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Day Five
Catrin
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Catrin had been deeply asleep when the call to put out the fire at the castle had come. Having let Rhys, Miles, and Hywel deal with the situation at the inn, which she could see was no place for her in the late evening, she had retired to their tent. At Rhys’s request, some of the other guards had moved their tents closer to hers, so she’d felt safe enough without him. Still, she’d lain down in her clothes while she waited for her husband to return, and then fallen asleep without meaning to.
By the time she reached the castle, the word among the onlookers was that the king was safe with his men, although where exactly he’d gone, nobody was sure. Catrin assumed Rhys, though not on duty, would be with him, and was thus safe too.
A woman passed her, hurrying with an empty bucket to join the line of people hauling water. “Of all nights for it not to rain!”
Up ahead, Catrin spotted Owen, his face streaked with ash and his blond hair almost black with soot. Little remained of the buildings on one side of the castle, but nobody was letting up on their efforts. If nothing else, they had a chance to save the great hall and the keep.
Catrin looked around at the other helpers. Unlike murderers, whose goal was generally to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their victims, arsonists were known to watch the aftermath of their work.
The only reason she knew anything about these matters was because there had been a young man in her first husband’s following who had been caught setting fires throughout the county. His obsession had begun small, his parents later explained. As a child, he’d loved to watch any fire burn. They’d caught him setting little fires on their property, and he’d once almost burned down their outhouse. They hadn’t told anyone of his proclivities until it was too late: he burned down their neighbor’s barn with animals left inside. By the time the neighbor woke, the barn was too consumed to save them.
The young man had watched from the shadows, after which he had pretended to arrive to put out the flames. But his parents had known he hadn’t been home when it started, and they confessed their suspicions to Catrin’s husband. In the end, Robert had forced a confession from the young man and hanged him. Some men, he’d explained, could not be allowed to live.
Tonight, however, there were so many people volunteering to help that it was impossible to distinguish one person’s interest from another’s. Everybody was watching the fire; everyone’s eyes followed the sparks as they swirled around the bailey. With no stars or moon tonight, the flames reaching towards the sky were the only light.
Gruffydd had been working shoulder-to-shoulder with Cadwgan, and Catrin took a place next to them. “Are you sure either of you should be here?”
“Where else would we be?” Gruffydd seemed genuinely surprised at the question.
“The cold water can’t be good for your hands.” Catrin’s already hurt, and she’d just joined them.
“You’re right about that.” Gruffydd clenched one hand into a fist. “But who would we be if we didn’t help?”
“We do what we must.” Cadwgan swung another bucket towards Catrin, which she took and passed to her neighbor on the other side.
They had been speaking in Welsh, and a few of the people nearby in the line were nodding.
“If I were not a loyal citizen, I might be glad to see such catastrophes come upon Owen.” Gruffydd now spoke much more in an undertone. “What worries me, though, is that the culprit is one of our number.”
“A bard, you mean?” Catrin asked.
“Welsh.”
Gruffydd was right to be concerned. It was one thing to murder two Welshmen, even if both belonged to Owen. It was another to attack Owen directly, as burning this castle had done.
“Even more, whoever burned the castle, if, in fact, the fire was deliberately set, has indirectly attacked the king,” Cadwgan said. “King Edward will be caring far more about this investigation now than he did when he went to bed.”
Gruffydd expression was particularly grim. “Get to the bottom of this, Catrin. You and Rhys. None of us will be able to breathe freely until you do.”
Catrin might have replied that they were never again going to be able to breathe freely, no matter how the investigation was resolved. Even in Welsh, it was not something she could say in the bailey of Owen’s castle, in ruins or not.
Gruffydd and Cadwgan returned to their work, and Catrin might have as well, if only to better eavesdrop on what everyone was saying about the fire, if Hugh’s daughter, Jane, hadn’t come shooting out of a lane to the west like an arrow from a quiver. Arriving in front of Catrin, she wrapped her arms around Catrin’s waist. “We could have been in there! We could have been killed!”
Catrin put one arm around Jane’s shoulders and with the other she reached for Jane’s mother, Mary, who had followed at a more sedate pace. “Where have you been?”
Jane’s face was pressed into Catrin’s shoulder, so that left Mary to be the one to answer, as had been usual up until now. “Neither of us could bear to stay in our quarters, so we spent the night in our wagon in the festival grounds.”
“You have a wagon too?”
“Of course.” Mary looked puzzled that this could be news to Catrin. “We travel the country, same as the bards. It would hardly do for Moriddig to have his own wagon and not us.” She gave Catrin a gentle smile. “I sometimes feel sorry for men of higher rank. Sleeping in a wagon is somehow beneath them. It is a home away from home for me and Jane.” She sighed. “As it had been for Hugh.”
Catrin turned to look at the burning guesthouse. As she watched, the roof, which they had hoped might be saved, collapsed.
“So much destruction.” Mary blinked back tears. “We lost everything that was important when Hugh was killed. And now this. I find myself suddenly grateful for what I still have.”
