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Day Two
Catrin
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Catrin had a glint in her eye, her face was alight, and she’d forgotten to damp down her enthusiasm. Damn the man for being so much like the boy she’d known, even after all these years. “If someone brought Cole here as you say, likely it was in a cart or thrown over the back of a horse—” she stopped abruptly.
He nodded, eyebrows raised. “Which begs the question, what happened to the horse?”
She deflated slightly. “You thought of that already.”
“My guess is Cole was killed on or near the road, thrown over the back of his own horse, as you say, and brought to the barn. Why the killer stripped him of his gear and laid him out on the incomplete hexfoil remains a mystery. Unless Cole made a habit of riding naked through the countryside—”
“That does sound unlikely,” she said, in mimicry of him.
He ignored her jest. “He was naked. What I do find likely is that his gear was stuffed into his own horse’s saddle bags, which is how the boot could have fallen out without the killer noticing.”
“But why any of this? It’s seems so elaborate and unnecessary.”
“It appears unnecessary to us. Killers, in my experience, have their reasons, even if those reasons make no sense on the surface to a sane man.”
Catrin glanced away, not wanting to show him what was going on inside her head. She was becoming actively worried the killer was a villager, and his intent was to protest King Edward’s rule. If so, ambushing what looked like a Norman rider on the road and bringing him to what had once been the barn of his prince’s palace to lay him out so gruesomely made a certain kind of sense.
She really hoped that wasn’t what had happened. If a viable candidate for leadership could be found, armed insurrection against the English crown would be one thing. Random protest that involved killing the nearest person to hand was quite another and would do none of them any good.
Even if Rhys supported King Edward, she’d seen with her own eyes his regard for their people and heard it in his voice when he talked. For the first time, it occurred to her that if he’d betrayed Llywelyn, it could have been out of love for Wales rather than hatred. Many other lords had preferred not to see Wales torn apart by war, especially one that dragged on through the winter, and decided to throw in their lot with the king in hopes the war would come to a quick end.
The thought made her stomach hurt, but she could see how he could have come to that conclusion. How could she not, seeing as how her own brothers had defected to King Edward before Prince Llywelyn’s body was even cold?
She shook herself and refocused on the issue before them. “So why the incomplete hexfoil?”
Rhys canted his head. “Why do you think?”
Catrin’s brow furrowed as she thought. “It’s showy, isn’t it?”
Rhys gave a quick nod. “Everything about it speaks to the idea that the killer wanted the body to be found. He wanted everyone in an uproar about it.”
“Why?”
“That I couldn’t tell you.”
“If he really wanted everybody to see what he’d done, he should have left Cole in the middle of a crossroads.”
Rhys tapped a finger to his lower lip. “You are right about that.” He sounded reluctant to admit it. “Or possibly, he didn’t want him found immediately to give himself time to get away.”
“Or he didn’t want Cole to be found,” Catrin said, “and it really was a satanic ritual. You’ve been assuming it was a ploy because you don’t scare easily yourself, but it’s the reason the local people completed the hexfoil.”
Rhys seemed surprised by her reasoning, but he nodded. “In which case, was Cole killed because of who he was and the message he was carrying, or was the attack random, for twisted purposes in the killer’s own mind?”
“Making the killer a madman? Who in Caernarfon could fit such a description?”
“I find much of what the Normans do madness in itself, but it is of a different kind. This—” he gestured behind them to the barn, “—this is something else entirely.”
“I imagine everyone in the village and town wants it to be a masterless man.”
“That would be convenient, if nothing else.” Rhys’s lips twisted. “But I find it hard to believe any could be operating so close to Caernarfon. Masterless men rob a traveler and leave him for dead in the road, as you suggested. And if such a man wasn’t local, he might not know about the barn in the first place.”
Feeling the tug of interest again, Catrin was nodding before Rhys finished speaking. “So where is the horse? And where are his possessions other than the lost boot? And if we find them, do we find the killer?” She threw out a hand to stop him before he could answer. “If the killer did all this, would he be stupid enough to keep everything he took?”
“We won’t know until we find the items and the horse. Horses are valuable, though. It might be hard to give up once acquired.”
“One boot isn’t going to do him a lot of good. If one of the villagers or a townsperson is walking around with mismatched boots, we have him.” She started moving around the area, her eyes on the ground, looking for hoofprints, though, as she’d said to Rhys, with all the tracks from last night, things looked hopelessly muddled.
For a moment, Rhys stood gazing around with his hands on his hips, and she had a moment of impatience with him for watching her rather than helping, but then he moved purposefully towards the near corner of the barn and began pacing around a perimeter much wider than the one she’d been following.
