The Renegade Merchant

by Sarah Woodbury

  “You were stabbed in the back and hit on the head,” Gwen said, “but you were very lucky too. The man’s aim wasn’t true. As it is, the knife split the links of your armor but stopped on your shoulder blade. I bandaged both wounds before you woke, but the shoulder wound is in an awkward place. If not for Conall, I don’t think I could have wrestled your mail off you at all.”

  “How much blood did I lose?” Gareth said.

  Gwen closed her eyes for a heartbeat, which he took to be a bad sign without her having to say anything more. “Both wounds bled freely, but that’s good because it cleaned them in a way I could not.”

  As a last measure, while Gareth sat patiently, Gwen took a length of cloth, ripped from the bottom of her petticoat, and wrapped it around his body so that his upper arm was affixed to his side. She tied it, so he couldn’t move his left arm except below the elbow.

  “Is this really necessary?” he said, looking down at his arm.

  “You move that arm, you open the wound, my friend,” Conall said. “I’ve seen it before. Be thankful you can still bend your arm at the elbow and use your left hand if you have to.”

  “You may have to,” Gwen said. “Can you stand?”

  Gareth put his right arm around Gwen’s shoulder and allowed her to help him to his feet. His shoulder screamed at him, and a staccato beat pounded behind his eyes. He breathed evenly and deeply, trying to master the pain, but he knew even as he struggled against it, that it was his master for now.

  With a low groan, Conall proved himself more agile than Gareth, and rose to his feet all on his own. He teetered back and forth for a moment, prompting Gwen to put out her free hand to steady him, but then he straightened.

  “What of these women?” All Gareth could manage was to move one finger, but he used it to gesture to the women in the room, who seemed to be taking little interest in what they were doing.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with them,” Gwen said, “but whatever it is, it prevents them from being able to help us.”

  “At least they’re not a hindrance,” Gareth said.

  “They’ve taken a potion that derives from a variety of hemp,” Conall said. “It isn’t the same plant as is grown here that we use for rope or cloth but a pungent herb that traders bring to Europe from the east. It dulls the senses when smoked or eaten. Devil’s Weed, they call it.”

  Gareth had never heard of it and wished he’d remained ignorant.

  “I want you both by the door,” Gwen said, “ready to leave the moment I’ve dug underneath it.”

  “Do you actually think either of us will be able to crawl?” Gareth said.

  “Do you want to live?” Conall said.

  That shut Gareth up. He allowed Gwen to rest him against the wall by the door. She handed him her knife, for what purpose wasn’t immediately clear, since he wouldn’t be able to defend himself in his current state. But he didn’t protest further as she went to the nearest girl, removed her boot without asking, and began to work with the heel at the dirt underneath the door.

  The girl to whom the shoe belonged watched with uncurious eyes. Meanwhile, it was as if the weather knew that they were trying to escape and was doing its best to help. Raindrops and wind pounded at the wall at his back and shook the whole building with its force. The noise was such that he could hardly hear Gwen’s efforts, and he was sitting right next to her. The water also soaked the ground below the door, making the soil easy to move.

  He watched Gwen work for a few moments and then focused instead on the door opposite, through which their captors would come if they came.

  In short order, Gwen had created a gap six inches deep into the soil under the door. She dropped the boot and started working with both hands at the wooden panel above it. Gareth gave her back the knife, and she began to pry out the nails that held it.

  “Gwen! Gwen!” A hoarse whisper and scuttling sounds came from the other side of the door.

  Gwen exchanged a wide-eyed look with Gareth before bending to look through the hole she’d made. “Cedric?”

  “Yes!” Cedric’s voice came clearly from the other side of the door. “And Tom Weaver, Adeline’s father. We’ve come to rescue you.”

  Those were the most beautiful words Gareth had ever heard—not that he hadn’t had faith in his wife. But if they were going to get out of here alive and hold off their abductors when they inevitably discovered that their captives were escaping, five was better than three, especially when the two newcomers were men and could actually stand.

