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Day Three
Rhys
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“My lord!” Johnny, the boy who’d come to find Rhys in the laying out room the day before, appeared in the doorway to the guardroom. “Please come quickly! Madam Alice has found a body in her latrine.”
That was momentous news indeed, not to mention unwelcome, and Rhys was at the door in three strides. Johnny seemed startled by the speed at which Rhys moved, but he backed out of the doorway. Rhys was followed by the guard, a man named Richard, whom Rhys had been interviewing, not terribly successfully, about the goings on at the castle.
This particular guard was fond of mead, much to his chagrin, since it was a local drink. He’d been mocked mercilessly by his fellows for it, but Rhys quietly supplied him with a flask or two every week. So Rhys, on the whole, thought the information Richard was providing had been as accurate as the man could remember.
The general consensus that had developed over the course of the afternoon seemed to be that Tomos had left by the Queen’s Gate as the sun set as he usually did.
Piecing together what the residents of the castle remembered, Rhys had discovered that a dozen people had passed through the gate either coming or going near the same time as Tomos had left, including Coroner Guy, Catrin’s brother Tudur, and Rhys himself. Rhys vaguely remembered seeing the other two in the hall at some point during the afternoon and evening that day, but he couldn’t be sure. Since Tomos had died the evening before the king and his party had arrived, there was little to distinguish it from any other day that month, other than that the castle’s steward had been running around like a headless chicken in his quest to prepare the castle for the king and queen.
Because of that, Rhys had to accept how unreliable any information he gathered about what may or may not have happened five days ago might be. He himself could barely remember what he ate yesterday.
Before hustling both Johnny and Richard through the King’s Gate, he spoke to the guard on duty, asking him to send someone to find Simon. The man bowed his head in acknowledgement of the request. Overnight, Rhys had been transformed from lowly knight, to someone to be respected and obeyed. Of course, he wore a sword now. And though he still hadn’t hauled out his mail, he wore a leather vest and bracers and Prince Edmund’s colors, in the form of the surcoat Simon had given him, belted at the waist. Really, it was as if Simon was standing at his shoulder.
“Do you know who is dead?” Rhys spoke to Johnny in English.
“She didn’t say.” Johnny shook his head vigorously, doing a skip step every few feet to keep up with Rhys’s strides. “She just sent me to find the coroner, and one of the workers near the King’s Gate told me he was with you.”
“I haven’t actually seen him today.” Normally, Rhys couldn’t get rid of Guy. But then, Johnny spoke no more French than Guy spoke English. Rhys had become the middleman at Caernarfon in more ways than one.
That said, since Simon’s arrival, Rhys hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to confer with Guy either. The coroner was still officially directing the investigation, but it was Simon to whom Rhys reported, and Simon with whom Guy had to confer. These Normans were all about protocol, and Rhys had learned that nothing good came from overstepping.
Once inside the town, they turned right, left, and then right again, ending up at an inn, one of four in Caernarfon. This one was within a stone’s throw of the east gate of the town. Each of the inns, and the taverns associated with them, served a slightly different clientele. The one closest to the castle and the King’s Gate was frequented most often by members of the castle garrison. Most of the masons spread themselves between a tavern near the church and another on the western side of town. The East Gate inn, which was, in fact, this establishment’s name, catered to visitors who did not find food or lodging at the castle. The inn had been at full capacity nearly continuously since it opened six months ago.
Even if Rhys hadn’t known in advance about the death, he would have realized something was very wrong by the screams emanating from the rear of the inn and the crowd of citizenry that had gathered in front of it.
Rhys turned to Richard. “Calm these people the best you can. And afterwards, see if you can find either Coroner Lacy or Lord Simon.”
“Yes, my lord, though I have no English.”
“Stay back and everything is under control should suffice.”
Richard repeated the English back to Rhys in halting, accented tones. Rhys clapped him on the shoulder. “Well done.”
Because he believed he would be unwelcome, Rhys had never frequented any of the taverns in Caernarfon, but today he pushed through the door to enter the common room as if he knew where he was going and then walked straight through the building to the rear door. Several men stood in the yard, scratching their heads and muttering. They were laborers associated with the inn, judging by the flour on one man’s apron.
Further screams reached him. Now that he was closer, it was clearly a woman’s throat they were coming from. He followed the sound until he swung around the stables that took up the entire right side of the yard and arrived at the latrine. It appeared remarkably well maintained, because he could smell the lime used to cover the waste but not the waste itself.
The screaming woman was now gasping for breath, standing well back from the latrine with her hands to her mouth. Another woman, much older than the first, had her by the upper arms and was telling her to calm herself. Because the inn had an associated tavern, where copious amounts of drink were consumed every day, the latrine was a four-seat affair, with an additional stall, separated from the rest, set aside exclusively for the use of women.
It was the latter door which was propped wide, revealing the body of a man slumped on his right side with his head near the latrine hole. His legs were splayed in front of him, and his back was to the right-hand wall. Blood from wounds to his belly had pooled on the floor beneath him. He wasn’t nude, though his pants were around his ankles. If the same man—not yet determined—was responsible for all three deaths, he had changed his method in that he hadn’t taken time to strip the body. Doing so would have increased the chances of him being caught in such a public place.
The blue chevron on the shoulder of the dead man’s tunic told Rhys he was looking at the body of John le Strange. It was clear now why the citizenry were keeping their distance. Not only was this murder, but the dead man was a Norman nobleman.
“Did anyone touch him?” He looked at the older woman, who had the aura of someone accustomed to her own authority.
