The Irish Bride

by Sarah Woodbury

  Hywel continued speaking. “Evan is just there—” he gestured towards the kitchen door through which Gareth could make out Evan’s bulk settled against the frame, “and the rest are about somewhere.”

  Gareth had left Llelo and Dai asleep. As promised, after they’d shooed Gwen to bed, Llelo had stayed up late with him over the body, and Dai needed to sleep as long as possible in preparation for staying up all night tonight. In truth, they all were going to need a nap this afternoon. But only baby Taran and Tangwen were probably going to get one.

  Conall was already in the kitchen when they arrived, standing over the food that would be served to King Diarmait for his first meal of the day. He turned at their approach, a dolorous expression on his face.

  Gareth stared at him. “You’re the food taster now?”

  “It has to be done,” Conall said matter-of-factly.

  “By the saints, you cannot!” Hywel was equally horrified.

  “It does give one a moment’s pause, doesn’t it?” Conall said, still in that bland tone. “I am not terribly fearful at the moment. I supervised the scrubbing of every dish, pot, and utensil overnight. And the king has sworn to restrict himself to foods that require little preparation.” He ripped off a piece of a bun, slathered it in butter and honey, and ate it.

  Gareth looked at Hywel. “Yesterday we questioned two servants who’d eaten shellfish a few days ago. What if one of them brought the knife they’d used to open the shells into the kitchen? Banan’s death could actually have been an accident.”

  Conall grimaced. “I dismissed those two because there appeared to be no mal-intent in their manner, and my head was full of hatred for Donnell. Perhaps that was a mistake. As we learned from Arnulf, a person doesn’t have to lie outright to obscure the truth.” He turned to the cook and inquired where the boy and his granny were today.

  “They both worked late cleaning the kitchen, and then I sent them home. Carla was weaving on her feet with exhaustion. Hans does as he’s told.”

  That also didn’t sound ominous or threatening. Still, Gareth said, “We should speak to them again.” And Conall asked for the directions to their house.

  “I probably shouldn’t go with you.” Hywel made a face. “Somehow, I will have to sit at the table and force down food.” He put a hand to his belly. “Good thing I’m hungry.”

  Gareth didn’t say better you than me, though his expression must have conveyed some of his thoughts, since Hywel laughed. It was no laughing matter, really, but sometimes a man had to laugh in the face of terrible events. Conall, who wasn’t laughing either, motioned Gareth out the rear door, but before they’d gone three paces, they heard a shout from the kitchen, and Evan fell into step beside them. “Can’t let you have all the fun.”

  “Missing our adventures, are you?” Gareth said. “Why aren’t you watching Hywel’s back?”

  “Gruffydd’s got it.” Evan made a face that was half rueful, half amused. “I could have been content to never investigate another murder, but Prince Hywel sent me in his place.” He eyed Gareth. “We know what kind of trouble you can get into. I’m just sorry the prince and I will have to sit out the activity tonight.”

  “We need to pretend nothing is happening, which means the two highest-ranking Dragons must stay behind.”

  “I can’t say I have ever felt this closely watched before, except perhaps in Bristol. There, however, it was because the members of Prince Henry’s court didn’t want to stain the ends of their cloaks by associating with Welshmen. Here it’s reverence.”

  “You could view it as a nice problem to have,” Gareth said. “And besides, what you said about Bristol isn’t entirely true. Prince Henry worshipped you.”

  Evan’s lips twitched towards a smile. “True. We won’t ever be sorry to have impressed a possible future king of England.”

  “One can hope.” Gareth certainly wasn’t sorry to have found favor with Prince Henry, but found it unlikely the old debt would temper any future actions against Gwynedd. Norman kings and princes cared only for their own personal power. Oddly, both Godfrid and Henry shared blood, being descended from Viking raiders. The pirate in each remained always just below the surface.

  Hans and his grandmother were among the poorer residents of Dublin and thus lived to the north of the palace in what could be described as a hut, accessible down an alley near the eastern wall of the city. It was as far from the fresh water source as was possible to get in Dublin. For all that, however, every front stoop in the district was swept clean and the thatching on the roofs was fresh.

