The Worthy Soldier
Page 13
Evan lifted a hand to gain Meleri’s attention. “Do you remember me?”
Meleri stopped in mid bite to look at him. “Evan.” She continued chewing.
“That’s right. I haven’t seen you for many years.”
In Gareth’s experience, few thirty-five-year-old men bore much resemblance to their eighteen-year-old selves, while many women were fully mature by that age. Meleri, however, had recognized Evan easily.
Meleri swallowed. “You went away. Everybody went away.”
“I’m sorry.” Evan glanced at Gareth, who made a motion with his hand that he should continue. “Did you know someone beat Meicol before he died?”
Meleri frowned. “Someone hit him?”
“A few days ago,” Evan said. “Do you know who that could have been?”
Meleri shook her head, looking genuinely confused.
Gwen handed Evan the book of drawings, open to a page showing Meicol preparing to mount a horse. “Did you draw this?” He turned the book to show her.
Meleri nodded, and then Evan flipped through the book to another sketch. “It seems you’ve seen Barri recently too. This could have been drawn yesterday.”
Meleri spoke around a full mouth. “I saw Barri arguing with Alban in the lane.”
“Do you know what they were fighting about?”
Meleri shrugged.
Evan kept his patience, presumably used to how she communicated. “How did you even know they were arguing?”
“Because they held their shoulders like he is—” she pointed to Gareth, “—and they were right in each other’s faces.”
“Did they see you?”
“No. I was in the woods.”
“And then what happened?”
Meleri shrugged again. “I went back to my room.”
“At Alban’s manor?” Evan asked.
Meleri nodded.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Meicol?” Gwen said.
“It’s wrong to take other people’s things or reveal their secrets.” It was exactly what Meleri had said before.
Gwen asked gently. “Who told you that?”
“Everybody says it.”
“Caron?”
Meleri shrugged.
Evan handed Meleri her sketchbook and stood. “Can I have someone take you home?”
Meleri shook her head. “No. I know the way.”
Chapter Seventeen
Gareth
The door to Meicol’s house squeaked open. Gareth was reminded of entering Wena’s hut with Llelo, back when the boy was sure it was haunted. Llelo was right behind him this time too, but he didn’t jump. Instead, his eyes were alight, and he grinned. “Same tune, different castle, as Grampa Meilyr likes to say,” clearly remembering that day too.
“What are we talking about?” Richard de Clare was right behind them. He had thankfully left the questioning of Old Nan and Meleri to Gareth and Gwen, but he refused to be left out of anything else.
Llelo glanced over his shoulder. “I was referring to another investigation my father and I were involved in, my lord.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed. “How many have there been?”
Gareth laughed under his breath. “Too many.”
The house consisted of a single room, twenty feet on a side, which was more than adequate for a single man. A large bed took up the center of the room—and it was quite a bed. It was worthy, in fact, of a lord, with ornately carved posts and headboard. The floor was wooden and as highly polished as that of Sir Robert’s manor.
In addition to the ornately carved bed, a long table lay against a side wall. Around it sat three chairs, each as elaborate as the bed, and a match to the chairs back at Sir Robert’s manor. Meicol appeared to have had a whimsical side that had not been apparent until now, in that the animal models he’d used for these were less traditional: a duck, a mouse, a rabbit. The table itself was covered with whittled carvings, ranging in size from an inch-high frog to a two-foot magnificent hart.
“Meicol loved wood, didn’t he?” Llelo said.
“And had an artistry fit for a king.” Richard trailed his hand around the doorframe, which had been carved to look like an ivy trellis. “Why was he a lowly man-at-arms with this kind of skill?”
“According to everyone I’ve spoken to, he was a drunkard and could no longer hold a steady knife,” Gareth said.
“It’s quite a contrast to the outside of the building, isn’t it?” Gwen entered with Evan. She left the door open, but the light coming through wasn’t enough to allow them to see well, so she lit a lantern that had been left on a the table and raised it high.
