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Day Two
Rhys
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Rhys had risen early, with the mission of seeking out Adam and Patrick. He had been waylaid at breakfast by Prince Edmund and then by everyone else, from contestants to merchants to a woman he thought might be a prostitute. They all wanted to know if he’d found the murderer yet, if they themselves were safe, and if Rhys could share any information with them. Sadly, he could give them no assurances, only that he was doing his best. Having to confess his failure repeatedly was humbling.
By the time he’d extricated himself from the last questioner, the day’s events had started. He wasted another precious hour traipsing about the festival grounds looking for Adam and Patrick. Last night, they’d both been too drunk to converse coherently. Inebriated people were sometimes uninhibited, but the pair had been morose and weepy, which made it impossible for Rhys to get a coherent word out of either of them, other than their endless regret that Moriddig was dead.
Finally, he tracked them down in the bards’ pavilion, where contestants waited to be called to the various stages where the competitions were being held. Rhys hadn’t looked there earlier because he hadn’t expected Patrick to continue his participation in the festival. Once he found them, Adam refused to let Rhys speak to Patrick before he sang and wouldn’t countenance any questions while he was in earshot. To Rhys’s eyes, Adam had pivoted seamlessly from stewarding for Moriddig to watching over Patrick. To be fair, Adam appeared to have been doing that to one degree or another for some time before Moriddig’s death.
Patrick had been falling down drunk last night. This morning he was on his feet and walking in a straight line to where he needed to go, in preparation for his first appearance in the competition.
Adam stopped behind a rope, urging Patrick on with a word of encouragement to continue towards one of the smaller stages set up in the fields around the main stage. With so many contests and contestants, it would be impossible for everyone to participate from just one stage. There were going to be at least three competitions occurring at the same time in different parts of the festival grounds.
Since this wasn’t the main stage, it didn’t have a viewing stand, just a large space in front for people to gather on the grass to hear the performers.
As Patrick set off, Rhys asked Adam, “How good is he, really?”
“You’ll see in a moment.”
“You sound a little grim.”
Adam allowed himself a small sigh. “Patrick has his father’s voice, no question, as well as his ability to control an audience from the stage. He revels in being the center of attention and knows how to perform. He has his father’s intelligence too. But the plain truth is that he doesn’t have Moriddig’s attention to detail and willingness to commit the entirety of his being to the endeavor. A singing voice could be enough, but not if Patrick wants to fill his father’s shoes.” He glanced at Rhys. “At least, it wouldn’t have been enough in the old days.”
“Meaning prior to Llywelyn’s death.”
“It’s been longer ago than that for us.”
“You surprise me.” Rhys found himself respecting Adam’s honesty.
“Why? For speaking plainly? You think I can’t see what is right in front of me?”
“And what is right in front of you?”
Now Adam smiled a little sadly. “Owen and his father turned to King Edward years ago. These new rules that everyone is so shocked about have been our way of life for a decade.”
“Owen and his father turned to King Edward because Owen plotted with Dafydd to murder Llywelyn.” Rhys couldn’t contain his outrage, even as he told himself this was no way to interrogate a suspect.
Adam put up both hands. “I-I-I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Allow me to apologize.” Rhys took Adam’s arm and moved him away from the other onlookers, a few of whom had glanced in their direction when Rhys’s voice had risen. “As I’m sure you can imagine, Llywelyn’s death remains a sore point for me.”
Adam bent his head briefly. “I do realize that, and I was trying to speak obliquely without casting blame. Please forgive me as well. I know you are here to talk of Moriddig. What can I tell you that you don’t already know?”
“Well, first—”
Before Rhys could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a glorious tenor. Patrick’s voice was pure in a way that only a young man’s could be, before it darkened with age and time.
“I see now what you mean,” he said softly.
At first, Adam’s expression became almost wistful as he listened to his nephew. Then he grew more intent—and more critical. “This isn’t a song he has written, but one that is well known to many. His voice is magical, up until you realize he has flubbed the words again.”
“Has he?”
“Twice now.” Adam wrinkled his nose. “That he knows the song perfectly according to the written text matters only when he is being judged. Certainly a lord wouldn’t care. Nobody cares if the words of any one ballad conform exactly to the way he was taught. But it will matter to the judges here, and if he isn’t ranked highly at the end, it might be difficult for Owen to keep him on. Or any other lord to hire him.”
“He’s hardly twenty. Was he ever going to win, really?”
“Moriddig won an eisteddfod when he was twenty. So did Gruffydd.”
As Adam had pointed out, those were in by-gone days, when large musical festivals were an annual event. “But surely placing high or, dare I say, winning the voice category could be enough?”
