“Did you think to wonder why he was fishing that day?” Llelo said. “It was the afternoon of the earl’s funeral, and Bernard’s wife had died the day before.”
Edgar shrugged. “Each man grieves in his own way. The earl himself liked to fish every once in a while. Bernard would go with him.”
Cadoc’s eyes surveyed the river. From the sluice gate upstream that diverted the Frome around the castle, the course of the river quickly left the bounds of the town and headed northeast. “Where was his body found?”
Edgar blinked. “It hasn’t been.”
Cadoc knew that, of course, but he wanted to know if Edgar did. “Perhaps you could explain to me again why you think he drowned?”
“The boat was discovered after it floated back downstream. Bernard’s boots and fishing gear were found in the bottom. Even a fish! But no Bernard.” Edgar nodded sagely. “I’ve seen this happen before. The body ends up on the bottom of the river and is caught there. The bones are found months later.”
Cadoc knew from talking to Gareth—thankfully not from his own experience—that if a man drowned, his body did sink to the bottom, but eventually would bloat and rise to the surface again. Enough time had passed that this should have happened to Bernard. What Cadoc didn’t say was what he’d been thinking all along, being suspicious and cynical by nature: Bernard had faked his own death. He’d seen it before, in the father of Prince Hywel’s wife, no less. There was no reason to think an earl’s valet couldn’t do the same.
The question before him was if it would be a waste of time to pursue that line of thought. If it was true, Bernard should be long gone by now, living in a different town under a different name. It would be good to know, however, why Bernard had done it.
Cadoc tipped his head to indicate a path he could see that followed the bank upstream. “The boys and I will walk a ways. Thank you for your time.”
“Oh—” Edgar put out a hand. “One more thing.” He hesitated. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
“So many have died that everything is important,” Llelo said. “Please, whatever it is, just tell us.”
“Maybe a week before he died, I saw Bernard arguing with another man, one of the traders in town who deals in wine. Italian.” Edgar sniffed, indicating a typical English disdain for foreigners, no matter how good their product.
“Do you know what the argument was about?” Cadoc said.
“Only Bernard’s side. The other man’s accent was thick, and he spoke low. But he was threatening Bernard. Bernard said, I’ll pay. I need more time.” Edgar scowled. “I know what that sounds like to me, but when I asked him, Bernard shrugged it off and said I’d misheard.”
“Was anyone else close by?” Cadoc said.
“None closer than me, and that was by accident. I was in the shadows, seeking to relieve myself in the river.”
Cadoc thanked Edgar, and Llelo did too, somewhat more profusely, which Cadoc thought was fine. The more everyone here realized they were genuinely interested in solving the mystery of these deaths, the more likely they would be to come forward. In truth, they were coming at the investigation backwards. They needed to find the person who could talk them through these events from beginning to end. Now that Gareth was distracted by Cadwaladr’s arrival and Prince Henry’s conference, it was up to the rest of them to discover the truth.
Hamelin had already started down the trail that followed the river, but he said as Cadoc and Llelo caught up, “You were right not to introduce me.”
“I didn’t mean to offend,” Cadoc said mildly, “but he wasn’t a guard to be intimidated. He’s the king of his own castle and knows it.”
“Merchants are a different breed,” Hamelin admitted, “these Saxon ones in particular. I never know what to make of them.”
As they walked, Llelo related to Hamelin (who didn’t, in fact, speak English) the gist of the conversation with Edgar. The houses petered out after fifty yards, and they found themselves walking through farmland, with stone walls to demarcate individual fields. Cadoc saw sheep for the first time and a few goats. There might have been cattle too, farther on, but trees blocked his view.
Part of the flow of the Frome had been rerouted around the eastern side of the castle, but upstream from the sluice gate remained unchanged, and it wound sinuously through the relatively flat English countryside. Hamelin made to cut across a field rather than follow the river exactly, but when neither Llelo nor Cadoc followed him, he turned back. “Why not?”
