Meilyr didn’t look at either Cadfael or Robert, and instead stared down at his hands.
“And what say you, Meilyr ap Brydydd?” Lord Cadfael said. “Did you do this deed?”
Meilyr shook his head, still not looking up. “No, my lord. I did not.”
“Is there a man, here, who will speak for you?” Cadfael said.
More silence. Then Gwen stepped forward. “I would speak for my father, my lord.”
Cadfael’s eyes narrowed.
“My father does not have a son who has come of age to speak for him, so it falls to me.” Gwen kept her eyes lowered and her tone courteous.
“Although it is unusual for a woman to speak in the hall, I grant your wish. What have you to say?” Cadfael said.
Gwen’s head came up. “My lord, first, I would like to ask Lord Robert about the coins that Collen left in his keeping.”
All of the men in the hall went rigid. Gruffydd had been standing behind her father, who was still on his knees, and now leaned in so he could speak low in Gwen’s ear. “What coins?”
Gwen didn’t answer. She gazed fixedly at Lord Cadfael, who kept his eyes on hers for a long moment. The nature of Welsh law was such that a defendant not only had a right to a defender, but had a right to ask questions of his accuser. Cadfael turned to his steward. “Robert?”
Robert stood a little way to Cadfael’s left, opposite and more forward from Cadoc’s position. “What—what coins?” Robert said.
“I know about the coins that Collen gave you for safekeeping, my lord.” Gwen refused to back down or look away from the men in front of her. “You cannot keep them.”
Robert’s face flushed bright red. “Are you accusing me—?”
“You are accusing my father of something he did not do,” Gwen said. “If you expect him to tell the truth, you must tell it also.”
“Gwen is right, my lord Cadfael. You should listen to her.” Denis strode towards the dais. Gwen turned so that she could see him approach. While she was terrified by her forwardness, his face showed interest and even … amusement. “Collen told me that he had left three gold coins in Lord Robert’s keeping. When I asked him about them after Collen’s death, Robert claimed no knowledge of them.”
Robert was sputtering. “I have no idea what you—”
“I can prove it, my lord.” From his pocket, Denis pulled out a tiny book, no more than a finger’s length high and wide. He opened it to a page and held it out to Cadfael. “Collen kept very careful records of everything he bought, sold, or did.”
Lord Cadfael eyed the page, and then Robert. Cadfael studied the steward for a long moment and then surged to his feet. He swung a finger to indicate the entire hall. “Clear the room! Now!”
Stunned silence followed that order, but then Gruffydd put his heels together and bowed. “Yes, my lord.”
“But my father—”
Cadfael cut Gwen off with a glare. “Except for you. You stay!”
The two men who guarded Meilyr got him to his feet. Gwen remained in the middle of the floor, her hands still clenched around her clay pot. She kept her head slightly bowed while the room emptied, not sure of what had happened—or why—or what might happen next. A moment later, only Gwen, Gruffydd, Robert, Cadoc, and Cadfael remained.
Cadfael settled back into his chair. “Now,” he said. “I want to know what’s really going on in my castle.”
Nobody answered him.
Lord Cadfael lifted his chin to his steward. “Robert, I know the truth now. Speak to me of the coins.”
Robert’s jaw clenched. “I have them, my lord. I understand that the possession of them gives me motive for killing Collen, but I did not kill him.”
Gwen bit her lip. She didn’t want to insert herself into the lords’ dispute, but there was no help for it, not with what she had discovered—and remembered. “My lord, there is an easy way to determine the truth. Lord Robert should remove his gloves.”
“What?” Gruffydd, Cadfael, and Cadoc spoke in unison.
“The man who murdered Collen has wounded hands,” Gwen said.
Cadfael snorted his disbelief. “How would you know that?”
“I was remiss in not realizing this earlier, for it would have exonerated my father instantly,” Gwen said. “No man, no matter how strong or able, could garrote another man with a harp string and not mark his palms and fingers. The strings are very sharp and will cut an unwary person if he is not careful. My father wears thin gloves when he strings his harp. Think of the damage the string must have done to the killer, who wound it around his hands and killed Collen with it.”
