The Renegade Merchant (31 page)

The infirmarer had been horrified to learn
that Gareth planned to go out again, but after Abbot Radulfus
himself appeared to hear the story of what had happened at the old
mill, Gareth convinced them both that questioning Flann could not
wait even another hour. Leaving Gwen in the care of her father,
Evan, and Hywel, Gareth made his way to the castle, accompanied by
Conall, who’d also been seen to by the infirmarer.

“Are you, by chance, acquainted with
Godfrid, Prince of Dublin?” Gareth had been debating whether to ask
Conall the question ever since he met him, wondering if it was
politic since Dublin and Leinster were often at odds, but he
decided he had nothing to lose by asking. And he was curious.

Conall was still obviously in pain, but he
managed an eye roll at Gareth’s question. The infirmarer had
mentioned cracked ribs and had looked askance at the bruises along
the entire length of Conall’s body. Still, he was managing to sit
on a horse. “He is renowned throughout Ireland, though I have never
met him. I have seen him from a distance, but since I don’t speak
Danish, I am of little use as a spy in Ottar’s court.” He paused.
“I gather you know him?”

“He is a friend,” Gareth said. “I had a
thought to ask if he’d approached your king for aid.”

“In overthrowing Ottar?” Conall said. “I
wouldn’t know. The man’s a pig—Ottar not Godfrid—" Conall hastily
put out a hand to reassure Gareth about whom he was speaking, “but
he rules with an iron fist now that Torcall is dead.”

“Godfrid’s older brother would have things
be different.”

Conall barked a laugh. “Wouldn’t we
all.”

John greeted them as they arrived at the
castle, and he led them immediately to Flann’s cell. The merchant
had been pacing in front of the back wall of his prison. Shrewsbury
Castle had cells in the basements of its towers, but Flann hadn’t
been stored there. This was just an empty guardroom at the castle’s
east gatehouse. At the time when John had arrested him, Flann had
been only under suspicion.

As Gareth opened the door, Flann swung
around. “It’s about time.” But then Flann’s expression of outrage
faltered and his face paled as he saw Conall following Gareth into
the room. With a grin, John Fletcher came last, taking up a
position with his back to the door.

John had asked Gareth to begin the
questioning with the idea that they would take turns with Flann
until he told the truth. Flann’s first response would be to
stonewall them or feign ignorance. They needed to get to the bottom
of the intrigue here. Unlike Tom, Flann held a position of
authority in Martin’s organization, and they needed him to
talk.

 “What’s this?” Flann said.

“This—” Gareth pulled out one of the stools
at the table and sat, “is where you start talking.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“We know that’s not true,” Gareth said. “The
question before us is the extent of your wrongdoing. Is it just
slave trading, or does it extend to murder too?”

Flann gaped at Gareth, and then his eyes
tracked to Conall, who had set himself up against the side wall of
the room, his arms folded across his chest and his legs crossed at
the ankles.

“I didn’t kill anyone!” Flann said. “I’m a
merchant!”

Gareth slapped his hand on the table. “If
that’s true, then tell us everything—about Martin and Roger Carter,
about Conall here, about the girl who died, about who is involved
in the trading of the Irish and Welsh women we found at the
mill.”

Flann licked his lips, his eyes tracking
again to Conall.

“Yes, we know about them because we rescued
Conall,” Gareth said. “Tom Weaver named you and Will de Bernard as
the London connection to the slave ring. Tom told us that Roger
Carter confronted his brother, Martin, about his involvement in the
slave trade. How many times did you steal women from Wales and
Ireland? And how many did you take in all?”

Tom had returned to town as well, after
having been questioned at length by John, and then sent home. The
weaver had been foolish and was now remorseful. With Martin dead,
nobody saw any reason to punish him further. John had then sent out
a warrant for the arrest of Will de Bernard, Flann’s companion,
who’d disappeared after leaving Gwen and Gareth in the mill and
hadn’t participated in the subsequent battle.

Flann swallowed. “I really don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

Gareth rose to his feet and took a step
towards John. “What do you think about charging him with the murder
of the girl in the alley? We know it was his cart that hauled her
body to the river, which means it was he who killed her and threw
her in. That should be enough for the sheriff when he returns.
Meanwhile, he can rot in a cell.”

John played along, “It will be Will’s and
Tom’s testimony against Flann’s, and since Flann has Irish blood,
it will be easy to convince the sheriff that it is they who are
telling the truth, not Flann.”

