“There’s not a lot of sadness inside Martin at the loss of his brother, is there? He looked ashen when we told him, but he was all business afterwards and almost offered you a job. That isn’t the act of a grief-stricken man.” John’s eyebrows lifted for an instant and he flashed a brief, satisfied smile. “For whatever reason, Martin knows more than he’s telling.”
“And the third?”
“I know for a fact that Roger beat his apprentice, and yet, to my eyes Huw expressed more concern at his death than Martin did.”
“I am hardly the man to instruct another in how to grieve, but I think you’re right on all three counts.” Gareth clapped a hand on John’s shoulder. “We’ll make a sleuth of you yet.”
Chapter Nine
Gwen
Showing Conall’s image to the various monks and lay workers at the abbey was something Gwen could do with Tangwen by her side. Shrewsbury Abbey was laid out in a pattern similar to other monasteries Gwen had visited over the years, though she had the sense that the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul was more prosperous than many—if not all—abbeys in Wales.
It had been built of red sandstone at the end of the last century, as had the castle, and had been expanded upon since then to include the multitude of buildings and extensive grounds it owned today. The church was magnificent enough for an archbishop’s seat: the guest house and monks’ quarters were large, with big windows that faced south to take advantage of whatever warmth the sun offered; and the gardens were well kept and fruitful. It was peaceful here too, with a little brook that gurgled by as it headed towards the Severn River.
With the picture of Conall in one hand and the rosary beads in another, Gwen trailed around the abbey for nearly an hour with Brother Julian, a bright young novice in his early twenties, a few years younger than Gwen. They fell into a pattern where Julian would introduce her, explain what she was doing, and then Gwen would show the man in question the rosary and the sketch. From cooks to laborers to monks in the scriptorium, everyone was polite and wanted to be helpful, except that nobody could. The people she encountered were also, without exception, men. If not for the abbot’s countenance, she couldn’t have spoken to any of them.
“How about you?” Gwen said to Julian. “Are you ever given permission to enter the town?”
“Every now and then. You must understand that I was raised here. The abbey is my home, and I have never known life outside it.”
“You’re a foundling?” Gwen had heard of such a thing, but as a bard’s daughter, and then a knight’s wife, Gwen had traveled the length and breadth of Wales and couldn’t imagine staying in one place always. The very thought gave her the shudders. Being a woman, even a spy and a sleuth, she also hadn’t had a great deal of experience with monastic men.
“My mother left me on the doorstep a few days after my birth,” Julian said. “One of the women in the Abbey Foregate became my nurse.”
“I don’t mean to imply any sort of criticism, but are you … happy being a monk?” Gwen said. “You don’t want some other kind of life for yourself—a wife and children, for instance?”
Julian smiled and gestured expansively with one arm to indicate the whole of the abbey. “I work. I am useful. I serve God. What more could I want? Besides, a man like me doesn’t just find himself a wife, you know. I have no land, no money, and no profession beyond the labor I do here.”
“And what is that labor?” Gwen said.
“I work in the scriptorium,” Julian said.
“So you’re lettered!” Gwen said. “You could work for a lord or help merchants with accounting.”
They had been walking along a pathway in the garden. The day had continued fine to the point that Gwalchmai had taken Tangwen to wade in the brook. Gwen could hear Tangwen’s squeal of delight in the distance. Even if she couldn’t see her daughter, Gwen knew she was safe in Gwalchmai’s hands.
Now, Julian stopped and gazed at her with something close to a condescending smile. “And how would that be better than what I have here? My family is here.”
That Gwen could understand. She bowed her head. “I know I was prying. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“I am not offended.” His serenity reminded her very much of Abbot Radulfus.
It wasn’t until she’d questioned twenty men that she hit upon the first one, a lay worker who labored in the fields for the abbey, who could tell them something they didn’t already know. “Aye, I seen ‘em.”
Julian was skeptical. “You’re sure, Al?”
