Gareth put a hand at the small of Gwen’s back and canted his head in the direction of the archway that would take them back into the courtyard of the monastery. As they ran through it, the cool rain felt good to Gareth after the warmth of the kitchen, but it was coming down so hard that by the time they reached the shelter of the gatehouse, they were wet all over.
Gwen sighed. “I suppose you should ride to St. Giles, but is it uncharitable to say that I don’t want you anywhere near a leper?”
“I confess I’m not looking forward to going there either, but I don’t know if I can avoid it.”
“Still,” Gwen said, “we just need to see the dress. You wouldn’t have to take it off the back of a needy indigent.”
Gareth smirked. “You know, I really think this task might be one to leave to John Fletcher.”
“It is important to include him in every aspect of the investigation. It would be wrong to keep something as important as this to yourself.” She laughed.
Hiding a smile, Gareth shook his head. “I would have to think about how guilty I’d feel if I suggested it.”
Gwen made a rueful face. “If you said it was important, he would go, you know he would.”
Gareth pocketed the cloth. “Which is why I won’t ask it of him. I will either go myself, or we’ll figure out some other way to get the information we need.” Then, the bell in the tower began to toll, calling the mourners to the funeral.
The townspeople clearly had been waiting for it to ring, because several dozen immediately entered the courtyard through the gatehouse. They were joined by a host of monks, all of whom were hunched against the weather, with their hoods up and their hands tucked into their wide sleeves.
With the wind and rain coming from the south, and his back to the east-facing curtain wall, Gareth was warm enough. He rested his shoulder next to Gwen’s, gazing out at the falling rain as they waited for everyone to line up. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”
Gwen clenched her hands tightly in front of her.
He reached out and grasped both her hands in one of his. “Cariad, whatever it is, just tell me.”
Gwen gave a little cry and tipped back her head. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Gareth.”
“Do what?”
“This.” She waved a hand. “Investigate murder.”
“My love, you’ve never been obligated—”
“Yes, I have! How much worse is it to let you go into danger on your own when I know that at times my presence can help? And—” she shook her head, and the tears she’d refused to let fall earlier trickled down her cheeks, “—I used—we used—Tangwen twice in the last two days to distract a possibly dangerous man so we could further our investigation. Our own daughter.”
Heedless of propriety, Gareth wrapped both arms around Gwen and pulled her to him. She sobbed into his chest, and he just held her, finding his own eyes filling with tears at her sorrow.
Finally, she quieted, and he said, “I too have been questioning, Gwen. I can talk to Prince Hywel. We can stop doing this. We can say no to John Fletcher.”
She said something into his cloak he didn’t catch, and then she pulled back to look into his face. “It isn’t that I want to stop. I simply want to feel, and I want to do what is right. I just don’t know what that is or how to do both.”
Gareth hugged her close again. “We can figure this out—together, as we always do.” Then he tipped up his chin to point across the courtyard. “The funeral procession.”
The rain didn’t care about death or Gwen’s regrets, and the monks didn’t stop for it either. The line of mourners that had formed up near the church parted so the dozen monks carrying the two bodies in wooden caskets could get into position behind the abbot and the prior, who would lead the procession. It seemed like half the town had come to the monastery for the funeral and, if what he could see on the other side of the gatehouse was any indication, the other half was waiting in the road or at the gravesite on the Abbey Foregate side of the church.
Gareth wouldn’t know until the two were buried, but if the custom here was the same as in Wales, the body would be carried to the funeral in wooden boxes, and then removed and placed into the ground for burial. Not to reuse the casket would be a disturbing waste of good wood, and it was only the wealthy who might insist on being buried in a box—though usually they were laid to rest in stone mausoleums, tombs, or in the church itself, and thus would be carried to the funeral ground in the same wooden box as these poor souls.
