The Unlikely Spy (10 page)

“I do not know. My uncle claims not.”

“As one might expect,” Morgan said.

Hywel eyed his steward. “You should know
that we believe Gryff was murdered.”

Morgan didn’t even blink. “How?”

“A stab to the chest,” Hywel said. “All the
more reason to wonder at my uncle’s interest in it.”

“Do you believe his assertion that he wasn’t
involved?”

“It is not what I believe or don’t believe
at present. I have no reason to suspect him other than that I
always suspect him. But no, Gryff’s death seems far below the
doings of my uncle.”

Morgan gazed past Hywel, looking towards the
entrance to the great hall. “He brought many men, your uncle. Did
you know?”

Hywel’s eyes narrowed. “How many?”

“Twenty came with him to the castle, but I
have been informed that he left some fifty more outside
Aberystwyth.”

“What?” Hywel said. “Fifty cavalry?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me where exactly?” Hywel
said.

“In the woods about two miles to the
northeast of St. Padarn’s,” Morgan said. “I only learned of this
moments ago when one of the farm boys came in and spoke of it. He
was riding in the back of his father’s hay cart when he saw them
setting up camp near St. Dafydd’s chapel.”

Hywel was aghast at the news. “Your network
of spies appears to be better than mine.”

“I’m sorry, my lord, I—”

Hywel waved a hand. “Please know that I am
in no way angry about that. I’m impressed and grateful.”

“I’m a Ceredigion man, born and bred,”
Morgan said. “I regret to say that the men of Gwynedd remain
newcomers and are often ill-trusted.”

“For good reason,” Hywel said, “thanks to my
uncle.”

“You are not painted with the same brush,”
Morgan said.

Hywel almost laughed. He had tried to be
fair, ruling with a firm but just hand. But when a man didn’t get
what he wanted, or was punished, it often didn’t matter to him or
his family that his sentence had been just.

“You are vulnerable, however,” Morgan said.
“It isn’t that the people are tinder, just waiting to be lit, but
they distrust. King Cadell of Deheubarth should arrive at any
moment and those two—Cadell and Cadwaladr—are as the two faces of a
coin. Both want to rule Ceredigion, and neither is to be
trusted.”

Hywel already knew that, but it was good to
hear Morgan articulate it. “Again, thank you. Please let me or
Gareth know if you see or hear anything more about these men of my
uncle’s or have further thoughts on the matter.”

Morgan bowed. “Of course, my lord.”

Hywel headed for his horse, which had been
fed and watered in his absence, and found Evan, Gareth’s
second-in-command, holding his bridle.

“Do you have orders for me, my lord?” he
said.

“Yes, I do.” Hywel would have sent Gareth to
investigate if he were not inconveniently busy with the murder.
Evan would do in his stead. Hywel mounted his horse and turned its
head. His uncle might not be involved in this murder, but as surely
as the sun would rise tomorrow, he was involved in something.

Gareth

I
t was different
having Prince Rhun for company instead of Hywel. Gareth didn’t
dislike his presence. It was simply new to him, and like any new
thing, it would take some getting used to. Prince Rhun was closer
to Gareth’s age than Hywel was and, quite honestly, probably closer
in natural temperament to Gareth, too.

As they strode across the monastery
courtyard to the stables, Rhun glanced at Gareth. “Is something the
matter?”

“Not at all.” Gareth hastily rearranged his
expression, smoothing his furrowed brow. “I was merely thinking
about the murder, and what we might discover when we speak to
Iolo.”

“Have you encountered a cloth merchant by
that name before, here in Ceredigion?” Rhun said.

“No. Not that I remember. He must have come
for the festival. Madlen implied as much.” They entered the
darkness of the stable where their horses were being kept. Two boys
came out of the depths of the stalls to greet them, but Gareth
didn’t need a guide to find his horse. Braith whickered at his
approach, snuffling at Gareth’s hand for the apple he knew would be
there.

The boy who led out Gareth’s horse was
almost too small to lift the saddle, so Gareth helped him throw it
onto Braith’s back and cinch the buckles tight. Then they walked
him back into the hot sunshine of the late August afternoon.

