skeptical older men—or your mother?”

  Henry bowed his head. “I admit I could be wrong.” Then his chin came up. At Gwen’s calm words and with the baby fading back to sleep, his tension appeared to ease. It was no longer anger that had him clenching his fists, so much as determination. “But I don’t think I am. I did not send for you on a whim.”

  Now Gareth hunched forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped before him. The formality of their initial conversation had at last given way to a more casual practicality. “Say we believe it’s possible. What makes you think your uncle was murdered?”

  Henry blinked, perhaps stunned at being taken seriously at last. “Because he told me so with his dying breath.”

  Chapter Two

  Gareth

  “My lord, before we say anything more, wouldn’t you like to have one of your retainers here as witness?” Gareth said. “Perhaps Earl Robert’s son, William, if he is in residence?”

  “He has taken himself off to Castle Cary, which he took from Henry de Tracy last summer.” Henry was careful to keep his tone level, but his disapproval was impossible to mistake—though Gareth couldn’t tell if it was William’s absence that Henry disapproved of or the taking of Tracy’s castle.

  So he decided he had to ask the next obvious question. “Did he know we were coming?”

  “He did.”

  “My lord, does he approve?”

  “No, he does not, though after his first objection he has done me the courtesy of not saying so to my face.”

  Gareth glanced at Gwen to see how she was taking this. They’d known before setting out from Aberystwyth that many of the hours and days at Bristol were going to be uncomfortable. But now they were both thinking the same thing: bad enough to be investigating Earl Robert’s death and doing it while Welsh. Far worse not to have the favor of the man in whose castle—and against whose father—the crime had been committed. They certainly didn’t want to alienate the new Earl of Gloucester before they’d even met him.

  “And your mother?”

  This time Henry’s pause was a bit longer. “I have not mentioned my suspicions to her.” His eyes dropped to the table in front of him. “I will miss my uncle’s wisdom.”

  “The Empress will as well,” Gwen said. With the loss of Robert, Empress Maud had lost her general, and it had been Earl Robert’s guiding hand that had kept the various barons who supported her together. “What is your mother going to do without him?”

  Henry scoffed. “She never valued her brother as she should have, and I don’t think she realizes what his absence means. I spoke to her last summer when I understood my uncle was seriously ailing, suggesting she begin to think about what she was going to do when he was gone. She dismissed my concerns.” He waved a hand in direct imitation of his mother, which Gareth knew because he himself had met her.

  “Perhaps she didn’t want to think about his death,” Gwen suggested gently. “It would not be an uncommon response to the loss of a beloved brother.”

  “Without his leadership in England, and without appointing a strong replacement, she has no hope of ever regaining the crown.” Henry’s response had no patience or understanding in it. In truth, it couldn’t have been an easy assessment to arrive at and was a remarkable admission from Maud’s son.

  “If it is a lost cause, why stay in England? Why continue the war?” Until today, in fact, Gareth had thought Maud had returned to Normandy months ago, but an off-hand comment from a guardsman at the gate had informed him otherwise. Empress Maud remained thirty-some miles away at Devizes with her household guards and a small contingent of men. She had ridden to Bristol for her brother’s funeral and then returned.

  “Did I say the cause was lost?” Henry blinked as he refocused on Gareth. “It is not. I am the strong replacement. It is up to me to win the hearts and minds of the people. My mother failed in this regard, but I will not.”

  “You are also a man.”

  Gwen wasn’t just stating the obvious. If Maud had been a man herself, she would have been crowned King of England without question after her father died, as the legitimate heir. The only reason Stephen had claimed the throne for himself was because enough barons in England were loath to bow to a woman and they disliked being coerced into doing so. Rumor had it Earl Robert too had considered putting forth his own name. Had he done so, many barons would have supported him, but in the end, he had rejected the idea because of his illegitimacy and had given way to his sister.

  Henry dropped his head again, this time implying humility, though Gareth wouldn’t have said the boy had a humble bone in his body. “I am learning every day how to be a king. In time, the barons will see it too.”

  But before the English barons would follow him, Henry had to convince them he was capable of leading—starting, without a doubt, with William. The last thing that Gareth and Gwen wanted to do was to come between Henry and his apparent destiny.

  And yet, here they were.

  “From what I understand, Earl Robert’s death came as a surprise to no one,” Gwen said.

  “It is true that my uncle was dying, but who is to say when a man has truly breathed his last until he does? My uncle seemed better to me in the hours before he died.”

