The Renegade Merchant (9 page)

“Likely, that’s the truth, which is why—if
he is, in fact, lying about knowing Conall—he tried to distract me
by complementing me on the drawing.” Gareth jerked his chin.
“What’s the second thing?”

“There’s not a lot of sadness inside Martin
at the loss of his brother, is there? He looked ashen when we told
him, but he was all business afterwards and almost offered you a
job. That isn’t the act of a grief-stricken man.” John’s eyebrows
lifted for an instant and he flashed a brief, satisfied smile. “For
whatever reason, Martin knows more than he’s telling.”

“And the third?”

“I know for a fact that Roger beat his
apprentice, and yet, to my eyes Huw expressed more concern at his
death than Martin did.”

“I am hardly the man to instruct another in
how to grieve, but I think you’re right on all three counts.”
Gareth clapped a hand on John’s shoulder. “We’ll make a sleuth of
you yet.”

Gwen

S
howing Conall’s image to the various monks and lay workers at
the abbey was something Gwen could do with Tangwen by her side.
Shrewsbury Abbey was laid out in a pattern similar to other
monasteries Gwen had visited over the years, though she had the
sense that the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul was more prosperous
than many—if not all—abbeys in Wales.

It had been built of red sandstone at the
end of the last century, as had the castle, and had been expanded
upon since then to include the multitude of buildings and extensive
grounds it owned today. The church was magnificent enough for an
archbishop’s seat: the guest house and monks’ quarters were large,
with big windows that faced south to take advantage of whatever
warmth the sun offered; and the gardens were well kept and
fruitful. It was peaceful here too, with a little brook that
gurgled by as it headed towards the Severn River.

With the picture of Conall in one hand and
the rosary beads in another, Gwen trailed around the abbey for
nearly an hour with Brother Julian, a bright young novice in his
early twenties, a few years younger than Gwen. They fell into a
pattern where Julian would introduce her, explain what she was
doing, and then Gwen would show the man in question the rosary and
the sketch. From cooks to laborers to monks in the scriptorium,
everyone was polite and wanted to be helpful, except that nobody
could. The people she encountered were also, without exception,
men. If not for the abbot’s countenance, she couldn’t have spoken
to any of them.

“How about you?” Gwen said to Julian. “Are
you ever given permission to enter the town?”

“Every now and then. You must understand
that I was raised here. The abbey is my home, and I have never
known life outside it.”

“You’re a foundling?” Gwen had heard of such
a thing, but as a bard’s daughter, and then a knight’s wife, Gwen
had traveled the length and breadth of Wales and couldn’t imagine
staying in one place always. The very thought gave her the
shudders. Being a woman, even a spy and a sleuth, she also hadn’t
had a great deal of experience with monastic men.

“My mother left me on the doorstep a few
days after my birth,” Julian said. “One of the women in the Abbey
Foregate became my nurse.”

“I don’t mean to imply any sort of
criticism, but are you … happy being a monk?” Gwen said. “You don’t
want some other kind of life for yourself—a wife and children, for
instance?”

Julian smiled and gestured expansively with
one arm to indicate the whole of the abbey. “I work. I am useful. I
serve God. What more could I want? Besides, a man like me doesn’t
just find himself a wife, you know. I have no land, no money, and
no profession beyond the labor I do here.”

“And what is that labor?” Gwen said.

“I work in the scriptorium,” Julian
said.

“So you’re lettered!” Gwen said. “You could
work for a lord or help merchants with accounting.”

They had been walking along a pathway in the
garden. The day had continued fine to the point that Gwalchmai had
taken Tangwen to wade in the brook. Gwen could hear Tangwen’s
squeal of delight in the distance. Even if she couldn’t see her
daughter, Gwen knew she was safe in Gwalchmai’s hands.

Now, Julian stopped and gazed at her with
something close to a condescending smile. “And how would that be
better than what I have here? My family is here.”

That Gwen could understand. She bowed her
head. “I know I was prying. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“I am not offended.” His serenity reminded
her very much of Abbot Radulfus.