  As they came closer, however, it became evident that the small crowd of a half-dozen people in the street were standing directly in front of Hans and Carla’s house. And they were doing so for good reason.

  “I smell blood.” Conall coughed.

  “I’m glad I left Llelo sleeping,” Gareth said. “Inevitably, like all of us, he dreams of dead men. I can’t be sorry to spare him one more.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Day Three

  Conall

  The scene inside the hut was worse than even Conall, who’d seen plenty of death and murder too, had feared. Both Carla and Hans had been stabbed. Hans was already dead, but Carla was still alive. Her neighbors had lifted her onto a pallet, and three of them hovered around her.

  One of them looked up as Conall and Gareth entered, hope in his face, but then he sagged in disappointment.

  “Did you send for Sheriff Holm?” Conall asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Then he should be on his way. Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “This is Gareth the Welshman. There is no better man for catching whoever did this. Leave us with her, please.”

  How she was still alive Conall didn’t know. There was blood everywhere. But while Hans’ throat had been cut, she’d merely been stabbed in the belly. Likely, because it was hard to see in the darkened hut, the murderer had mistakenly left her for dead.

  In the face of Conall’s authority, the neighbor acquiesced. Conall looked at Gareth for guidance, but he gestured with one hand. “Don’t worry about me. She doesn’t have much time. Find out if she knows who did this.”

  Conall picked up Carla’s hand to hold it and looked into her eyes. They were bright blue, and she still had enough life in her to look back at him and speak. “Tell King Brodar I’m sorry. I brought shame upon Dublin.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “A man came to us with coin. He said we were to harvest shellfish—it didn’t matter what kind. We could eat some of them, as I told you we did, but we were to chop up several into fine bits and bring them to the kitchen.”

  “You denied doing that yesterday,” Conall said. “You lied to me.”

  “No.” She coughed, bringing up blood. “You asked if I brought the shellfish to the kitchen. I didn’t. Hans did.”

  Conall wasn’t impressed with the hair-splitting, but she was dying, so there was no point in chastising her further. “And then what? Banan had pie in his mouth when he died. Is that what you poisoned?”

  She nodded. “I’m in charge of chopping vegetables. When the cook was ready to add mushrooms to the pie, I had already mixed in the shellfish.”

  “It never occurred to you to ask why the man wanted you to do this?”

  “I did ask. He said he wanted to spoil the meal. I didn’t see how adding shellfish could spoil anything, since every type is delicious, but he said never you mind how.”

  “So you took his money.”

  Carla turned her head to one side, struggling to breathe, but she still managed to answer. “The rest of the hall ate stew. The cook makes pies for everyone only when we have fewer folk present. They take too long to make and need to be watched, so the pie was the one thing at the meal that was only for the high table.” Tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t know what harm it could possibly do! That poor man! To watch him die in such pain.”

  She mea
nt Banan, the food taster, though it seemed she was dying in pain too. If Conall had been on a battlefield, he would have eased her passing, but he couldn’t do it for an old woman—and worse, he needed information.

  “Who was the man? Was he someone you knew?”

  She gave the slightest shake of her head.

  “Irish?”

  Again the headshake.

  “So he was a Dane?”

  “I thought so. He spoke like one of us. He wouldn’t tell us his name.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  Her breathing was becoming more and more labored, with bloody air bubbles on her lips, but she managed to mouth a few last words: “Short. Balding. Middle-aged.”

  “Did he come back this morning? Is it he who stabbed you and your grandson?”

  Her eyes had closed, but she managed one more nod. “I’m so sorry.”

  Holm arrived, and Conall allowed him to take over. Carla didn’t open her eyes again and, within a few heartbeats, she was gone. Conall found Gareth looking at him with sad eyes and made a motion with his head for the two of them to join Evan, who was outside, keeping the onlookers at bay with the few words in Danish he knew. But now that Holm and his men had arrived, he was no longer needed.