Meilyr appeared from the guest hall. Beside him, Gwalchmai was holding Tangwen’s hand. Meilyr nodded at Gareth from across the courtyard, whispered a few words to Gwalchmai, who nodded too but stayed where he was, and then Meilyr strode out into the rain to join the procession. Gareth and Gwen met him at the end of the train of monks.
“I thought the younger folk could stay behind,” Meilyr said, by way of greeting.
“I’m glad you thought of it,” Gwen said. “I don’t need Tangwen soaked to the skin, and she will attend enough funerals in her life without going to one of a man and woman she never met.”
Sadly, that was no understatement. Their young daughter had already attended a dozen funerals. Hardly a week passed in Gwynedd without the loss of someone Gareth knew, though not all deaths brought heartache. Just a few days before they left for Shrewsbury, one of the old matrons of Aber village had finally passed at the ancient age of eighty-six. Most of Gwynedd turned out that day, and her daughter—herself very elderly at nearly seventy—lamented the fact that her mother would have loved it if everyone had come to see her before she died and to have celebrated her life while she was still living it.
That funeral was particularly notable, but King Owain or Prince Hywel almost always sent a representative from Aber to any funeral if at all possible. Death was a part of life and the acknowledgement of it shouldn’t be avoided, simply for the emotion it brought forth.
“You have your finery on.” Gwen looked her father up and down. Her tears had passed, and she was back to being her clear-eyed self. Gareth wasn’t fooled—and it wasn’t as if she was trying to fool him. He meant what he’d said about figuring this out together. “Do you have a role in the service?”
“I told the abbot that I knew several funeral prayers in English and offered to sing one for the benefit of the common folk,” Meilyr said. “He would have had Gwalchmai, of course, but I persuaded him that I would do a serviceable job.”
His father-in-law’s tone was mocking without rising to anger, though at one time he would have felt justified in expressing it. Meilyr had mellowed since Gareth’s marriage to Gwen but, at least in regard to his music, he knew his worth. An unfortunate consequence of King Owain’s grief was that he’d banned all music at Aber, even mournful tunes. That lack had left Meilyr cooling his heels in the hall with nothing to do. He’d composed a lengthy elegy to Rhun, which he’d sung in private to Hywel, Gareth, and Gwen, but he hadn’t been able to play it in the hall for the king. It was out of that frustration that he’d asked permission to leave.
When they’d first arrived, Meilyr had been introduced to the monks as Gwynedd’s official court bard, but the abbot clearly hadn’t realized what that meant. He soon would. The abbot had been impressed with Gwalchmai, but everything the young man knew he’d learned from his father.
The three of them fell into place at the end of the procession. Although they could have reached the cemetery by way of the abbey’s gardens, it was more ceremonial to leave by the front gate, walk a few yards along the road through the Abbey Foregate, and then turn into the cemetery in front of the church.
“Let’s take a moment to think about what we know,” Gwen said, speaking evenly and as if they weren’t walking at the rear of a funeral procession in the pouring rain.
Gareth looked down at her. “Really?”
“The sooner we discover what happened here, the sooner we can go home.”
“All right,” Gareth
said, willing to play along because Gwen wasn’t wrong. “Well … yesterday morning, a girl died in that alley, spending her life’s blood in a puddle, having been stabbed with a jagged stick from a crate. We didn’t find her body because someone carried her away and threw her in the river. Given the square of cloth, likely she was moved in the back of Flann’s cart, though with the dress gone and the cart wheel mended, we might never be able to confront him with it.”
“We know what he might have done,” Gwen said, “and that tells us where to keep looking for answers.”
“Next, with Conall and Flann, we have an Irish connection,” Meilyr said, joining in. “One wonders if the girl could have been Irish too.”
“We have no evidence to indicate it, so we shouldn’t speculate more than we already have, Father,” Gwen said, but her smile was gentle as she spoke, so he would know her words weren’t meant as chastisement.
Gareth cleared his throat. “Next, we have the murder of Roger Carter in Conall’s room and Conall’s subsequent disappearance, albeit without his possessions, including his horse.”
