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Day Five
Rhys
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Rhys shifted in the tree he’d climbed, trying to get comfortable. Near sunset, he’d walked around the whole palace complex again, and now he’d returned to his perch, acknowledging that thirty-eight was far too old to be climbing trees. But he wanted to be both safe and discreet, and taking up an eagle-eye position so he could see the entrance to the building where they’d found the large quantity of blood (presumed to be Cole’s) seemed like the best approach.
He’d been waiting a while now, and with the moon rising in the sky, about a third full but shining brightly in the clear night, he was beginning to doubt anyone would come. Of course, if the murderer was as well-placed as Rhys thought and feared, then it would take some doing for him to get away.
He had a few alternate guesses as to who the killer might be, but still, when Guy fitz Lacy turned off the main road and entered the palace ruins, his heart sank into his boots. While Rhys had become nearly certain Guy was the killer, given all the information they had, it would have been easier if it were someone lower on the social hierarchy. Worse, Guy was in the exact position in which Prince Edmund had accused Rhys of being—in charge of the investigation into his own killings.
Rhys watched Guy tie his horse’s reins to the old hitching post near the main gate and stroll with far too casual an air towards what had been Llywelyn’s quarters. And as all this transpired, Rhys realized Simon had been right, as usual. Knowing Guy was the murderer and convincing anyone else of it were not equal results. Rhys hiding here and determining it didn’t necessarily take him closer to convicting Guy of murder.
In one hand, Guy held a lantern turned down very low. In the other, he carried a shovel, which he rested on his shoulder. He was not exactly whistling, but his confidence was chilling. He had murdered three men, and nobody knew it. Any desire Rhys might have had to confront him dissipated. All he wanted now was for Guy to search the room, find nothing, and leave.
The coroner disappeared into Llywelyn’s quarters as Rhys hoped he would and spent a quarter of an hour, about the length of time Rhys would have expected, searching for the ring. Rhys couldn’t see what he was doing inside the room, but the lantern was brighter than it had been outside, and the light bobbed and weaved within the walls.
He wasn’t at all sure what the shovel was for, but then grunting sounds carried through the still night air. Rhys feared he’d come upon some other poor stranger and was burying him in the dirt. But then, a moment later, Guy came out, carrying a satchel over one shoulder, the lantern again in one hand. He propped the shovel against a wall, went to his horse, heaved the bag onto his horse’s back, and affixed it there with straps and ties. He then mounted and rode away. He didn’t head back to the main road, but followed the palace wall east towards the church.
As soon as Guy was out of sight and sound, Rhys dropped down from his tree and followed, hurrying at first until he was at the palace gate and then moving more slowly once he was on the road again. Guy was walking his horse and apparently in no hurry, particularly once he turned onto a lane just before the entrance to the churchyard. With the lantern and the moonlight, he was easy to follow.
Guy rode along the lane for roughly a hundred yards and then dismounted directly north of the church, while Rhys tried to blend into the stones that formed the outer wall of the churchyard. Looking both directions, in what Rhys interpreted as a suspicious manner, Guy swung the satchel onto his right shoulder, pushed aside some thick bushes and brush, and disappeared.
Rhys stood where he was, as unmoving as possible, before it occurred to him that Guy would have to return by the same path. Rhys had entered those bushes a thousand times as a boy, so he knew where Guy had gone and that, once he returned, he would pass within a few feet of where Rhys was currently standing. So Rhys heaved himself over the church wall, a matter of a five-foot-high obstacle, with less grace than he would have liked, and dropped down to the other side.
From similar childhood ramblings, Rhys also knew the churchyard like the back of his hand. The main gate was behind him, facing the main road, and a second wooden gate was in front of him, located in one of the northern corners of the churchyard. It opened directly onto the lane on which Rhys had just been standing and was only a few yards from those bushes into which Guy had disappeared.
Rhys hastened forward so as to crouch behind the little gate, peering through the cracks in the slats and waiting for Guy to reemerge, which he did hardly ten breaths later. Guy readjusted the branches to hide his passage and, actively whistling now, went to his horse. He no longer carried the lantern or the satchel.
But then, before he could mount, Father Medwyn, the priest of St. Peblig’s Church, entered the lane coming from the other direction, carrying a lantern of his own.
The priest stopped, evidently taken aback to see a man with a horse in the lane at this time of night. “Hello, my son,” he said in French, and Rhys had a moment’s pride that his priest was so educated. “What brings you to St. Peblig’s?”
“My job,” Guy said bluntly. He did not appear equally disturbed by Father Medwyn’s presence.
Guy’s back was to Rhys, so Rhys couldn’t see his face, only Medwyn’s. Guy’s hand had gone to the hilt of the knife he wore at the small of his back, Saracen-style. For a time, Rhys had tried wearing a blade there, but the positioning prevented him from lying on his back comfortably, so he’d abandoned the technique.
“I’m Guy fitz Lacy, the coroner.”
A sudden fury rose in Rhys’s chest, and it had him sliding his sword from its sheath in preparation for launching himself at Guy if he gave any sign of threatening the priest.
Father Medwyn, meanwhile, appeared to have no notion of the danger he was in. “Is that a blade at your back? I’ve never seen one worn that way.”
Guy pulled the dagger from its sheath and held it out. Though desperate to keep Medwyn safe, Rhys held his position, praying Medwyn’s innocence would save him before Rhys had to. Rhys knew he was risking Medwyn’s life by not showing himself, but he hoped even Guy would think twice and maybe a third time before murdering a man of the cloth.
“If the stories of the Crusades are true, that’s how the great William Longspee wore his knife.” Medwyn stepped closer, showing himself to be more curious and knowledgeable about weaponry than Rhys had ever suspected either.
