The Worthy Soldier

by Sarah Woodbury

  Gareth let out a long breath. “A better motive for murder could not be found.”

  Richard clasped both hands on the top of his head and looked up at the sky. It was blue, for the most part, with a few clouds scattered across it. Another lovely June day. “Could Robert have been the poisoner’s intended target, and when Robert left the castle before the dessert, he resorted to bludgeoning him?”

  “It’s possible,” Gareth said slowly, “though a woefully imprecise method of murder.”

  “The poisoner didn’t appear to care how many died or who they were, did he?”

  “No. It was very hit or miss,” Gareth said.

  “More miss than hit, if Robert was the target.” Richard dropped his arms. “Only two of my men fell ill, and none died. Cadell is going to think I did this.”

  “Or the Fitzgeralds,” Gareth said. “Or us. It is he and his people who suffered the most, the implication being that Cadell was the target, not Robert.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Richard’s eyes met Gareth’s. “Find the poisoner, Sir Gareth, before he tries again.” He turned to the door and reached for the latch, by all appearances preparing to enter Alban’s house. “Leave the issue of Sir Robert’s death to me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gwen

  Gareth had very skillfully separated Caron and Alban, so Gwen went along with his plainly evident plan and escorted Caron to the back of the manor where the kitchen lay. On the way, they passed through the central hall, which was as beautiful a room as she’d ever seen in any dwelling, including the massive great hall at Newcastle-under-Lyme, which was the most ornate castle she had ever been to.

  Whoever had ordered the construction of this room—whether Sir Robert himself or an ancestor—the wood had been lovingly fashioned, from the polished floor to the large table at one end of the hall. The mantle, the beams, and the chair legs themselves, were all carved in the shape of animals, to go with the giant mounted antlers that took up pride of place on the far wall. She counted sixteen tines before they were through the hall and out the back, heading towards the kitchen along an attached walkway.

  It was a beautiful day, so the door to the kitchen was open, letting in the fresh spring air. Inside, the cook was working at a mound of bread dough while directing two undercooks in their duties.

  Unlike at the castle, the manor’s cook was a woman, and she took one look at Caron and became instantly solicitous. “My lady! You shouldn’t be up and about after the night you had!’

  That was the best opening Gwen could have imagined. “What happened last night?” She took Caron’s elbow and helped her to a bench against the wall.

  “Ach!” The cook waved a hand. “Didn’t you hear the dreadful news from the castle?”

  “You mean the poisoning?” Gwen nodded. “Was Caron poisoned too?”

  “She might as well have been,” the cook said tartly. “We had the midwife here from before midnight until dawn, looking after her. She couldn’t keep anything down.”

  Caron rolled her eyes. “I never can keep anything down, Heledd. You know that.”

  “It’s been getting better.” Heledd put her hands on her hips. “What can I get you now?”

  “Just some mead, if you will.” Caron canted her head to Gwen. “She’s with child too, so we’ll both need some.”

  Heledd bustled off, saying something about women not knowing how to take care of themselves, and Caron patted the bench beside her. “Sit. You must be exhausted.”

  Gwen found that she was, in fact, exhausted. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment—almost dozing off before she remembered what she was here for. She opened her eyes and looked at Caron, who looked away hastily, since she’d been staring at Gwen.

  Caron was a good ten years older than Gwen, and her face showed it, with crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and frown lines around her mouth. On Gareth, the crow’s feet only made him look more handsome. Women were supposed to look perpetually young, and Gwen reminded herself not to judge because, God willing, that fate would one day be hers.

  “When did you leave the castle?”

  Caron rolled her eyes again. It appeared to be something she did to express her displeasure. “That again? We left before the dessert—and yes, one of our men told us what happened after it was served. Once the midwife arrived, Alban went back to help.”

  Gwen endeavored not to blink because as far as she knew, Alban had never arrived at the castle. But then, it had been chaos, and her focus had been on Dai. “When was this?”

