The Good Knight (A Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mystery) (10 page)

“We should start now, before the nobles and their lackeys are awake,” Gwen said. “We might get more assistance from the kitchen and the craft halls when there’s nobody watching.”

“You two begin the interviews; I’ll organize men from the garrison to do a search for the body,” Hywel said. “It may be that the culprit was forced to stash it in an out-of-the-way spot inside the castle.”

“Yes, my lord,” Gareth and Gwen said together and left the room, heading for the kitchens. They’d find breakfast there, warmth, and the loquacious cook, Dai.

“I can’t believe I have to do this again,” Gwen said. “And at Aber, no less.”

“Tell me about the murder Meilyr was charged with,” Gareth said.

Gwen shook her head, mentally going over the disaster that week had been, remembering her fear and her struggle to help her father. “I never believed he did it,” she said, “though perhaps it was marginally more likely than you murdering Anarawd.”

“What happened?”

“During one of our visits to the south of Wales—all the way to Carreg Cennan—a man was found dead, garroted with one of my father’s iron harp strings.”

“A few twists and one of those could cut through most anything,” Gareth said.

“Including the culprit’s fingers,” Gwen said. “My father always wears gloves when he strings his harp because without them he cuts his hands every time. The murderer didn’t know that. Given that my father was in a cell, it was to the murderer’s advantage to hold off seeking aid, which he did for three days until his fingers festered and became impossible to hide.”

“And you noticed?”

“The fool came to the herbalist for treatment, a friend of mine. By then, we were looking for an injured man and knew he was guilty from the moment we saw his hands.” She shrugged. “After few well-placed questions in front of the castellan, Lord Cadfael, the man confessed.”

Gareth shook his head over that, but when Gwen glanced at him, he was smiling.

When they entered the kitchen, just as Gwen had hoped, Dai plopped a plate of biscuits, newly churned butter, jam, and a watery porridge in front of them.

“You look serious, Gwen. And you,” Dai said to Gareth, looking him up and down, “are a very ill young man.”

“Someone poisoned him yesterday with an infusion of belladonna,” Gwen said, her mouth full of biscuit.

“Never say so!” Dai took a step back. “Not in my food!”

“The culprit put it in the mead,” Gwen said. “Since Gareth had to stay locked in his cell, he doesn’t have any idea who did it.”

“What was the name of the boy who brought the food?” Gareth said.

“Llelo,” Dai said and then without pausing for breath, raised his voice to carry through the kitchen to the pantry. “Llywelyn ap Rhys! Get in here!” A boy of twelve tumbled through the curtain that separated the pantry from the kitchen proper, wiping his hands on his apron, his eyes wide. Dai gestured towards the boy. “Here he is.”

“Come here, boy.” Gareth waved him closer.

Llelo glanced at Dai, who nodded, and came to a halt in front of Gareth. He eyed the biscuits, licking his lips; Gwen picked one up and handed it to him. He accepted it, still wary and nervous, but not as noticeably stiff-legged. “My lord,” Llelo said.

“You brought me my noon meal yesterday,” Gareth said. “Tell me about it.”

Llelo blinked twice. Clearly this was not what he’d expected to have Gareth ask. It made Gwen wonder what else he’d been up to, though it was probably getting into mischief with the other boys his age—something that he thought might be more serious than it was. “Cook laid your food out for me on the side table and I took it to you straight away, once I came in from chopping firewood.”

“And the mead?” Gwen said. “You brought that too?”

Llelo glanced at Dai, who nodded again. Llelo licked his lips.

“Tell them,” Dai said.

“Yes,” Llelo said. “It was hard to juggle the cup, jar, and platter all at the same time, but I managed without spilling any.”

“Good for you,” Gwen said. “So between the time you collected the food and drink and when you delivered it to Sir Gareth, nobody waylaid you? Nobody spoke to you?”

“No, Ma’am,” Llelo said.

Gareth nodded and Dai jerked his head at Llelo, who departed, much relieved.

“Do you believe him?” Gwen asked Dai.

“I have no reason not to,” Dai said. “I saw him leave by the kitchen door. I even told him to take two trips, but of course he pretended he hadn’t heard me.”

“It was you who set out the food?” Gwen said. “And the mead as well?”

“I tapped it myself,” Dai said. “It was the least I could do for his lordship, here.” Dai paused and leaned in. “I never thought you killed that foreign king.”