Gruffydd glanced at the bloody harp string Robert had set on a side table. “Can you show us?”
Gwen slipped a second coil of string from her pocket and straightened it. She’d been carrying it around since yesterday, just as a reminder of what she had to do. It was two feet in length, thin and generally unbreakable except when stretched tight on her father’s harp. Gruffydd took the string from Gwen and held it between two fingers. It bowed and bounced as he wiggled it.
“Imagine grasping the ends, coiling them around your hands, and garroting a struggling man with it,” Gwen said.
Robert had been watching their exchange carefully, his shoulders tensed. He hesitated another heartbeat, and then with quick jerks, loosened the fingers of both gloves, pulled them off, and dropped them onto the wooden planks of the hall. “There!” He held out both hands to Gruffydd and Gwen, and then turned on his heel to show Cadfael.
“The murderer could have worn gloves,” Cadoc said. “Your father remains the most likely suspect for this very reason. He must have known what you have just told us.”
“That is true, my lord, except …” Gwen took in a deep breath and let it out. “My lord, may I approach?”
Cadfael raised his eyebrows, but then nodded. Gwen walked forward, holding out the dish with the bloody rags inside. “Saran found these in the garden this morning.”
The men inspected the linen with distaste. Robert sneered as he picked up one corner of a rag and held it up. “Someone is in pain.”
“Nobody has come to Saran for healing?” Gruffydd said.
“No, my lord.” Gwen eased out a breath. Gruffydd seemed to becoming something of an ally, which was going to make this easier. “As Lord Cadoc said, my father would have known that he had to wear gloves to wield the harp string, and yet none were found in the pantry.”
“So what do you propose?” Cadfael said. “That we inspect the hands of every man in the castle? It’s an absurd thought.”
Gwen didn’t think it absurd at all, but his certainty made her hesitate. “Perhaps Collen’s wife could be questioned—”
Lord Cadfael cut her off. “Eva did not kill her husband.”
Gwen knew that he was right, given her appraisal of Eva’s hands the night before, and that she was a small woman. “I know that, my lord, but someone did. Don’t you want to discover who that is?”
Cadfael’s brow furrowed. “I dislike your impertinence, young lady.” He tapped a finger on the arm of his chair as he gazed at her.
Gwen swallowed. “Did Saran confirm what I said about the manner in which she believes my father was dosed?”
Cadfael continued his tapping. “She did.”
“Coupled with the mead he consumed, the potion would have ensured that my father had no memory of the events of the night at all,” Gwen said.
“We have no other suspect, my lord,” Robert said. “We can’t just release Meilyr. It will make you look weak.”
Gwen didn’t care in the slightest how Cadfael looked, though of course she didn’t dare say so.
Gruffydd stirred. “I have a suggestion, my lord.”
Cadfael glanced at his captain. “Yes?”
“We should use Meilyr to lay a trap,” Gruffydd said.
Cadoc spoke from behind his father’s chair. “What kind of trap?” He leaned forward, his eyes on Gruffydd. It was just the kind of thing to appe
al to a fourteen year old boy.
“You threatened Meilyr with hanging earlier,” Gruffydd said. “The whole castle knows of it. I propose that we announce that Meilyr is guilty as charged and destined to be hanged in the morning.”
“What—?” Gwen stared at Gruffydd, aghast.
Cadfael ignored Gwen. “Go on.”
“Instead of being hanged, however, what if Meilyr dies in the night? The murderer would feel himself safe. With Meilyr convicted and out of the way, he could come to Saran for healing.”
Cadfael fingered his chin as he thought, his eyes on a point above Gwen’s head.
“If this doesn’t work, you wouldn’t—he wouldn’t really kill him—” Gwen could barely get the words out.
“Of course not, Gwen,” Gruffydd said.
“It would be a ruse, to draw the real murderer out.” Cadoc turned to Gwen. “Have you mentioned the issue of the murderer’s hands to anyone but us?”
“No, my lord,” Gwen said, “not even to Saran, though she is the one who found these rags.”
