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Day Three
Rhys
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Stephen FitzJohn straightened from where he had been explaining himself to Rhys. His eyes went for a moment to Simon, whose identity he, of course, knew, and then returned to Rhys. “My father told me I was to make my own choice, that life was too short to live it with someone I didn’t love. I have made that choice.”
“Emma Boydell.” Rhys glanced past Stephen to Simon too.
“Yes.” Now Stephen turned to face Simon fully and gave him a respectful nod. “I truly do love her and intend to marry her. I hope that I can do so with your blessing.”
“It is not mine to give, son.” Simon knew, as Rhys did, that Stephen’s wishes, his father’s, or even his uncle’s, despite being steward to the king, would matter little if the king himself did not approve of the match. The gauntlet appeared to have been thrown down, however, and Stephen was looking to be as stubborn a young person as Rhys’s short acquaintance with Emma had shown her to be.
Stephen certainly hadn’t been much dismayed by the dead man in the barn, other than the fact that Emma had seen him too. Once Rhys had explained that he’d sent her off in the care of Catrin, Stephen had settled on his heels, studying the body with the eyes of a scholar. “May I ask what you make of this?”
Rhys had glanced at him. “You see what I see.”
“A man stabbed through the belly. Though,” he gave a shake of his head, “not just any man. Hugh, steward to Owen de la Pole. The coins are an interesting touch.” His voice was light, observing but not judging, and his eyes were on the pile of pennies, farthings, and half-farthings that had mixed with the blood around and on top of Hugh’s body.
“Interesting is one word for it.”
“What blade was used? Not a sword I’m thinking.”
“Not a sword. The blade appears to have been narrower, possibly tapered to a sharp point and had a clean edge.” Pointing, Rhys embellished on the topic. “It was driven into Hugh’s body below his ribs and upwards to his heart. And then he was stabbed again through the middle of his belly for good measure.”
“With significant force, I’d guess,” Stephen said, “indicating a measure of hate.”
By that time, the young man’s detachment had been starting to bother Rhys a bit, where before he’d been impressed. “Have you ever seen a murdered man before? You encompassed the sight of him with more equanimity than most.”
“Is that a mark against me or for me, to your mind?” Stephen gave a low laugh that indicated no pleasure. “I was at Landelo Vower two years ago.” He meant Llandeilo Fawr, a place in south Wales. “I saw men slaughtered there. It isn’t that I am inured to it, but I learned to see without seeing.” He paused. “I was also at the Menai.”
That news rocked Rhys back a bit. Stephen had just named two battles during the war that the Welsh had won decisively. Stephen been in both, and survived them both, which meant he’d seen his share of carnage. Simon hadn’t been at either battle, a fact for which Rhys was grateful, even if Simon was not. At both, Norman knights had died in large numbers.
“How did you survive?”
It was a reasonable question. The Welsh victory at the Menai Strait had precipitated the Mortimer brothers’ decision to end the war by assassinating Llywelyn. By then, it had been the only way to achieve an English victory.
At that time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, had been at Llywelyn’s palace at Aber, negotiating for an end to the war. Earlier, King Edward had sent an army, led by a man named Tany, to Anglesey. Tany was tasked with building a bridge of boats across the Menai Strait west of Aber, near Catrin’s family’s estate at Penrhyn. Meanwhile, the king sat at Rhuddlan Castle, preparing to force the River Conwy at Caerhun. Before the archbishop had intervened, the plan had been for Edward to invade Gwynedd from the east and Tany from the north in order to catch Llywelyn in a pincer movement.
Tany, for reasons that nobody would ever know, since he died on the day, decided not to wait for either Peckham or Edward. On the sixth of November 1282, he started his men across his bridge.
Rhys had been among those posted on the beach, waiting for them. Tany had meant to surprise them. Instead, the Welsh had met the English army with overwhelming force. When word had got out they were coming, combrogi had come running from miles around. It was bad enough that the English had taken the Anglesey harvest, they weren’t going to take the heart of Gwynedd too.
In the time it took Tany’s army to arrive on the Gwynedd beach, fight the Welsh forces, and flee in desperate defeat, the tide had turned. Literally. The currents in the Menai Strait were treacherous at any time of day, with the only relatively safe time during the hour of slack water before the turn of the tide.
Once the tide turned, however, the water was at its most dangerous. Caught between the Welsh forces on the one hand and the Menai Strait on the other, the English army chose to recross their bridge. Straining under the weight of so many men and horses, the bridge broke, dumping nearly the whole of the English army into the sea. While the Welsh suffered a handful of casualties, Edward lost over four hundred men that day, including knights, squires, and Tany himself.
But not Stephen FitzJohn.
Stephen met Rhys’s eyes. “I can swim, and I knew better than to fight the current. I was fortunate enough to end up on the Anglesey shore alongside Otto de Grandison. Rumor had it there were no survivors on the mainland side because you killed everyone, even those who surrendered.”
“You should know better than to believe everything you hear.” Rhys himself knew better than to become angry at the slander. It was typical of the English to make up a story that the Welsh had killed their prisoners because the real truth was even more tragic: every Englishman who’d made the beach had chosen the water over surrender. None of that was Llywelyn’s fault.
Stephen grunted his acknowledgment. “We are all members of the same court now. But my experience in battle is why the sight of Hugh did not send me outside to vomit.” He paused his speech, frowning a bit. Then he leaned forward over the body in order to reach in, despite the blood, and come up with a gem the size of a pea. Once the blood was rubbed away, it proved to be a garnet.
Showing it to Rhys, he said, “What say you?”
Rhys took the stone. “I say it could have come from a hilt or sheath. The murderer got close, and that means Hugh knew him. I’m guessing he was meeting someone here today too. Heaven knows why.”
“Like Emma and I intended to do?” Stephen was horrified at the thought. “If Emma had arrived even a quarter of an hour earlier, she might have witnessed the murder—or been killed too!”
“A lesson to you, perhaps?” It was the most censorious Rhys had been. Emma wasn’t his niece, and this wasn’t his fight.
At that point, Simon arrived.
Now, Stephen bent his head to Simon again. “I will speak to her father immediately.”
“Good luck to you,” Rhys said to Stephen’s retreating back. Then, once the young man was out the door and on his way, he added softly, under his breath, for Simon’s ears alone, “You’re going to need it!”
Simon watched him go too before bending to pick up one of the coins a few feet from the body. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Rhys. My niece is a determined young lady, and it looks to me as if she has truly met her match.”