Flann’s face had drained of color. “I didn’t
kill anybody! Did Will say I did to save his own skin? That
traitor!”

John sneered. “If you didn’t, then who did?
Do you accuse Will?”

“No! Nobody killed her. The girl ran away
from us, and by the time we caught up with her, she’d bled to death
in that alley. Fell on a broken crate, the stupid chit.”

While it wasn’t the scenario they’d
envisioned, Gareth believed him. “Who was she?”

Flann waved a hand dismissively. “Some girl
from Powys. I didn’t know her name.”

Gareth found himself grinding his teeth, and
he was very close to punching the man. He needed to know where in
Powys the girls were from, but he had a few more questions to ask
first. “It was you and Will, who hauled the body away and threw it
in the river?”

“We thought it would sink to the bottom. It
was supposed to sink to the bottom and be carried away by the
current.” Flann sounded annoyed that, even in death, the girl
hadn’t done as she’d been told.

“She was dead when she went in the water,”
Conall said, somewhat absently, “that’s why she floated.”

The longer Gareth spent in Conall’s company,
the more he became convinced that the Irishman played a similar
role for his king as Gareth played for Prince Hywel—though Gareth
would not have been the man to impersonate a slave trader. If Hywel
ever needed a liegeman to do that, he would have to find someone
else.

Flann tsked through his teeth. “As I have
since realized.”

“I need the name of the man from whom you
buy slaves in Ireland,” Conall said.

“He died,” Flann said. “That’s why we had to
switch to Wales.”

“And who was it that found you the
Welshwomen?” John moved forward from the doorway.

Flann leaned back from the table. “Oh. So
that’s it.”

Gareth didn’t know what he meant, but he
wasn’t going to give Flann satisfaction by inquiring.

Flann gave another little tsk. “What do I
get if I tell you?”

“We don’t need you to say anything more,”
John said. “One of the others will tell us what we need to
know.”

“Maybe that’s true, but you want to know
now.” He pointed with his chin to Gareth. “He’s practically
quivering with the need for it. Why?”

“Give. Me. A name.” John’s fists came down
on the table, and he leaned on them, looming over Flann.

Flann shook his head. “I didn’t kill
anybody. Trading in slaves is a crime in England, but not a hanging
offense. If I tell you who our contact was, I need you to put in a
good word for me with your sheriff.”

John’s face was a thundercloud.

“Done,” Gareth said without asking for
John’s permission. If John didn’t like it, he could take it up with
Hywel later.

“We got them from the King of Powys
himself.”

“From Madog,” Gareth said, without
inflection. “Really. Why should I believe you?”

Flann shrugged. “You don’t have to believe
me, but I tell you that he pledged to turn a blind eye to our raids
as long as he got his cut of the profits.”

John stepped back from the
table and glanced at Gareth, his expression clearly saying,
what more should I ask him?

John might not know what to ask next, but
Gareth certainly did. “Did you go to Dinas Bran to negotiate this
deal?”

“What? No, of course not. We worked through
his intermediary, his wife’s brother.”

“I need you to say his name,” Gareth
said.

Flann was growing impatient with the
questions, the answers to which he thought should be obvious, and
he waved his hand dismissively. “Cadwaladr, Prince of Gwynedd.”
Flann rocked on the back legs of the stool, pleased by the reaction
he was receiving for his tale. “Exiled, wasn’t he? And short of
gold? What better way than slaving to make a great deal of money
quickly.”

John’s brow was heavily furrowed. “Who do
you sell to?”

Flann laughed. “Who don’t we sell to?
English thanes, Norman lords, and then farther afield. Who wouldn’t
want a Welsh woman to warm his bed?”

“One who isn’t afraid of having his throat
slit in his sleep.” Gareth was disgusted with Flann’s complacency
and unforgiving that his men had planned the same for Gwen.

Flann laughed again with what seemed like
real amusement. He either wasn’t taking his situation seriously, or
he thought he had genuine leverage. “There’s always that, though we
keep them pretty quiet most of the time.”

Gareth shook his head in puzzlement. “Conall
mentioned the name of the herb you gave them. Devil’s Weed, wasn’t
it?”

“That’s right,” Flann said. “We put it in
cakes, they eat it, and all the fight goes out of them. We’d run
out of weed, which was another reason why we needed to get moving
before the effect wore off.”

Gareth was going to have to dunk himself in
the monastery brook when this was done just to wash off the stench
of Flann’s iniquity. “When were you to meet Cadwaladr next?”

“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.

Gwen

“
W
e’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.