“Two weeks’ time, in London,” Flann said. “We’d have a payment for him then.”
Instantly, a vision formed in Gareth’s mind of riding to London and setting a trap for Cadwaladr there, but Flann’s next words forestalled that idea before it could fully form.
“If you’re thinking of using me as bait, it’s no good. Cadwaladr had friends among my men, and more in Shrewsbury. He’ll know, long before the two weeks are up, that things did not go well here, and he’ll scarper.”
John had been standing with his hands folded on the top of his head, as if he was trying to force his mind to accept the enormity of the plot that had been implemented right under his nose. Now he said, “We’re done here.”
Taking that as a command to leave, Conall and Gareth turned towards the door.
Flann put out a hand. “Wait! What about me?”
Gareth turned back. “John will speak to the sheriff, as he promised.”
“When will that be?” Flann said.
John shrugged. “In about a month.”
Gareth was unable to keep the grin of satisfaction off his face as he closed the door on Flann’s horrified expression.
Chapter Thirty
Gwen
“We’ve come full circle, Gwen,” Hywel said. “And I am no closer to calling Cadwaladr to account than I was the day Rhun died.”
They had just left Sunday mass, at which Gwalchmai had sung beautifully as promised. The church had been packed to the rafters with residents of the Abbey Foregate and the town. To a man, they were horrified at the events of the past few days. The brothels were one thing—to the minds of many, they were a necessary evil, and while, to Gwen, a woman who’d been allowed to live freer than most, the girls involved were effectively enslaved, that didn’t seem to be an opinion shared by anyone else.
Regardless, actual slavery was another matter entirely, and nobody was happy with the fact that it had been going on right under their noses.
“I am so sorry, my lord,” Gwen said.
“We’ll find him, my lord,” Gareth said. “He can’t run forever.”
“No, I suppose he can’t, not if he ever hopes to see his children again. And when he returns, I will make him answer for what he’s done.”
They stood in the courtyard of the monastery, off to one side so as not to impede the passage of the churchgoers. The rain had stopped, finally, in the early hours of the morning. Gwen hadn’t managed much sleep, but she’d had more than Gareth.
“Do we know yet the name of the girl who died?” Gwen said to Gareth.
“No,” Gareth said shortly. “I can’t see a way of finding out either. I have her picture, but—”
Hywel broke in. “Uncle Madog might know.”
Gwen was still having trouble wrapping her head around the conspiracy which had Hywel’s uncle turning a blind eye to English raiding parties stealing girls from their homes, as long as he got his portion of their subsequent sale. But then, she was having trouble with the fact that he’d tried to murder Hywel too.
“What of Jenny, Martin’s wife?” Gwen said.
“She appears to have known nothing of her husband’s activities,” Gareth said.
“I believe her,” Gwen said. “Either she didn’t know, or she didn’t want to know, which to some degree amounts to the same thing.”
“John has spoken with her at length,” Gareth said, “but none of the survivors, including Tom, have named her as a participant in either the brothel or in the slave ring.”
“I’m glad, for her and John’s sake,” Gwen said. “She’s lost everything.”
“She owns a cartwright’s workshop,” Gareth said. “That’s something.”
Hywel had been gazing off into the distance, but now he shook himself. “Are you ready to go home? With Martin dead and Conall alive, you know everything now, don’t you?”
“What about Will de Bernard?” Gwen said.
“Nobody has seen him,” Gareth said. “John can send word to London that he’s wanted in connection with these deaths, but—”
“He might not have gone to London,” Gwen said, “and why would he when he can lose himself in territories controlled by Robert of Gloucester?”
“John might not be able to send word of what has transpired here to Robert, but I can.” A thoughtful expression came over Hywel’s face. “My father remains on good terms with Earl Robert.”
All of a sudden, Gwen’s heart felt lighter. If England had been ruled by Welsh law, Robert would have been king—and a more able king could not have been found in all of Christendom. Once he learned of it, Robert would be offended by what had happened here and would not want to harbor a slaver, even if he’d sinned in Stephen’s lands. Robert’s hold on the reins of his fiefdom was loosening due to illness and age, but Gwen knew as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow that the man would do what he could.
