The Renegade Merchant (8 page)

“Would it be possible for me to inquire
among the brothers, guests, and lay workers if they’ve seen this
man? He’s Irish, going by the name of Conall. Finding him might go
a long way in helping us discover the reason for Roger Carter’s
death.”

“He is the murderer?” Radulfus studied the
image.

“Roger Carter’s body was found in a room let
to Conall. Although the image can’t show it, he had fiery red hair,
white skin, and freckles.”

Radulfus grunted and handed the picture back
to Gwen. “I do not know him, nor have I seen him, but if he has
been staying in Shrewsbury itself, likely he would have attended
mass at one of the town churches.”

Gwen accepted that assessment without
comment even though she personally thought it optimistic of
Radulfus to think the man would have gone to any church at all. It
wasn’t her place to express her disbelief to an abbot, however, so
she simply nodded and put the sketch away.

“I will instruct my charges to answer your
questions, and I will find someone to accompany you. Brother
Julian, I think,” Radulfus said, “and I would appreciate it if you
would keep me apprised of what you find.”

“Of course, Father,” Gwen said, “but I don’t
want to take anyone away from his duties.”

“I insist,” Radulfus said. “Sadly, I have
loaned our one Welsh brother, with whom you could have conversed
and who would have made an excellent translator, to Ludlow, to tend
to the Lacy heir who is very ill.”

“Perhaps before too long it won’t matter,”
Gwen said, giving way, though she wondered if the real reason
Radulfus wanted someone to accompany her was because he didn’t want
a woman speaking to his monks without supervision. “Gareth speaks
English better than I do, and I’m hoping that with a few more days
here, my speaking and comprehension will be greatly improved.”

“You already speak English very well,”
Radulfus said.

Gwen scoffed under her breath as she walked
with the abbot out of the nave and into the afternoon sun in the
courtyard. “Far be it from me to accuse an abbot of speaking
untruths.”

Radulfus’ footsteps faltered yet again, but
this time when he turned to her, he was laughing.

Gareth

T
elling a family that they’d lost a loved one was never easy,
but today it was made far worse by the twitching and fidgeting that
was going on in the body of John Fletcher as he walked beside
Gareth towards the cartwright’s yard.

Finally, when they were one street away,
Gareth stopped and turned to the younger man. “Talk to me.”

John pulled up. “What?”

“Don’t try to pretend with me,” Gareth said.
“We’ve been through too much together in our short acquaintance for
me not to realize when you are troubled by something, and I’m
thinking it’s more than finding Roger Carter dead—difficult as that
must be for you.”

John took in a deep breath. “It’s my sister.
I fear what the shock of Roger’s death could do to her, coming hard
on the heels of the loss of Adeline.”

As explanations went, it was plausible, but
Gareth didn’t think that was all that was bothering John. Gareth
studied John’s face and was about to let him off the hook when John
sighed and said, “I lied to you before.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “About
what?”

“About how I felt about Adeline,” John
said.

“Ah,” Gareth said. “You did love her.”

“I loved her my whole life,” John said. “I
begged my father to make an offer to her father for me, but he
refused, thinking her beneath me. I didn’t have the courage to defy
him, and then Tom Weaver gave her to Roger.”

“Did Adeline love you? Were you lying about
that?”

John looked away. “No, or if she did love
me, it was only as the brother of her friend. But she would have
chosen me over Roger.”

“And by doing so condemned you to a loveless
marriage,” Gareth said. “It would have been the same kind of
marriage Roger would have had. Death spared Adeline that fate, as
her death spared Roger, though I suspect he cared about love less
than you. Your father may have forbidden the marriage for the wrong
reasons, to your mind, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have your
best interests at heart.”

John nodded, still looking away.

Gareth stepped closer and gentled his voice.
“Now Roger is dead, and Adeline is dead. We found her killer, and
we will find Roger’s. Take comfort in your duty. We need to speak
to Roger’s family before the rumor of his death reaches them.”