“So I understand.”
“Ah, that’s right. Your family has a long association with him. I understand your brother married Longspee’s granddaughter.” Father Medwyn took the knife, turning it over in his hands. “
“He did.” With remarkable gentleness, Guy took back the knife from Medwyn and resheathed it. “With practice, it’s a faster draw, and I like to fight with the knife in my left hand and my sword in my right. Plus, it’s serrated on one side, the more easily to cut through armor.”
Then Guy bent his head. “Good day to you, Father. I’ll be on my way.”
“God bless you, son.”
Though every nerve in Rhys’s body was demanding he confront Guy right there and then, he let him go, back down the lane to the main road. It really was the smart thing to do, especially since the knife would have long since been washed clean of blood, and what Rhys wanted even more was to discover what had been inside that satchel.
By letting Guy leave, Rhys had a chance to find out.
“I am very curious to know why my favorite crouchback is hiding in the corner of my churchyard.” The words came low in Rhys’s ear, and he nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound.
One moment Father Medwyn had been standing in the lane, and the next he had slipped through the gate and come up behind Rhys, who’d been dithering as he watched Guy ride away.
As Rhys swung around, Father Medwyn stepped back and put up both hands. “I apologize, my son. I knew I was sneaking up on you, and I did it anyway.”
“For a man who’s spent his life in a church, you do have an uncanny ability to scare a man! I almost took the name of the Lord in vain!”
“But you didn’t.” Medwyn smiled gently. “That counts for more than you think.”
Rhys’s heart was pounding more than it had been when he’d been watching Guy exchange pleasantries with Father Medwyn. “Do you have any idea what bear you were just poking, Father?”
“A bear, eh?” Medwyn peered over the wall before turning back to Rhys. “What should I know about him that I do not?”
“He’s a murderer.” There was no point in lying to the priest, even if Rhys was inclined to do so. The man had long since earned the trust of Rhys and every other Welshman in Gwynedd.
The moonlight caught the widening of Medwyn’s eyes. “Guy fitz Lacy? He killed those three men?”
“So I do believe, Father. I set a trap tonight, and he walked into it. I am even more convinced after listening to him tell you about the knife he wears. Each man’s wounds were caused by a dagger wielded in the left hand and serrated on one side.”
Medwyn settled back on his heels. “You always were one to see what others didn’t.”
Rhys gave a shake of his head. He didn’t want to talk about himself. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to act as witness to what I’m about to do, and then much might be explained.”
“Of course.”
Rhys marveled at the total lack of hesitation. “Just like that?”
“Of course.”
“Even if Guy returns?”
“Son—” Medwyn put a hand on Rhys’s arm, “—I awoke an hour ago and felt the need to wander the churchyard. I saw Guy come up the lane. I saw you leap the wall and crouch by the fence.”
Rhys’s heart rose into his throat. “Why then did you confront him?”
“Evil does not scare me, my son, only ignorance of what passes amongst my flock.”
Rhys’s expression remained stricken.
“You feared for my life?”
“Yes.”
“God has already spared me once tonight. Who am I to question where he next sets my feet?”
Rhys shook his head, awed by the man’s confidence—which wasn’t innocence at all, just certainty that he was where he was supposed to be.
But because he was glad of the witness and the company, Rhys returned to the gate and led the priest through it to where Guy had entered the bushes. The spot was northwest of the church and northeast of the palace, which took up the high point of the hill they were on, so the few yards they walked towards it led them gently upward.
The whole area was wooded and overgrown. To the north, the land sloped downwards and led to the River Cadnant five hundred feet away, upon the banks of which the Welsh village nestled, though it was too dark and tree-covered to see from here.
When they reached Guy’s hiding place, Rhys parted the branches and went through them, holding aside one-half for Father Medwyn to follow, now with his lantern turned up as brightly as it would go. From there, the ground descended sharply, bringing them to the entrance of what appeared at first to be a dark cave. A few more steps and the priest held up the lantern, revealing the stone walls of a house-like structure. They were standing in an anteroom, and several steps led down even farther to a stone floor, beyond which lay an altar with long stone benches on either side.
Father Medwyn stopped on the bottom step. “Ah. I haven’t been in here in many years.”
“Nor I, Father. Though we came here often as children,” he glanced amusedly at Medwyn, “never telling our parents or any adult that an abandoned Roman temple was our playground.”
Medwyn crossed himself, but without haste or desperation, and then moved across the floor towards the altar. Near one of the benches, he rubbed the toe of his boot in the dirt that had accumulated over the stones. Rhys saw no small footprints, indicating the children in the village no longer came to play here.
Lowering the lantern, Medwyn revealed tiny square tiles, not unlike those found in the prince’s palace on the hill, which had been built over the ruins of what had once been a Roman fort. The palace had taken advantage of the existing water system, which even after nearly a thousand years was still functioning, and the fact that the fort lay at the intersection of good roads.
While the palace had been blessed and purified centuries ago, this ruined temple had been left as it was and always had been.
“What would Guy want with this place?” Medwyn said.
“He had a satchel over his shoulder when he went in, and it was gone when he came out.”
While Rhys had been speaking, Father Medwyn had rounded the altar, and now he stood looking down at what he’d found on the other side. “Ah.”
Rhys moved to look too and smiled in satisfaction at the sight of the satchel tucked into a hollow in the stone behind the altar pedestal. He knelt to it, undid the straps, and pulled the opening wide.
The bag was full of gold and silver.
“One always hopes men do bad things because they think it is actually the right thing,” Father Medwyn said.
“That does not seem to be the case in this instance.”
Medwyn nodded sadly. “I’m afraid I find myself constantly disappointed. The sin of greed has led more men astray than any other.”