“We are looking for a body,” Llelo said, his long legs eating up the yards, “and I may have found one.”
“In the river?” Hamelin’s head swung back to look upstream to where Llelo was pointing a hundred feet ahead. “After three weeks?”
“You came along thinking it was a lark and that we weren’t going to find anything, didn’t you?” Llelo’s steps quickened, and he outpaced the other two men.
Hamelin was appalled. “You can’t be serious! This is your third body in three days!”
Cadoc was interested to see that in those three days, the young men’s relationship had advanced enough that they would speak to each other so openly. It wasn’t a prince’s brother to a knight’s son, if it ever had been, but one man to another. Equals.
Soon Hamelin caught up enough to make out the shape Llelo had seen, lodged against the bank. “It’s a woman!” He took one look and immediately turned away to vomit in the bushes.
Llelo crouched on the bank, his elbows resting on his thighs and his hands dangling between his knees.
Cadoc eyed Hamelin’s back for a moment, and then put a hand on Llelo’s shoulder. “Is there anything we need to determine before we get her out of there?” He was deliberately asking for advice, to focus Llelo’s mind and to distract him from the horror of what they’d found. The young man had shadowed his father for long enough that he knew the basics of investigating—more than Cadoc, in truth. And it was Llelo who’d found her.
Although Llelo appeared just short of puking himself, he managed a quick shake of his head. “We should never assume, but it’s unlikely this is where she went in.” He paused. “My father would know more, but I think we should just pull her out.”
“I agree.” Cadoc glanced to where Hamelin’s gray face was peering at them from around a tree. He hadn’t soiled his shoes, which was something. But Cadoc didn’t ask him to help, instead turning resolutely back to the river and steeling himself for the cold water.
Llelo was there ahead of him, however, sliding down the bank and into the shallows. The body appeared to be stuck on a submerged branch, and Llelo put a hand on it for balance.
The body was turned face down, the dead woman’s dark hair swimming around her head, so as they tugged and heaved her away from the branch, they were spared having to look into her face. But once she was out of the water and onto the river bank, they lay her down facing the sky.
Hamelin’s skin was very white. “She’s been garroted, just like Aelfric.”
Puffing with the effort of heaving the body out of the water and as soaking wet as the dead woman, Llelo didn’t join Hamelin in losing his breakfast, but he bent over, his hands on his knees, and spat on the ground. At the sight of her face, even Cadoc, who was no innocent, turned away. The mist on the river was long gone, and the November sun shone weakly down on the macabre scene.
Llelo had pulled off his cloak before he entered the water, and now he grabbed it from where he’d draped it over a nearby bush and covered the body with it.
Hamelin cleared his throat. “What can I do?”
Cadoc lifted his chin, impressed that the young man’s voice barely shook. “Get help.” He tipped his head to point downriver. “No need to run.”
But Hamelin was already hastening away.
Cadoc turned to Llelo. “You all right over there?”
“Well enough.” Llelo spoke with more equanimity than Cadoc was currently feeling. “I’m certainly doing better than Rose.”
Chapter Twenty
-one
Gareth
When Gareth had come to Bristol, it had been to investigate the suspicious death of Earl Robert—and while for most people that would have been an uncomfortable proposition, it was within the range of normal for Gareth. If he’d known, however, that not only would he be participating in a council of war, but sitting across from Cadwaladr at the same time, likely he would have seriously reconsidered his decision to come.
But then he would have come anyway. He knew himself well enough by now to recognize that he did his duty, regardless of the personal consequences to himself. Besides, Prince Hywel had been searching for Cadwaladr for a year—and now Gareth had found him. Knowing was better than not knowing, even if it would sharpen Hywel’s anxiety about what mischief Cadwaladr could be getting up to. While Gareth hadn’t yet determined the true purpose behind Cadwaladr’s visit to Bristol and though he would have loved to pin any one of these deaths on him, it did seem that Cadwaladr had truly arrived after Sir Aubrey was dead. He couldn’t blame him this time.
