The Worthy Soldier
Page 15
Evan leaned in. “If you have any other thoughts as to who could have done this, please come find me or Sir Gareth.”
The undercook nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
“Thank you for speaking with us.” Angharad said—though, as they left the kitchen, she added for Evan’s ears, “I don’t know if I believed a word he said.”
“Lies can be as informative as truths,” Evan said.
“So you don’t think Sir Robert is the father of Caron’s child either?”
“That wouldn’t be the Sir Robert I knew. People can live secret lives nobody else knows about, but this would be quite a secret.”
Angharad nodded. They were outside now, and the sun was warm on her shoulders. “I think we all live a secret life in the quiet of our beds at night.”
Evan smiled as he looked down at her. “Even you?”
“Why not me?” Angharad lifted her chin, spying Hywel and Gwen coming towards them with quick steps, likely anxious to know if they’d discovered anything. “What I am more willing to believe is the existence of a woman, even if that woman isn’t Caron.”
“I agree.” Evan continued to look at her, though she had looked away, knowing she had revealed herself to him in a way she’d done with few others in her life.
Instead she said, “Of all the things he could have told us, if we are to know the truth about Robert’s death, that’s the thread we need to pull.”
Chapter Twenty
Gwen
Normally, Hywel encouraged Gareth and Gwen to focus on the evidence and let the why of a murder take care of itself, but today Gwen found herself wanting a motive, if only to narrow down the pool of candidates. It couldn’t really be anyone who had the means and desire to poison an entire castle full of people. That’s why they’d started another round of questioning, even to the point of enlisting Angharad and Evan to help. Gareth had thought the pair had done a good job together questioning Barri, and there were just too many people in the castle for her and Hywel to question alone.
She was glad too that Hywel seemed to have encompassed the fact that Angharad was enjoying Evan’s company, despite having once been betrothed to Rhun, and was speaking to her like a friend.
“Let’s start with Alban,” Hywel said to Angharad and Evan. “What have you learned?”
Evan made a motion with his head. “Angharad and I learned little more than before. As you know, the consensus twenty years ago was that Alban was the best of us, and he’s obviously done well for himself—up to a point.”
“If you’ll note, it is Alban’s marriage to Caron, rather than his own efforts, that has brought him the most gain,” Angharad said.
Evan nodded. “Sior resents Alban for letting him go as cook, and he straight out accused Alban of poisoning everyone in the castle.”
Hywel rubbed his chin. “From what you’ve said, Evan, Alban is one of those men to whom everything came easy. Sometimes that’s not good for a man. He comes to think if something doesn’t come easy the first time he tries it, it’s impossible.”
“I suppose that was the case when he was younger, when I knew him. He was the best swordsman, the strongest wrestler, and the fastest runner. I think you’re right, my lord.” Here Evan paused as he thought, his eye on Angharad, and his next words seemed more for her than for Hywel. “Thinking about it now, that might have been better for me than for him. I had to work hard to be half as good, so I learned to work.”
“He did get the girl,” Angharad said.
“Caron.” Gwen nodded, her attention on Evan. “You loved her once?”
Evan met her eyes without embarrassment or regret. “We all did.”
“Meicol too?”
“Meicol, Barri—even Cadell. Caron was beautiful.”
“My uncle was interested in Caron, and yet she still chose Alban?” Angharad said.
Evan smiled ruefully. “Cadell flirted with her. That is all. Beauty or not, the old King Gruffydd would never have allowed his son, even his younger one, to marry a girl who wasn’t noble. Marriages are about alliances—or at least they are in Deheubarth.”
Angharad narrowed her eyes at Evan, and Gwen didn’t have to be an investigator to know she and Evan were having a conversation within a conversation. Unfortunately, Evan had a point, and Gwen wondered now if Hywel would have been allowed to marry Mari if he’d already been the edling. Mari had brought no land or status to the throne of Gwynedd. She did bring love, which King Owain claimed to care about.
“He also told us Sir Robert was the father of Caron’s child,” Evan said.
Gwen couldn’t hide her surprise. “Surely not. Besides, Robert has been in Pembroke for the last year.”
“I’m not sure that evidence is important to Sior,” Angharad said.
“Caron is Sir Robert’s niece and heir,” Hywel said. “That isn’t nothing.”
“Now she is, but Robert had a wife and child once. For a long while after his family died, there was every expectation Robert would marry again.” Evan glanced at Gwen. “What you don’t know is that even though Caron was much like Enid in character, she was always conscious of her own value.”
Enid had been a girl whose murder Gareth and Gwen had investigated several years ago.
“She had her eye on the grand prize, you mean,” Hywel said. “She didn’t lie with just anyone.”
“She didn’t lie with anyone, which made her all the more desirable.” Evan pursed his lips. “Come to think on it, she was more like a lesser version of Queen Cristina than Enid.”
“Did you ever hope she could be yours?” Hywel asked.
Instead of taking offense, which he could have, or being worried about what Angharad thought—were she genuinely interested in him—Evan laughed, which was the best thing he could have done. “Me? Scrawny child that I was? You didn’t know me then.” He grinned. “I was not the handsome soldier you see before you today. I got my growth late.”