Gwen just managed not to laugh at Dai’s provincial attitude.
That foreign king
. She and her family had traveled the length and breadth of Wales in the last six years. While a few traditions differed, the language, the customs, and the blood were all the same.

“So then the question is, how long did my meal sit on the table unattended, waiting for Llelo to bring it to me?” Gareth leaned forward to match Dai, his tone earnest.

Dai pursed his lips. “Let’s see now—I had the boy at the bucket for water to wash his hands and face. His hands were sticky from wood pitch. He can’t seem to chop a single log without getting it all over him. Then back here, so … a quarter of an hour perhaps? I’ve four other regular helpers in and out all day, but they were mostly in the hall. We don’t usually serve a meal that time of day, but we’ve been kept hopping with all the comings and goings. I’ve had to hire another half dozen just to keep up with the roastings and the soups.”

Gwen and Gareth looked at each other, inwardly sighing. “We’ll have to speak to them all,” she said. “Maybe one of them saw something that will help us.”

Two hours later, they’d worked their way through all but one of the servants. Of the ten they interviewed, six had remained in the hall throughout the meal, while the other four had run back and forth between the kitchen and the serving tables, keeping the diners well stocked with food and drink.

Owain Gwynedd was known for laying on a fine table, and even in a state of mourning, yesterday had been no exception. None could say anything about who had or had not been in the kitchens. Unsurprisingly, none would confess to being the poisoner. Nor had any of them noticed someone hauling a body out of the barracks in the middle of the night and hiding it.

“It isn’t any of them,” Gwen said, finally, after the last servant had turned away. “It’s got to be this last person we can’t find.

“I agree.” Gareth stood, stretched, and then guided Gwen out the rear of the kitchen and into the garden beyond. The herbs were in the flush of late summer growth, with green vines winding up the trellises and flowers of every color decorating the beds. “Is any belladonna growing here?”

“No,” Gwen said. “I did look.”

“You’re sure?” Gareth said. “It would be easier if it was.”

“I know, but belladonna gives off a strong odor—even a nauseating one as you can attest—when it’s crushed or bruised. The culprit would have had to abuse it to contaminate your mead.”

“I haven’t smelled anything like that,” Gareth said.

“Nor I,” Gwen said. “And none of the other servants’ hands or sleeves smelled of it either. I made certain.”

“Someone else could have given them a prepared vial,” Gareth said. “He wouldn’t have had to touch it at all.”

“Of course,” Gwen said, “and then the traces would be on him, not a servant.”

“We’re going in circles,” Gareth said.

“Even if we found the servant who did the deed, we’d need to force them to reveal who paid them.”

“I’m sure Hywel and I could find a way,” Gareth said.

Gwen glanced at him. She was sure he could too. “We need to take a look at your peers.”

Gareth’s lips twitched. “None of them—whether knight, man-at-arms, or simple soldier—will take well to being questioned by a woman.”

“I’ll hang back; we’ll be nosy but not too much so and perhaps something will come to us. The murderer has been one step ahead of us for two days. We have to catch up; we have to think like him.”

“I hope that’s harder for you than you’re making it sound,” Gareth said.

“I’d never killed anyone until two days ago,” she said.

Gareth pulled up, tugging Gwen to a halt on the pathway. “What did you say?”

Gwen hadn’t meant to tell him, but she couldn’t keep it in any longer. “When I was riding with you, when the Danes ambushed us, I stabbed a man with my knife. I even meant to do it, but somehow when the blade went in all the way to the hilt, I couldn’t quite believe it.”

Gareth clasped both her hands in his and brought them to his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sorry,” Gwen said, “not in the sense that I regret what I did. But I keep seeing him die, seeing him fall.” Gwen’s throat closed at the memory and she forced back the tears that pricked her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to weep in front of Gareth. She felt that if she were to start crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“If it’s the only man you ever kill, you’ll remember it for the rest of your life,” Gareth said. “Better that than to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of lives you’ve taken.”

Telling him had eased Gwen’s heart, just a little, but … “I don’t like thinking of you in that position. Here I cry about one death by my hand, as if you didn’t kill men yesterday yourself. And that’s only one of a hundred days you’ve done the same.”

“Two hundred,” Gareth said. “I serve my lord the only way I know how.”

“Owain!”