  Gareth didn’t counter with what was obvious to him: what Henry had observed wasn’t uncommon in a man at death’s door. At the same time, Gareth wasn’t inclined to be disbelieving—and certainly he didn’t have enough incredulity to walk away and leave Henry to his own devices as his mother and William apparently had done. “What exactly did your uncle say?”

  “He said he’d been betrayed.”

  Gareth raised his eyebrows. “That does sound definitive. But what did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t know.” Henry’s pain at his uncle’s loss was clear in his voice. He had loved Robert like a father—perhaps more than he did his own father, who was known to be unbending and driven in much the same way as Henry’s mother. On short
acquaintance, the young prince appeared well on his way to embodying those self-same attributes, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t suffer from them at the same time.

  “And he didn’t identify the one he suspected?” Gareth said.

  Henry shook his head. “He spoke no more words after that, and I was with him for every breath until the very end.”

  “Did anyone else hear these words?” Gwen asked.

  “No.”

  “We are so sorry for your loss.” Gwen’s sincerity had Henry turning towards her again.

  “Thank you.” The prince stood abruptly and began to pace, unable to contain his emotions any other way. “I know what you’re thinking. If I was with him when he died, how can I possibly accuse someone of murdering him?”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking, actually,” Gareth said. “Poison would be the obvious answer, and many of the symptoms of poisoning mimic illness like your uncle experienced this past year. And yet, I am uncertain as to what you want us to do. Your uncle is buried, and he was ill when he died. Whether or not he was poisoned cannot now be determined.”

  “He was only fifty years old and had never been sick a day in his life until this year. It’s unconscionable that he’s dead.”

  “That is grief speaking,” Gwen said. “You know how certain sicknesses come upon a man and waste him away. Do you have any other reason to think he died of unnatural causes besides what he said to you?”

  “In particular, do you have a suspect, someone to whom he could have been referring? Betrayal is a very specific accusation.” Gareth was having trouble keeping the knowledge of how Henry’s grandfather had died from the forefront of his mind—and the tip of his tongue. According to Abbot Rhys, the old King Henry had been poisoned by a dish of lampreys. To lay bare the truth to anyone, however, might not tear apart the kingdom more than it already was, but it would certainly cause dissension among Maud’s supporters. And besides, Gareth had been sworn to secrecy. Normally, Gareth didn’t have trouble keeping secrets. But all of a sudden, in the face of King Henry’s grief-stricken grandson, the truth was eating away at him.

  He had less trouble not telling Henry about the treasure belonging to Empress Maud that Gareth and other lords of the March and Wales had discovered last summer in the wake of the victory at Wiston Castle. The fact that Henry didn’t know about it indicated that none of Gareth’s co-conspirators had developed a guilty conscience either.

  Henry returned to his chair and sighed heavily as he sat. “It would have to be a man he trusted.”

  “Or woman, surely,” Gwen said.

  Henry canted his head. “As you say.” He paused. “I hate to put forth any name with no evidence.”

  Gareth was fed up with dancing around the issue. “Do you fear that the reason William has so adamantly denied your supposition of murder is because he is the one who hurried his father to his death?”

  “Yes!” Henry burst to his feet, again unable to contain his energy. Gareth was becoming exhausted just watching him.

  “That is the reason you didn’t include any of your advisers in this conversation,” Gwen said, not as a question. “You don’t want them to know you suspect William or for rumor of your suspicions to get back to him.”

  “You haven’t told us why you accuse him, however,” Gareth said. “He is Earl Robert’s heir, and I understand your mother has confirmed him in his holdings, even if King Stephen has not. Whether his father died last month or next year shouldn’t have made a difference to his future.”

  “It would have made a difference if he was secretly treating with King Stephen and didn’t want his father to overturn his plans. My uncle was too ill at the time to be the one who refused to pay the wages of my men. William forced me to grovel at Stephen’s feet. If he’d secretly switched to Stephen’s side, they could have planned that between them, to make me indebted to my enemy.”

  The accusation fell into stark silence, except for the crackling of the fire and a mew from Taran. Gareth sincerely hoped that nobody had his ear pressed to the other side of the door Llelo was guarding. Llelo still stood with his back to it, his hands clasped behind him and his legs spread. He was staring neutrally at a point on the far wall, not even startling at Henry’s outburst. For a single heartbeat as Gareth glanced back at him, his eyes had flicked to his father’s and then away.

  “Do you have evidence of any such overtures?” Gwen asked gently.

  “Not directly,” Henry said.