John nodded jerkily and continued walking.
The cartwright’s home was in the center of Shrewsbury, south of the
castle and equidistant between the inn where Roger’s body was found
and the alley where the pool of blood had by now soaked into the
earth. Gareth gave that coincidence a moment’s thought and then
dismissed it as inconclusive. Even for such a large town as
Shrewsbury, no place could be more than a quarter of an hour’s walk
from anywhere else and still be within the city walls.

The cartwright’s yard sat on the corner of a
block on an expanse of level ground at the base of the hill upon
which the castle perched. A two-story house, which was large enough
to contain at least two rooms on the lower floor and possibly more
than one on the upper, fronted the street. The yard was accessed by
a driveway that ran between the house and the neighboring shop. At
night, a wide gate would block it, but as it was during business
hours, the gate was fully open.

For a business inside the town, the lot was
large. But as had been made clear to Gareth, Roger Carter had been
a wealthy man, and he and his brother, Martin, had a thriving
business. They needed the space to house the carts and equipment
necessary for their work.

“In here.” John led Gareth down the driveway
to the back of the house.

The yard consisted of a house to the left,
which fronted the street; a small chicken run on the far side of
the property; a two horse stable; a large workshop, twice the size
of the house, where the actual work was done; and a similarly sized
carthouse. The carthouse’s double doors were open, allowing Gareth
to peer inside to the rows of carts, big and small, lined up in
it.

At their entrance, a man came out of the
workshop, which was open on all four sides, giving Gareth a good
view of the orange fire of a forge, necessary for crafting the iron
rims and fittings for carts. Another man remained in its depths, a
dark silhouette against the glow of the flames.

“Hello, John,” the first man said,
indicating to Gareth that this was Martin, Roger’s brother. He was,
even to Gareth’s eyes, Hywel-handsome, though he looked nothing
like Hywel. He had hazel eyes, unruly short brown hair, a narrow
nose, and high cheekbones. Gareth would never have guessed that he
and Roger were brothers, and Gareth wondered if they shared only
one parent. “Jenny has gone to the market.”

As Martin was married to John’s sister, it
made sense that he would think John was here to see her, but John
made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Now that I’m here, I’m
glad she isn’t.”

Martin’s eyes went past John to Gareth and
turned curious, but then he returned his gaze to his
brother-in-law. “What’s wrong, John?”

John took in a deep breath and seemed about
to speak, but then he hesitated again and no words came out. Gareth
should have realized that John had never before delivered news of a
death to a loved one. He put a hand on John’s shoulder and spoke to
Martin. “What John is trying to tell you is that we found the body
of your brother, Roger, this morning. I’m sorry, but he is
dead.”

“Wha—” Martin’s face paled, and he stuttered
as he looked from Gareth to John and back again. “What-what did you
say?” His voice, when he managed to speak, had gone high. People
weren’t capable of paling on command, which meant Martin’s reaction
was genuine. He was shocked by the discovery of his brother’s
body.

The man still inside the shop gave up what
he was doing and approached, hesitating in the space between light
and dark at the edge of the shop. “Sir?”

Martin threw out a hand, but Gareth wasn’t
clear on whether Martin meant for this second man to leave or to
stay. The man came forward anyway, his brow furrowed. He was John’s
age or younger, taller and very well built, with huge arm muscles
as befitted one who worked with his hands. He had intelligent brown
eyes and brown hair pulled back in a thong at the base of his
neck.

Gareth cleared his throat reflexively, since
John still wasn’t speaking. “Who are you?”

The man looked Gareth up and down—and then
surprised him by answering in fluent Welsh. “Huw, Roger’s and
Martin’s apprentice. Who are you?”

“Gareth ap Rhys, of Gwynedd.”

That prompted a widening of the eyes and a
quick nod that was almost a bow. “What’s happened?” Huw looked from
Gareth to Martin, who was gazing past John as if he didn’t see
him.

“Roger is dead,” Gareth said shortly.
“Perhaps you could tell me when you last saw him?”

Huw blinked once, pausing with his mouth
open as if he was going to speak to Martin, but then turned to
Gareth instead. He spread his hands wide as he answered Gareth’s
question. “Yesterday evening sometime. He left me to close up.”

John moved closer to Martin and found his
voice enough to speak gently, “Martin, do you mind telling us when
you last saw Roger?”

