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Day Six
Catrin
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Rhys hadn’t been assaulted or abducted. He wasn’t dead. All of which was a huge relief to Catrin as she watched him enter the bailey of the castle at the very late hour of two in the morning, one day short of a full week since the deaths of Cole and Tomos.
The walls of Caernarfon Castle weren’t quite finished, so she and Simon had been able to sit with their backs to the inner wall and watch for his coming down the eastern road with the view unimpeded by battlements. By now, she and Simon had grown enough used to each other that their shoulders rubbed without either feeling discomfited. Simon’s legs were stretched out in front of him. Catrin had brought a pillow to sit on.
By the time Rhys was through the gatehouse, Catrin and Simon had walked (a little stiffly, truth be told) down from the heights.
“Did you see Guy fitz Lacy return a bit ago?” Rhys said in an undertone, not even objecting or surprised that Catrin and Simon were still awake, waiting for him. It was almost disappointing that he didn’t bother to chastise her again.
“We did,” Catrin said.
Simon embellished the answer. “We didn’t see when he left, but he returned by the Queen’s gate about an hour ago, and then left again by the King’s Gate, presumably for his lodgings in the town.”
“He was whistling,” Catrin added.
“He would be.” Rhys was carrying a heavy satchel on one shoulder. “I have something to show you.”
They followed him unquestioningly into Simon’s quarters. At this hour, the only men awake were those on duty outside, so the guardroom was empty. Rhys shut the outer door, and once they entered Simon’s private office, shut that door too before humping the bag over to the table and setting it down with a clunk.
Simon put his hand on top of the satchel. “I presume you haven’t brought me rocks to look at.”
“Not rocks.” Rhys gave a summary of his adventures in the night.
Simon still hadn’t opened the satchel, and he kept his hand on top of it as he settled heavily in his chair. “I didn’t want it to be Guy.”
Rhys spread his hands wide. “I think it must have happened very much like Catrin said: he was hiding his stolen wealth in the remains of the palace—or adding to it—when Cole came upon him. In Guy’s mind, he had no choice but to kill him. He chose to move the body rather than have it found in the palace itself, which he might have feared would somehow implicate him. He didn’t want to risk drawing attention to his hiding place, nor to the pool of blood he left on the floor.
“Earlier, Catrin suggested that Tomos woke in the barn and saw Guy laying out Cole’s body, so Guy had to kill him too. But Tomos wouldn’t have had to encounter Guy in the barn itself, seeing as how both men apparently roamed Gwynedd in the night at will. If Tomos came upon Guy on the road, leading the horse with Cole thrown over its back, Tomos’s immediate assumption might not have been that he had killed him. Guy is the coroner! Dead bodies are his business.
“Guy would also have been someone Tomos would have obeyed, if not trusted, as a matter of course. He would have gone with him to the millpond if Guy ordered him to come. And died there.”
Catrin swallowed hard, envisioning the scene. “Two dead in a single night, and neither planned.”
“If it is really Guy,” Simon said, “what you’ve described doesn’t explain the incomplete hexfoil.”
“It does if Catrin is right about that too, that it was a misdirect. With two murders, both associated with incomplete hexfoils, we would be pursuing a Satanist, not a coroner who got greedy,” Rhys said.
“How would he even know about the Baphomet?” Simon said.
“As I was reminded this very night, his brother’s wife is the granddaughter of William Longspee,” Rhys said simply.
Simon let out a puff of air. “I’d forgotten.”
Catrin didn’t want to appear ignorant, but she had to ask, “This is William Longspee, the crusader? But he died thirty years ago.”
“Indeed,” Simon gave her a small smile, “but his legend lives on. Certainly, we heard a hundred stories about him when we crusaded with the princes. Longspee was an inveterate storyteller, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that half the stories he told about his adventures he himself made up. His son would have known them to tell to his own daughter.”
“He died in the company of nearly three hundred Templars, betrayed, so the story goes, by one of their own,” Rhys added.
Catrin finally understood. “A Baphomet.”
Rhys spread his hands wide and repeated, “So the story goes.”
Simon had finally opened the satchel, and Catrin looked in it with him. Guy had acquired bags of coins, containing both silver and gold, silver cups and candlesticks, brooches and rings. It was a treasure trove.
“Where do we think all this came from?” she asked.