“Gwen, I need to talk to you.” Jenny Carter, John’s sister and Martin Carter’s widow, hurried towards them, having come from the service at the church. She was well wrapped in a shawl that she’d pulled up over her head and held tightly under her chin, and she was chewing on her lower lip as if she was nervous. It wasn’t a posture that Gwen would have said came naturally to her. Jenny was as vibrant and alive as any girl Gwen had ever met—and she elbowed Gareth in the ribs so he would look at her too.
Gareth’s expression softened at the girl’s approach. Jenny was not only newly widowed, but had been forced to accept that her husband had been a villain. The next few days and weeks were not going to be easy.
“I came as soon as I could get away.” Jenny embraced Gwen.
“I am so sorry for everything that has happened,” Gwen said.
“None of it is your fault,” she said. “I was the one who was deceived—by Martin, by Adeline. It turns out I knew nobody as well as I thought I did.”
“You know your brother,” Gwen said.
That got a nod, but Jenny brushed any other comfort away. “You need to know that whatever bad things he did and harm he caused, Martin didn’t kill his own brother.”
Gareth expression showed skepticism, though his voice remained gentle. “You sound very certain. How can you be?”
Jenny looked him full in the face. “I know you think that I was mistaken about Martin spending the night in bed—or maybe you think that I lied—”
Gareth opened his mouth to protest, even if Gwen knew that had been exactly what he’d thought, but Jenny didn’t let him speak.
“—but I didn’t lie. Martin did spend the night at home. I admit now that I didn’t know Martin as a wife should, but I do know that he would never have set foot in Rob Horn’s inn, not for money, not for hatred. Never.”
“Why would that be?” Gwen said.
“He found the smell of tanning leather unbearable,” Jenny said. “I’ve seen him lose his dinner on the ground at the slightest whiff of that smell, which is why his and Roger’s business was located to the northwest of the castle, as far from the tanning works as possible. At Martin’s urging, the Council passed restrictions as to where leatherworking could take place and ruled that no more tanning businesses could be established within the town of Shrewsbury. It was Martin’s hope that the council could eventually force the entire industry to move outside the town, beyond the river. Believe me, he would not have murdered Roger in that inn for any amount of gold.”
“Fear can be a powerful motivator,” Gareth said. “The fact that you knew of his antipathy to the smell could make his crime one he thought he could get away with, because nobody would believe the murderer could be him.”
Jenny was shaking her head even as Gareth was speaking. “Not Martin. No. But I know who did.”
Gwen put a hand on her shoulder. “Whoever it is, just tell us.”
Jenny took in a breath. “Huw, Roger’s and Martin’s apprentice. What’s more,” she added in the face of their disbelief, “he’s been missing since this morning, since word came to us about Martin’s death.”
> “Why would Huw murder Roger?” Gareth said.
“Roger treated him badly. You’ve heard that, I’m sure. But what you don’t know is that I overheard Huw telling Martin that he blamed Roger for Adeline’s death. What you don’t know is that Huw was in love with her.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Gareth
The manhunt for Huw was, according to John, one of the largest in the history of Shrewsbury. Once Jenny had convinced John that she was telling the truth—or that it was at least worth finding out if she was right—John sent out every one of his men to find Huw. Even Luke took to the effort with a will. In the fighting at the brothel, he’d lost his friend, Alfred, one of the few casualties for the victors, and was on fire for revenge against someone who was still alive.
Privately, Gareth was concerned that the apprentice would never make it to the castle to be questioned—and not because the killing of Roger Carter needed to be avenged. With the primary organizers of the slave ring missing or dead, the watchmen and the townspeople who helped in the search felt, as Luke did, the need to punish someone even if it was only a hapless apprentice. John had set a three-man watch on Flann for the same reason—just to make sure he lived to speak to the sheriff.
