The Uninvited Guest (27 page)

Chapter
Twenty-One

G
areth hadn’t thought very hard about what he would do when he
got to Offa’s Dyke. Yes, King Owain and Ranulf, the Earl of
Chester, were on good terms—or as good terms as a Welsh King and a
Norman baron could be when each guarded their territory
carefully—but Gareth would be pursuing a fugitive from Wales into
England. Most rulers didn’t like that. In fact, English villains
could find freedom in Wales, and often did, since the Norman writ
stopped at the border. It would be hard to find a Welshman who was
above harboring an English criminal if it meant he could thumb his
nose at Norman law.

In turn, King Owain’s writ stopped at the
border of Gwynedd. Still, from the looks of things, if Pedr had
told Prior Rhys the truth, it was to Chester that Gareth had to go.
He left the monastery before first light, passed the Dyke by
mid-morning, and shortly after noon, approached the gates of the
city. Chester was the most substantial settlement in this part of
England. Once, it had been the home of the twentieth Roman legion,
whose job it was to control Wales. The Saxons, and Normans after
them, had fortified it for the same purpose.

A curtain wall fronted by a ditch circled
the entire city, which had four gates: the water gate to the west,
by which flowed the River Dee and which allowed access to the city
for shipping and trade, the north gate, the east gate, and the
bridge gate. Gareth headed for the last of these, riding over the
bridge that spanned the Dee as it passed south of the city. A few
paces further on, he found himself in a narrow passage, with
sandstone walls twelve feet high on either side of him. A gate
faced him, flanked by two massive towers.

Men, women, children, horses, and carts
crowded into the passage. They passed in and out of the city in a
near-continual stream. Gareth had arrived on market day. The crush
of people forced Dewi to one side and Gareth edged him along the
wall. Gareth kept his eyes on the tower above him and his bearing
upright. He hoped none of the guards would shoot him when they
realized he was a Welshman. He slowed, allowing a few people to get
ahead of him. He had a terrible feeling that the passage could
prove to be a funnel leading into a cage.

Although the two men guarding the entrance
to the city allowed most people to pass without inspection, Gareth
didn’t even try. He waited for the guards, who were now joined by a
third man who’d watched Gareth from the moment he set foot on the
bridge. As Gareth had entered under the gatehouse, this man had
gone so far as to lean over the battlement to glare down at him.
Finally, Gareth reached the front of the line and dismounted in
front of the guards.

The man who’d come down from the battlements
spoke first. “Who are you and what is your business?” He wore a big
Saxon beard and spoke in English. Gareth wasn’t fluent in the
language but spoke it well enough to understand and be
understood.

Gareth bowed slightly at
the waist. “I come on business to your Earl.”
Gareth felt it best to keep the reason for his journey to
himself, for now. Certainly, he didn’t want to broadcast to just
anyone what Pedr had done, but more to the point, he had forgotten
the English word for ‘assassin,’ if he’d ever known it (which was
in Welsh,
llofrudd
).

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Many do. What
makes you different such that I should let you in?”

“
I am seeking a man,”
Gareth said. “He rode here from Wales on horseback. He would have
arrived yesterday.”

“
We cannot help you,” one
of the other guards said.

The first guard shoved at the man’s
shoulder. “You weren’t to answer.” He turned back to Gareth. “You
are Welsh.”

“
Yes,” Gareth
said.

“
Perhaps you’re a spy? And
this man—perhaps he’s a good Englishman if a Welshman hunts
him.”

This attitude was nothing less than what
Gareth had expected. “I have a letter from the court of Aber in
Gwynedd that vouches for me.” Gareth didn’t explain that the letter
of safe passage was from Prince Hywel, not King Owain. Hopefully,
such a distinction would be minor to this Saxon guard.

After another long stare, which Gareth
endured impassively, the bearded man grudgingly waved him on and
let him through the gate. The line of people had bunched up behind
Gareth as he’d talked with the guard, and he could hear the sighs
of relief from those waiting.