It forced her to stop and ask what he was doing.
“I was here last night, so I have some idea of where everyone stood. Obviously the coroner’s men and the villagers left their footprints, but the horses were tied over there—” He gestured to a rail fence that had been used to pen stock. “So why are there hoofprints over here?”
Catrin lifted her skirts and came closer, though if what he was looking at were hoofprints, he had a keen eyesight that eluded her. Rhys had been crouching beside the marks he found, and now he looked this way and that, surveying the ground around him, before abruptly rising and heading up the sloping track that would take them the back way to the prince’s palace. Until a year ago, the palace had been the central point of the entire area, so all roads led to it, including this track.
The barn lay less than a mile east and slightly south of the castle. If not for the trees that had been allowed to grow, they would have been afforded a view of the whole region. That was, of course, why the palace had been built on the hill in the first place. Edward was building Caernarfon on the waterfront not because it was central or it made the castle more defensible, but so it could be supplied from the sea—and the defenders could retreat to the sea, or all the way back to England—if it was overrun.
Catrin followed Rhys without speaking, letting him concentrate on the ground before him. But once they reached the top of the slope, Catrin stopped suddenly, her heart constricted at the sight of the ruin before her. She had grown up here as much as Rhys, and though she’d had an idea of what to expect, she found tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Because she’d arrived in Caernarfon from the other direction, on the new road that ran by the Menai Strait to the castle, she hadn’t seen the palace earlier.
The prince’s palace had been built over the remains of an old Roman fort, with encompassing walls that stretched roughly a hundred yards on each side. Part of the wall ahead of her had been knocked down, allowing her to see the blackened and ruined interior. By Welsh law, each commote—what the English would call a small county—was required to provide a palace for the prince, so he could have a place to stay when he administered to the local people. At a minimum, the palace had to include a hall, quarters for the prince, kitchen and storage areas, stables, a barn, a kiln, a dormitory for the prince’s retinue, and a privy.
Today, none of those buildings remained intact.
Rhys stopped beside her. “They say the fire was caused by a lantern knocked over in the stables, and thus an accident, but I wouldn’t know if the story is true. It happened over a year ago, before my time.”
She nodded dully. The only building still with a roof was the prince’s quarters, consisting of an anteroom and his private chambers, though the door was gone and the glass in the windows had been knocked out or salvaged.
They started walking again, following the farm track around the wall. Neither spoke, and she wondered again how Rhys lived with himself. To her mind, the shame in his eyes at the feast was now fully explained: even if he’d betrayed his prince with the best of intentions, the consequences to his people were so dire and long-lasting, he would live the rest of his life with the guilt of what he’d done to them.
The old Roman road had crossed the River Seiont to the south and then run directly north to the palace, where it intersected another road and headed northeast to Conwy. With Llywelyn dead and the palace abandoned, the roads north and south had been diverted around the palace to the west, intersecting now at Edward’s castle and making the ancient paved highways nearest the palace only stems off the main road. What had once been a smooth stone surface was now split by vegetation and piled with debris.
To any observer, Edward’s message spoke as loudly as if it had been shouted from a mountaintop like a passage from Hosea: For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.
Catrin averted her eyes from the desolation before her and asked, “What was happening here three days ago?”
“We were preparing for the king’s arrival.” Rhys shrugged, and the tug of familiarity was back. To distract herself yet again, she sped up slightly in order to reach the entrance, now missing both great wooden doors that used to block it.
She touched the left-hand pillar, seeing in her mind’s eye the hundreds of times she’d passed through the gate as a child, thinking it her right to come and go as she pleased. She’d been the daughter and granddaughter of stewards, cosseted and catered to. In retrospect, in spoiling her, her elders hadn’t done her any favors. They certainly hadn’t prepared her for her future life.
She found the anger and hatred she held in her heart for Edward rising, and she forced it back down. Those emotions could be useful at times in driving action, but they were ultimately more harmful to her than to Edward, who likely couldn’t care less what she or anyone else thought of him. Focusing on how much she loved her family and her people produced the same result with less weight on her shoulders. Even now she could feel a stabbing of tension, like a large splinter, driving into her right shoulder. She stretched her back to ease the pain and in so doing, looked to the right of the road.
“More hoofprints.” Catrin pointed to the edge of the path, prompting Rhys to bend to look.
“You’re right.”
If the horse had stayed on the road itself, it would have been impossible to make distinctions, since the surface was too hard-packed with stone and dirt. But these tracks were isolated and fresh.
