The Unlikely Spy (6 page)

It would have been more appropriate for Mari
to stay at the local convent, but that was no longer possible.
Although Alice, Prince Cadwaladr’s wife, had given birth to their
daughter there three years ago, it had been in serious decline
since before the 1136 war and had failed the previous year. None of
the interventions implemented by either Cadwaladr or Hywel—or the
sisters’ order—had managed to turn the tide, and the last nun had
died last Christmas feast. With Hywel’s permission, the monks had
taken over the lands the convent had controlled, including the mill
and pond on the Rheidol River.

“Oh, I know,” Gwen said. “I wish I could do
something for her other than hold the basin and look after
Gruffydd. At least we have her eating on a regular schedule now.
I’m hoping that the worst of her sickness will soon be over.”

“Speaking of Gruffydd, where’s Tangwen?”
Gareth said, trying to make the question sound casual. He would not
want to imply, even obliquely, that she’d mislaid their
daughter.

Gwen smiled. “She fell asleep moments before
Prior Rhys arrived.” Gwen checked the position of the sun in the
sky. “I would hope she might still be asleep, but you know
Tangwen.”

Gareth did. He adored their daughter, but
she had never been an easy sleeper and fought it at every turn, as
if by sleeping she might miss something important. If her desire to
stay awake left her cheerful instead of petulant, they could have
let her be. As it was, some days Gareth might pace in circles with
Tangwen for an hour to get her to sleep, only to have her wake the
moment he laid her on her pallet.

The first time he’d seen Mari set Gruffydd
on the bed and tuck a blanket around him, Gareth had laughed at the
absurdity of her expectation that the boy would close his eyes and
fall asleep on his own. But then he had. If Gareth hadn’t seen it
with his own eyes he wouldn’t have believed it possible.

And sure enough, as they turned in to pass
through the monastery gatehouse, Elspeth was just coming out of the
guesthouse with Tangwen on her hip. The daughter of Gareth’s
steward, Elspeth was buxom and blonde, and if she wasn’t currently
living in a monastery, she would have had men circling her
constantly to court her. Her father hoped that a year or two as
Tangwen’s nanny, under Gwen’s sober influence, might steady her and
prepare her for adult life. Gareth didn’t have much hope of that
and might have picked out a man for her to marry already if he
didn’t selfishly want her to continue as Tangwen’s nanny for a
little while longer at least.

Elspeth set the child down, and Tangwen
dashed across the courtyard towards Gwen, who moved forward to
intercept her. With a mop of curly brown hair and brown eyes,
Tangwen was the most beautiful little girl in Wales. She was also
only eighteen months old, and Gareth was glad when Gwen scooped her
up before she reached the cart. She was a little young to be
introduced to her first murdered man.

Tangwen waved to him over her mother’s
shoulder, and Gareth called to her from across the courtyard.
“
Cariad,
Papa has work to do. I will find you later.”

That seemed to mollify Tangwen, though
sending up a wail of frustration would have been equally usual for
her. As it was, she had no choice but to go with her mother, who
carried her around the corner of the guesthouse a moment later.

Sion, the gatekeeper, had come out of the
gatehouse to see who’d entered, and Prior Rhys hustled forward to
meet the hosteler, who’d poked his head out of the chapter house.
He’d probably been watching for guests to come through the
gatehouse, not for a cart with a body in it. Several carts already
parked in the courtyard implied that even more travelers had
arrived for the festival. Gareth had no idea where they were going
to put them all, but no matter the press of people, presumably the
chapel would remain free of guests.

He had been hoping to take Tangwen to see
some of the performances this afternoon, and Prince Hywel himself
would perform tomorrow night. The whole event would conclude the
day after that with performances by the finalists and the
presentation of awards and prizes.

The festival was taking place in and around
a large pavilion in the field below the castle. A small fair and
market had grown up beside it. Gareth had counted no fewer than
four dressmakers present, one of whom he hoped he could arrange for
Gwen to visit. He’d like to commission a new dress as a gift to
her.

Various contests were also occurring on the
many stages set up around the field. In addition to musicians of
every type (among them genuine bards like Meilyr, Gwen’s father),
dancers, jugglers, and actors had come to perform.