“
Come with me,” the man
said.

Gareth obeyed, leading his horse. Perhaps he
could have fled into the city and hidden instantly in the crush of
people, which showed no signs of thinning even a dozen yards from
the gate. But he was on official business. Best to keep it
cordial.

Once they had moved into a side passage,
however, the man stuck out his hand and said in perfect Welsh, “I
am Dafydd from Powys.”

Gareth grasped his forearm. “Gareth. How is
it that you are part of the garrison here?”

“
My father was Saxon but my
mother was Welsh and I was raised just on the other side of the
border. She died when I was fourteen and I came east with my
father.”

“
I’m a captain in
the
teulu
of Prince
Hywel of Gwynedd.”

Dafydd raised his eyebrows. “A knight,
then.”

“
Yes.”

Dafydd looked Gareth up and down openly. “I
should have known this by your sword and armor, but not by your
cloth. The exchequer at Aber is not what it should be?”

Gareth laughed, relieved to have found
someone he could talk to. He’d spent all morning with his stomach
in a tight knot, wondering if he’d end the day in a cell beneath
Chester Castle without any chance to find his quarry. “That’s not
it at all. It was better not to call attention to myself with
finery. I’m tracking an assassin and it’s been a long road.”

“
Then perhaps I can shorten
it.” Dafydd turned Gareth to the west and indicated that he should
come with him. “Did you say an assassin? Whom did he
murder?”

“
He didn’t murder anyone,”
Gareth said. “But he tried.”

“
I will take you to the
sheriff.” Dafydd eyed Gareth warily. “You realize that King Owain
has no jurisdiction here?”

“
I know it,” Gareth said.
“Although I wouldn’t object to bringing the boy back to Gwynedd, my
greater objective is to find him and speak to him. There is more
here to talk about than just his crime.”

All the while they’d been speaking, Gareth
had been taking in the sights and sounds of Chester. The city
streets were cramped and stinking. Gareth and Dafydd had to make
sure to keep to the center of the lane to avoid the waste in the
gutters. Women leaned out upper windows to call to passers-by or
their neighbors. The street was loud and raucous. Gareth didn’t
know if he loved it or hated it, but he couldn’t deny the energy
coursing through him from all the activity.

After a few dozen yards, Dafydd turned onto
a less busy street which ended at Chester Castle’s front gate.
Although up close it showed an imposing façade, compared to other
castles Gareth had seen, it didn’t amount to much. A single stone
tower, surrounded by outbuildings and a wooden palisade, perched on
a mound in the most southwestern corner of the city and overlooked
the River Dee. The City of Chester’s stone walls encircled the
castle, eliminating the need for additional fortification on the
castle’s inner side.

“
The Earl Ranulf is not in
residence,” Dafydd said. “That is just as well for you since he’s
been out of temper of late, what with all the fighting to the east
and south. I will take you directly to the sheriff: Sir Amaury de
Granville.”

“
Is he … well-disposed to
speaking to a Welshman?” Gareth said.

Dafydd laughed and clapped Gareth on the
shoulder. “If he weren’t, half his garrison would be gone by
morning. You’ll find that the lines between English and Welsh are
not so finely drawn in Chester as at Aber.”

“
You speak the truth?”
Gareth said. “I did not realize …”

Dafydd leaned in closer. “Don’t you know
what the English say about us Welshmen?”

“
What do they say?” Gareth
said.

“
That our archers are the
finest in Christendom. That we fight from behind trees and hillocks
and then melt into our mountains, so high and forbidding that no
sane man would attempt to cross them. And yet we do. We move across
our landscape without leaving footprints. We are legend to
them.”

That sounded good to Gareth, and he could
see how the people of Chester would view the men of Wales as
secretive and strange, unreachable in their difference. In turn, he
had to ask himself how these English lived so packed together. And
with such noise! A man had no space to think.