“He could have stolen some of it from Llywelyn’s palace. You and I saw the small treasure room in what used to be the prince’s bedchamber,” Rhys said. “There was nothing in it anymore, but Guy could have found it after Llywelyn’s death. As a Lacy, he was trusted and would have come to Gwynedd immediately. Most certainly, he has been stealing from the king. As coroner, he would have collected fines and payments throughout the county.”
“You could have taken the wealth yourself and left the country.” Simon spoke casually, as if his words were of no matter.
Rhys, however, immediately turned on him, protest in every line of his body. “I wouldn’t!” And then at the bemused expression on Simon’s face, he barked a laugh. “That was a test, was it?”
Simon gave a little shake of his head. “Not for me, you understand?”
“Do I?” Rhys sounded angry still.
“What Simon is trying to say,” Catrin said gently, “is that it was a test for you.”
Rhys suddenly dropped himself onto the bench against the wall, his shoulders sagging, and gestured helplessly towards the satchel. “I did offer several silver pennies to the good Father Medwyn, who came with me into the temple. He refused them.”
“As he would,” Simon said.
“How do you know? You’ve never met him,” Rhys said.
Simon looked at his friend with a wry smile. “I have now.”
Catrin could have been jealous of the way the two of them communicated, even after so many years apart, but she decided she wouldn’t be. “The Lacy name and Guy’s brother’s station should have ensured Guy’s loyalty.”
“Some men lose their minds when faced with this much wealth.” Simon allowed a cascade of pennies to return to its leather bag. “This doesn’t prove Guy killed anyone.”
Rhys sighed. “I know it. That’s why I didn’t leap out and confront him myself.”
“Wait.” Catrin looked from one to the other. “Why doesn’t it?”
“Guy stole from the king, Catrin,” Rhys said. “He stored his wealth in the old palace, but that doesn’t mean he killed Cole or the others.”
“But he knew where Cole died! He wears the dagger! We just talked through what must have happened.”
“We did,” Simon said. “But perhaps his decision to go to the palace tonight was on the assumption that a search party would find his stash. He wanted to spirit it away before that could happen.”
“It wasn’t why.” The words came out more petulantly than she liked.
“It also doesn’t answer the question as to why he killed Rolf,” Simon said, “if he did kill Rolf.”
“He thought Rolf was John. I can think of a very good reason for Guy to have chosen him, and it wasn’t because of Rosie.” Rhys’s eyes strayed to Catrin, and she caught her breath.
“You can’t think it! It couldn’t have had anything to do with me!”
But Simon’s eyes had turned thoughtful, and he and Rhys exchanged what Catrin interpreted as an annoyingly condescending look. “Two birds with one stone,” Simon said. “Kill a rival and distract us by murdering someone who had nothing to do with Cole and Tomos.”
“There has to be another reason,” Catrin insisted.
“We will try to find it,” Simon said, “but it will require us to think of another trap for Guy. Everything we have against him at the moment remains circumstantial.”
“We have his money,” Rhys said. “We could lure him with that.”
“We have John as well,” Simon said, “but again, neither links to Tomos or Cole. I don’t believe, even if he knows he hit the wrong mark, he will go after John again. He cares about money, not people.”
“If we were still governed by our laws, in a day we could have a hundred men testifying in court as to how he came by this wealth,” Catrin said. “They could tell the court how much they paid. Someone has to know the accounts Guy is presenting to the king are falsified.”
“But this is England now, whether we like it or not,” Rhys said gently. “Welsh law no longer applies. It’s up to the king to decide who is guilty and who isn’t, who lives and who dies, not a court.”
“We do have a system of courts,” Simon said mildly.
Rhys gave him a withering look. “And who presides over them in Wales? Anyone who speaks Welsh? Anyone who won’t instantly favor the testimony of an Englishman or Norman over that of a Welshman?”
The bitterness in Rhys’s tone was the same as sliced through her, but Catrin put a hand on Rhys’s arm. “Rhys—”
Simon didn’t react, but simply gazed at Rhys for a count of three before saying, as if Rhys hadn’t spoken angrily, “For now, we will take what we have to the king—”
“You will take what we have to the king,” Rhys said. “The less said about my role in its discovery the better.”
Ignoring Rhys, Simon turned back to Catrin. “Guy will lose his position, but Rhys is right. The gold is evidence of theft, not of murder.”