“These even I can see.” She bent forward too, with her hands on her knees. “When did it last rain here?”
His chin wrinkled as he remembered. “Four days ago, for most of the morning on and off.”
“But not since?” Sometimes getting Rhys to impart information was like pulling teeth.
“No.”
“If Cole rode here from the northeast, coming from Edward’s castle at Conwy some twenty miles away, he would have traveled along the same road my company took. But if he rode towards Caernarfon from the south, he would have traversed the length of Wales and ultimately arrived here, where all roads meet. Or once did.”
Standing at the ruined palace gates, Catrin looked south, imagining the scene, how the killer had come upon Cole at the very end of his journey, and what he’d done to him.
Rhys read her thoughts, or merely his were following the same course as hers. “Would Cole stop here only a mile from his destination, in the ruin of the palace at that?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Who else do I have to ask? You knew him.”
“Only a little.” She canted her head as she thought. “Still, he might not have known he had so little distance to go.”
“Perhaps he was looking for shelter.”
“And even if he did know, he could have stopped to clean his boots and brush the dust from his garments before seeing me.”
“Or the king.”
She ignored that. “We should continue our search. If we find nothing of note, we can double back and try the more northern road. The barn is located in such a position that finding evidence here doesn’t tell us from which direction Cole came. Both roads from Gloucester would have been equally long.”
Rhys stepped through the gate and breathed deeply. “How many times were we here together as children?”
“It tugs at one’s heart,” she agreed, perhaps incautiously. The dappling of sunlight through the fully leafed trees made the palace more serene and inviting than she had feared. It was destroyed, but its spirit was at peace.
Inside the walls, the slate path was overgrown with grass and moss. His hands on his knees, Rhys moved deeper into the complex, shaking his head every now and again as he bent closer to the ground. “You look to the right. I’ll look left.”
Thus, turning their backs on each other, they progressed through the expansive space. Catrin allowed her instincts to guide her steps, and she fetched up ultimately at the prince’s quarters.
As before, hooves had made a distinct impression on the grass and dirt just off the pathway. “Rhys! Come and look at this!”
In a few moments, Rhys was beside her. At her pointing finger, Rhys shot her a twitch of a smile and a thank you and stepped through the doorway into the roofless house.
He froze.
She peered around him, but he put out his arm. “Give me a moment.” Then he left her by the door and hastened into the middle of what had been Llywelyn’s private solar. The wooden floor was gone, removed for a building somewhere else, maybe even Caernarfon Castle, leaving packed soil so long dry and sunless that nothing but a few hardy weeds grew there, even after a year.
The fine soil made it easy to see the large patch of earth that was darker in color than it should have been, and when Rhys crouched and swept his fingers through it, they came up adhered with sticky dirt.
Despite herself, Catrin recoiled. “Is that blood?” The sound of her own voice brought her down to earth, and she managed to speak next in a more normal tone, “Cole died here.”
“I’d say so, though I can’t distinguish human blood from animal.” He straightened to his full height before drawing her attention to the ground around him. “Footprints, you’ll note. Many of them. Someone was here recently—at least two someones, going by the different sizes and types of boots.”
“Cole’s are the larger ones.”
“It does seem they might be.” He looked at her. “If the queen knew I allowed you to search with me, she’d have my head.”
“Then we won’t tell her.” Catrin lifted her skirts and started across the room. “I’m having a hard time imagining a turn of events which leaves Cole stripped of his gear and dead in a barn two hundred yards away.”
“I’m sorry to say I can think of quite a number of scenarios, none of which I want to share right now without more evidence.” He shot her a wry look. “That was just in case you were going to ask.”
“I do want to ask, but maybe I won’t just yet, like you said, until we know more.” She moved to a far doorway, which led to Llywelyn’s sleeping quarters. This room was smaller and more intact, in that the floor hadn’t been pillaged, requiring her to step up from within the building’s foundation to get inside. Footprints were visible on the dust of the floor here too, some of them small, as if children had come here to play, which she didn’t doubt. She and Rhys would have, had they been children now.
It felt awkward to be here, as if they were invading Prince Llywelyn’s privacy, though nothing of him remained. The room had been stripped long since by either the Normans or the local people, once they knew neither he nor any other prince would be coming back. Catrin followed the interior wall, which it shared with the solar, until she reached a narrow door that stood ajar. Pulling it wide exposed a passage, three feet deep at most, between the two rooms. The back wall was entirely made up of shelving, empty like the rest of the room.
“What was stored here?” she asked Rhys.
“It was the prince’s treasure room. He brought his gold with him wherever he went, though his wealth was in cattle more than coin.”
