A half-mile passed underneath their hooves, and then the road began to curve nearer to the river, at which point Hywel realized he wasn’t going to have to search for the ford—the road was going to lead them straight to it.
Unfortunately, as they came down the last straight stretch before the ford, a young man wearing full armor and holding a sword settled himself to block their passage up the far side. The helmet didn’t disguise his features entirely, and Hywel recognized him as his cousin, Llywelyn, eldest son of Madog and no more than fifteen years old. He was the very son Susanna had asked him to spare during their hasty departure from Dinas Bran.
“What’s this?” Cadifor reined in.
Hywel shot a quick glance at his foster father, reminding himself that the last time Cadifor had joined King Owain’s retinue had been ten years ago during the wars in Ceredigion, when Llywelyn would have been five years old. Cadifor hadn’t been to court since then. Even if King Madog had brought his family to Aber or King Owain had visited Powys, Cadifor wouldn’t recognize any of his sons.
“Madog’s eldest and my cousin.”
“Christ,” Cadifor blasphemed.
“I share your sentiment.” Hywel directed Glew down the bank.
As Hywel approached the water, Llywelyn’s horse danced sideways, and the boy gripped his sword more tightly. “I don’t want to fight you, cousin, but I cannot let you pass.”
“Your father sent soldiers to kill me and my men,” Hywel said.
“My father told me you’d say that. He says that was a misunderstanding.”
From behind Hywel, Cadifor guffawed.
“I don’t want to fight you either,” Hywel said.
“My father’s orders are clear.” Llywelyn pushed his helmet to the back of his head, allowing Hywel to see his face more fully. “I am to return you to Dinas Bran. As he is my liege lord, I must obey.”
“You can try.” Hywel breathed in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth, stalling for time as he searched for a solution to what appeared at the moment to be an unresolvable problem. He had sworn to his aunt that he would spare her son if it was at all possible, but he hadn’t reckoned on encountering him under these conditions. It could be, however, that she had known her husband would send Llywelyn out, and her plea had been a direct result.
“Where are your men?” Hywel said.
Llywelyn’s face fell. “Close.” Then he straightened his shoulders in further resolve.
It was obvious to Hywel that Llywelyn was lying. Cadifor said the same in a low voice from behind him.
“What I don’t understand is how he could have become separated,” Evan said. “The castle is still only a few miles from here, and Trefor closer still.”
Hywel thought he knew: Madog hadn’t sent out his eldest son to look for Hywel at all. Llywelyn had snuck out, thinking to capture Hywel single-handedly and prove his worth. It was a foolish thing to have done, but admirable as well, especially for a son trying to please a hard-driving father. Hywel knew that urge well himself, and he might have done the same thing when he was fifteen. “Your father doesn’t know you’ve left the castle, does he?”
Llywelyn’s spine was so straight he was almost standing in the saddle. “You shall not pass, Hywel.” He was endearingly earnest.
Hywel nearly laughed, except— “Don’t add to your father’s mistake.”
“My father doesn’t make mistakes!”
Hywel groaned under his breath, reminding himself again how young Llywelyn still was, even if he’d been valued a man since the age of fourteen. He was still younger than Cadell—or even Gwalchmai, Gwen’s brother, and he didn’t yet see his parents as mortal. A common error, but not one Hywel had the time or energy in to rectify today.
Cadifor and Evan joined Hywel on the bank, all three of them studying Llywelyn, who gritted his teeth, resolute and stricken at the same time by what faced him. But he was steadier now too, and the determination in his eyes was no jest. Hywel was tempted to urge his horse forward and engage the boy, just to teach him a lesson. But he genuinely didn’t want to hurt him, aside from keeping his promise to his aunt. And besides, Hywel’s arm hurt.
“I could knock him out without killing him,” Cadifor suggested. “Leave him in a bush until he wakes.”
“That would be humiliating, but at least he would be alive,” Hywel said.
“He must know that he cannot stand against the three of us,” Evan said.
“Whatever we do, we must do it quickly,” Cadifor said.
Hywel tipped his head to one side as he studied his cousin. Then he pulled out his own sword and urged his horse across the river. As the presence of the road had suggested, it was a good ford, wide and not deep, and well paved with stones so his horse had firm base to canter across.
Though Llywelyn stood his ground as Hywel reached the other side and came up the bank, his eyes widened, and he made no move to attack. If Llywelyn had been intent on killing Hywel, he would have done so before Hywel was able to leave the water. Perhaps he really had some hope that Hywel would come quietly.
“I propose a trade.” Hywel pointed his sword at his cousin, but made sure at the same time to stay out of actual fighting distance.
“What kind of trade?”
“I have urgent business in Shrewsbury that cannot wait. I promised your mother to spare you if I could. If you will not let me pass, I won’t be able to keep that promise.”
“I don’t need my mother to protect me.” Llywelyn was deeply offended, as well he might be. Hywel had intended to offend him as a way to put him off his guard and start him thinking more about his mother than killing Hywel.
“I told her exactly that,” Hywel said, lying outright, “but you must realize that she loves me and does not want me to come to harm at your father’s hands.”
“She loves me more.”