Evan rubbed his chin. “From the outside, it resembles the barn that guards the entrance to—” he stopped abruptly with a baleful glance at Richard.
Gareth didn’t need him to finish his sentence to know to what he was referring: the barn that guarded the entrance to the tunnel into Aber Castle.
“You’re right, Evan.” He glanced at his friend. “Perhaps too much?”
Evan grinned. “We’re looking for secrets, aren’t we?” He rubbed his hands together. “It would be my pleasure.” He began to circle the room.
Gwen followed close on his heels, still with the lantern. But though Evan knocked on the walls and stamped his feet on the floor, there didn’t seem anything out of place or unusual—beyond the obvious oddity of the presence of so many carvings.
As Richard had done a moment ago with the doorframe, Gwen stroked her hand along the length of one of the hart’s antlers. “I’ll raise my voice to the question too. Why would he hide all this away?”
“I see you’ve found his secret.” Old Nan’s voice came from the doorway. “Meicol was a dear boy, and he loved animals. He loved wood too. Everything here he made himself.”
“We have seen that,” Gareth said. “Sir Robert seemed to be one of the few to benefit from his skill.”
Old Nan tapped her way unerringly to the table. She put out a hand, gently moving it until she hit upon one of the carvings, this one a hedgehog. She picked it up and lovingly petted it. “He occasionally worked for others, but—” she shrugged, “—he was deemed unreliable.”
“Did he have any kin, any family who might cherish what he left behind?” Gwen said.
Old Nan was shaking her head before Gwen finished speaking. “No.” And then she amended, “Not that he ever said.”
Always kind, Gwen put a hand on Nan’s arm. “Again, I am very sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“I suppose these all belong to King Cadell now, as his liege lord,” Gareth said.
“I suppose.” Nan canted her head. “Perhaps you could ask him if I could keep one or two?”
Gareth bowed, even knowing she couldn’t see him. “Of course.”
She nodded and departed, followed by Richard, though not before he made a disgusted grunt that there was nothing else to find. A moment later, however, he poked his head back inside. “Sir Gareth, I think you should get out here.”
Gareth went to the door to find a company of a dozen horsemen approaching, led by Barri, having come down the track from the main road. Meleri had dragged her cart towards the garden and, to Gareth’s surprise, Old Nan gestured her inside. Meleri gave an anxious glance back, but none of the newcomers had any thought for her.
Instead, Barri dismounted, the only one of his men to do so. The Dragons and Richard’s two men were all on foot, but they formed a defensive arc in front of Meicol’s house. Their hands were on their swords, and Cadoc, the archer, had gone so far as to pull his bow from its rest on his back, though he hadn’t yet drawn an arrow from his quiver.
Barri put out his hands in an appeasing manner. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” Then at the sight of Gareth, who moved between two of the Dragons, his expression turned to one of relief. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I promise!”
“What are you here for, Barri?” Richard said, as was his right as the highest-ranking person present.
Gareth studied Barri, just short of narrowing his eyes at him. Cadoc, however, was far less accommodating. “Where’s your captain?”
“John remains with Lord Maurice, as is his duty,” Barri said. “Since I know the area, my lord thought he’d save time over sending someone who might get lost.”
Gareth glanced to the west where Dinefwr castle was clearly visible on its mountain. He was inclined to agree with Cadoc that Barri had an ulterior motive for coming here. He wasn’t even second-in-command of Maurice’s company—though it was true he knew the area, having grown up here. Gareth would be interested to know whose idea it was to send a company at all, rather than wait for Gareth to return with news of the investigation in his own time.
Then, to add to the oddness of the situation, another company of men rode into the clearing, this one led by Prince Rhys, who dismounted and walked forward to stand a few feet from Barri, beside him but not with him. His eyes swept suspiciously over Barri’s company before he directed his attention to Gareth.