It wasn’t until she’d questioned twenty men
that she hit upon the first one, a lay worker who labored in the
fields for the abbey, who could tell them something they didn’t
already know. “Aye, I seen ‘em.”

Julian was skeptical. “You’re sure, Al?”

“Red hair like that? Hard to miss,
especially on a sturdy fellow who’s a stranger. I was working in
the fields near the mill race when I saw him ride past not three
days ago, coming down the road from Atchem. Fine horse he had too.”
Al lifted his chin to point to a stand of trees to the southeast of
their position. “It was just past the abandoned mill yonder.”

Gwen couldn’t see a mill, abandoned or
otherwise, from where she stood, but the landscape was more treed
and hillier in that direction. She hadn’t realized the abbey lands
were so extensive.

She also hadn’t thought to ask at Rob’s inn
about a horse, though as a traveler come all the way from Ireland,
it made sense that Conall would have ridden here. Maybe Gareth had
remembered to ask the innkeeper about it after she left. That
Conall had come down the east road also meant that whoever was on
guard at the gatehouse three days ago might also recognize her
sketch.

Red hair wasn’t unknown among either the
Welsh or the English, but given the very similar reactions of both
Rob and this lay worker, Conall’s coloring was still uncommon
enough for people to notice and comment upon.

“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Gwen
made to turn away, but the laborer stopped her.

“Was that your brother I heard singing
earlier?”

“It was,” she said.

“I could hear more of that,” he said. “A
real gift, he has. My mother was Welsh. Been a while since I heard
a real bard. These Saxons don’t know how to sing.”

Gwen smiled. “The abbot asked that Gwalchmai
sing in the church on Sunday. You can hear him again then.”

The man pointed with his chin to where
Gwalchmai was now gamboling among the garden paths with Tangwen.
“All I have to do is stay here, I think. He’ll break into song soon
enough.”

Then Julian tugged on Gwen’s elbow,
indicated she should look towards the entrance to the monastery
where Gareth and John Fletcher had finally arrived. From the end of
the path where they were standing, Gwen could just see the main
courtyard. A cart was parked half out of her sight, and she assumed
it had brought Roger’s body to the abbey.

Despite her husband’s arrival, Gwen
continued her questioning of the abbey residents, fruitless as the
rest of the afternoon turned out to be. She didn’t seek Gareth out
until the examination of Roger’s body had to be nearly finished.
She hadn’t needed a warning look from Gareth to know that she
didn’t want to be present for it, not only as a balm to the
sensibilities of the monks—though Radulfus seemed like an eminently
reasonable man—but for the sake of her stomach.

Over the last few weeks, Gwen found herself
with a growing sympathy for her friend, Mari, who’d birthed two
sons within as many years of marriage. Having witnessed twice what
Mari had endured for nine months, Gwen comforted herself with the
knowledge that her ability to stand upright and retain the contents
of her stomach at this moment was better than any day Mari had
experienced while pregnant.

Besides, Gwen was overjoyed to find herself
with child again. In the aftermath of Rhun’s death, she’d thought
she was pregnant, but it had only been the same sickness that had
laid King Owain low. She’d recovered much more quickly than the
king had, however, and must have fallen pregnant sometime around
the Christmas feast, which meant the baby would arrive in early
autumn.

Having finished her quest for now, she said
goodbye to Julian, who headed off purposefully towards the
scriptorium, and Gwen made her way back to the courtyard. She had
just entered it when Gareth exited the doorway that led to the
cloister, John Fletcher beside him.

Gwen hastened to them. “How did it go?”

John raised his shoulders and let them fall.
“We told Martin Carter, Roger’s brother, of his death.”

To Gwen’s eyes, both John and Gareth were
looking drawn and worn, which she could understand given the tasks
they’d undertaken. 

“I just spoke with the abbot,” Gareth added.
“He promised to send word to Martin that he could see the body now.
What did you discover?”

Gwen told him about the day laborer’s belief
that he’d seen Conall enter Shrewsbury three days ago.

John nodded. “I will speak to whomever was
on duty as soon as I leave here. Maybe someone saw him depart the
city too.”