“Red hair like that? Hard to miss, especially on a sturdy fellow who’s a stranger. I was working in the fields near the mill race when I saw him ride past not three days ago, coming down the road from Atchem. Fine horse he had too.” Al lifted his chin to point to a stand of trees to the southeast of their position. “It was just past the abandoned mill yonder.”
Gwen couldn’t see a mill, abandoned or otherwise, from where she stood, but the landscape was more treed and hillier in that direction. She hadn’t realized the abbey lands were so extensive.
She also hadn’t thought to ask at Rob’s inn about a horse, though as a traveler come all the way from Ireland, it made sense that Conall would have ridden here. Maybe Gareth had remembered to ask the innkeeper about it after she left. That Conall had come down the east road also meant that whoever was on guard at the gatehouse three days ago might also recognize her sketch.
Red hair wasn’t unknown among either the Welsh or the English, but given the very similar reactions of both Rob and this lay worker, Conall’s coloring was still uncommon enough for people to notice and comment upon.
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Gwen made to turn away, but the laborer stopped her.
“Was that your brother I heard singing earlier?”
“It was,” she said.
“I could hear more of that,” he said. “A real gift, he has. My mother was Welsh. Been a while since I heard a real bard. These Saxons don’t know how to sing.”
Gwen smiled. “The abbot asked that Gwalchmai sing in the church on Sunday. You can hear him again then.”
The man pointed with his chin to where Gwalchmai was now gamboling among the garden paths with Tangwen. “All I have to do is stay here, I think. He’ll break into song soon enough.”
Then Julian tugged on Gwen’s elbow, indicated she should look towards the entrance to the monastery where Gareth and John Fletcher had finally arrived. From the end of the path where they were standing, Gwen could just see the main courtyard. A cart was parked half out of her sight, and she assumed it had brought Roger’s body to the abbey.
Despite her husband’s arrival, Gwen continued her questioning of the abbey residents, fruitless as the rest of the afternoon turned out to be. She didn’t seek Gareth out until the examination of Roger’s body had to be nearly finished. She hadn’t needed a warning look from Gareth to know that she didn’t want to be present for it, not only as a balm to the sensibilities of the monks—though Radulfus seemed like an eminently reasonable man—but for the sake of her stomach.
Over the last few weeks, Gwen found herself with a growing sympathy for her friend, Mari, who’d birthed two sons within as many years of marriage. Having witnessed twice what Mari had endured for nine months, Gwen comforted herself with the knowledge that her ability to stand upright and retain the contents of her stomach at this moment was better than any day Mari had experienced while pregnant.
Besides, Gwen was overjoyed to find herself with child again. In the aftermath of Rhun’s death, she’d thought she was pregnant, but it had only been the same sickness that had laid King Owain low. She’d recovered much more quickly than the king had, however, and must have fallen pregnant sometime around the Christmas feast, which meant the baby would arrive in early autumn.
Having finished her quest for now, she said goodbye to Julian, who headed off purposefully towards the scriptorium, and Gwen made her way back to the courtyard. She had just entered it when Gareth exited the doorway tha
t led to the cloister, John Fletcher beside him.
Gwen hastened to them. “How did it go?”
John raised his shoulders and let them fall. “We told Martin Carter, Roger’s brother, of his death.”
To Gwen’s eyes, both John and Gareth were looking drawn and worn, which she could understand given the tasks they’d undertaken.
“I just spoke with the abbot,” Gareth added. “He promised to send word to Martin that he could see the body now. What did you discover?”
Gwen told him about the day laborer’s belief that he’d seen Conall enter Shrewsbury three days ago.
John nodded. “I will speak to whomever was on duty as soon as I leave here. Maybe someone saw him depart the city too.”
“Did the innkeeper mention Conall’s horse?” Gwen said.
“I did ask before we left,” Gareth said. “He had a horse, and it is still there.”
Gwen bit her lip.
“Yes. Odd.” As he spoke, Gareth was turning something over in his fingers.
Gwen looked down at his hand. “What do you have there?”