“I keep thinking back over that interview
with Madlen,” Rhun said as he mounted his horse. “I’m not used to
being fooled in this way, if she was fooling us at all. Perhaps
there is an innocent explanation for why she took the purse.”

“Even if there isn’t, I imagine we’ll be
given one,” Gareth said.

Rhun released a surprised laugh. “You
distrust everyone’s motives, don’t you?”

“In a murder investigation, I have learned
to,” Gareth said without apology.

“Do you think it is human nature to trust or
distrust?” Rhun said.

Gareth’s brow furrowed in thought. Rhun’s
mind worked differently from that of his brother. Hywel viewed the
world through cynical eyes. Rhun was more open and unjudgementally
curious, which was what Gareth was feeling from him now.

“Think of a child like Tangwen,” Gareth
said.

They left the monastery and were riding
through the village of Llanbadarn Fawr, which had grown up around
St. Padarn’s. Aberystwyth, a slightly larger village, was located
one mile to the west on the seaside. Hywel’s castle, their
destination, was a mile and a half to the south of both villages,
sited on a hill overlooking the sea. The festival pavilions and
tents were set up on the flood plain below the castle in the curve
of the river Ystwyth.

“She neither trusts all nor distrusts all,
but she trusts and distrusts based on instinct. A child’s instincts
are often better than those of an adult, who trusts or mistrusts
based upon experience.”

“And sometimes those experiences play a man
false.” Rhun nodded. “I see what you’re saying.”

“Now, sometimes a child’s instinct can play
her false too,” Gareth said. “Tangwen has been known to favor
people who speak to her in a soft voice, and a man who understands
how a child’s mind works can manipulate her into trusting where she
shouldn’t.”

“A frightening idea,” Rhun said.

This conversation had carried them down the
road from St. Padarn’s and across the Rheidol River to the ford of
the Ystwyth River below Hywel’s castle. In the last few days, the
number of tents and flags had grown from a mere handful to more
than fifty. The market fair was in full swing.

Welsh society as a whole was based upon
kinship and land ownership. Hywel, as lord of the land, ruled
Ceredigion, and each of his lesser lords tithed to him. In turn,
the people of Wales, whether they farmed, fished, or herded, owed
tithes to their lord. At one time the majority of the Welsh people
had been, while not slaves, not exactly free either. But over time
that had changed such that each man had been given responsibility
for himself. He controlled his own flocks and the product of his
labors, even if he continued to tithe to lord and Church. At one
time, true slavery had been common too, though that practice was
disappearing. More often than not, it was the Welsh who’d been
enslaved by invading hordes.

Since the Normans had come, small villages
had sprung up across the land, and with them came established
merchants, traders, and craftsmen. They traveled all around Wales
and into the March, just as bard’s had always done. As the child of
a bard, Gwen had sung up and down the length of Wales before her
father, Meilyr, returned to Gwynedd to sing for King Owain as his
court bard. Gwen’s father had served two kings of Gwynedd in his
time—King Owain and his father, Gruffydd, before him—and Gwen’s
brother, Gwalchmai, looked to do the same.

Gareth hadn’t realized until this moment
what an accomplishment this festival was for Hywel. That so many
people had come—high and low alike—showed the respect they had for
him and for music—and possibly for
his
music. As the son of
the King of Gwynedd, Hywel wasn’t a bard the way Gwen’s father and
brother were. But he’d been trained by Meilyr, and his voice
possessed a clarity that Gareth had never heard in another
singer.

Hywel’s stature—both as a prince and as a
musician—meant that when he personally invited the premier bards of
Wales to come to Ceredigion, they had accepted. The King of Gwynedd
was entertained by his bard at Aber—and occasionally by Hywel—on an
almost daily basis. But music of the quality they could produce was
far less commonplace in the little villages, hamlets, and
homesteads spread across the rest of Wales.

In fact, for some, hearing music like that
found at this festival was the chance of a lifetime.

Rhun and Gareth dismounted at the entrance
to the tent fair. To cut down on thievery, Gareth—who’d been in
charge of such details—had fenced the market to allow only two
entrances to the grounds, both guarded by Hywel’s men
.
The
two on guard at the moment, Goch and Rhodri, happened to be two of
the more sensible soldiers in the garrison.