“If we behaved as if the matter were settled, it would allow Meilyr to sing in the hall for my birth day celebration tonight,” Cadoc said.
Gwen blanched. An hour ago, every man in the room had seemed set on hanging her father at the first opportunity, and now they wanted him to sing.
“It might work,” Cadfael finally said.
Robert glanced at his lord quickly and then turned away, running his hand through his hair. Gwen forced her eyes away from the steward and towards Cadoc, who was grinning, unaware of the silent communication and tension in his elders. A moment ago, Cadfael had given Robert a look that had been knowing. What was going on here? Robert might be innocent of murder, but she was beginning to believe there was more to this than she had so far uncovered.
Chapter Eight
The hunting party returned at dusk in good spirits, having killed two deer for the feast. The kitchens had been prepared for failure, which meant that the celebration of Cadoc’s birth day would now be doubly fine. The scent of roasted meat wafted across the courtyard with every gust of the wind. Gwen could smell it, even from inside her father’s cell.
“All of this is my own fault, Gwen.” Meilyr paced back and forth in front of his daughter.
“How can you say that?” Earlier, Gwen had related to him what had happened in the great hall, and Gruffydd’s plan for him. Her father had been opposed to it at first, but in the intervening hours, had come around, willing now to play his part.
“I should never have brought us here in the first place,” he said. “We should have stayed in Powys.”
“Lord Thomas asked us to stay,” Gwen said. “Why did we leave?”
“Because we’d been there for months already and Collen wanted me to come here. He promised to make it worth my while,” Meilyr said. “He and Lord Cadfael."
“And now Collen is dead,” Gwen said.
Meilyr nodded. “Though it was mighty convenient for Cadfael to find me guilty of murder. If he really had hung me, he would have owed me—or rather you and Gwalchmai—nothing. No wonder he preferred that punishment to requiring me to make the payment of galanas to Eva.”
“Wait, Father—what are you saying?” Gwen kept stumbling over ideas that were new to her. “You’re telling me that Cadfael cannot pay what he owes us for the winter?”
Gwen’s family had never lacked food and shelter, for all that they’d wandered Wales since they’d left Gwynedd. Their voices were their entry into any home, high or low. But Cadfael was a lord. How could he not have the resources to compensate her father for their services?
“Why else would Robert keep the three gold coins that belonged to Collen?” Meilyr said. “He has always been upright in his dealings with me in the past. It is very unlike him to be dishonest. The only thing that makes sense to me is that once Collen was dead, Lord Cadfael ordered him to keep the coins secret.”
“Did he really think Collen wouldn’t have told Denis of them?” Gwen said.
Meilyr stopped in mid-stride and turned to his daughter. “Have you learned nothing these last few days? How much more likely is it that Collen acquired the coins and kept that information from his partner and his wife.”
Gwen’s shoulders fell. “Oh.”
Meilyr rolled his eyes. “For all that you have a sudden propensity for uncovering truth in others, you need to be less trusting.”
Gwen bit her lip, hating to be told she’d been naïve, but knowing her father was right. “You’re saying that Cadfael’s plan was to keep the coins, remain silent, and hang you.”
“Cadfael would have been the richer for it,” Meilyr said.
“But neither Cadfael nor Robert knew of Collen’s little book,” Gwen said. “They counted on their station to protect them from Denis.”
“What they didn’t count on was you defending me, upending their plans.” Meilyr shot Gwen a look that she wanted to interpret as pleased or proud, but it was an expression he so rarely directed at her, she wasn’t sure. “In the course of an hour, Cadfael loses both the gold coins and—with the evidence turning in my favor—still has to pay me for our time at Carreg Cennen.”
Gwen shook her head. “And we can’t say a single word about it, for fear he changes his mind and really hangs you. Robert is going to announce that you are guilty at the start of the evening meal.”
The power Cadfael wielded left Gwen with a sick feeling in her stomach. She’d always known that good and bad lords existed in Wales, but she’d grown up in a stable home, in the household of the old King Gruffydd of Gwynedd. Even their departure from Aberffraw, even the ending of her marriage hopes with Gareth, hadn’t opened her eyes to the ways of the world as much as this accusation of murder.
