“How did he get down there?” Holm came to a horrified halt at the edge of the hole. Now that the trapdoor had been opened, the pool of wine had drained fully down the steps and was more of a smear everywhere than a puddle.
“We have no idea.” Conall had no trouble affecting a concerned and yet unhelpful attitude.
Holm shook his head, as if the vagaries of men’s failings never ceased to disappoint him. For an enforcer of the law, he might be disappointed a great deal too often. He edged his way down the steps, careful to avoid marring his boots in the sticky wine. Conall followed, hoping he really had taken care of everything they’d rather Holm didn’t see. Conall also thought it unwise to have Holm and Godfrid in close proximity for any length of time, though they appeared to be getting along better today than Conall had ever witnessed.
“How did he die?” Holm’s skin was normally pale, but as he gazed down at Rikard’s body, it was a sickly yellow in the lantern light.
“That we don’t know either.” Conall sniffed. “Godfrid has found no ligature marks or evident blood. You clearly need someone with more experience to assist you.”
The dig was directed at Holm himself as well as at Godfrid, but Godfrid’s reply came gently, almost as a whisper, indicating sympathy rather than scorn. “If you’re going to vomit, please don’t do it down here.”
Holm swallowed hard. “Don’t worry. I won’t. I have seen dead men before many times.”
“I’m sure you have.” Implying that Holm was lying, Conall edged the sheriff off to one side. On more practical terms, if Holm really was lying, it would be better that he didn’t vomit close to Rikard’s body.
But Holm’s color was already better. He had wisely turned away for the time being and, instead of bending over Rikard, he’d started moving around the vault, eyeing the trunks and crates that filled the small space. Then he turned to Godfrid with surprise on his face and in his voice. “I didn’t know this place was here. Did you?”
“No,” Godfrid said. “Rikard was very good at keeping secrets.”
“So it seems! This may have been the best-kept secret in Dublin, next to the name of Queen Helga’s lover.”
Godfrid drew in a surprised breath of air, and Conall found himself holding his breath too. Queen Helga was Ottar’s wife. Holm was almost humming now as he bent over a crate containing carved wooden boxes and didn’t appear to notice his companions’ shock.
“Queen Helga has a lover?” Godfrid finally managed to say with apparent casualness, though Conall wasn’t fooled.
Holm looked back at them and blinked. “No, of course not. I was jesting. That’s the point. She doesn’t have a lover. That’s why it’s a well-kept secret.”
Conall looked at the sheriff a bit sideways. “It’s just that Rikard had this vault, so you see our confusion.”
“Never mind. Forget I said anything. Since when were you Irish so humorless?” Holm made a dismissive motion. “Pardon me for speaking out of turn, my lord. I meant nothing by it. It doesn’t look like anything has been disturbed.” Then, perhaps to cover his discomfort, he continued poking through Rikard’s things. “Sanne is going to be the most eligible woman in Dublin.”
Godfrid’s expression darkened, but he didn’t rebuke the sheriff, and Conall finally realized that Holm was running at the mouth not because he was uncomfortable with being in the same room with a dead body but because he was excited. He was surrounded by wealth the likes of which few men had ever seen and was actually rubbing his hands together as if he could already feel the gold running through them. The man appeared to have all but forgotten about Rikard’s body at his feet. Of course, as a Dane, a love of gold and plunder was bred into his bones.
Conall cleared his throat. “Perhaps, for now, we could get back to Rikard’s death?”
“Of course. Of course, my lord,” Holm said. “But just because it’s too soon to say out loud doesn’t mean every eligible male won’t be thinking it.”
Godfrid nodded. “He’s right, my lord. Best to acknowledge the truth when spoken.”
Holm shot the prince a grateful look, but Conall shook his finger at Godfrid. “What could you possibly know about it? Best speak only of what you yourself understand.”
It was a weak chastisement at best, but what with one thing and another, Conall didn’t feel on top of his game at present. The comment did have the desired effect of hunching Holm’s shoulders and distracting him from his search of the vault’s contents.
