Fortunately, they didn’t have long to wait. Before John became impatient again, the same maid returned and beckoned them past the curtains. They walked through the central room, which bore a strong resemblance to a tavern common room—except for the curtains. Gareth counted six more enclosed areas around the perimeter of the room, presumably for the same purpose as the two he’d already noted.
The maid didn’t stop but continued on into what could have been the dining area for wealthier clients, also much like a tavern might have for serving noble or high-ranking guests.
More buildings were visible through the open, rear door. As with many homes and shops in Shrewsbury, the brothel included a large yard. A quick glance out the door revealed that it contained a small storehouse; what could be a common sleeping and dressing house for the girls—like a castle barracks; a stable where a man could leave his horse during whatever interlude he spent at the brothel; and a kitchen.
Due to the danger of fire, cooking generally took place a safe distance from the other buildings. It was the same everywhere—from the largest castle to the smallest croft, in the hope that if something did catch fire, or heaven forbid, the oven exploded, the damage could be confined to a small area and the fire contained before it spread to the rest of the complex.
That did not mean, of course, that fires were never lit inside the other buildings. People had to keep warm, after all. Most, if not all, croftwives cooked porridge or stew and roasted a rabbit over the same fire pit that warmed their house. A baking oven was another matter entirely, however, burning far hotter than any open fire. Thus, the danger of the fire getting out of control was that much greater.
A goat and a flock of chickens wandered around the yard too. With at least eight girls, the maid, and the manager, and who knew how many other employees, the brothel had many people to house and mouths to feed. And seeing as how the complex abutted the palisade, it also had a gate through which the residents could gain access to the river.
Gareth turned back to the room as a black-haired woman in well-maintained middle age entered. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. “How may I be of assistance, my lords?” She took a seat by the fire and then looked up at them, her gracious smile a flash across her mouth, signifying politeness—nothing more. Her eyes were flat, revealing nothing either.
Faced with such politeness, John fell back on his own proper manners. He put his hand to his chest. “I am John Fletcher, Deputy Sheriff of Shrewsbury, and this is Gareth ap Rhys, of Gwynedd. I would be pleased to be informed of your name, madam.”
“Agatha,” she said immediately. “I understand you’ve recently been elevated to your position. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” John’s chest swelled.
Gareth could hardly believe that John had been won over so easily, but then, Gareth shouldn’t have been surprised that a woman of Agatha’s experience would know how to handle a young man such as John. She didn’t seem to want to direct her attentions to Gareth, however, for which he was grateful. Gwen would want to know exactly what passed here this morning, and he would hate to think he would fail to maintain his dignity.
Thus, before John lost his head completely and forgot what they were here for, Gareth brought out Conall’s coin. “It is our understanding that this coin allows a man entrance to this establishment?”
“It does,” Agatha said.
“You are not the owner, however?” Gareth said.
“I am not.” She paused for a heartbeat.
Gareth looked at her curiously, noting the hesitation in her voice and posture. “But?”
Agatha gave a slight cough. “Recently I have purchased a small stake.”
“Who are the other owners?” John said.
She rattled off a half-dozen names, three he didn’t know and three he did: Rob Horn, the owner of The Boar’s Head Inn; Martin Carter; and Tom Weaver.”
John’s jaw dropped at the mention of his brother-in-law. Gareth eyed him. “You didn’t know?”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
Gareth turned back to Agatha, his mind churning. “You name Martin Carter but not his brother, Roger. He wasn’t involved?”
“No.” She frowned. “I heard he died yesterday. I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man.”
Gareth’s brow furrowed. “What makes you say that?”
“He always treated me with respect. To him, money was money, and he didn’t hold what I did for a living against me. Or,” she amended, “if he did object, he didn’t allow me to know it.”
Gareth studied Agatha, knowing from her expression that she was in earnest. It seems Roger had been a contradictory man. She was the second person to say that Roger had been kind, as Martin had said the same thing in regards to Jenny. But he’d beaten his apprentice for misdeeds, real or imagined, and he’d browbeaten many others, including members of the town council.
“Did he ever come here?” John said.
“No,” Agatha said.
“You are very sure,” John said.
“I am,” Agatha said. “It wasn’t his way. I respected that.”
“What about Martin Carter?” Gareth said.
Agatha narrowed her eyes slightly, but she answered willingly enough. “I’m sure that neither brother ever came here for entertainment.”
Implying that Martin, at least, might have come for business reasons, which would make sense given that he was part owner.
Gareth was more glad with every moment that passed that he and John had come to the brothel. He had a brief thought that, had Agatha’s profession been anything else than brothel keeper, Gwen would have liked her forthright nature.
“What exactly does this coin buy?” Gareth said.
Agatha smirked slightly before smoothing her lips into the polished smile again. “Are you interested in sampling our wares first hand? We don’t get too many Welsh knights here.”
Gareth kept his gaze steady on hers. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d get any.”
The woman’s lips pinched, as if she was holding back a genuine smile this time, instead of pretending to be amused. “You’d be surprised.”
