The Renegade Merchant (26 page)

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 grief 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.

Gareth

“
W
here are you going?” Gwen
said.

Gareth swung his cloak around his shoulders
and tightened down the toggles that held it closed at his chest
without answering. He knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to
say.

The rain continued to fall, and everything
was cold and damp. The funeral service had been followed by a mass
for Roger Carter, paid for by his brother Martin, which in turn had
been followed by dinner. Gareth and Gwen had invited John Fletcher
to join them, in hopes that the two merchants, Flann and Will,
would put in an appearance, but they had not.

Afterwards, Gareth had stopped the
hospitaller to ask after them and had been told that Will had
collected their things that afternoon—during the funeral, in
fact.

“Did he say where they were going?” Gwen had
asked.

The hospitaller had shaken his head
regretfully. “Not to me. He left a generous donation to the abbey,
however.”

As he might have.

Now, Gareth said to Gwen, “I need to have a
look at that brothel again. If the cart is mended, that’s the only
other place we know Flann and Will to have gone, and it’s the only
piece of this puzzle that connects all the rest.”

“Is John going with you?”

“He had duties to attend to as Deputy
Sheriff.”

“Let me come with you. Please. You should
not be going alone.”

Gareth stopped in the act of pulling the
hood of his cloak up over his head. “You cried in my arms not four
hours ago about your involvement in this investigation. I’m not
taking you with me.”

“Gareth,” Gwen said in her most reasonable
voice, “I’ve been a part of this from the beginning, and you
yourself said that we would see this through together.” She poked
his chest with one finger. “That includes now.”

Gareth rubbed at the spot she’d poked as if
it hurt. “What about Tangwen?”

“She’s asleep and need have no part of
this.”

Gwen’s tears had gone, but even if they’d
been a momentary aberration caused by her pregnancy, they still
deserved respect. When he’d first stood over the pool of blood,
he’d acknowledged within himself the extent to which investigating
murders affected him. Gwen was right that they needed to reassess
this particular service for Hywel—and with a second child on the
way, what it did to them as parents.

 Gareth studied his wife for a few more
heartbeats and then nodded, if reluctantly. “I suppose, if I’m
truthful, it wasn’t my intent to enter the brothel. I simply had a
thought to look around the outside of the town wall, where the gate
opened onto the river.”

“What are you going to see in the rain and
the dark that can’t wait until tomorrow?” Gwen said.

“I won’t know until I find it, but if I wait
until tomorrow, there will be nothing to see, not with this rain,”
Gareth said.

“I will tell my father and Gwalchmai that
I’m off with you.” Gwen snatched up her cloak and hurried from the
room before Gareth could protest that he hadn’t given his
permission for her to come.

But then, having run only a few yards, Gwen
pulled up short and spun around, such that Gareth, who had started
down the corridor after her, almost ran her over. “What if the girl
wasn’t at the brothel by her own will?”

Gareth caught her by the arms. “We discussed
that. She could have run away from the brothel, but John Fletcher
has been showing her picture all over town to no avail. If any man
visited her there, he won’t admit to it, and the proprietor isn’t
talking.”

“No, I mean—” Gwen took in a deep breath.
“Conall was Irish, right? And Flann is Irish.”

Gareth felt himself on the verge of
laughter. “I don’t believe being Irish is a crime, Gwen.”

Gwen shook her head vehemently. “No, I
didn’t mean that. What if the girl came from Ireland too, or even
farther afield, and not by her own will?”

“You mean someone stole her from Ireland to
be a whore here?” Gareth scratched at his forehead. “It’s possible,
I suppose. Though, if she was working at the brothel, it would have
been a simple matter for her to tell one of her clients who she was
and what had happened to her. It isn’t as if Shrewsbury has a slave
market.”

“You and I both know that doesn’t mean all
trade stopped. There were still slaves in Dublin when we were there
four years ago, even if the slave market was closed. I know it’s a
stretch, but I can’t stop thinking about that girl bleeding to
death in the alley, and the fact that nobody will admit to knowing
her. She was running away, and someone killed her.”

“There are far more reasonable
explanations,” Gareth said.

“We just can’t think of any,” Gwen said
tartly.

Gareth pursed his lips and stared at the
wall above Gwen’s head. “She could simply be an unhappy English
girl from somewhere else who ran away from a husband.”

“But what if she isn’t.” Gwen stepped
closer. “Just think if she isn’t the only one, just like that
brothel isn’t the only one. There could be other girls here against
their will.”

“Well, there are other brothels—” Gareth
dropped his eyes to fix them on Gwen’s face. “John said that the
owners of the brothel to which the coin gained entry had opened a
second establishment outside Shrewsbury. It’s to the east of here,
just beyond St. Giles.”

“We haven’t even looked at it,” Gwen said,
“and with the departure of Flann and Will, I don’t think looking at
it can wait until morning.”

Gareth wavered. Gwen had wanted him to
discover whether or not the girls at the brothel were there by
their own volition, and he’d refused her. Now, however, he didn’t
know if he could walk away from her fears again. That girl had to
have come from somewhere, and someone had killed her. Others might
see her as no different from a hundred other girls, but she was
Gareth’s responsibility now. She’d been buried without a name. She
might as well have been faceless. She certainly had been
afraid.

Still thinking, Gareth nudged Gwen to walk
down the corridor towards the stairs. “I’m not taking you to the
brothel. We have to respect John’s sensibilities in that regard,
but you can come with me most of the way, maybe to that abandoned
mill at the edge of abbey land, and wait for me there.”

Gwen wrinkled her nose, indicating she
didn’t like it, but she didn’t argue. “Even if I’m wrong, and she
was here by her own free will, girls that age don’t wander the
countryside by themselves. She had to have come to Shrewsbury with
someone, stayed with someone, seen someone.”

Gareth froze in the act of taking a step.
“Maybe she did. In addition to Flann and Will, she’s one of two
people in this investigation who are complete strangers to
Shrewsbury, Gwen. Maybe the reason nobody has come forward to
identify her is because the one person she knew was Conall.”

Gwen

S
ince Tangwen was asleep, all that was required was to
tell
Meilyr and Gwalchmai where they were
going. And once Gareth assured them that he wasn’t actually taking
Gwen to the brothel, neither objected to her accompanying him as
far as the mill. It wasn’t that late even—not even eight in the
evening—and even with the rain, people were still out and about.
There shouldn’t be any danger. Whether in England or Wales, if
people didn’t go out because it was raining, chances were they
never went out at all.

The brothel they were going to investigate
lay on the main road from the southeast into Shrewsbury, just past
St. Giles along the road to Atchem, where there was another bridge
across the Dee. According to John Fletcher, the brothel doubled as
an actual inn. Travelers seeking to avoid the higher rates in
Shrewsbury—or wishing to avoid the town altogether—might choose to
stay there instead.

“I don’t mean for us to be long,” Gareth
said. “Two hours at most, which means we should return shortly
after compline.” Compline was the late evening prayer before the
monks retired for three hours of sleep.

“And if you’re not back by matins?” Meilyr
said. Matins was the midnight prayer. Monks said prayers every
three hours throughout the day and night.

“We’ll be back. Don’t worry.” Gareth
said.

“But if you aren’t,” Gwalchmai insisted.

Gareth rolled his eyes at
his brother-in-law’s worried look. “Tell John Fletcher I went to
the brothel.
Don’t
come searching yourself. If we really do find ourselves in
trouble, that wouldn’t be the way to help.”