Conall had spent the last year in Dublin, but he couldn’t yet say with confidence that he understood how Danish people thought. Diarmait had warned Conall from the very first day that if he was going to survive, he needed to be prepared for intrigue. While the Irish nobility were perfectly willing to stab a brother in the back to gain a throne, the threats that preceded such action generally were made openly. Dublin, however, was a very different society from Leinster. Brodar and Godfrid had spent the last five years pretending that they didn’t hate Ottar. Their patience and willingness to wait for their revenge defied all comprehension.
“So, tell me.” Conall’s words came out clipped. “I gather Rikard doesn’t have another heir, a son perhaps? That would make things easier.”
“He doesn’t.” Holm sent him a furtive look, possibly trying to evaluate the extent of Conall’s poor temper. “He had several sons. One was killed in battle, and two were lost at sea two years ago. Finn, the younger of them, was a good friend of mine.”
Conall grunted. His ignorance irked him more than a little. But then, the Danes were far less demonstrative than the Irish and didn’t like to talk about themselves or their emotions in a meaningful way. He wondered if Cait had known about these lost sons.
Among the Danes, the number of wives made widows by the death of their seafaring husband rivaled the number of husbands made widowers by the loss of wives in childbirth. Within the Danish community, Rikard’s three marriages were hardly unusual. While it was true that the Irish could be seafarers too, they voyaged with less conviction and liked the feeling of land beneath their feet more than these Danish invaders. Conall had to admit, however, from what he’d heard about Denmark, Ireland was a far more appealing and hospitable land than the stony earth from which the Danes hailed. The Danes had gone a Viking for good reason.
Following Conall, though he didn’t know it, Holm lifted Rikard’s right wrist and dropped it. “He hasn’t been dead very long, has he?”
“You know something about measuring time of death?” Conall asked.
“Enough to know that a man hasn’t been dead long if the body is still warm.” Holm didn’t seem to want to look at Conall anymore, because his next question was directed at Godfrid. “My prince, can you pinpoint the time more specifically?”
If he’d decided that Godfrid was the lesser of two evils, so much the better. Conall was perfectly happy to absorb whatever animosity Holm wanted to direct at him if it spared Godfrid the same and bolstered the illusion that both Godfrid and Holm served King Ottar above all else.
Godfrid canted his head. “I’m hardly Gareth the Welshman, but I am with you in thinking that Rikard’s death couldn’t have taken place before midnight and likely occurred close to dawn. I lifted his other limbs before you arrived, and they are stiffening now, but it will be several more hours before the process is complete.”
Conall, delighting in being insufferable, sneered. “We knew that timing before we found the body.”
Holm glanced up. “Why do you say that, my lord?”
“Rikard sent his servants away last night. If you speak to the men who should have been guarding the warehouse, they will confirm that they were told not to return until Rikard summoned them.”
Holm frowned. “My men questioned Rikard’s servants already, and they reported exactly this. But how did you know of it?”
“I have my sources.”
To Conall’s satisfaction, his words had the effect of putting up the sheriff’s hackles. The role of official amb
assador was a new one for Conall. As a spy, it was almost always best to melt into the background, as Cait had done for the last three weeks and was continuing to do now. But it was Conall who was used to being the one who didn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers and remained polite at all times. He couldn’t say that the haughty superiority he was currently affecting came naturally to him, but he was finding that, if he put his mind to it, he could manipulate people as an outspoken critic just as easily as when he spoke in whispers.
Godfrid too was glaring at Conall with evident distrust. In truth, Godfrid had a right to be perturbed by what Conall hadn’t told him and might become even more so once they had a chance to talk further. Up until Shrewsbury, Conall had always worked alone and prized his ability to live without companions. Now he found himself with good friends in Gwynedd and Dublin, friends about whose opinions he cared. It was a little unsettling.
But for now, the two Danes were unified in their grinding teeth, clenched jaws, and hatred of all things Irish, of which Conall was the spokesman, for lack of a better example.