“Did the innkeeper mention Conall’s horse?”
Gwen said.

“I did ask before we left,” Gareth said. “He
had a horse, and it is still there.”

Gwen bit her lip.

“Yes. Odd.” As he spoke, Gareth was turning
something over in his fingers.

Gwen looked down at his hand. “What do you
have there?”

“Oh.” Gareth clenched whatever it was in his
fist, as if it was occurring to him only now that Gwen might be
interested in what he’d discovered. He glanced ruefully at John,
and then opened his hand to show her. “It’s a wooden coin.”

Frowning, Gwen took the coin from his palm.
“Was it on Roger’s body?”

“Actually, no. It turns out that Conall left
a few belongings behind—a small bag he’d placed underneath the bed
at its foot—and this was in it.”

She turned the coin over in her hand. “What
is its purpose?” It had an etching of a woman on one side and a
shoe on the other. As she peered closer at the etching, she
realized that the woman wore no clothing. Gareth still hadn’t
answered, so she looked up at him. “What don’t you want to tell
me?”

“This is a coin to gain
entry into an establishment called
The
Lady’s Slipper
.” Gareth sighed. “It’s a
brothel,
cariad.
”

Hywel

H
ywel cupped his hands around his eyes, shielding them from the
glare caused by the setting sun behind him. Mold Castle would be
his within the hour, and Hywel was roiled by a stew of
emotions—jubilation, anticipation, as well as the anger that never
left him. They were within days of the official end of the four
month peace he’d agreed to with Ranulf, the Earl of Chester, and
that was close enough for him. He was finished with the
enduring
he’d been doing
since Rhun’s death.

His father might never recover from Rhun’s
loss. Hywel might never either. But this—this battle—was one thing
he knew how to do.

“Fire!”

Hywel and his next oldest brother, Cynan,
sent the shout into the sky at the same time from opposite ends of
the field. Cynan was with the cavalry, who were waiting in a stand
of trees at the foot of the road that led to the castle.

A heartbeat later, the arrows from two
hundred archers’ bows arced through the air and disappeared over
the castle’s battlements.

At nearly the same instant that the archers
loosed the arrows, a handpicked group of some of the bravest men
Hywel had, Cynan’s younger brother, Madoc, among them, moved the
siege engine forward, driving it up the road towards the gate. They
were protected front and back by shields and wooden barricades,
designed to deflect any enemy arrows that might come from the
walls, and to prevent their own men from killing them from behind
with stray arrows.

Hywel wished he had a way to communicate
with Madoc and Cynan, but he had to trust that his brothers knew
what they were doing. The trees in which Cynan and his men were
hiding lay a hundred yards from the castle, and the cavalry were
waiting for the moment the gate was battered down to charge. The
bulk of the army Hywel had brought to Mold were spearmen, and they
remained as they had been, crouched low to the ground in front of
Hywel and his archers, also making sure to keep out of their direct
line of fire.

Hywel’s army had been given four months to
stockpile arrows, and his archers did him proud now. They fired
barrage after barrage at Mold Castle, successfully forcing Ranulf’s
soldiers to keep their heads below the level of the wooden
balustrade, unable to counter the steady progress of Hywel’s siege
weapon.

Hywel could have ordered the arrows to be
lit, but that would have defeated half the purpose of this
endeavor. His father wanted Mold Castle taken intact, so he could
fortify it against the English. Hywel would burn it to the ground
if he had to—if he were desperate and it was the only way to win
it—but he was a long way from desperate just yet.

“The door is weakening, my lord!” Cadell,
the youngest of Hywel’s brothers currently on the battlefield,
reined in beside Hywel, his eyes wild with excitement and
anticipation of victory. He was smaller and slighter than Hywel and
his other older brothers, and now that he was past twenty, wasn’t
likely to grow more.

“I’m glad to hear it, Cadell.” Hywel
secretly thought that Earl Ranulf, whose castle this was, had known
Hywel was coming and had made a strategic decision to put up only a
token resistance, so as not to waste men and resources on a lost
cause. But Hywel wasn’t going to ruin Cadell’s pleasure by telling
him so.