“My brother asks that you return to Dinefwr. He has learned that Sir Robert has been murdered and is concerned that you have not spoken to him of your findings.” Distrust radiated from him, and Gareth had no notion as to its source. Rhys had treated Gareth with nothing but respect up until now, but his eyes were hooded, and there was no friendliness in him.
“I would have sought him out sooner,” Gareth said, “but I believed him too ill to hear me.”
“He is better now,” Rhys said shortly.
Gareth had been ready to leave to return to the castle anyway, but he didn’t tell Rhys that. It was important to know just how far Rhys would go to ensure that Gareth did his bidding. “I have just a few more things—”
Rhys cut him off, answering Gareth’s question. “My brother would speak to you now.” And at his sharp words, the hands of every one of Rhys’s twenty men went to the hilts of their swords, though they didn’t draw them.
“This is mad,” Evan said from Gareth’s right shoulder.
“But informative,” Gareth said in an undertone. He studied the young prince, realizing that he himself was entirely unconcerned about this new development. Gareth had been accused of wrongdoing by far more threatening men than this boy—or Cadell, for that matter. And this time, he wasn’t here on his own. He had the Dragons at his back, as well as young Richard. Nobody was throwing him in a cell today. “What changed? Why am I now so distrusted?”
Rhys lifted his chin. “My brother has done an accounting and found that only one man from Gwynedd fell ill last night.”
“I know,” Gareth said. “You are speaking of my son.”
Rhys pressed his lips together for a moment, and Gareth realized he hadn’t known it was Dai.
So Gareth added, “Do you really think I would sacrifice my own son in a less-than-sure attempt to murder King Cadell?”
Rhys took in a breath through his nose. “No, but Prince Hywel might.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself—and King Cadell too.” Gwen stepped between Cadoc and Steffan. “It was Cadell who asked Gareth to investigate Meicol’s death. Gareth didn’t even want to do it. We are not responsible for this tragedy, and it is wrong of you or your brother to suggest it. What could you possibly be thinking?”
Gareth put out a hand to her. “It is easier to blame a stranger, Gwen, than look close to home.”
Gwen turned on him, and she was as angry as he’d ever seen her. “What did they do—convince themselves that we killed Meicol and planted that vial of poison on him after he was dead?”
Rhys’s eyes widened, telling Gareth that was exactly what his brother supposed.
Gwen laughed without humor and turned back to Rhys, who was suddenly looking a little nervous. Gwen pointed at Gareth. “He is the most honorable man you will ever meet, and if you don’t know that, even on short acquaintance, then you don’t deserve to call yourself a prince!”
She stomped forward, and for a moment Rhys recoiled, perhaps fearing she might actually hit him. Instead she passed him and went to her horse. Llelo was right behind her, and he boosted her up before mounting his own horse.
From the saddle, Gwen glared at the thirty men gaping at her. “What are you waiting for? Come on. The sooner we dispense with this ridiculous accusation, the better!”
Gareth decided the time had come to intervene. Gwen had done an excellent job of playing the angry investigator—even though she hadn’t been playing. Now it was his turn to soften her blows. He stepped nearer to the young prince. “You’re smarter than this, Rhys. Don’t let anyone else do your thinking for you.”
“You might as well accuse me.” Richard had been holding back, but now he approached too. “Few of my men are ill.” He gestured to Barri. “And only a handful of the Fitzgeralds as well. Why is Cadell’s ire not directed at us?”
Gareth lowered his voice even further. “I do not have anything close to the answers yet, but there is more here than it appears. Under the circumstances, I think it far more likely that your brother has a traitor in his midst, one who serves King Stephen, perhaps?”
Rhys looked away, not ready to concede anything. Meanwhile, Evan nudged Gareth in the back and spoke in a low voice only Gareth could hear. “You don’t have to do this. Rhys has put us on notice that Dinefwr is now enemy territory.”
Gareth turned to look at his friend. It was frustrating how since Meicol died they’d barely finished one aspect of the investigation before they were confronted with another. Still, Rhys was right that King Cadell deserved an accounting. “You’re not wrong, Evan. And yet, I have to wonder what this is really all about.”