“No.” She, in turn, took in Rhys’s appearance. “My lord.”
Then she encouraged the younger woman to leave, guiding her away with gentle yet firm hands, before turning back to Rhys. “I sent the boy to bring the coroner. Excuse me, my lord, but I don’t know you.”
“My name is Rhys.” He moved to crouch in front of the door, five feet from the body, just looking.
The woman gasped. “My apologies, my lord!”
Rhys glanced back in time to see her bob a curtsey.
“I didn’t recognize you as the crouchback!”
For once, he found it easy to be forgiving. “There was no reason you should. And it’s perfectly understandable how finding the body of a dead Norman in your latrine could put everything else from your mind.”
It was one thing for Cole and Tomos to be dead. It was quite another, as he’d just said to her, to be standing over the body of John le Strange. If Rhys were she, he’d be terrified of being thrown in chains, just like poor Aron, just for being the one in whose establishment John had died.
“Are you Madam Alice?”
“Yes, my lord. I own this tavern.”
Rhys straightened from his crouch. “You have no husband or father?”
“My father was one of the first to come to Carnarvon, and I came with him. He died three months ago.”
Rhys acknowledged her grief with a bent head. “It was a hard winter.”
“My father was obsessed with cleanliness.” She gestured to the latrine, made of a lattice of sticks, which had then been packed with clay. The roof was thatch, the better to absorb smells and prevent them from wafting across the entire yard. Rhys was impressed with the care taken with the building of it and said so to Alice.
“He learned about such things in the Holy Land. When the ordinance on latrines came down from the castle, he was already doing what was necessary.”
Since the conquest of Wales, ordinances about controlling refuse had been strictly enforced. After dark, the town’s nightmen would drive through the region, collecting waste in their carts to be disposed of elsewhere. They collected it from the Welsh village now too. It wasn’t any wonder the farmland in Gwynedd, little of it as there was, had higher rates of production than it had ever had before.
“Your father was a crouchback too?” Rhys had been arrogant enough to think, before the arrival of the king and Simon, that he was the only one in Caernarfon.
“He was the supply master for William Longspee.”
Rhys blinked at the mention of the man who’d become a hero and saint in the annals of the Crusades, though his war had been before Rhys’s time.
“Why Caernarfon? Why not Denbigh?” Coroner Guy’s brother Henry, the ruler of Denbigh in eastern Wales, was married to Longspee’s granddaughter. “I would have thought it would have been a more natural choice.”
Alice lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “He liked the sea.”
It was as good a reason as any. “I would have been honored to meet him, and I am sorry he’s gone.” He gestured to indicate they had a more pressing issue to discuss. “If you would tell me what you know?”
“I was in the kitchen all morning, and here he was, dying in the back.” Her face took on a fierce expression. “Nobody I let into the inn could have done this.”
Rhys was in the business of eliciting answers and didn’t care to antagonize her, so he didn’t bother to deny her claim. He had a great deal of practice in ignoring absurdities. “Did you serve Lord Strange yourself?”
“The barman brought him his drink, which he took to a table, before coming to tell me that a nobleman had graced us with his presence. I immediately went into the common room to greet him and asked if he wouldn’t prefer to retire to the salon.”
Rhys canted his head. “You have one?” Salons were found in the most upscale establishments on the road to London.
“Many noblemen have darkened our door. Some would come to drink with my father and reminisce about the wars they shared. You’re a crusader yourself, so you know that such men are often most comfortable in the company of those who shared their experiences.”
“But not this man?”
“He declined my offer, saying he was meeting someone.”
“I assume he didn’t say who?”
“No, my lord, but I can tell you that no other nobleman came through the door, only good Englishmen. No Welshmen either.” Then she put out a hasty hand. “No offense meant, my lord.”
“None taken,” Rhys said mildly and found that it was true. “Is there another way into the yard except through the front door of the inn?”
“Yes.” She made a motion to indicate that Rhys should look around the corner of the latrine.
He stepped to do so and saw a gate, half closed, which when fully open would be wide enough to admit a cart. It led to a narrow alley that ran between the rows of buildings.
“So anyone could have entered that way?”
She looked down at her feet. “I suppose.” But then she looked up. “Neither I nor my people had anything to do with this. We would never be foolish enough to murder a Norman. A scuffle in the common room is one thing, but a man stabbed in the belly in my latrine is quite another!”
“Who is this barman who served him?”
“That would be Tom.”
At Rhys’s raised eyebrow, she curtseyed and disappeared around the stables, hastening away, now that she’d been given permission, as quickly as possible.
Rhys studied the way John’s body was arranged, aware that he had to go closer to it. At the very least, he would have to examine it—if briefly, since it was obvious how he died—as well as his possessions, if he had any on him. None of the other bodies had been left with their belongings. These missing items could lead Rhys to the killer, provided he didn’t plant them on some poor unsuspecting soul. Rhys had already begun to wonder why he hadn’t, at least in the case of items that were less valuable.
He moved closer, finally picking up John’s wrist and turning over his hand. It was warm and loose, indicating a very recent death. John also had tissue and blood under his nails. Rhys’s heart beat a little more quickly. Perhaps they’d finally caught a real break in that it looked as if John had marked his assailant.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel yard, and Rhys turned, expecting to see Alice and her barman returning. Instead, Simon took in the scene with a sweeping glance. At the sight of the blue chevron even he, who had seen death at Rhys’s side in a hundred different ways, paled. “I thought this was a simple tavern brawl. I can see now why you sent for me.”