“Oh.” Gareth clenched whatever it was in his fist, as if it was occurring to him only now that Gwen might be interested in what he’d discovered. He glanced ruefully at John, and then opened his hand to show her. “It’s a wooden coin.”
Frowning, Gwen took the coin from his palm. “Was it on Roger’s body?”
“Actually, no. It turns out that Conall left a few belongings behind—a small bag he’d placed underneath the bed at its foot—and this was in it.”
She turned the coin over in her hand. “What is its purpose?” It had an etching of a woman on one side and a shoe on the other. As she peered closer at the etching, she realized that the woman wore no clothing. Gareth still hadn’t answered, so she looked up at him. “What don’t you want to tell me?”
“This is a coin to gain entry into an establishment called The Lady’s Slipper.” Gareth sighed. “It’s a brothel, cariad.”
Chapter Ten
Hywel
Hywel cupped his hands around his eyes, shielding them from the glare caused by the setting sun behind him. Mold Castle would be his within the hour, and Hywel was roiled by a stew of emotions—jubilation, anticipation, as well as the anger that never left him. They were within days of the official end of the four month peace he’d agreed to with Ranulf, the Earl of Chester, and that was close enough for him. He was finished with the enduring he’d been doing since Rhun’s death.
His father might never recover from Rhun’s loss. Hywel might never either. But this—this battle—was one thing he knew how to do.
“Fire!”
Hywel and his next oldest brother, Cynan, sent the shout into the sky at the same time from opposite ends of the field. Cynan was with the cavalry, who were waiting in a stand of trees at the foot of the road that led to the castle.
A heartbeat later, the arrows from two hundred archers’ bows arced through the air and disappeared over the castle’s battlements.
At nearly the same instant that the archers loosed the arrows, a handpicked group of some of the bravest men Hywel had, Cynan’s younger brother, Madoc, among them, moved the siege engine forward, driving it up the road towards the gate. They were protected front and back by shields and wooden barricades, designed to deflect any enemy arrows that might come from the walls, and to prevent their own men from killing them from behind with stray arrows.
Hywel wished he had a way to communicate with Madoc and Cynan, but he had to trust that his brothers knew what they were doing. The trees in which Cynan and his men were hiding lay a hundred yards from the castle, and the cavalry were waiting for the moment the gate was battered down to charge. The bulk of the army Hywel had brought to Mold were spearmen, and they remained as they had been, crouched low to the ground in front of Hywel and his archers, also making sure to keep out of their direct line of fire.
Hywel’s army had been given four months to stockpile arrows, and his archers did him proud now. They fired barrage after barrage at Mold Castle, successfully forcing Ranulf’s soldiers to keep their heads below the level of the wooden balustrade, unable to counter the steady progress of Hywel’s siege weapon.
Hywel could have ordered the arrows to be lit, but that would have defeated half the purpose of this endeavor. His father wanted Mold Castle taken intact, so he could fortify it against the English. Hywel would burn it to the ground if he had to—if he were desperate and it was the only way to win it—but he was a long way from desperate just yet.
“The door is weakening, my lord!” Cadell, the youngest of Hywel’s brothers currently on the battlefield, reined in beside Hywel, his eyes wild with excitement and anticipation of victory. He was smaller and slighter than Hywel and his other older brothers, and now that he was past twenty, wasn’t likely to grow more.
“I’m glad to hear it, Cadell.” Hywel secretly thought that Earl Ranulf, whose castle this was, had known Hywel was coming and had made a strategic decision to put up only a token resistance, so as not to waste men and resources on a lost cause. But Hywel wasn’t going to ruin Cadell’s pleasure by telling him so.
Maybe Ranulf really had all but abandoned Mold to Hywel. Maybe they could have walked right into the castle without any bloodshed at all. Hywel hadn’t wanted to risk that, however, and neither had any of his brothers. Hywel hadn’t even shown a flag of peace that would have offered terms to the castellan of Mold. They’d come too far and suffered too much since Rhun’s death to be satisfied with taking the castle without a fight.