“What do you mean?”
“Any soldier knows that a man reveals himself most when he is under duress.” He pointed with his chin to the men who had come for them. Between Barri and Rhys, they’d brought several dozen. “All this to corral me? Why?”
Evan’s eyes narrowed, and he made a huh sound at the back of his throat. “Because you’re getting too close to something they’d rather you didn’t know about—just like we did at Wiston’s keep?
“All this does is make me want to know about it more.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hywel
As Cadell paced around his hall, irritated and muttering to himself, Hywel studied him with an inward amusement he made sure didn’t manifest on his face. Hywel had enough experience with Cadell by now to know he was too ruthless by half. He didn’t like any of these kings of Deheubarth. And—contrary to what one might assume—he’d discovered that the longer he spent in their company, the easier it was to hide his distrust.
Since his revelation on the wall-walk, he’d found himself slipping more and more into to his old role of spy—a role he’d relished for ten years before Rhun’s death. It was as if he was living a double life, and there were two of him occupying the same space: the spy and the edling. It reminded him of something Gwen had said to him about how he didn’t need to be Rhun, or replace him. He would be his own kind of edling, and he was astonished to find himself, for the first time since he’d lost his brother, comfortable in his own skin.
Hywel thought one reason Cadell had given the job of investigating these deaths to Gareth was out of a kind of bravado, as a way to show he was so confident in his men and his rule that he could allow a stranger to probe into a dark moment. But it was a dangerous game he was playing, and it was almost as if the more Gareth headed down the path his inquiries led him on, the more Cadell lobbed boulders onto it to bar his way and deter him from digging up whatever else he wanted to know.
And yet, even with the poisonings and murder, Hywel wasn’t yet at the point that he was regretting his alliance with Cadell, though he was well on the way to doubting it. Truth be told, he’d had doubts from the start. Four years ago when
his uncle Cadwaladr had conspired with Cadell to have Cadell’s brother, Anarawd, murdered, Hywel had given free rein to his aversion to an alliance between Gwynedd and Deheubarth. That aversion had stuck with him through Cadell’s crowning and had grown with every hour he’d spent with the new King of Deheubarth.
Cadell was a man who did what was expedient. He’d allied with Cadwaladr because it benefited him. He’d eliminated that merchant at Hywel’s eisteddfod because he’d become a liability, and he had sent his spy, Anselm, north to meddle in Gwynedd’s affairs because the information was worth having, even if Anselm was caught. Which he had been. Cadell had also laid down a challenge, and the last thing he should expect was for either Gareth or Hywel to back away from it.
To be fair, Hywel had made a similar compromise in allying with Cadell to take down Walter the Fleming because it had seemed like a good idea at the time. But when Evan had told Hywel what had happened during the attack on Wiston Castle, the suspicion he was being played for a fool had shouldered its way to the fore. Before Hywel had committed them all to the fight, Gareth had pressed Hywel to consider why Cadell had invited him to this endeavor in the first place. Every reason they could think of pointed to a nefarious ulterior motive.
And Hywel had agreed to it anyway.
What kept him here now wasn’t a sense of obligation to Cadell. Nor was it because he’d agreed to loan him Gareth to head up the investigation and wouldn’t want to abort the task with it undone. It certainly wasn’t because he feared the consequences of leaving. Hywel would have been pleased to thumb his nose at Cadell if the circumstances had been right. No … it was, quite frankly, curiosity. Hywel liked to know what was going on, and he was happy to loan out Gareth so he would.
The whole scenario, in fact, had sent him thinking along lines where distrust and suspicion were his paramount emotions. It had been Sir Robert who’d led that charge up the motte, overtaking Hywel’s Dragons and preventing them from entering the keep, and now Sir Robert was dead. Hywel didn’t know what the two events had to do with one another, but he was long past starting to wonder how much more there was that he and Gareth were not being told.