“You’re the expert, Gareth,” Aron said in an undertone. “How do we kill him and get away with it?”
Gareth didn’t look at the younger man, but kept his gaze steady on Cadwaladr, who was talking animatedly with Hertford, his brother-in-law. The other Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Pembroke and the first Gilbert’s uncle, was here too, speaking intently with Humphrey de Bohun and Maurice FitzGerald. Pembroke had not brought his son, Richard, whom Gareth had met six months before during the endeavor against the Flemings and had quite liked. Nor was Cadell, the King of Deheubarth, or Rhys, his youngest brother, present. Instead it was seventeen-year-old Maredudd, whom Gareth had not met before, who had arrived late last night to represent Deheubarth.
In fact, half of the lords who’d come to Bristol had benefited from the taking of Wiston last summer and its aftermath, including the discovery of Empress Maud’s treasure. That none of them had mentioned its existence to Henry was a relief, since Gareth wouldn’t have wanted to explain his silence either.
At that moment, as if reading Gareth’s thoughts, Pembroke turned to look at him. Gareth gazed steadily back, and after a few easy breaths, Pembroke lifted his chin in acknowledgement. Gareth was not blind to the fact that one reason he was being treated so well by these Marcher lords was because they were worried about what he knew and what he might say to the prince.
Gareth also could not be bribed or bought. They didn’t like it, but there was nothing they could do about that either. It gave Gareth power that a few years ago might have made him uncomfortable, but now he accepted—not as his due, but as something he could work with.
“Believe me, I’ve been considering our options,” Gareth said. “Any attempt on Cadwaladr’s life would be instantly put at our doorstep, however. You know that.”
“Do we care?”
Gareth heaved a sigh. He’d asked this question and answered it a dozen times in the last year—and the last day—even as he’d entertained himself with visions of Cadwaladr’s demise, each death more gruesome than the last. “Prince Hywel would care. King Owain would care. We do not have free license to kill, no matter how guilty the man.” He paused. “It is not who we are.”
“Not who you are, maybe,” Aron muttered under his breath, but he didn’t argue anymore.
Gareth felt the need to add, “Furthermore, we must treat him with respect.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Gareth wasn’t happy about having to say it, but he well remembered Hywel’s words to him about biding their time. Which meant that Gareth had to play along, to smile when he wanted to punch Cadwaladr in his teeth while gutting him with a dull knife. Gwen had once wished for Cadwaladr the long decline of dying unloved and alone, but it was a wasted curse. Cadwaladr was his own best companion and loved only himself.
Yesterday the council had met for nearly the entire day, hashing out the state of England from north of York to the tip of Cornwall and everywhere in between. While the lords here were haughty, arrogant, and often rivals, in Henry’s presence they were allies. They were trying to come up with a way to take the throne from Stephen, and they were united in their desire to do so. Thus, while the atmosphere had been intense, it hadn’t been because the men here were at odds.
Henry’s receiving room had been transformed from when Gareth had first met the prince in it. Two tables had been placed side by side so they abutted each other along their length, making a rectangle. Six men could sit along each side with two each on the ends, and sixteen seats were more than were needed. Having spent yesterday in their company, Gareth would have been happier to have been left out today, or at least to have found himself at a place other than at the main table, but Maredudd, the only other Welshman, fetched up beside him, and somehow Gareth found himself guided to a spot just left of center. “My brother Rhys sends his greetings.”
Gareth looked at Maredudd sharply. “Your brother knew I was here?”
“We did.”
That did not give Gareth a good feeling, but he didn’t have time to pursue the topic because Prince Henry took a seat in the exact center of one long side, making him the focal point of the meeting. William was the new Earl of Gloucester, but it was Henry who was calling this conference, and the more Gareth saw of him, the clearer it was to him that he was claiming the dead earl’s mantle for himself.