“What about Barri?” Gwen asked.
“Barri never had a chance with her either.”
“Mam!” Dai loped up to them with Saran not far behind. The boy was looking far more bright-eyed than he in any way deserved to look after the time he’d given them. Even with a good night’s sleep, Gwen herself felt haggard and drawn. Dai stopped in front of Hywel and bowed his head. “My lord.”
“How are you?” Gwen wrapped her arms around her son, clutching him tightly to her. “I see and feel that you are better!” As she stepped back, she was brushing tears from the corners of her eyes.
“So much better that he’s arguing with me about whether or not he can get up.” Saran said, coming to a halt too. “You can see I lost.”
Gwen smiled through her tears. “You should have sat on him.”
“I did try.” Saran took in a breath. “Cadfan, Cadell’s captain, asked specifically to speak to Evan. He says he has a confession to make.”
That had all of them hustling to the barracks, where they found Cadfan sitting up in bed in a room of his own on the second floor, either due to his high station, or worse, because Saran hadn’t thought he was going to live. He was still living, however, though he was very pale, and he kept one hand resting on his stomach—soothingly, Gwen thought.
Since it was Evan to whom Cadfan most wanted to speak, Evan went straight to the end of the bed. Gwen hovered for a moment in the doorway before choosing to sit near Cadfan’s feet. Hywel and Angharad made themselves inconspicuous against the wall. Dai kept to the doorway, slipping easily back into his duty as guard and making sure without anyone needing to ask him that they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Cadfan met Evan’s eyes. “I may not have much longer to live—”
“Shush. That’s not true—” Angharad started forward.
Cadfan lifted his hand, asking her to stop. “I wanted to speak to you of Meicol, the man who died. It may be my fault he’s dead.” Cadfan began to cough, and Angharad reached for the cup on the table beside the bed and helped him to drink from it.
“He did.”
“I put them there.” And before any of them could ask the obvious question why? Cadfan continued, “I have always found Meicol to be a sly one. Untrustworthy. Poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. A few days ago, I caught him sneaking away from Alban’s manor, and then in the evening, he was eavesdropping on a conversation between Alban and Sir Robert.”
“And for that you beat him?” Gwen was incredulous, but she tried to keep most of her disapproval out of her voice.
“Of course not. It was simply the last straw in a long series of offenses, the worst of which was that he’d bedded Caron. Taking another man’s wife—especially one who serves the same lord as you—is an unforgivable offense.”
“Meicol bedded Caron?” Evan narrowed his eyes. “Why would you possibly think so?”
Cadfan shrugged. “Everybody knows it.”
“Did Alban?” Gwen shot Evan a disbelieving look. The undercook had just told him and Angharad that Sir Robert was the father of this child. She didn’t know that she’d ever encountered a stranger sequence of accusations. Paternity aside, what seemed obvious to Gwen was that Alban and Caron’s marriage was less than happy.
“I would assume so,” Cadfan said, “though it isn’t as if I asked him.”
“Has Caron admitted to the affair?” Evan said.
“I would never ask her either. What do you take me for?”
“Then how do you know?” Evan said.
“As I said, Meicol was a sneaky one. When I caught him leaving Alban’s manor the other day, it wasn’t the first time.”
“Before you beat Meicol, you must have confronted him with your suspicions,” Evan said. “What was his response?”
“He denied even speaking to Caron, and he said he was visiting Alban’s dim cousin, Meleri.”
“As he would,” Dai said from behind them, though in an undertone, clearly not intending to be part of the conversation.
Still, Cadfan nodded. “As any man would.”
Gwen eyed the ill man, who now closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. He really didn’t look well. “You’ll be glad to know Gareth does not believe the beating you gave him is what killed Meicol. All signs point to poisoning, the same as you, except an hour earlier than everyone else.”
Cadfan opened one eye. “Really?” He let out a sharp burst of air. “You cannot know how relieved I am to hear that.”
“Why not simply dismiss the man?” Evan said. “He had the ability to make a livelihood another way. He didn’t have to be a soldier.”
“You mean his craft?” Cadfan lifted his chin as he spoke to Evan. “If you’ve seen carvings—and I admit to his skill with a whittling knife—they were done years ago, not long after you left. These days, if the man wasn’t working, he was drinking. Sometimes he was drunk while on duty. I sent him home to sober up twice in the month before the battle against the Flemings.”
That was news to Gwen, and by Evan’s expression, news to him too. Still, it was perhaps not surprising, given what they’d learned of Meicol’s character.
Evan sighed. “Do you have any insight as to why Meicol would attack Barri at the celebration?”
Cadfan’s eyes were closed again. “They hated each other from an incident that happened years ago when you were here. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.”
At a sign from Saran, the companions filed from Cadfan’s room and returned to the courtyard so as not to talk among the sick in the barracks.
Hywel gave a grunt of displeasure. “Unfortunately, we can’t pin any of these deaths on anyone as of yet. And even if we could, we need irrefutable proof—preferably a confession—to take a trusted member of the king’s court before the king and accuse him of murder.”