  The shriek of an iron nail separating from wood came loudly—so loudly that Gareth feared one of their captors would return—but no one did. That far away, the sound blended in with the general cacophony of the rain and the creaking of the water wheel, which seemed to have picked up its pace in the storm.

  A moment later, Cedric was ducking through the doorway, followed by Tom.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” Tom repeated as he crouched by Gareth. “I didn’t know it would be like this. I swear it.”

  “Why are you sorry?” Gareth said. “You’re saving our lives.”

  Tom shook his head again as he helped Gareth to his feet. “I knew it was wrong, but Martin said we could make so much money, and I thought that if Adeline had more money, she would marry Roger and stay.”

  Gareth’s mind was stuck on the name Martin, but he nonetheless allowed the weaver to take nearly all of his weight and practically carry him out of the mill while Gwen held the door open for them.

  Cedric helped Conall out but then turned back for the women, who were making no move to escape. “What do we do about them?”

  “We’ll send John Fletcher back for them.” Gwen returned the boot to the girl who owned it, but the girl made no move to put it back on.

  Meanwhile, Tom Weaver was still saying over and over again, “I knew it wasn’t right.”

  “What wasn’t right again?” Gareth said, exasperated with the man’s inability to articulate what he meant, and perhaps his own inability to understand through the fog in his head.

  Tom brushed his sodden hair back from his face. “Taking these women. I went to Martin to say I wanted out, that I didn’t trust Flann or Will. He tried to reassure me, but then Roger came, and he overheard us talking. They fought.”

  “Are you saying that Martin killed Roger because Roger had found out he was involved in the slave trade?” Gareth was shaking with pain and cold, which made him uncertain that he’d heard correctly. “And you didn’t stop him?”

  “I didn’t actually see the murder.” The big man’s shoulders hunched. “At the shop, all they did was hit each other. I tried to separate them, but Roger clubbed me with a fist on my forehead, and I went down. Gwen saw the cut when she met me, but I passed it off as a result of being clumsy. By the time I could stand again, Roger was gone, and Martin was helping me to my feet. I never saw Roger alive again.”

  While Tom had been talking, they’d been hugging the side of the mill as they followed the path around it, forced to go single file by the flow of the mill race. Gareth was so focused on what Tom was saying—and on staying upright—that he didn’t notice the others pulling up short until he nearly ran into Conall’s back.

  Martin Carter was just dismounting in front of the main door to the mill. He seemed as surprised to see them as Gareth and the others were to see him. He gaped at them for a moment, and then threw back his head and laughed, heedless of the rain and the wind that buffeted them all. “I see I’m just in time.”

  From behind Gareth, Tom let out a squeaking grunt that was unmistakably fear. “Martin.”

  Now that the true villain was revealed, Gareth found himself quite calm. He’d been beaten and stabbed at the behest of this man, but Gareth still found himself able to study this version of Martin Carter with an objective eye. Martin’s brother, Roger, had been difficult—respected but unloved—and all the while it was Martin who had been the true villain.

  Gareth had unveiled the wrongdoi
ngs of two-faced men before, but rarely had he encountered a man who could maintain such a complete façade, behind which his true self remained hidden. Gareth had a sudden pang of sadness for Jenny, Martin’s wife, and he wondered how much she knew. She lived with the man, but that wasn’t to say she knew him. It seemed she might have lied for him, however, since according to Tom’s testimony, it was Martin who’d killed Roger and then stashed the body in Conall’s room, which he knew would be empty since he’d already imprisoned Conall.

  Martin hadn’t yet pulled the blade from the sheath at his waist, but weapons suddenly appeared in the hands of the men with him, and they stood as if they were prepared to use them.

  “I’m so sorry, Gareth,” Cedric said from beside Conall. “We must not have been as secretive as we hoped.”

