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Day One
Catrin
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Catrin’s brothers had been in Nefyn for King Edward’s tournament there, and thus had witnessed her wedding to Rhys. Although she hadn’t seen Hywel since then, it was still less than two months since they’d spoken. As they’d been apart for twenty years before that, she was still getting used to having brothers again. There had definitely been times during all those years in England where she had felt abandoned to her fate. And still, given that they were suddenly embroiled in another investigation, if she couldn’t have Rhys at her side, Hywel really was the next best person.
Hywel himself might also still be getting used to having a grown woman for a sister. On the one hand, he had left her with a dead body as if it were nothing. On the other, a dozen times since the two of them had been walking together on their way to find Gruffydd, he’d looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
Finally, she said, not without exasperation, “What?”
He put one hand up, somewhat defensively. “I was only thinking that marriage to Rhys suits you.”
She softened. “It does; it really does.”
“I knew when we sent you to England all those years ago that you might not be happy. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, but I didn’t know what it meant. I regret being so cavalier with your life.”
“You’ve said as much to me before,” Catrin said gently. “It was my life, and even if much of it I would have preferred not to experience, I had to find happiness where I stood. Those twenty years gave me a son, and they also brought me to where I am today. Rhys and I both have struggled with our present circumstance, Rhys more than I, but—”
“Serving the king, you mean?”
“That surprises you?”
“If it is a struggle for him, he doesn’t show it.”
“He’ll be glad to know that. At times it feels like a lifetime has passed just since our wedding, not to mention since April.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing! And it sounds like a story you need to tell me.”
That Hywel hadn’t realized the extent of Rhys’s grief was a testament to how profoundly Rhys was swallowing it down. “Maybe not today.” Catrin gave him a small smile.
Hywel gave way, thankfully unaware of how momentous that story might be, were she ever to be able to tell it. Catrin and Rhys had shared a meal with Hywel and Tudur when they’d first arrived, at which time they’d related something of the events at Windsor and Vale Royal Abbey. They hadn’t been able to speak the whole truth of what had happened to Prince Alfonso, not even to her brothers. Even so, she was sure her sorrow at the melting down of Llywelyn’s seal had bled through the telling.
“Let me see. You investigated murder in Caernarfon; and then more murder at Nefyn; then the death of the king’s son in Windsor; and finally those deaths at Vale Royal Abbey.” He ticked the items off on his fingers. “And now Moriddig is dead too. I can’t decide if this number of strange incidents should be normal for a royal court, which I never noticed until you became involved, or if this is something new.”
“I wasn’t in the royal court before two years ago either.” Catrin frowned. “I imagine, as with anywhere, people of all ages die. I have never taken the time to separate those deaths that occur in warfare or childbirth from murder. After a while, they just wash over you like swells in the ocean. Rhys says most murders aren’t that hard to solve because it’s one man going at another with a knife in a tavern brawl. This one, like the others we’ve seen of late, appears to be more than that.”
“I’m looking forward to watching you work.”
They arrived back at the rehearsal, which was currently ongoing for the nine hundred and ninety-eight bards who had survived the day so far. Sensibly enough, Hugh had decided he couldn’t keep everyone waiting any longer and had begun without Moriddig, as he would have to do from now on. The rehearsal had progressed to the point that the remaining senior bards, Gruffydd among them, had paraded past the king’s currently empty seat. They had then clustered to one side to watch the rest of the bards bow to the empty throne and then move on.
The entire ceremony would be repeated later this afternoon before sunset, with the king and the court present. The weather was even cooperating. The king’s viewing stand was roofed, as was the stage, but no pavilion could hold a thousand people at once—and that was just with the performers. Like the tournament in Nefyn, this was an event attended by thousands more people, including tinkers and merchants, gamblers and thieves, and common folk in large numbers. It was not an event to miss, even for those who hadn’t been commanded to attend.
It occurred to Catrin that, for all that this festival was about the bards, it was the common audience who was the real object of the king’s strictures. It was their way of life the king intended to transform, beginning with the music they heard.
Since Gruffydd was a member of their brother’s household, Catrin and Hywel didn’t have to disguise their approach or make up an excuse to talk to him. Hywel took the lead, striding right up to Gruffydd and greeting him with a clasped forearm, after which he introduced Catrin.
Gruffydd took Catrin’s hand and bowed over it. “It was a shame our lives were deprived of your beauty all these years. You were much missed. But we are delighted to have you returned to us.”
It was typical flowery bard-speak to the sister of his patron. They were just three friends, talking as friends do. None of the nearby bards did more than glance their way.
“Thank you, Gruffydd,” Catrin said, before adding in an undertone, “You may be less delighted when you hear why we are here.”
Hywel motioned with his head, and they got Gruffydd to move some ten paces farther away, stopping near the stone wall that demarcated this particular field. Once there, Catrin, who’d taken Gruffydd’s poem back from Math and secreted it in her purse before leaving Moriddig’s wagon, pulled it out.
He started reading, and immediately his face paled. “Where did you get this?”
“Is it yours?” Hywel wasn’t giving an inch, no matter the apparent extent of Gruffydd’s shock and that Hywel had agreed earlier that Gruffydd wouldn’t have murdered Moriddig. Gruffydd was his man, or at least his family’s, so any wrongdoing on Gruffydd’s part would reflect directly back to them. He had to be sure.
“Yes, it’s mine.” Instead of matching Hywel’s intensity, Gruffydd let out a slow breath. “Let me show you.” With something of a surreptitious look at his fellow bards, all of whom were looking away, he pulled a piece of paper from within his jacket. “Here’s the whole poem as it is so far.”
“There’s more?” Hywel practically snatched the paper from his hand. Then, as he began to read, his stance softened considerably. “I have never read its like.”
“It will be beautiful when it’s done,” Gruffydd said softly, “if it is ever done and if it can ever be sung.”
“It must be.” Catrin spoke fiercely. “To this day, nobody has sung of him. It is your task. You must finish it.”
“I do know that, but—” He made a helpless gesture in the direction of the stage where Hugh had put up his hands to gain everyone’s attention. “How?”
“You will find a way.” Somehow, Catrin was sure.
“Not if he’s hanged for murder.” Hywel was still reading the lines on the paper.
“What did you say?” Gruffydd had moved to stand very close to him, half-shielding him from the view of anyone in the field. Even if Trahaearn hadn’t fled this morning, King Edward had made it clear he would give short shrift to any bard who violated his edicts. If a Norman connected the poem to Gruffydd, and how could he not since he’d signed it, Gruffydd could find himself condemned by sundown. By now too, Gruffydd was catching on that something more was wrong here than the finding of his poem, which was bad enough. “What is this really about?”
Catrin studied the bard, uncertain how much she was ready to say. Hywel, to his credit, controlled whatever impulse he may have had to treat her like his little sister and answer for her. Then, in the periphery of her vision, she caught sight of Rhys arriving. He must have finished speaking to the king, and his task now was to inform the rest of those assembled here that Moriddig was dead.
In a moment, she would run out of time to tell Gruffydd the news herself, and she definitely wanted to watch his face when she did. To that end, she put a hand on Gruffydd’s arm, to ensure he was looking at her when she spoke. “Moriddig was murdered this morning.”
Then Hywel added, on his own recognizance, “What’s more, my friend, we found this piece of your poem stuffed into his mouth.”