Godfrid looked away and spoke softly to Holm, “Perhaps it’s time we took him out of here?”
Holm gave a jerky nod. “If you and I lift him up the stairs, I can get my men to take him to the church for his laying out. Bishop Gregory might want to oversee his funeral personally.”
Gregory, the Bishop of Dublin, acted as shepherd to the people of the city from his seat at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. Unlike Irish bishops, Gregory had been ordained in England by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a deliberate snub to the Irish Church on the part of the Danes. The Church of Ireland oversaw its own bishops and didn’t look to England for authority. Pleasure at the independence of their church was another way Godfrid and Holm could form a bond against Conall, and Conall was pleased to have provided them with the opportunity for it.
The two men maneuvered the body up the stairs and laid Rikard on the floor, not far from the trapdoor but outside the smears of wine, which by now were all but dry on most of the floorboards. One two-inch-wide puddle near a corner of the trapdoor remained and, as Conall watched, a single burgundy drop plunked onto the step below.
By now, Cait was truly in the shadows of the side wall so Holm wouldn’t notice her. He had been so distracted by the finding of Rikard’s body that he hadn’t remembered, even now, that it had been she who’d screamed. Nor had he questioned why she was in attendance at all. As Cait had said, the Danes were taught from birth to take no notice of slaves, even one as beautiful as she.
Holm spoke again to Godfrid, still being polite. “I would like to know how you found him, my prince?”
Conall answered before Godfrid could, usurping his accomplishment and accompanying his words with a superior sniff. “The wine was disappearing, which made it obvious to me that there was a hole in the floor we didn’t know about. Godfrid had been standing over the pool for a quarter of an hour already and hadn’t noticed! Once I knew what to look for, I found the gap between two floorboards, and once the trapdoor was pried up, the hidden vault was revealed.”
It was a good thing that Holm had turned to look at Conall, because it gave Godfrid time to swallow down his amusement. Meanwhile, Holm tapped a finger to his chin, frowning as he thought. “Earlier, I believed Rikard had held out against the torture, which now we know was intended to coerce him to reveal his vault. Obviously, he gave up its location. But if he gave up the location, why was his vault not ransacked, like in the rest of the warehouse, and his wealth taken? In fact, if the intruder or intruders were after his secret vault, why ransack the warehouse at all? And why leave Rikard’s most valuable possessions untouched?”
“Those are good questions. It doesn’t make sense, does it?” Godfrid was back to agreeing with Holm.
Conall risked a query of his own. “And who does the blood belong to? We assumed that it was Rikard’s, but from the state of the body, that is clearly not the case.”
Holm clapped a palm to his forehead. “That means someone else must be dead or wounded and near to death! While we’ve been talking, he’s been dying, just as Rikard died. We must find him before it’s too late!”
“Good idea. Where should we start that we are not already looking?” Conall put his nose in the air.
Holm’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know. My men are searching the houses and structures around the warehouse, but it will take days to search all of Dublin.”
“An impossible task.” Conall gestured to the raised trapdoor. “That’s why we spent so much time in the vault, hoping for an indication of where the culprit might have gone. Furthermore, things are not entirely what we thought at first. Am I the only one who thinks it’s strange that Rikard ended up in the vault before the wine was poured on the floor?”
Holm had been turning away, ready to set off to find men to do his bidding, but now he turned back. “How do you figure?”
Conall made a broad gesture. “Two things: first, the warehouse was ransacked before the wine was spilled, since what fell to the floor is covered in it. Second, the wine pooled near the trapdoor but, as you can see, when we opened the trapdoor, the wine spilled down the steps. If Rikard had been put down there after it was spilled, it would have disappeared before we arrived.”
Holm blinked twice at Conall, but he was forced to nod and admit that Conall’s reasoning made sense. “How did you open the trapdoor?”
“With a metal tool I found nearby, as if it had been tossed aside after use because someone was in a hurry.” He directed a snort at Godfrid. “Another thing you didn’t notice, my friend.”
