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Day Four
Rhys
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“Where to next?” Simon asked as he and Rhys left the inn and stood in the street. “Track down Rosie? Though I don’t see how she would be important. It was Guy who wanted her, not Rolf.”
Rosie had turned out to be the woman who’d winked at Rhys, but she’d left before they’d come out of the pantry.
“What better source of information about the goings-on in Caernarfon could there be than a barmaid?” Rhys said. “They see and hear more than any man. Maybe that’s who Rolf was meeting.”
“And there she is—because you are the luckiest man I know.” Simon pointed towards a side alley, out of which the woman in question was just coming, heading for her place of employment.
Rhys would have disputed that assessment on pretty much every front, but in this instance, Rosie’s return was fortuitous. “Excuse me!” He spoke in English, thinking that language might be best.
Rosie stopped and didn’t retreat or run away. Taking the lead again, Rhys approached. “We just want to ask you some questions. John le Strange was looking for you.”
“You mean Guy fitz Lacy, don’t you?” Simon said from behind him.
Rhys could have meant that, but he was throwing out a guess on a hunch. Fortunately, she either didn’t hear Simon or took Rhys at his word because she said, “He was supposed to meet me at the start of my shift. I was on my way to the inn when I saw all the commotion. The people outside told me he died in the latrine.” She shivered.
“Why were you late?” Rhys said.
“I was early. Our arrangement had been for me to send him a note as to the day, but the time and place was always the same, when the bell tolled for mid-afternoon. He never liked to arrive before I did. I don’t know what was different this time.”
The difference was Rolf came to meet you, not John. But Rhys didn’t say what he was thinking out loud. “Did you know him well?”
Her eyes narrowed, and her attitude wasn’t quite as open as before. “I did. I’d come to Carnarvon ahead of him, and Alice employed me based on his recommendation. But we hadn’t had a chance to talk beyond a few exchanged words the first night he arrived.”
Which explained why Rhys had encountered him entering the castle from the town through the King’s Gate. “Go on.”
“We agreed to wait a few days before speaking. I was to send a message when I would be free to talk about whatever rumors I could dredge up. By now, I had a list of them, from a warning he should keep an eye on the southeast corner of the castle because the stonemasons had bungled some of the mortar, to asking him to tell Coroner Lacy to leave me alone.”
“Guy was bothering you?”
“I think he knows what I do for Lord Strange. He didn’t like that I poked my nose where he thought it didn’t belong, and that John and I were—” she paused, hesitating.
“More than friends?” Rhys said gently.
Rosie nodded, and her mouth turned down, but she didn’t weep. “Where Lord Strange went, I went. Somehow Guy found out.”
“What was your relationship with Guy?”
“I didn’t have one, other than trying to avoid him.”
“That could be motive for murder right there,” Simon said in an undertone, for Rhys’s ears alone, “but it would be a reason for John to murder Guy, not the other way around.”
Simon’s phrasing had Rhys looking at him sharply. “You suspect Guy?”
Simon stared at him. “What? No, of course not. It was a figure of speech.”
Rhys didn’t know about that. His friend had insight at times, even if, as a Norman, he ruthlessly suppressed it when it bobbed to the surface. “Her information does beg the question as to why John didn’t mention Rosie when we questioned him.”
“We’ll have to ask him,” Simon said.
Rhys turned back to Rosie. “What do you know of his brother Rolf?”
“They were close, I know that much, and John looked up to him. Rolf didn’t approve of me. He even went so far as to warn John off. John refused to put me aside. I think it was the one time he went against his brother’s wishes.”
“When was this?”
“A few months ago.”
“Did you see them together often?”
“No. After that, John kept me away from Rolf, and it isn’t as if we would ever move in the same circles.” As she answered, Rosie looked away, towards the inn, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Do you have an idea about who killed John and why?”
“Other than Guy?” She looked back to Rhys and made a deprecating gesture with one hand. “I heard you say his name.”
“Would Guy have been jealous enough of your relationship with John to murder him?”
She made a moue of disagreement. “No. He wouldn’t risk anything for me. He is a striver.”
“All Normans strive.”
“But he would stab his best friend in the back to gain a social advantage. That would be the only reason he’d go after John, and really, Guy is about to become Sheriff of Denbigh, so he and John were not rivals.”
“Except for your affections.”
“Honestly, Guy wasn’t picky, and he didn’t care if a woman returned his interest or not. He’d have his way with her anyway. If you have a woman up at the castle, I’d keep her well out of his path.”
Rhys didn’t like hearing that, not that he was surprised, and his next question came out more than a little grimly. “You know him that well?”
“I’ve been around, as has he.”
“My lord!” One of the younger men of the garrison huffed up. It appeared he’d sprinted all the way from the castle, because he stood before them with his hands resting on his knees, breathing hard. Rhys had never seen so many instances of being chased down in his life. It almost made him start to think he was important.
He put a hand on the guard’s shoulder. “Take a breath. What is it?”
“Coroner Guy has found the murderer!”
Simon actually laughed. “You could have led with that, young man. Who is it?”
“A farmer from the outlying area. The clothes and gear from the first two men who died were found hidden in a corner of his barn. He also had that symbol carved on the wall in front of an unholy altar!” Even breathless, the man’s voice conveyed the horror and deliciousness of the discovery.
“An unholy altar, eh?” Simon’s lips curved in a wry smile.
But Rhys had turned grave. “He’s a Welshman?”
“Of course.”
“His name?” Rhys’s heart was in his throat.
The guard, who’d straightened by now, made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Davey? Something like that.”
“Dafi.” Rhys unthinkingly corrected his pronunciation. “He has been brought to the castle?”