  Gareth was in no shape to fight, without armor or sword, though Gwen had given him back her knife after she’d used it to pry out the nails. Cedric pulled out his sword, which he had a right to wear as a watchman, but Gareth didn’t know how much he could count on the youth. He was nineteen, inexperienced, and couldn’t fight off a dozen men all by himself.

  For his part, Tom dithered. Gareth supposed he was very fortunate that the big man had found Cedric and chosen to free them when he did. He’d acted when it mattered most. Just because a man had the body of a fighter didn’t mean he had the character of one.

  When they’d arrived, only one torch had lit the yard in front of the mill, but it had been joined by three more—along with three carts, two enclosed by fabric. They were parked in various stages of readiness, presumably for their imminent departure. A cart path headed into the woods to the east, the same one Gareth had planned to take to the brothel before he’d been set upon from behind by Martin’s men.

  Martin jerked his head towards the front door of the mill. “Let those fools inside know that several of their charges have escaped.” One of his men obeyed, loping to the door and going through it. Curses came from inside the mill, distinguishable even over the sound of the rain, which continued to pour down.

  “Martin has too many men,” Cedric said in an undertone. “We are outnumbered.”

  “I am sorry to say, I am nearly useless,” Gareth said by way of a response, “but I will fight beside you.”

  “Martin Carter! Put up your blade!”

  Martin spun around as John Fletcher and a host of men surged into the clearing. Rather than simply running their opponents through, however, they reined in, which wouldn’t have been Gareth’s choice. John had surprised Martin, and Gareth was more glad to see him than he could say, but Martin and his men were prepared for a fight, and John would have been better off attacking first and asking questions later. Of course, as a man of the law, he might not have felt that he would be justified in doing so.

  As it was, Martin’s men had no such qualms and reacted immediately—not by running, which would have been so much easier, but by launching themselves at their foes. Running away wouldn’t have solved anything for them. They had to leave no trace of John and his men—or Gwen and Gareth—in order to survive themselves.

  Tom Weaver had no intention of letting Gareth fight, and he dragged him towards the trees, despite Gareth’s objections. While Conall and Gwen came with them, Cedric, bold young man that he was, charged straight for Martin Carter.

  Martin had swung around to face John, naturally viewing him as the greater threat, but at Cedric’s roar of rage, he turned back to meet Cedric’s blade. Their weapons clashed, and Gareth strained through the dark and the rain—and Tom’s protests—to see what was happening.

  Then Evan appeared beside him. “Come with me.”

  Gareth gasped to see his friend. “What—?”

  “The prince is here, and he told me to get you away before I return to help finish them off. If we don’t hurry, Fletcher’s men will have won before I can do that.”

  “I’m not leaving—”

  “That is a direct order from Prince Hywel.” Evan urged Gareth to mount Evan’s own horse, which he’d brought, and boosted Gwen up behind him.

  “What about—?”

  “Go!” Evan slapped the horse’s rump, and the creature leapt away through the trees. Conall and Tom ran behind them, stumbling a bit in the dark, though Evan’s horse found his way with no trouble through the brush.

  “I’ve never run away from a fight in my life,” Gareth said.

  “Hywel came all this way.” Gwen had her arms around Gareth’s waist, holding on. “He wasn’t able to save his brother. Let him have the satisfaction of saving you.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Hywel

  Hywel hadn’t had time to count his opponents, but at first glance the two sides appeared evenly matched—even with sending Evan to help Gareth and Gwen. Hywel had let John Fletcher lead the assault, but now he cursed himself for doing so because John had opted to give the men a chance to surrender instead of simply killing them all. Hywel didn’t know what they’d done, exactly, but they’d harmed Gareth and Gwen, and that was good enough reason for Hywel to attack first and ask questions later.

  Before Rhun had died, he’d told himself that he could go through life with a kind of amused detachment. It seemed to him that with his mother’s death at the very hour of his birth, the worst thing that could happen to him had happened before he’d lived a single day. He’d been wrong, however. Rhun’s death had proven that.