  Conall led both men a few paces away, farther up the alley, where they couldn’t be overheard, though he spoke in Welsh so likely it wouldn’t matter, and told them Carla’s dying words.

  Evan let out a grunt of disgust. “The man she described could be anyone.”

  “Me included, though my red hair does tend to get noticed.” Conall’s chin was in his hand.

  “You’re hardly balding,” Gareth said.

  Conall grunted. “So says the man with a full head of hair. Perhaps there’s a witness among the people who live in this alley. If so, Holm will find him.”

  “If she’d lived, I could have worked up a sketch,” Gareth said. “As it is, we have very little to go on.”

  “The thing about poisoning that has always bothered me,” Evan said, “is it tends to affect too many people or utterly fail. How likely was it really that King Diarmait would have eaten the pie and died?”

  Conall shrugged. “Without Banan, the food would have reached the high table. If the king had eaten it, he would have died. Of that I have no doubt.”

  “But Evan’s right that it wasn’t a sure thing. I see three possibilities, none of which are necessarily mutually exclusive.” Gareth started to tick the items off his fingers. “One, the killer intended to murder the king, but didn’t know Banan also had the same affliction and his arrow might hit the wrong target.”

  “That means he had some knowledge of Leinster’s court but not complete knowledge,” Conall said.

  “And if there’s a traitor in Diarmait’s court, he isn’t very close to the king,” Evan added.

  “Two,” Gareth continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “he would have been happy if Diarmait died but not so much that he had a clear plan to ensure it. He was willing to use a knife on Carla and Hans, but not to risk his own life to kill the king.”

  Conall nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  “Third, he assumed his plan would fail, so killing the king wasn’t the point. He wanted to distract us.”

  “Which he has done,” Evan said.

  “You’re saying he tried to murder the king to distract us from the investigation of Harald’s death?” Conall laughed mockingly. “That’s a big leap.”

  “Not if he fears what we will find the deeper we dig,” Gareth said. “What if Harald’s death wasn’t suicide and instead is only the first line in a much longer song, as my father-in-law would say.”

  Conall was silent a moment, struggling to see how that could be true, but respecting Gareth enough to consider it. Then they all started walking. Rather than heading for the palace, they made their way to Godfrid’s house, where Gwen would be, and where they could confer further in private.

  They found Gwen rocking a sleeping Taran while watching Tangwen kick an inflated pig’s bladder around the house. Taran appeared to be one of those children who could sleep through anything, a not uncommon trait in a second child. Gareth went straight to his daughter and scooped her into his arms.

  She accepted his kiss before wiggling to get down. “Let me go, Tad!”

  Then Godfrid arrived too. The joy that filled Cait’s face at the sight of him rocked Conall backed on his heels a bit. He knew the two of them loved each other, but the way they clasped hands, as if both had been drowning and now had pulled each other onto the dock had his heart breaking a bit—not for them, but for himself. No woman had ever looked at him like Cait looked at Godfrid. It was a good thing their uncle had agreed to the match. If he’d disapproved, Conall had a strong feeling the pair would have married anyway. Best not to force them into defiance.

  Nobody else seemed to notice—or if they did, they gave no sign of it—and the little group gathered around the table in the center of the hall, though Gwen remained rocking steadily in her chair. Conall took in the open trunk, the weapons inside, and the papers and books stacked on the table, and said, “You’ve been busy.”

  “More than busy.” Cait held up a book. “We found Harald’s personal journal.”

  Conall could feel the sharpening interest of everyone in the room, and Cait didn’t make them wait to learn more. “He writes about the fights, about his friendship and rivalry with Arnulf—” she looked at the men darkly, “—and furthermore that Templar regalia was a favorite fighting garb for both of them.”

  “They were churchmen,” Gwen said. “It makes a certain kind of sense.

  Cait nodded and continued, “Towards the end, he writes mostly about his regrets. At first, he expresses disillusionment with Bishop Gregory, whom he feels is betraying the Danish Church by uniting it with the Irish bishoprics—never mind that it is at the behest of the pope. But then he pivots to talking about the fighting rings. He was deliberating in his last entry as to whether or not he should confess to the bishop what he’d been doing.”