“Would I?” A sudden shiver coursed down Gareth’s spine, prompting him to raise one hand to indicate a point even with the top of his own head. “Did a Welshman as tall as I but in his forties, blond going gray and thickening around the waist, ever come here? You might have noticed that he judges his own worth as very great.”
Agatha blinked.
Gareth couldn’t even say what had prompted him to describe Prince Cadwaladr, but the impulse had been there so he’d followed it.
Then Agatha cast her eyes down so he couldn’t read what was in them. “I cannot reveal the identities of my clients, or soon I wouldn’t have any, would I?”
Gareth grunted his acknowledgement of that reality, frustrated because he wasn’t able to tell for certain if she had seen Cadwaladr or not.
“Do you have knowledge of this man?” John thrust the image of Conall under Agatha’s nose.
She reared back slightly, taking more of the light into her face, and Gareth realized that she was older than he’d first thought. Rather than in her middle forties, she was now revealed to be fifteen years older than that, and he could see more strands of gray amongst the black of her hair.
Agatha pushed away the paper. “He is unfamiliar to me.”
Gareth frowned. Her response to his description of Cadwaladr aside, for the first time since she’d smiled at John, he had a clear sense that she was lying. It also occurred to him only now that it was absurd for him to describe Cadwaladr when all he had to do was draw a picture of him. The treacherous prince’s supercilious smirk was burned into Gareth’s memory, and he could render it with his eyes closed.
John pressed on. “Are you sure? He would be a stranger to you. Irish, with hair like fire.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Irish? We don’t get many more of them here in Shrewsbury than Welsh knights.”
> “I wouldn’t have thought so,” John said, “except that we’ve encountered our fair share in recent days.”
“Why would you show his picture to me?” she said.
“We found the coin among his belongings,” John said.
“But that means he didn’t use it,” Agatha said.
“But he bought it,” John said.
Agatha shrugged. “He could have done that at any number of locations. It wouldn’t have had to be at my front door.”
“Where could he have bought it?” Gareth said.
Agatha reeled off a list of taverns and inns with which her brothel had a relationship. Not for the first time, Gareth was glad he’d decided to stay with Gwen and his family at the monastery. Prostitution was a fact of life, but he would just as soon keep them all well away from what they didn’t need to know about. If Gwen had discovered that her innkeeper sold brothel coins, she would have wanted to know all about it.
Gareth brought out the picture of the girl. “Have you seen her?” He framed the question in such a way that Agatha would have a harder time eliding the truth than she had with Conall’s image. After her initial denial, she had asked them questions instead of the other way around, which was a classic diversionary tactic.
A ‘v’ formed between Agatha’s neatly manicured brows. “I don’t believe so.”
“She isn’t one of yours?” John said.
“No. Definitely not,” Agatha said.
That answer was definitive, surely given, and Gareth could hear truth in her voice when she spoke. But still, something about her demeanor caused him to doubt her.
John noticed the hesitation too. “A moment ago you said, I don’t believe so. Do you think you might have seen her somewhere?”
Agatha gave the paper back to Gareth. “I thought I might have when you first showed me, but the light is dim in here. Now I know that I have never met her before in my life.”
That was definitive too, except that Gareth had noticed the way she’d looked directly at him when she spoke, as if daring her own eyes to skate away and betray her. He bowed. Maybe she had never met the girl. Maybe she’d never seen her, but that didn’t mean she knew nothing about her. “Thank you for your time.”
Turning on his heel, he urged John out of the room, back through the common room, and out of the brothel. John didn’t protest, but once they were out of earshot, he turned on Gareth. “What was that? I feel like we were getting somewhere!”
“Oh, we definitely were, up until we showed her the picture of the girl who died. Agatha definitely knows the girl—or knows of her,” Gareth said.
“Do you think Agatha lied about the dead girl being one of hers?” John said.
“No,” Gareth said. “That wasn’t the sense I got. The girl wasn’t a whore, or at least not at that brothel. Agatha’s reply was so firm because she was pleased to be able to answer the direct question in the negative. It was her response before and after the denial that concerns me.”
“So why did we leave?”
Gareth regarded the young deputy sheriff. “Can you really not answer that?”
John stood chewing on his lower lip. “When you first showed her the picture, she hesitated.”
“Yes, and then after she declared the girl not one of hers, her resolve firmed and she was able to deny that she knew her at all—but even she couldn’t think so quickly as to deny all knowledge from the start,” Gareth said. “We surprised her.”
“You surprised her,” John said. “Is that why we left? You had unsettled her, and you wanted to give her time to think about it?”
“Essentially. I think the next step is to put a watch on her—maybe one of the young ones like Cedric or Oswin. I want to know which of the owners, if any, she contacts or comes to see her. I’m hoping that our questioning unsettled her enough to make her worried—and that worry might well give her away.” He paused. “You did very well in there.”
John looked disbelieving.
“I’m not just saying that. You were confident and straightforward. You asked follow-up questions with authority. I was impressed.”
John flushed slightly. “Thank you. I have had good teachers.”
“Sometimes it takes a while to find your feet.”