  “What does that mean?” Gwen said.

  “We have intercepted two separate messages from Stephen’s court, intended for traitors in Gloucester, though we are uncertain if they were meant for someone here at Bristol or another one of William’s holdings.” Those included Gloucester Castle as well as the aforementioned Castle Cary, or even Devizes, Empress Maud’s seat in southwest England.

  “And you think one of these traitors is William? Why?” Gareth found himself speaking to the prince as he would a nephew—or Llelo. In Wales, it would be his right, since he’d saved the boy’s life.

  “It is implied in the letters.”

  “May we see them?”

  “Of course. The castle steward has them. He was one of my uncle’s most trusted men, and it was his men who intercepted them all.” Henry grimaced. “Whether or not William is a traitor to my mother, my uncle’s death was the first of three suspicious deaths at Bristol Castle within a few days of each other, and William is best placed to have had a hand in them.”

  Gwen stirred in her seat. This was not the first time they’d heard these kind of rumors about William. “We will speak to the steward and to Earl William, my lord. With your permission, we will speak to everyone in Bristol if we have to. Please tell us more about these other deaths.”

  Henry seemed relieved at the change of subject and turned matter-of-fact, returning to his chair. “A maidservant collapsed while tidying the earl’s room the day after he died, and then the next day, within hours of my uncle’s funeral, his valet was drowned. It was after that, and after William refused to designate men to investigate or countenance my doing so, that I sent for you.”

  Now explained were the presence of the sprig of holly above the main door as they’d entered and the wreaths of blackberry bramble, ivy, and rowan on either side of the hearth in the great hall. Whether because holly was thorny or for another reason lost to time, it was thought that when an evil spirit passed under the sprig, the spirit would be caught and thus unable to enter. In turn, the ingredients of the wreaths were also thought to ward off evil. Whether or not something was amiss in Bristol Castle, there was no mistaking that its inhabitants were convinced of it and were afraid.

  “And I suppose you only told William about it afterwards,” Gareth said dryly. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission, eh?”

  Henry had the grace to look a little sheepish, but then he lifted his chin, and the snap in his eyes was back. “I am the heir to the throne of England. I must follow my conscience. Besides, William took himself off, and I haven’t seen him for more than a few moments in a fortnight.”

  “Is it your thought that this valet and maidservant were killed to silence them?” Gwen said.

  “Why else?”

  Gwen frowned. “Surely if they knew anything about Earl Robert’s death—anything untoward, that is—they would have come forward.”

  Henry shrugged. “Maybe the murderer thought they knew more than they did or feared what they might remember.”

  “I’d be interested to know why you are the only one who is considering murder,” Gareth said. “What explanation do others give?”

  “They tell me it was the hand of God, every time, usually with a desultory wave and a look that dismisses me as a grieving youth. Is everyone blind or just in denial? I know people die every day. Of course they do. But Jenet was too young for a heart condition, not even thirty, and Bernard not much older.”

  Gareth was surprised Henry had learned the servants’ names, seeing as how
they were so far beneath him. But then, on consideration, Henry had made it his business to inquire into their lives. It was a little daunting, in fact, to have someone so young be so competent. “They are both buried by now as well, I assume, so we can’t see the bodies?”

  “She is buried. His body was never recovered.”

  Gwen perked up. “So how do you know he drowned?”

  “His boots were found in the bottom of his boat, along with his fishing net. The boat was lolling in the shallows, and his hat was stuck in an eddy.” Henry paused to consider. “He’d been made despondent by my uncle’s death, followed immediately afterward by his wife’s. It was only at William’s intervention that the priest didn’t declare him a suicide, arguing that it was as likely that he fell out of the boat as that he drowned intentionally. The body will eventually turn up downstream at the castle sluice gate, in a weir, or hooked on a log.”

  “Wait a moment—” Gareth put up a hand, having focused on the first part of Henry’s explanation. “The maid who died was the valet’s wife?”

  Henry glanced from Gareth to Gwen, who was looking at him with her hand to her mouth. “Yes, of course. Didn’t I say? They took care of my uncle together. Why does this change anything?”

  “It changes everything.” Gwen dropped her hand. “We are not overly fond of coincidences.”

  Henry’s lip curled. “Obviously I supported William’s defense of the valet, though not for the reasons anyone else thought. His death wasn’t a suicide, and he certainly didn’t drown on his own in the river. The man could swim. I asked around.” He looked pleased with himself.

  “You asked around,” Gareth said, his tone very flat.