Hywel bobbed his head, making sure not to laugh at the childish comment. “Of course she does, but do you really want to force her to choose between you and me? She would choose you, but it would break her heart to do so.”
Llywelyn’s sword wavered, his anger fading in the face of the vision of his mother’s grief. When he’d come down the mountain, he’d been on fire to capture Hywel and bring him triumphantly before his father, thus gaining his father’s favor. He’d had no thought for his mother at all.
“You know I’m right,” Hywel said. “You have to let us pass.”
“I don’t!” Llywelyn’s voice was full of righteousness.
“You let me go, and we both say nothing about what has transpired here. Nobody need be the wiser. Alternatively, you could tell your father that I’m alive, but I was too far away for you to stop.”
“So far, I see no gain in this for me,” Llywelyn said, but Hywel was only a few feet away from him now, and he thought he saw a glimmer of hope amidst the distrust in his cousin’s eyes.
“The gain for you, is that I let you live, cousin.” Hywel had by now come level with Llywelyn, and while both of them still held their swords, Llywelyn had dropped his guard. Careful to give no warning as to what he was about to do, Hywel switched his sword from his right to his left and continued the motion to bat Llywelyn’s blade with a backhanded sweep of his arm. Llywelyn was so surprised, he released his sword, which fell to the ground.
Almost within the same heartbeat, Hywel urged Glew forward, and he caught Llywelyn’s right wrist with his right hand and twisted, forcing him to slide out of his saddle if he didn’t want his wrist broken.
Llywelyn fell ignominiously to earth, and Hywel went with him, dismounting in a smooth motion and dropping to the ground between Llywelyn and his sword. Llywelyn scrabbled in the dirt, trying to reach it, but by then Cadifor and Evan had crossed the river, and Cadifor dismounted in order to pick up the sword himself.
Llywelyn couldn’t keep his eyes off it. “My-my sword. What are you going to do with it?”
Hywel still held Llywelyn’s wrist in a tight grip, and he allowed himse
lf a smirk, before wiping his expression clean.
Cadifor mounted his horse, Llywelyn’s sword in his hand. “What is the closest village south of here?”
“Ch-ch-chirk.”
“Is there a tavern there?” Cadifor said.
Llywelyn nodded.
“You may retrieve it from the tavern keeper,” Hywel said. “You must give us a quarter of an hour head start. Otherwise, we won’t stop at all, and you can explain to your father how you misplaced your sword.”
Llywelyn’s face reddened. “You tricked me.”
Hywel struggled not to smile at his cousin’s sulky tone. “As I said, I will never breathe a word of this if you don’t either. Betray this bond, and I will come back to finish what I started. Do we have an accord?”
Llywelyn’s shoulders fell, and he stopped resisting Hywel’s grip. “We do. Know this, however. When you return, if you return, it will be I who will kill you.”
“You can try,” Hywel said. “I would expect nothing less from the son of the King of Powys.”
Chapter Twenty
Gareth
“What exactly are we doing here?” John said.
Gareth frowned, because he would have thought it was obvious, especially to someone who was gaining experience in murder as rapidly as John. “Looking for clues.”
“What clues?”
“We won’t know until we find them, will we?” Gareth said, and then at John’s uncomprehending expression, added, “Conall had a wooden coin that would admit him to this brothel, and the girl bled out not far from here. If we kick over enough hornets’ nests, we’re sure to get stung eventually.”
“Of course,” John said, though his expression remained dubious, “but I have to tell you that I’ve actually never been inside a brothel before.”
That fact had been made clear from the start by the twitchiness that had again overtaken John’s body. Last year in Wales Gareth hadn’t noticed this tendency, but then, John hadn’t had to question anyone there either.
“You aren’t the only one,” Gareth said, deciding to make him feel better about his lack of experience.
John’s head jerked up to look at him. “Really?”
Gareth made a dismissive motion with one hand. “We don’t generally have establishments such as this in Gwynedd. In fact, there’s no ‘generally’ about it. We don’t have them.” And then at John’s continued astonished look, he added, “We have women, you understand, who might lie with a man for money or reward, but they don’t gather together in one location like this. There’d be no point, since nowhere in Gwynedd is there a town even as large as Chester, much less Shrewsbury.”
They were approaching the street upon which the establishment in question lay. John stopped at the corner near where Gareth and Gwen had hidden last night, stubbing his toe into the dirt between two cobbles. “I haven’t worked for the sheriff long, you know.”
“So I understood,” Gareth said noncommittally. If John wanted to talk, he’d let him talk.
“Last year I was an undersheriff, only a short step above Luke or Cedric or any of the other watchmen. I wouldn’t have been elevated to this position now if it hadn’t been for you.”
“How so?” Gareth said. “You told me earlier that you feared to lose your position if I didn’t help you.”
“That isn’t quite the case.” John had a disconcerting tendency to reveal information in dribbles and to withhold what might turn out to be the most important information of all simply because he didn’t want to impose or tell another man his business. It was aggravating and so very English.
“What then?” Gareth said. “Speak!”