They saluted Gareth and bowed to Rhun at
their approach. Goch and Rhodri were accompanied by Hywel’s scribe,
Barri. The name derived from the Welsh word for mountain, but the
man was a hillock compared to the much larger soldiers beside him.
Goch, with his flaming red hair, was dwarfed only by Rhodri with
his enormous feet.

“How goes it, Rhodri?” Gareth said.

“Well enough, my lord,” Rhodri said.

“I was hoping that you would have a list of
all the craftsmen and traders who have set up their tents here,”
Gareth said. “In particular, we are looking for one Iolo, a cloth
merchant.”

Rhodri turned to Barri, who consulted a
paper with a long list of text down one side. “Iolo ap Llywelyn
that would be?”

“That’s the one,” Gareth said.

“Third row, ninth stall down. One of three
cloth merchants we have here today,” Barri said, proving that size
had nothing to do with intelligence. Hywel had chosen well when he
asked the scribe to take time from his regular duties to help
maintain order at the fair.

“Excellent,” Gareth said. “Thank you.”

Prince Rhun took a step into the
fairgrounds, but Goch stopped Gareth before he could follow. Rhun
returned to the entrance, having realized that Gareth wasn’t with
him.

“Is there something amiss, my lord?” Goch
said. “Something we should know about? I hear there’s been a
death.”

Gareth scratched his cheek. “Yes. A man was
found dead in the millpond. You already heard this?”

Both guards nodded.

Gareth wasn’t surprised. The rumor mill was
working better than the watermill today—perhaps more quickly than
usual
because
there were so many more people available to
spread the news. Their walk from the mill to the monastery with the
body in the cart would have been easily enough to start tongues
wagging. Gareth hadn’t even tried to restrain Teilo from talking.
At least Gareth could count on the monks for discretion with
outsiders, though by now the entire monastery had to be aware of
what had happened.

“We have learned little more than that, my
lord,” Rhodri said. “I am sure that most of the details are likely
to be wrong. You know how it goes.”

“I do.” Gareth jerked his head, indicating
that Rhodri should step to one side. Barri and Goch were attending
to a man with gear over his shoulder who was asking for tent
space.

“I will tell you as soon as we have
information I need you to know,” Gareth said. “For now, the name of
the dead man appears to be Gryff. And yes, he was found dead in the
millpond.”

Rhodri opened his mouth to speak but then
closed it.

“What is it?” Gareth said sharply.

Rhodri cleared his throat. “One of the
rumors we heard was that Prince Rhun saw the man drowning in the
millpond and swam out to save him.”

Rhun let out a
whoosh
of surprised
laughter. “I suppose that’s better than if the word had been that
I’d killed him. But no, I was one of the first on the scene. That
is all.” He eyed the soldier. “You should know that we are here
asking questions because the man didn’t drown.”

“Murder?” Rhodri’s eyes widened.

“That is for the ears of you and Goch only,”
Gareth said. “I mean it. Everyone is assuming he drowned, and we
want to keep it that way until we know more.”

Rhodri nodded fervently. “We will tell no
one.”

Gareth supposed that if he was going to
enlist members of the guard to help in the investigation, they had
to know they were dealing with murder, but he wished Prince Rhun
had asked him first before announcing it to Rhodri. Then again,
Rhun was a prince. He wasn’t accustomed to asking permission to do
anything.

“Beyond this, we know little else and are in
the first hours of our investigation,” Gareth said. “It’s probably
fruitless to try to stem the tide of rumors, but at least you know
the truth.”

Rhodri pressed his lips together in a look
of satisfaction, and Gareth felt better about sharing this bit of
information. He might need quick action from both guards if all
didn’t go as he expected in the next hour. At the very least, as
soldiers, it was their job to keep an eye on the comings and goings
of everyone in the fairgrounds. With a murderer on the loose, they
needed to stay alert.

While he’d been talking to Rhodri, the
number of festival-goers had continued to swell. Afternoon had
given way to evening, and people were shopping before returning to
the music program in the next field over. Leaving the two guards to
their duties, Gareth and Rhun moved quickly through the crowds.
They turned down the aisle Barri had mentioned and started counting
stalls.