  “We have much to tell you too.” Gareth told them about the murders of Hans and Carla and their thoughts about the mind of their killer.

  “I don’t see the connection between Harald and these new deaths,” Evan said. “What does the attempted murder of King Diarmait have to do with the fighting rings?”

  “Harald writes that the focus of the fighting rings started out being about defending Dublin but had shifted to being more about getting out from under Leinster’s yoke.”

  “I don’t like it, but I can understand it,” Conall said. “It’s essentially what Carla said to us yesterday in the yard.”

  Cait still held Harald’s journal in her hand. “Harald was concerned that, while the sentiment was hardly new, it was becoming more focused and strident. And more recently, the discussion had shifted to the benefits of allying with other Irish kingdoms.”

  “Did he mention which one?”

  “He was secretive even with his journal, as if he was afraid someone would read it.” She paused. “But I’m sure we can guess.”

  Conall felt his anger, which had been banked since speaking to Carla, rising again, and he said into the heavy silence that had descended on the room, “Connaught.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Day Three

  Dai

  Dai munched on the bun, one of two his mother had wrapped in a cloth to sustain him until morning. He’d taken them soberly, knowing his mother couldn’t shake her feeling of foreboding and was giving him food instead of a hug in front of the other Dragons, who would have teased him about being tied to his mother’s apron strings. They would have meant nothing by it, but she didn’t want to risk embarrassing him.

  Llelo, too, had looked repressively at him before mounting his horse and riding away with Father, Godfrid, and the Dragons, towards the gate that led to the Liffey. Dai, for his part, was feeling light-hearted and ready for adventure. Maybe that was a mistake, but he didn�
��t sense danger coming his way. He was going to watch the fights. How could he get into trouble?

  Aron, the youngest and cleverest of the Dragons, was going as a friend of Sitric, a known participant, who would vouch for him. In the end, Conall had gotten his way as well and took the second coin as Fergus the Sailor. At least he spoke Danish, and his red hair wouldn’t stand out among the Danes, since fully a third of them had red hair too.

  As Dai reached Vigo’s shop and was tucking away the half-eaten bun in the pocket of his coat, borrowed from a collection set aside for the poor at Christ’s Church, Vigo stepped out his door.

  “Am I late?” Dai checked the sky.

  Vigo scoffed. “If you were any later, you would have been left behind. I don’t cater to careless youths.”

  Dai bent his head, suitably chastened, though he also knew he hadn’t been late. Vigo had said to wait until full dark, and Dai had set out from Godfrid’s house as the sun was setting, settling himself a few blocks away to watch Vigo’s door. Llelo and the other riders had left the city before sunset too, ostensibly to visit one of Godfrid’s holdings north of the city. Godfrid himself had led them, refusing to be left behind. It was only the five of them: Llelo, Gareth, Godfrid, Jon, and Cadoc. Gruffydd and Evan remained in the city with Prince Hywel, because they couldn’t leave him unattended. Steffan had been tasked with tailing Arnulf, while Iago was following Goff.

  Dai was genuinely surprised not to see Cait riding beside Godfrid, because she seemed the type to throw caution to the winds and defy convention, but she and Gwen had agreed to act as if nothing was afoot. Since everyone knew Gwen had children who needed attention, she and Cait didn’t need to wait things out at the palace. Instead, they had set chairs in front of Godfrid’s door, with cups of mead in their hands and a fire burning in a nearby grate for warmth, to enjoy the clear summer evening and converse with Godfrid’s neighbors, all of whom wanted to wish Cait well in her marriage.

  Glad he could be in the thick of it, Dai lengthened his stride to keep up with Vigo, heading for the dock gate, only a block and a half away. As they approached, however, Vigo put a hand on Dai’s arm to stay him, his eyes on the couple ahead of them. With concern, Dai realized it was Conall and Iona, who were just now being greeted by the guard.