“I would almost rather have paid Eva the galanas and been done with it,” Meilyr said.
“Don’t say that!” Gwen said. “How can you say that? You’d let a murderer go free?”
“I would accept it, but the admittance of guilt would hang over my head, and thus yours and Gwalchmai’s, for the rest of our lives,” Meilyr said. “I could not do that to you.”
Gwen swallowed. Her father had to be thinking primarily of Gwalchmai, but he had included her in his calculations too. She wasn’t used to him doing that. “Could you have paid her even without Cadfael’s contribution?” Gwen said.
“It would have beggared us,” Meilyr said.
“We’ve been poor before.” Gwen thought of that first year after they’d left Gwynedd. Her father had been proud and had not wanted to accept a place in any castle but that of a mighty lord. In the end, they’d spent the winter at Aberystwyth, the seat of Prince Cadwaladr, King Owain Gwynedd’s brother. That was how she’d met Gareth, since he’d been a man-at-arms in Cadwaladr’s retinue. Because of Gareth, Gwen couldn’t regret father’s choice of residence, but it had solidified the enmity between him and King Owain. It wasn’t a good thing to be on the bad side of a king, especially as a bard who had to sing for his supper.
“Not as poor as this would have made us,” Meilyr said. “I’m offended that Gruffydd gave me so little credit for my ability to think. He and Cadfael must have mocked me for being such an imbecile to have murdered a man with my own harp string and then stayed with the body. What did they take me for?”
“Men see what they want to see.” In the past few days, Gwen had learned that, at least.
Gwalchmai appeared in the doorway. “It’s time, Father.”
“Are you ready?” Meilyr directed a sharp gaze at Gwen. “We never practiced our song.”
“It can’t be helped now,” Gwen said.
“Let’s go.” Gwalchmai led the way out of the cell, bouncing on his toes. He loved to sing—loved everything about it, from the sound of his voice, to the study of meter and rhyme, to the performance itself—and it was that characteristic as much as his magical voice that would make him a great bard. If the people of Deheubarth didn’t know it already, they would after tonight.
The hall quieted as Gwalchmai, Gwen, and Meilyr filed through the main doorway, not because they had entered the room, but because Robert had risen to his feet at the same time.
“Lord Cadfael did not want to sully his son’s birth day with unpleasant tasks, but it has already been sullied,” Robert said. “You all know of the death of Collen, the merchant and trader … I must announce that Lord Cadfael has found Meilyr, the bard, guilty of his murder. He will be hanged in the morning.”
A wave of confused noise rose and fell throughout the hall: horror, maybe, shock even, and surprise that the Welsh tradition of galanas would be overlooked in favor of the Norman sentence of death.
Cadfael sat with a finger to his lips, observing the reactions of his guests. Cadoc had moved to stand to the right of his father’s chair, as he had stood during Meilyr’s sentencing. Gwen noted when his gaze sharpened on Eva and Denis, who sat in the middle of a far table. Eva had turned on the bench, so her back was to Denis and she faced towards the room. Denis wore a look of bemusement and took a sip of wine.
As she looked at Meilyr, however, Eva’s face had transformed from that of an innocent beauty to a vengeful matron.
Gwen stared at her, and then flicked her attention away, just as Eva trained her eyes on Gwen and Gwalchmai. By the time Gwen dared to raise her head, Eva had faced back to Denis who was pouring her a cup of wine from a flagon.
Robert had remained standing. “As a last request, Meilyr asks your pardon, if not your forgiveness, and joins us in the celebration of Cadoc’s birth day.”
At Robert’s nod, Meilyr led Gwen and Gwalchmai up the center aisle to the dais. A stir ran around the room. To the eyes of everyone there, Meilyr was a dead man walking. She knew her father was hating every step he took, hating to be the object of scorn and ridicule—and pity. It gave a poignancy to the moment that Gwen herself didn’t feel. She was too caught up in worrying about the aftermath of the singing, and whether they really would be able to ride away from Carreg Cennen in one piece.
The Bard's Daughter (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery) Page 6