  Caron shrugged. “Before midnight. I was too ill myself to care.”

  Heledd returned with the two cups of mead, and Gwen sipped hers gratefully. She felt less nauseous herself if she ate or drank something every few hours throughout the day, rather than saving her appetite, such as it was, for two or three individual meals. The mead was smooth and sweet, and Gwen was tempted to close her eyes again over it. “When did Alban return?”

  Caron shrugged, so Gwen looked at Heledd. “Was the master gone long last night?”

  “Not long at all. In fact, I barely knew he’d left before he was back.” Heledd looked fondly at Caron, who now had her eyes closed herself. “We’ve been having a difficult time of it here.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Heavy boots scraped on the threshold, and Alban poked his head around the doorframe. “How are you doing?”

  Gwen smiled brightly. “Better, thank you.”

  Alban glanced at his wife before nodding at Heledd. “Send one of the boys to fetch me if she needs me.” He made a move as if to go, but before he could Gwen stood.

  “Just a moment, Alban.”

  He turned back, his expression bland.

  “Caron said that you went back to the castle last night after the midwife came here. How long were you there?”

  “Oh.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I started to go, but my horse’s leg was hot, so I decided I’d better tend to it instead.”

  “Did—” She took a step forward. “Did anyone see you?”

  Alban frowned back at her. “Are you doubting my word?”

  She kept her chin up, refusing to be intimidated. “We just want to clarify the timeline.”

  “Undoubtedly one of the stable boys can attest to my presence, though I let them sleep. I’ll send one to you.”

  She bobbed a nod. “Thank you.”

  Alban grunted ungraciously and stalked back into the house, leaving Gwen even more distrusting than she’d been before. Alban might be handsome, though she didn’t favor blonds herself, but he wasn’t happy. She couldn’t see him as the poisoner, and nothing about his life with Caron seemed to indicate anything so radical as murder. But it was plain to Gwen that all was not entirely well at Alban’s manor.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Evan

  “My lord! Sir Robert’s death is not something for you to investigate alone.” Gareth’s voice was raised enough to carry to the far side of the clearing in front of the manor house.

  Evan had been lounging in a circle on the grass with Llelo and the other Dragons, but he got instantly to his feet and ran towards the front door, following Gareth, who had entered after Richard. By the time Evan reached the threshold, Gareth had caught the young lord’s arm, and the two men were glaring at each other.

  Alban didn’t live quite like a prince, but Robert’s hall was well built. Before Evan had settled in the grass, the Dragons had done a circuit of the holding. The manor’s interior consisted of a large main room with a second floor loft, a kitchen off the back, and a master chamber and adjacent room in a ground floor wing to retreat to off the hall. It was smaller than a typical royal llys, but not by much. Admittedly, it was built entirely in wood, without even a palisade, so it had never been intended as a defensible holding. It was to the castle of Dinefwr that the people of this region would retreat if the area came under attack.

  Perhaps if he’d lived here, Robert woul
d have paid a few men-at-arms to serve him, but Alban didn’t have the wherewithal for that. His duty was steward, not chieftain. Still, Robert was obviously an important man, upon whose lands a hundred people depended.

  By the time Evan came halfway across the floor of the hall, Gwen had arrived from the opposite side where the kitchen lay. Richard had halted at Gareth’s insistence, but he was clearly struggling to control his temper. His anger may have been feigned earlier, but now his color was high, and he was glaring at Gareth.

  But Gareth didn’t let go of Richard’s arm, and Evan arrived in time to hear Gareth whisper urgently, “Robert was on loan to you. Cadell is his liege lord—and Alban’s. This is messy enough without you going in there with your arrow nocked when you don’t know the full story.”

  Gwen hurried closer. “I know you are angry about Robert’s death, but you don’t want to murder Alban yourself in cold blood only to find he didn’t do it!”