Fortunately, it was Oswin and Cedric together who found him. Huw had tried to flee the town through one of the gates that led to the river—this one belonging to a stable, where Huw had apparently hidden for the bulk of the day.
The two young watchmen had been among the men John had sent to patrol the river side of the palisade, and they happened to be walking past as Huw opened the gate, just as darkness was falling. The apprentice was strong, but it was two against one, and Cedric was able to call in a few of his fellow watchmen who were within hailing distance. He also managed to convince them not to kill the apprentice outright, and they brought him to the castle.
After looking him up and down, John decided that, as with Flann, it should be Gareth, as a fellow Welshman, who would be the first to question him. So, with John looking on through the barred window of the door to Huw’s cell, Gareth brought in a straight back chair, turned it around so he could rest his arms across the rail, and sat.
He held the pose for a count of thirty, hoping the silence would unnerve Huw. Most people who weren’t criminals by nature struggled not to fill a silence, especially when they were guilty of what they’d been accused of doing. It seemed to Gareth that Martin had been a natural villain, but Huw wasn’t cast from the same mold.
Huw started fidgeting right away. He was sitting on a stool opposite Gareth, with his hands tied behind his back and each ankle tied to one of the stool’s legs.
Finally, Gareth decided he could afford to break the silence. “You killed Roger Carter. There’s no point in denying it. One of the maids at Rob Horn’s inn was on her way to the latrine when she saw you leaving the yard. She thought you’d been with a girl, which is why she hadn’t mentioned it before.”
Huw brought his head up at Gareth’s initial statement, but unlike some accused murderers Gareth had questioned, he didn’t color or pale. He simply looked at Gareth with a neutral expression on his face. “I was so careful to leave nothing of me behind. It seems it would have been better to leave something of Martin’s in the room, but I didn’t think of it at the time.”
Gareth narrowed his eyes. The supposed apprentice had spoken to him in the Welsh of an educated man, not that of an illiterate peasant. “Who are you, really?”
“I am who everyone thinks I am,” Huw said, “a cartwright’s apprentice.”
“But what more?” Gareth pressed.
“I was born in Morgannwg, to a mother who loved me, and to a father, a steward for a minor lord, who saw to my education,” Huw said. “It wasn’t until my mother’s dying breath that she told me about my sister, born a year before I, whom she’d given away to a man named Tom Weaver.”
Gareth was generally good at controlling his reactions, but this was not the interview he’d expected to be conducting. “You’re telling me that Adeline was your sister?” It seemed Jenny had got it wrong too, though she’d been far closer to the mark than anyone else.
“By the time I found her, after nearly nine months of searching, she was engaged to Roger Carter and had no idea that Tom Weaver was not her real father—none at all. I didn’t want to spring my identity on her without warning, so I decided that if I was happy with her circumstances, I would let her be and return to Wales. I had some experience working in wood, so I apprenticed myself to Roger to get close to them both.”
“But you weren’t happy,” Gareth said, not as a question.
“Roger Carter was a hard man. He was very kind to Jenny, but less so to others, and certainly not me. He didn’t love Adeline, and Adeline had nothing but disdain for him, which she proved by getting herself involved with that Welsh nobleman and running away.”
“If what you say is true, and you were Adeline’s brother, why did you stay once she died?”
Huw bobbed his head, as if agreeing that, to an outsider, his behavior appeared strange. “I wanted revenge—on Roger Carter, on Tom Weaver, and on that Welsh prince, though I never saw him again after Adeline died, more’s the pity. He was really the one for whom I was waiting.” Huw made a motion with his head. “Then I found out about what Martin Carter was up to, and that he was up to it with that same prince, and I stayed in hopes of killing two birds with one stone.”
“Roger Carter beat you,” Gareth said.
Huw smirked. “No worse than my own father did. I can take a few beatings if it means lulling a man into a false sense of security. I could have killed Roger at any time. I was merely waiting for the right moment.”
Gareth had a thought that he might have liked Huw if they’d met under different circumstances—and if Huw’s character hadn’t been twisted so far to one side. He spoke of murder as if it were nothing. Gareth, who’d killed far more men than Huw, had never done so with the cool demeanor that Huw was displaying now.