He said my friend in such a way as to imply superiority, and by way of a reply, Godfrid gave an obviously artificial grin. “My lord Conall is correct. I didn’t notice the bar when I came in, and Lord Conall found it when he was looking for something like it to pry open the trapdoor.”
Conall sniffed again. “I imagine you and your men added to the destruction of the warehouse during your quest to find Rikard.”
Holm was offended, as well he should be. “Of course we didn’t. We hardly touched anything.” He gestured to Godfrid. “The prince can attest that we were still organizing the men when he arrived.”
Conall scoffed his disbelief. “It seems clear to me that neither of you knows anything about investigating death. I will have to take a significant hand in the pursuit of justice for Rikard.”
Holm didn’t appear to know what to make of that, and to cover up his discomfort he looked away—and finally noticed Cait standing against the wall. “What about you?”
She blinked and curtseyed. “My lord?”
“You shouldn’t have been cleaning up. Did you touch anything near the blood or the pool of wine?”
Cait looked demurely down at her feet. “No, my lord. I was attending to broken glass. I didn’t want anyone to cut themselves.”
“The slave knows nothing.” Godfrid took a slight step to the right, blocking Holm’s line of vision to Cait, who remained against the wall. “We should focus on why Rikard is dead and who it was that was tied to that chair.”
“For once, I agree with the prince.” Conall began to make a slow circuit of the room, taking in all aspects of the current scene: the body, the blood, the wine, the smashed trading goods. More than just the culprit was missing from their understanding. “What if we have two villains working at cross-purposes? It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Holm let out an involuntary guffaw, possibly imagining that his task had just doubled. “Surely not, my lord!”
“A merchant of Rikard’s station would have made many enemies over the years,” Conall said. “Leinster has increased the taxes on Danish merchants recently. What if he had something valuable to sell that he didn’t want taxed?”
Godfrid cleared his throat. “If he had multiple bidders, who were competing against each other, and enough money at stake, one of them could have killed him rather than pay the asking price.”
Holm accepted Godfrid’s idea in
a way he hadn’t Conall’s. “I am no merchant, but avoiding a tax would be a good reason to meet privately with a buyer in the middle of the night.” He chewed on his lip, his brow furrowed.
“You may have the right of it.” Godfrid stepped closer and put his hand companionably on Holm’s shoulder. “Rikard may have unintentionally set himself up to be killed.”
Chapter Five
Day One
Caitriona
“Explain your plan going forward, Holm,” Conall said abruptly, in that insulting way he’d developed.
Caitriona had never seen Conall provoke other men the way he’d been doing since Holm had arrived. She almost didn’t recognize him.
“We have many things to see to, most of which should be accomplished quickly.” Holm cleared this throat, his eyes on Godfrid rather than Conall. “I would be grateful for your further assistance, my prince. Your experience in these matters could be very helpful.” The two Danes had come a long way over the last hour.
“What matters are these?” Conall stepped closer.
Holm looked embarrassed, though Cait wasn’t sure why. “Investigating death.”
“Regretfully, I do have some experience, thanks to Gareth the Welshman,” Godfrid said.
The sheriff nodded. “You mentioned him earlier. I understand you know him well.”
Conall laughed mockingly before Godfrid could reply. “I do too, since Gareth saved my life last year.” He punched Godfrid in the shoulder hard enough to rock him backwards, which couldn’t have been easy. When Godfrid had taken her hand earlier, she had felt the strength in him. He was twice the size of Conall too. “Godfrid and I should examine the body as soon as possible. Rikard may have wounds that aren’t immediately visible.”
Holm sent a look in Godfrid’s direction that was both furtive and apologetic. “I will tell the priest to expect you. Meanwhile, my men and I will redouble our search for the culprit, as well as a possible second victim. The city gates are being monitored such that everybody who goes in and out of the city will be examined personally by me or by one of my men.” Fortified with new purpose, he turned smartly on his heel and strode towards the main door. Once he was outside, Cait could hear him calling to his men.
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