“But who do we accuse?” Gwen said. “We know there are two types of murder: crimes of passion and desperation—which Sir Robert’s killing felt like—and those that are planned in advance, like the poisoning. It’s one of the reasons I think we have two murderers, not one.”
Angharad was looking into the distance, but Gwen didn’t think she was seeing the interior of the castle so much as thinking—which a moment later proved to be the case when she spoke: “One thing seems clear from our work today. If Meicol hadn’t ended up dead himself, everyone would have been perfectly happy to pin all the deaths on him.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Gareth
Gwen had gone up to the castle to poke around with Hywel, which was as good a way as any to get both of them into trouble. Thus, before he left the monastery, Gareth made arrangements for the men of Hywel’s teulu, whom he commanded, to treat Dinefwr Castle as if it were Aber. After the poisoning, the men had been up all night with Gareth, but they’d taken turns sleeping yesterday. With the new day, most were now able to concentrate on their duties again.
Gareth sent Goch of the red hair and large feet with ten of the company to scout the area around the castle. With so many of Cadell’s men down, that duty was sorely neglected, and Gareth had not yet ruled out an attack from an outside force. An enemy—perhaps even Walter FitzWizo, who was loyal to King Stephen—could have orchestrated all of this. Gareth hadn’t forgotten those three men killed on the road the night of the feast either. They’d been up to something, but as they were all dead, nobody knew what that had been.
He charged Rhodri with leading the rest of the men, who would remain inside the castle, to fill in where Cadell’s men could not. Lord Maurice had men in the castle too, of course, as did Richard de Clare. It could be they’d end up tripping over each other in their attempt to keep the residents of the castle safe, but that was better than not being safe. Admittedly, it was also a bit like locking the barn door after the horse had escaped, but Gareth was doing the best he could with the resources he’d been given.
Because he wasn’t putting in an appearance at the castle at all, Gareth didn’t have to explain himself to Prince Rhys or Richard de Clare. Last night, he had diverted them in advance by suggesting that this morning they ask among their men if anyone had seen or heard anything unusual or relevant to the investigation and report back. Truth be told, that questioning needed to be done, and Gareth hadn’t had time to do it, which was also why he’d suggested Angharad and Evan help too.
Aside from the fact that he and Gwen liked the way the pair looked together, time was running short, and it wasn’t only Cadell who was impatient for answers. Gareth needed to find the poisoner and the murderer. It was incredibly irksome that he didn’t know how many culprits there were, much less why they’d struck in the first place. It made it a little hard to predict when they might strike again.
This ride from the monastery was becoming as familiar to Gareth as the road from Aber through the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen in Gwynedd. As they rode along, he noted the familiar landmarks: that old, gnarled tree, the start of a stone wall, the same three cows in the field before the village, and the series of potholes to be avoided as they reached the bottom of the hill up to the castle. It was reaching a point where he knew the road well enough that he could have traveled it without a torch, even were it dark and stormy. Likely, the killer could say the same.
The thought prompted him to speak out loud. “He has to be a member of Cadell’s court.”
“What’s that?” Gruffydd was riding to Gareth’s right, and had remained silent up until now to allow Gareth space to think.
Gareth turned to the Dragon captain. “Whoever killed Sir Robert did so in the church graveyard, which is out of the way and not a typical place to meet anyone by accident. Furthermore, Robert was killed from behind, indicating he’d been followed or awaited. The killer knew his victim—and even more, knew his potential movements.” He clenched his hand into a fist and pounded it onto his thigh, finding himself frustrated as usual by what he didn’t know. “Along the same l
ines, even with the large number of people at the castle for the celebration, whoever poisoned the pie had to have been known to the kitchen staff. A stranger couldn’t have passed through that kitchen without someone remarking upon him.”
“You are right on all counts, which means we need to know more about our suspects.” Gruffydd barked a laugh. “It would be helpful to have suspects.”
They were passing through the village now. As with the road, Gareth was becoming familiar with the faces that turned to look at him as he went by. Here in the south, people weren’t comfortable with strangers. It was all the more reason to think the killer was one of them. Even with all the comings and goings of the army, the people of Dinefwr’s village would notice a newcomer who wasn’t a soldier, and while they might not have come forward to tell Gareth, they might speak to the abbot or someone in authority they knew. So far, they had not.
The company arrived at Alban’s manor to find two village boys, the eldest perhaps having achieved manhood, industriously chopping at the overgrown grass along the roadway with long knives. It was about time. Perhaps when Alban had been only a steward, he hadn’t felt the need to maintain the property, but now with Robert’s death, he was the lord of the manor. As Gareth himself could attest, ownership changed a man’s perspective.
Gruffydd, who by then had been riding just ahead of Gareth, motioned that the five Dragons (the company was lacking Evan) spread out to have a look around the estate. Gareth himself approached the manor house, and, for the second time in two days, walked in on a fight. This time, to Gareth’s complete lack of surprise, it was between Alban and Caron. The pair were so loud, Gareth opened the door and stepped inside the house without them noticing. It turned out they were in the back, all the way through to the kitchen where Gwen had met with Caron.