“Walk me through what happened that day,” Gareth said. “We know from Tom Weaver that he, Roger, and Martin had a fight. Did you witness it?”
“Oh yes,” Huw said. “Nobody ever treats an apprentice like he’s a person, with ears. Tom came to Martin to say that he wanted out, that owning part of the brothel was one thing, but enslaving—and killing girls—was something else entirely. Martin told him to shut up.
“Unfortunately, Roger was home, and he overheard. It seems he’d been suspicious of his brother for a while—following him around and such—and now that he knew the truth, he demanded to know who else was involved. Names were mentioned, including Conall, that red-headed Irishman you were looking for. They got into a shouting match that ended in fisticuffs and with Tom getting walloped by Roger.
“I stayed in my bunk in the workshop until late that evening, just watching to see what else would come of it. Martin returned from wherever he’d gone off to, but the two brothers didn’t speak again in my presence. Martin went to bed with his wife as if nothing had happened but, after midnight, Roger left his bed. On a whim, I followed him. I thought he was going to free the slave girls, quite honestly, but he went instead to Rob Horn’s inn, to Conall’s room, though I didn’t know who it belonged to at the time.
“I waited outside to see what would happen, and when nothing did, saw my opportunity. With the sheriff gone, and only Jenny’s brother left to run things, it seemed the perfect moment.” Huw grimaced. “I didn’t count on you coming into it.”
Gareth ignored the last comment, though it was, in a way, a compliment to him. “You confronted Roger?”
“I did, and there’s irony for you. Roger went to Conall’s room to accuse him of slaving, but he wasn’t the slaver, and you spent all this time looking for his killer in the wrong places.” Huw seemed very pleased with himself and the way he’d almost pulled one over on Gareth. “It was for Adeline that I killed him. I’d brought a length of rope from the shop. All I had to do was knock on t
he door. He must have thought it was Conall returning. He allowed me to get close, I kicked out at one of his knees to lay him low, and then got behind him and strangled him.” Huw spoke matter-of-factly, neither proud of what he’d done, nor sorry.
“The wounds on his hands and face, then, were from the earlier fight with Martin and Tom?” Gareth said.
“I suppose.” Huw shrugged. “He tried to fight me, but I was the stronger, and it was over quickly.”
“And you went back to the cartwright’s yard as if nothing had happened?” Gareth said.
“It would hardly look good for me if Roger was found murdered and the next day his apprentice went missing, would it? I figured I could leave after a day or two, say that with Roger gone, I wanted a different life. Or maybe not say anything at all. Wales is only a few miles away, after all, and the sheriff’s writ runs only to the border.”
“You’re going to hang, you know,” Gareth said.
Huw shrugged. “That may be.”
“You’re not sorry, are you?” Gareth said.
“That Roger’s dead?” Huw said. “Not in the slightest.”
Gareth glanced towards the door. John had turned to speak to someone behind him, so Gareth took the opportunity to lean in and question the man about something that had nothing to do with the case. “Do you know the name of Adeline’s father?”
Huw really had no idea how important the answer to that question was to Gareth or he might not have answered so readily. “Pawl. My mother loved him, but he died right after Adeline was born. My mother had no father to protect her, and with Pawl’s and her family gone, she couldn’t keep her.”
Gareth straightened in his chair, a chill crawling up and down his spine. “Pawl had no family?”
Huw lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “He had a sister who married a bard. My mother never learned their names, and since Pawl said the husband was a good-for-nothing, my mother never saw the point in trying to find him.”
Gareth looked down at his feet. Meilyr was going to hate this news, and it would bring him anguish. He had been both shamed and guilt-ridden at the thought that he’d had another daughter, and that the mother had kept the news of Adeline’s birth from him. If he had known that Pawl had fathered a child, he would have moved heaven and earth to find her and raise her as his own. None of this was Meilyr’s fault, but he would feel as if it was.
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