Compared to the city, the bailey of the
castle was quiet. A few men stood on the battlements above the Dee
and others stood sentry at the gatehouse. The castle had its own
small population, but unlike most Welsh castles, it needed to
supply little for itself, since whatever the residents needed could
be found in the city.

After seeing to Gareth’s
horse,
Dafydd
brought Gareth to an expansive guardroom—an empty one—in the
barracks that had been built into the wooden palisade that
surrounded the castle. “Wait here.”

Gareth thanked the saints that he’d fallen
in with a trusted lieutenant. For a few moments as he’d approached
the gates to the City, he’d considered turning tail and running
back to Wales. Now, he was glad he hadn’t given in to instinct.

With
Dafydd
gone, Gareth didn’t sit at any
of the long tables that filled the space. Instead, he made a
circuit of the room. Prince Hywel would want a full report when
Gareth returned, along with a sketch of the castle, its strengths
and weaknesses, and a catalog of men and weapons. The sheriff of
Chester had lined the walls of the barracks with swords, armor, and
bows, some ancient, some new.

Then
Dafydd
returned. “Here he is, my
lord.”

Gareth swung around to see
a short, slender, clean-shaven man with close-cropped dark hair
enter the room. This was a
Norman
. Gareth didn’t know that he’d
met any true Normans in his life, just a few Marcher lords with
Norman blood. None had been such as this man, with no Saxon or
Welsh in him at all.

Gareth put his heels together and bowed. “My
lord Sheriff.”

“
Dafydd
tells me that you come from Gwynedd, hunting a man,” the
sheriff said in English. “What makes you think he’s here, in
Chester?”

“
He spent last night at St.
Asaph, in the Abbey there, and the prior directed me here,” Gareth
said.

“
You have reason to trust
his word?”

“
Yes.”

Sir Amaury nodded. “This man’s name?”

“
Pedr ap Marc,” Gareth
said.

“
And his crime?”

Now they had come to it. “He tried to murder
King Owain Gwynedd three days ago.”

Sir Amaury had such control over his
expression that he kept his face impassive. “And this man, Pedr,
has come to Chester?”

“
So I believe,” Gareth
said.

The sheriff pursed his lips and gazed at
Gareth, or rather, through him. Gareth could practically see his
mind churning. “Can you describe him?”

“
Better. I can show you.”
Gareth reached into his pocket and brought out the now worn image
of Pedr.”

“
By the Saints!”
Dafydd
said. “Did you draw
that?”

“
I did,” Gareth
said.

“
You have a fine hand.”
But
Dafydd
shook
his head regretfully. “I have not seen him.”

Gareth had watched Dafydd’s face as he
looked at the paper. His nostrils hadn’t flared and his eyes had
shown no flash of recognition.

“
I can make more drawings
if you are willing to give me some of your men to help me look for
Pedr, my lord,” Gareth said to the sheriff.

“
I will not give you any
men.” The sheriff met Gareth’s eyes. “I’m sure you serve your king
well, but I cannot have a soldier of Owain Gwynedd combing my city
for a fugitive from Wales. You understand this?”

“
Even if he is
Welsh?”

“
Even if,” Sir Amaury
said.

Gareth nodded. “I had hoped for more, but I
accept your decision. My king would have been equally reluctant to
extend the same courtesy to Earl Ranulf, if a fugitive from England
found his way into his domains.”

“
Ah. But then you do not
understand.” The sheriff looked at
Dafydd
. “Find him some paper to make
more pictures.”

Gareth stared at the sheriff. “What do you
want them for?”

Sir Amaury turned back to
Gareth. “I said I would not give you men, but I didn’t say
that
my
men
wouldn’t hunt for your assassin.” Amaury spoke this last word in
French, a language in which Gareth was far more comfortable than
English. He would have used it from the start, if it hadn’t meant
shutting out
Dafydd
.

All of a sudden, the day was looking
brighter. “I am grateful, my lord.” Gareth bowed again.