“They are coming now, my lord.”
“We will come too,” Simon said.
The guard ran off to return to his post, and Rhys turned to Rosie. “This isn’t over—” He hesitated. It was hard not to tell her John was alive. “Just don’t leave town.”
As she went into the tavern, Simon and Rhys started up the street, their pace considerably faster than when they’d come down it.
“Who is he?” Simon meant the man Guy was accusing of murder.
“Old Dafi, we call him. He’s crotchety and cantankerous. He lives up the river and keeps more goats than sheep, which you should understand by now is viewed as very strange behavior indeed.”
“Could he have killed these men?”
“Physically he’s capable. He’s worked a farm all of his life. He’s an older man but still strong.”
“But why would he?”
“He wouldn’t. For starters, I know him. He hates people. Given that, he would never have entered the town, even if the guards had let him in.”
“Hatred is a powerful motivator. It could be enough.”
“Of course Dafi hates Normans. But so does every Welshman in Gwynedd. It isn’t enough. And what would he know about the Baphomet, living his whole life as he has herding sheep and goats up and down the mountain?”
“The Baphomet aside, while Strange was the only Norman killed, all three dead men were associated with the king. Cole was English but working for a Clare, and Tomos was working on the castle. To a fanatic, those two could be viewed as traitors, and that’s why they were targeted.”
“I suppose.” But Rhys didn’t believe it. “More likely, the real murderer planted the evidence to distract us from himself.”
“As I recall, you suspected from the start that was going to happen.” Simon rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Once inside the castle, Rhys could see by the clear relief in the faces of everyone around them that news of Dafi’s capture had spread. People who never smiled were smiling—though their smiles turned to growls and narrowed eyes as Dafi was paraded through the Queen’s Gate and into the bailey, heading for the prison cell Aron had occupied.
Guy led the company, smirking all the while. Simon and Rhys stepped aside to let the marching soldiers pass, and Rhys caught sight of Dafi’s face. It was bruised and bloodied, with one eye swollen shut.
Simon then said to Rhys in an undertone, “You are thinking this Davey has been set up to take the fall for the real killer?”
“It’s what I would do if I had just killed three people, one of them the son of a favorite of the king.”
“Not as much a favorite anymore, though, is he?” Simon spoke somewhat musingly, almost absently, his eyes still on the marching soldiers.
Rhys turned his head to look at him. “Isn’t he? I thought Roger le Strange could do no wrong.”
“In wartime, yes. He was the mind behind Llywelyn’s death, not to mention the one who wrote the letter to King Edward telling him of it—and he knew all about it because he’d been there that day.”
Simon paused at the stricken look on Rhys’s face. “You didn’t know?”
Rhys shook his head.
“You may have noted that while Roger is a baron of some note in England, his reward hasn’t been land in Wales, like the Lacys, but to become the justiciar of all forest lands south of the River Trent, a lucrative position to be sure, but more like being a sheriff than a lord.”
Rhys nodded, wondering if the slight contributed to the sneer permanently affixed to John’s face—and on Rolf’s when he was alive.
Simon continued, “While Roger’s strong arm at Castell y Bere was exactly what King Edward thought the region needed last year, the king now views his measures as too harsh.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Rhys said, under his breath, prompting a sharp look from Simon.
“Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.”
Rhys bobbed his head. “Apologies. I will keep my peace. But this investigation? It isn’t over.”
Now the captive was gone, the workers went back to their tasks. An hour remained of daylight, and many were starting to put away their things. Tomos, if he’d been among them, would have been thinking about where he was going to lay his head that night.
Then Guy appeared in front of them, the grin on his face stretching from ear to ear. Earlier, he’d been wearing his helmet, but now he carried it under his arm and had pushed back his coif. “So, it’s over.”
“So it seems, my lord,” Simon said before Rhys could say anything. “Congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you.” Guy turned his head to look towards the prison tower. As he did so, part of his neck, which had up until then remained hidden under his armor, was revealed, showing two deep scratches.
Rhys put a fist to his lips, thought about whether or not he should say anything, and then did anyway, even if Simon wouldn’t have approved. “You’ve hurt your neck, my lord. Earlier today I was speaking to Peter Stebbins about scratches from a bramble on his arm. The healer can help you too.”
Guy’s head swung back to Rhys, and his hand went to his neck. “These? They’re nothing. A whore’s nails, that’s all.” He returned to smirking.
Rhys allowed his eyes to drop to the ground. “Of course. My apologies.”
By the time he looked up, Guy was heading to the great hall.
Simon put a hand on Rhys’s arm. “Watch your step with Guy. He is illegitimate, but his brother loves him. If the king had to choose between believing a Lacy and believing you, it wouldn’t even be a choice. I can protect you only so far.”
“But you saw the scratches—”
“I did.”
They shared a moment of silent understanding, before Rhys said, “I will say nothing to cast doubt on Dafi’s guilt until we can prove he’s innocent.” Rather than making him uneasy, Simon’s warning had calmed Rhys’s mind and sharpened his focus. “With no murder to investigate and no reason to have anything further to do with Guy at all, I will be free to look into whatever I want by myself.”
“That may be, but I can’t accompany you without drawing attention to what you are doing, so you’ll have nobody to watch your back. You must be careful.”
Rhys pressed his lips together, thinking. Then his mouth twitched. “That’s all right. I’ll take Catrin. After Rosie’s warning, I certainly can’t leave her unattended in the castle with Guy roaming the halls.”
Simon didn’t look reassured, but now Rhys grinned openly as he gestured to the prison tower. “Besides which, all is well, don’t you know? Guy caught the killer!”