Unlike what sometimes happened in Welsh councils, the next-highest-ranking baron, Pembroke, did not sit opposite the prince. The chair of honor was to the king’s right. Gareth was a little embarrassed to watch Pembroke and Ranulf fight Cadwaladr for the seat. When Ranulf finally did manage to sit, Cadwaladr’s nose went up and a smile appeared on his face. He moved down several seats to the end of the table. Pembroke retired to the seat opposite Prince Henry, next to Gareth.
That brief exchange was all Gareth needed. After two days of unfailing grace, Cadwaladr had allowed his true personality to show for just a moment before covering it again with a small smile and polite words. Gareth had never known a man as false-hearted as Cadwaladr, but his behavior had been spectacular mumming, even for him.
Cadwaladr had been included in yesterday’s council too. At first, Gareth had thought William and Henry were mad to invite him to join them, but as he’d sat between his various relations, kin through Cadwaladr’s wife, Alice, Gareth realized that everyone was taking for granted that he was with them, and it could even be that Cadwaladr had gone to Stephen as a spy in the king’s court—on his own initiative or at the request of one of these Marcher lords.
At the thought, a frisson of unease put up the hairs on Gareth’s neck. If Cadwaladr spied for Maud, it was no wonder his return here had been triumphant. Gareth hadn’t given King Stephen’s men a thought since they’d arrived, but he realized he hadn’t seen recently.
Again it was Aron, standing behind Gareth’s chair at his left shoulder, who bent down to whisper in his ear and put words to his thoughts. “Did you see that? How long do you think he can keep this up?”
“By all indications, he’ll manage as long as he needs to.”
“The question is why does he need to?”
“I may have just figured it out.”
“Welcome again, all of you.” From his chair placed at the end of the table opposite Cadwaladr, William rose to his feet. Unlike Cadwaladr, he’d given way to Ranulf without protest—and seemingly by his own choice. “Yesterday was spent outlining our current situation. Today, we will put the pieces together and devise a plan, without which the war cannot continue.” He lifted his chin and spoke a little louder. “We must ensure that King Stephen understands the stark truth: despite my father’s death, nothing has changed.”
Prince Henry sat quietly through William’s introduction, but at a bow from the earl, ceding the floor, he lifted a hand. “My mother is the rightful Queen of England. We all know it. I believe even Stephen knows it. I believe it is still possible to make him see it.”
Strangely, i
t was Cadwaladr who spoke first. “Why should he?” At the startlement in the faces of the men near him, he laughed and carried on, “As you well know, I ask this not as a supporter of Stephen, but as someone who wants to see the Empress succeed. But I must ask ... on what grounds does hope rest? Stephen was crowned twelve years ago. What’s to prevent the war from lasting twelve more?”
Gareth wanted to despise Cadwaladr for his speech, but he agreed with nearly every word—and he felt a sense of grim satisfaction that his new evaluation of Cadwaladr’s role appeared to be exactly right.
Prince Henry spoke into the silence that followed. “The answer, my friends, is me. Twelve years ago, I was an infant. I am fourteen now, and while I acknowledge that my uncle carried England on his back for many years, and I cannot replace him, I am my mother’s son. I am the rightful heir to the throne of England. This fight is not only one we can win, but it is one that we will win. I will not be denied. King Stephen has to know that the war has only just begun.”
Those were fighting words, righteously spoken. The blazing expression on Henry’s face belied its youthful softness. What’s more, in that moment Gareth believed him, believed he could win back the throne—and by the looks on the faces of the men who surrounded him, the rest of the men in the room did too.
It was another reminder of the way Normans wielded power. This was a fourteen-year-old. If he’d been born a Welshman, he would have been construed a man, but he was still far from his maturity by Norman lights. And yet everyone in the room sat completely silent as he spoke, they nodded at his certainty, and they girded their loins for what the next few years would bring. They were ready to follow him to the throne if he could achieve it.
These barons had come to the conference because Prince Henry had rank, even though his mother was uncrowned and—unless the conference produced a meaningful plan—had no hope of being crowned. He had no official status at all, even in Bristol. This was William’s castle. But unearned or not, Henry ruled here because the people in the room believed he did.
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