“I would have thought it stayed in Aber.”
“The piece of the true cross was kept there, too precious to be transported around Wales,” Rhys said, “but the prince couldn’t leave behind his gold and silver. He had a treasure room in each of his palaces, every one guarded day and night while he was in residence.”
Rhys spoke with sadness but no rancor. Their back and forth conversation over the last hour was making her think—and maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise—that their understanding of each other was incomplete. But revising her opinion of him could be dangerous, in case she’d been right all along, and he was as loyal to his Norman masters as she supposed.
And she might not be wrong about him. It could be instead that he was resentful of the fact that his betrayal of Llywelyn had netted him nothing: no station, no land, no wealth. Not even, apparently, gratitude, since her queries about him over the last two days—other than to her brother Hywel—had resulted in shrugs and dismissal. Nobody knew who he was or had been. Nobody cared either.
“My husband had a cupboard such as this. It was accessible only from his counting room where he kept his books and ledgers.”
Rhys sighed. “All gone now.”
“Not all gone.” She bent to the ground and came up with a single silver coin that glinted in the palm of her hand. “Hard to believe this has been lying here all this time.”
“It is hard to believe.” Taking it from her, Rhys held the coin up to the light coming from the window, which was open to the elements. With the doors gone, there wasn’t much point in closing the shutters. “If not impossible. It’s shiny still.” He rubbed his thumb across it. Then he held it closer to read the lettering. “Minted last year, in fact.”
They exchanged a look and then both swept their feet through the accumulated dust. Their search discovered nothing more, however, and as one, without needing to speak of their mutual decision, they turned to leave. But as they stepped outside of Llywelyn’s quarters, a gray horse, sixteen hands high at least, greeted them from the grass a few feet away. Its reins were still tied to a stake, which it had dragged to its current position.
“There you are, my beauty.” Rhys reached for its bridle. “Did you hear us talking and came to say hello?”
The horse held steady, making no move to run away.
Catrin followed the trampled grass around the back of Llywelyn’s quarters to the old stable, which still had a water trough in front of it with two fingers of water in the bottom.
Rhys followed, leading the horse. “She’s still wearing saddle bags.”
Pleased to have more of the mystery solved, Catrin unbuckled the straps, but her initial excitement dissipated almost immediately when the contents proved to be less than momentous, consisting of a bedroll, a change of clothing, a cloak for rain, and a wrapped cloth containing the remains of a simple meal of bread and cheese, now hard and stale. The strap of a water skin was looped around the saddle horn.
Rhys studied the animal. “I confess to have been assuming the killer used Cole’s own horse to transport him to the barn.”
Catrin walked all the way around the animal. “I see no blood.”
“No,” Rhys said heavily.
Catrin shot him a sharp look. “Why does that concern you?”
Instead of answering, Rhys boosted Catrin onto the horse’s back. “Up you go.”
She settled there, gathering the reins. It was reaching a point where they couldn’t continue as they were. She was going to have to confront him, regardless of the consequences, and make him answer all her questions, not just this one.
“It’s time I got you back to the castle. At least Cole’s horse will have a stable to sleep in tonight.”
“Talk to me, Rhys!”
Rhys looked away, obviously reluctant, and began leading the horse with Catrin on it out of the palace. “If Cole wasn’t brought to the barn thrown over the back of this horse, the killer had his own, didn’t he?”
Catrin gave a little gasp. “Making him a knight or a nobleman? It would narrow the pool of suspects.”
“Alarmingly so.” Then he lifted one shoulder noncommittally. “Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. A farmer with a cart is just as much a possibility.”
“Or a wheelbarrow.”
“Though I see no wheel tracks.”
They headed down the ruined road to where it intersected with the good one coming from the castle. Wide enough for two carts to pass, the road saw a great deal of traffic, though likely less in the middle of the night, if that’s when Cole had been killed.
The sound of pounding hooves came to them from the direction of the castle, prompting Rhys to swear under his breath. “We don’t have time to hide.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong.”
“I’d rather not draw attention to anywhere we’ve been, particularly when that place is the scene of the murder.”
Rhys brought the horse with Catrin astride it onto the main road, presumably to give the impression they’d been traveling along it all this time. Catrin held the horse steady near the edge, and Rhys stayed with her.
A moment later the horseman came over the western rise.
“It’s Dai,” Rhys said to Catrin, with surprise in his voice. “He’s the assistant to the undercoroner.”
At the sight of Rhys and Catrin ahead of him, a look of sheer relief crossed Dai’s face, and he reined in to speak to them. “Can you come with me? We’ve found another body.”
