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Day Three
Rhys
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“I didn’t actually know the dead man was John le Strange when I sent for you because I hadn’t yet seen the body,” Rhys said, “but news of a death in the town seemed like a time, if there ever was one, to call for backup immediately.”
“It’s rather unlike you, actually.”
“I suppose so. The old me, anyway.”
Simon crouched before the body, his hands relaxed between his knees, as Rhys had done earlier. His expression was wry rather than revulsed as he observed the stab wounds. “I confess, I did not see this coming.”
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t immediately see a hexfoil.” Rhys hesitated. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“So no consolation at all.”
“You know how this goes,” Rhys said. “We keep moving forward until something stops us.”
“Why are you here instead of Guy?”
“The boy the innkeeper sent to find the coroner found me instead.”
“Three murdered men. Why John? Why any of them?”
“I have no idea.” Rhys looked over at his old friend, realizing he hadn’t actually told him about how he and Catrin had gone to Llywelyn’s palace and found the place where Cole was murdered. Nor that he’d found blood at the millpond indicating Tomos’s murder site. Now wasn’t the time for further explanations either, and he wasn’t sure how important these discoveries were anyway, not with John’s murdered body staring them in the face. “Three days have passed since we started investigating, and while I know what happened, I have no actual suspects.”
Gingerly, Simon peered into the other side of the latrine, next to where the man had died. Rhys had already looked there and knew the planks of wood that made up the floor of the latrine were stained. He didn’t feel the need to guess with what—though it wasn’t blood. Alice was right that the latrine had been well-maintained.
Then Simon’s eyes tracked again to John’s body. “I can’t tell you anything at all about why those other men died, but John isn’t a casualty in the same way the others are.”
“He’s a nobleman,” Rhys said simply, “a servant specifically of Prince Edmund, unlike his father who serves the king directly. I spoke to John two days ago before examining Cole’s body. He’d arrived in Caernarfon moments earlier.”
“Are you aware of the news he brought the king?”
Rhys shook his head warily.
“Prince Edmund is on his way. He should be here tomorrow.”
Rhys found his shoulders sagging.
“Ah, you hadn’t heard that yet?”
“I’ve been a bit busy.”
Simon’s gaze returned to the body. “So you have.”
Rhys tried to take the news of Prince Edmund’s imminent arrival in stride. Things could hardly be worse, in truth. Bad enough that King Edward was ensconced in the castle with his very pregnant wife, who also knew him because she’d been on that sojourn in the Holy Land. Until now, it really had been Prince Edmund whom Rhys had served. He could hide himself from King Edward—though he would surely face the consequences for that—but Edmund was a different story entirely.
Simon scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt, apparently able to read Rhys’s mind. “About your absence all these years.”
Rhys glanced over at his friend, seeing Simon’s face transformed by an intense expression that matched his tone. He was surprised they were talking about this now, but he couldn’t refuse to respond when replying clearly meant so much to Simon. “Yes?”
“I never wished to oppose you.”
“I know that. I can be grateful we never had to fight against each other directly.” Rhys eyed his friend and then finally succumbed to the question he’d wanted to ask him for the last year and a half. “Was your absence at Cilmeri that day by design or just bad luck?”
“Prince Edmund was not aware of the Mortimer ruse to lure Llywelyn into an ambush.”
Simon had said he wouldn’t lie, so Rhys believed him. “It was underhanded, so they kept him out of it?”
“He’s a crusader. It would have been beneath him.”
“Did you know?”
The corners of Simon’s mouth turned down. “I knew something was afoot, but nothing specific. Perhaps if I’d dug a little deeper, twisted some wrists—”
Rhys made a slashing motion with his hand. “Better that you didn’t know, because even if you had, you couldn’t have warned me. Don’t apologize for what couldn’t be helped. We are both crouchbacks.”
“That we are. We serve with integrity or not at all.” Simon’s brow furrowed for a moment, indicating concern, but then his expression cleared, as if he’d decided something or had something confirmed that he’d had questions about. He nodded slowly, his eyes on Rhys’s face. “You should also know, even if the prince might not want me to tell you, that John was Edmund’s spymaster, privy to many secrets, though, interestingly, he did not know about you. It seems he had very few informants in Gwynedd.”
Rhys stared at his friend, truly surprised. Before he could pursue that line of thought, however, the sound of voices came from behind them. Not wanting to expose John to just anyone’s view, Rhys grabbed the edge of the door to the latrine stall and closed it—and then took in a genuinely shocked breath at the sight of the incomplete hexfoil carved into the front of the door.
Simon’s response was more prosaic: he swore and said, “Who in the hell curses a latrine?”
“At this point, I’m far less concerned about the hexfoil than the hand that carved it. We have to assume it’s the same killer now.”
Simon glanced at Rhys, a puzzled expression on his face. “You thought otherwise up until this moment?”
“I still think it’s a possibility. It has been five days since those deaths, both of which appear to have occurred on the same night. Someone could be hoping to piggyback on the other two murders. At the very least, it’s something we should consider, simply because of John’s station and the sheer number of people who might have wanted him dead—particularly now that you tell me he was a spy.”