Rhys’s query seemed to settle Adam a bit. “It could be, though I would prefer he actually learned the lyrics. To be honest, it was going to be touch and go whether Moriddig could have ordained Patrick a bard this year. There is so much to memorize, and he just doesn’t seem to understand how much work it is going to take. To tell you the truth, half the time when he should have been working on his music, he was running errands for Hugh. He can read and write, so copying out writs for Hugh was far easier than memorizing songs for his father. I warned him that he was neglecting his studies, but he repeatedly brushed me off.”
“Young men often have trouble being told what to do, especially by their fathers—or uncles.”
Adam heaved a sigh. “You’re not wrong about that. Maybe if Patrick had been Hugh’s son, he would have gone running for instruction to Moriddig!”
Rhys put a hand on his shoulder. “It really might not matter. After this week, the order of Welsh bards is never going to be the same. The system of apprenticeship might not survive the festival.”
Adam left off his concentrating stare in Patrick’s direction long enough to really look at Rhys. “You think it will come to that?”
“I am quite sure it already has.”
Adam looked as if he didn’t believe him, or at least he didn’t indicate he was overly concerned about the possibility. Instead, he focused once more on his nephew.
The song ended and Patrick bowed, to enthusiastic applause from the audience. When he came back to Adam, his color was high, as were his emotions. His father’s death was momentarily forgotten, or at least put to the side, and he was feeling joy. Rhys could see it in his whole being.
Adam gripped his shoulder. “Well done, boy.”
“I missed a few words, but—”
“It will not matter. Your voice is enough.” Adam spoke sincerely, without even a glance at Rhys or an arch look. He was supportive of his nephew and accepted the futility in this moment of being critical.
Their interaction reminded Rhys of his own years of training to become a warrior. As a small child, he’d learned his trade through wrestling and play with wooden swords or bows and arrows. As a youth in Llywelyn’s court, he fought against boys of a similar age. And then he’d been included on missions, with the real possibility of battle.
All that time, he’d had older men to follow. Some were dismissive or brutal, seemingly taking pleasure in his failures. Others, the ones he returned to even when he was a member of Llywelyn’s teulu in his own right, behaved as Adam had done just now. The moments after a fight, successful or not, weren’t the time for recriminations or instruction. That came later, on the practice field, with cooler heads. Much of the time, like Patrick, Rhys had already been aware of what he’d done wrong. Creating an environment for a student to identify his own mistakes was a mark of a good teacher.
So while Patrick’s mistakes might matter in the end, there was little point in telling Patrick so in this moment. It was done. Adam wasn’t a musician himself, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good instructor—and a good uncle to his orphaned nephew.
“If you could bear with me for a moment longer.” Rhys made a motion to stop the men’s departure. “I need to ask you about yesterday morning.” And then, before they could reply in any meaningful way, he followed with, “Where were each of you in the hours before the start of the rehearsal?”
Patrick was still blinking away his performance, so it was Adam who answered first. “With the castle so full of the king’s men, I had my own tent in the encampment and met Moriddig for breakfast. Patrick joined us. And then we were called to the rehearsal.”
Patrick put out a hand to his uncle at this conclusion. “Actually, Uncle, if I may say so, you joined me for breakfast. Father had already left. I never saw him at all yesterday.” For a moment, he blinked back what might have been tears.
Adam smiled at his nephew. “Of course, you are right. I’m misremembering.”
Although a sweet moment between Adam and Patrick, the correction made Rhys wary. Adam had described his day to Catrin in the same terms as he’d just related it to Rhys. But if Patrick was right, Adam’s remembrance had been incorrect both times. “To clarify, Adam, if I am understanding correctly, you ate breakfast with Moriddig, departed with him, and then returned to eat again with Patrick?”
“No, that’s not right.” Adam shook his head. “I shared a meal with my brother, but he left on his own. Then I had a second breakfast with Patrick, after which I—” He hesitated and, for some reason, his face flushed.
Patrick rolled his eyes. “You have to tell him, uncle.”
If he’d been someone else, Rhys might have suspected Adam had been with a woman.
When Adam still didn’t say anything, Patrick laughed. “He saw to his needs, as he sometimes says. My uncle is very particular about his bowels. They must be evacuated every day after breakfast without fail or he thinks he’s dying.” He shoved at his uncle’s shoulder. “You know it’s true.”
Rhys waved away any further explanation. The small amount Patrick had said was already more than he wanted to know about the workings of Adam’s innards. “My apologies. No need to say more.”
By now, however, Adam was ready to laugh with his nephew. “It’s the truth. I can’t deny it.” But then he sobered, all joviality leaving him. “That was the last time I saw my brother.”