The scream split the air and after a shared glance, Gwen and Gareth set off at a run for the stables from which the sound had come. Just as they reached the open door, Cristina, King Owain’s intended, staggered out, her hand to her head.

Gwen grabbed her arms. “What is it?”

Cristina shook Gwen off, flinging out a hand to point behind her. “There’s—there’s—” She couldn’t speak.

King Owain burst from the hall and hustled over. He wrapped his arms around Cristina’s waist and glared hard at Gareth, who took a step back. “What did you do?”

“Nothing, my lord,” Gareth said. “Whatever frightened her is in the stables.”

“Don’t just stand there, then,” King Owain said. “Go look!”

“Yes, my lord,” Gareth said.

Gwen and Gareth hurried into the airy building that took up nearly the whole of the south side of Aber’s courtyard. To Gwen’s eyes, the stables appeared as they always had, but then Gareth gave a
tsk
of exasperation. “Another one.”

Gwen looked to where he pointed. An arm poked out of the pile of straw which the stable boys used for making fresh beds for the horses. “It wasn’t very well hidden. It’s almost as if he wanted us to find it.”

“I don’t know about that.” Gareth crouched beside the body, most of which remained under the straw. “And which ‘he’ and which ‘it’ we’re looking for is the question of the hour.”

“What do you mean?” Gwen said. “Isn’t this Anarawd’s body?”

“No.” Gareth pointed with one finger along the length of the arm. “This is not a hand that has ever held a sword.” He glanced up at her. “It’s a woman.”

Chapter Twelve

“
G
wenllian ferch Meilyr!”

Gwen swung around to see her father and brother riding through the front gate of the castle. Her father rode a fine horse—finer than the one Gwen had ridden to Aber and equal in breeding to the lame stallion that he’d left at Dolwyddelan. Gwalchmai drove their cart, filled once again with their belongings rather than dead men, with her little pony on a leading rein behind. Gwen had expected her father and brother to arrive hours earlier, if not the day before. Though Gwen admitted to herself that she had felt as if every hour without her father’s presence was a reprieve of sorts.

“Welcome to Aber, Father,” she said, changing direction.

As Gareth had suspected, the body in the stable had been that of the missing servant. Gwen had detected the scent of belladonna on a spot on her dress, indicating that she’d been the culprit, but who had paid her to poison Gareth—and precisely why—was as unknown as it had been before they started looking. That he’d had the wherewithal to act so quickly was disconcerting.

With the fading of the afternoon, Hywel had told them to put aside their questioning of the inhabitants of Aber for now. Gwen had left Gareth asleep in the barracks with his friend Evan watching over him. Gareth hadn’t recovered from his brush with death; although he’d protested that he could help, he would have been underfoot. She wanted to search the kitchen, garden, and surrounding grounds more thoroughly for belladonna without him—because whatever her feelings for him, and however much she wanted to be with him, there was no denying that he pressed on her, distracted her even, and it was time for some clear thinking.

“I trust your investigation is progressing?” Meilyr brought his horse to a halt in front of her.

Gwen canted her head and peered up at her father. That was an unusual—if not unheard of—question for him. Normally, he never inquired about her work. “Not so much that you’d notice. Though the day has been eventful in that we’ve lost one body and discovered another.”

Meilyr grunted. “And the King?”

Gwen smiled. Now she understood the roundabout way her father was speaking and the reason for his delay in coming to Aber. “King Owain has absorbed the news of Anarawd’s death. He supports our efforts to find his killer and has not hanged anyone for it yet, though he thought about it. Over the last two days, his temper has cooled.”

Meilyr dismounted in the courtyard and straightened his robes while a stable boy ran to take the horse’s reins. “Have you spoken to him of me?” He kept his eyes on his own attire instead of on her.

“No,” Gwen said. “Only to Hywel. You are expected, however, and a room prepared. Lord Taran, King Owain’s steward, asked me to direct you to him when you arrived.”

Her father took in a breath and let it out with a sharp laugh. “I’m ready.” He turned to Gwalchmai. “Come here, boy.”

They both wore worn but unpatched traveling clothes. They’d replace these with finery by evening when Gwalchmai would make his debut in the hall. Gwalchmai seemed to feel none of his father’s nervousness. Instead, his eyes glinted with what Gwen read as excitement. She turned to him, smiling. “Are you ready?”