Rhun couldn’t be avenged today, and it wasn’t the Earl of Chester who’d seen to his death, but ensuring the fall of Mold Castle to an army from Gwynedd was as good a place to start as any.
“I wish I was with Madoc!” Cadell was still circling around Hywel, restless energy in every line of his body.
He had begged earlier to be in the siege engine, but Hywel had forbidden it. Hywel understood Cadell’s excitement, just as he understood his need to be in the thick of things. If they’d been fighting on an open field, both of them would have been at the forefront of the cavalry, but sieges weren’t the purview of a commander, and Hywel’s men would have been more hindered than helped by his presence. They would have felt the need to protect him. It was one of the many changes in his life since Rhun’s death and his rise to the station of heir to the throne of Gwynedd.
Thus, it was Hywel’s fate as edling, and Cadell’s as his squire, to let others do the fighting today.
“This is the first real battle you’ve ever been in,” Hywel said soothingly. “It is better to learn by watching this one time. You have plenty of wars in your future.”
“You were younger than I am when you fought in your first battle!” Cadell threw the words at his brother.
Hywel didn’t take offense. “We were fighting for our lives in Ceredigion, Cadell. My aunt had just been hanged from the battlements by the Normans. Any man who could walk was on the field that day.”
“Rhun died—”
“He did, but not by Ranulf’s hand, and Ranulf does not threaten Gwynedd today. This is a skirmish,” Hywel said. “Perhaps I should have let you fight, to get your feet wet, but I thought it would be foolish to risk you in such a little war.”
Cadell subsided, perhaps slightly mollified. Hywel wished he could see better what was happening, and he stood in his stirrups, both hands shielding his eyes.
Then, without further ado, the front gate collapsed in on itself and, with a roar, Madoc’s company surged forward, past their siege engine and into the castle. Up until now, the archers had been aiming over their heads so the arrows would fall inside the castle. Hywel released a piercing whistle, and the firing ceased.
That was also the signal for the waiting cavalry to break cover. They charged up the road, anxious to support the brave souls who’d broken through the gate. The spearmen who’d been resting in front of the archers surged to their feet too and ran straight for the castle entranc
e. Not a single arrow came from Mold’s battlement. Perhaps Ranulf really didn’t have anyone able to fire one.
Hywel let them all go before urging Glew, his horse, into a trot, Cadell at his side. The younger man’s brown hair was mussed, and he’d taken off his helmet somewhere along the way. At this point, Hywel didn’t think it mattered what Cadell wore. Neither of them was even going to have to use their swords.
“Should I send word of the victory to the king?” Cadell said, looking around to see who was available to send. All of Owain’s sons had reverted to formality when referring to their father these days. He had made himself unapproachable—even—and maybe especially—to Hywel, as if it was somehow Hywel’s fault that Rhun had died.
Hywel blamed himself for Rhun’s death, it was true. He should have been the one to ride after Cadwaladr that day. But at the same time, Hywel knew within his heart that to blame anyone other than Cadwaladr was to deny Rhun’s right to act on his own behalf. Rhun had demanded the responsibility of hunting down Cadwaladr. There had never been anything Hywel could have done or said to dissuade him, and no amount of wishing was going to change the past.
“Let’s make sure the castle is really ours, first,” Hywel said, finding himself amused rather than annoyed by his younger brother’s enthusiasm.
Another half-hour, and the standard of Gwynedd waved from the top of the keep, proclaiming that Mold Castle had been taken in a single day—in a single hour—by the forces of King Owain. Hywel told himself to remember this day, to remind his future self what could be achieved with enough time and planning.
It had taken four months to reach this moment: four months of heartache, grief, and rage, such that often Hywel didn’t know where one emotion ended and another began.
He did know, however, even as he rode through the demolished front gate, that he’d been lucky. Only a few weeks ago, on the last day of February, Prince Henry, the son of Empress Maud and the rival to the throne of England, had landed a thousand men on England’s east coast. Naturally, King Stephen had marshalled an army to counter the young prince’s force.
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