  As he’d grown to accept the mantle of grief and anger as a permanent part of himself, that detached cynicism had been renewed—possibly even more so than before. He had thought, on the whole, that he didn’t care whether or not he lived or died, as long as Cadwaladr died before he did.

  But tonight, the sight of Gareth and Gwen stumbling around the side of the mill, Gareth with a bloody bandage around his head, had sent a fire surging through him. By God, he did care. He wasn’t detached, and he was overcome by a rage like he’d never experienced in battle before.

  Since Hywel and Cadifor had hung back, they had more room to maneuver than John did. When the lead conspirator, whom John had called Martin, raised his blade against the young watchman who’d accompanied Gareth and Gwen from around the corner of the old mill, Hywel and Cadifor spurred their horses forward. They didn’t have quite the same advantage as if they’d descended a hill or if they’d had more space to pick up speed, but Glew was swift and well-trained, worthy of his name, which meant valiant. In battle, he obeyed Hywel’s every wish almost before Hywel commanded it.

  He cut through the first opponent like he was chopping wheat, slicing through his midsection with one swing of his arm and hardly noticing where he fell because he had already turned his attention to the next man to stand against him. That Englishman also fell in one blow, the side of his face sliced clean off by the downsweep of Hywel sword.

  Blood spattered Hywel, but again, he hardly noticed. A red haze colored his vision, and his whole attention was directed at the leader, who was fighting the young man who’d come in with Gareth and who was completely outmatched. John Fletcher was struggling to reach him too, but he had several men and a cart between him and Cedric.

  Then one of Martin’s minions put his axe through John’s horse’s forelock, and the horse crashed to the ground. Before he was crushed beneath the animal, John cleared his feet from the stirrups and rolled free. Unfortunately, that meant Cedric was even more on in own than he had been before.

  But not for long. With a roar, Hywel spurred Glew at Martin while Cadifor got between John Fletcher and the man who’d killed his horse. It was all Martin could do to parry the first blow Hywel directed at him, which left him completely unprepared for the second.

  Hywel had sharpened the blade of his sword such that just touching it could make a finger bleed. He’d done it with the vision of Cadwaladr’s neck bared before the sword, and even as he undercut Martin’s arm, slicing through it and then through the man’s neck in one complete blow, it was Cadwaladr’s face that he saw on Martin’s head, which hit
the ground with a thud and rolled away from the body.

  With a gleeful shout, Hywel checked his horse in front of the mill and turned, looking for more men to fight. At some point while Hywel wasn’t looking, Evan had returned to the clearing. He stood ten yards away, breathing hard, his sword bloody and a dead man at his feet. With such an assist from Gwynedd, the remainder of Martin’s men had been dispatched by John’s soldiers or were even now fleeing into the woods.

  Hywel made to spur his horse after one of these escapees, but Cadifor caught his bridle before Glew could charge. Rain pattered on Cadifor’s upturned face, and he shouted something at Hywel, but Hywel couldn’t hear him through the thundering in his ears. He still held his sword high, and he was anxious to continue the battle, but then Evan was there too. He took Glew’s nose in his hands and talked to him.

  “My lord, it is over.” Cadifor’s words finally penetrated through the haze in Hywel’s mind.

  He blinked and looked around as if seeing the scene for the first time. He realized he had no memory of how many men he’d killed or how he’d done it. Hesitatingly, he lowered his bloody sword. He had never lost himself like this, not in all his years of fighting. He still felt the anger at Rhun’s loss, but he was almost more angry at himself for losing control just when he needed it most.

  “Get down, son,” Cadifor said, his voice no longer urgent.

  Hywel obeyed, landing unsteadily on his feet beside his foster father. He rested his cheek against Glew’s neck, so exhausted he didn’t even know if he could walk. “What about the others?”

  “We can leave them to John.” Cadifor tipped his head to indicate the mill and spoke to Evan. “Would you find out if there are more prisoners in there?”

  “Consider it done.” Evan bent to clean the blood from his sword on the cloak of one the downed men and then walked towards the door to the mill, which was open.