“Is that-is that him?” The hosteler gaped at
the shrouded body in the back of the cart.

Gareth took the hosteler’s words to mean
that their arrival wasn’t as unexpected as he’d originally thought.
Sion bent to whisper in the man’s ear, and he ran off.

“What did you say to him?” Prince Rhun
said.

“I told him to stop gawking and fetch the
prior,” Sion said.

The two monks had disappeared into the
stable immediately upon putting down the arms of the cart. They
came back with a board on which to carry the dead man, which would
provide a more dignified means to bring him into the chapel than to
carry him sagging between them. Gareth and Prior Rhys helped them
load the body onto it, with Sion carefully replacing the burlap
sacks over his body. Then he went back to his watch while Rhun,
Gareth, and the two monks each took a corner in order to move the
body into the chapel. Prior Rhys walked at the front to lead the
way.

The doors to the stone chapel had remained
closed all day, keeping the natural coolness of the stones inside.
The contrast between the heat outside and the darkened interior was
so great Gareth shivered, feeling the sweat cool instantly on his
skin. Prior Rhys directed them across the nave towards one of the
side wings, through a small doorway, and into a vestibule that
contained a small altar, two upright chairs, and a six-foot-long
table. This was clearly where the dead usually resided until the
burial ceremony. With a heave, they settled the dead man on the
table, leaving him on the long board rather than shifting him off
it.

“Thank you,” Prior Rhys said to the monks.
Gareth had figured out by now that silence was considered a virtue
in this monastery. The two monks hadn’t wasted a single word. Or
spoken one, for that matter.

But still, he put out an arm to block their
immediate departure. “I know that you heard and saw much today. If
you have a need to speak of it, please talk to me, Prior Rhys, or
your own prior. I would prefer that nothing of what we know or have
surmised leaves this room to reach the murderer’s ears.”

“Do you hear that both of you?” Prior Rhys’s
warning tone was like a father might use with a son.

The monks nodded.

“If you think of anything else that you
haven’t told us, even a detail so small you think it couldn’t be
important, I want to hear it,” Gareth said. “We don’t know this
man’s name, and yet, we have to catch his killer.”

Both monks nodded again and left. Gareth
turned back to Prior Rhys. “It only occurs to me now that I didn’t
actually ask them if they knew the dead man.”

“I asked before I sent them to hunt through
the underbrush. They claimed not to,” Prior Rhys said.

“Did they actually say that, or did they
merely shake their heads?” Prince Rhun said.

Prior Rhys gave a short burst of laughter,
which he stifled instantly. “The latter.”

Footfalls came from the nave of the church,
and a moment later, the hosteler appeared with the prior of the
monastery, Pedr. In looks, the prior was the complete opposite of
Prior Rhys, who even in middle age was tall and well built, still
with the bearing of the soldier he’d been. Pedr had a stooped,
slightly rounded figure and had red hair going both gray and bald.
From Gareth’s few interactions with him so far, however, his
intellect was on a level with Rhys’s.

Pedr dismissed the hosteler immediately upon
seeing the body, and bent his head in a bow to Prince Rhun. “My
lord.”

Rhun nodded. “Prior.”

This little ritual was repeated with Prior
Rhys, who returned the bow. “Prior Pedr.”

Gareth nodded too, though Prior Pedr hadn’t
yet looked at him.

“I see we have lost a parishioner,” Pedr
said.

“It appears so,” Prior Rhys said, “though we
do not yet have a name for him.”

“Brother Adda says he was found in the
millpond,” Pedr said.

Gareth inferred that Adda was the hosteler
who’d just left. “Yes, but he didn’t drown.”

Pedr look quickly up at Gareth. “He
didn’t?”

“Prior, what Sir Gareth means to say is that
we believe the man to have been murdered before he was put into the
millpond, but we would prefer that as few people as possible are
aware of that,” Prior Rhys said. “So far we have kept it among us
few, though the two monks whose help I enlisted to pull the body
from the pond also know.”