“That it does.” John turned back to look at the brothel. “I just hope I’m not finding them too late.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Gwen
Gwen bent to the wheel, which was no longer attached to the cart, her fingers reaching for the dark stain that marred its surface. The blood had dried. She glanced surreptitiously to her left. Her father, proving himself to be an able investigator in his own right, was speaking innocently to Flann about his business at the cartwright’s yard.
“Too bad about the wheel,” Meilyr said.
Flann shrugged. “It happens now and again. Wheels last only so long before they need repair, but I’m assured that I brought my custom to the best cartwright in Shrewsbury.”
Martin’s apprentice looked pleased at the compliment. Gwen stepped away from the wheel, moving towards the cart itself. She was sure that the stains on the wheels were blood, but she didn’t think she could prove it, and she would love to return to Gareth with a bit of evidence that would link this cart to the girl. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any obvious blood in the cart bed itself.
She glanced over at Flann, who was still speaking to her father. Meilyr distracted him with a question about his travels throughout the March. “I’m interested professionally, you see.”
Seeing as how her father was the bard for King Owain of Gwynedd, he couldn’t possibly be interested in whom he might sing for in the March, but he was trying to be polite, and Flann responded in kind.
Gwen still had Tangwen on her hip, and she sighed loudly, shifted the little girl in her arms, and then plopped her onto the empty bed of the cart a moment later. In an undertone, Gwen said, “Can you find something in the back to play with?”
No stranger to carts, Tangwen pushed to her feet and toddled away from Gwen, towards the driver’s seat.
Gwen let Tangwen nearly reach the back before she said, “Come back here, Tangwen!”
Tangwen turned to look at her mother, a distinct frown on her face and her chin wrinkled up, not understanding what game Gwen was playing. With a muttered apology to Tangwen for using her in this way, Gwen hitched up her skirt, scrambled into the bed of the cart, and then crouched beside her daughter, her arm around her waist.
“Sorry, cariad.” Gwen kissed Tangwen’s cheek. “Let’s see what there is to find up here, eh?”
Behind her, Flann had finally noticed that Gwen and Tangwen had climbed into the back of his cart, and he started towards them. “Miss! What are you doing?”
Gwen turned to look at him, all innocence. “Retrieving my daughter. I’m sorry if I inconvenienced anyone.”
She tightened her grip on Tangwen at the same moment Tangwen bent to the side of the cart and plucked a square of cloth off a slat that had splintered. Gwen could hardly believe her luck, or that Tangwen had remembered what she’d been sent to do. She didn’t dare look to see what her daughter had clutched in her fist, but merely scooped her up and carried her back to the end of the cart, where her father met her to help her down.
His face was a thundercloud, but he didn’t chastise her in front of Huw and Flann as he could have. Instead, he spoke in a low voice, “What are you doing?”
“Investigating,” Gwen said. “This is the cart we were looking for.”
Meilyr’s expression instantly cleared as he turned to face Flann, his arm across Gwen’s shoulder. “We’ll get out of your way now.” He gestured to Jenny who was hovering in the doorway to the house, a flagon in her hand. “We’ve been invited inside. It was nice to speak with you. Will we see you at dinner?”
“I expect so. We have one more night here before we’re off.” Flann’s Irish brogue was particularly noticeable at the end of his sentence, making Gwen fear that he wasn’t as ca
lm about Gwen’s incursion as he implied. But as long as he let her go, Gwen didn’t care. And as long as he had nothing to hide—if his cart had indeed rolled through the puddle of blood in complete innocence—then he should have nothing to worry about.
“Until we meet again.” Meilyr hustled Gwen and Tangwen towards the doorway where Jenny and Martin waited. Before they reached it, however, he whispered to Gwen, “What’s in Tangwen’s hand?”
“I don’t know.”
Tangwen was looking stricken, dirty tear tracks on her cheeks, though she hadn’t openly cried. Thankfully, Flann appeared to have lost interest in what they were doing and was now speaking to the cartwright’s apprentice.
“It’s all right, love.” Gwen rubbed her daughter’s cheek with the back of one finger. “What did you find?”
Tangwen looked down at her fist, and Gwen gently pried her fingers open. A piece of pink cloth lay wrinkled in her palm. Gwen plucked it up and showed her father.
“It’s a torn piece of fabric,” Meilyr said, with something like astonishment. “Would it be too much to hope that it matches the clothing of the dead girl?”
Gwen rubbed at the fabric with her thumb, comparing it to her remembered feel of the girl’s skirt. “She was wearing a dress that could have once been pink, but it’s hard to be sure that it’s the same, since the girl’s dress was ruined by blood, mud, and water from a day spent in the river.”
“I’ll keep it for you until we can see if the cloth matches.” Meilyr pocketed the scrap. Then he added, “It would be better if we could extricate ourselves from this quickly.”
“We can be thankful Martin and Jenny aren’t Welsh, or we might find ourselves encouraged to stay all day to share their grief at the loss of Roger,” Gwen said.
Meilyr squeezed her arm, and then they allowed Martin to usher them into the heart of his house, consisting of a main room with a loft above, accessed by a narrow stair along the far wall. The house was larger than Tom Weaver’s however, in that it also had an adjacent room, visible through an open doorway.
The Renegade Merchant Page 17