“But without proof Guy is the murderer, Dafi will be hanged for a crime he didn’t commit, and the village punished!” Outrage rose again in Catrin’s chest.
“I will ensure the latter, at least, doesn’t happen,” Simon said. “Without an alternative culprit, I don’t know that I can save Dafi.”
Catrin’s hands clenched into fists. “We must.”
Rhys put out a hand to her. “We will keep trying. Believe me, we will. I don’t want Guy getting away with murder and an innocent man punished any more than you do. But you must realize that accusing a nobleman, even if he is a bastard, is fraught with peril. Likely, the king will believe Simon—and Father Medwyn when called upon—that Guy was in possession of this treasure, but even that could be explained away out of a misguided notion of keeping it safe until he could safely deliver it to the king. Also, Guy’s brother is physically in Caernarfon. The king gave Henry de Lacy more land, power, and authority in Wales than any other magnate. He won’t be taking kindly to accusations against Guy, particularly because the king made Guy coroner here at Henry’s request.”
Simon looked at Rhys. “We could set upon Guy the next time he leaves the castle and kill him ourselves. That churchyard has so many graves already, what’s one more?”
“The thought is tempting.” The look Rhys gave Simon sent chills down Catrin’s spine. She saw the truth of it in their eyes. They could do it and never mind the consequences to themselves.
Simon took a long drink of ale and then carefully set down his cup. Catrin had been with him enough by now to recognize the action as a delaying tactic he used while he gathered his thoughts. “Ultimately, it was your man who was killed, Catrin. My apologies for not serving the murderer up on a platter.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. Guy’s punishment aside, what most concerns me is that we don’t know why Cole rode all this way alone. But that is something I will eventually know. As soon as the child is born and the queen able to travel, I will be heading south with her and the king. You already sent a messenger to Clare to inquire as to Cole’s purpose. I’d just hoped to discover it before then so I wouldn’t have to wait that long.”
“You won’t be staying here?” Simon was speaking to Catrin, but his eyes tracked to Rhys.
“I am indentured to the queen.” She shrugged casually, masking her desire to cry. “Perhaps it is for the best. I am no longer a child, and it would be a mistake to think I could come home, and things would be the way they were. One can never really go back. Best not to try.”
––––––––
After Rhys escorted her to her quarters, Catrin stood alone in the corridor for a long while, thinking. Even if the king accepted the truth about Guy, he would want to avoid a scandal. Guy was leaving Caernarfon anyway to take up his position as sheriff of the town of Denbigh on behalf of his brother. Even if Simon told the king flat out he believed Guy killed three people, one a nobleman, there was no guarantee the king would find their evidence credible—or worth acting on. As Simon had correctly pointed out, it was all circumstantial. Plus, no king, and especially this king, liked to admit he’d made a mistake. Appointing Guy had been a big one.
Simon and Rhys were also right about the matter of Guy’s brother. Henry de Lacy would protect Guy for no other reason than to save his own name and reputation.
With that, Catrin felt a kernel of an idea forming, combined with the certainty that she had only one path left open to her, as much as she hated to take it. She couldn’t let the investigation end with the investigators themselves being hanged for murder, not if she had any say in the matter.
So she climbed the stairs to the queen’s room and peered through the door that had been left ajar. Somehow, she was not surprised to find the queen sitting up in bed, papers scattered all around her. Queen Eleanor was a large landowner in her own right and, pregnancy aside, she had a business to run.
“Where have you been all night?”
“I apologize, my queen. I was seeing to—” Catrin broke off as no credible excuse came to her.
Eleanor made a sound of disbelief. “You were with that crouchback of yours. Don’t bother to lie. Can you believe Margaret has come down with the chills? Now she and three of the other women are confined to the floor above, and I have only Jane to attend me.” She gestured to a young woman asleep on a pallet beside the bed. “The poor thing can’t seem to stay awake past midnight.”
Catrin approached and curtseyed. “What can I do for you?”
“You can fetch me that goblet over there, and then you can tell me why you have returned to the castle at this late hour. And come to my room, no less. You want something from me, do you?”
Catrin could have ground her teeth at how perceptive the queen was, but since she did want something, she couldn’t be that resentful. So she fetched the wine and then accepted Eleanor’s command to sit on the edge of the bed.
“We know who murdered those three men, my lady, but we find ourselves unable to prove it.”
And then Catrin told the queen everything.