Pedr stayed at the foot of the table,
studying the dead man. “It goes without saying that you are sure of
this or you wouldn’t have declared it, but I have to ask: you have
no doubt that he was murdered?”

“He was stabbed with a knife to the chest.”
Gareth reached for the man’s shirt. “If you would like to see—”

Pedr raised a hand. “I acknowledge your
superior wisdom in this matter.” He took in a breath. “How long ago
did he die?”

“Some twelve hours, give or take,” Gareth
said. “It is my guess that he spent all that time after the moment
of death in the water.”

“I have little experience with murder, but I
have been made aware of some of the activities Prince Hywel
requires of you. Do you need—” the prior’s lips curled in distaste,
“—to look him over?”

“If I may.” Although Gareth would have
preferred a private room in which to examine the body, if he could
keep onlookers out, he could do his work just as well in here.
Unlike some who had accused him of profaning the dead, he didn’t
believe that searching through a murdered man’s clothes or
examining his body somehow defiled him or was a crime against God.
Quite the opposite, he believed it would be the far greater crime
to let a murderer walk free.

In this instance, Gareth didn’t think that
the prior was so much squeamish as personally offended that any man
would murder another. Still, Gareth was glad that he was going to
be allowed to work, though it might be that he already knew most of
what the body could tell him. “I realize that we must bury him
quickly, and I would do what needs to be done now and then leave
him in peace.”

Pedr gave a jerky nod. “I can give you until
tomorrow morning. I’m afraid that doesn’t give you much time.” Then
Pedr looked at Prior Rhys. “If you would walk with me, I know the
abbot would appreciate a more detailed explanation of what has
happened here. I would be most grateful for it as well.”

“Of course.” Prior Rhys followed Pedr out
the door and departed, though not before he raised his eyebrows at
Gareth behind Pedr’s back in a quick glance of helplessness and
amusement.

Gareth was grateful that Rhys was available
to act as go-between for the investigation and the abbot. The last
time Gareth had been inside an abbot’s office, he’d been in the
company of a murderer and a traitor, though he hadn’t known it at
the time.

With the departure of the two priors, Prince
Rhun and Gareth were left alone with the body—though once again, it
was only for a few heartbeats. More footfalls came from the nave,
and this time, it was Prince Hywel who entered the vestibule,
accompanied by a young woman.

Slender, of short stature but with a bearing
that spoke of privilege, the woman wore a dark brown headdress,
which covered all of her hair, and a matching wool dress of a fine
weave. She clutched a handkerchief in one hand and dabbed at her
eyes with it.

At the sight of the body on the table, she
halted abruptly. As she stared at it, the hand holding the
handkerchief dropped, revealing her face: clear, pale skin set off
by red lips and dark eyes, brows, and lashes, and an upturned nose.
In short, she had the most even features Gareth had ever seen on
anyone, man or woman, and was, for lack of a better word,
beautiful. But then her face crumpled, she gave a sobbing gasp, ran
towards the dead man, and threw herself across his body. “Gryff! Oh
Gryff!”

Gareth looked at his lord, one of the most
handsome men in Gwynedd himself (according to Gwen), with deep blue
eyes and a voice that could charm any woman who looked at him. At
the moment, his face was showing an expression closer to impatience
than sympathy. Prince Rhun moved to his brother’s side. “Who’s
this?”

“I met her at the gatehouse. She claimed to
have heard in the village that a body had been found in the
millpond. She feared it was her husband and—” Hywel gestured
towards the woman still prostrated over the body, “—it seems she
was right.”

“At least we now have his name.” Gareth
observed the woman impartially. Instead of abating, her sobs rose
in volume. He frowned, deciding that the woman wasn’t doing Gryff
or herself any good from that position. Gareth gently peeled her
off Gryff’s body and made her take a few steps back from it. The
woman’s eyes streamed with tears, but the sobbing reverted to
occasional hiccupping gasps.

Gareth patted her back. “I’m sorry for your
loss.”

The woman didn’t seem to hear him, just
continued to sob. Then she gave another gasp, said, “I can’t bear
it!” and then turned on her heel as if preparing to leave.

Hywel was planted in the doorway, however,
and she pulled up at the sight of him.

“Please—” she began.