  Richard didn’t quite jerk away, but from his expression he really wanted Gareth to let go of his arm. Evan stepped closer too, mirroring Gwen on Richard’s other side. “I have known Alban nearly the whole of my life, and unlike me, he has lived in Deheubarth his entire life. His family is here. His life is here. If he killed Robert, it was because he felt that life threatened. He isn’t going to run.”

  Richard’s anger dissipated the more Evan talked, and by the time he stopped speaking, Richard’s eyes had turned thoughtful. “I never thought about murder that way before. The only murders in my father’s domain I know about have been crimes of passion, perpetrated out of anger and in the spur of the moment.”

  As Gareth finally released the young lord’s arm, Gwen nodded. “Robert’s death, coupled with the poisoning up at the castle, is different. Someone has a plan, and we don’t want to go trampling all over the evidence when we don’t even know yet what that evidence might be. You must see that.”

  It was in moments like these that Evan understood why Gareth continued to allow Gwen to participate in his investigations. Sometimes she could do and say things a man could not. Richard would never harm a woman, so he listened to her reasoning, whereas Evan and Gareth might have had to wrestle him to the ground. Nothing at all good could have come from that.

  Fortunately, Alban had delayed his arrival in the hall until now. Evan had assumed he would seek out Caron when he’d left the porch, but he’d come from his private apartments, prompting Evan to look at him with new respect. Alban could have ventured into the kitchen to see what story Caron had put forth. Instead, he’d ignored the women, as if he couldn’t care less what tale his wife told Gwen.

  Gareth gestured Alban closer. “Lord Richard tells me that Robert intended to disinherit you and Caron.”

  Alban blinked, either as surprised as Evan to hear this news or shocked Gareth would mention it. Before he could answer, however, a wail came from the loft, and a middle-aged woman appeared with a crying child of two on her hip and holding the hand of a second child, a girl of six or seven with long dark hair and luminous blue eyes. Alban looked up at them and motioned that the woman should bring the children down. “Caron’s in the kitchen. Where are Bedwyn and Rhodri?”

  “Mucking out the stables, just like you asked.” The woman spoke with a thick south Wales accent. It was Evan’s guess that Bedwyn and Rhodri were Alban’s two middle sons. The eldest two were already squires in the Dinefwr garrison. Alban would not be of a high enough station for his sons to be fostered out to another lord, as had been initially done with Llelo and Dai. Gareth’s boys were back among Hywel’s teulu because of Hywel’s needs, not because they hadn’t deserved to stay with Cynan.

  Gareth had asked his question specifically to catch Alban off guard, but the delay had given Alban time to think, and he chose acknowledgement, which on the whole was a wise decision. “I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t disappointed to hear Sir Robert’s plan.”

  “So you knew,” Gareth said, not as a question. “When did he tell you?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Were you disappointed … or angry?” Richard said.

  Alban scoffed. “Of course, I was angry, but I didn’t kill him! Why would I? He had agreed to give me another chance, at least through Christmas.”

  That jibed with the fact that his sons were cleaning the stables.

  Richard’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t what he told me.”

  “I obviously talked to him after you did.”

  “When was this?” Gareth asked.

  “Last night at the feast before everything fell apart. He told me he’d discussed the inheritance with the abbot, who urged him to give me another chance.”

  Evan glanced at Gareth, who was frowning. As far as Evan knew, the abbot hadn’t said anything to Gareth—but then, he may have felt that to do so would have been a violation of confidence, even after Robert’s death.

  “Ask Abbot Mathew,” Alban urged. “You’ll see what I say is true.”

  “I will,” Gareth said.

  Then Alban’s chin jutted out. “It’s one of those Normans you should be looking to for answers. Robert lived among them recently. Obviously he fell in with unsavory folk down south.”

  Good Norman that he was, Richard looked affronted. Alban had spoken in Welsh, but Richard’s family had lived in Wales long enough for him to speak Welsh as easily as French.

  Evan wanted to laugh, but he swallowed it down. “Few men have lived as upstanding a life as Robert. It’s a hard thing to blame him for his own murder.”

