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Day Four
Catrin
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Mary watched Catrin closely as she inspected Hugh’s ledger. “I know what you’re thinking.” She bent her head slightly. “I am ashamed to have been a part of this for so long. I hated what Hugh was doing. But after so many years, I was certainly complicit.”
Having conferred with Rhys, Simon, and Math after her last interview with Mary, Catrin had sought out Hugh’s wife again this morning, this time at the castle, where she and Jane had their quarters. They had not been evicted to make room for the king’s party. Catrin had to spend a mere moment inspecting the ledger Mary gave her to be both grateful and horrified. She was grateful that Mary had mentioned the book at all. She hadn’t had to, since it incriminated her husband. And she was horrified to see the long list of names of people who’d paid fees to Hugh.
Catrin wanted to be kind. “You wouldn’t be the first person to find herself in a situation out of her control.”
Mary gripped Catrin’s arm, desperate to be heard. “Hugh was a good husband.” She motioned towards the book. “Because of his father, he spent too many years afraid of the worst thing that could happen to a family. Now, that worst thing has happened. But, when it came, it was something he never thought of. He was trying to make amends. He had changed.”
“I believe you, especially after examining him last night. He was ill, wasn’t he?”
Mary met her gaze. “You saw it? The lump?”
“We did.”
“We consulted with the best physicians, including two of the king’s, as well as herbalists. Only one had ever seen anything like it before, and she said there was nothing to be done.”
“He didn’t seem particularly unwell when I spoke to him.”
“He was tiring more easily, and he found it difficult to eat. The herbalist gave us some hope that he could live for years this way. The question was how big that lump would get and how terrible might be his end.”
Catrin felt for Mary, but nonetheless held up the book, which was the main reason she’d come. “I will have to share this with my husband.”
“I know you will. I knew that when I told you about it. I shared it even knowing that by doing so we might lose everything we have.” More tears welled in her eyes, but then she straightened her spine. “It is no more nor less than we deserve.”
Catrin shook her head. “Maybe you do deserve to be punished, but judgment is for God, not me, and certainly not my husband. Our task is to find the murderer. Even if this book aids us in finding your husband’s killer, we won’t necessarily have to share its contents with anyone else.”
Mary’s face filled with a pathetic hope. “My Jane is only fifteen. She is not yet ready for marriage. I don’t care about me, but I wouldn’t want her to suffer from something that wasn’t her fault.”
A sour part of Catrin might have commented that everyone suffered from things that weren’t their fault, all the time. And yet, even if Catrin and Rhys had suffered in their own way, Catrin’s pain was not Mary’s fault either. There was no need to make any person’s life unnecessarily worse.
Since Mary appeared to be coping with her husband’s loss as well as could be expected, Catrin felt able to ask a few more relevant questions, beginning with: “Did you know that the day before Moriddig died, Lord Owen had discontinued his services?”
Mary’s look of surprise appeared genuine. “Are you sure?”
“This is according to Lord Owen, who said Hugh knew, as did Adam, but that everyone agreed not to speak of it until after the festival, to give Moriddig time to arrange a new position for himself.” She didn’t mention that, according to Miles de Bohun, Moriddig had already done so with the Bohuns.
“Could Lord Owen’s decision have had something to do with Moriddig’s death? Or my Hugh’s?” Mary asked.
“I do not know the answer to that. I’m sorry.” Catrin flipped to the front of the book and started going through the names once more. “Moriddig’s name isn’t here.”
“It wouldn’t be.”
Mary’s flat tone caused Catrin to look up.
Mary nodded to see it. “At first, I wondered about that too. Hugh left some names out, ones that he was too ashamed to write down, even in a private book.”
“So there are others like Moriddig, men he didn’t choose to mention, even to himself?”
“Two others that I know of.” Her hand went to her mouth. “Two others that are here in Overton!”
“What? Who?”
“Bari and Einion. They are brothers, born a year apart. They grew up with Moriddig and Hugh. You did know that Moriddig and Hugh have known each other practically since birth?”
“I didn’t know that in particular.” Catrin could have asked how it was they were on the fourth day of the investigation, looking for a link between their murder victims, and it was only now that anyone had cared to mention their personal history. “But go on.”
Mary obliged. “All four of them were wanting to be bards, even Hugh for a time, even if it seems unlikely now. But, of course, only Moriddig had a father who already was one, and only Moriddig, in the end, had the necessary talent and perseverance.” She paused. “Or so the others were told.”
“Told by whom?”
She made a face. “I always assumed that news was broken to them by Moriddig’s father, who was their teacher. All I know is that Hugh became what was expected of him, which was a steward; Moriddig followed in his father’s footsteps after he won that first eisteddfod; and the two brothers went off to make their fortune elsewhere.”
“Do you know where?”
“At some point they joined the English army. I’m sure they went to the Holy Land.”
Two Welshmen who’d gone on crusade were definitely something Rhys would want to know about. He might even know them, as the crusader community was relatively small, and the Welsh crusader community smaller still.
Mary continued, “Hugh mentioned their presence in passing in the days before he died. He and Moriddig even met with them one evening to reminisce.”
Catrin looked down at the book again, “So where do their fees come in?”
“Moriddig gave money to Hugh to help arrange his victory at that crucial eisteddfod. I honestly don’t know how much of the money Hugh kept for himself, but Hugh definitely paid at least one of the judges to ensure Moriddig’s victory.”
“And the others?”
Mary looked truly rueful now. “I think he went to each of his friends separately to offer them the same bargain, to be fair, you see. They paid, but they lost. That was the last time he accepted money from multiple people to achieve the same end.”
“Any sense of how good the brothers were?”
Mary shook her head. “I genuinely don’t know. It was before our marriage. And, as you can probably imagine, it wasn’t something Hugh liked to talk about. It came up only once, at a time when Hugh was well into his cups. He had taken money from friends—money he’d asked for—and had been unable to deliver on his promise. On top of that, he didn’t give the money back afterwards. I know he regretted the whole affair ever since. Because of it, he lost them as friends.”
“Until this week? You said the four of them met to reminisce.”
“So he said.” She shrugged. “So it seems?”
Catrin felt like cold water was trickling down her spine. The four men had reunited after many years apart, and now two of them were dead.
Forcing herself to observe the necessary social graces, she thanked Mary for her time and her honesty. Inside, however, she was wondering if Bari and Einion had come back after all these years, still holding onto how they’d been wronged as young men, and took their revenge by murdering the two former best friends who’d wronged them.