“Do you remember me telling you about how the sheriff had to attend to King Stephen with most of the men of the garrison, leaving Shrewsbury with only the dregs?”
“Of course.” Gareth eyed the young man, who’d just implied yet again that he too was at the bottom of the barrel. It wasn’t something Gareth hadn’t thought himself, of course, but he was growing tired of having to bolster John’s confidence every hour. Gareth really did think that John was better than that, and was capable of more than he was giving himself credit for. Gareth had been quite serious earlier when he’d told John as much.
“Before he left, the sheriff said that he’d elevated me to Deputy Sheriff because he didn’t have any other man among those left whom he could trust or had even the minimum experience required to run an investigation. He expected me to do my best, and to keep Shrewsbury together in his absence, but I was not to go off on my own or ferret out any wrongdoing among the men I oversee.”
“Such as Luke and this brothel,” Gareth said.
“Yes, sir,” John said.
“Why didn’t he take Luke with him?” Gareth said.
“He took four of the six whom he distrusted most,” John said. “The worst ones, actually.”
Understanding rose in Gareth. John had hinted at this earlier but hadn’t managed to state clearly what had been the sheriff’s intent. “You’re saying that for the sheriff to take all six men would all but have guaranteed dissent among his men where it could do even more harm—such as on the long march across England. How is it that the garrison contains so many bad apples in the first place?”
“The sheriff is the military authority in Shrewsbury, but even he doesn’t have free rein over his men. He serves the king, but he also must work with Shrewsbury’s town council and the Earl of Ludlow, and that requires a certain willingness to smooth ruffled feathers when he has to.”
“Thus, he took on one or more men, whom he would have preferred had been given other duties, in order to maintain friendly relations. Your sheriff would see it as a minor point,” Gareth said, “compared to possibly larger ones that have more significance in the long run.”
“It was of less significance when he was here to manage them,” John said. “My sheriff is a wise man, and this summons from King Stephen came at a bad time.”
“I am coming to see that.” Gareth understood those instances when duty warred with duty. A man had to choose the lesser of the evils presented to him. And nobody could disobey his king, no matter how important his duty at home seemed to be, especially not one such as the Sheriff of Shrewsbury who served entirely at the king’s behest. “You should be honored he left you in charge.”
“More than anything, I’m afraid to let him down.” John’s tone was no longer embarrassed—more matter-of-fact than anything else—as if confessing the whole of the truth of his elevation to Deputy Sheriff had relaxed him. It would have been easier if John had told Gareth all this from the start, but that wasn’t the Englishman’s way.
“To be honest, I know the feeling.” Gareth started walking towards the brothel again.
Even before this frank conversation, Gareth and John had concluded that they needed to leave John’s men behind. It seemed necessary, seeing as how Luke frequented the brothel himself, and there was no reason to think other guards wouldn’t as well. Neither Gareth nor John wanted to question the manager of the brothel in the presence of someone she knew—and especially not if she had bribed that person specifically to avoid awkward questions like the ones they intended to ask her.
It was one of those ironies of commerce that, while it was a consortium of men that owned the brothel, a woman managed it. Gareth didn’t know if that was because she’d once been a whore herself and had been promoted when she became too aged to sell herself, or if she’d been hired simply because the owners believed a woman would know best how to handle other women. Either way, it was a unique situation in Gareth’s experience.
Unlike the night before, no guard blocked the door at this hour of the morning, which gave John no recourse but to knock. His rapping at first brought no one running, but finally a frazzled maid, wiping her hands on a food-stained apron, answered the door.
She took the appearance of two men wearing swords and stern demeanors in stride, saying, “We’re not open at this hour. Come back after noon.” She made t
o close the door again.
John put a hand on the door and his booted foot between the door and the frame. “We’re not here for custom. We need to speak to the manager.” Other than John’s interaction with Luke, it was the most forceful Gareth had seen him. It was good to see that the younger man was capable of speaking authoritatively, and it gave Gareth hope that it was one aspect of being Deputy Sheriff that John had mastered, despite his inner misgivings. “Tell her the Deputy Sheriff is here.”
“She’s—” The girl stopped. “If you could wait.” She tried again to shut the door in their faces, but John had left his foot where it was, and the door popped open and banged against the inner wall.
Gareth poked his head past the doorway, but he couldn’t see anything beyond three curtains: one to his right, another to his left, and a third straight ahead, which the girl had ducked around without looking back.
Gareth brushed aside the curtain on the left and groaned inwardly when he saw that it enclosed a narrow space all of six feet long and three wide containing a single pallet on the floor. The curtain provided a bare minimum of privacy to watching eyes, and nothing to listening ears. The right hand curtain revealed the same arrangement. From what Gwen had said, Meilyr had disowned her mother’s brother, Pawl, because of his tendency to frequent places such as this.
John pursed his lips. “What do you say to us walking straight in without waiting for an invitation?”
“I have no objection,” Gareth said, “but perhaps we should wait a moment. No need to antagonize anyone unnecessarily, especially if the owners are the esteemed members of the town you say they are. We can offend them later if we need to.”
That got a slight easing of tension and even a smile from John, and he removed his foot from the threshold.
The Renegade Merchant Page 16