  Alban looked like he was struggling not to make a sullen retort and ended up saying somewhat lamely. “Well, then it was Barri who did it. He killed Meicol after all. He was sent to Lord Maurice twenty years ago because of what he did to Meicol, and I know Robert was one of those who argued for a harsher punishment than he received.”

  “Barri didn’t kill Meicol, and the rest was a long time ago, Alban,” Evan said.

  Alban’s chin stuck out. “Barri had inquired recently about returning to King Cadell’s service, but Robert intervened and counseled against it. You can ask the king what kind of soldier Barri was.”

  Evan had already spoken to Barri himself, of course, as well as John, Maurice’s captain, and Alban’s assessment wasn’t far off from what he’d already concluded.

  “We will question everyone,” Gareth said soothingly.

  “Are you really suggesting Barri killed Meicol over a twenty-year-old grudge?” Gwen asked.

  Alban shrugged. “Meicol didn’t kill himself.”

  “It is my understanding that Meicol served unwaveringly in Dinefwr’s garrison since the accident,” Evan said.

  “Is that what you heard? He was a poor soldier. He knew it too. Just the other day he told me he’d decided to quit. He was going to make a living at his craft instead.” Alban scoffed again. “He used to be good, I’ll grant you that, but his hands had started to shake, and there were days he could barely hold a knife. Too much drink, to my mind.”

  Alban’s listeners all raised their eyebrows. “Craft?” Gareth said.

  Alban swept a hand around the room. “Meicol did the carvings in here, and when you visit his house you’ll see how much more he once could do.”

  “So Meicol had a house.” Gareth met Evan’s eyes, and his expression was annoyed and sardonic at the same time. “I didn’t know.”

  “That would explain why he had so few possessions at the castle,” Gwen said.

  Evan gave a low laugh. “I’d just assumed he had few possessions.” It was an odd feeling for Evan to be unfamiliar with the situation at Dinefwr. He felt like he should know what was going on, but twenty years removed from living here, he didn’t even know the right questions to ask.

  Alban was unaware of these undercurrents and simply gestured west, beyond the walls of the manor. “His house lies a mile back closer to the castle. He rents it from Old Nan.”

  “The blind woman?” Gwen said.

  “That’s right.” Alban nodded vigorously. “Th
e answers you’re seeking lie with Meicol and Barri, not with me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gwen

  “I should have kept a better eye on Dai,” Llelo said.

  Gwen shook her head. “It’s hardly your fault he ended up sick. He’s responsible for his own choices.”

  “He likes secrets, does Dai.” Llelo looked down at his hands, clenched as they were around his horse’s reins. “The more I see the work you and Father do, the more I realize what you’re really doing is uncovering other people’s secrets.”

  Gwen had a feeling he’d been wanting to have this conversation with her for a while. It was only a mile or so to Meicol’s house, however, and she guessed either he hadn’t been able to wait any longer, or he’d wanted their time to talk to be constrained by the short distance they had to ride.

  “While you’re right in principle, Llelo, Dai sneaking the pie hardly rises to the level of what’s been done here, but it’s true that once you start keeping secrets, it’s hard to stop. They become a habit.” She sighed to see Llelo’s stricken face. “They’re also destructive, not only just because you’ve done something you feel must be kept secret. Secrets eat you up inside and put up barriers between you and the people you love and from whom you’re hiding.”

  “Sometimes I think Dai keeps secrets because it gives him something that is his and his alone. Nobody can take them from him.”

  “Perhaps he’s learned his lesson this time,” Gwen said.

  Llelo shook his head ruefully. “I say that every time.”

  At a signal from Gareth, they halted in front of a steading that looked to Gwen as if it at one time had been prosperous, but now vines trailed up the walls of both the main house and a second building in the rear of the property, and their roofs would need to be patched before the next serious week of rain. The stable was near to falling down as well.