“Didn’t John mean to spend the afternoon inquiring of Conall’s business associates?” Gwen said. “Would it be too much of a stretch to wonder if Flann was one of them, or if maybe he was the connection, which is why nobody has come forward to say that he knew him?”
“Flann claimed not to recognize Conall’s picture, but neither of us liked his manner,” Gareth said.
“So we have Roger dead in Conall’s room. A brothel coin found among Conall’s possessions. Flann and Will going to the same brothel. Conall and Flann as Irishmen. Flann and Will as owners of the cart, which was mended in Roger’s shop, the cart having been used to transport the dead girl.” Gwen almost laughed as she came to the end of her litany. “Perhaps it’s time that John had a talk with Flann and Will.”
Gareth had a finger to his lips, tapping thoughtfully. “Definitely, though I’m sorry to say that without a witness, we have only coincidence to connect him to either murder. Does Flann strike you as the type of man who is going to break under pressure?”
“No, unfortunately. He might bend, but you couldn’t believe a word he said.” Gwen pursed her lips. “His partner, though? Maybe Will would tell us something if we got him alone.”
“Flann said he was returning to the monastery tonight. Maybe we ought to invite John to dinner, so they all could meet,” Meilyr said.
“That is a good idea,” Gareth said, and then he lifted his chin to point to the west. As they passed through the front gate back onto the road, John Fletcher himself hurried towards them from the east bridge across the Severn. “And there is the man in question.”
Meilyr continued on, since he was part of the service, but Gwen and Gareth slowed to wait for John to reach them. His hood covered his face to the point Gareth could barely make out his features in the depths. He’d recognized him from his walk alone.
“Any luck?” Gareth said.
John gave a quick shake of his head. “Conall was a ghost, it seems. And if he has any sense in him, he’s long gone by now.”
He gazed past them to the townspeople who were crowding into the graveyard. When Gareth and Gwen had stepped to one side after noticing John, everyone who’d gathered on the road for the procession had passed them. Now, Gareth wasn’t sure there’d be space to breathe inside the graveyard wall, much less for the three of them to stand.
Gareth gestured towards the crowd. “As you can see, the whole town is here. I was hoping for a smaller turnout so that the murderer, were he to put in an appearance, might stand out somehow.”
“Faint hope of that in this rain,” Gwen said. “Everyone’s hoods are up and their coats and cloaks are tucked tightly around them. We’ll be lucky if we recognize anyone at all.”
That wasn’t entirely true. From where they stood on a slight rise in the road, Gareth could see the coffin and the lead mourners. Martin walked bareheaded beside Jenny, who was well-wrapped in her cloak—appropriate since she was with child, and it would be more than unfortunate if she fell ill as a result of attending her brother-in-law’s funeral. Martin had his arm around her and was being nothing but solicitous, but Gareth couldn’t help remembering how little grief had showed in his voice when he’d been told of his brother’s death—and how angry at John he’d been last night.
Clearly, that side was one Martin kept hidden, and Gareth wondered what else might be lurking beneath the surface and the friendly face he showed the world.
The three of them started forward again, and John sighed glumly as he slouched along through the puddles. Shrewsbury had two murders and a missing man and, even with Gwen’s discoveries, which Gareth related to John as they walked, they were no closer to concluding their investigation than they’d been yesterday morning when all they had to go on was a puddle of blood in an alley.
They turned through the cemetery gate and came to a halt next to Meilyr, who was standing on the outskirts of the crowd at the northern side of the cemetery, near the wall that separated the graveyard from the road. The graves had been dug fifty feet away at the far eastern side of the yard, and the monks had begun the ritual of placing the bodies in the ground, wrapped only in their linen shrouds.
“That’s my cue.” Meilyr left them for the gravesite.