Simon grunted. “You always did have a twisty mind.” Then he jerked his head. “We must see the king before another hour passes. You should throw yourself at his feet, beg forgiveness, and then tell him everything that has happened here. You can’t avoid it now.”
Rhys bent his head for a moment before finally accepting that the life he’d made for himself this last year was over. “I do know that.”
Simon’s dark look continued. “With John’s death, I will be taking the lead on the investigation personally. The coroner means well, but he is inexperienced. I’ll need you at my side, of course.”
“Of course.” Rhys spoke formally because Simon had done so. There was no rank between them except when imposed from the outside, but sometimes it was good to observe the forms. Rhys also knew (as did Simon) that the coroner didn’t mean well. Guy had accepted the position for the power and wealth it brought him. The fact that investigating death was part of the job was an inconvenience, not a calling, as it was with Rhys.
If Guy hadn’t been leaving soon to take up his position as Sheriff of Denbighshire, he might object to Simon taking over, not liking to be outranked by the son of a lesser nobleman, even if Simon’s ancestor had come with the Conqueror. Then again, Guy had displayed little interest in this particular investigation so far and, as the Sheriff of Denbighshire, he was about to vault above the heads of many others. It was a great opportunity for an illegitimate son.
At long last, Alice came around the stables with Tom the barman. Because Rhys had been contemplating all the ways the incomplete hexfoil’s presence, coupled with three bodies in three days, complicated the investigation, he had forgotten about closing the door. Thus, he didn’t respond as quickly as he might have and was too late to swing the door wide to hide the mark.
Alice gasped from behind Rhys, and by the time he turned around, she had averted her eyes, both from him and from the door.
Tom was less circumspect. “It’s here too? That won’t be good for business!”
It was the one thing he could have said that could have made Alice respond forcefully. “It wasn’t there before. I’d swear to it! I wouldn’t have none of that in my inn.”
“You didn’t see it earlier when you came to view the body?” Rhys asked. “The door must have been closed for the corpse not to have been discovered sooner.”
“It was one of the serving girls who found him. I only saw him after.”
“Is that the same serving girl who was here when I arrived?”
Alice scoffed. “No. The first one was sensible and ran to tell me. This one came later, being a curious nit, and lost her head. I told everyone to stay away, but of course she wouldn’t listen. She never does.”
Rhys wasn’t much concerned with Alice’s staffing issues and turned to Tom. He looked exactly as a barman should, with a thick mustache and beard, a little gray at the edges, and almost no hair on top of his head. He was heavily muscled throughout his arms and shoulders. Though a bit shorter than average in height, he would have little trouble dealing with a patron who’d had too much to drink.
“Alice says you served this man when he arrived.”
The barman wrinkled his nose. “He drank ale and ate a plate of bread and onions. He turned his nose up at the cheese. I don’t know why.”
Alice stepped in. “Some of these fine lords think the cheese we make here is too hard and tart. They want those soft Hereford cheeses they’re used to.” She sniffed. “The Welsh know how to make cheese, I’ll give them that.”
The Welsh had lived on milk and meat from cattle, sheep, and goats for as long as they’d been Welsh. They made bread too, but their expertise was in cheese and butter.
“You can’t tell us anything more about him than that?” Simon asked.
“No, my lord. I’m sorry, my lord.” Tom gave Simon the double honorific, indicating he was nervous. “I didn’t know who he was then, not to look at. He didn’t speak to anyone that I saw. The dining room was crowded, so I didn’t notice when he left to use the latrine.” He gestured to the incomplete hexfoil on the door. “We should burn that bit right now.”
“We can’t burn it,” Simon said. “It’s evidence.”
“I don’t want it in my place.” Alice glared at Rhys. “Does it have to stay?”
“No,” Rhys said. “We’ve seen it as it is.”
“Take it to the church,” she said forcefully. “Father Mathew will know what to do with it.”
Father Mathew was the priest at St. Mary’s, whom Rhys did not know as well as Father Medwyn, the priest at St. Peblig’s. Still, Rhys saw the sense in keeping it inside the town. Then it remained a Norman problem—and Rhys prayed it stayed that way.
So he nodded to Alice. “I will take care of it. You may go if you have things to see to.”
“I do!” She gave a sharp nod. “I’ll tell Duggan to cut that part out.” Then she bent her head, “My lords,” and departed with Tom to return to the inn.
Once retrieved from the other side of the yard, Duggan made short work of the plank that had formed one of the slats that made up the door, probably acquired from the sawmill off the River Seiont where Tomos’s body had been found.
As Rhys and Simon passed through the main room of the inn, finally able to leave, Alice approached once again with one more request: “If you don’t mind, my lord, could you ask Father Mathew when you see him to stop by here after?”
“Certainly.” Rhys frowned. “May I ask what for?”
“I’d like his blessing on the latrine, once I’ve installed a new door.”
It felt good to laugh. If someone could curse a latrine, the priest could also bless it.