“Last night at supper.” Martin spoke almost
reflexively, and it was clear his mind was not on his answer. Then
the nature and specificity of John’s question seemed to hit him.
“Why do you ask me that?”

John bit his lip. “Roger was murdered,
Martin.”

Martin’s mouth made the shape as if he was
going to say, “What?” again, but no sound came out.

Huw was more expressive, looking away and
swearing in his native language. Then he turned back. “How?”

Gareth glanced at John to see if he was
going to answer or if Gareth should, but John was in control of the
interview now. “He was strangled, down at Rob Horn’s Inn.”

“Strangled.” Martin spoke as if he didn’t
know the word’s meaning.

“We found him in one of the rooms,” John
said.

Martin’s brow furrowed. “How unlike him.
Roger was never one to rent a room by the hour.”

Huw looked at Martin with a puzzled
expression on his face. Gareth didn’t think the apprentice
understood what Martin was implying: that the reason Roger had been
at the inn was to be with a whore. That hadn’t been Gareth’s first,
second, or third assumption, and from the quick glance John sent
him, it wasn’t where his mind had gone either.

Gareth was quick on the uptake though and
asked, “Does Rob rent rooms by the hour?”

“No, not normally, but why else would Roger
be in a room at an inn? He lives here. He would have brought any
respectable woman here.”

Huw took a step back, finally understanding
what Martin had meant. The puzzled expression remained, but it was
now accompanied by a half-smile and a head shake. Gareth had never
been a merchant’s apprentice, but he’d been a man-at-arms not too
long ago. It was the assumption among the lower echelons of any
profession that it was they, not their superiors, who best
understood the workings of day-to-day life. Huw was discovering, in
this case, that he didn’t know as much about his masters as he’d
thought.

“We assumed he’d gone to meet someone who
was staying at the inn,” Gareth said. “Would you know anything
about that?”

Martin’s eyebrows were almost to his
hairline as he shook his head. “No. Nothing. He said nothing to me
last night.”

“To me either,” Huw said, now speaking in
English.

“Do you know this man?” Gareth pulled out
one of the sketches he’d made of Conall. “He would have had red
hair.”

Martin pursed his lips as he gazed down at
the image. Then he looked up at Gareth. “Did you draw this?” At
Gareth’s nod, he added, “You’re quite good. We can always use a man
like you in our line of work, because a customer likes to see what
he’s getting before he buys. My brother and I—”

For a moment there it seemed that Martin
might be offering Gareth a position, but with his own mention of
his brother, Martin broke off as his face went gray again, and he
handed the sketch to Huw, who took it without speaking.

“As far as I know, this man hasn’t been to
the yard, is that right, Huw?” Martin said.

“Right,” Huw said.

Martin nodded, as if agreement from his
apprentice was a given. “But if he has red hair like you say, and
he was in Shrewsbury for very long, someone is sure to remember
him.” He paused. “I just realized you’re showing his picture to me
because you think this man killed Roger.”

Gareth accepted the paper from Huw and
pocketed it again. “It is really too early for us to think
anything. Again, I am very sorry for your loss.”

“Please give my condolences to Jenny,” John
said. “I know that she was fond of Roger, and that he was kind to
her. I’ll be by later this evening to see her.”

Martin nodded. “Thank you.” He coughed.
“Wh-where is the body?”

“Still in our custody,” John said. “He’s on
his way to the abbey right now, and you can contact the brothers
there about burial.”

Another nod. “Thank you.” Martin turned
away.

Gareth and John did too, striding down the
driveway and out into the street. Gareth didn’t say anything for a
dozen paces, not wanting to taint John’s first impressions with his
own. They headed east, towards the monastery, which John’s watchmen
should have reached with the body by now. After two streets,
however, John pulled up. “Can I tell you what I’m thinking?”

“I hoped you would,” Gareth said.

“Three things,” John said. “The first is
that Martin didn’t say outright that he didn’t recognize Conall—did
you notice that?” John didn’t wait for more than a nod from Gareth
before continuing. “He said only that Conall hadn’t come around the
yard that he knew.”