“Perhaps we should stand over there.” Gareth led Gwen and John to a willow tree, grown so large that it overhung the cemetery on one side and the road on the other. He hoped that they’d be less noticeable over here, and the vantage point would give them a good view of the overall crowd. From this location, Gareth could see the faces of two-thirds of the people who’d come to send Roger Carter on his way. The burgeoning foliage above their heads also lessened the number of raindrops that were able to reach the ground and soak them.
Abbot Radulfus nodded at Meilyr’s approach. In response, the bard bowed in the abbot’s direction, turned towards the crowd, and began to sing.
Gareth wasn’t a musician, but even he could tell that Meilyr was in fine form today, spurred on, perhaps, by the abbot’s initial skepticism. Sometimes songs sung in a foreign language left Gareth struggling to understand the words, but Meilyr enunciated so clearly that he had no trouble this time:
I pray it may be
When my soul departs
This mortal form
That to death I gladly go
As to a feast
It was a far cry from the more flowery Welsh death poetry, or anything written by Prince Hywel—or Meilyr himself, for that matter, but the delivery was exquisite. The silence among the listeners was absolute, except for the rat-a-tat of the rain on the leaves above their heads and on the slate roof of the church.
Meilyr finished his song, and the abbot gave his performance the respect it deserved, pausing through ten heartbeats for the mourners to settle and shift their attitude from awe to reverence, though it could hardly be said in this instance that there was much difference to find between the two. Then Radulfus began the Latin service.
For his part, Meilyr remained standing with bowed head beside the open grave. That was wise of him. Gareth had been around Gwen’s family enough to realize that after a performance like that, Meilyr would be exultant, eyes glittering with an extremely inappropriate pride—given the setting—at a job well done.
Gwen shifted from foot to foot, indicating that she’d lost interest in the service now that her father had finished his work. And then, proving he’d read her right, she leaned into Gareth and spoke under the cover of the rain and the monks’ chanting, “I haven’t told you all that we learned from Adeline’s father.”
Gareth looked down at his wife. “You learned something about these deaths?”
“No—this is about Cadwaladr.”
Unbelievably, in the last few moments, Gareth had entirely forgotten about the treacherous prince. And that realization recalled to mind the wise words of Taran, King Owain’s steward, who had comforted Prince Hywel when he’d gone to him with a gri
ef for Rhun too great to bear.
The steward had said, “At first, you will think of Rhun with every breath. Then you will think of him every hour, and then twenty times a day. He will be the first thing you think of when you wake and the last when you go to sleep.
“And then, one day, you will fall asleep too quickly to have thought of him.
“That day will be a good one, and not because you’ve somehow betrayed your brother’s memory by forgetting him. On that day, you will be honoring his memory by learning to live without him.”
The thought of Cadwaladr’s betrayal coupled with Gareth’s desire for revenge had existed alongside Gareth’s grief for Rhun—as it had also in Prince Hywel. It stunned Gareth to realize that finally, after four months, in the middle of a quest, the entire purpose of which had been to uncover the whereabouts of Cadwaladr, Gareth had forgotten him, even for a moment.
And, as Taran had promised, it was suddenly a good day. He looked up into the tree branches above his head, allowing his hood to fall back and the raindrops to plop into his face. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders: he could mourn Rhun; he could hate Cadwaladr. But he didn’t have to be consumed by the thought of either anymore.
Gwen had been watching him curiously, since he hadn’t responded yet to her statement. Looking around to make sure that they couldn’t be overheard, Gareth tugged her farther down the cemetery wall, towards the rear of the crowd of mourners. John stood a few feet away with his back to them, his shoulders hunched against the rain.
“Tell me quickly,” Gareth said.
So Gwen related Tom’s story about witnessing Cadwaladr’s departure east from Shrewsbury, accompanied only by a man-at-arms and one servant. Instinctively, Gareth stared east too, as if willing to Rhun’s killer to ride out of the rain.
But he wasn’t there, and Gareth knew in his heart that the trail, if it had once led to Shrewsbury, now only led from it.
The Renegade Merchant Page 19